My fondest Christmas wish has been granted - a respite from seasonal shopping, writes Amanda Castleman. No more sore feet, temper tantrums and irate crowds for I too have met CyberSanta. Or maybe it was the Ghost of Christmas Future, at any rate I have been converted to internet shopping.

The extended family was done and dusted in about two hours, with the damage tally a mere £98. Split between me and my husband, this left me smiling. The presents are a select array of books, CDs and magazine subscriptions, but the temptation to greater things hounded me at every turn.

Here's what we bought, and what we wished to buy: *For: My petite and cheeky mother, Ellen, a 48-year-old hospital manager and my overly-intellectual retired father, John, aged 55

*What: A subscription to the weekly magazine The New Yorker, once edited by Tina Brown, though frankly it's better off without her. Still, the America journal far outstrips international counterparts for fiction, thoughtful social and political commentary and much-renowned cartoons

*Where: www.newyorker.com, see also www.condenet.com/mags/allmags.html for information on subscribing to Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Details, House and Garden, Wired and many more *How much: About £28 for a US subscription, overseas customers pay more at £69

*Dream present: Multi-coloured fairy lights, shaped like hot chilli peppers to match her Southwest home. £22.95 from www.kitsch.co.uk. The site is cluttered with lava lamps, glow-in-the-dark stars, B-movie lunch boxes and all the Elvis and Marilyn gizmos imaginable

*For: My 62-year-old mother-in-law, Denise, a social worker who is fond of books, art and walks

*What: The Mistress of Spices a novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

*Where: www.amazon.co.uk

*How much: £5.59 *Dream present: Scriptura fountain pen, in a natural beechwood box, £59 from www.marks-and-spencer-gifts.co.uk. A lovely gleaming kettle kept flashing on the gifts page, but seemingly was not available in the limited M&S range. Pity, as my tea-mad mother-in-law would have adored it.

*For: My father-in-law, Dick. At 77, the retired marine biologist who writes botanical guides

*What: Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby. The memoirs hopefully will delight Dick, who was also captured in World War Two and had a romantic escape like the author

*Where: www.amazon.co.uk

*How much: £5.59 *Dream present: An extravagant globe - with traditional antique gold trim - in an ornate wrought-iron stand. £575.75 from www.alt-gifts.com, though it does have more moderately-priced presents on offer like futuristic Guzzini kitchen accessories, hemp backpacks and glass jewellery

*For: both Dick and Denise on foggy winter evenings

*What: Buena Vista Social Club, the revived Cuban music CD by Ry Cooder

*Where: Amazon again, I really was a bit lazy

*How much: £9.99 *Dream present: A traditional Yorkshire food hamper from www.Lewis-and-cooper.co.uk. The Hambelton contains, among other delights: Tin John Lusty Cream of Stilton Soup; Lewis & Cooper Hot Gooseberry Chutney; Handmade Traditional Plum Pudding with Hennessy Cognac and Brandy Butter Sauce in a wicker basket for £83 (p&p included, 24 hour delivery). Hampers start at £29 and escalate to the deluxe model at £215. The ale gift packs are also worth a look, beginning at £34

*For: Adah, 36, my sister-in-law, a therapist who is at home with her first child at the moment and her environmental-researcher husband, David, aged 37, who is an environmental marketing consultant *What: The Best of Roger Miller, a classic country music CD. I realise this sounds incredibly naff and twangy, but Miller's famous King of the Road must not be missed, not to mention England Swings

*Where: Amazon. I have no shame.

*How much: £5.99 For: Emily Rose, eight months, my only and most beautiful, wonderful niece, celebrating her first Christmas

What: The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury: Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud : the perfect compendium - one cover, 40 classic children's tales from Where the Wild Things Are to Goodnight Moon and Curious George

*Where: Go on, guess...

How much: £22.11

Dream present: A colourful alphabet rug, £24.99, made from 100 per cent felted wool, which is beaten flat and then hand-decorated, using a traditional crewel embroidery technique. Produced by an Indian women's cooperative for www.oxfam.org.uk *Don't ever, and I mean never, make the mistake of typing in 'toy' on a search engine, as I did, innocently adding UK, in the hope that I'd find all the toy shops with websites, so I could buy on-line for my three-year-old.

Instead, listed among the references to toys, were sites dedicated to adult products that made me blush and ones I certainly wouldn't want my child to see.

The other mistake I made was to tap in toysrus and found myself logged into the American site. Always make sure you add the .co.uk and you can't go all that wrong. There are hundreds of toys sites on the web and it's very easy to run up huge bills. I found myself with almost £100-worth of toys in my shopping basket for the toyzone.co.uk site, which is one of the best I've ever seen.

I cleared out the basket and went to search for toysrus.co.uk, which I found eventually for price comparisons (some search engines won't locate it for you, so tap in the address yourself, rather than asking any of the search engines to locate it).

In the time it took me to do that, toysrus had sold out of one of the toys I wanted.

The site was infinitely more difficult to move around than the toyzone one, and seemed to have far fewer toys on display (and was no cheaper), so I went back to toyzone and made my purchases there. While I'd commend it and recommend it, the toyzone site does have a lot of graphics on it and it sometimes failed to load them and can be a bit slow, which is a bit of a nuisance. Yet once I'd ordered my goods, I was sent an efficient and (wholly) correct e-mail, detailing my purchases and it left me very impressed.

Don't ignore the smaller toy sites though, there were ones for wooden and educational toys which looked fantastic. Just look out for those dollar signs (which mean you're logged on to a site not available to you) and watch the pound signs too - it's easy to get carried away and spend more than you bargained (and even budgeted) for.

Story date: Thursday 16 December

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.