Wanted to find 5 Top Holiday Websites and had to look at 40 websites to find five A grades. Here is critera used to evaluate 37 top ecommerce retailers:

* Free Shipping (easy to find, clearly communicated, easy to use).
* Holiday Look and Feel.
* Holiday categorization.  

Here are trends rapidly becoming standard:

Free Shipping All Orders.
Free Returns.
Deal of the Day.

Free Shipping = Half A Merchant's Grade
If Free Shipping was easy to find, clearly stated and didn't require a code then half of this holiday rating was positive. Surprising how many websites are poor about communicating their free shipping or confusing (see Crate and Barrel for one of the hardest free shipping offers to understand).

Another misstep is to tie up free shipping with credit cards or loyalty programs (Amazon's prime means free shipping is not easy to understand at this time of year). 

Free Shipping with a $50 or $99 set point was common. Daily deals seem to be wedging its way into many leading ecommere websites.

Foodie Websites Lead In November
Not surprisingly foodie websites led in November since this is their Christmas. The top site with amazing hero photography, a real holiday feel and a lot of offers clearly communicated is Williams-Sonoma.

See all 37 ratings
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkeG3a8zValDdDNGdGFaRkx1ZGd1cmhPU3BLcXh3eEE&usp=sharing