Use our favorite sites to click your way to a better, easier holiday

Santa has his reindeer, you have the Internet. True, our favorite holiday Web sites are deficient in the area of Christmas Eve aeronautics, but they're a surprisingly good stand-in for Rudolph and friends. They inspire us when the season is fresh, support us in the crunch, and make delivering great gifts and parties a cinch. Could a reindeer help you spruce up the bathroom before the in-laws arrive? Who knows? Maybe you're getting the better end of the deal.

Gifts

Wineenthusiast.com: Sometimes a bottle of wine says everything. Sometimes it says very, very little. Either way, it can be the ideal gift. Check out this great all-around source for giving and receiving, a favorite of food and wine critic Bill Daley.

Landsend.com: They're baaaack! The pretty little Peppermint Crunch Cookies, perfectly packaged in a cheery retro box. A great gift when you're clueless, harried or both.

Youngexplorers.com: A lot of award-winning toys cleverly organized according to narrow age ranges. Among our favorites: the wood blocks that allow you to build a wide range of marble runs ("A Maze and Marbles," $64.95).

Amazon.com: These days, Amazon is the Web equivalent of one-stop shopping — you could do all of your holiday shopping here. But we still love to use them for sending our favorite gift: books. If you know a few of your recipients' favorites, the site will help you choose by telling you what fans of a given book are also buying. Or, for great advice on the perfect book for a kid, try scholastic.com, where the "Parents" section has oodles of reading lists, some themed, all age appropriate.

Moma.org: Tons of stylish options. We're swooning over the MoMA Store's Margrethe Prep Bowls (four for $20), the ceramic version of the classic New York diner coffee cup ($14) and the half-pint creamer ($14), which re-imagines the pint-size milk carton in clear glass.

Kioskkiosk.com: This darling of design bloggers is a great source for off-the-beaten path stocking stuffers and gifts, from a Portuguese plumb line to German colored pencils.

Pearlriver.com: Another mother lode of interesting stocking stuffers and gifts. We love those wooden puzzles and the robots in the novelties section.

Giftgenius.com: If you're lacking in the idea department, this site has a fun search feature that lets you choose an occasion and recipient, then customize your list of gift ideas by adjusting "Attributes." Factor in how trendy, lighthearted or mainstream your recipient is and come up with tailor-made suggestions.