Gardener's husband, father and eight year old daughter managed to keep the secret, although she admits it seemed strange that the two men had to rush off to fix his grandfather's computer on Christmas morning. “ There was a little box under the tree with the key in it, and there it was, hiding in our neighbor's driveway.

Although she had test driven the car before the holidays. Gardener never expected her husband to surprise her with it. “ He kept stalling about buying it, and I thought we were going to wait until after Christmas. I thought all the green ones would be gone and I'd have to settle for silver, though I was prepared to be a good sport about it”.

Besides the fact that it came from her husband's heart, what does she like about the Forester? “ It fits me well, it has lots of little pockets and compartments to stash things and I can flip down the back seat and schlep a lot of stuff. The headroom and seat height are such that I can get my infirm dad comfortably in and out of the passenger seat without bashing his head on the door frame. And it has a lovely tight turning radius so its easy to park The AWD is also an excellent thing for snow”.

Not all communities are embracing the concept of cars as a holiday gifts despite the heavy marketing push from Lexus, Jaguar, BMW and Mercedes. “It's not really done here”, explains Fred Steinhaus, Internet Manager for Schaumburg Toyota, about 40 miles northwest of Chicago. “It used to be bigger several years ago, but now customers are more price conscious and less gift conscious”. His dealership has had just one Christmas shopper this year, although he acknowledges that some customers may purchase a vehicle without telling the dealership it is a gift.

“It can be pretty hard to pull off”, says DeMeli. “We recently sold a New Beetle convertible to a father for his daughter, and we had to get her here without her figuring it out. We had the car out back, with a big bow in it. She was absolutely hysterical when she figured out it was hers.”

Overall, auto sales tends to increase in December, although that may be explained by end-of-year sales events and attempts to maximize tax deductions. Compared to December 2002 's sales figure, GM reported a 22% increase in small cars sales in December 2003. However mid-size, large, luxury sales dropped 1.6%, 38.5% and 10.1% respectively.

Only a few manufactures fared much better. Saab reported a 27.8% increase; Honda /Acura went up 53.1%, and Mazda increased sales 127.8%. Sales of the Jaguar XJ series doubled. And while sales of its other vehicle remained steady or increased slightly, Mercedes won the hearts of soccer moms everywhere, selling 734 of its new E- Class wagon- a 555% increase over December 2002 figures. Ferrari sales went up 43.2% -- with 106 cars sold in December 2003 as compared to December 2002's 74. Rolls Royce jumped 191%-- selling 35 super premium vehicles in 2003.

The Cadillac Escalade ESV showed up under a number of Christmas trees in 2003. Sales of the $60,000+ SUV rocketed from 36 in December 2002 to 1581 in December in 2003. “All I got was socks and perfume”, complains one Pennsylvania woman who thought her husband was going to surprise her with the keys. “ He kept the truck for himself”.