Plastic Surgery on Many Christmas Lists

Young Broadcasting of Richmond

RICHMOND (WRIC) – Gone are the days of a new sweater or DVD sitting under the tree on Christmas morning for a lot of people.

More and more are asking for plastic surgery gifts and the trend is growing even in Richmond.

Danette Anderson’s Christmas wish list is ready to go and this year she knows her husband’s gift is exactly what she wanted.

Anderson’s active in the pageant world. She’s the “Mrs. Virginia 2013” first runner up.

There’s always pressure to look her best, so Anderson wants to try something new.

“It was just the perfect gift,” she says.

Doctor Burt Sundin has seen a spike in this kind of holiday giving over the past few years, creating a boom in his business and other practices like it.

“You get tired of that same old bottle of wine or any other gift you might give somebody so why not give them a facial peel or Botox or a gift certificate.”

There were 14.6 million cosmetic procedures across the U.S. in 2012, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

That’s about an 85 percent increase from a decade ago and numbers aren’t expected to drop anytime soon.

Many treatments, like the one Anderson’s asking for, are non-invasive, but Doctor Sundin says inquiries about everything come in this time of year.

If plastic surgeons can do it, someone wants it for Christmas.

“Sometimes people get their procedures before the holidays and sometimes they get their little gifts and come in afterwards and get them,” Sundin says.

Anderson likes what she heard at her consult and knows her Christmas gift appointment won’t be her last.

She’s already looking forward to her next birthday.

Injectables like Botox will cost a few hundred dollars while a breast lift or tummy tuck runs well into the thousands.