Hanukkah has not been on my mind at all. I don't even know when it starts this year. Then again, I don't have young children. I don't have to worry about buying them 8 days worth of gifts.

Plastic is all around us. From our kids' toys to their sippy cups, from grocery bags to Tupperware bowls, from furniture to toothbrushes. That's not even including all of the plastic involved in packaging - from food to appliances to toys to clothing. Plastic is everywhere and while it's not good for our health, it may be even worse for our environment. So this holiday season I am challenging all of you to become more aware of your plastic consumption and make conscious choices to avoid plastic whenever possible.

In a compelling post for Slate.com called Happy Crossmas!, James Martin says, "...it's hard to make a palatable consumerist holiday out of Easter when its back story is, at least in part, so gruesome. Christmas is cuddly. Easter, despite the bunnies, is not."

Once upon a time, you could give a child a football (if he was a boy) or a new dolly (if she was a girl) for Christmas, and everyone was happy. Easy peasy. Times have changed, and although in many ways for the better (now girls can get footballs and boys can get dolls, and everyone has a lot more options), something terrifying has befallen today's parents. It's The Horrible Toy.

As I might have mentioned, my life for the last few weeks has been focused on the holidays. Holiday food, holiday traditions and of course, holiday shopping. It's just one big holiday around here, wooo holidays! Since I have been thinking so much about the holidays while working at BlogHer, I have a pretty good jump on my holiday shopping list. Nice, eh?

When we bring home toys to our children, the last thing we think is that we could be putting our child at risk for lead poisoning. However, we now know that many toys made in China (and most everything is made in China these days), are doing precisely that. So...What do we do? What signs do we look for? How can we protect our children from their own toys? Well, there isn't a simple answer, but I'll try to address as many aspects of this problem as I can with this post.

Family Fun Magazine, a Disney publication, has chosen KaritoKids (dolls) by KidsGive as its #1 Toy of 2007. Celebrity Baby Blogs reviewed KaritoKids calling them "gorgeous dolls with a social conscience." Over at Mom's Favorite Stuff the reviewer touts KaritoKids as dolls "your child can love and learn from." On the KidsGive website it says the company’s purpose through KatritoKids is to "raise global awareness among our youth, teaching them about children around the world and exposing them to the importance of social responsibility and charitable giving." (info from KaritoKids )

Hello Kitty cropcircle. Photo credit: Circlemakers. This week I have been thinking about Sanrio's supernaturally-popular Hello Kitty, partially because lately I have stumbled onto an unholy amount of crazy Hello Kitty-related products and about six hojillion Hello Kitty superfans. Hello Kitty was born in 1974, three years before me, which means I cannot remember life without her beloved, vapid face. I do remember discovering her at an out-of-town mall while on a family vacation when I was about six years old. I walked in and was hit with the glorious Sanrio Smell. How to describe it? Plasticky, to be sure, but also indescribably pink. If anything can smell "pink," a Sanrio store does. If you ground up a batch of the tiny pens, erasers, and cel phone charms, and the other dozens of doodads they sell, you could juice it all and sell it as perfume: Sanrio's Eau de Chat Blanc. Ooh la la!

At last count,The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled about 234 products this year -- 154 of them carry the "Made In China" label. The Washington Times reports: The number of Chinese-made product recalls in the United States has doubled in the past five years, according to the nonprofit Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine. Chinese products accounted for 60 percent of the total recalls in the U.S. last year, which numbered 467 — a record.