Now there's such a volume of shopping that stores are extra staffed up and my perception is that many people do not have a choice.

Nope, they don't. My dad is the person with the lowest seniority and wage at the fish counter he works at (my dad, king of the fish people!), so store management scheduled him for Thursday and Friday. Didn't ask, didn't work with him to give him shifts that would permit him to spend a little time with family, just said "Here's your schedule". Yeah, I'm pissed about it. Especially because that store USED to be good about asking employees who wanted to work the holidays.

Online shopping is my favorite thing ever. I hate crowds, hearing the same four Christmas songs over and over, and the whole Christmas consumer frenzy.

Right there with you. I do as much shopping online as humanly possible, and the things I have to buy from a brick-and-mortar store I try to do at weird hours if at all workable.

My dad collects the ceramic holiday steins Budweiser releases every year. So I go to the GIANT liquor/party store to buy it, on the grounds that, hey, I always can use wine for myself (and often someone else on my list will want wine or fancy beer). But it's still a madhouse, right? So two years ago, I had bought the stein early. Yay me. And when I went to wrap it, I took it -- still in the store bag -- out of the closet, and turned around with too much velocity or something, because the bag whacked against the iron bedpost and the stein broke.

I had to go back to the giant liquor/party store the Saturday before Christmas. It was INSANE. Gah.

Sometimes I really like shopping in crowds. When I know what I need, mostly, and can just go through and do it. I dunno, it makes me feel like a badass?

Crowds imply lines, lines imply extra time spent there and also not walking the shortest possible distance between targets, so NO. I hope to have all my Christmas shopping done by the end of the week, and most of it online.

Eeling through the crowd, humming the Mission Impossible theme to yourself, homing in on target, acquiring the package, negotiating the exfil, clean getaway.

I may be reading too much SHIELD spy fic.

Yeah, kind of like that!

One year, I went to the (a) Toys R Us (b) in Times Square (c) late afternoon (d) on the Saturday before Christmas. Have there ever been more screaming children in one place? Doubtful.

And you're not allowed to lob tear gas into the crowd. (see previous note about spy fic)

I don't hum in public and I don't like touching strangers I'm not having sex with.

My Mom just told me I'm not supposed to talk tomorrow about my nephew’s visit to the psychiatric ward, which I didn’t know about, because nobody has talked to me about it.

because as your family already knows, not talking about things is so healthy. I LOVE YOU SCOLA, YOU CAN COME TO MY HOUSE FOR ANY AND ALL HOLIDAYS.