Last-Minute Gift Guide

Some of the most distinctive gifts aren't at fancy stores or even online. The necessities of creating discount merchandise are often the mothers of invention for some weird and confounding gift items. Here are a few unique presents we found at the 99 Cents Only store at Rainbow and Spring Mountain.

It's amazing how many videos and DVDs are available for 99 cents. Many of them are collections of forgotten or worthless TV series, or movies that went straight to video for obvious reasons. Yet even in the face of their billion-dollar empire, the Olsen twins are not immune from being remaindered at the dollar store. Their 2000 movie
Switching Goals , in which they play twin soccer-playing sisters who, naturally, switch places (this is the plot of every Olsen twins movie), is available right alongside collections of old Three Stooges cartoons.

While they're watching the Olsen twins on video, the tween girls on your list might also enjoy playing with the
Ello Creation System , if they can figure out what it is. It appears to be some sort of Lego-esque construction system designed specifically for girls, who can use it to create creepy-looking characters, jewelry, accessories, and, presumably, whatever else they can imagine. Of course, all you can get for 99 cents is the "special" mini pack trial set, so there are probably a limited number of things your niece or daughter or whoever can construct while watching the Olsen twins play soccer.

That's good for the little girl on your list, but what about the little boy? His options are a little more limited, mainly confined to generic action figures like the
"Wrestling Federation" series, which consists of one slightly muscular dude wearing a plain shirt and pants who looks more like a gym teacher than a professional wrestler. It's not clear if he has a name, although the packaging says "Fight Stuff," which may or may not be this fellow's wrestling moniker. He comes with a little plastic table that's probably meant to be thrown at other wrestlers, but could just as easily be used for detention.

The hottest gift this season is the iPod and its numerous variations, but you're certainly not going to find one of those for 99 cents. Perhaps sensing this dilemma, the store has offered a little
FM radio in the same size, shape and color as an iPod. It won't play MP3's, or even receive AM stations, but it might briefly fool a half-blind coworker long enough for you to escape before they realize what a crappy gift you got them.

Maybe the best thing to do when giving a gift that cost 99 cents, then, is to just be honest about the reaction. To that end, you could follow the fake iPod with the
"Getting in Touch With Your Inner Bitch" 2006 calendar , which is exactly what the recipient will be likely to do once she (or he) learns where your gifts came from.

Mallard Duck Antenna Topper

This rubber duckhead would add a precious ounce of character to your everyday BMW. It says of the driver, I'm a cold-blooded killer of small winged things; or maybe I just like mallard duck heads. Maybe it says, I'm from one of those families in which wooden duck carvings were all the rage. Or, I hit a duck on the way into town and its head got stuck on the antenna. In any case, it's a perfect gift for the person who needs a little homespun ambience added to their slick Vegas persona. $3.95

Moon Pies

If you don't have a redneck on your list then your circle of friends needs to be expanded. Lucky for you, the appeal of Moon Pies exceeds the bounds of those who teethed on these cakey, marshmallowy snack cakes. Here, at Bass Pro Shops, they're available for a mere $1.35, and they're exquisitely fresh. Shipped straight from culinary capital Chattanooga Tennessee, three layers of cakish substance and two layers of marshamallowish substance covered in chocolatish substance makes for one delicious, iconic gift. Microwave them for 10 seconds and you will have given someone a patty of tasty goo to remember. Load 'em up with a dozen.

"HotHands-2" Hand Warmers

These things are spiritual-season evidence that science rules. For a buck ninety-five, you get this little palm-sized packet of iron powder, water, salt, charcoal and vermiculite that heats up when rubbed and stays warm for 10 hours—perfect for any wuss on your list who hates the cold weather. Put them in your pockets, carry them in your cold hands, line your undies. Whatever. They're little packets of heat and they feel really freaking good on a chilly day. Give the gift that makes them hot.

Fish Pillow

For the angler or the aquarium lover? Or the gourmand who dreams of halibut? Or? It's a three- and-a-half-foot-long fish-shaped pillow with fins and accurate fish-family markings, comes in bass and catfish and other assorted fish types. A steal at $9.95

Deer Head

I can't think of anyone who wouldn't treasure a stuffed plush toy wall-mountable deerhead. It may be appropriate for the baby's room—raise 'em up right—or for the cube wall, which is hard-pressed to support the actual half-ton buck's head you shot at Christmas last year. This little gem is 100-percent cotton/polyester and as cute as Rudolph; all the more reason to have it beheaded it and stick it on a wall somewhere. $19.99

Like most of the alterna-culture celebrated in Tower, the
Ugly Doll plastic figures are awfully cute in the way they try to shrug off mainstream culture while at the same time appealing to its values. Therefore, the Ugly Doll is not, in fact, ugly at all, only adorable in an approved, offbeat way. This, paradoxically, broadens its allure to include not only those who embrace the ugly as a rejection of cultural norms, but also your mother. Normally we don't like giving purely decorative gifts—it's just one more thing someone's gotta dust—but the Icebat Ugly Doll is just so damn cute.

Recommended for: Your teenage son who's only wearing black until they come out with something darker; your charmingly eccentric mother.

Price: $19.99

Help put the X back in Xmas with the
Position of the Day Playbook, a picture book from the saucy folks at Nerve.com, the sexuality website. It is what it claims: 365 sexual positions, helpfully diagrammed with disappointingly nonerotic drawings. Didn't know there were 365 variations? Hey, it's not all horizontal bop, people. Learn how to bust moves like "The Pick a Penny," "The Sen. Rick Santorum" and "The Hazing Ritual." It's a Kama Sutra for our times.

Recommended for: Oh, I think you know.

Price: $12.95

Compact discs may seem like an endangered technology in this MP3 era, but they're still useful—whether it's the Grateful Dead completist on your list, who has every album, compilation and authorized bootleg, or that other friend who stores his pirated, burned, copyright-infringing downloads on discs. Help them keep it all safe with a
metal CD box that has little hanging file pockets for each disc. It comes in black or white, combines portability with serious volume (holds more than 200) and has the added benefit of looking like a case at the heart of a light De Niro espionage caper.

Recommended for: Anyone who has 200-plus CDs that're just laying all over the goddamn place, and, hey, pick these things up off the floor before I throw them away! What is this, a junkyard? Sheesh!

Price: $29.99.

For the person who has everything and now needs a beer: the
Family Guy Talking Bottle Opener . It features the voice of Family Guy patriarch Peter Griffin, enthusing about beer, and then belching. Loudly. At length.

Recommended for: The lover of TV kitsch; someone you don't like and therefore sort of enjoy the thought of their every beer being accompanied by an irritating belch; your dad.

Price: $6.99.

Aside from the usual reasons you'd give someone a
Tower Records Gift Card , there's one very good additional reason: If you're like the Weekly, by 8 a.m. on Christmas Day, the gifts have all been opened, examined from every angle and fully appreciated. Man, that was fun! And by 9 you're bored shitless. Yet, that orgy of stuff-acquisition has stimulated your urge to acquire even more, which is to say, you wanna shop. But the stores are closed! Except, crucially, Tower Records. Don't you wish someone had given you a Tower gift card? The recipient will be so pleased at having his/her Christmas Day boredom alleviated that he/she will forgive the impersonal nature of gift cards.

Recommended for: Music or DVD lovers on your list; the guy who'd rather select his own Family Guy Talking Bottle Opener, thank you very much.

Price: Whatever those folks are worth to ya, sport.

Coca-Cola Cookie Train Tin , $6.99: It's two, two, two gifts in one that will fulfill any child's desire for food and play. Shaped like a locomotive, the front part is the body of the train, the rear a conductor's car (with conductor and his choo-choo bell painted on) that, under the lid, holds a bag of bite-size chocolate-chip cookies. And when the snacking is done, the rolling wheels turn it into a toy that will leave tracks marks in the carpet for months to come.

Spread-Winged Eagles Statue , by Herco, $13.99: This eagle-to-eagle tabletop statue, the tips of their wings touching vertically to create a striking slanted circle punctuated by their noble beaks, is a true eye-catcher, sure to stand out in any room. With its shiny metallic finish coating the eagles that rise up from a burnished wooden foundation, it's an ideal gift for the interior décor-challenged on your holiday gift list.

Classic DVDs, Treasure Box Collection , 79 cents in sleeves, $1.99 boxed: No, they're not the hot new releases crammed with featurettes, bios, commentary and storyboards. They're oldies, but for the older movie/TV lovers on your list—and the kiddies who've learned to love them through classic movie/TV channels—they're still goodies. For a total of $3.57, we picked up a 90-minute retrospective of TV's first superstar, "Uncle Miltie" Berle, the iconic comedy pair of Hope & Crosby in Road to Bali, and one of the all-time old-time legends of silent slapstick, Buster Keaton, in a flick called College. Priceless entertainment at barely any price at all.

Pioneer E-Z Load Memory Book (20 pages, 12''-by-12''), $15.38: The gift you can put to immediate use (assuming you have a camera handy, and who doesn't during the holidays?) by slipping in mementos and photos of family and friends (and you) receiving other gifts. Containing acid-free pages and able to accommodate expansion with refill pages (sold separately), the E-Z Load is a memory-holder for both photo hounds and scrapbookers—hobbyists who really give their hobbies a workout during the ho-ho-holidays.

Knights & Dragon Jewelry Box , by Summit Collection, $18.99: Heavy and charcoal-black with raised figures etched on top and on the sides, this masculine holding pen for the bling-bling dude in your life features a jousting knight on horseback chasing after one vicious-looking dragon against the backdrop of a medieval castle. A perfect place for your own dragon-slaying white knight to keep his watch, bracelets, rings or piercings. It's even an appreciated gift if the recipient is more dragon than knight.

We get so busy at the holiday season when everyone it seems is having a little get-together, from Steve and Elaine to the Hilton family, that picking up trinkets for the staff simply slipped our mind. We briefly considered getting them little jars of jam but that's so 1993. Rushing off to Bellagio for some last-minute shopping, here is what we found (our personal shopper being off in Telluride waiting for the first snow—her loss).

The maid

Tesorini has a darling Girard-Perregaux Cat's Eye lady's watch, all in pink. It features pink-satin strap and pink mother-of-pearl face with tiny diamonds on the bezel. It has a skeleton back and even its own power gauge. And the fact that it's self-winding means she won't have any excuses since her dusting will keep it running on time.

Price: $37,000

The valet

Our gentleman's gentleman is a hard-working chap and values his scant leisure time so we dropped by Hermes and scooped up a collection of toys, all in black leather. We're fairly certain he smokes but we couldn't remember his particular taste so we got him both a pipe cleaner ($195) and a cigar cutter ($770), along with the cutest flat flashlight ($170), a cigar case ($860), and for those times when he is terribly bored, a "Herstress" ball ($255).

Price: $2,250

The personal secretary

We're the first to admit we'd not know where our head was at if not for our secretary. And what better way to show our appreciation than with a new desk set from Tiffany? The charming Streamamerica set is solid sterling in a lovely brushed design. It consists of a pen ($195), a cradle for the pen ($295), a pen cup holder for other pens and knickknacks ($295) and the cutest paperweight that resembles a UFO ($315). Look out, Area 51!

Price: $1,100

The chauffeur

We pride ourselves on being quite modern in our household, and what better demonstration than having a woman driver on staff. And what better way to show our appreciation for her fine motor skills than the fingerless driving gloves we found at Chanel. They're a lovely, soft white lambskin and detailed in tiny pearls with floret jewelry at each knuckle. (Of course, the jewelry and pearls are costume—we're not completely insane, you know.) We wanted to get the black pair but our dear friend Celine had already snatched those up.

Price: $4,700

The gardener

You'd think that with this xeriscaping so in vogue, our groundsman would have more leisure time. He swears nothing could be further from the truth. And nothing captures his love of the land more than the stunning piece of art we found at the Giardini Garden Store. Created by Julie Anne and titled "Willow," it's a nearly abstract design created with white willow twigs on a black background. It was specially dried and arranged just for Bellagio, and because Julie Anne uses actual plants, each creation is unique.

Price: $1,500

The chef

Occasionally, there is a lapse in our social schedule and we find ourselves dining a la maison. And we are so thankful for our chef's wizardry. After poking about, we found the perfect gift at the Lobby Shops of all places: a hammered sterling salad bowl with a serving fork and spoon ($3,200) and a matching charger ($695) by John Hardy. Rimmed with palm wood, they are hand-hammered into shape in Bali over the course of two months. One would think those children could work a little faster but we're still ever so grateful.

Price: $3,895

For the wife or girlfriend who deserves to look fabulous:

Magnin Cashmere Sequined V-Neck Sweater , regularly $179.99, on sale $159.99.

Soft and sweet, just like your favorite girl! There's nothing like the feel of cashmere against your skin. Add the sparkle of sequins and she'll be ready for a night on the town.

For the woman who has everything:

18" Strand of Cultured Freshwater Pearls , regularly $300, on sale $106.

Pearls are beautiful, elegant, go with just about any outfit, sans 8-year-old torn sweat suit, and can dress up something as simple as jeans and a sweater. Their soft, smooth texture is soothing, and it's a gift that can be passed down from generation to generation.

For the man who has everything:

Nautica Multicolored Striped Velour Robe , regularly $75, on sale $58.99.

Robes seem to make life a lot more comfortable. After a shower, lounging 'round the pad on the weekends, running out quickly to grab the newspaper-whatever, slipping into a luxurious robe is the only way to go, male or female.

For the person who likes to toss one back:

Mikasa Motion Decanter Set , regularly $120, on sale $79.99.

Buying wineglasses for others is a bad idea all the way around. Most people already have a set, and the one you pick out probably wouldn't be the one they would choose anyway. A gift like this crystal five-piece decanter set is formal and visually stimulating. Grab a nice bottle of Scotch to go along with it, and you've got an absolutely fantastic gift!

For any and everyone over the age of 10:

XACT Sirius Satellite Radio Receiver Home Kit , regularly $65, on sale $49.99.

These days, TV without cable is basically unwatchable. Radio is heading in the same direction, and Sirius is taking the reigns on state-of-the-art sound waves. Your recipient will still have to pay for activation and a receiver, but if you're really in the mood for giving you can pick those up, too (available at www.sirius.com).

Trigun Kuroneko Sama Hat ($19.50): I assume this comes from some Japanese anime series. But can't be sure. All that matters is that this hat is cute. So cute that a girl standing next to me when I picked it up at the store mentioned it, the cashier I bought it from mentioned it and someone who saw me with it in the parking lot did, too. None of them even knew it was supposed to be a hat and neither did I until after I bought it. Cute is cute is cute.

Boss Toss ($7.99): This wonderful toy promises it "catapults bosses up to 15 feet." You get four little boss voodoo plastic dolls to fling headfirst in the air. A wonderful gesture would be to actually give this to your boss as s/he has a boss, too. But also, there is the warning that the toy is a choking hazard unsuitable for children under 3 years old and, maybe (you can hope) your boss is dumb enough to choke on it too.

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle ($19.95): A cartoon about the most hideous country on Earth! OK, it may not sound like a great gift. But this graphic novel depicts the most secretive of societies by offering a fascinating account of this horrifying place through the telling of Delisle's work for two months as an animator of a children's cartoon show (in a nation where millions starve!). Pyongyang is a holiday gift that manages to remind us all how fortunate we are by forcing us to look into a land where so many suffer.

Skeptic Magazine and one-year subscription (issue $5.95, subscription $30): This is obviously the gift you got from your atheist friend. Put together by scientists, professors and educators and professional debunkers Skeptic goes at all the weird Web claims, odd therapies, strange beliefs that victimize so many. The best thing about Skeptic is that it remains a jargon-free read that communicates to the average person complicated explanations about everything from cholesterol to reviewing the latest hot economics book, Freakonomics Readable. Funny and useful, this is a gift that can help the gullible steer clear of myriad scams, fads and gimmicks.

Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History's Naughtiest Bits by mental floss presents ($14.95): I love this holiday gift because it divides its useless trivia into categories for the seven deadly sins. Among the fun stories to read are the dumbest failed attempts to scam casinos in Las Vegas. Not too raunchy, not too cheesy, this is useless information that makes for the perfect interesting bathroom read. Give this to your most boring friend and hope that you get offered some of the information back instead of the usual yawner conversation: thus a gift that could give back.

Shrek Chia Pet , $9.99

Because who can really get enough of Shrek. Really?

Seatback Cooler Organizer , $59.99

Because the parking lot-ization of valley roads and highways means we'll lose even more precious time, we might as well be comfy. (The organizer attaches to the back of a seat and keeps food hot or cold, has compartments for a laptop and personal items, doesn't need ice and includes cutoffs when not in use).

Tasty Freeze Sno-Cone Maker , $9.99

Because the right to make Sno-Cones should be just as inalienable as the right to life, to liberty and to bitch. (The set comes with two straws, two cups, a dispenser and Sno-cone maker.)

16" Porcelain Dolls, 2 for $10

Because porcelain dolls are twofer gifts; pretty to look at, so your wife will love them, and made of porcelain, so your daughter can't play with them. (The dolls come in various themes: geisha, princess, flower girl, angel.)

"Painted Rain" Illuminated Water Fountain, $9.99

Because brightly colored LED lights, soothing sounds and a waterfall that changes color equals re-lax-a-tion, zzzzzz.

Sopranos Trivia Game , $9.99

Because I said so, eh!