I guess more & more people are getting it into their heads that buying gifts online is much more convenient, & hassle-free than heading on down to the local mall with the rest of the mob to fight it out in the trenches. That is, of course, unless the site you happen to be buying your gift at suddenly fails mid-purchase.

"The Web sites of four retailers in the Keynote E-Commerce Index--J. C. Penney, Sears, OfficeMax and Nordstrom--failed on numerous occasions when Keynote's automated system tried to complete purchases in the first week of December."