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Try explaining to kids who believe in Santa that due to outsourcing, most of the toys they want this are no longer made at the North Pole, and as such may be safety hazards. It's far easier to guide them in their selection of items to add to the Christmas list from the beginningthat way there are fewer awkward questions to answer later. If you plan carefully you can also have the added benefits of protecting the environment by buying less "stuff," having fewer items to put together and wrap, and saving money. Here are five strategies to get you through this unusually difficult shopping season this year:

1. Top-load the list with books, DVDs, video games and CDs. All of these can be purchased at your local mall, and are far easier to hide from prying eyes than large toys. Or you can order them from amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, or target.com, most of which offer free shipping for large enough orders, and when the packages show up on your doorstep while you're at work and the kids notice them before you do, they're far more likely to believe that they're something you ordered for yourself than if the box is marked "KB Toys" or "Toys R Us." Another benefit to this strategy is that they don't need to be put together in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve.

2. Board games are a great way to spend quality time with your kids. A good old Monopoly set or a game of Clue will get lots more use than the newest Bratz dolls or Transformers, and since they need you to supervise anyway you can be sure they're not putting the pieces in their mouths. Board games are often used as loss leaders for toy stores, so if you read the ads carefully you can get a bunch of them very inexpensively.

3. A search on backtobasicstoys.com came up with over 50 items that were marked "Made in the U.S.A." There are several old favorites here in the "classic toys" category, as well as some innovative new products, especially under the category of creativity. This site has an equal mix of items appealing to boys, girls, and both, and carries toys that are appropriate for children aged newborn through tweens. Lead time on some of these toys can be long, though, so order sooner rather than later. Let your kids browse this site and come up with a list of safe, enjoyable toys. (I explained to my kids that Santa's factory had overstock so they sold some of their extra toys to toy companies, so they wouldn't ask why, if the elves had made their toys, the identical items were being sold on websites.)

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