Christmas shopping for your partner: festive fun or nightmare?

As the festive season rolls around again, finding that perfect something for

a partner becomes a pressing necessity. A new survey of UK-based women

conducted by online retailer isme.com reveals that most of the women

questioned are planning to spend more than £500 on gifts this Christmas.

With so much money on the table, the urge to get something really special for

a loved one is perfectly understandable, but at what point does the balance tip

between a fun search for something to provoke a smile, and the present that

could make or break a relationship?

Men, take note: around four-fifths of the women surveyed had never forgotten

a birthday or anniversary present. Women are generally considered to be

the more thoughtful gender when it comes toChristmas gifts, somehow able

to find the perfect little something that their partners might not have even

realised they badly wanted or needed. In contrast, males often take the

rap for forgetting important dates and not putting the required thought into

shopping for loved ones. But there's good news for men on this score: the

survey revealed that the majority of women are tolerant of this male foible.

Fewer than 1 in 5 women stated that they could not be in a relationship with

someone who did not buy presents.

If a gift isn’t ideal or doesn’t fit the bill, it might not stay in the receiver’s hands

for long: two-thirds of women admitted to giving away or selling unwanted

gifts that they’d been given. However, a whopping 8 in 10 of those surveyed

admitted that they had lied and said they liked a present when they didn’t,

and herein lies a potential source of strife in the home: if that new tea caddy

or oven glove was praised to the skies at the time of unwrapping, but was

subsequently ‘lost’ or deemed ‘too precious to use’, how can these well-

meaning but ill-informed present givers hope to improve next Christmas?

It's something of a vicious cycle, but are there any sure-fire winners if you're

choosing a gift for the woman in your life this Christmas? Jewellery is a safe

bet. Four out of ten women said that jewellery would be the most welcome

item to find slipped into a stocking. Another popular choice was perfume, with

16% of the votes. However, this simply raises further questions. Which brand

of perfume? What type of jewellery? The issue of present buying is certainly a

thorny one, but with a little diligence, a bit of snooping around - and perhaps a

few judiciously dropped hints, ladies - there’s hope for harmony on Christmas

morning.