The lights, the lights, the lights that light the lights... Wait a minute while I get that Kmart jingle out of my head.

Is it me, or are the Black Friday and holiday shopping commercials earlier and more relentless than ever? Scratch "Black Friday." This year, it's officially becoming Black Thursday.

Sure, a couple of stores have been having Thanksgiving Day "Black Friday" sales for years. I remember when this was a new concept back about 10 years ago. I was a newspaper reporter working on Thanksgiving (booooo! but somebody's gotta do it), and I had to cover Kmart's opening on Thanksgiving night for some early-bird shoppers. It was such a crazy notion at the time.

Now, it's becoming the norm. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Wal-Mart, Macy's, Best Buy, Sears, Target, and several other retailers have jumped on the Black Thursday bandwagon.

What an ugly trend!! Not only are shoppers being lured into ditching their family on one of our nation's most meaningful holidays. Many of the store employees are being forced to take a shift during what should be quality family time.

Why, you ask? As the WSJ points out, Americans aren't much more likely to spend more money overall if the stores open a night earlier. BUT, they might be more likely to spend their money at the stores with the earlier sales, just to be sure they get that coveted item before it's sold out, or the price jumps up, etc. Essentially, it's a form of retail blackmail and survival-of-the-fittest competition between stores. Yuck!

Even though I am, by nature, a positive-minded person (at least I like to think I am), I also go through my days keenly aware of both the sweet and salty sides of life--the joyful and the bitter, the two-sidedness of every experience--especially as a parent. I've often written about how each exciting, monumental milestone along the road of your child's development--that first tooth poking through a pink gum, the first bow-legged tentative steps, the first words, the first of everything (because there is NOTHING like being a parent and getting to witness the unfolding of life firsthand) has always a backside to it, like when you find the most unexpectedly perfect pastel and ivory shell at the beach, one side worn smooth like silk from the waves, and then you turn it over and see the rough outside, dark and scratchy, and maybe there's a barnacle or two clinging to it.

When the kids tumbled out of the van and into my parents' house, with the usual chaos and excitement and pent-up energy after 6 + hours in the van (I think this was the first roadtrip in many that passed so peacefully--no bickering, no meltdowns from L.!), they converged around the Christmas tree, as they do every year, soaking up the look of it, and lifting the lids of cookie and candy tins, just as they do every year. I love watching my kids rediscover all the things they savor about Christmas at my parents' house--this is the best part of the trip for me. L. especially appreciates the now-routine rhythms of the holiday around here--the predictability of what he will find. He gets his own room at my parents' house and it's an added bonus that the same room houses my mom's iMac computer, and plenty of space to spread out his visual dictionaries. 

Who wants name-calling and hair-pulling in the backseat as you head over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house for Christmas? Good old fashioned car games and sing-alongs are great, but these days, mobile apps might be even more of a lifesaver during your long holiday trek.

Let's take a look at some of the best ones out there:

• 12 free educational apps for kids from ages 2 and up -- everything from digital puzzles and flashcards to letter-tracing and memory games
• Poptropica Tips & Tricks app -- this one is from FE's super-cool sister site, Poptropica. Your little gamers will love it! This app is also free!
• 12 fun and interactive apps for preschoolers -- Elmo, Tinkerbell, and other pals guide your preschooler through cool skill-building activities. These ones range from free to pretty cheap.
• 12 must-have apps for Moms -- Mrs. Claus deserves a little fun, too!  ;)

If you're wary of letting your tot using apps at such a young age, or you don't want your older child to go overboard on screentime with his smartphone, check out our guide to smart and safe mobile app use for kids.

Raise your hand if you love raw cookie dough!! (I'm raising mine.)

If you're like me, when you start to dip your finger into that bowl or pre-made roll of dough (or allow your kids to do it), you have that little devil on one shoulder saying, "Yum! Yum! Salmonella schmalmonella. Dough was made for eating!" and the little angel on the other saying, "No, no! You're going to puke like there's no tomorrow. Just wait 'til it's baked, silly!" ... And the devil usually prevails. 

While I've never had the unfortunate experience of getting food poisoning from eating raw dough, I know others who have. And a new study in the latest journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that a large outbreak of dangerous E. coli in 2009 was caused by store-bought, ready-to-bake chocolate cookie dough. More than 80 people in 30 states were affectted, and 35 were hospitalized.

While Salmonella from contaminated eggs is the main (and very legitimate) concern of those who bake cookies from scratch, it turns out that raw flour was the likely culprit in the 2009 food poisoning outbreak cited in the study. Wait, there's such a thing as raw flour? Yup! The eggs in most pre-made doughs you buy at the grocery store are pasteurized, and most of the other ingredients -- except the flour -- go through "pathogen kill steps," the NYTimes reports.

Experts say it's hard to quantify the risk of eating raw cookie dough, but suffice it to say, there's always a chance that this seemingly innocent and delicious act could land you in the ER. Bummer!

Only one full weekend left until Christmas!  I'm trying to make good my promise to myself to make each minute of pre-Christmas preparations, baking, and excitement count for all they are worth. It's been difficult, though. We are still working through the sadness of Scott's grandmother's passing, and her absence this year at our family Christmas gathering next weekend, and I spent Sunday morning in urgent care with T., who had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic she was taking to clear up her sinus infection. As you might know (but I hope not), allergic reactions are not fun, and poor T. has been miserable.

To cheer her up, we bought a gingerbread house-making kit. I had fleeting fantasies a few weeks ago of constructing a house from scratch, homemade gingerbread and all, but that fantasy quickly vanished in the wake of Willa-dog's surgery, final exam grading, and my bronchitis. It's hard to feel like baking when you can't see straight for coughing.

We have not made one since 2008, when I became overly frazzled trying to assemble one. But this one came together without too many problems, and the kit we bought from Target came with a large bag of sticky icing for a change--enough to patch one of the walls when it fell and cracked in two. I couldn't believe it when the walls and roof pieces actually stayed upright and held together.

Do you have Christmas traditions? I know for our family our are still evoloving as our 5 year old's memory and expectations grow and our toddler becomes aware of the things and experiences around her. One tradition my son has enjoyed for a few years has been making a gingerbread house with my dad every year. In the 3 years they have done it we have all learned a few lessons.

1. Get extra candies for the gingerbread house, it's never enough!

2. Use Meringue Powder in the premixed icing to make it stiffer and stronger to hold big candies.

3. Have some ice cream cones laying around? Turn them upside down and voila a tree!

4. Have mom approved candies ready for the kidlets to snack on, Last year my parents didn't quite understand how sensitive my son is to synthetic dyes. The tantrum later that night can only be described as epic. Now we have natural dye candies in a special bowl for them to give him .

5. Use a rimmed cookie sheet to keep run away candies contained, and as a base if you want to dusplay it.

6. For young kids  one on one do a house, small group a train is perfect and with a group the village we did would be perfect.

What family traditions do you have?

The Santa in my hometown is a serious Santa -- the likes of the one in the Macy's parade. He has a real, fuzzy white beard and a real belly (to the dismay of his cardiologist and Mrs. Claus, I'm sure).

He has a temporary wooden cottage resembling a gingerbread house on the main street where kids can come and visit (a nice alternative to visiting Santa beside the weird fountains in the mall!).

He drives a red Honda Element (a very Santa-ish car, if you ask me), and the vanity plates say "HOHOHO."

He wears red year round. One time, I saw him during the "off season" in a red-and-black checkered shirt and carpenter jeans at a city council meeting, looking like he had come straight from carving some wooden toys. It's a year-round job, you know.

I'm sure he entertains happy cries of "Santa" from kids who run into him in July in the grocery store.

I salute this amazing Santa!

The belief in Santa begins to waver in every child. But the lingering spirit of that belief is actually nostalgia in the making, in my opinion. The iconic image of the big guy in red brings a smile to the faces of people of all ages.

What's a parent to do when kids' belief in Santa starts to wane? I say, keep the belief alive as long as it makes sense to! And many experts agree: Believing in Santa is generally a good thing for youngsters.

The December I was pregnant with T., L. and I headed off together to the store to look at Christmas villages. I don't know where I got the idea that I wanted a Christmas village. We never had one growing up, but I must have seen one, somewhere. I have always liked to look at houses lit from within, and sneak a look, voyeuristically, at other people's worlds. I loved my dollhouse growing up, and my sister and I would peek through the windows when the lights were on and imagine the scene unfolding in the kitchen, or the living room.

That year I was also hungry to create a new tradition--one particular just to my little family. That Christmas was the only Christmas we ever spent in our own home, since I was so far along in my pregnancy and my doctor advised me not to travel for the holidays. I had mixed feelings: I was happy that we'd have the chance to wake up in our own house on Christmas morning; that I could bake cinnamon rolls for us, and play Gene Autry Christmas music, and that L. could tear through his presents as quickly as he liked, without having to wait his turn around the Christmas tree. But I was also highly emotional, and Christmas had a flatter feel to it that year. I missed the noise and chaos of Christmas morning at my parents' house, and while I clung to every memory-in-creation that last Christmas before T. was born, they were, each one of them, bordered with a special kind of sadness. 

So I took L. shopping. We came home with three Christmas village buildings at once, and a small assortment of villagers to fill out the scene.

My brother called on Monday night, to check up on our trip back and on a skating-related injury I sustained on Sunday (more on that later) and we both agreed that it had been particularly relaxing, low-maintenance Christmas holiday this year, as far as keeping all the kids happy and peaceful together.