A mum who has spent £2,500 buying more than 300 Christmas gifts for her kids has explained why she started stockpiling - and has urged other parents to start buying now.
Rachel Marsden, 43, who lives with her children Louis, 24, Jake, 19, and Sienna, 3, in Leeds, said she feared supply chain issues would ruin Christmas for her kids and first started noticing delivery problems last year.
Speaking to Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield on ITV This Morning, she said one present she ordered for last Christmas had only just arrived last month.
This, along with the shortage of lorry drivers, led to Rachel deciding to start Christmas shopping earlier than ever.
She said: "Last year, with Covid and everything that was going on, the deliveries were taking absolutely ages to get here - if they even got here at all.
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"Some things only arrived last month that I ordered for last Christmas.
"So I thought, especially with the shortages of lorry drivers, I did start to panic and think: I need to get out there or we might have a horrible Christmas."
When asked by Philip if it was "all about the presents", Rachel replied: "No. I am aware it shouldn't be all about the gifts as not all people can buy a large amount of gifts for their children.
"I’ve booked a lot of things for the run-up to Christmas - Santa, days out and we all go for afternoon tea with family."
In a separate interview with The Sun, Rachel, a former teaching assistant who is divorced, said she has “gone without” in order to spend £2,500 on presents for her kids.
As well as buying all her presents, Rachel also has all the decorations and wrapping paper she needs for the festive season.
She says her advice to parents is to "buy now or miss out".
She said: “I have stockpiled 100 gifts for Sienna so far, including Barbies and the Sylvanian Families Amusement Park which has now sold out.
“Included for the boys is a PlayStation 5 plus games, controllers and a streaming kit.
“Jake is a Build-A-Bear collector and I managed to get the entire Pokémon collection.”
Retailers are currently struggling against a shortage of lorry drivers, with supermarket shelves being stripped empty of some goods.
Toy chains have also urged parents to start shopping early to avoid disappointment come December.
Geoff Sheffield, chief commercial officer of The Entertainer explained how a lack of shipping containers from Asia - a knock-on effect from demand being high for PPE at the start of the Covid pandemic - is also contributing to supply chain issues.
As well as toys, families have been warned there could be shortages of turkey, Christmas trees and even Quality Street this year.
Shops have already started selling Christmas stock over warnings the UK faces months of shortages.
It comes after the boss of Iceland warned ongoing delivery issues could effectively "cancel" Christmas as supermarkets struggle to replenish shelves.
All major supermarkets - including Big Four grocers Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Asda - have seen shelves left empty in recent weeks.
But Tesco boss John Allan urged people not to panic-buy.
"There may be some shortages", but people should not "over-dramatise" and panic-buy, he told the BBC.
The shortage of HGV drivers is due to a combination of Covid, Brexit and other factors, including a backlog of driver tests.
The Government has introduced changes to lorry driver tests to help get more newly qualified drivers on the road - see what they are here.
