HO! HO! Hum! Merry Giftmas!

I both love and hate shopping for toys at Christmas time. And yes, we've had Halloween and so now it's officially considered "Christmas time". The stuff I love--decorating, putting up the tree, the stockings, the smells, just the season. I love how the church seems to warm up and how the candles glow and all the traditions. And for the most part I LOVE getting to play Santa Claus. But it just seems that the more I try to pick out things for my kids, the more I realize they don't need anything. Which brings me to what I don't like.

I don't like how bratty my kids seem all of a sudden with their ever-growing list of "wishes". They get to the point of listing a mountain of things I already know they won't truly enjoy 10 hours after the festivities and I'm left with only 2 or 3 items they would actually enjoy. Which I would be fine with, but my wife thinks they should have a bigger fanfare on Christmas morning, like we did when we were kids.

How do other people handle Christmas? How do you get to the point where the kids get just enough without going overboard both with money and with the amount of toys?