My Favorite Holiday Traditions:

1) Baking Christmas cookies.
2) Drinking hot chocolate by the fire.
3) Making fun of all the collectible silliness in the Hallmark catalog.

And my catalog came today! So here we go.

Who doesn't love the oddities that are the Willow Tree figurines? And now we have the official Willow Tree nativity scene.



"Faces? We don't need faces! We have the Christ child!"






"Dear family and friends: Greetings! What a crazy year it has been! Last year, Dad got a promotion, Mom got into Junior League and the twins got into Princeton at age 12. This year, for reasons still unknown to us, we have become blubber-insulated flightless water fowl who have been commemorated on a Hallmark Christmas ornament. We now eat our weight in fish, shrimp and krill every day. At least we mate for life, unlike our neighbors, who unfortunately divorced last year. And at least we have faces, unlike those Willow Tree freaks."





Santa snuggling with a deadly animal. Hey, kids! Don't try this at home!

(I guess if Santa had another one, he'd be BI-POLAR. Ha!)





This adorable Rudolph lights up, sings and says "Don't cover my nose!" These things aren't cute. They are annoying. They're the kind of things you put up after the holidays hoping its batteries will be dead by next year.

Instead of spending jillions of dollars on collectible crap from the Hallmark catalog, why not buy something from the Heifer International Christmas catalog? Like a flock of chicks for $20. Protein-packed eggs can make a lifesaving difference in the life of a third-world child. Or how about a goat for $120? Or a water buffalo for $250? You don't really have to put them under your tree, and they can help third-world families A LOT.

Besides, I'd rather look at a water buffalo than this weirdness: