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Techwit By Jason Ohler

Let's face it. The holidays are a time of friends, family and massive guilt. There's guilt about not spending a few extra dollars to monogram grandad's new electric razor. There's guilt about not getting slightly larger stockings so that your kids could have gotten a few more wads of candy (and you could have gotten rid of all the Halloween leftovers). But for the emotionally well-adjusted there is guilt about consuming so much in such a short period of time. As always, technology stands ready to help us with the healing process. Here are just a few new inventions on the way.

Virtual wrapping paper. It's the mounds of paper on the floor following the unwrapping frenzy on Christmas morn that really make me feel bad. But virtual wrapping paper is changing all of that. Every present is placed inside a virtual wrapping station (VWS) that looks like a cross between a TV set and a fish tank. Mom and dad hit a few buttons, and the gift is dressed in a computer-generated paper of their own design that looks and behaves like real paper. Bonus: Because your kids have to reach into the virtual wrapping station to unwrap presents, they can only open one gift at a time, unless, of course you decide to buy multiple VWSs. The resources needed to create VWSs are far greater than those needed to dress each present in real paper. But don't forget: The goal isn't to save the world, it's to feel less guilty about defacing it.

Ex-CRAP.com. Stands for Christmas Presents Recycled Anonymous (CPRA is too hard to pronounce). It combines the power of the Internet with the intellectual challenge of a parlor game. It works a lot like E-Bay, except you exchange unwanted presents. The goal is to keep stuff out of the land fill; we just keep passing stuff around like we were playing hot potato. Every time you recycle a present you get points toward a gift certificate from WalMart to buy new things. This leaks new stuff into the consumer stream in a controlled manner, and only after you've been good recycler. What happens to Santa Claus? He still has a job, but instead of giving out stuff he hands out poetry. Bonus - he can do it from home using e-mail. No more embarrassing conversations with children about whether he exists or not. It you can read it on the screen, it's got to be real.

Mother nature's cycles aren't perfect. That's why we use controlled forest burns and cloud seeding to help her out when she screws up. So, let's give the great cycle of gift-giving a little boost too. If we're going to go in circles, we might as well do it with as little guilt as possible.