Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving weekend usually goes its merry way without me. What I do on the day after Thanksgiving is go back to work. Many businesses have six holidays, and the Friday following Thanksgiving isn't one of them. Christmas and New Year's Day come soon, so I don't mind. One advantage is that right after Thanksgiving most offices are less crowded and more relaxed than stores.

This year, however, I did join the Christmas shoppers briefly on the big weekend. It was an afterthought, and I waited until Saturday night. It wasn't that I made a special trip to a special shopping place. It's just that I had a list of Christmas suggestions along on my usual weekend stops.

That was thanks to my mom, but the gift suggestions weren’t for her. She'd given me a few ideas for herself earlier. She likes to get things done ahead of time. After Thanksgiving dinner, for example, she showed me boxes of Christmas cookies stacked up in the freezer and her draft of a Christmas letter waiting in the computer.

Besides being early, she's good at asking questions, so she'd been working on that before I arrived for Thanksgiving. She had notes on my brother's gift suggestions and specifications all lined up for the next step, which is my part. I act as a purchasing agent for some items. Then she writes me a check for the things I buy for her to give to someone else.

In this case, most of the Christmas suggestions led to the men's clothing department. I seldom set foot on the male side of the aisle and felt distinctly out of place looking around in that area. I didn't know exactly where to find even such standard items such as pajamas, gloves and socks.

Last year, gift ideas for the same person included gender-neutral merchandise such as towels. That department felt more like home to me.

Undoubtedly many Christmas shoppers, as well as people just shopping for their own needs, are looking for gloves, warm pajamas and flannel shirts at this time of year. Those items were close to the main aisle. The socks were nearby. The long underwear was there, too, but it was heavy on polyester — 40 percent, in fact — and cotton was a fundamental requirement for all the clothing on the list. Conveniently, the suggested price total was about right without the long underwear.

Black was specified for the gloves and socks, so the only big decisions I had to make were color choices for pajamas and shirts. I chose pajamas similar to the person's car color. Since they're worn primarily with eyes closed, I figured it wouldn't matter too much anyway. For shirts, the notes provided guidance by mentioning that the person usually wears black or navy slacks. Keeping that in mind, I picked what I liked, since the prospective wearer wasn't there to indicate a preference.

Pleased to have the shopping list taken care of so quickly, I remembered that there had been a separate request earlier. "The one store that had had the humidifier filter the last few years didn't have it this year," the letter said.

With the part number and size written down, I tried one store the next afternoon and left with a successful purchase within minutes. What was hard for someone in the Chicago area to find was no problem in Lincoln.

Christmas shopping should always go so well.

If prearranged gift suggestions like that appear to eliminate the element of surprise, creative packaging can help, and with lists handled early enough, there's time for people to forget what they suggested. I think the chances of gift satisfaction are higher and the need for returning purchases is lower when desires are spelled out at the beginning. Also, no rule says the givers can't select other presents.

If it sounds as though it would be just as well to skip family exchanges of practical gifts and let everyone buy for their own needs, I don't agree. Trading shopping lists with someone else is an interesting challenge. More than that, it’s a worthwhile process. I come to that conclusion again whenever I make an unaccustomed, atypical purchase because of a gift suggestion. Gift shopping won’t change the world into an unselfish place, but it’s one way to make us think of what other people like and want, to widen our interests, even to find out what's on the other side of the aisle.

And if humidifier filters don't bring a sparkle to your eyes, it could be that the air in your home is too dry.