Every holiday and major gift-giving occasion presents an opportunity for the folks at Amazon.com to put together lists of items to recommend from the millions within their database. For the most part, these lists of recommendations include all the usual suspects — gifts like chocolates and Mother's Day baskets from the gourmet foods section, jewelery, interesting and appropriate book and DVD titles, etc. However, digging a little deeper yesterday turned up some rather odd recommendations coming out of the Home and Garden section.

Firstly, there are several different categories. The Chef Mom and Entertainer Mom contain fairly appropriate and sensible items, though the Entertainer Mom seems to have an unusually large number of vacuum cleaner and corkscrew suggestions. Another category is gifts for "Hip and Trendy Moms." I'm not sure if I would be able to recognise a hip and trendy mom if I met one, but in addition to the seemingly mandatory range of vacuum cleaners and corkscrews, there are some unusual and interesting gift suggestions. For example, how many hip and trendy moms would really appreciate being given a Dewalt Hammer Drill and Impact Driver Combo Kit?

Another, kind of practical and (dare I say, off-beat?) item for the hip and trendy Mom — a metal detector —

However, without realising it, those who get the hammer drill and impact driver combo or the metal detector may be the lucky ones because an alternative from further down the list of recommendations is ... no, you can't possibly have guessed ... a "Kong X-treme Goodie Ship." Never heard of one? Well, it appears to be some kind of fairly upscale dog chew. Obviously something that no hip and trendy mom should be without. Especially if she has a dog.

There is another gift list for "One who has it all" (presumably "all" includes a hammer drill, impact driver, metal detector and Goodie Ship dog chew), so what gift suggestions does Amazon have for the Mom who has it all?

Well, firstly there are the mandatory vacuum cleaners and corkscrews in case "all" doesn't include a vacuum cleaner or the latest in corkscrews. Then there is a Toro electric power-shovel plus which might not be such a bad idea, though Mom will hopefully need to wait until next winter to use it.

One item that struck me as kind of odd was a dual flame cigar lighter from cigar.com. No doubt intended to be the perfect gift for that cigar-packing mama who has it all!

Now, what better to accompany the cigar-lighter than a Swiss Army knife/tool-kit which probably has a cigar-cutter or at least something which will double as one:

What I think deserves the star prize as a gift for one's loving mom is the LitterMaid self-cleaning litter box, which a cat-owning friend of mine tells me is not that good anyway because the rakes in it need constant cleaning!

Notable in their absence from these gift lists are some really nice gift items for Mother's Day. Items such as Mother and Child detail in stained glass by Klimt:

or a nice reproduction statue with a Motherhood theme such as

....or a Monet work in stained glass:

...or even a Guardian Angel suncatcher, or is that too obvious?