The Grandparents Asked What the Kids Want for Christmas. I Sent One Page
Here's what showed up in my inbox this week: a toy catalog, another toy catalog, and a catalog from a toy store I'm fairly sure closed in 2019. Then the Instagram ads. Then the texts. What do the kids want this year? What size is she now? Did somebody already get him the Lego set?It's October. Every one of those is a question, and every question comes to me.Welcome to Moms Who Claude. I'm Allison, I have six kids, and this is Episode 13. It's a rescue episode, so you don't need to have heard anything before this. One problem, start to finish: Christmas gifting.Today solves three things:1. How to give the whole family one page of gift ideas by text, instead of answering the same question for six weeks.2. How to update that page with one sentence when somebody grabs a gift.3. How to keep your budget and your hiding spots on a second page nobody else ever sees.The hard part of Christmas isn't picking the gift. It's holding all of it: who wants what, what size, who's buying it, what's already covered. I don't ask Claude what to buy. It doesn't know my kid. I do. I ask Claude to hold the list.In the episode I build both pages live, with two made-up kids (Leo and Ava, not mine) so no real kid sizes end up on a podcast. Claude interviews me one question at a time, I say "not sure" about a shoe size and it just moves on, and then I fix things in plain words, the way I'd say it to a person. When Grandma texts that she's getting Leo the Lego set, I tell Claude to mark it claimed. One sentence. Then a second chat, just for me, with the budget, what I've spent, what's left, and which closet the art kit is hiding in.I'm honest about what this can't do. The family texts me, I tell Claude, and on a free account I send a fresh PDF each time. Claude isn't watching what your family buys. It only knows what you tell it. It's still a million times better than six weeks of "did somebody already get him the Lego?"Your challenge before the next episode:1. Pick one kid. Just one. Paste in the family page prompt and answer the questions. Say "not sure" at least once.2. Save it as a PDF and send it to one person.3. Count the "what do the kids want?" texts you get over the next month. The goal is zero.The exact prompts are in the show notes, so you don't have to pause and write anything down.The free Christmas Gift Tracker is here! Put in your email and it's yours, or comment GIFTS on my latest Instagram post and I'll send it over. If you want both pages and the extra prompts in one go, the Full Package is $19, and if it's not for you, I'll refund you, no questions.If you try this, leave a review and tell me how many texts you stopped getting. And send this episode to the mom who's already getting the "what do they want for Christmas?" texts. She's probably reading one right now.