Oh, oh, oh... You have no clue.
Pittsburgh's shopping is pretty spread out as it is. We're nowhere near as lucky as the guys elsewhere as far as having 30 Targets on their commute and things (Then again, we have far fewer people overall crammed in around here, we have nice **** like trees and shrubs... And we actually have commutes where we can live outside the city in farmland and still drive into the city ourselves... So yeah we shouldn't gripe for quality of life for sure). So the drive alone can annoy you, but when you get there, the people are guaranteed to make you so pissed off you could just punch an elderly person or 3 year old.
I tend to avoid it if I can, but exclusives and good deals do sometimes drive me out there. I rarely actually do X-Mas shopping though, ironically. It's usually something for myself when I'm out... Which makes it easier to NOT go then if I'm just not up to the stress of it.
I can say though, I've seen videos of other cities/places in the states as the doors open on stores having big sales or whatever, and these masses of ******** running each other over as they tear into the store... I've never witnessed anything like that except Midnight Madness for Star Wars crap... It's terrible, and all too true for some I guess. If you can pass being there as the door opens, you're probably less likely to witness that BS.