Christmas Gift & Budget Planner 2026

Made with AI: an AI assistant built this spreadsheet template and wrote this description, then it was reviewed before release.

Keep every Christmas gift, card and holiday cost in one place for 2026. List the people you're buying for, track each gift from idea to given, and see at a glance what you've spent, what's still to buy and what's left in your budget.

This is a digital download. No physical item will be shipped. You get one ZIP file right after purchase with the planner, a filled sample copy, the printable pages in Letter and A4, and a short "How to open" note.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

- One .xlsx spreadsheet with 7 tabs, plus a filled sample copy with made-up names

- A 6-page printable PDF in Letter and A4 sizes (blank pages to fill in by hand)

THE TABS

- Start Here: how to use each tab, what counts as spent, and a color key (yellow = you type).

- Holiday Budget: your total holiday budget, plus Gifts, Food, Decor, Cards, Travel, Charity and Other, each with planned, spent and left. Gifts fill in by themselves from your gift list. Categories that go over their plan are flagged.

- Recipients: up to 50 people with a group and a gift budget. See the number of gifts, spent, still to buy and left for each person, with an Over budget flag (and a heads-up when your gift ideas would take someone over).

- Gift List: 200 rows: person (dropdown), group and budget (fill in), gift idea, store or link, status (Idea, Bought, Wrapped, Shipped, Given), cost and ship-by date. Counts of each status at the top.

- Holiday Cards: 150 names and addresses with a Sent (Y/N) column and a count of sent and still to send.

- Countdown Checklist: 13 weeks of editable to-dos from Thursday, October 1 to Friday, December 25, 2026, with days to go, percent done and a "This week" marker.

- Menu & Party: party details, dishes by course, who's bringing what, servings and grocery notes.

WHAT COUNTS AS SPENT

Spent = the cost of every gift marked Bought, Wrapped, Shipped or Given. Gifts marked Idea (or with no status yet) count as Still to buy.

SHIP SOON REMINDERS (YOUR OWN DATES)

Type the ship-by date you choose for each gift you'll mail, and today's date in the As of box. Gifts due in the next 7 days show "Ship soon", and missed dates show "Past ship-by". The planner has no built-in carrier or store deadlines: check your carrier's cut-off dates and type your own.

HELPFUL CHECKS

- A gift for someone who isn't on your Recipients list is flagged, and still counts in your totals.

- Two people with the same name are flagged.

- Names are matched exactly (capital letters don't matter), so names with symbols like * or ? never get mixed up.

FILE FORMAT

- One ZIP containing the .xlsx planner, the .xlsx sample copy, the printable PDF in Letter and A4, and a "How to open" text note.

- Made for Excel and Google Sheets (.xlsx, no macros). Formulas tested by recalculation in LibreOffice.

- To open it in Google Sheets, upload the file to Google Drive and choose Open with > Google Sheets, or use File > Import in a blank sheet.

- Formula cells are locked so they don't get overwritten by accident. Tabs are protected with no password, so you can unprotect them to customize. Sheet protection may not carry over when you import into Google Sheets.

- The printable PDF is in Letter (8.5 x 11 in) and A4 sizes.

PLEASE NOTE

- This is a digital download. No physical item will be shipped.

- Dates are for the 2026 holiday season.

- For personal use. Please don't resell or share the files.

The listing images are real screenshots (renders) of the spreadsheet with made-up sample data. No AI-generated images are used.