This Christmas you can set your thumbs atingle, hear chimes with no wind, or make your wallet beep without imbibing too much at your local pub.

Unusual gifts are available at several local shops, as well as through specific Internet sites. Kopel's "Beeping Wallet," for instance, is not to be had yet at Atlanta area department stores but can be ordered. The leather wallet in several styles is designed to "beep" when you have removed a credit card, and not shut up until you put it back.

The site is www.beepingwallet.com.

Gayle Johnson, owner of Luna Tunes in Fayetteville, said that "solar chimes" are very popular this year. Just place them on a windowsill or under a lamp and presto, instant "wind chime" sounds to relax you. For something this unusual, she said, $70 is not a bad price.

You can also wake up your favorite golfer with an alarm clock that features a real woody on top. Best of all, Johnson said, the alarm is "the sound of the crowd cheering for your hole-in-one." The clock goes for $180.

Before you tingle your thumbs with special massaging covers, try "Fizz-Mo" bath tablets. The skin-softening tablets come in eight scents, for around $3 each, said Diana Surratt of One Magnolia Place in Peachtree City. The "Thumb-ease," she said, come in versions for hands and feet, too.

For a truly unique present for your favorite cook, visit the past Surratt has replica sets of the 1930's "Feather Creek" cookie cutters. She said "they're favorites of the professionals."

If your sweetie is not really difficult to please, just difficult to fit, look to Fayette's mainstay clothier since 1965, Smith & Davis. Tall skinny people can find jeans there, and the overalls go up to size 60, said Tony Davis. The shop also has a number of "accessory-type items" that are new for this year, he added.

Gifts for the truly weird can be found at World of Science in Southlake Mall. If you've ever wanted to look at the world through a dragonfly's eyes or make jewelry out of paper, that's the place.

Traditionalists will love Main Street Fayetteville's 1998 keepsake ornament the old train depot. Just 1,200 will be sold at $12 each at Heart of Country, Miss Minnie's Cottage, Erickson's Jewelers or the Fayette Heritage Project, located in Suite 100 of the Fayette County Administrative Complex.

For those seeking more meaningful gifts, call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE to be a Red Cross holiday blood donor. The need for blood goes up during the holiday season, Red Cross spokespersons said, and your gift "involves very little wrapping only a small bandage."

Easter Seal of North Georgia also helps its campaign against lung disease with ornament sales. "Baseball Then and Now" ($30) highlights both old and new Atlanta stadiums, while "Between the Hedges" features Uga and a football player ($15).

For a needed laugh during the holiday shopping frenzy, imagine this: January gets very noisy when they invent the wallets that beep when there's no money in them.

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