You can get a ready-to-mail shirt at the post office.

On top of that, you have Christo-mall-o-phobia. You think it should be spelled "M-A-U-L." You are dead.

Nah. Butt-head, maybe, but not dead. Take these last few hours and adopt the two-birds-with-one-stone philosophy of shopping. Don't go to the store to buy gifts. Instead, pick up gifts at places you have to go anyway. Get it? It can be done.

Don't expect bargains, since you'll be avoiding discount stores and the like. But then, when you're running this late, you have no right to cheapness.

Toss a cute plush toy doll like this gingerbread boy into
the shopping cart while picking up bread and milk at Safeway.

The only trick is to avoid gifts that look like they came from a supermarket. This pretty much leaves out the potted pines with the twist-on ornaments.

You'd be in the right area, though. Unique gift items are often tucked away near the floral displays or the customer-service counter.

Safeway has classy plush toys for $12.99 and wonderfully whimsical children's umbrellas with wooden animal heads for handles, $7.99.

All supermarkets nowadays are well-outfitted with gift ideas, from specialty boxes of booze to videotapes.

And, of course there's food. Consider a fine bottle of wine or olive oil, maybe some gourmet cookies or imported jams.

The nice thing about last-minute shopping is you can buy perishables.

Yeah, show up at Mom's with a hunk of ham and a gallon of ice cream. There's a gift from the heart.

Gas stations offer movie tickets and phone cards.

Make the gas pump your last stop on Christmas Eve. You can also grab the batteries you forgot and little things like snack food to fill up those stockings. Many gas stations also sell doo-dads for dashboards and cheap toys.

Picture-frame ornaments are an easy buy at Fox Photo and
you can pick up film for holiday photos at the same time.

Picture frames also abound here. Fox Photo offers ornaments that look like gingerbread cookies, with a place to slip in a picture of your cute kid or dog. A pack of three goes for $9.99.

At the post office, special stamps, like these Year of the Rat
examples are available along with a surprising
amount of other merchandise.

Selection varies by the size of the branch, but at minimum expect a selection of commemorative stamps, packaged with material that can be seriously educational or light-hearted fun.

For a child born this lunar year, consider Year of the Rat stamps mounted on cards that protect them while teaching about the Chinese zodiac. Just $2, but by the time the kid's 12, maybe they'll be worth something.

The post office also has a line of merchandise featuring stamp motifs, including stationary, woven blankets, even T-shirts ($15.95) that come in boxes ready for mailing. You could pick one up and address the box while standing in line. It won't get there by Christmas, but at this point it's the date on the postmark that counts.

Keep this place in mind year round for last-minute gifts. There's gift wrap and ribbon here, and all manner of packing materials, including FREE Priority Mail envelopes and boxes. Shop, pack and mail, all in one fell swoop.

This umbrella from Safeway has
a wooden duck head for a handle.

Eating out? Restaurant certificates - even for fast-food joints - are well-appreciated by busy families. Also consider restaurant souvenir merchandise, usually T-shirts, but sometimes bottles of house dressings and sauces.

Pick up gift certificates when you shop for groceries, rent videos or go to the movies. Consolidated Theatres offer $20 books of certificates. The Wallace Theatre chain sells smaller denominations as well.

A trip to the 7-Eleven yielded
a kid-perfect M&Ms dispenser.

You can get batteries and booze here, but also some legitimate gifts: Timex watches, for example, children's videos, plush toys and an extremely cool automated M&Ms dispenser ($4.50).

And don't forget phone cards. At 7-Eleven, they bear Christmas and New Year designs. Eminently practical gifts that start at $10.99.