Sharepoint Services 2007 in Windows XP

 I know that Sharepoint Services 2007 cannot work in Windows XP machines however is there anyway I can get around with it to install it in a Windows XP SP2 machine (don't really want to install Windows Server 2003/2008 on my machine  as I am trying my hands on Sharepoint development.

you can try to install your windows server 2003/2008 on virtual pc or vmware player and install sharepoint on the virtual harddisk

I would strongly recommend virtualised environment instead of installing it on bare metal. That way, you can rollback to a stable state when you make a mistake...

Take it from a experienced developer who have trashed numerous sharepoint environment, and wasted countless days rebuilding environment before virtualisation offers snapshots...