I promised myself that I would never again write about the woes of shopping, about the terrible press of the insane crowds, about the insistent little nefarious elves doing Santa's evil bidding. But here I am, writing it one more time. I just can't help myself.

So, while I still have the willpower to stop, let me tell you something. I bought all my Christmas presents in a whirlwind, one-day tour of the world of commerce. While I did order a few gifts online, I got most of the icky shopping stuff over with in one fell swoop (live and in person). I almost had a nervous breakdown. I am very pleased to have such unpleasantness behind me for at least another year.

But this holiday, this Christmas season, is something I feel I must comment upon, so awestruck am I by the magnitude of society's insatiable aptitude for yuletide perniciousness.

It even permeates the very pores of my family's existence, emanating, no doubt, from my sister's mysteriously missing Christmas presents.

The presents at her house are missing, no doubt, because they are already opened and distributed. I drew her name in the Christmas drawing this year and I am quite sure that her network of spies have uncovered the price, origin, size, shape and color of her gift by this time. In fact, I saw her daughter lurking around the corner at one place where I shopped for gifts, innocently "Christmas shopping," she said.

Tell me another one to help chase the first one down, this is getting hard to swallow. "You look like you are Christmas lurking to me," I said with a knowing look. Get back ye, lurker. Peek not into this cart of mine.

While I was successful at scaring off her daughter through my tactics of loud talking with a profane Southern accent in the company of others while wearing my bibs, the truth remains.

If the network of spies (bought off by the early distribution of Christmas presents) doesn't do the trick, then my sister still has an older, time-honored option remaining.

She can sneak into my parents' home, crawl beneath the tree, slip out her gift and give it a shake. If that doesn't work, she will go so far as unwrapping and rewrapping it, neatly slicing the tape with a razor blade so that you can't even tell it unless you are a detection expert.

I have a little surprise for her this year - the wrapped box under the tree isn't her gift. Underneath the edges of the paper, I slipped a cocked mousetrap with a little note on it. So clever was my placement using the box and tape and wire, she will never suspect a thing. The note says, "You tried to sneak and you got a snap, how do you like my little trap?" In addition to that little unpleasantness, the box is full of little styrofoam peanuts, complete with a piece of cardboard beneath it loaded with a spring. If you open the box, the spring forces up the box's false bottom, spraying the peanuts everywhere. I can't wait till she tries to sneak into it. Since other people saw the gift being wrapped, no one suspects a thing. Hmm, maybe I do like Christmas after all.

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