Christmas Shopping, Online or in store?

Now i'm all up for wrapping up warm and heading out to the local shopping centre at christmas time to do the christmas shopping. Theres a certain british romance about it. The decorated shops, the lunch time stop for coffee and a mince pie, Perhaps the carol singers or brass brand playing and sharing the festive spirit. Getting home with bags of goodies and the sense of achievement after a hard days shopping.

However, then theres the crowded shops, the queuing to buy items, the expensive car parking charges, the lugging around of said christmas presents whilst you try to continue to purchase the other items on the rest of your list the thought of internet shopping creeps into mind. On a recent visit to my local town in a view to hit the shops earlier this year whilst they aren't too busy i would get the majority of my christmas shopping done early. Although my experience was an enjoyable one i think this was due to the purchasing of new shoes and Dresses for myself! I came home with only 3 presents for other people. Once home i proceeded to look on the net for gift ideas so that my days shopping wasn't a complete waste.

Now i want to support my local community and independent traders i really do but when i came back so empty handed there was something extremely satisfying about coming home having a nice cup of tea and browsing the online stores. Theres much more selection, and i can see exactly how much i'm spending. Not to mention finding the hard to find items with the click of a button and no endless trying shop after shop with no success.

Now all i need to do is sit back and wait for my items to be delivered. I don't know what the future is for the high street. I'm not saying i'm boycotting it in favour of internet shopping because quite frankly real shopping should be an olympic sport and a particular favorite past time of mine. However i think traditional town centre shopping will soon become all about coffee and clothing. You can't beat going into a shop trying on a new item of clothing feeling fabulous in it buying it and bringing it home. That will always be there, whether male, female or kids the ease of having all the sizes to hand in front of you in the store and trying on there and then and coming home with the correct fitting item will always win over internet shopping.

However when it comes to electricals that are heavy and require delivering or even CD's or DVD's it is so much easier to type in the name of the required cd or dvd and press purchase online rather than spending ages in a music store searching for the particular genre of music then searching alphabetically for the artist before finding what it is you need.

Maybe the future of the high street is clothing and coffee shops.

What do you think? Do you shop online more now, or is there always going to be a need for our high street stores?