Shopping for gifts on two continents and in two cities presented different challenges for Journal Woman's Lesley Bates and Jill Harding

OF all the many things in life that mystify me, people who start their Christmas shopping in September have to come pretty high up the list.

No sooner have you packed away the suncream, shaken the sand from your suitcase and sent the summer holiday snaps off for processing, than someone asks you what new object you would like to own in four months time.

By October these people have Operation Acquire Christmas Presents completely wrapped up.

In November each gift is adorned with colour co-ordinated name tags and come Christmas they are smugly shopping for bargain bikinis looking pitifully at people like me trying to remember if I bought my dad a foot spa last year and if he'd appreciate one for each of his feet.

In a desperate bid to shorten the agony I decided this year I would do the whole lot in a day.

"It can't be done", my colleagues cried, but as someone well used to begging shop keepers to stay open past 4pm on Christmas Eve as I frantically snatch random festive objects off the shelves before wrapping them in bags and sealing the whole lot with parcel tape, I was confident of success.

Armed with nothing more than a credit card and my husband, I marched into Salisbury last Thursday ready to do battle.

We'd already worked out there are about 20 people we like enough to buy presents for but being generous souls we wanted to get them at least three things each.

That's 60 gifts, the shops shut in eight hours, that's seven-and-a-half gifts an hour - right better get a move on.

Fifty five minutes later we are sitting in Pizza Hut.

We tell ourselves cheese, pepperoni and peppers are conducive to successful shopping and barrel out an hour ready to be the Imelda Marcos of socks and hankies.

It's amazing how much money you can spend when you really try, soon the bags are piling up nicely and the credit card is starting to feel the heat.

Before long we have developed a failsafe system.

Take half a shop each we scope out every item, scoop up possible present contenders and take the selected stocking fillers to the checkout in a matter of minutes.

Disaster almost strikes when we can't remember the location of a kite shaped like a helicopter and a Salisbury-wide shortage of Cointreau liqueur chocolates proves to be a major stumbling block.

Brothers in their early 20s are also problematic - too young for nosehair clippers, too old for Lego - how inconvenient.

But after several hours and revisiting every shop three times - the transformation from badly off Christmas lost cause to skint festive goddess is almost complete.

No doubt I've forgotten someone, I'll still be wrapping while my family waits in anticipation and all the Christmas confection I'm already demolishing is sadly shop bought. But mission Buy Presents is accomplished - what a difference a day makes. Jill Harding

BY the time you read this, the children should be tucked up all snug in their beds while visions of Playstations dance in their heads.

Santa is on his way, the presents are all wrapped up and, as you settle down with a much-deserved glass of something happily alcoholic, you can rest easy in the knowledge that what's done is done.

It's the night before Christmas and whatever you have not much managed to buy will remain unbought.

But as you snuggle down to sweet dreams of your own, let me tell you about my own Nightmare on 34th Street, which is Miracle on 34th Street with a demonic twist.

That demonic twist is called Thanksgiving Day in New York, which is where I had gone to do a spot of Christmas shopping.

Not something I do every year, but judging by the number of middle-aged women clutching credit cards and shopping lists aboard Continental flight CO29 from Gatwick, I'm not alone in opting to shop 'til you drop in Manhatten.

But timing is everything and perhaps November 28 is not the wisest day to hit Macy's.

The barriers were still up from the Thanksgiving Day Parade the day before, but the crowds had not dispersed. If anything, they'd grown tenfold.

The day after Thanksgiving turns out to be a holiday, the first day of the sales and a Christmas shopping bonanza all rolled into one.

The whole world, it seems, has converged on 34th Street to plunder New York's (and possibly the universe's) largest department store.

Macy's is enormous - fronting onto 34th Street, its width covers a whole block from 6th-7th Avenues, its 11 floors from basement to ceiling sells everything you can possibly imagine, and it is so vast that not even the staff know where the coffee shops and restaurants are.

There are plenty of them (staff and eateries, even a MacDonalds, are all tucked away in there somewhere) but requests for directions to the 35th Street balcony where one of them could

be found drew blank

looks and we tramped many weary miles up and down escalators through several floors of shoes and womenswear before we tracked it down.

And we still hadn't bought anything.

That's the problem, you see.

When you are faced with so much choice, the brain seizes up and you go into blither mode.

But desperate measures are called for in order to obtain a souvenir carrier bag with Macy's written on it.

No mission is, however, impossible and we emerged, footsore but triumphant - although whether my husband will consider a Christmas tree salt and pepper set worth the airfare is anybody's guess.

And I can't even take it back on Boxing Day. Lesley Bates