Board games were popular presents last year

The research reveals a split between what children want for Christmas and what parents are happy to buy for them.

A quarter of the children questioned said they wanted an iPod as a gift, but only 9% of parents were happy to shell out for one.

Other research suggests that many of the gifts parents do buy will be bought via online retailers.

Gift giving

The survey, carried out by market analysis firm TNS, asked children aged 8-14 to say which of 15 electronic gifts they would most like to receive on Christmas morning.

The same list of 15 items was given to a sample of parents who were asked whether they would be buying their offspring anything from it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, children were very keen on the big ticket items in the list such as an iPod, a PC, an Xbox and a PlayStation 2.

Unfortunately, few parents said they would be happy to buy such expensive presents for their children.

For instance, 24% of the 1,000 children questioned said they would like Santa to deliver a PC but only 8% of parents were planning to buy one.

The research found that parents were most likely to buy DVDs (51%) and music CDs (42%) for children.

These gifts look likely to be welcomed as these items were high on the wish list of children too.

A spokeswoman for TNS said that although electronic gifts were becoming popular, traditional board games had showed the biggest rise.

Last year in the UK more than 4.5 million board games were bought as presents.

TNS said its research revealed that the average price of a Yuletide gift was now �26.47 and 40% of presents were bought in the two weeks before Christmas day.

Net boost

Other research suggests that online retailers will enjoy bumper sales this Christmas.

Figures compiled by net retail analysts IMRG showed that Britons spent more than �2.5 billion during Christmas 2003.

And research carried out by the Shopping.com website suggests that 85% of those questioned were planning to do some of their gift buying via the net this year.

Many of those questioned, 63%, said that they use online shops in an attempt to avoid the crowds and save time.

Only 20% of those questioned spend a time comparing prices and making sure they get a bargain but 30% of people asked said they will spend more than 12 hours looking for and buying gifts on the web.

CHRISTMAS GIFTS: WHO WANTS, WHO BUYS
GIFT	CHILDREN	PARENTS
Film/DVD	32%	51%
GameBoy Advance SP	28%	8%
GameBoy games	27%	11%
Music CDs	26%	42%
iPod	25%	9%
PC	24%	8%
PC Games	24%	24%
Xbox	22%	6%
Silver PS2	22%	7%
Source: TNS Global