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Christmas has always been a time of excess, and too much food, drink and money splashing are the calling cards of St Nic these days.
While traditional gifts were modest, including items such as cakes, fruit, nuts and clothing for the more affluent, the shoppers of today spend hundreds on gadgets and gizmos that may - or may not - get used again in the new year.
Forget partridges, pear trees, doves and drummers…the Twelve Days of Christmas for the 21st Century would probably look something like this…
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me…
Twelve Jimmy Choo shoes
Eleven Gucci watches
Ten Fendi handbags
Nine Plasma TV’s
Eight DS Lites
Seven Guitar Heros
Six Harrods hampers
Five digi cameras
Four Chloe dresses
Three robot doggies
Two purple MacBooks
And a iPhone with speakers and dock!
And the sales figures do reflect our changing tastes.
Sometime in between Decembers issue and Januarys issue, SnapShop produce an incredibly useful ‘Christmas Sales Figures’ newsletter, which, oddly enough, focuses on Christmas sales figures. Taking a look at the last 5 years’ editions, the trends are clear; last year, the big winners were Game Group, who reported a total sales increase of 76%. Historically, the top Christmas sellers look like this:
2003 – Carphone Warehouse
2004 – Dominos?!? (slightly anomalous one there…)
2005 – Fragrance Shop
2006 – Waterstone
This year, Hamleys is tipping a retro trend, placing toys from old skool children’s programmes like Teletubbies, Snoopy and Emu at the top of the ‘must have’ list, along with Stylophones and Rubiks Cubes! Awesome.
I expect the big sellers will continue to sell big – games consoles and Apple products, for example – but it would be nice to see some fun toys replace the more expensive goods for a change. People forget that for kids, cardboard boxes can provide just as much fun as the bling thats inside…
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