1. Find a plastic freezer bag. In fact, think thrifty – recycle a used freezer bag. Drop in all credit cards. Fill with water. Bury in the back of your freezer until after the holidays.

2. Call, write, email, or get together with each person on your gift list over the age of 21, and specifically to talk about gifts. Do they mostly agree with you that holiday presents are for kids? If so, would they like to join you in working toward a financially responsible, simpler lifestyle by forgoing an adult gift exchange?

3. If so, suggest that each of you set aside half the money you would normally have spent on each other to buy a gift for a needy child and/or make a donation to a charity you both like. It’s guaranteed to give you a good feeling, and you’ll avoid having to conjure up a false enthusiasm for the extraordinarily useless thing that person would have chosen for you.

4. Take a reality check. The family down the street can afford to go to Vail to ski over the holidays. You can’t. Have a family meeting or round robin email or letter. Ask each person what would be the ideal gift they would like to receive from you. The most frequent answers usually cost almost nothing – a new photo of you, some time together, a guaranteed phone call or letter every other week – and mean so much more to the recipient than the knick-knack you buy.

5. Take reality check #2. OK, the children thought a little differently. They want the most expensive gaming console or motorized scooter or this year’s fully outfitted Barbie. Show them the price of that gift, explain how much you could contribute to acquiring that and let them help think of solutions to collect the rest of the money. Maybe one less treat a week? One less fast food dinner a week? Of course, be sure to set aside one affordable gift for Santa to bring, but some of the greatest lifetime gifts you’ll be giving your children are 1) a sense of reality about money; 2) the understanding that their opinion counts; 3) the knowledge that they are part of a family team that needs to operate together for the good of all, not just the gratification of one; and 4) a strong grasp of the lesson that to choose wisely leads to control of their own life.

6. Create your own Holiday Club fund. Such accounts used to be a big deal years ago at most banks. Unfortunately the clubs paid little or no interest – they just acted as a nagging reminder to start putting away money all year toward holiday gift giving. You can do the same thing on your own, but shop around and find out how to get the best interest accruing while the fund grows. Rigorously contribute to the account with a set amount out of every paycheck.

7. Create a little extra cash over the year by regularly putting the price of one day’s lunch or one week’s lattes or one fewer pair of shoes into that holiday money fund you’re building. If giving a gift to someone is truly meaningful to you, the sense of not indulging yourself in order to give to him or her will become a heartwarming, fulfilling choice.

8. Design the budget of your dreams for holiday spending. Now cut that in half, at least. Does your next door neighbor really need one more knickknack for her already overcrowded home? Instead of a gift, maybe your co-worker would prefer that you cover her job or work overtime the next time she wants to leave early for her child’s school play.

9. Now, stick to your budget. Rigorously. Remember your credit cards are buried in layers of ice. If you can’t afford the gift you’re coveting with the cash in your wallet or checking account – without sacrificing normal daily needs – the gift gets to stay on the shelf for someone else to ponder. Remember that money does not equal love.

10. Have little ones around? Be the first on your block or in your school or church to organize a trade-a-toy event for adults only. A toddler will never know the shiny toy you cleaned and polished once belonged to the little boy down the street who’s tired of it. Ditto for those clothes quickly outgrown, or the computer game software not played in the last year.

11. Shop wisely to make sure the deal you’re getting is the very best available, whether online or in a retail outlet. Especially make use of online comparison pricing that will indicate the cost of a certain Barbie doll, for example, at a number of different sources. Always be on the lookout for bargains; in today’s economy, some really elegant clothes and toys are donated to thrift shops and can be had for a quarter or less of what they cost brand new.

12. Shop late. Until my son was in grade school, we simply celebrated Christmas gift giving time a few days after Christmas. I bought almost all his gifts at rock bottom post-holiday sales. Over the years he realized he got a lot more of what he wanted this way instead of celebrating the same day as his friends did – and we continue the tradition. Does your family absolutely require getting together on Christmas Day? You could save a bundle on gifts and airline tickets, for example, if you traveled and celebrated off-peak.

13. Does your glitzy holiday card really brighten up someone’s life? If you want to send something bright and cheery, cut the front off a card you received last year, and tuck it into an envelope with a note that lists ten things you like about that person. The enjoyment of a lovely but mass-manufactured card is limited. The heartglow from a list like this is boundless.

14. Subscribe to any one of many excellent couponing newsletters and websites and put a portion of your additional savings over the next year into your holiday club account.

15. Keep your credit cards in the freezer until the next genuine emergency. Playing financial catch up is always expensive. Credit card companies have craftily designed their fees, extra charges, and interest rates to keep you in financial bondage forever. Break free. Be conscious. Be conscientious. Always save ahead instead of paying behind.

OK, I admit he is kind of ingratiating – for maybe the first three times you hear him, which seems these days to be on Halloween night. The last trick or treaters leave your porch whooping and hollering their way to the next house, and then finally, as only the rustle of falling leaves punctuate a dark evening slouching toward midnight, a keen ear can just start to capture the first strains of ba rum puh puh pum…slowly slithering over the horizon toward every department store in town.

He’s not only back, he’s everywhere! Ubiquitous. Omnipresent. Pervasive. Numbing. No longer ingratiating but downright grating. Probably the only thing worse than “Drummer” are all the other holiday tunes that tinny loudspeakers blast 24/7 at those of us who have acquired mush for ears over the years.

The only way to tune all this out is to stay home, away from all that tacky holiday cheer. This is actually good for the environment – fewer cars on the road, less gas consumed; good for the catalogers and online shopping outlets; and good for you – more time with the family, less parking lot rage, lower stress levels when you don’t have to engage in hand-to-hand combat in Toys R Us as you try to snag the last whatever.

On the other hand, staying at home so much can possibly lead to a worse fate as you cast about to find something to do when you can’t stand one more holiday special with seven minutes of content and 23 minutes of advertising. On the verge of Christmas overload, you look around for something to read. And what do you find? The coffee table, piled high with – you guessed it – holiday advertising.

I’m not totally against advertising. I’ve found some interesting, even useful information in advertising. (And, with a journalist’s need for full disclosure, I have to acknowledge I’ve made a buck or two in this lifetime writing some advertising.)

So understanding the need to get the word about a company’s goods or services out to the maximum possible population, I’ve never particularly complained about it. Until I realized it’s gotten as out of hand as that darned holiday percussionist.

Take, for example:

The inside of the toilet stall door in a ladies room. Puhleeez! Talk about a captive audience. I was not positively moved by the experience, so to speak. And, I heard only recently, video ads will be broadcast above the men’s urinals at a major broadcasting corporation’s headquarters. Do you know any guys who really want some beaming pitchman looking and talking right at them while they’re, uh, doing what they do there?

But two items a few weeks ago finally got a full measure of froth foaming around my mouth. This time I yelled ENOUGH already! Double puhleeez. Is nothing sacred anymore?

The first example of “there’s nowhere left to get away” concerns the beach. Picture your favorite beach. Wide, flat, whatever-the-hue sand glistening in the early morning sun. Waves curling in, sweeping back out. Smell of salt, cry of gull, tiny little footprints of the wading birds leaving fanciful trails across the wet sand.

Ah yes, the sand. Look closely at the sand. There in the damp area, where the cleaning machine just smoothed the beach for your ease in walking or jogging – and advertising pleasure! Yes, someone is quite proud that his machine is leaving behind an endless stream of advertising messages imprinted in the freshly dragged sand, and hopes to bring it to the beach of your choice as quickly as possible.

And the final desecration? Not only are your romantic expectations of a sublime, uninterrupted expanse of natural beauty gone from the beach, the moon is next. Well, I may be exaggerating a bit, but I can envision all too soon a laser-generated silhouette of McDonald’s arches or Mickey’s ears splashed across the moon just as you are gazing upward to admire that magnificent orb in all its natural romantic splendor.

Too far-fetched you say? Well, they’re already halfway there as far as I can tell. Back in the aughts, there was a tall, powerful rocket that propelled itself off the launch pad. That magnificent symbol of American technology and drive to explore the frontiers of the universe…. What did it have plastered all over it? A patriotic statement of our country in bold stars and stripes? Nope.

A graphic rendering of a human being to introduce ourselves to the cosmos? Wrong again.

It was the ultimate world of tacky, intrusive, gone-way-too-far-this time advertising. Our sleek metallic warrior was adorned with a great big fat ad for a major national pizza chain.

Well, so much for establishing a pizza as my new traditional holiday food. Ba rum puh puh pum.

For example, think about Sophia Loren, Cher, Julia Roberts. What do you immediately see? Shoulders out to infinity, cheekbones with actual angles, chins (not only prominent but only one to a customer), and maybe in Cher’s case a whole lot more, but that’s another story best set to the Academy Awards’ theme song.

Back to my own gene pool. Maybe I should first blame my parents. My father didn’t have much of a chin; my mother’s shoulders were fairly small. But then, even though they both came from farm families, I don’t think they chose each other on the basis of producing a Super Physical Specimen. I think they just loved each other deeply and passed on even more love to whoever came along.

Hooray!

So maybe I ought to blame the media. Think of all those gorgeous women I used to watch in the movies, clothes hanging from shoulders as wide as hangars (airplane, not closet), chins jutting far enough out to catch the ashes from their cigarettes. Actual cheekbone configurations were a bit harder to discern since they were usually clouded in the smoke swirling up from their omnipresent cigarettes. But they often seemed like pretty wimpy women, totally dependent on what men (and other highly judgmental women) thought about them. And many of them wore high heels while they were cleaning house. Boo, hiss!

OK, it had to be society. Somebody Out There was making decisions about the relative value of long legs and short hair or wide shoulders and narrow noses. And they were doing a superb job of convincing impressionable young women and horny young men that these were the attributes that made for a Fine Person and Suitable Mate. Since so many of them were off mating when I was off at college having huge fun debating heavy issues and moral conundrums, I decided to ignore society’s dictates about looks. Society clearly had weird priorities. Evolution needed to take us toward transparent skulls so we could learn to revere brains at work as much as we do rippling muscles elsewhere. Ah ha!

But where does that leave me on those days when nagging doubts about skeletal deficiencies still want to invade my mind. Who’s left to blame – video games, the NRA, the NBA, the NFL? Nah!

Actually I have found peace at last. Enter the millennia-old theory of reincarnation, which is finally taking hold in our New Age consciousness. I can choose next time around. I can pick my bones! I can also have sparkling eyes, the world’s most engaging grin, a sleek body, and no shoulders or chins to worry about. Terrific!

That’s right. Next time around I’m coming back as a dolphin!

Excuse me? Hiking? Bonding? I think he’s got the wrong suffix there. Just three little letters, but what a difference in mindset.

You see, I think the correct word for the hiking experience is “bondage.”

No, no whips or chains in sight, but in my endorphin-challenged mind and aging body, there’s nothing but lots of pain, suffering, sweat and tears. You’re a prisoner of time and space. No matter where you are, you’re always only half-way there because you’ve still got to turn around and go back to wherever you left your car or your house, or in my case, personal emergency medical technician.

To be honest, I can’t even blame my aging body for my feelings – I’ve always hated hiking.

Clear back in Girl Scout camp – when I was young, supple, healthy and reasonably energetic – hiking was hell. At least the camp leaders were smart enough to avoid the havoc of 30 rebellious ten-year-olds by having something worthwhile at the end of the path – a swimming pond, lanyard-making class or dinner.

My little backwater school was too impoverished to have field trips, so we were spared going anywhere for nature walks. Living in the midst of miles and miles of farmland, we had plenty of nature to examine on our way out to the school bus or once we got home.

As I’ve sat meditating on my apparently unnatural anti-nature reaction over the past few days, I began to wonder: Am I so weird? Am I alone in my revulsion to everything big and beautiful that can only be enjoyed by hotfooting it over hill and dale? Everywhere I turn there are these endorphin-crazed people lacing up their hiking boots, hunching into their backpacks and practically yodeling with joy as they begin tramping off into the wilderness.

Perhaps being hiking-averse is for the best, because the other thing I can’t stand on hikes is someone always telling you what a beautiful flower that is or how gorgeous that mountain is or how terrific they feel out here in the great outdoors. Half the time your words are falling on deaf ears. I’m not home. I’ve already seen that glorious flower and have sent my extra-sensory energy over to mingle with it and absorb it and appreciate it.

The other half of the time all those vocal observations have just messed up my zone of silence that I build around me so I can listen selectively to the call of a bird, or the whisper of the wind, or the rustle of a silky leaf against rough bark. God talks in so many wonderful ways and I want to hear it all.

Perhaps I’m not alone. Quite possibly, I’m just not finding the rest of you hike-avoiders, because, like me, you’re in a comfortable chaise lounge somewhere, looking up from a good book now and then to appreciate the beauty of nature around you, even if nature consists of the one scrawny peony left in your backyard.

Are you a quiet, fellow chaise lounger? Let’s do a little bonding of our own. That inviting spot about 100 feet from the parking lot seems tranquil. Same blue sky, same blazing sun, same green trees. Oh sure, those path-trampers will see some vistas we’ll miss, but we’ll be exploring some glorious vistas sprayed across our imaginations from the words on the pages we’re turning. And since there are so many folks who love that walking stuff, it will be pretty isolated in our little zone of contemplation. We’ll welcome the rest of you into our loosely bonded group – if you can find us.

Unless, of course, you brought along your radio. Or worse yet, your cell phone. If that were the case, we’d like to direct you to a cozy little spot across the parking lot – the one between the Dumpster and the PortaPotty. You will serve as a reminder to those passing you on their way to the trailhead of what they’re trying to get away from in their eternal search for the Perfect Path.

Write to me. Tell me your preference. I’ll get back to you. But for now, I have a peony that needs some energy-mingling, and 75 pages remaining in a great novel I left lying on the chair in the backyard are calling me.