How many shopping days left??

I cannot believe that it is almost Thanksgiving and I haven't even begun Christmas shopping yet. Usually by this time of year I am finished. We haven't had the greatest time financially though, so we have been waiting on my paycheck to go to full scale. I get my first "step" paycheck on Tuesday. Plus I get retro pay for the first 30 days. So we will be shopping with cash this year. Which of course, is always a good thing. We have a certain amount we spend on each child. Then we also have to factor in nieces and nephews. But this year, we will be doing less for them as we don't have as much. I find it absolutely amazing what some people spend on their kids. Take the latest Playstation. It costs $600!!!! And it's going for 5 times that on Ebay. What are people thinking?? Another hot toy is this FurReal Horse. It is a child sized horse that doesn't do much of anything. But it costs $250. One of my students the other day said she was getting it for Christmas. I often wonder how nice it would be to have that kind of money. I feel bad sometimes when my son asks for things that I really can't afford, or don't want to buy because I know he isn't careful with his things. My standard answer for items like that is "Ask your dad". However, I often wish that I could buy him some of those things. But that's a whole other story. I feel sad that Christmas is so commercialized and that my kids have been taught to expect so much at this time of year. I wish I had worked harder to teach them the true meaning of Christmas and giving. And sometimes I wonder if I still could, or if it's just too late.