Each year, as we set to work on our annual Holiday Gift Guide, we find ourselves thinking about the timeless lesson contained in "A Christmas Carol," the heartwarming motion picture by Charles Dickens.Alex Nabaum

As everyone knows, the story begins on Christmas Eve, when poor, mild-mannered Bob Cratchit, a lowly scrivener and the father of something like 83 children, wants to go home early because he has tickets to the hockey game. But his employer, the mean old miser Ebenezer Scrooge, insists that Bob work late, because Scrooge is dying to find out what "scrivening" is.Later that night, Scrooge goes home and falls asleep, only to be awakened by a terrifying, unearthly howling sound. This turns out to be a commercial for a Slim Whitman CD. So Scrooge turns off the television and goes back to sleep, only to be awakened by the Ghost of Christmas Past, who tells Scrooge that he will be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present, the Ghost of Christmas Future, and a Ghost To Be Named Later. These ghosts spend the rest of the night reviewing Scrooge's entire life with him, then explaining to him, using charts, the benefits of becoming an Amway representative.

Horrified, Scrooge staggers from his house at dawn, resolved to mend his ways. He rushes over to Bob Cratchit's house with Nintendo 64 games for all the children. He also brings a fine fat Christmas goose, but it starts eating the figgy pudding and Mrs. Cratchit has to kill it with a hammer. But the story ends on a happy note as the youngest Cratchit, Tiny Tim, places a star on the very top of the Christmas tree and says the words that truly express the meaning of this magical time of year: "How come we have a Christmas tree? We're Jewish!"

Here at Holiday Gift Guide headquarters, no matter how many times we hear this heartwarming story, we always say to ourselves: "Huh?" And that sentiment, more than any other, expresses our mood as we go about the task of creating our annual Gift Guide. As in previous years, we have made every effort to gather together, in one place, the very finest gift ideas in the entire world, regardless of cost, unless it is more than $35. These are not your ordinary gifts: These are gifts that the lucky people on your gift list will never in a million years expect to receive. And when they do, they may take legal action.

TOILET DECALS

$24 plus shipping and handling from Handsome Rewards, 19465 Brennan Ave., Perris, CA 92599, phone (909) 943-2023. Suggested by many alert readers.

Ask yourself: When friends, relatives and houseguests scrutinize the inside of your toilet bowl, what is their reaction?

If you're like most homeowners, their reaction, unfortunately, is: "BOORRRR-ING!" That's because you have done nothing to "spruce up" those commode walls.

Now, thanks to Painted Potties toilet decals, you can transform that boring toilet into a toilet that proudly proclaims to the world: "There are things in this toilet." Among the decor schemes available are: plants in your toilet; fish in your toilet; eyes and lips in your toilet; and a scheme called "humor," which is -- get ready -- keys and money in your toilet.

SNO-BALLER HIGH-TECH SNOWBALL MAKING DEVICE

$9.95 plus shipping and handling from Peak Ski & Sport, 230 S. Hale Ave., Escondido, CA 92029, phone (800) 550-7669. Suggested by Laura Paul of Minooka, Ill.

It is a tragic but true fact that in this modern day and age -- an age of thrilling technological advances such as lasers, computers, cellular phones, pacemakers, motorized Pez dispensers, etc. -- many youngsters, right here in our so-called "civilized" society, are still forced to make their snowballs by hand.

But these barbaric times may soon come to an end, thanks to the "Sno-Baller." This amazing device, made of space-age plastic, enables your child to make perfectly spherical snowballs without having his or her hands come into direct physical contact with the snow. According to the manufacturer, Sno-Baller snowballs "explode on impact and don't hurt like hand-packed snowballs."

VACUUM LIP ENHANCER

$40 plus shipping and handling from Self Care Catalog, 104 Challenger Dr., Portland, TN 37148-1716, (800) 345-3371. Suggested by Dolores Brady of Hialeah, Fla., and Barbara Price of Washington, D.C.

If you are a woman, please stop whatever career or family activity you are engaged in and listen to us right now, because we have an urgent beauty message for you: Your lips are too small.

Yes. The current Official Standard of Beauty calls for large, full, lush lips, defined as "lips that are way bigger than yours." Look at movie actress Kim Basinger. Here is a woman who appears to be smuggling a pair of mature South American jungle pythons around inside her lips, and she is regarded as beautiful.

How can you obtain lips like those? One way, of course, is to go to a plastic surgeon for a consultation, then have the surgeon kidnap Kim Basinger, surgically remove her lips and implant them on you. But as you can imagine, this is very expensive, and it is not always covered by medical insurance.

A much simpler technique is to use the Lip Enhancer. This is a tube made of space-age acrylic. You place one end over your lips, then you pull on the other end, thereby forming a vacuum, and before you know it -- Voila! -- your lips have exploded.

No, we are just kidding. According to the manufacturer, your lips "should look fuller, smoother and more attractive" for "up to 12 hours." The manufacturer cautions that "in the beginning, you may experience slight bruising or reddening on or around your lips." The manufacturer does NOT, however, caution that if you accidentally apply the Lip Enhancer to the wrong part of your face, you might accidentally suck out an eyeball, so we won't even mention it.

EARGLASSES

$11.99 plus shipping and handling from Walter Drake, 68 Drake Building, Colorado Springs, CO 80940, phone (800) 525-9291. Suggested by Roberta McReynolds of Riverbank, Calif.

When we first saw this item, we will frankly admit that we thought it was nothing but a set of goofy-looking plastic things that stick out from your ears and make you look like the world's biggest dork.

But then we read the accompanying literature, and we found out that these plastic things are in fact "parabolic arc segments rotated 180 degrees into an acoustic lens, with a single, sub-conchal focal point," the result being that this device "phase-coherently amplifies frontally incident sounds by over seven decibels."

We don't know about you, but when we see that many big words clustered together, we figure that we are dealing with a quality item. But just to be certain, we personally tested the Earglasses at Gift Guide headquarters by wearing them during a planning meeting. Sure enough, we found that we could clearly hear, through the miracle of phase-coherent amplification, the frontally incident sounds being made by our co-workers ("Ha ha!" "What a dork!" etc.).

DO-IT-YOURSELF COFFINS FOR PETS AND PEOPLE

Parkersburg, WVA 26102-1686, phone (800) 225-1153. Suggested by many alert readers.

This book, which we swear on our grave we are not making up, contains plans and instructions showing how to make your own coffins for people or animals. There are several different models, including one that "doubles as a blanket chest or coffee table."

What a practical idea! Imagine the pride that the Do-It-Yourselfer on your gift list will take in displaying his handiwork to guests! ("I made this coffee table for me and this blanket chest for Francine. In fact, Francine is in there right now!")

U.S. MILITARY WEATHER BALLOON

$14.97 plus shipping and handling from The Sportsman's Guide, 411 Farwell Ave., So. St. Paul, Minn. 55075, phone (800) 888-3006, fax (800) 333-6933. Item L8G-29408.

If you ask us, the element that makes any party "extra special" is balloons. The problem is that, until recently, the balloons available to the civilian public have been pathetically small: You have to blow up dozens of them to create any kind of visual impact.

Well, that is no longer the case. Now you can purchase an actual weather balloon, originally developed by the U.S. military to provide a cover story for alien spacecraft. This is not some weenie little balloon that you can bat around or pop by stomping on it. This balloon, when fully inflated, measures 12 feet high and 36 feet in circumference -- nearly as large as tenor Luciano Pavarotti!

3-D CAMOUFLAGE SUIT

$84.99 plus shipping and handling from Herter's, P.O. Box 1499, Burnsville, MN 55337, phone (800) 654-3825, Internet: (www.herters.com); Item 4650-CF-H634 (must specify XL or XXL).

We have come to rely on the hunting community to come up with "something special" for the Holiday Gift Guide, and we are never disappointed. This year's contribution is the 3-D camouflage outfit, which is a suit made of fabric cut in a "leaf-cut" pattern. When you put this suit on, you are able to blend in perfectly with your environment, provided that your environment is a group of people wearing 3-D camouflage outfits.

The particular pattern that we have chosen this year is called "Cornfield," because it simulates the look of cornstalks so perfectly that hunters wearing this suit could well be in danger of being attacked and eaten by pigs. At least that is our fantasy.

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BUG TOP

$12.98 plus shipping and handling from Harriet Carter, Dept. 28, North Wales, PA 19455, phone (800) 377-7878. Suggested by Kathy Barr of Hagerstown, Md.

This is the ideal gift for the person on your gift list who wishes to be able to laugh at bloodsucking insects. The Bug Top -- which is made from 100 percent material of some kind -- covers your entire upper body, including your face, in a protective netting, so that mosquitoes cannot get in. "Ha ha!" you can say to them, as they dart angrily around your head, whining their high-pitched mosquito curses. But the Bug Top is not merely practical. It has also become a popular fashion accessory among top Hollywood celebrities, who have taken to wearing their Bug Tops all the time, including to cocktail parties and swank restaurants. "Ha ha!" they say to the pesky autograph-seekers and agents futilely hurling their bodies against the netting. It is our understanding that, at the height of the "Titanic" craze, Leonardo DiCaprio refused to come out of his Bug Top for 37 consecutive days; this broke Barry Manilow's record by nearly a week.

(C) 1998, The Miami Herald, Dist. by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services

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