The department store Christmas catalogs are all out in force now. We’ve gotten one from all the major stores; Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart and Toys R Us. At Wal-Mart the other day, they were even giving out free stickers and samples of Legos. My kids were in hog heaven! My two youngest kids, who are eight and four, have been going through each of the catalogs page by page, marking all the things they want for Christmas. My son sits with a marker in hand, tongue slightly sticking out one side of his mouth while he carefully peruses each page. He thinks carefully about what he wants and doesn’t want and then circles only those things that are at the top of his Christmas list. My daughter on the other hand, flips through the pages as quickly as she can, circling almost everything, and shouting out to me how she wants this and she wants that. Then when she’s finished, she starts from the beginning and flips through them all over again. I, on the other hand, have my own ‘Christmas catalog’ to go through. I recently got the current B&H Photo catalog and I think I just might go through that page by page, circling all the things I want for Christmas. Like a new digital printer. Too bad my kids are a lot more likely to get the things they circled than I am to get the things I’ll be circling, but their ideas are a lot less expensive than mine.