Holiday Gift Guide: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

In case you were wondering, Sidney Poitier and Katherine Hepburn have nothing to do with this post.

It's that time of the year. The time when you're buying presents for people you probably hate buying presents for. It doesn't really matter who you are -- unless you're an anti-holidayist -- you're likely going to be buying something for someone. And that's where this post comes in. Today we've got two gifts to show you, thanks to the boys at the Pensblog.

First up is, in my completely non-biased opinion, the best gift anyone could ever get in the history of ever. You can take your choice of the Islanders' roster to dinner. Yeah. Jon Sim, Nate Thompson... You know, all those studs. Rick DiPietro and Bill Guerin are there too. An of course, there's Jon Sim! Taking him to dinner must be a dream come true... For... Someone out there.

But if you're one of the very few out there who hasn't gotten curbstomped by the economy, then this is the perfect gift for the Islander fan on your list. The starting bids on the dinners -- 24 of them in all on NHL.com -- range anywhere from $450 for a fine night out with Frans Nielsen to $650 for Rick DiPietro or Mike Comrie. There's no word on whether or not Comrie and Hillary Duff come as a package deal.

If this deal won't suffice for that special hockey fan in your life, then maybe you'll be interested in something a bit more charitable and Penguin-related. The Penguins' wives put together a Christmas basket charity auction to benefit the Children's Institute. I imagine the folks over at Pensblog have had a hand in this since Brooks Orpik's basket currently has the most bids. Scratch that. I'm sure they had a hand in it. Oddly enough, there doesn't appear to be any candy in it.