How to Surive Shopping at the Mall

Don't go to the mall! The "mall mauling" is that stressful, heavily populated, and slow time of year in which hundreds and thousands of Christmas shoppers converge upon the malls to achieve the cherished goal of buying presents for loved ones. This mauling doesn't have to be a terrible experience and there are ways around it. A few of those ways involve just a little time and thought to how one should go about doing the Christmas shopping.

• Shop early to beat the crowd

Early means both early in the day and early in the season. Shopping for Christmas just after store opening after morning rush and as close to early December as possible is likely to be less stressful. The closer to Christmas day the time becomes the more pressure and crowds there are at the mall. After work hours between 5:00-9:00 PM can particularly taxing especially on top of rush hour traffic.

• Give cash instead of gifts

One may have to put the cash in big boxes to make the Christmas tree look like it's stocked with presents, but one doesn't have to go to the mall to get boxes, those can be obtained at Alcohol stores who are often glad to have the public take their box trashing responsibilities off their hands. If one isn't intent on giving sentimental or thoughtful gifts, cash is the clear and easy answer to avoid the mall altogether.

• Shop at local stores and/or chain outlets

A Christmas shopper doesn't always have to go to the mall to get the shopping done. This can be achieved by shopping at the nearest strip mall to one's neighborhood. Not only can this save gas and time, these types of stores are generally not as busy as the hallways of malls in which a multitude of shoppers transiting between, and searching for their shop can be found wandering in a shopping frenzy.

• Skip the expensive mall gifts 

Gifts are more expensive at malls because convenience costs. That doesn't necessarily translate into quality either. Homemade, or off the beaten path gifts can have appeal and sometimes even more value. Consider alternate gifts that cost less by first asking the recipients what they would like first, or what they think of some of the items other shops may have.

• Ask someone else to shop

With a little coaxing and some rewards asking someone else to do the shopping can be another way to avoid the mall and the maul mauling. If they don't want to do it, for about $20.00 a trusted neighborhood teenager may be willing to help out provided they know what to look for.

• Mailorder items instead

Many companies such as L.L.Bean, Lands End and Eddie Bauer send out catalogs from which gifts can be chosen. If they are ordered far enough in advance these gifts not only arrive without a trip to the mall but in a box. That means all that needs to be done is wrapping the box. This method can also be expedited and have a variety of shipping order options to meet one's deadlines and preferences.

All in all, the mall mauling is avoidable. With a few well chosen tactics and shopping strategies, shopping can be easy and painless. The above methods can both reduce the stress of shopping and possibly save a little on gas and travel expenses or that extra fancy gift that tempts one when browsing the windows of the mall's many shops. The mall mauling is no myth, it is a reality, but like many realities, there are also many solutions to the mall mauling.