I remember one Christmas when my dad bought socks for my mom as a gift, only he inadvertently purchased child-sized socks instead of adult-sized socks. I learned two things from this:

1. Do not buy socks as a gift.

2. If you do buy socks, which you should definitely not do, be sure not to buy the wrong size.

Henceforth: The Sock Debacle became a punch line at every Christmas since.

Buying gifts for that special lady in your life -- assuming you actually have a special lady in your life (I do not) (sad face) -- is always a challenge. But trying to buy your Candy Kong anything game-related can be a challenge on par with scaling Everest without pants.

According to these lady-loving hetero members of the Game Trust, it doesn't have to be that way.

I asked them for tips and tricks and stories related to buying something nerd-centric for the special ladies in their lives. Here's what they had to say.

Kid-sized or adult-sized, socks of any size guarantee that Christmas dinner will be extremely awkward this year.

John Teti: I always get Anna a portable system. I got her a Nintendo DSi for her birthday this year. Then I set it up, so that she could start using it right away, and downloaded a bunch of games from the DSi Shop. They come up as little "presents" to unwrap on the DSi dashboard, which is a nice touch when they actually are gifts.

Don't get a girl the pink one unless she really loves that color. It actually seems more thoughtful if you pick out a color/styling that you both think is cool rather than getting the default girl color. Extra mile: Get a truly custom color by ordering your own color scheme from www.colorwarepc.com/.

Harold Goldberg: When I was a kid, I bought my first real girlfriend some pink panties from Spencer's at the local mall. As a nerd, I thought they were cool and techie because they had a computer chip that, from a tiny speaker, blared "When the Saints Go Marching In."

She was neither amused nor enthused. In fact, she deduced that I knew nothing about what a woman really wanted.

See? Told you not to buy her the pink one. Dummy.

Troy Goodfellow: Jones wrote, "But trying to buy your special lady anything game-related typically is a challenge on par with climbing Everest without pants."

Clearly you're just dealing with the wrong women. Games are actually one of the easier gifts in our house -- for both of us. But it probably won't be a gaming-related gift this year. The budget is a little tight and we already have Dragon Age: Origins, which she is cutting through 90 minutes at a time just before she turns in for the night. Since that's all she really wanted (and didn't expect it at release), I'll work on one of her other ways to unwind. Books, music, maybe a monkey.

Russ Fischer: When my RealDoll arrives, hopefully next week, I'll see what will fit in her hands and make a decision then.

Ryan Kuo: The best I could do for a gaming gift would probably be a copy of Yasunari Kawabata's novel "The Master of Go." My girlfriend's response to a pink DS would probably be to knock me out with her copy of "Crime and Punishment." She likes F-Zero, though. Which makes (F-)zero sense to me.

I will always remember your cute little LCD face. Always. Sniff.

Gus Mastrapa: Alexis likes the slime creatures from Dragon Quest. A keychain or something similarly useful or nondescript with one of those guys tends to work.

David Thomas: My wife is very clear on one thing: I get free game stuff in the mail all the time. If I gave her anything game-related as a present, she would assume I had wrapped up a review copy or some swag and then that would be that. And that being I would be IN A LOT OF TROUBLE.

So, on the rare occasion that she feels like playing games, she just asks for stuff.

Although it would have been fun to give her New Super Mario Bros. Wii. She loves Mario games and we have had fun playing it together -- except the dumb game is so hard that we jokingly call it "marriage counseling."

Scott Jones: I once bought a girlfriend a Tamagotchi without thinking through the symbolism of the damn thing. What a damn fool I was. After caring for it for a few weeks, she misplaced the tiny egg, and when she found it again, she discovered that her Tamagotchi had died. She actually cried. Things were never the same again between us after that.

If you don't think this Q-Bert plush thing is cute, we will overnight you an ice pick which you can use to chip the ice off your tiny heart.

Paul Semel: How about a funny gaming T-shirt from a Web site like www.thinkgeek.com or zazzle.com? Or one that's vaguely game-related (like with a ninja, or something) from redbubble.com?

John Teti: I got my wife a nerdy Zelda T-shirt at the New York Comic-Con. She liked it. Because she also likes Zelda. You can see the connection I made.

Gus Mastrapa: Here's my last tip. Do the search "video game" at Etsy and go nuts. [Here's an example.]

Check out more of Crispy Gamer's Holiday Gift Guides.