In this edition of our weekly catch-up list of lists, we take an especially close look at the holiday gift list trend that is kicking into high gear. With every publication producing at least one gift guide around this time, Listicles brings you the silliest (number 5), most budget-savvy (number 3), quickest (number 4), most ambitiously stylish (number 6) and book-wormy (number 7) gift guides to cover all your holiday (window) shopping.

• 20 DVDs to Give the Person Who’s Seen it All: Somewhat mixed-up in their methodology, those nerdy gift-givers at io9.com filled this list, counter-intuitively, with equal parts mainstream fair and obscure treats. Does “the person who’s seen it all” really need DVDs of Lost and The Dark Knight? Presumably that person has, like everyone else, already seen the latest Batman blockbuster and island-trapped TV thriller and, furthermore, realized that they’d seen mostly all of their style, tricks and special effects before, too. Some goodies on this list: Wild Wild West: The Complete Series, David Lynch: The Lime Green Set, which will surely provide enough retro quirk and psycho-traumatic dystopianism to keep everybody merry over the holidays.

• The Best Music of 2008: Quietly sweeping in its claims to authority, this list from The Onion’s A.V. Club eschews boundaries of genre and style to give you, the bewildered consumer, a run-down of the 30 best CDs of the year. No huge surprises here, save perhaps the inclusion (unlike on most “Best Albums” lists thus far this year), of two of my favorites from ‘08: Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool (number 14) and Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah, Part One: 4th World War (number 8).

• 7 Holiday Gift Ideas for Your Laid Off Friends: Alarming and comforting at the same time (after all, it’s your friends who are laid off, dear reader, not you), 23/6.com’s fiscally frugal gift guide has some legitimately interesting alternatives among its jokey entries. New pajamas: to be worn constantly during vegetative non-working time at home. Birth control/Viagra coupons: juvenile as it sounds, economic health shouldn’t determine sexual health (though it often does in the U.S.), so this is actually sort of a brilliant way to keep your friends happy in the sack without, you know, getting in there with them (unless you’re that kind of friend, of course, which is fine too). A Second Life membership: obvious but clever, when your first life takes a turn for the worst, displace your sorrows by starting an awesome second life (recessions can’t get online, can they?).

• 10 Last Minute Gifts for Loved Ones: Forbes brings us this list for the slow-thinking, fast-acting set who’ve waited until the last moment to go gift shopping. Their results are an eclectic mix featuring several cool tech toys that might never get used: a DIY herb garden (pictured above) with its own lighting and temperature control interface, an electronic toy ATM to teach tots capitalism, a charging valet where hand-held electronics recharge sans plug-ins and cables. There are also some decidedly less savvy suggestions, like number 7: jewelry. Wow! Thanks, Forbes. I never would have thought of that.

• 6 Pet Fantasy Movie Creatures: Mary Robinette Kowal’s pet gift guide for SciFi Scanner recommends certain pet purchases based solely on the strength of their incarnations in movies. So, dogs come highly recommended because, as in the recent computer animated adventure Bolt, some can fight crimes. Meanwhile, dragons like those in Dragonheart are very smart too, but they don’t fare so well in cities, and pose certain fire-related risks. Mogwai (from Gremlins) win out as the best fantasy pet for the holidays. Cute, cuddly and full of intelligence, cunning and personality, their only drawbacks are a few pesky allergies. But hey, not feeding them after midnight shouldn’t be too difficult, right?

• 6 Holiday Gifts for Aspiring Fashionistas: The Huffington Post’s Margaret Ryan offers this list of gifts to avoid being out-styled this holiday season by giving a snazzy special someone an insufficiently stylish gift. Covering accessories (striped Marc by Marc Jacobs fingerless gloves), books (three Parisian style tomes), and functional design (Bumble and Bumble’s hair band ball), Ryan’s guide has something for the most gift-shy givers and pickiest recipients.

• 21 Books for All Budgets: Entertainment Weekly’s sprawling holiday gift guide features this list of twenty-one type-cast books for wallets of every thickness. For splurging foodies they suggest The Big Fat Duck Cookbook ($250, pictured above), while budget trivia fans should seek out the Addictionary: Brave New Words ($15). Finally, the endowment-dollar-rich and encyclopedia-prone nature enthusiast should check out All the World’s Birds by George-Louis LeClerc for a humble $350.