Is there Christmas shopping madness in Poland?

I enjoy Christmas time, but I'm sick and tired of full parking lots, full stores and Christmas commercials already... Is Poland, as well as the whole Europe and other parts of the world so much into shopping for gifts as we're here in the US?

I've just come back from the shops. They weren't all open and there wasn't too many people. It can get busy at Christmas though.

I think we buy less here because of December 6th, and Christmas Eve is more about token gifts.

That's the way I remember and I'm glad it still stays this way...

The shops in warsaw were jammed to bursting point this weekend!

of course there's a shopping madness in December, many shops have 25-40% of their annual turnover in December, but it's not as bad "visually" as in the richer countries.

Is it possible that more people are buying on-line. That might explain a few things.

I am in Warsaw for the holidays. I am from Boston, MA USA. The traffic here is horendous. The malls are slammed everywhere I have been. Not too bad for "poor" people as I am being told.

The biggest mall (Arkadia) usually gets 18000 customers a day, now it's more than triple that, and it's really hard to get a cab this week.

Shopping madness!