There’s still time
to get some gadgets

But now the clock is ticking. We've just entered what is known in some Arctic Circles as Kris Kringle crunch time.

Beginning tomorrow, the festive small talk in line at the post office suddenly ends, and the exasperated sighing behind the old lady who needs each of her 144 Christmas cards individually weighed begins.

As we make this final turn toward the Dec. 25 finish line, the Holiday Spirit has a message for Digital Slobs and Respectable People alike -- it has no time for losers. Either you've got the goods all tightly wrapped with a matching bow and no tape showing, or you don't.

Don't cry about how society's shallow quest for materialistic perfectionism is ruining your holidays. Your neighbors adhere to it; Macy's' entire business model depends on it; Martha Stewart is serving time for it -- the least you can do is make sure Santa hits his mark at your house on queue.

But history teaches us not to buy just any high-tech gizmo thinking it will be a holiday panacea. After all, most of us now have more computing power in our junk drawers than was used on all the Apollo missions combined.

Yet there's precious little time, so here are three last-minute items you can, theoretically, pass off to an entire world of Digital Slobs and/or Respectable People.