The holidays are right around the corner. Of course, that's not breaking news to moms and dads. The kids also are quite aware.

But continuing economic challenges might cause families to re-evaluate the idea of giving and receiving gifts.

Of course every day is a good day to spend money wisely, if you have to spend it on something. And every day is is a good day to remember priorities - what's important in the big picture of life and love and family and friends.

As an aside, my son makes homemade cards for family on special occasions - it's a tradition we've all come to expect - and anticipate! It costs him more in time than anything else. But it comes from a place you can't buy - the heart. So it's also invaluable.

Don't get me wrong, we give and get stuff too.

But families are struggling, many, just to keep a roof over their heads. The idea of spending money on decorations or gifts pale compared to the need to pay a medical bill, the electricity or buy food.

Watching budgets will undoubtedly be a part of everyone's holiday spending plan.

What things will you do to celebrate the holidays, but because of the economy, a lost job and other challenges, your plan is different from past years?

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Quick, what's more offensive? South Park, or shaking a baby until it dies?

If you had to think about it, you might have a job waiting for you vetting apps for the Apple store.

Did you see this story?

Baby advocates weren't happy about the Baby Shaker iPhone App. Credit: boinger@gmail via Flickr.

It was an application bound to rattle. Baby Shaker, the $0.99 app that went on sale at the App store Monday, made iPhones emit the sound of a crying baby, while showing a charcoal drawing of a kid. The only way to make the noise stop was to shake the iPhone violently, until red X marks appeared over the baby's eyes.

"On a plane, on the bus, in a theater. Babies are everywhere you don't want them to be! They're always distracting you from preparing for that big presentation at work with their incessant crying. Before Baby Shaker there was nothing you could do about it," the app's introduction read.

The app was developed by Sikalosoft, which has one more app available in the App store: a dice mosaic for $0.99.

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We all have a Barbie story.

Maybe your story is the same as a co-worker's (we'll call her GiGi): As a young girl she took her middle sister's prized Barbie with her on a trip downtown with her mom.

It was cold and snowy outside, so GiGi burrowed Barbie in her winter coat to keep her warm. Somehow, she slipped away. Tears ensued.

GiGi's mother filed a missing Barbie report with the town's radio station. The doll was never found.

Or maybe Barbie was never allowed to escape your lips, much less enter the home.

I had Barbie, and Ken, and the black Barbie, and the pink remote-control Cadillac, and her townhome with a bubbling spa (add water and press the pump to create bubbles!!).

What's your Barbie story?

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I have the Crayola-colored streamers, the Curious George plates and the menu.

But I'm stumped as to what to give 13 kids as party favors. I'm looking for something 2 year olds would get a kick out of that won't break my bank.

I'm toying with stuffing the bags with bubbles, Play-Doh and a Goldfish-shaped snack box.

But should I scrape it all for a board book about Curious George? I'm desperate for some gift ideas.

The gift (or gifts) should be suitable for a 2 year old that still stuffs small objects in the mouth.

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If Bernard Madoff had made off with my life savings, I'm sure I would see him as the devil incarnate.

But I'm not sure I would want to pass along that anger to my kids. That's why I find the new "Smash-Me Bernie" doll, with a likeness of Madoff dressed as a devil, so disturbing.

The doll, which was unveiled yesterday at the New York Toy Fair, comes with a hammer so investors or anyone else can get out their frustrations on Bernie.

My first impression was that it was anti-Semitic: portraying a Jewish man associated with Jewish money as the devil.

But Andy Rosenkranz, Florida regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, told me the doll is simply "in poor taste."

"There's nothing that brings up the fact that he's Jewish," Rosenkranz said. "However, to advocate violence, even as a joke, is not a good thing."

This joke is clearly intended for adults: It will sell for $99.95. But who would shell out a hundred bucks for a doll like this? It's unlikely Madoff investors will want to invest in the likeness of the man who ruined them.

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What to do with these toys? They are overtaking our modest condo. Trucks at every turn. Stuffed animals, puzzles, balls –- baskets full of the stuff. It’s beginning to feel like a wave that continues to crash around the house. You clean one area, and then another corner is swamped with gadgets of one sort or another. So some clearing out is in order. But where to start?

I’ve heard about families in which kids had to give away a toy once they got a new one. I like that idea, but haven’t had the stomach to start it. Anybody out there do that?

And are people giving away plastic toys these days? I don’t know of anything under recall in my house, but I wonder if I've seen all the notices. And then there is the other problem: What if you give away something that is later recalled? But sending plastic toys to the dump seems like such a waste, on many levels.

Then there’s the question of hand-me-downs. Alexander, who is 2, has clearly outgrown some toys. Rowan, who’s 6 months, may want some. But should we keep them all until we know which?

Anyway, how do you handle this?

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OMG, Cabbage Patch Kids are back!

Not the new-fangled corn-silk-haired dolls or those freaky premies, but the old-school cabbies with yarn for hair.

When the dolls were released in 1983, my dad was among the mass of parents, at a Toys R Us off Biscayne Blvd and 125th St., in the queue to "adopt" a Cabbage Patch Kid.

Rachel is still with me. After years of living on a closet shelf, she now has a loving home in my daughter's toy chest.

Baby loves to pluck Rachel from the chest and drag her (by the hair) around the room, stopping to kiss the doll's cheek or sit on her stomach.

Since the Cabbage Patch phenomenon, there has been mania over Barney, Tickle Me Elmo and Dora the Explorer.

What doll did your kid HAVE to have?

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