2. Eco Dog: Healthy Living for Your Pet by  Corbett Marshall and Jim Deskevich demonstrates the everyday dangers in traditional cleaners and pet products–then shows you how to make your own safe, natural foods, flea treatments, and toys. There’s even instructions to recycle your old sweaters into a felt blanket for Sparky. Here’s an idea: Make one of the recipes from the book (but don’t get it dirty!) to present with the gift.

3. The Green Bible: Understanding the Bible’s Powerful Message for the Earth, $19.99, highlights more than 1,000 verses pertaining to the earth’s beauty and our responsibility to protect it. There are also essays by scholars and religious leaders as well as a “Green Bible Trail Guide.” The bible itself is made from recycled paper, with soy-based ink, and is a New Revised Standard Version of the good book.

4. A gift from Oxfam, the international relief and development organization. For $50, you can donate a lamb or a goat in a friend’s name. Heck, they might even name the goat after your friend. (What you’re really doing is donating the cost of a goat for Oxfam to use as needed, such as training farmers to work with goats or helping women start their own businesses.) Your friend receives a nice card from Oxfam with a coat on it, and never has to clean out a stall. Gift is tax deductible.

5. Organic Monkey Ring Stacker for babies, $32.99 from Toys R Us (and available only online). Made form organic cotton with no chemical treatment.

Anyway, Henry doesn’t eat traditional treats–no Snausages, no Milk Bones, not even organic biscuit. He also rips apart any toy I’ve ever bought for him, and I wanted to try something different. So for Christmas this year, I’m giving Henry Quackers Natural Duck Dog Treats. Essentially turkey jerky for dogs, Quackers are a unique, healthful gift option for dogs–and not just the ones who live on raw meat. They’re also made from breast of duck and nothing else. So unlike dinner with your mooching best friend, you won’t be stuck with the bill.

$5.99 for 3 ounces at Petco.

Then, many of us sort of gave up the paper thing and started doing all of our reading on what 15 years ago was called the information superhighway, until everyone decided that sounded too lame for the new millennium.

But then, we became so addicted to our favorite Web sites, that books were written based on those Web sites, lest we ever face a computer uprising against humanity and can no longer access our precious LOLcats. And we were sort of right back where we started, only now we, like Hannah Montana, have the best of both worlds.

Speaking of LOLcats, those of you who are unfamiliar with these captioned cat photos should scuttle on over to ICanHasCheezburger.com for a dose of of fun. Seriously, who would have thought that obnoxious cats with bad spelling and an insatiable appetite for cheeseburgers could be so adorable? And yet, these LOLcats have morphed into a cultural phenomenon on the level with Pacman Fever and that McDonald’s commercial where the kid has to get through her piano recital or her oppressive parents won’t take her for a cheeseburger. . . why does it always come back to cheeseburgers?

Now in book form: I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun (Lolcat Colleckshun). Available at Amazon.com ($8, free shipping eligible) and book stores everywhere.

OK, that sounds a little more forced than “Happy Howlidays”–a title I still intend to use on any upcoming dog-toy post. But for now, let’s talk about cats, shall we?

Specifically, let’s talk about that bizarre attraction most of them have to that most potent of herbs, catnip. Give ‘em a taste of the good stuff, and they’ll roll around the floor as they drift away to the kitty equivalent of Margaritaville.

Yeowww! catnip from DuckyWorld is the best dang catnip I’ve ever tried. . . well, the best ‘nip my cat has ever tried. When you sniff a Yeowww! toy, you can tell you’ve found the Dom Pérignon of the kitty happy plant.

And now, for some human happy: We’re giving away three Yeowww! catnip toys! Just in time for the meowlidays, er, holidays, one lucky kitty will win a catnip candy cane, Christmas tree, and Chanukah toy. Just leave a comment below. And hey–one entry each. I know all about you cats. Cheetahs, every last one of ya.

Yeowww! catnip toys from DuckyWorld; under $10. Visit DuckyWorld for store locations and Web sites.

U.S. residents only.

But whatever your cat’s political preference, my guess is he’ll vote for these Party Cats from DuckyWorld. Or maybe he’ll just lick them and slip into a catnip-induced haze. . . which is also fun. The cats are available in RepubliCat, DemoCat, and gRRReencat. My apologies to any straggling Nader supporters; there is no RalphCat.

I’ve been using DuckyWorld’s Yeowww! catnip for years and it’s one of the few brands my own cat responds to. The toys are worth every penny.

Priced under $10. Click here for stores in your area and online shopping options.

You can find a complete list of the Hot Dozen, along with other toys expected to be bestsellers, here.

The least expensive item on the list may also prove to be the most coveted: the Bakugan Battle Brawlers Starting Pack. ($12.99 for the starter pack; $4.99 and up for add-ons and accessories). The hybrid trading card strategy/marble-esque skill game is based on a cartoon of the same name and is enormously popular with boys. The resale market on Amazon and ebay prove it: if you have a kid on your list who likes these toys, buy them now, before they’re Baku-gone. (Oh, c’mon, easy pun.)

Although several of the toys are quite pricey (topping out at $300 for Kota the “living” dinosaur), many have less expensive counterparts. There are several items in the LEGO AGENTS line, for example, with the smallest starting at $9.99. (The most expensive, the Mobile Command Center, made the list and goes for $89.99.) The toys, which encourage builders to turn into mission-solving secret agents, involve a unique online storytelling format to enhance play.

And there are numerous, smaller versions of the $250 Toys R Us exclusive Ultimate WALL-E , a remote-control robot, that are perhaps not as ultimate but certainly not as costly.

This year, both on and off the list, technology continues to change the way we play, with an emphasis on toys that have an online element but can also be enjoyed without a computer (LEGO AGENTS, Disney Fairies Clickables, Robot Galaxy, etc.). Trading card games, including the aforementioned Bakugan, as well as Yu-Gi-Oh and Chaotic, are also ubiquitous. And you can expect a very Hannah Montana holiday season, with the Disney Diva showing up in her own Guitar Hero-styled game for girls (Hannah Montana Pop Tour Guitar Video Game) and a Malubu Beach House ($129.99). Hannah will also join Disney Channel favorites (Suite Life of Zach and Cody, High School Musical, Cheetah Girls) on Scene It: Disney Channel edition ($39.99).

I’ll be touching on my favorite items–both those chosen as “hot” and those flying under the radar screen–in separate posts over the next several weeks.
Keep in mind that while the toys listed on “Best Of” lists are a good guide of what will be popular with children, the best toy you can give a child is the one that is right for them, no matter what the Joneses are up to.