Xmas antidotes

Hmmmm. Christmas - 'tis the season to be jolly. But being jolly for a day, let alone a whole season is, like, work. But I've been having some ideas on some of the problems. In any case, the Jollity eventually comes to The End [R going home after the last Ho Ho Ho].

• Coliforms. Satan bought the Gdaus each a stuffed toy. These things are almost certainly made in the Far East in a factory with dodgy lavatories and sketchy regs about hand-washing. It's like shirts, which The Beloved will insist on washing before I'm allowed to wear them. You can't throw a teddy bear or a snuffed okapi into the washing machine and expect it to retain any of its cuddliness. What's needed is a germicidal powder and a cardboard box. Put soft-toy into box, add aliquot of powder and shake gently for two minutes, leave for five minutes and then vacuum off the excess. Safe for your tots!
• Anti-presents. Anti-gifts are a thing: mugs, buttons and t-shirts with slogans to indicate that, although you're paying up to $20, the gift is ironic. Rather than your friends&relations giving you a book that you probably won't read, why not invite them to take one of your books away with them? You won't read that book [again] either; they will enjoy it because they can choose and you'll eventually de-clutter all the bookshelves in the house. Win!
• Fat and food. In the West, Christmas is synonymous with over-indulgence. Even in the 1920s, my mother's grown-up relatives were all getting smashed on booze and making children eat pink blancmange as the only dessert that didn't have added alcohol. You don't have to eat food until your cheeks distend and your eye bulge. Two solutions possible: just say no or tomorrow is another day.: you can imagine that you'll go for a vigorous wood-chopping session later.  
• Magnets as 'food'. We have had Geomag in the house for a long time, without appreciating the hazards. These are super-strong neodymium magnetic bars with which you can build Platonic solids and much much more. If you swallow a glass marble, as I did, it will eventually work its way through. If you swallow a single geomag then ditto. If your kid ingests two they can stick two sections of bowel together: pressure necrosis, perforation and/or fistula are possible. Since the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning in 2012,  parents have been more vigilant.
• Christmas Eve is better. Bittersweet story about being a father.