Last minute shopping: A sport for the clever

Oh, Baby. Say it isn't so. Say you did not not not leave this shopping thing until now. Oh, my.

Alright, because I adore you, I am here to help (hopped up on a dose of caffeine so inadvisable and grotesque I hesitate to mention it lest you think my style has been taken prisoner by Starbucks - but no problem, hold me down, I've got you covered). Let's hope these fine retailers are nearby...


Kate Spade, Westbury Opus, at Nordstom, and on mark down.


L'Occitaine, Home Fragrance in Verbena and Rose, retail finder for the US and UK here.


I would love a really heavy throw. Ideally, it is in 6-ply heavy gauge cashmere. However, if I step out of Wonderland for a moment, Pottery Barn does a fine job of creating things under which one can nestle and nestling is something I believe in.
Pottery Barn, assorted throws


It's gorgeous and every home needs one, if not for it's actual purpose, then for a dozen others. Williams-Sonoma, The Martini Pitcher

Williams-Sonoma, Nespresso Automatic Espresso


Williams-Sonoma, Children's cookie and cake decorating set


Apple, iPod Touch


The Bolter, Frances Osbourne, available at Barnes and Noble; "Perhaps nothing is more seductive than the fascinated contemplation of distant shames." writes one reviewer of a granddaughter's biography of Idina Sackville's romp through men and Kenya. At the top of my read list...


The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Panuk, available at Barnes and Noble, "One of the trickier subjects in fiction is that of the hapless suitor, besotted with love, locked in a lifelong obsession with a woman he can neither leave nor have. Yet, for all the perils of that soupy scenario, great literature has come of it. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote memorably of just such a man in "The Great Gatsby"; William Styron, in "Sophie's Choice"; Gabriel García Márquez, in "Love in the Time of Cholera"; and Mario Vargas Llosa, in "The Bad Girl." Now, adding to those triumphant chronicles of the lovelorn, comes Orhan Pamuk's mesmeric new novel, "The Museum of Innocence." - Marie Arana for The Washington Post


The Imperial Cruise, A Secret History of Empire and War, James Bradley, available at Barnes and Noble. James Bradley, author of Flags of our Fathers, recalls the diplomatic mission that President Theodore Roosevelt sent Secretary of War, William Howard Taft on in 1905. Traveling across the Pacific, Bradley reports that Taft made 'secret and unconstitutional' agreements on Roosevelt's behalf that permitted Japanese expansion into the Philippines and Korea and denial of a once promised protection of Korea by the United States.


Nigella Christmas, Nigella Lawson, available at Barnes and Noble. I am certain Nigella needs no introduction...

Good luck in these last moments before the festivities begin, my hopes are with all of you for a fabulous holiday.