Too Much Stuff Last Year On Dec. 1, I received, by e-mail, a message from myself - a calendar alert: "too much stuff last year." I did not, apparently, feel the need to expand on my words, but I can guess when I sent them - last Dec. 25. The adorable pictures of my pajama-clad children in front of the tree before opening gifts on Christmas morning also reveal piles of wrapped gifts behind them, gifts that took us all morning to open. Too many gifts. Too many to appreciate and too many to enjoy. Days later, books and games that would have been embraced with excitement at any other time sat untouched. Piles of gifts under the Christmas tree are a tradition in my family, and many others. Some families give eight gifts of increasing magnitude for Hanukkah (which we celebrate with a family activity or game every night). But what's in the boxes has changed. Things that once came as gifts, like clothes, new shoes or sports equipment, have become "needs" that we fill at any time. We want the children to read, so we don't make them wait for the next book in a favorite series. We want them to exercise, so bikes of the right size don't appear under the tree in snowy December - they arrive or are handed down as a matter of course every spring. When I was 6, my gifts would have included only a few "things to play with." Now, my own children (who are 6, 7, 8 and 11) very rarely unwrap anything else. The relative cost of toys, too, has changed. In 1978 a Hungry Hungry Hippos game cost $7.44. Today it's $12.99 at Toys "R" Us. Something highly desirable in the 1970s - for example, a "Charlie's Angels" doll - cost about $4. Today, a similar Disney Princess would cost about $9.99. The national average wage in the United States is more than four times what it was in the mid-'70s, but comparable toys don't cost four times as much, nor do clothes. Consumer goods are cheap and plentiful and we're used to buying. The result is that even on a budget and even in tough economic times, it's all too easy to buy too much - because "too much" for a child doesn't have anything to do with how much you spend. Too many dollar store knickknacks are just as bad as too many expensive video games. At our house, that meant gift overload. Family members saw overwhelmed, unappreciative children. And I saw a situation I didn't want to repeat. So: too much stuff last year. Every year, my mother and I promise that we "won't go overboard" this time, and then we fail to keep our promise. There's something a little different about seeing my own words in my inbox. Message received, last year's self - and forwarded to Grandma. Do you go overboard with holiday buying, and what's helped you rein it in? One thing that led to our excess last year was my late realization that every child wanted to buy gifts for every other child and family member - additional small gifts each that added immeasurably to our pleasure in the holiday (the children proved to really enjoy budgeting, shopping and giving) but also added to the sheer volume of presents. I won't make that mistake again. Any other holiday mistakes you're hoping to avoid in 2012?