[Miles O'brien, Cnn Anchor:] The Christmas crunch is definitely on now. Santa's helpers have only today and tomorrow to wrap up their shopping. Let's see how the shopping day is shaping up. Easy for me to say, I guess. In the Big Apple, the shopping day is shaping up well. CNN's Deborah Feyerick, I guess you could say she drew the short straw on assignments today. Deborah, are you you doing OK out there?
[Deborah Feyerick, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, you could definitely say that. It's a little brisk out here. You can see 5th Avenue is decked out in all its glory. You've got wreaths on the lampposts, and the Plaza Hotel also decked out. Bergdorf Goodman just across the street I don't know if you can make it out there are more than a hundred wreaths on that one building alone. All the windows have a lot of great displays in them. This is a very busy area, and shopping shoppers are hoping to come out and buy a couple of last-minute Christmas gifts, but the stores are really banking on today because of the long weekend. It means more time for people to be out buying. It also means good news for the stores themselves because, right now, sales have been a bit slow. We spoke to one man who is the head of the International Shopping Center. He was off on his way to Christmas, so we na we snagged him yesterday before he went off on his trip.
[International Shopping Center Manager:] We've got two extra days this year, and that's going to make a tremendous difference for consumers. Everybody's out right now, and there's going to be an extreme amount of delayed shopping going on this week.
[Feyerick:] Now hot on the list this year are DVDs, electronics, CDs, books, and temperatures are actually going to be helping the situation today. It is so cold out here that the only place to be is inside shopping, looking at things, getting things on sale. This area will be packed. You may even be able to hear some of the music just behind me, and if Carl will swing around this is FAO Schwarz, the famous FAO Schwarz. This place will be filled with children, with parents. It's just a lot of fun to come here. You can see one boy already getting his picture taken. And we're going to take you inside in the next hour Miles.
[O'brien:] Oh, Deborah said inside with a little glint in her voice. Nice and warm in there. And we hope to see you in there very soon before you turn into a Popsicle. And for those of you who are oh, Deborah, have you done your shopping? Have you done all your shopping?
[Feyerick:] Yes. I'm pretty good. I haven't sent my cards out yet but have gotten gifts well, I've gotten most gifts, not...
[O'brien:] Yeah. I'm kind of loose on the cards...
[Feyerick:] I've gotten some gifts.
[O'brien:] ... and I need time during the before the millennium or so. All right.
[Feyerick:] There you go.
[O'brien:] Well, for those for those of you in search of that perfect last-minute gift, we've got some help for you. If you're like me, you're probably thinking you can go maybe to the pharmacy and buy a shower head or something. But Dennis McCafferty is an editor at the "USA Weekend" magazine, and he joins us from Washington with some more creative tips, shall we say. Dennis, thanks for being with us.
[Dennis Mccafferty, "usa Weekend":] Thanks for having me.
[O'brien:] All right. You're in a bind at this point if you haven't done your shopping.
[Mccafferty:] Absolutely.
[O'brien:] The pharmacy is limited. What what should one do at this point? The Internet is out, right? It's too late to get anything shipped. What can you do?
[Mccafferty:] It very well could have been too late a month ago.
[O'brien:] Yeah. Exactly. What should we do?
[Mccafferty:] Well, the key is that you need to make the last- minute gift not look like a last-minute gift. Anybody can buy fine food, for example, any time. You can go to the local gourmet grocery and pick up a fine box of clementines and some gourmet coffee. But what you want to do is add a little creatively, add a little pizzazz. Take that gift, and put it in a hiding place in the house somewhere, and then tie a string to it, and then lead the string throughout the house, weave it around the house, and then connect the other end of the string to the person your significant other's bedpost with a note saying, "Follow the string anywhere for a nice breakfast this morning on Christmas morning," and...
[O'brien:] So that that would be that would be a gift with a string attached then. Yeah.
[Mccafferty:] That's true, but it's a fun gift. It shows that you put some creativity into it. And when they find the gift at the end of the string, then you also include with it, "And here's a year's supply of fruit-of-the-month from Harry & David's," or "a year's supply of gourmet coffee from Starbucks," and then it makes it seem as if you put in a lot of thought into what was really a last-minute gift, and it will be a gift that will give throughout the year.
[O'brien:] All right. Of course, your significant other might catch on to all this and realize you hadn't done anything about this. So what what about, let's say, offering up your time? That's always a nice gift, assuming you follow through.
[Mccafferty:] Absolutely. The gift of time is a wonderful thing when it comes to kids. My brother, for example, is building a backyard pond with his son, my nephew. My brother has a great interest in landscaping. My son has a my nephew has a great interest in marine life. So this is a way to combine their interests, to bond together, and have the gift of time, and then they'll end up with a great pond in their backyard when they're done.
[O'brien:] Of course and that is something that's kind of hard to start when they're the ground is kind of frozen, so it is something that...
[Mccafferty:] Well, yeah. It's obviously, this would be more of an IOU sort of gift.
[O'brien:] Right. Any other thoughts for to make it look like you've been thinking when you really haven't?
[Mccafferty:] Well, yes. There's always the gift of travel. My wife and I, for example, just got back from New York City for an anniversary gift that I gave to her for two days and two nights in New York City. You can do the same for a ski resort weekend, for the beach. I think the main point here is is that you need to, again, put some creativity, put some thought into it, so it doesn't seem as if you did it the last minute. If you take all the logistical planning off of your gift recipient's list, you do all the planning, you book all the restaurants, you do all the travel arrangements, I think that is more of a gift to them when all they need to do is be there when the taxi arrives and then whisk them off to wherever you're going to send them.
[O'brien:] All right. Dennis McCafferty, thank you very much. It is...
[Mccafferty:] Thank you.
[O'brien:] ... the 11th hour, but Dennis has proven that it isn't too late to look fairly respectable when it comes to the gift-giving opportunities. Thanks for being with us.