Can you guess the gift purchase of choice this year?
The E-L-M-O doll that dances to the Village People's "YMCA," you say?
Nope.
Or you may have guessed the new Nintendo DS video-game system or Microsoft's Xbox?
Guess again.
Perhaps you thought it was jewelry, which is always a best seller this time of year.
All those answers would be wrong, according to the 19th annual consumer survey of holiday retail spending plans and trends, commissioned by Deloitte & Touche.
For the first time since they began circulating in the 1990s, those little plastic gift cards will replace apparel as the top gift, the firm reported recently.
This year 64 percent of consumers said they intended to buy gift cards, up from 60 percent in 2003, and consumers said they preferred them 2 to 1 over money.
In another holiday shopping survey, conducted for the National Retail Federation, a little more than half of consumers polled (50.2 percent) said they would like to receive gift cards, up nearly 10 percent from two years ago.
