The New Breed of Christmas Shoppers

It's that time of year again when everyone is rushing around, desperately trying to find that perfect gift for their family and special someones. You can go shopping on any day of the week at any time and there will be thousands of shoppers going crazy, rushing around, not caring who or what they break in their way.

Recently I went to London for the day, not to do christmas shopping in particular, just to look around and have a nice day out. I was shocked that apparently normal politeness went out the window. I'm not sure whether it was due to the christmas 'spirit', or just because i was in london, but all i know was that i cannot count the number of times i was banged into, shoved past, pushed to the side... the list goes on. What shocked me the most was that after all these 'encounters' no one even turned their heads to say goodbye, or even give me a dirty look for being in their way! I'm not going to lie, i am a HUGE clutz.. i am awful at looking where i am going and also have really bad balance, this combination means that in a crowd i am not always the best person...This being said i know that quite a few of my pushes and shoves i received during my trip were my fault. So, if someone wasn't looking and walked into me, i definitely would look back at them and give them the evils... yet none of these people did! What are these people? It's as if they are some kind of mutant london christmas shopper... So focused on their goal that either they don't notice or they don't care about being pushed around. A kind of being which comes out of people once a year...

This breed of London shoppers is urged on by the businesses who want to make as much money from them as possible. Previously shops would start their sales on boxing day, making the shoppers come to them, however since the recession has unfortunately come upon us they have had to change their tactics. This year the sales have come to the shoppers, i walked into Mango the other day and the whole shop was a sale! There were no clothes that were not included, i managed to get a great pair of jeans down from £45 to £25... If the sales are this good now just imagine what they will be like on boxing day!

I guess we should be happy about these sales, making our christmas shopping that little bit easier, but honestly after seeing everyone in London yesterday i am having my doubts. Before going i met someone who used to live in England but for the last four years has been in Sydney. Straight away she started telling me how confused she was by the sales here, however she also commented on how the people were so much more hostile than in Australia, it's as if you could fall over and people would just tred all over you. Can the early sales and lack of manners be linked? Sure - the commercialism of christmas going haywire and causing people to lose sight of what is actually important.

However, to be fair to the British i must admit that this is a rash conclusion to reach. Another thing that i was told was how the recession hasn't really reached Australia. I'm sure a link can be made here, the recession has obviously hurt everyone in different but equally bad ways, it's effected everyones lives. Christmas is a time to try to forget about the problems that have been caused, and if these sales help people to forget, then that's fine - even if it means there is some damage caused on the way (namely my being pushed around in London!). Although the main reason for these pre-christmas sales is so shops can get as much money as possible, we can also realise that the more people spend the more money goes into our economy. As demand increases and more money goes into the economy, maybe peoples confidence will grow and we could slowly make our way out of this recession and back into the good times. So for now i will ignore the pushes and shoves, in the hope that maybe one christmas in the near future people won't have to forget about all their troubles, they would have already disappeared.