James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » I visited our beautiful town centre this Saturday. I entered the car park bright eyed and full of hope and four hours later I emerged a shadow of my former self, my eyes tired from all the artifical lighting, my elbows raw from all the jostling and my hope, well I lost that around about lunchtime when I saw the huge queues wrapped around my favourite department store eatery. Woe, woe was me.
And yet, despite all of this, and believe me I'm as disappointed with myself as you are, I actually felt pretty Christmassy. I'm not saying I enjoyed my shopping experience, far from it, it was awful, but there's no denying that it felt like Christmas.
And I know what you're thinking, Pringle we haven't even had Halloween yet, or bonfire night come to that but don't blame me, scores of shops had their Christmas decorations up and one supermarket chain who shall remain nameless has had chocolate calenders in store since mid September. They're practically forcing Christmas into you whether you like it or not.
But is it fair to lay the blame at Retail's door? Christmas is their busiest time of year and it's important economically that it stays that way. And if I don't want to go out and buy things for people then I don't have to. I just felt a little sad that traipsing from shop to shop spending money at generic store after generic store has become synonomous with Christmas in my subconscious.
Perhaps this year I'll try and go an alternate route and shop online, like millions of others already do or maybe I'll try and get along to some local Christmas Craft fairs and pick up something that is a little more unique and maybe a little more eco friendly too.
But then I have to decide between not sweating it out with hundreds of other cattle in the homogenised marketplace and well, feeling Christmassy. It's such a tough call!
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