No jokes here; just a simple guide to donating 100 lbs of food to the Greater Boston Food Bank, for free.

Go to this post, read it and leave a comment and Tyson Foods will donate 100 lbs of food to the food bank for each comment received. No strings, no coupons, no mailing lists.

Thanks to Beth Kanter for passing this along. I’m cross-posting this at all my blogs today and suggest you do the same.

Last week I asked you how your spending would be affected this holiday season. A full 40% admitted that they’ve never been big spenders to begin with. Another 30% is definitely being a bit more mindful of the finances this year. Only 5% said they were planning on spending more. None of these things bode well for the retail industry.

As for us, we have mostly tried to spoil all the kids in the family, and just sort of give token gifts to the adults. We’ve always done it that way, not just this year. The Munchkin has a grand total of 10 cousins, so all of that adds up real quick.

This week, I want to know how you are doing with your shopping.

Do you have a baby in your life? Even though they are of course too little to really understand what all the Christmas and holiday fuss is about, who says they can’t get a few presents of their own?

Baby Einstein Takealong Tunes A baby version of an MP3 player! At home or on the go, your child can listen to seven different classical music pieces by composers like Mozart and Vivaldi.

Fisher-Price Little Superstar Sing-Along Stage An exciting introduction to music! This toy offers plenty of interactive musical features designed to grow with your child. The toy features “Instruments” that activate sounds when their buttons are pressed, and you and your child can sing along with and dance to five fun songs.

LeapFrog Learn & Groove Musical Table Provides a world of learning and musical fun for your child! This innovative toy is chock full of learning and musical activities designed to provide visual and auditory stimulation and motor skill development, as well as opportunities to learn about colors, the alphabet, and opposites for older children and much more.

Lamaze Jacques the Peacock Designed for use from birth on up, the Lamaze Play and Grow Peacock has bright colors and multiple textures and sounds that are sure to stimulate and delight baby. Developed in conjunction with child development experts from Yale University, this toy comes with a Lamaze link for easy attachment to strollers, carriers, and diaper bags.

Kringelring Sometimes simplicity is best. This highly rated wooden teether, along with the popular Max rattle, are safe and non-toxic for your baby. Made in Germany.

Peek-A Who? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it is NEVER too early to introduce your child to books. In this fun book, even the youngest readers will delight in trying to guess who–or what–is peeking through the window, and can easily grip the baby-fist-size holes to turn the pages for the answers.

Fisher-Price Rock-A-Stack And oldie-but-goodie. Little ones will have a great time sorting, stacking, and tasting to see if the rings really taste as good as they look. My son loved this toy.

Fisher-Price Amazing Animals Sing and Go Choo-Choo This motorized train helps baby learn about animals through songs and play. The engine has a light-up smokestack that makes the train come to life when pressed. The train begins to roll forward and a song plays. Place an animal in the driver’s area to learn more about the world of animals through a song. The second car features a bead bar to engage baby’s interest.

Who Loves Baby? Photo Album Book This book, made from soft, cushiony, easy-to-clean pages encourages parents and baby to “read” the book together and help build early social relationships through loving interaction and face recognition.

Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube I’ve featured this toy before, and it still ranks as one of the best for the infant/toddler set. Babies are completely fascinated by the lights that are sychronized to various pieces composed by Mozart. My son would play with this for a very long time, and when you’ve got a young one, it is a rare toy that holds their attention so well.

There are some people who feel that the more makeup they can experiment with, the better. And the best way to do that is to give them gift sets, which usually allow them to sample the best a product line has to offer. Here are some of my picks, made exclusively for Sephora. And even better, for a limited time you can get free shipping on orders of $25 or more by entering the code SEPHORA2 at checkout.

Stila Shine On Gift Of Glaze A $48.00 value for only $22.00! Let them experience some of the best lip glosses EVAH with this great holiday set. I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t like Stila Lip Glazes. Serious.

LORAC Multi-Platinum Palette All right, even if you don’t like makeup all that much, this deal is too good to pass up. Especially for fantastic LORAC makeup, which I lurve. All you pay is $37.00, but it’s worth $120.00! I hate math so I’m not going to do the percentages, but dudes, it’s a steal!

Too Faced World Domination Tour All Access Backstage Beauty Collection Another amazing value at only $34.00 but with a value of $150.00 It contains eyeshadows, bronzers, lip glosses, and too many other things to mention! And I have to say, it looks beautiful, too.

Urban Decay Best Of Urban Set The cult fave Urban Decay gives you some of their most popular items, including: Baked Heavy Metal Glitter Liner (bronze)- Half Baked Eyeshadow (subtle, lustrous bronze)- Bourbon 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil (brown with teeny gold glitter)- Eyeshadow Primer Potion (ultra-sheer nude eye base) for only $32.00. A $48.00 value!

Sephora Brand Scent Sampler Best Sellers For Her What a fantastic idea, and for only $50.00. It allows you to sample more than ten of the top-selling fragrances (including Vera Wang Princess and Aquolina Pink Sugar) at your leisure. Because nothing sucks worse than going to a store and trying a bajillion fragrances to find one you like, since they start running together after the third one. After you decide which one suits you, off you go to Sephora to redeem a coupon for a full-sized version! And the full sized-version is worth $80.00! Tell me how you can go wrong on this one.

Alas, that holiday giving has become cynical and competitive, unlike the more generous days of old, where, say, one giver would present his beautifully wrapped, carefully chosen frankincense, safe in the knowledge that Mister Giving Bars of Gold For God’s Sake Over There wasn’t going to snark about it later at the club. Because that so didn’t happen, you know it.

Still, it’s not that way any more and if you doubt it, just see how far an 8-track tape of Kenny Loggins gets you with your loved ones this season. It’s all about The Cabbage Patch Doll, The Tickle Me Elmo, The Wii, The Next Big Thing…and now, we present, The! Next! Big! Thing!

The CheetoPet!

Come on! You think Britney’s having a comeback by coincidence? It’s the Year of the Cheeto!

I have something to confess.

I live with a Christmas Grinch. Uh, one whose heart never grew two more sizes, that is.

For reasons lost in the ether many moons ago, my husband has grown up to have a healthy dislike of all things Christmas. It could be that as a middle child, he was always ignored and never got what he wanted. Or maybe it was the time his oldest brother, completely inebriated, one year mistook the living room Christmas tree for a green, pine-scented urinal. Whatever the reason, the holiday season is one of his least favorites.

And you know, fine, I get that. Not everyone can have holiday cheer oozing from every pore, candy cane in pocket to hand out to every child they see. Still, living with a Christmas Grinch can be hard work when you are trying to spread some joy, dammit!

But as I told him when our son was around two, you have to try to fake it for the sake of the kids. The children do not understand utterances under one’s breath about how insincere and fake it all is, and how if one hears Jingle Bells one more time, one might be forced to embark on a long eggnog binge.

To ensure everyone’s sanity, my husband has only four simple duties at Christmas.

1. He must get the tree. Now, he may not actually pick out the tree, but he is responsible for hauling it into the house.

2. He must string the lights on the tree, since his six inch height advantage on me means he does not have to get on a step ladder.

3. He must put up the lights around the outside of the house. This, I’m told, is a manly thing to do as it involves both cursing and ladders.

4. Lastly, he must assemble all large and annoying toys that need assembling.

After that, I inform him that he can simply fade into the background if he so desires. I don’t expect him to care about where I hang the garlands or what kind of candy I should put into the Advent calendar.

Some years he has gotten more into it than others, but I suspect this year won’t be one of them.

Hey, as long as he doesn’t snitch on who actually ate the cookies for Santa, it’s OK with me.

I asked you last week what your favorite part of Thanksgiving was, and I was of one mind with the forty three percent who answered, “The food!” A relative of mine from out of state makes these killer pecan tarts that are to die for, and she only makes them at Thanksgiving. I anticipate eating them months in advance. Is it wrong of me to like them so much?

As for this week, we move along to the holiday season, which is fast approaching. Just a little over three weeks separates us from both Christmas and Hanukkah, which just doesn’t seem like enough time.