ANOTHER SATISFIED READER: Stephen Johnson emails:

Just an FYI. I upgraded to an Amazon Prime membership after reading what you wrote about it, and boy what a deal! We ordered 95% of our Christmas Gifts (Yes, I said “Christmas” and not “Holiday”) this year from Amazon and took advantage of the free 2-day shipping, and here in the Portland, Oregon Metro area we are currently experiencing a massive snow event of over 10″ of snow (Curse you Global Warming!!!!). All local stores were sold out of Snow Shovels. However, Mother Amazon came through with $3.99 overnight delivery of a great shovel for a fair price.

Yes, except for a few restaurant gift cards I did all my Christmas shopping via Amazon; it was painless and fast! And the Prime is still marked down to $59 for the year at the moment.