This One Impressed Even The Texans

This year’s featured Christmas gift offered by the Neiman Marcus department store chain is so big, a select group of Neiman’s often-blase shoppers burst into applause Monday at its unveiling.

The swanky Dallas-based retailer is taking bids starting at $100,000 to paint a name in foot-high letters on the nose of a new United Airlines Boeing 777. The winning bidder will get a year’s unlimited first-class travel for two.

While the annual Christmas Book party is always carefully orchestrated, the company took the hype up a notch this year, rolling open the doors of a Dallas Love Field hangar to reveal the massive 777 to about 300 champagne-sipping guests.

“I love it. It’s damned exciting, isn’t it?” said Jim Chandler of Dallas.

Also on display was a loaded powder-blue BMW Z3 Roadster, a replica of the car in an upcoming James Bond movie - “minus the guided missiles,” Neiman’s said. At $35,000, the roadster was considered a good value by some in attendance.

The most expensive gift in the catalog hung heavy around the neck of a model: a $900,000 yellow diamond necklace with 185.5 total carats.