Let's get rid of Christmas.

I don't mean the babe in the manger, the carols or kissing Uncle Festus under the mistletoe. What I mean is the other Christmas, where we race to spend, spend, spend money we don't have, have, have.

We buy clothes they won't wear and perfume they won't spritz and gift baskets that sabotage diets we didn't even know existed. We use plastic to buy more plastic, often for toys that will be ripped from the hands of small children in the time it takes Grandma to read the label and shriek, "Oh, my God, it was made in China!"

Speaking of China …

Ever since we found out that the destination spot for American manufacturing doesn't share our preference for lead-free toys, there's been a lot of hand-wringing among parents. This is a recent concern, unless you count those living in poverty who've always had to worry about lead-based paint, not just in their children's toys, but on the crumbling walls in every room in which they live.

Who knew that, in 2007, lead would be the great leveler?

Anyway, the Christmas season is upon us, and if you don't think so, then you haven't paid any attention to commercial television (bless you, lefty holdouts) or visited any shopping centers lately.

Just this week, I walked past a store window where, nestled among the latest jeans, jackets and torture bras, mini artificial Christmas trees twinkled in shades of red, hot pink and black. 'Tis the season over my dead body.

I haven't had a preschooler in 17 years, but since Labor Day, I've been getting all the Toys "R" Us fliers from Geoffrey the Giraffe. My favorite toy so far is the "Imaginarium Busy Bucket," which holds more than 800 pieces of the same stuff you could find in my basement and the large plastic bins stored under every bed in our house. My stuff is old, too, so it probably wasn't made in China.

That brings me to the parents' e-mails that have been filling my inbox since the first toy recall. To quote one mother: "This year the Grinch will not be stealing Christmas from our home. Instead, it will be stolen by China and the toy companies."

Her long letter expressed the concern of many parents: "What suggestions do you have for me, as both a parent and consumer, to ensure that the toys I have at home are indeed safe?"

Because roughly 80 percent of the world's toys come from China, I can see the concern. I also can see a solution: Buy fewer toys. Not just a few fewer. A lot fewer.

Young children have hearts full of mercy, so let's nurture that and maybe we can spawn an epidemic. Beats material greed every time. With our every gift, we can telegraph what we value in them.

For starters, we can teach how to nurture their souls by spreading kindness without credit. Take them shopping for another child, one they'll never meet, just because every kid should know the thrill of opening something that wasn't worn out by somebody else.

Give children books, and then read with them. Or take them to the library to get their very own cards, and promise they'll visit at least once a month until next Christmas.

Give them memberships to museums for science, art and natural history, and then take them there. Many times.

Encourage them to leave their marks on the world with colored pencils and crayons and the blank sides of lots and lots of recycled paper. Then frame their little masterpieces.

Order cheap-but-fancy stationery with their very own names on it (they love that) and then teach them how to write thank you notes, sympathy cards and you-are-great notes to people they love.

One more thing: Let's tell children what happened when Dr. Seuss' Grinch really did try to steal Christmas — how every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small, was singing without any presents at all.

Tell them what an eyepopper that was for ol' Grinch, too.

"Maybe Christmas," he thought, " doesn't come from a store.

"Maybe Christmas … perhaps … means a little bit more!"

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz ([email protected]) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.