The great present dilemma

Christmas is great, no? Mulled wine, mince pies and glittering lights every way you turn? But what about buying presents? If you’re anything like us, this can be a bit of a mission. Men are hard to buy for and most women have everything they need. And as well as your partner, there are normally a load of family members and some small people to shop for as well. Well, fret not, present buying is about to get a whole lot easier.

New research has showed that we spend hours on picking unusual gifts for every special person in our lives, including our other halves and we tend to think about picking different and ‘unique’ gifts, rather than thinking about what the person needs or would actually like.

The researchers from the University of Cincinnati and University of Florida said: “Having multiple recipients in mind not only means that more gifts are needed, but it may change what shoppers focus on when making gift selections. Our research indicates that shoppers selecting gifts for more than one person at a time may focus on getting different gifts for each recipient rather than on simply getting what each would like best.”

Therefore, the more ‘thoughtful’ approach is actually a waste of time – and leads us to ignore something that might be useful or wanted

The authors said: “To help consumers from losing sight of what gifts people would most appreciate, we encourage gift givers to think about the type of gifts the recipient would most likely pick for themselves.”

Hmm, well that helps! Bring on the socks, pants and new slippers…

A different survey has shown that women spend an average of 13 hours and 23 minutes picking their partners the perfect present, while men spend four hours and 10 minutes on the task. Unsurprisingly 57 per cent of the women polled confessed to being disappointed with the choices given by their husbands or boyfriends – and many resort to dropping heavy hints to get what they want under the tree this year.

The survey by Littlewoods even showed that one in ten women are expected to wrap all the presents, including their own – and some men are so unsure of what to get their other halves 11 per cent leave them to buy it for themselves. Hmm, now who said romance was dead?!

Do you struggle with buying presents? Tell us @lovestruck