I must ashamedly tell you…I'm a gift klutz.  No, I don't stumble and break them before giving.  Whenever it is gift-giving time, it just takes me an extremely long time to move beyond the decision stage.  I don't know why my ideas seem to me to lack any originality.  My solution, as you may have guessed by this time, is the Internet.

The web has plenty of both traditional and non-traditional present ideas  Now I realize that everyone is out to make a buck, but that doesn't bother me in the least.  I'd actually be willing to pay someone just to make the decision for me, so why not buy their products if they can come up with good ideas.  In my country, that's the patriotic way to look at it!

Is there anyplace other than the online world where I might be inspired to get my mother a New York cheesecake in place of the tin of cookies I sent year after year?  Yes, I am clever enough that now I figured out on my own that I can even radically change to a different cheesecake flavor!

My sister-in-law has my same decision making problem.  She went online and discovered a jewelry idea for her aunt (on the good side of the family–not mine).  While it turned out well for her, it made me jealous!

You can find gift ideas by searching for age groups, say teenagers (with whom I most the most trouble) and children.  You can also use a search engine to find articles recommending gifts of all the gift giving occasions from Bat Mitzvahs or Easter, birthdays to graduations, or even what I lovingly refer to as the "Hallmark holidays," such as Valentine's Day or Sweetest Day or take your terrier to work day.  If you already have the beginnings of an idea, which is already one step ahead of me, you can conduct a search for a product category.  You might be inventive enough to know that you want to buy Cousin Martha a scarf, so you can check out which ones are most popular or unique or are the greenest.  You might know that you want to buy your neighbor some accessory for his newly restored 1957 Chevy convertible.  You can actually search for that sort of thing.  The possibilities are mind boggling for me, of course so is a toaster.

Indeed, there are entire websites created for gift klutzes just like me where people publish ideas.  Apparently they have so many ideas they can afford to share them.  If you have any great gift ideas, please put them online so that I can find them or you could just send the item directly to me and I'll forward it to my favorite recipient.  Thanks, in advance.