I also made the mistake that year of buying holiday gifts months in advance. I thought that I would be ahead of the game and have all my gifts wrapped and organized well ahead of Dec. 25.

Instead, as it turned out, I bought way too much stuff. I still ended up wrapping gifts for my family way past midnight on Christmas Eve. And I had to stash away a mound of excess gifts and have been working off that pile all year. While it's handy to have extra presents on hand, it's not the best use of your savings and doesn't make for the most personal, appreciated gift-giving.

This year I tried a different method (partly out of a year-end time crunch, I admit). I left almost all my Christmas shopping until the weekend before the holiday. I did not overbuy. I did not stress out about finding the perfect gifts. I was not stuck waiting for catalog and online orders that never arrived. Best of all, this year I won't have spare cash tied up in gifts that just sit there waiting for a reasonable excuse to give them to someone.

What about bargains? I still found plenty. I did most of my shopping last Saturday and I stores were uncrowded and well staffed. There were mark-downs aplenty, even if they weren't as steep as they probably are now. I even managed to buy Christmas wrap at 30% off.

For me, just-in-time holiday shopping made for a less stressful and less expensive experience than trying to spread out the buying over the whole year before. But I'd be glad to hear from anyone with good strategies for how to make post-Christmas shopping the deal-spree it seems it should be.