Husbands begin their annual holiday shopping migration

WILMINGTON, Del. – It’s the weekend before Christmas, which means husbands around the world have begun their annual shopping migration to find the perfect gifts for their loved ones.

This yearly spectacle saw husbands of all pedigrees flock to area shopping centers, giving local behavioral psychologists a unique opportunity to study the behaviors of these indigenous species who are rarely seen in these areas during other times of the year.

“It really is something incredible to see,” said Karen Hillenbrand, a clinical psychologist at Saint Francis Hospital. “It’s so rare to see some many husbands in one area for such a prolonged period of time. When we typically see husbands in the shopping center outside the holiday season they’re usually in and out before we have the opportunity to study them thoroughly.”

Hillenbrand also said this “buy and fly” behavior is a learned survival tactic. “If the husbands are away from the home for too long, there’s no one there to protect it from their wife creating a longer, unsustainable honey-do list which leads to drained bank accounts and months of persistent questions about why none of it has been done yet.”

In her studies, Hillenbrand has noticed that the abrupt shift in husband behavior in the waning hours of the Christmas season may seem foolish but is actually a consequence of the husband’s nature.

“We’ve learned that extensive shopping trips are not part of the husbands’ genetic makeup,” said Hillenbrand. “However, it’s during this time of year when societal pressures begin to weigh heavily on the husband, forcing them to act irrationally. Any woman out there would simply ask why the husband didn’t plan ahead and do this shopping months in advance, like they did with the children’s gifts. But that’s just not how they’re hardwired.”

And what has captivated behavioral psychologists like Hillenbrand for so many years about husband behavior is how, regardless of pedigree, the shifts in attitude and behavior seems to be universal.

“It doesn’t really matter whether the husband comes from a wealthy lineage or maintains a blue-collar job, the shopping migration brings out the feral nature in them all,” said Hillenbrand. “Long lines, traffic, and a lack of parking provokes a primitive response in the husbands. We witness a tremendous change in attitudes, particularly with the overuse of profanity and threatening or obscene hand gestures, due to environmental conditions such as a lack of parking, long lines at checkout, and assholes who take the last item a husband needs to complete his migration.”

Hillenbrand also noted that cultural changes have also changed the migratory patterns of many husbands, leading to fewer in the shopping centers and an overall less aggressive migration.

“It’s interesting to see how these cultural changes have had an impact on the husband migration,” she said. “Online shopping has allowed many husbands to accomplish more earlier in the season which means they need to spend less time in the wild to accomplish their goals. It also means fewer husbands are coming out at all. I fear that if these trends continue, the husband migration may stop all together some day, and who knows what effect that will have on the ecosystem.”

The lack of an annual migration may have devastating results on the local economy, but economists are not worried about that just yet. Doctor Farah Levinski, a market trends analyst, said that while migratory traffic is down, there is still an incremental increase in husbands shopping the closer we get to Christmas.

“There will always be those husbands who wait until Christmas Eve to get that last minute gift,” said Levinski. “The culture may be shifting but some things will never change. And unless these shopping environments go away forever, we should still see a healthy return on late Christmas shopping.”

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