Christmas sale
A man plays a violin in front of a shop window decorated with Christmas sales signs Reuters/David W Cerny

Christmas is the time for giving and receiving. That only means that almost everyone will be out at some point for gifts to give and for food to prepare for the holidays. For some people, that could also mean traffic jams, stores that are packed with people and long queues where there are nice things to buy.

Those who have plans to shop this weekend might reconsider since reports say that around five million other Australians have plans to hit the stores as well. A survey by Commonwealth Bank says that December 17 is going to be the biggest and busiest day for Christmas shopping for this year.

This coming weekend is being labelled by media outlets as Super Saturday. However, those who do not like crowds and long lines are sure to call it something else. The study mentioned earlier has found that a quarter of the entire Australian population have plans to do the bulk of their Christmas shopping this Saturday, writes News.com.au.

That might lead more people to move their Christmas shopping plans to Sunday, December 18. However, reports say that the next Sunday does not look any better as it will be the next busiest day after which, it will be Thursday December 22 as Christmas approaches.

Another report reveals that Australian shoppers are expected to splurge a whopping $3.5 billion nationwide this weekend in a loaded Christmas preparation spree. The report also says that 60 percent of Australians have not prepared a Christmas budget, which means a lot of them will be overspending. Millions of people are expected to invade centres and malls countrywide to grab items for gift giving as well as food items for the feasts that everyone will be having for the Christmas season.

This demand has pushed shopping malls to extend opening hours to accommodate more people. A lot of retailers are also prepared with full stocks to accommodate millions of Christmas shoppers.

For those that do not like crowds that much, it is advised to stay home for the weekends and push shopping plans to when everyone is working; like Monday morning. If you don’t feel like leaving home at all, there are online shopping options that would cater to those needs.