The modern festive fable which is Shopping in New York attracted swathes of new converts in the run-up to 1998's celebrations.

JFK-bound jumbo jets full of bargain-crazy Brits working themselves up to mildly hysterical plastic-wielding frenzy have become less of a strange prospect than they perhaps ought to be.

Macy's: Lighting up Christmas

It's not difficult to see why - for one thing, staying in New York is like having a film set happen around you, making you feel like the star of your own seasonal show.

The lights and decorations are bigger and shinier than anything you're likely to see on the UK's side of the Atlantic.

In fact everything, pretty much, is BIG - from sandwiches the size of doormats to buildings which reduce all known vocabulary to a monosyllabic "wow".

Another bonus for British visitors is the friendliness of shop staff.

If the accent and visible signs of jet-lag don't give Europeans away, then the startled surely-he-can't-be-talking-to-me look as Mr GAP Representative shouts "Hi, howya doin?" most definitely does.

Park Avenue's lights stretch on for two miles

Slack-jawed wonder at the low price of jeans, trainers, CDs, designer labels and cosmetics also tends to spell out "not from these parts".

And after all, that's the main attraction for many of a trip to the Big Apple.

There are good savings to be made - if a pair of jeans costs £50 from a UK retailer, then it's a pretty safe bet that the same pair stateside will set you back just $50.

With the exchange rate hovering around $1.64 to the pound, it doesn't take Einstein to work out on which side of the Atlantic the best deals are to be had.

On top of this, New York also boasts several cut-price retail outlets selling major labels at much reduced prices - even by American standards.

Santas ring bells and collect for charity

These places - like Century 21 on Broadway - attract more Brits than a bank holiday car boot sale and induce a January sales-type free-for-all. But if you want a CK coat for $300, it's probably worth the scrummage.

The result of this heady combination of fantastically good deals and showbiz surroundings should be a bumper crop of pressies under more than one tree this Christmas.

Because while the NY Shopping Trip is the stuff of fable, the notion that you can actually save yourself money by forking out a minimum of £300 for flight and accommodation has got to be myth.

Only a serious label junkie could hope to recoup the cost.

But that just doesn't detract from the fact that shopping is probably not a bad way at all to see the best Christmassy marvel of Manhattan.

Every tree, lampost and spare piece of masonry is decked an flagged with tiny twinkling lights.

Santas stand ringing their school bells for charity on every other corner.

Even the few shop windows that don't have superb Christmas displays have varying degrees of large menorahs.

And being laden down with carrier bags means you can hop in a yellow taxi.

Anyone who fails to feel just the slightest frisson when they flag down a New York cab deserves to be cudgelled.

Although cabbies, it's worth mentioning, live up to every stereotype.

If a traffic light has the audacity to turn red, they will beep at it.