Ho! Ho! Hold That Mouse!

My kids will never know what it was like.

Growing up in the digital era means that many things are done differently than when I was growing up. Way different.For example, in the "old days," Christmas shopping meant donning a pile of winter clothes and venturing out into snow and traffic and the crowded masses to fight through a merchant's wares. It mattered not if you were busy or had trouble finding what you wanted. You simply had to press on and keep looking until the job was done.

But things started changing in 1994 when the commercialization of the internet occurred. Suddenly the dotcom era was upon us, and URLs quickly transitioned from trendy handles for nerd-friendly firms to the calling card of every serious business. In July 1995 Amazon.com was born, the brainchild of Jeff Bezos, an investment analyst from Boston who packed up his wife and dog and drove to Seattle to start the online bookseller in his garage.

And Christmas shopping was forever changed.

Starting with a trickle, e-commerce has become a river nearly as wide as the name of its biggest player. This last Christmas e-commerce sales hit $30 billion, and that's not including airline tickets, hotel reservations, and rental cars. The jump was significant (about 30%) from last year's sales. Online sales now account for 27% of all holiday purchases, with catalogs garnering 5%. This leaves BAM (brick-and-mortar) stores with 68% of the kitty, down some 10% in the last three years. (Click here for the full report.)

I was a major contributor to that total, with over $2000 in online purchases made during the six-week Christmas selling period. Granted, not all of it was for gifts (unless you count me as both giver and recipient), but that matters not. The loot ranged from a new camera to his-and-her GPS units, digital video editing gear, DVDs, t-shirts, and a few other trinkets. Between UPS, DHL, and FedEx, delivery couriers wore parallel grooves in my driveway last month.

And I did it all from the comfort of my living room.

I stayed warm near the fireplace while offline customers braved Amarillo's cold spell the first half of the month, sipping hot apple cider and gleefully clicking away in my sweats. No traffic snarls. No unruly kids (or adults). No lines at the checkout.

But best of all, I had access to more goods than Amarillo could ever begin to offer.The shops I patronized were located literally coast to coast, meaning that I not not only saved lots of time shopping online, but also lots of gas money. And that's money you can then use to make your gift-giving go a little farther.

As for my kids, they will never endure the hardships we baby boomers suffered through years ago when our parents dragged us out in our latest winter garb to do battle with all the other eager shoppers browsing the shelves of the bazaars on Main Street USA. Our daughters already have an indentation in their right hand from too many hours gripping a mouse. I suspect when they are a little older and get their first Visa spending card they will follow their old man's trail of mouse clicks to whatever river has an online store named for it.

And they'll laugh when I tell them how, when I was a kid, we used to spend days and even weeks trying to complete our Christmas shopping.

"Sure, Dad," one will sneer. "And I'll bet you walked a mile to school each way through snow up to your waist. Uphill both directions, right?"

"Whatever you say, kiddo. Want some hot apple cider?"

Dr "Denial River" Gerlich