Liberal Talk Radio

Forget savings bonds or a crisp twenty, whatever happened to the Xbox? Increasingly, people are giving plastic surgery as holiday — sorry, Bill — Christmas gifts:

Last year Helena Rasin’s grandmother gave her $200 for Christmas. This year her grandmother gave her a new nose.

“A nose job is the best Christmas present ever because you’ll have it forever,” Ms. Rasin, 25, a drug company representative in Los Angeles, said two weeks ago while at home recuperating from her rhinoplasty. “It’s not like some sweater you don’t like and have to take back to the store. Even with the bandages still on, I can already tell I look cuter.”

For a denizen of a looks-centric milieu like Los Angeles, Ms. Rasin, who emigrated from Ukraine in 1992, may seem like a plastic surgery late bloomer. Many of her peers had their noses bobbed back in high school and did not get cosmetic procedures this year, Ms. Rasin said. Instead they gave them to family members.

“It’s kind of in now, it’s kind of hip this year to give surgery,” Ms. Rasin said.

December has always been a busy month for plastic surgeons, whose schedules fill with patients seeking a little streamlining before the holiday party season or in advance of body-baring beach vacations. But this year, rather than going under the knife themselves, an increasing number of people conferred nips and tucks upon their loved ones, doctors say. Children financed $15,000 face-lifts for their parents. Sisters shelled out $500 for each other’s Botox treatments. And wives sent husbands to cosmetic dentists for $40,000 sets of porcelain tooth veneers.

A firm in Britain even sells gift certificates for procedures. Amazingly, some find this idea problematic:

But among some doctors and social critics the idea of buying loved ones new and improved body parts raises moral and psychological questions about the consequences of amending someone else’s appearance, especially if the gift was not requested.

You think?