Christmas Budget Planner 2026, Gift List & Holiday Spending Tracker, Google Sheets and Excel, Christmas Card List, Gift Tracker

A Christmas budget spreadsheet for the whole season: gifts, food, travel, decorations and cards in one budget, with a countdown to December 25, 2026. Type what you plan and what you pay, and the totals, flags and dashboard work themselves out.
Made for anyone who wants to enjoy December without a January surprise: families, couples, students and anyone buying for a long list of people.

WHAT'S INSIDE (7 tabs)
- Start Here: three steps, one color rule (yellow cells are where you type) and quick answers
- Setup: currency, your total Christmas budget, an optional report date and people groups (Family, Friends, Work...), plus how much of your budget is still left to plan
- Gift List: up to 80 people with group, budget, gift ideas, bought Y/N, actual cost, where from, order status (Ordered, Shipped, Delivered, In hand) and wrapped Y/N; "Left" turns red when someone goes over and "Next step" says To buy, On its way, To wrap or Done
- Holiday Spending: 10 categories (food and Christmas dinner, drinks, decorations, travel, events, cards and postage, wrapping, charity, plus your own) with budget vs actual, % used and an OK / Almost / Over status, and a 200-row spending log
- Shopping & To-Do: a dated checklist with 18 common jobs already filled in (change or add your own), with Late and Due soon flags
- Card List: up to 150 names, optional address, group, sent and received, and a reminder when someone sent you a card you haven't returned
- Dashboard: total budget, spent so far, left to spend, days to Christmas, gifts bought and wrapped, cards sent, to-dos done, an over-budget banner, the people furthest over budget, the next five to-dos and two charts (holiday spending and gift spending by group)

HOW IT WORKS
1. Set your budget: type your currency and your total Christmas budget on Setup.
2. Plan who and what: add people with a gift budget, then budget food, travel and the rest until "Left to plan" reaches 0.
3. Shop and tick it off: type what you paid and mark gifts bought and wrapped. The dashboard, countdown and flags update by themselves.

WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT
- More than a gift list: Christmas dinner, travel and decorations often cost as much as the presents, so they share one total budget here.
- You see it early: each person, each category and the whole season is flagged as soon as it goes over.
- One countdown, one date: the days to Christmas, late to-dos and due-soon flags all work from today, or from any date you type.
- Focused and quick to set up: seven tabs, no macros, nothing to install.
- Works the same everywhere: every formula was tested in LibreOffice with a full sample season and uses only functions that Excel and Google Sheets share.

FILE FORMAT
You receive one ZIP file containing:
- Christmas_Budget_Planner_2026.xlsx (Excel 2010 or later, Excel for Mac, LibreOffice)
- Quick_Start_Guide.pdf (4 pages)
Google Sheets: upload the .xlsx to Google Drive, double-click it and choose Open with Google Sheets, then File > Save as Google Sheets. Formulas and dropdowns carry over; Google redraws the charts, so they may look slightly different. The guide has the steps.
Use any currency: type your symbol on Setup.
Apple Numbers can open the file but is not supported.
The sample names and amounts in the photos are invented.

Digital download, nothing is shipped.

Because this is a digital file, returns and exchanges aren't accepted. If something isn't working, message me and I'll help put it right.

Designed by WrenWorks with AI assistance.