It's Christmas Time, There's No Need To Be Afraid

I mentally noted that the wonder of Woollies is no longer quite what it was with forecasts for the Christmas period not looking so good. One fact I learned many years ago is that Woolworths takes 60% of its annual turnover between the middle of November and the last shpping day before Christmas - it seems however that the old lady of the High Street is losing out to out of town shoppers and more importantly in the long run - the Internet.

This year is expected to surpass last years record online Christmas buying with the usual suspects: Amazon, Play.com, Tesco, CD-Wow taking more of our money than the High Street retailers. People are actually waiting until after Christmas now in the hope of bigger and better bargains, although how you persuade a child, under the age of say 10, that Santa won't be coming until the sales start is a hard one to workout.

I buy online myself, I bet everybody who owns a PC has bought something, whether it's a CD a holiday or in the case of my boss - a car from Virgin Online.

I don't at Christmas though. I don't regard myself as a traditionalist, in fact if anyone says "we're having a traditional Christmas," within earshot I want to go off on a riff about how the Christmas card is German, the tree Scandanavian, the turkey American etc,etc. Tradition in Britain actually means something that our Grandparents did, so our parents did and it was passed down to us. We've even abandoned Father Christmas wearing a green suit (although they still uphold that Celtic tradition in Wales) because of that bloody Coca-Cola campaign from 1931 or whenever.

Sorry, I've lost the thread (and the plot!).

Anyway, I go shopping at Christmas in the old-fashioned way, down the shops. Up at 7:30 on Saturday, drive to Southampton and indulge in some retail therapy at West Quay. Yes, I know some of the presents will cost more and yes I'll have to push my way through the gathering throng but there's something great about Christmas shopping. The whole tactile nature of it, picking up and replacing those presents you aren't sure of, I'd rather do that than have some computer in Reading select the goods for me.

Not that I don't indulge in some online buying for myself - last year I managed to save £180 on the High Street price when I bought a new JVC digital video camera - the small differences I can take but £180! No chance.