Qotd: Christmas shopping. Do you shop online or in the physical stores? (12/13)

[Saar]

How do shop for Christmas gifts?
Do you shop online or do you prefer going to a physical store?

Every year I take a day off from work to go Christmas shopping.
I try to make it a fun day with coffee, lunch and shopping of course.
If I can't find what I'm looking for in the stores, I try to find and buy it online and have it delivered.

How about you?
How do you shop for gifts?

[carrie1977]

I usually go out shopping but this year I actually did some online.
Last Friday some of my girlfriends and I took a little road trip to an outlet mall. This is like the 5th or 6th year we've done this. We'll shop all day, spend the night at a hotel and come back home the next day after we've done a little more shopping.
I also went out for a few hours on Sunday and did some more. I only have two gifts left to purchase then I'll be done.
Buuuuuuut...I have yet to wrap anything. I'll need some wine for that!

[kendallt]

I do a little of both. I try to shop local as much as possible, and I'm lucky that we've got several cute shops and boutiques in the town where I live, so I always get a few gifts from there.

Also, my mom, sister, daughter, and I do an annual girls' day of Christmas shopping (We're going this Saturday!). I always seem to do some online shopping too. My daughter is obsessed with makeup, and a few of the things she asked for this year are only available online. I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity shopper!

[mrsashbaugh]

We do most of our shopping online. My husband and I both randomly had a Friday off so we went to the toy store to grab some of the toys we knew our kiddos wanted and then went and had lunch together before going to pick up the kids. It's convenient shopping online, but to me, it felt more magical when we were at the store and physically picking out the toys.

[oscaralley]

Originally Posted by carrie1977

I usually go out shopping but this year I actually did some online.
Last Friday some of my girlfriends and I took a little road trip to an outlet mall. This is like the 5th or 6th year we've done this. We'll shop all day, spend the night at a hotel and come back home the next day after we've done a little more shopping.
I also went out for a few hours on Sunday and did some more. I only have two gifts left to purchase then I'll be done.
Buuuuuuut...I have yet to wrap anything. I'll need some wine for that!

That sounds so fun!!!

I have done what little I'm going to do online. Kids are grown and getting mostly money. It's not as fun as watching them open gifts, but at least they will like what they get.

[cherrygutz]

Some online and some at the store. We buy gifts for my daughter and friends at the store, but the gift for my husband, I do it online because we only have one car here and he's the one who drives so it's hard to hide the gift from him.

[Neverland Scraps]

A lot of my Christmas shopping was done through Amazon. My 13-year old wanted Copic Markers for her art and I found Amazon had the cheapest prices on those markers. Both of my daughters wanted clothes from RedBubble and Romwe, both online sites, so they got a few of their things ordered from there. The youngest, I picked his stuff up (two Legos sets and Thomas the Train set) through the year, with the exception of his Minecraft EnderDragon stuffed animal which came online from ToysRUs since they don't carry that in stock. I also got his Minecraft Xbox controller online from Target as our local Targets don't carry the "pretty" controllers in store.

All of the nieces/nephews presents came from Amazon to cut down on the shipping cost from me to them!

So yeah, I'd say this Christmas 95% of my stuff came from online.

[Neverland Scraps]

Originally Posted by carrie1977

I usually go out shopping but this year I actually did some online.
Last Friday some of my girlfriends and I took a little road trip to an outlet mall. This is like the 5th or 6th year we've done this. We'll shop all day, spend the night at a hotel and come back home the next day after we've done a little more shopping.
I also went out for a few hours on Sunday and did some more. I only have two gifts left to purchase then I'll be done.
Buuuuuuut...I have yet to wrap anything. I'll need some wine for that!

Awww if you were closer you could come to my house where my older two and myself would wrap your presents. Wrapping presents used to be my thing. I'd put on a movie and wrap. I love it. It's relaxing to me. But over the past few years the older girls have asked to help wrap (). This year, sadly the girls wrapped ALL the presents but two for my husband, which I wrapped. Because I didn't get to wrap our family's presents, I am volunteering my time at the PX next week to wrap presents with my husband's unit. I can't wait to wrap other people's presents!!

[carrie1977]

Originally Posted by Neverland Scraps

Awww if you were closer you could come to my house where my older two and myself would wrap your presents. Wrapping presents used to be my thing. I'd put on a movie and wrap. I love it. It's relaxing to me. But over the past few years the older girls have asked to help wrap (). This year, sadly the girls wrapped ALL the presents but two for my husband, which I wrapped. Because I didn't get to wrap our family's presents, I am volunteering my time at the PX next week to wrap presents with my husband's unit. I can't wait to wrap other people's presents!!

I would totally take you up on that offer, too. Wrapping does nothing for me.

[YepBrook]

Oooo... I love wrapping presents!!! This year I'm even going to wrap a few of the things that will go in their stockings.

I would say it varies. In the past, when the kids were littler, I shopped 90% online. This year I did probably 70/30... mostly in the local stores. I have found that some things I would have bought on Amazon worried me because of reviews that claimed they were fakes or knock-offs. Like the Yeti I was going to buy for my husband. So instead of Amazon, I went to the sporting goods store.

[KingsQueen82]

I HATE shopping so I pretty much only do it online! We take our girls to the actual store pick out their sisters' gifts but other than that it's all online. I also try to wrap as it comes in so I'm not overwhelmed at the last minute!

[Scrap-therapy]

I love going into the stores but I made my shopping mostly online because it easier for me and I realised that some toys were really less expensive on Amazon than on the stores I go.
It depends of the toys.
But exactly like Carrie, I hate wrapping presents... It stress me a lot and get on my nerves because I don't manage to do what I want and my wrapping presents looks awful to me!
My sister often helps me because she love doing it fortunately but this year she is very busy and I have Nothing wrapping yet and the kids are at home because they are sick so it stress me out a lot as they believe in Santa!

[Kjersti]

I'm about 50/50 this year!! I love wrapping presents and have passed it on to my girls.....they have wrapped everything this year!

[karlimarie]

Online, probably 80% of my shopping is online these days.

[anelia]

I love shopping in general and with most stores open here during the weekends it's not difficult to do physical shopping but I prefer online because the prices are usually lower and during the holiday crazy there are no crowds or lines I did this year's Christmas shopping on Black Friday and it was 90% online.

[adi&co.]

I start shopping in like August usually (but admittedly I was super late this year, I started in October!) Usually I buy in physical stores, but this year I did it almost all on amazon, with some in physical stores. I will not do it this way again, lol

[allyanne]

I shop online and I do a lot of handmade gifts. I find actual physical shopping exhausting and overwhelming, and I don’t have lots of free time to go out alone anyway. If I’m shopping with my husband or a friend, I do a lot better, but I’d rather just stay home most of the time. Amazon is my friend.

[Txcorey]

Mostly online, but I'll get a few stocking stuffers at the store.

[MamaBee]

80/20... online mostly - there were a few things I was able to pick up cheaper in a store.

[rach3975]

When the kids were younger and wanted toys, I shopped mostly local in one or two stores and filled in with online purchases. But as they've gotten older, online works a lot better. Two of my kids have hobbies that they want specialty items for, and I can't get those things locally. Even the things that are available locally I'd have to go to so many stores, it takes days. Who has the time for that, especially since most of my "free" time to go to stores would be late at night. So I'd say I shopped 80 to 90% online and the rest local. I wish I could give local stores the business; maybe when the kids are older and their tastes change again.