In the Holiday Gift Forecast? Brain Freeze.

There was the time she gave her husband a pair of ceramic sheep.

This strange present entering the family lore as The First Law of Holiday Giving:

Never select a gift for your beloved just because you think you'd like to have it yourself.

To this day, she defends the sheep as a really swell gift. "I fell in love with them immediately. We aspired to something great. They were from Italy and looked like something made for Louis XIV. I guess it was my Marie Antoinette alter ego kicking in. They said 'elegance.' They didn't say 'white trash.' So I shelled out the $200 for them." She still maintains she was doing it as much for her flame as for herself.

"Sort of."

Recent research, however, shows that she has less to be defensive about than she could guess:

· Almost half of all lovers are worse at predicting their partner's heart's desire than a stranger who simply uses average gender-specific preferences.

· In addition, the more you know about your inamorata, the worse your success rate is likely to get.

These cheerful holiday tidings are brought to you by "Why It Is So Hard to Predict Our Partner's Product Preferences: The Effect of Target Familiarity on Prediction Accuracy," in the December issue of the scholarly Journal of Consumer Research, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Meredith Melcher, 26, of the District, talks about the time her father gave her mother ski goggles for Christmas.