Christmas: a time for giving and receiving, of making merry and remembering lost loved ones, of putting behind all the failures of the previous twelve months and enjoying yourself. Or you could just spend the holiday browsing the Web.

Anyone of a certain age will remember very traditional Christmases which I like to call BW (Before Web). These Christmases consisted of hectic shopping trips to grab presents for people you love, and making a special effort to go and see friends and family you’ve been too busy to hook up with through the year. But while some of that still happens, the presence of the Web in most of our houses has changed the holiday season quite considerably.

For starters, there is now online shopping, which can take all of the last-minute woes out of finding that special gift for the love of your life. Gone are the days of braving the cold weather late on Christmas Eve in order to find the one shop with that present your spouse has been hinting at for months. Now you can order it weeks in advance with a few clicks of your mouse buttons.

Personally, this is how I now do a fair proportion of my Christmas shopping. I live miles away from the rest of my family and so have to make the long journey every December to spend time with them over Christmas. But always having been one to travel light, I don’t want to be dragging bags and bags of heavy and expensive presents with me. So instead I order them online and get them shipped to my parents house.

Of course, this can case problems, such as previous years when a site has suddenly sold out of the product I placed an order for in October and I instead have to go out on Christmas Eve after all. But still, it’s a nice idea in principle.

The other big change to Christmas that the Web has brought is in terms of communication. Why send a Christmas card which may get lost or delayed in the post when you can send an email, a e-card (watch out for viruses), or a message on Facebook?

All of my virtual friends and blogging buddies received a group mailing from Facebook on Christmas Eve wishing them happy holidays. It saves me collecting addresses and spending a fortune on postage. And I’m not alone in using this method, with Plusnet (via BCS) reporting that UK traffic heading for Facebook on Christmas afternoon was massively up this year. In fact, the social networking site is now more popular than the Queen’s speech.

Maybe the Internet is a bad thing in some ways, making people less likely to take trips and make an extra special effort to contact someone over the holiday season. But for me, and millions like me, the Web is a boon that has taken some of the stress out of Christmas. Which leaves more time to get drunk, eat chocolate, and watch TV.

[Photo courtesy of krisdecurtis at Flickr]

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Entry was posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 8:31 pm under Internet, Opinion, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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