Buyer's Recourse: There's a Catalogue to Fit Your Whim

Skim right past the Chanel totes and Alexander McQueen leggings, and head to the "Wow!" section, containing not gifts for the person who has everything, but gifts for the person who has gone so far beyond everything that they have moved onto anything, anything at all that exists in this galaxy or those nearby.

For example, the "Jack Nicklaus Custom Backyard Golf Course," in which the Golden Bear will design you three holes, then play a round with you, then charge you $1 million. Construction and prep costs not included. Other possibilities include an Irish bar in your home, or 530 square yards of fandom in the form of a Dallas Cowboys end zone installed in your back yard.

Buy . . . "Unbridled Passion: Horsepowered Holiday." This is where Neiman Marcus buys you 12 to 15 Thoroughbreds and the staff to race them for four years. "Design your own silks," ad copy suggests. "Give quotes to the media." All this for $10 million, which is ironic because the people with that kind of money usually pay to keep the press away.

If you want to feel . . . first pious and benevolent, then kind of let down.

Flip through . . . Heifer International.

Mild-looking llamas and chicks going chee-eep, cute kids and mamas, and fluffy white shee-eep. . . . It's the missing verse of "My Favorite Things"! No! It's the photographs from Heifer, which subtitles itself as "The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World." In the name of a loved one, buy a milk-producing goat for a family in Kenya. Buy a hive of bees for some Armenian orphans. Go hog wild: Get the "Gift Ark" package, which comes with everything from guinea pigs to oxen and camels.

Just be aware that if you purchase a Heifer gift for a friend, you might hear: (a) "A family in Thailand now has a water buffalo because of me? That's . . . awesome"; or (b) "Heifer, huh? Are you saying I'm some kind of fatso?"

Buy . . . The "Joy to the World Collection." Two sheep, four goats, one heifer, two llamas. So much livestock, so much festivity, all for only $1,500, or $150 a share.