Christmas shopping survey

High street tills will jingle to the tune of around pounds 23.5bn this Christmas. "Some people do quite literally go mad - 10 per cent of the respondents in our survey said they would spend over pounds 1,000 in Yuletide celebration," said John Strachan, in charge of retail property for consultancy Healey & Baker.

Children will have about pounds 7bn spent on their presents, according to the survey covering 2,000 people. The bill for adult presents will come to pounds 6.6bn. The nation is likely to spend pounds 5bn on food and pounds 1.9bn on drink - a half of total annual spending on alcohol. The remaining money will go on items such as videos, trees and decorations, and going out.

The Welsh spend the most on Christmas, at an average of pounds 650 against the national average of pounds 517. Londoners are the stingiest when it comes to presents. Although they will spend a fifth more than the national average on going out over the holidays, their total average Christmas bill will be only pounds 459.