So you’ve fished a crumpled piece of paper out of some basket that contains the random names of co-workers/distant relatives in a huge family, and now you have to identify a perfect gift for them. Or, maybe you’re a little clueless about good ideas for people you do actually know, and have been reduced to walking in zigzags around Target to see what you can knock off of a shelf and into your basket. You’re not Santa, and that’s ok.

If you’ve seen all the iTunes commercials, clicked the online music blogs or read the local headlines about a major music retailer closing, then you got word: CDs are dead.

Everyone’s going digital these days, even Santa Claus. I’m not talking about an OnStar-equipped sleigh; I simply mean that he’s giving out digital presents this year, no more hula-hoops or planes that loop the loop. Cell phones, iPods and digital cameras are the “in” goods this year.

We thought 2001 was a bad year for the arts. Following 9/11, New York State’s Council on the Arts cut its budget by $4.4 million. Then the city cut all of its funding ($1 million) for local cultural organizations. Around the same time, Erie County scaled back its funding by almost half a million dollars. All the fat had to be trimmed—staffs were cut, raises and bonuses (in the few orgs where they existed) were frozen, programming was reduced.

While fanatics from the left and right battle over politically correct ways to observe Christmas, one thing that continues to evoke warm sentimentality in all are the childhood memories of watching timeless holiday characters bring the spirit of the season to life on the small screen. For nearly four decades, the claymation of Rankin Bass and the pre-hip-hop rhymes of Dr. Seuss have delighted children of all ages and nationalities. As we have grown, we continue to think of these beloved characters as ageless, but alas, they have aged as well. Where are they now? What has happened to their dreams and aspirations?

Remember how disappointed you were after feverishly unwrapping that much-anticipated gift only to find a pack of tube socks? Do yourself a favor—don’t be that gift-giver. Chuck conventionality, say adios to appropriateness and go weird this holiday season. Buffalo has everything from the freaky to the funky, the kooky to the kinky, the screwy to the spooky, and the unearthly to the uncanny. Put an atypical touch on the holiday season with one of our area’s richest natural resources: the peculiar, the odd, and most of all, the weird.

Kreepy Dolls, created by Buffalo artists Dan Baxter and Jeffrey Vincent, seem committed to scaring your children, but would make a terrific gift for anyone with a funky aesthetic and a sense of humor. Now on sale at the new Kepa3 gallery (31 Barker St.), they are, as original art, reasonably priced (between $60 and $300). The dolls fill a total of seven walls of the gallery, and are also hanging from the ceiling. Remnants of cloth and odd household objects roughly stitched together give these soft sculptures an air of the semi-homeless. The exhibit, titled “Free the Dolls – a Kreepy Doll Factory Show,” is definitely a highlight in what the holiday exhibitions (actually, the whole year) have to offer.

Celebrate the darker side of these long winter nights. If Tim Burton can do it, insists Rotten Jack’s Creep Shack (5821 Transit Road, 681-7818), so can we. Jack Skellington fans no longer have to skulk around in the shadows, since the appropriately named Depew store stocks plenty of eerie yet endearing Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise. Fans of the movie’s stick-figure star will most certainly be chilled and thrilled to find an assortment of “Jack Head Ornaments” ($16), Jack Night Light ($6) and Jack plush toys ($15-$22) in their stockings. The Creep Shack also carries clothing and other crepuscluar collectibles from the 1993 hit film. If you want to decorate for Christmas with an NMBC theme, the “Santa Jack Mini-Bust” ($30) or NMBC Christmas Tree ($60) is sure to put a ghoulish grin on guests’ faces. Of course, spooks of all kinds would appreciate a gift certificate for masks, makeup, costumes, props and body parts at this year-round homage to Halloween. If you’re too scared to head out into the snow, shop online at www.happyhauntings.com.

Remember the thrill you felt when you ripped open the box on Christmas morning and found, to your indescribable joy, that there really was a Santa Claus? He finally heard your pleas for the toy that you wanted more than anything else in the world. Maybe you were heartbroken because you never got it. Or your parents tried to chince out and got you some stupid bootleg knockoff. Everybody knows a real Barbie didn’t have nipples, and cowboys did not ride cows for cryin’ out loud!

Hanukkah, Jews know, isn’t a major holiday compared to Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important to children or fun for adults, who long for a joyful, guilt-free holiday after the emotionally draining High Holy Days.

Gift-buying for a significant other can be a painful and difficult process. While you might be able to get away with getting mom a toaster and some oven mitts this holiday season, slacking on a gift for your better half could be relationship suicide.

Got a real movie buff on your gift list—the kind who’s always going on about how the movies that you and everyone else you know watch are worthless Hollywood crap? (Kind of like what my family has to deal with.) DVDs aren’t always the best idea; do you really want to run the risk of buying them something they’re likely to sneer at behind your back after struggling to look grateful to your face?

Coffee has a history of being a particularly nasty crop. Pesticides used in commercial coffee cultivation poison both agricultural workers and communities. Tropical rainforests are often destroyed for coffee plantations, where rains eventually wash away topsoil, leaving once lush land eroded. And peasants that pick coffee are often among the most exploited on the planet.

DVDs are a tempting item for that last-minute Secret Santa gift, or as a stocking stuffer when you feel like your significant other has outspent you (oh, the wily ways of capitalism!). The drawback is that they’re cheap enough that the giftee may have already gone and purchased his or her own copy. But if you must, here are some suggestions for that most easy to wrap item, categorized by recipient type. Prices quoted are suggested retail, but you can usually get them for less:

Consumer batteries are a major source of toxic wastes in our society, leaching heavy metals such as mercury, cadmium, lead and nickel into the environment through landfills, and into our air and lakes through incineration. Though batteries seem small, when you add up the over three billion batteries per year that the EPA estimates Americans use, we’re dealing with a major toxic waste situation.

Scantily-clad magazine cut-outs shamelessly decorate the walls, and it looks like a grenade went of in the closet, blasting clothes across the room. And then there’s that unidentifiable, eye-watering odor—like a carcass of a large mammal.

With Christmas shopping in high gear, the gift of Sabres tickets might be a possibility on your list. And buying those tickets is as easy as stopping by the arena box office, any Tops location, picking up the phone or going online.