5 Best Spots for Truly Last-Minute Shopping

You're not going to find an iPad at these places, but if you think you can sneak a third-party Android tablet past an unsuspecting relative, CVS touts a couple of $99 models. You won't find that iPhone or Samsung Galaxy III S here, either, but Walgreens offers $149 prepaid T-Mobile smartphones. Admittedly, if you're coming here for anything more than some candy, magazines, razors or beauty supplies to stuff a stocking with, you're courting disappointment.

If you can find that elusive bad movie your sibling loves in the bargain bin or that pair of Pajama Jeans your mom is too embarrassed to buy on her own, though, these stores can make that last-minute trip count.

7-Eleven

Insert your Slurpee and lottery ticket jokes here, but 7-Eleven has been the last refuge of hoiday scoundrels for years.

The Slurpee machine has since become self-aware and began stocking gift cards available for Zynga (ZNGA) games on Facebook (FB), iTunes music and movies, headphones, DVDs and, most importantly, batteries. It's great to have a stocking-candy nirvana open on Christmas Day just in case, but knowing they stock batteries on the one day that parents invariably forget that their child's favorite Christmas toy needs them earns 7-Eleven some seldom-received respect.

Travel sites

The folks at Priceline (PCLN), Orbitz (OWW), Expedia (EXPE) and just about every airline in the world will be more than happy to book you a vacation this Christmas Eve. They'll take your money, they'll send you an itinerary quickly and, if you happen to book a trip for either those post-holiday "dark weeks" in January or the non-Valentines weeks in February just before spring break, you may just get a deal out of it, too.

"You just need to find a clever way to deliver it," Dan de Grandpre, founder and CEO of dealnews.com, told the Christian Science Monitor. "I did that once myself. I booked a Caribbean vacation on Christmas Eve and put my wife's bikini in a box. It's the ultimate procrastinator's gift."

-- Written by Jason Notte in Portland, Ore.

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Jason Notte is a reporter for TheStreet. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Esquire.com, Time Out New York, the Boston Herald, the Boston Phoenix, the Metro newspaper and the Colorado Springs Independent. He previously served as the political and global affairs editor for Metro U.S., layout editor for Boston Now, assistant news editor for the Herald News of West Paterson, N.J., editor of Go Out! Magazine in Hoboken, N.J., and copy editor and lifestyle editor at the Jersey Journal in Jersey City, N.J.

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