Online extras you might have missed

In the spirit of the season, I humbly present you with gifts you already have.

It was nothing. Really.

Actually, it's the first annual Holiday Guide to Hidden Treasure on newsobserver.com and our sister sites -- a catalog of useful features that you might not know about.

Happy bookmarking.

CHECKING IT TWICE: Did you spot something in a News & Observer ad while making your list, but now it's on the recycling truck? No problem. All of our current print ads are also online. Click on "Shopping" in that narrow navigation bar running across the top of our site, and then choose the merchant you want. You'll see the latest print ad for that merchant.

FIND OUT WHO'S NAUGHTY: If you're contemplating humankind's need for redemption, you can actually document it at newsobserver.com/crimemap. You can search law enforcement incident reports for most of Wake County by location, type of crime, date and time, and the results will be displayed on a map. We're working to expand this service to the rest of the Triangle.

AND NICE: If you're in a cheerier mood, at share.triangle.com/news, you can read about good deeds, honors, accomplishments and other doings among your neighbors. You can also post your own.

GOING OUT IN THE STORM? Your drive to grandma's might go better if you check the road conditions before you leave. Go to newsobserver.com/traffic to see a map of the Triangle with more than 40 live traffic cameras, plus alerts from the state Department of Transportation, the latest traffic news and the Road Worrier blog, called Crosstown Traffic.

SINCE WE'VE NO PLACE TO GO: Find one. At enjoy.triangle.com, you can search for movies, dining, nightlife and other things to liven up your free time.

FIGGY PUDDING? If you're still planning the feast, we can help. Go to newsobserver.com/food and use the Recipe Search box in the middle of the page. If we have featured a recipe on our Food pages, it's there. Rare Who roast beast, by the way, is not.

JOYFUL AND TRIUMPHANT: Even while they're on a break, you can check the progress of your favorite high school teams on our High School Extra site at newsobserver.com/preps. Browse the options at the top of the page, and you can see conference standings, the latest scores, school-by-school results and rosters, photos, Tim Stevens' column and the Preps Now blog.

HAIL THE NEW: In "Refresh your style," Sheon Ladson, our answer to Stacy London of "What Not to Wear," helps people make over their look. I doubt she could help me, but you might get some last-minute tips here for your loved ones, or even yourself. It's at newsobserver.com/refresh. You should also check out Samantha Smith's blog, The Fashion Plate, in our blogs menu.

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE? We regularly produce video reports on news and sports events, galleries with hundreds of photos and some of the best visual storytelling you'll ever see. They're linked to stories on our site, but they're also collected in our Multimedia Channel at blogs.newsobserver.com/multi. And they're easy to share with friends.

AND IN CASE YOU DIDN'T HEAR: Did you know you can track whether your favorite lawmakers have been bad or good? Go to newsobserver.com/politics, scroll down to Action Center in the middle of the page and click on "Mega Vote." There you can subscribe to e-mail reports on lawmakers' latest votes.

Top online stories

Here are the most-read stories on newsobserver.com the past week:

* Warrants say teens read tarot, then killed

* Incident resolved at Beltline and New Bern Avenue

* Hansbrough's mother moves to Chapel Hill

* For now, ECU is the right fit

* Triangle retailers offer huge discounts