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

By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 29, 2008

The Christmas catalogue's days are almost certainly numbered. Dead-tree mass mailings are moot when everyone's Amazon 1-Clicking their holiday presents. Already, most circulars are available online. Neiman Marcus's can be viewed free this way; if you want the paper version, it now costs $15, shipping and handling included -- paying for the privilege of spending.

But there's something about the glossy heft of the original that is so soothing and seasonal. Something about the useless abundance of the contents that makes it feel like Christmases of yore, back when we were up for buying a little useless, back before we were broke, back in Christmas 2007.

This holiday season, we stuck with paper and found a catalogue for every mood. Then we perused, so you didn't have to.

If you want to feel . . . proud of America, and all that it has to offer.

Flip through . . . "Gifts You Never Knew Existed."

Reading like the reject pile from SkyMall, this is where you find everything from a "remote control beer pager" ($19.98) to a 22-inch "museum-quality" Indiana Jones statue ($109.98). Question: Can something be described as "museum-quality" if the only collection it fits with is the set of "Sanford and Son"?

Buy . . . The "World's Largest Bra," which is "over 3 feet wide" and costs $18.98. If you pair it with the "World's Largest Briefs" or the "Big Mama Panties " featured a few pages later, for $17.98 each, you can take that show on the road.

If you want to feel . . . Everything Will Be Okay.

Flip through . . . Lands' End.

Buy . . . Fleece. Or sweaters.

If you want to feel . . . Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy la la red rum red rum la la la la.

Flip through . . . Bronner's Christmas Favorites.

Located in a stadium-size Michigan store, Bronner's is the kind of all-Christmas all-the-time experience that takes a very special personality to appreciate. The catalogue version contains yer basic angel/harps/bells/hospital scrubs/gherkin pickles/beer-stein ornaments. And then it also has some weird stuff.

Like . . . cellphone ornaments. Digital-camera ornaments. Half-eaten peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich ornaments. How about this one, on Page 43: a molar wearing a Santa hat ($16.99)? "All I want for Christmas is one shiny tooth," ad copy reads. Now that's just sad.

Buy . . . The "Legend of Bigfoot" ornament for $8.99. Because . . . just, because.

If you want to feel . . . an exciting blend of envious, repulsed and baffled.

Flip through . . . Neiman Marcus's "Christmas Book."

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.