ask mrs. exeter; Unique little keepsakes-personal but not necessarily costly-can make the most treasured gifts.

Question What is the current thinking concerning fashion keepsakes? During the holiday season, I notice that accessories that might be considered C-list from a trendy-fashion point of view suddenly become A-list from a sentimental perspective. Those little trinkets and bibelots that are given, aired, worn, displayed. . . . In other words, dressing-table fodder, Mrs. Exeter, which I love-in part, because it reminds me what makes a gift really wonderful: when it serves no purpose other than to delight.

What should I give this year? What are some of your favorite things? Is it OK to pass choice keepsakes down to one's children and grandchildren, or does today's generation have only visions of labels and bling dancing in their heads?

Answer It is always Christmas on my dressing table. Just to give you an initial inventory: There are Bakelite bangles; hair accessories from Alexandre-the Paris hair people's New York outpost is still in business on Madison Avenue near the Carlyle; big disco ball-ish Chanel earrings; all my mother's gaudy but rather magnificent costume Christmas-tree pins; my grandmother's carved ivory rose (before ivory was an international no-no); divine gloves that belonged to my favorite aunt; pastel miniatures of assorted ancestors; my puppies' baby teeth, kept in a gold box with my initials that Louise Grunwald found at one of the antiques stalls off the King's Road in London; a John Derian shamrock paperweight from Lee Radziwill; a stack of love letters from Mr. Exeter written in the dark ages and tied with some divine 1920s ribbon embroidery the antiquarian Mark Walsh found for me; plus three of the most adorable ceramic Wemyss pigs, from never mind whom. . . .

Jolly begins in the dressing room, especially after a certain age.

Listen, I love Cartier and Van Cleef as much as anyone, and I have been known to give some excessive presents. For instance, at each guest's place at the holiday dinner table I might have a red satin ribbon leading the path to Verdura bijoux hidden in the evergreen-and-holly centerpiece. But I also am thrilled by the cozy oddity, some potential keepsake; I try to treasure life's every kindness. "All is gift"-Wasn't Graham Greene once told that by a wise man?

Everyone has keepsakes we cherish, things we look forward to passing along to family and friends when the time is right. (Think of those poor souls who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, and holiday-gift giving doesn't exactly come across as a problem, does it?) Thousands of years ago keepsakes were generally intended to ward off evil. By Victorian times people craved small, exquisite, vainglorious objects not so much to banish evil but as antidotes to the impersonal, manufactured goods of an increasingly industrialized world. Is it any wonder that sentimental things are so popular now, in this techno-age?

At the holidays, some of the most elegant ...