Here are some holiday gifts from a real website that are actually for sale! Put your good taste aside and get out your checkbook:

JESUS ACTION FIGURE $34.95
Herobuilders.com of Connecticut, USA, have announced the addition of a new hero to their ranks of action dolls – "the ONLY real hero," in fact. Standing fully 12" tall, the Jesus Christ Action Figure comes with an optional microchip, which enables him to declaim the 10 Commandments in the sort of American accent you hear on the movie trailers. Listen to him.

BOBBLE HEAD MARY $18.95
The BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) meets the BHM (Bobble Head Mary) in one of this year's Most Highly Favoured Kitschmas gifts. Immaculately styled and standing a queenly 8 inches tall, Bobble Head Mary is ready to give her approving nod to all aspects of the Christmas story.

GLOW GRAVE CALL FOR PRICE
"O dark, dark dark," moaned poet TS Eliot. "They all go into the dark."

Well, not any more! Now, your going hence can be every bit as bright as your coming hither with the Glow Grave. Give your loved ones a space-age resting place, all stainless steel, microchips and light pollution, and prevent satanists scraping their shins as they cavort in midnight cemeteries.

Best of all, instead of an epigraph carved in stone, it's on an LED display. This, the Austrian makers explain, means that "the text can be always modified over a PC interface and be adapted to a certain extent to the needs of the dead one". How exactly the dead are supposed to communicate their changing needs is left to the imagination.

JESUS ASHTRAY $12.00
Maybe you've tried everything. Hypnosis, nicotine patches, ultra-ultra lights, coughing in tongues. Well, how about the ultimate aversion therapy? Just gaze into the bearded face and tear-rimmed eyes of the one who has been successfully inducing guilt for centuries. And pray the Penitent Smoker's Prayer.

Oh darn, the don't carry the Infant Jesus refrigerator magnets any more. What is one to do?

Hah. A glowing grave. I bet plenty of graveyards will not allow such things. However, if you think these gifts are tasteless, you haven't seen anything. I can't explain further on a family site. Suffice to say, the company is based in San Francisco.

Last year this company (GadgetsForGod.com) offered a talking headstone. The deceased recorded a welcome that was inserted into the headstone upon death, and the mechanism was hooked up to a motion detector so that when someone approached, the deceased's voice welcomed them to the grave.

My goose-bumps still haven't disappeared! Can you imagine?

That is just too creepy for words, versailles! I would probably have a heart attack if I heard it and didn't know about it ahead of time!

i have never heard of the talking headstone, but it could be nice, i think...it's really just the modern equivalent of tombstone engravings, which have been around for millenia. only instead of READING something like

"Reader
Death is a debt to Nature due,
As I have paid it so must you."

you'll hear it. why not?

(i don't, however, think it would be a nifty Christmas gift. jewelry. that's a good gift.)

*deedee*

Gadgets for God is not big on jewelry, alas, but here are a few items for you to consider:

HOLY FAMILY WATCH
Go on, admit it! With your WWJD bracelet on one wrist, your other wrist was looking strangely empty, bereft of holy hardware. Which is why the Holy Family Watch is such a boon – and it also represents such good value for money. Not just one, not just two, but no less than four holy persons look out at you from the watch: Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the Holy Spirit as a dove zooming in from 12 o'clock.

Produced by JMJ Products, this watch makes you think differently about time, too. The watch face has no numbers, and so before you know it, you'll be thinking in sacred time. 'What time is it?' someone will ask you. 'Oh, it's quarter to Mary,' you'll say. Or: 'It's half past Jesus.' One size fits all, and the introductory price is just $24.95.

REPENT WATCH
Our Mormon brethren are, as ever, leading the way with this tastefully designed item of youth wristwear. Produced by Latter-Day Specialities, the 'Repent: Tough on Sins' timepiece serves as a constant reminder of an oft-neglected biblical truth: that whatever time it is, it is always time to repent.

This point is reinforced by the fact that the watch... er... appears to have no hands. Only $38, available in screamingly large size only.

That's about it in jewelry. Could I interest you in the Holy Odor Eaters or Sacred Frisbee?

I think that I will stick with my Cartier and a faux Rolex!

Do people actually BUY this stuff? Whoops, I almost said junk.

It seems that the manufacturers of this stuff do a ggod busines. You can look at the total inventory at:

http://ship-of-fools.com/Gadgets/Gadgets_body.html

Happy Shopping!

Rich