Gift of beauty

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The wallet-sized box underneath Jackie's Christmas tree in Altadena, Calif., wasn't a wallet. Nor was it jewelry. Instead, the gift-wrapped box held a handwritten note from her husband asking, "What better present can you give someone than helping them feel better about themselves?"

Jackie's gift wasn't diamonds, but a face-lift performed by Dr. Richard Fleming at the Beverly Hills Institute of Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Christmas is the busiest time of the year for plastic surgeons as people schedule surgeries to look good for the seasonal festivities or simply because the holidays offer a convenient recuperation time from a face-lift, nose job or breast implants.

The number of Americans undergoing both surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures has skyrocketed in the past six years.

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) prohibits cosmetic surgery to be awarded as a raffle item, charitable donation or promotion. As a result, most board-certified surgeons also shy away from issuing Christmas gift certificates. But Dr. Fleming says family members arrange to give surgical gifts for the holidays.

"Christmas gifts [of plastic surgery] are very, very common," the California surgeon says. "It's been going on for a long time."

Dr. Robert K. Sigal, a staff surgeon at the Austin-Weston Center for Cosmetic Surgery in Reston, says his clinic does not issue gift certificates, but he does see couples come in together and it is clear that a gift mentality is involved.

"He gets the car; she gets the face," he says.

The trend has not reached all clinics.