Ah, Christmas. The time when you see the glittering jewels of the consumer world around you, chirping Buy Me! with such terribly convincing voices. Finally, you cannot stand it any longer and give in to the temptation by rushing the nearest electronics store, throwing them your wallet,and screaming Satisfy my Desire! to the pimple-faced worker behind the counter. To which he replies, Sorry, you don't have any money. And at that exact time you realize that it's the holidays. Which means you don't have any money. None at all. And you just ran out of gas. And it's forty below.

So, what to do. You could steal a Santa suit and kettel, earning back your money nickel by nickel. Or you could just stay a bit and see the gee-whiz-neat-o things that would thoroughly complete your life. Like a CD Recorder. You don't need a CD Recorder, and you know this. But it's so darn neat! Especially rewritable ones. Like the CD-RW 426 Deluxe. ($700 Street Price) Not only does it read and write CDs, it rewrites them too. Wow. But who needs CDs when you've got DVD. Buy a Panasonic DVD-A300. You know you just need 500 lines of resolution. It doesn't matter if your TV can show them, it's just nice to know they're there. The same for the 8 differnt languages you can show the captions in. Do you know 8 languages? If not, go for it anyway. You'll learn them.

And then there's the stuff that might actually be sort of useful. Like a digital camera. Everyone's getting one, and it will pay for itself in the film you save. And you won't need a slow old scanner when you've got a slow new camera for those picts! The one that caught my discerning eye was the Sony DSC-F1. It's a nice little camera with some nice features, like an LCD screen, a 640x480 resolution, and a low $499 list price. It's also Sony, and it's odd design catches peoples' attention. "What sort of camera is that?" makes for a common question. Then you can wow them with your expertise of the digital world and prove yourself their superiors, at least in the field of gee-whiz technology.

What else do you need? A new computer. Everyone needs a new computer. I don't care if you bought it last month, you need a new computer. At least you need this one. The 20th Anniversary Macintosh. I don't care if you're a Mac fan or not, the beauty and Bose sound system of this magnificent machine should call to your highly refined tastes. The outside of the machine is complemented by the new superfast G3 chip inside, backed by 32 MB of RAM and a 256k Level 2 cache. Add to this a special front-loading CD-ROM, leather palm rests, a big subwoofer, and no wires. Plus, Apple technicians actually deliver it to your house, setting it up and installing it for you in your home. Now that is luxury. Good thing it's only $7499 with delivery, $6750 without. Add on to this the wonderful powers of OS 8, (Street Price: $80) and you've got a lean, mean, web designing machine. Especially with the built-in Java support and new technologies like QuickDraw 3D and QuickTime VR.

For Windows users, there's a great new program for web designing, even if it is made by MS. FrontPage 98 is Microsoft's latest foray into the world of online publishing, and it's leaps and bounds ahead of any HTML editor before it, including FrontPage 97. It's loaded with features, from Java, JavaScript, and ActiveX controls, to great WYSIWYG layout and support for Dynamic HTML, Cascading style sheets, and Active Channels. List Price: $149, $59 for an upgrade. For Mac, there's FrontPage 1.0, soon to be 2.0 - also $149.

But even with FrontPage's ready-made themes, you will want to do some designing of your own. And there's no better way to get good at it than to learn from the experts. Like David Siegel. His new book, Creating Killer Web Sites: The Art of Third-Generation Site Design, is great. Don't forget the ever-eloquent graphics guru Linda Weinman. She's got a new book out too - Deconstructing Web Graphics All of her books are must-reads if you want to make worthwile graphics. Last but not least is the first design book from the HotWired team. Specifically, Jeffrey Veen. The title is HotWired Style, and it teaches the design theory that enables you to make glowing text and flashing graphics that actually look good. Prices: Creating Killer Web Sites: $45 Deconstructing Web Graphics: $44.99 HotWired Style: 32.95.

Last on this list of designing dreams is the amazing Wacom Drawing Tablet. Imagine if you didn't have to use a clumsy old mouse to make your graphics, if you could just draw them out with your everyday no-frills pencil. Well, Wacom's UltraPen is no ordinary pencil, but it does make this fantasy come true. The wireless, pressure-sensitive stylus simply glides along your pad, creating amazing hand-drawn graphics for your site with the greatest of ease. And the best thing is, you can find a 4x5 tablet and UltraPen for about $140. For those interested in the higher end of the spectrum, there's the PL-300 Display Tablet. It's actually an LCD monitor that you can draw on. Uh-huh. Pretty neat. Price: You don't even want to know.