Not long after Christmas bells stop chiming, clients may have tales of how they just received an engagement ring, unwrapped a new computer or (bah humbug) got an earful from Relative X about the Hot Stock Y.

To help you from sounding like a Grinch, here’s a few suggestions from advisors in towns with holiday-appropriate names

The Engagement Announcement

Kerry Kennedy, an Ameriprise representative who has clients in Christmas, Fla., says he recommends newly engaged couples engage the services of a financial advisor from the start of their lives together because unresolved disagreements over money are a major cause of divorce. To give financial harmony a chance from the get go, he urges the pre-newlyweds to open a “love account,” a checking/savings account to save and budget for the wedding attire and the ceremony, the honeymoon, the new home and so forth.    

“This allows them to work in unity to develop practices and habits that will enhance their financial future,” Kennedy said.


The New Computer

After they get rid of the wrapping paper on their new computers, clients are in a great place to be encouraged to go paperless with their account statements, suggests Snowflake, Ariz., Edward Jones advisor Hyrum Cottrell.

“What I worry about is by the time they get [their statement] in the mail, it’s old news,” says Cottrell.

He says he also worries clients may not open their statements for days -- or longer -- and that people who shouldn’t see the reports often do when they are laying around a kitchen table or a hutch.

The Braggarts

For clients who are brimming with stock tips from Uncle Fred or Aunt Mary, financial planner Elaine Klinger of McQueen Ball & Associates in Bethlehem, Pa., suggests that advisors provide a heaping dose of skepticism to follow the Christmas pie.

“You don’t want a client to hear about it and go right out and make an investment,” Klinger says.

For one thing, a client’s risk tolerance may be different than that of the braggart. For another, she says, the client needs to look at the actual performance of the portfolio to see if the relative was sugar coating the truth at the holiday dinner table.