Looking for stocks to stick under the family Miracle Tree? In this edition of StockWatch: Between the Bells, Amey Stone, business author and editor of BloggingStocks, shares a few stock plays for the holiday season.

Won't your little rocker be stoked if you take a stake in Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI)? The long-time video game maker has had monster success with its Guitar Hero franchise and should enjoy heavy Christmas sales of the latest volume, Guitar Hero III. For the fashionable in your family, Amey suggests Deckers Outdoors (NASDAQ: DECK), makers of the popular Ugg boots. Deckers' shares slipped a little at mid-month but are recently back on the rise.

They are hiding under newspapers and in the newspapers. They are lurking in back alleys and under the stairs, under the sink and on the shelves in the garage. Some are in far-away lands and can easily slip by undetected by the average investor. Some are so obvious you do not give them a second thought. Sometimes they are screaming at you from the radio and television but you tune them out.

Great companies and great stocks can be found everyday and everywhere you look. However, sometimes we look but we do not see. How can that be? Well, just follow me, and I will bring a brighter light to illuminate my picks for 2007 and beyond. Listed here in alphabetical order are my seven for 2007, with links to longer, deeper analyses:

Disclosure: I own shares in DUK, HNP, PTR, and TWX. I do not own DOW, HD, or VLO as of this writing, but I am considering them all right now, as you may be.

The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW): Dow has been trending downward for over two years from its high of $56 per share. Last night it closed at $40.14 -- roughly the same share price as three years ago.Its 52-week low was $33, which I do not believe we will see again, but anywhere between $33 and $40 should be a steal. Consider adding DOW to your watch list and buying it at an even greater discount. I think the company will pay handsomely now and in the long-term.

Since joining the bloggingstocks.com team I have not posted specifically about Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and all of a sudden I was wondering why? When I wrote about The BORING FACTOR: new predictor? Yahoo fell in the middle of the pack. General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) were deemed the most boring, eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) the least. The latter two have been the subject of many recent posts. I have written about the housing bubble several times which exposed some passionate feelings in the market place. Maybe Yahoo should have been the most boring. What is going on with them? They are the ones with the Hollywood mogul CEO Terry Semel. They should know about keeping the spotlight on the star! Maybe they don't feel like the star any more?

I remember one of my early communications to one of our editors, Amey Stone, on January 2, 2000. I noted, "I find it very ironic that on the first day of trading in the year 2000, Yahoo has a P/E of 2000... 2000 years times earnings!" Was that a warning sign or what? Of course Internet stocks were going public with reckless abandon, and almost none of them had any earnings, so I guess things were so out of whack that a P/E of 2000 was at least a step in the right direction. At least they had a P/E. How many companies were noted as "NA = Not applicable" under price-to-earnings? Many.

That was a different world, but guess what, its P/E is still ridiculous six years later. Maybe less ridiculous, but way too high just the same. It stands at about 34. The stock price as of this moment is about $27. That is about four dollars above it's twelve month low. The range for Yahoo has gone from $22.65 to $43.66. Much to volatile for my taste and this indicative of a company that is a trading stock not an investment.

Yahoo is one of the top Internet companies in the world. But it is also a media/entertainment company, software company, advertising company, sales outlet, communications company, and much more. I think the price has to come down and that it should merge with an old world company. I have never been convinced that when all is said and done, there will be any Internet company unattached to something in the physical world. I think hard assets outweigh soft assets, no pun intended.

I think Yahoo which has a sizable share of the search business is still searching for itself. If you look at the P/E, the actual fluctuation of the stock price, analyst commentary (much favorable), competition in the marketplace, and the internal squirming around, this seems self evident. If it is going to stand alone as a company I think it should prepare a declaration of independence, stating what they stand for; where they are going; how they intend to get there; and why these factors will sustain growth going forward.

Many of Yahoo's fundamental metrics are strong. ROE, ROIC, ROA, and its gross and net profit margins are all tracking well for now. Does that make it a better time to sell itself or merge? Or does it mean go it alone? I like the idea of a merger, But to what? My favorite candidates are all in China. I think that if they do not make it big in China they will end up competing with a Chinese company instead. And not just in China, but world wide. But that is a another story.

Disclosure: I hold no position in Yahoo, long or short, and never have. I have no position in any of the companies mentioned.

Interested in reading more? Check out my other posts for Blogging Stocks here.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for Design and Research of an Architecture & Planning firm.

Most of what I write about draws on my experience as an investor over the last four decades, and my investment company interests. However, my role as an architect has taught me many valuable lessons as well. One of my most cherished lessons comes from the United States Marines Corps.

Constant Mission Improvement
The concept of Constant Mission Improvement was presented to me in early programming and design meetings for an aircraft maintenance training facility at the U. S. Marine Corps Air Station, Camp Pendleton, CA. There is nothing complex about the concept. Simply stated, everything shall be reviewed on a constant basis for potential improvement, and if something can be improved then strive to make it happen. This means that each team member, owners representatives designers, engineers, managers and the rest shall be on the look out for ways to make the project better all the time.

Think of Jack Welch's adoption of the Six Sigma program; disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving towards six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process.

Think of what eBay (EBAY) should be doing and is not.

We've asked each of our bloggers to introduce themselves and talk a little about why they love the market and what positions they call their own. We encourage our bloggers to own common stock and abide by a common code of conduct.

Who are you, and why are you passionate about stocks?
I'm a long-time financial writer in New York City. In fact it makes me feel old (I recently turned 40), to report here that I've been writing about business, finance and the stock market for about 15 years. I really earned my stock market creds writing for BusinessWeek Online from 1998 until late last year. I covered the dot-com boom, bust, and aftermath.

I'm currently a senior editor at AOL Money & Finance where I also have my own blog, Money Maven.

I'm passionate, not just about stocks, but about the potential for individual investors to accumulate wealth by buying and holding equities long term. There were a lot of excesses and abuses during the dot-com bubble days, but one thing went very right -- people focused on buying stocks, not stuff.

I really think most people would be happier and feel more secure, if they spent their money on a new stock purchase, instead of a new plasma TV, kitchen remodel, or vacation condo.