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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Robyn Spizman

Aired December 15, 2001 - 09:53   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: 'Tis the season to be patriotic this holiday. I think we all realize that. It seems September 11 has changed the way people are decorating and what we all want to buy.

Robyn Spizman, author of "The Perfect Present," joins us with some patriotic gift ideas. Good morning.

ROBYN SPIZMAN, AUTHOR, "THE PERFECT PRESENT": Good morning, how are you?

PHILLIPS: We -- great. We of course this is -- we've all been talking about this all morning. Let's get right to it. You've got neat little gift ideas. You're going to tell us how to get them and where they are. Let's start...

SPIZMAN: Yes. Well, when I logged onto google.com this morning, there were 74,000-plus patriotic gifts.

PHILLIPS: Oh, my gosh.

SPIZMAN: We've narrowed it down to a few of the most popular, and we're going to start with Christopher Radko's Braveheart ornament for $34, this beautiful ornament is available at Macys.com. And these are very hard to find, and they're very collectible now, so this is something that you'll want to add to your tree. And a portion of the proceeds benefits the American Red Cross, very good cause, and again Macys.com, so you'll want to check this out.

PHILLIPS: And the -- the -- all these are pretty much collectibles, right? This set over here you have...

SPIZMAN: Yes, these are wonderful collectibles, Kyra, and what you're going to find with Jay Strongwater is, he creates some of the most collectible items, available at Nieman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, and these beautiful frames and treasures in little boxes and candles really are wonderful. And a percentage of these are donated to Save the Children's World Trade Center Fund. Jay Strongwater feels very strongly about this fund because the money really goes to help the victims of these families.

PHILLIPS: And these are both little friends right here, and then this is like a little charm box.

SPIZMAN: Yes, this little treasure box, and these are jewels, and they will be -- one day we'll look back on these and say these were the collectibles of our time.

PHILLIPS: Absolutely.

SPIZMAN: Absolutely.

PHILLIPS: All right, and the book, this...

SPIZMAN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: ... this is one of our favorite, Bill and I were thumbing through the book.

SPIZMAN: It's just beautiful, "Our New York," and the net proceeds benefit the Twin Towers Fund, which supports the victims' families. And this is from Tommy Hilfiger. And what he did with a well-known photographer is, they went around New York capturing American flags and moments across Manhattan and really captured the essence of the times.

And for $20, you can check out this book at tommy.com, and again, proceeds to go to benefit a very good cause, and that is the net proceeds, so it's a wonderful opportunity to give a beautiful book. It's very meaningful.

PHILLIPS: I like the CARE package idea.

SPIZMAN: Beautiful.

PHILLIPS: We can send this to our friends out on the ship, right?

SPIZMAN: We sure can, sailors, servicemen, you name it. This is military.com. And what I'm crazy about is, they teamed up with carepackages.com and then made all the arrangements so that the servicemen could get a package of goodies for around $20 plus shipping and handling. The USA Pride -- you can support our troops. You click on military.com, and they will ship out a package. You don't even have to know where it goes or to whom it goes, but it's going to go to a great cause. And some very, very well-deserving gentleman or woman's going to receive it and appreciate your kindness.

PHILLIPS: Wow, the cookie basket. We're going to start munching on that probably in about five minutes.

SPIZMAN: Well, it's a patriotic, you know, for a smart cookie, we'll call this gift, it's a patriotic gift. Cookies by Design or cookiebouquet.com is an assortment of cookies in the patriotic spirit, perfect for that holiday addition. And of course they customize the cookies and they have quite a wonderful Web site as well as toll-free numbers all across the country. You can check out this great gift- giving service.

PHILLIPS: Now, this is a neat one here, the dog tag. This is Things Remembered, right? And you can actually -- you can engrave on back of that. SPIZMAN: Yes, it's just lovely. And rhinestone sparkles, and you'll see this for $29.99 at mall stores nationwide to benefit the Twin Towers fund. And again that's Things Remembered. And they're well known for personalizing items, and this is a lovely one, as well as diamond.com, if we're going to go for the real thing for $195, this lovely pin in diamonds and rubies, get a good shot of that, is available at diamond.com. And a portion of the proceeds also benefits a very good cause, and we want to really credit these companies, because they've taken a very, very difficult time and turned it into something that will gift-giving can help others. It's the gift of giving twice, because it's going to do a good deed.

PHILLIPS: Well, Ms. Spizman, thank you so much. And of course you can catch your book too, "300 Incredible Things for Women on the Internet." This was a great book also. Thank you so much.

SPIZMAN: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Great ideas.

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