(Christmas) shopping, nightmare for anyone else?

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I'm fine with shopping of any kind if I know what I'm going to buy and where I can buy it. Then it' just a matter of dragging myself to the shop.

But finding a (Christmas) present for someone without knowing what? The horror! Having to go from shop to shop, just browsing, I get so fed up with it after 2 stores max.
Especially in stores I haven't been to before, where I can't find my way, don't know where to look, and can't really ask people from the store because they have no idea what I'm looking for. Why would they, I don't even know?

Or shopping with my mom and sister. Looking at stuff they know they're not going to buy. And picking out really ugly clothes they want me to try out. Instead of listening to me when I say "no, I don't like those kinds of pants", trying to push me to try them on 10 times until I get pissed.
There's no freaking point in me trying them on, it's not like I'll suddenly go "hey, these do look good on me."

Well, not listening to my answer when someone asks me a question and then doing what they intended anyway is another pet peeve of mine.

Who else hates this?

Me.

I don't do it. My wife likes to sort of browse around these hellish malls with herds of people reeking of perfume and body odors squeezing into narrow places and blocking all easy passage.

I try to be supportive to the extent of going with her every once in while, but after about 30 minutes I have to retreat to the car in the parking area and it takes me at least an hour to recover from 30 minutes of Christmas shopping.

My technique is too look for things on line or select the kind of thing I am going to give someone online and then go to an outdoor Christmas market at a time when very few customers will be there.

Christmas shopping is just like mixing regular shopping--a horrid experience by itself--with rush hour pedestrian traffic in a major transportation hub.

The best coping mechanism is to avoid it.

I buy almost everything online. I can't stand shopping. And salespeople are either nonexistent when you need them, or are pushy when you don't need them. I go when only necessary and spend as little time as possible in the stores. I can't stand shopping for the kids either. Online shopping is the best invention ever. Here you go: Circle what you want out of the catalog and if it doesn't fit right, it will get mended to fit. It is better to pay a little to fix something you know you like than to go crazy trying to find something else while the thing you purchased has to get returned (another trip!) or go in the trash.

I'm lucky enough that I instinctively found coping mechanisms to deal with a busy crowd. I don't mind having to navigate through a busy place, as long as not to many people expect me to interact with them.
It really is more the aspect of shopping for me.

This is why I shop online now. I don't even have to wrap or mail anything. It's bliss.

I am not capable of browsing for a gift. I have to come up with the gift idea first, then the best way to find the product, then I make the purchase with as little interaction with sales clerks as possible.

I don't mind shopping that much. People usually mind their own business, and don't pay attention to my little quirks.

It's the process of finding a gift when I don't know what to get, that's difficult. :/ I'm always wandering around looking at the shelves all confused. It's a pain in the butt, but so nice when I finally find something good.

I agree with most everything said here, add that almost all the stores have charity drives at the check outs with people trying to pry money out of you through guilt, even NTs have enough trouble navigateing this akward social interaction. Being put in charge of finding gifts for people I hardly know, don't care much for or haven't seen in years, I will never understand the logic of why we spend money on people like that.

I pretty much quit buying gifts a few years ago and have made that known to all my of family in advance of every Christmas. I can't handle the shopping expirence and after working retail for a few hours my copeing abillity becomes very low. The only way to make Chistmas shopping better is to be creative, shop late at night, go to werid stores no one else thinks to go to and have a plan already made for what your looking for etc.

I wonder why anyone's thinking about Christmas in May. I guess Christmas shopping represents all the annoying kinds of shopping. I'm lucky enough to not have to worry about Christmas shopping because my family and I have no such habit. There were times when I was visiting a friend for Christmas lunch and felt that I should get him something. Just finding something for one person was stressful enough. I can't even imagine how horrible it would be if I had to do that for multiple people.

When I go on a holiday, I often have a hard time deciding and finding something for a few people as a souvenir when I return from the holiday. There have been times when half of my holiday was kind of ruined because I got so stressed about finding "something" as a souvenir for some people. That was horrible. Nowadays I try to just find chocolate or cookies at the beginning of the holiday so that I can forget about it for the rest of my holiday.

When I go shopping with my sisters, it's generally fun except when they start looking at some boring stuff in some boring shops and I have nothing to do but wait. I sometimes just sit on a bench or something to wait for them. When I buy clothes, having my sisters with me helps sometimes because I'm very indecisive. They can tell me which shirts/pants etc look better etc.

In general I find shopping stressful when I have to look around and decide what to buy.

I can shop OK, as long as I know what I'm getting beforehand, the store's not crowded, and I prefer to do it alone so I can move at my own pace. Crowded stores raise my anxiety, and people hovering around me has me teetering on meltdown, and as soon as I notice it, my first and only reaction is to flee. Every now and then when I exercise my urge to flee, someone will say to me "you didn't have to move," or something like that. No, I did, actually.

As far as Christmas shopping goes, I either go to the ghetto mall on off-peak hours, K-Mart, or I shop online for all the gifts I need. I like giving gift cards when I can because they're quick and easy to pickup, and despite the conventional wisdon that they're impersonal, they can be well personalized based on the store or restaurant the person likes.

Also, I find myself favoring big box stores over mom-and-pops, which bugs me to death, but the mom-and-pops go out of their way to be friendly. Their intentions are good, but I need to look for things on my own terms and don't want to feel pressured into a sale, and like I said before, I don't like people hovering around me. I want to select the product, pay, and get out as quickly as I can. Again, nothing personal, but I just feel suffocated and anxious with all the long conversation

I dislike shopping too. Especially for clothes. The internet is great for most things but trying to find clothes is impossible, especially for myself because I don't know what the texture or fit will be like. Even in shops it is difficult because very few clothes are comfortable to wear, so you spend hours being stressed and trying on lots of clothes pointlessly. This is part of the reason I haven't changed my wardrobe in almost five years. I only buy new things once I have no choice.

For the most part I'm terrible at buying presents that are 'suited' to people so I generally buy practical gifts. Although if I'm browsing and come across something that might be good I bookmark it for later.

Some people laugh but I feel practical gifts are better. For my best friend's birthday, I got him a book on one of his favourite topics, and a potato peeler. He had mentioned needing a good peeler a few weeks earlier so I made a note of it (literally, I have a poor memory!) and even hunted down one that had an orange handle because I know it's his favourite colour.

Crowded malls and shops used to set me off regularly.

I have not been to a mall in years,I hope I never see one again.
I hate shopping,my little local store is ok,but it changed owners and they moved stuff around that was in the same place for twenty years,aargh.I could have shopped blindfolded,now I have to look for stuff.

Online works well. If I do have to go to a brick and mortar I will always thoroughly research the item I want online first. The best is if the store I will go to has a website that can tell me whether an item is in stock at the store location nearest my apartment. I will then go to the store, bee-line directly to the item I want, grab it, head straight to checkout clerk, pay, and out the door.

It also helps a little to go at low traffic times of the day. Mid-week mid-day, late night just before they close, or early morning right when store opens. I never go on weekends if it can be avoided. Holidays, most especially Christmas, I will not go to brick and mortar stores. The whole month of December I won't. Will not.

My UPS guy greets me by first name. Does that answer the question?

I start buying presents months beforehand so I don't have to do loads of shopping at once. I also try to buy online if I can.