What kind of device are you reading this on? That's right-it's the electronic revolution, and it's transforming Christmas into a virtual holiday. Here is a small sampling of the imaginative new "products" that Internet pioneers have come up with to make your hearts--and pockets--lighter this holiday season:
*E-Blab, the innovative cybergifter, is offering a "Holi-Pak" of fifty assorted pre-bookmarked blogs on the recipient's favorite subjects, virtually gift-wrapped with a free screensaver photo of a favorite pet, celebrity, or Swiss summer- meadow/winter-mountain scene (please specify).
*Santa's Cobbler Shoppe is the exciting new interactive Website that explains, via animated step-by-step instructions with voice coaching by board-certified cobblers, how to re-sole, re-heel, re-line -- in brief, how to rebuild and restore your spouse's or other loved one's favorite worn-out footwear to as-new condition in time for gala seasonal activities. Just slip their favorite beat-up shoes out of the shoe caddy after they've gone to bed, get to the PC or Mac with glues, nails, awl, rubber cement, soles, and heels, shoe polish, and buffing wheel at the ready, and hit www.Santascobblershop.com.You should have a surefire surprise Holiday gift by morning. And there's no bill to foot!
* Here's a pioneering Yuletide gift sensation-- "Sno-Tacular!" Order before 7 pm on Christmas Eve (important: include precise GPS co-ordinates!), then gather with the whole gang to watch on the live streaming Internet Sno-Tacular Channel as a giant drone transport plane high overhead drops up to three tons of pure, fine-grain Santa-approved snow for a direct hit on the roof and lawn of the lucky recipients' house. If they didn't know it was Christmas before, they will now!
* Sentimental? It's Holiday time--you're entitled! That's why www.magicalmemorialtour.com lets you indulge that nostalgia to the full with a custom-shot, heart-stopping personalized cybervisit to the graves of any bakers' dozen of deceased relatives, friends, or business associates. Professional camerawork, lingering pauses at every site, all reverent all the time. Tasteful soundtrack to the music of Michael Jackson's last album - after all, he's just as dead.
*Finally, if by any remote chance you've had your fill of all this and want a real fire in a real space with real hot cider and a hand-knitted sweater for a present, there's blankscreen.com. Just go to the site, click on the "E-nough!" button, and your computer will go dark, with no access allowed, for twenty-four hours.
Bruce McCall is a New York artist and writer whose work frequently appears in the New Yorker and Vanity Fair.
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