Other gifts to avoid this year are clothing and gift certificates.

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As is the selection of children's books (perennial favorites like "Curious George, " "Madeline" and "The Giving Tree") at Burlap, the intriguing Cobble Hill clothing and gift shop.

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But the bottom line is that Kozmo's only advantage over hundreds of competing gift, clothing and electronic catalog retailers is that Kozmo can deliver in an hour.

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Elizabeth and her advisers organised expensive gift-giving of elaborate pieces of jewellery and exquisite articles of clothing, seeing to it that the gifts offered to her at the new year were, from year to year, increasingly extravagant, and increasingly matched to particular requirements for Elizabeth's court dress, communicated to the gift-giver well in advance.

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