The Holiday Bizarre

All right, all you Social Climers out there--how many of you have even started your holiday shopping?

Hmmm. We thought so.

So once again, we’re coming to your rescue by keeping you abreast of the best and most bizarre gifts available.

How about a pair of 9-karat gold dress spurs, circa 1920? They come with a fitted case and are a mere $6,800 from A La Vieille Russie in New York City. We saw them in the New Yorker--the words “Must Have” at the top of the ad grabbed our attention.

We were going to scoop them up but decided we’d rather have 14-karat dress spurs. So much nicer.

Then we perused the Victorian Papers catalogue, becoming lost in the romantic objects of yesteryear--brocade pillows, crocheted gloves, biscuit boxes--when we happened on a couple of items that seemed not exactly true to the era.

One was a velvet cellular phone caddy with a satin strap. The other was a fanny pack made of an antique quilt and lace.

Back then, women did have fanny packs--only they called them bustles .

Do real men want to sleep on beautiful sheets? Of course they do, say the people at Bischoff of Switzerland, makers of 310-count, satin-finished, virgin Egyptian cotton bedding that starts at--are you sitting down?--$320 for a flat twin sheet.

Introducing a new Bischoff II line of embroidered, tailored linens at Shaxted of Beverly Hills this week, a company spokesman made particular mention of the fact that men do appreciate fine bedsheets, especially ones that aren’t froufroued up with ruffles and lace.

We happen to know he’s right. One male friend of Social Climes prefers sleeping in unbleached, untreated flannel sheets that can only be washed in soap that has no perfumes or dyes.

Wonder if he can also feel a pea under his mattress?

Read Me: We’ve seen people read everything while burning off calories on the StairMaster: magazines, books, newspapers, scripts, the ingredient list on a bottle of Carbo Load.

But we recently spotted one young woman with exceptionally eclectic tastes. For the first 15 minutes she read “Equations in Kinesiology,” underlining important passages in hot-pink highlighter pen.

Then she dumped that into her gym bag and pulled out a copy of W. Now that’s what we call a Renaissance woman.