What NOT to do at Christmas is sometimes more important that what TO DO: No-no's of the season!

End-of-the-year holidays are fraught with a lot of challenges: finding the time to shop for gifts for others, what to get, how much to spend, how to celebrate, who to give to...the list of things that can go awry is potentially a long one indeed!  I'm going to help with some pointers that I've come across recenly that you may like to know.  

Today I have three lists--some silly, some serious--which will help you do some seasonal problem-solving: Five kinds of gifts NOT to give, six traditions of the season that are on the wain, and what is a hip, almost sure-fire kind of gift to give and why.  Let's get started:

Five inappropriate gifts to give.

[1] Gifts based on the idealized life of a shopaholic--like a Sex and the City/Devil Wears Prada/Confessions of a Shopaholic gift pack.  This is obvious, right?

[2] Turn-of-the-century hip-hop--what can I say...it's just not cool anymore [if it ever was]--even for the most broad-minded, it hasn't been for a while!

[3] DVDs of Bravo's Flipping Out or A&E's Flip This House. Don't be fooled; this gimmick doesn't work like it used to; some claim [likely with some basis for being correct] that these kind of shenanigans lead to the economic problem we all find ourselves in to begin with!

[4] Gaudy, glittery gifts.  Face it, like shopping, hip-hop, and house-flipping, Paris Hilton isn't what she used to be!  

[5] Coaching material for the unemployed.  Do you really need me to explain this one??

Six holiday traditions that are being left behind.

With credit to Managing Your Money's, "Six holiday tradition fading into obscurity":

[1] The office holiday party. What's the point?  It's not like we don't get to hang around with these people enough the way it is!!

[2] Christmas tree tinsel.  I thought it so cool as a young boy--now it seems so tacky!

[3] Aluminum christmas trees--whatever color they might come in...pink, blue, silvery.  It's all so non-green for some people's tastes.  And for whatever wacky reason, others may think you don't love the earth enough or care sufficiently for the man-made global threat de jour. 

[4] High wattage christmas tree lights.  See reasons noted above--they apply here just the same!

[5] Spray cans of fake snow.  In truth, this is a regional thing:  If you live in a place where you have to actually shove snow, this product might already have been banned for obscenity reasons; if you live in sunny, non-snowy climes, well, fake snow is just a mess to apply and clean up--so who needs that?? And, too, in places like California, people apply it in a most bizarre, unnatural way: on all four sides of the window pane [like it never happens in real-life], not just the bottom part!

[6] Frank Capra's 1946 classic It's A Wonderful Life. Some how it just doesn't compute like it used to!

Gifts that are almost sure to please the young [and young-at-heart].

There's only one category that's worth mentioning, and would be all things digital or electronic.  If you doubt that, remember that iPods, iPads, and iPhones are the most-requested items of shopping mall santas.  Other electronic devices, of course, will appeal to many as well:  Smart [4G] Droid phones; eReaders, CD, video games, DVD movies, and more.  Barnes and Noble, along with Amazon [even long before now], report selling more digital books than paper ones!  How many more reasons do you need to get the picture???

Beyond the glory of giving what's desired based on the sheer popularity of all things digital or electronic, there are two measures of a gift's potential success:  

[1] The amount of wrapping involved [and from a guy's perspective, none, really, is required at all!!]; and

[2] How soon the recipient gets to use the gift.  In the case of these kinds of items, it's almost immediate!  Heck, this might actually be the strongest reason for a gift's appeal in 2011.  

Enjoy the season...and happy gift-giving and receiving!