Christmas Planner Spreadsheet 2026 Excel with Gift Tracker, Holiday Budget, Menu and Shopping List

Plan Christmas without the last-minute rush or the January surprise on your bank statement. This Excel planner keeps gifts, budget, holiday meals and to-dos in one file. You type in your budget, the people on your list and what you buy, and the spreadsheet does the math.

WHAT IT CALCULATES
✔ Holiday budget split by category: gifts, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, decorations, travel, stockings and other. Each category shows spent and remaining, with an "over budget" or "close to limit" status.
✔ Gift budget per person: planned vs. spent, money left and a status (in progress, ready, over budget).
✔ Gift tracker with the status Idea → Ordered → Arrived → Wrapped → Given. You get alerts for:
• orders arriving after December 22;
• gifts still not bought after December 15;
• names missing from your list.
✔ Holiday menu: enter the guests and the quantity per person. The shopping list works out the quantity needed, what to buy (bottles, packs and pieces rounded up to whole units) and what each meal will cost.
✔ Rename a category, meal or person and any row still using the old name turns red and is counted on the summary: no spending ever drops out of the total.
✔ Data checks: two categories with the same name are flagged and their spending is counted only once; the summary counts gifts without a status and ingredients without a price (the meal estimate is then marked incomplete).
✔ To-do calendar from November to early January, with the Black Friday date calculated for each year, days left and overdue alerts.
✔ Cards & greetings list: who you sent cards, messages or packages to, and who sent theirs.
✔ Summary dashboard: Christmas countdown, total spent, gifts ready, a budget vs. spent chart, and how much of your holiday bonus or extra income goes on the holidays (optional).

WHAT YOU TYPE IN
• Year, total budget and % per category
• People, gift ideas, prices and status (from drop-down lists)
• Other holiday expenses, guests, dishes, ingredients and prices
Yellow cells are for you, gray cells calculate automatically.

WHAT YOU GET
• 1 Excel file (.xlsx) in English with 9 linked sheets
• Step-by-step instructions inside the file and example rows to overwrite
• Currency-neutral: use $, £, € or any currency
• Reusable every year: change the year and the calendar and meal dates update

GOOD TO KNOW
• Made for Microsoft Excel, no macros.
• Formulas tested by full recalculation in Excel for Microsoft 365; calculations also checked in Google Sheets.
• LibreOffice, Apple Numbers and Excel for Mac have not been tested.
• You need a spreadsheet program: this is not an app or a printable.

⚠ Digital download: nothing will be shipped. You download the .xlsx file after purchase.