It had the makings of a nightmare before Christmas: a snowstorm that wrecked the last big shopping weekend of the holiday calendar. Holiday travelers lost in a tangle of flight cancellations. Delivery people fighting ice and snow. Zhu Zhu Pets tragically left homeless.

So as winter arrived Monday, people along the East Coast set out on slick sidewalks and roads to do the shopping they had hoped to finish over the weekend, did battle with airport lines and crossed their fingers that they weren't too late to order online.

This holiday, the shortest day of the year was also the most frantic.

Take Helen Pease. On Saturday, she left her house in Southampton, N.J., at 7 a.m., armed with a gift list 20 names long and even a schedule of which stores to hit when. Thanks to the snowstorm that ravaged the East Coast, all she came home with was comfort food.

Her solution: She split up her last vacation day of the year, using half Monday and half Tuesday, to get all her shopping done. She stopped at the American Eagle in Moorestown Mall to buy for her nephew.

"I just can't get the flu," she concluded. "I was going to use that day for the flu."

That's the way it's gone in a holiday season best described as star-crossed. From the beginning, there was the feeble economy. By the end, there was even a fire at Macy's flagship store in New York's Herald Square and video of a Washington cop pulling a gun at a snowball fight.

And then there was the winter storm, which dumped 16 inches of snow on Washington and nearly 2 feet on Philadelphia. It rendered a day chain stores call Super Saturday _ the last big shopping day before Christmas _ decidedly less super.

For retailers, there was an upside: Many of those snowed in took to their computers to check off their lists. Online sales Friday and Saturday were about one-quarter higher than last year.

And stores tried to take some pressure off the shortened shopping calendar. Amazon extended its standard-shipping cutoff for Christmas delivery by a day. Macy's offered free shipping through Monday, J.C. Penney through Tuesday, for online purchases.

Of course, the online option had its problems, too.

Joe Scialabba, a 20-year veteran driver for FedEx, spent a treacherous morning Monday trying to navigate his truck around snow drifts that made his route on Long Island an obstacle course.

"It's a bonus today if they get their package. That's my motto," he said. "All your little shortcuts are gone. You got to go up the driveway, some of these driveways are 300 feet."