Cherry blooms. Warm vanilla extract. Mandarin orange spice. Coconut Mango verbena. What's verbena anyway? Whatever it is, I have a lot of it.

It's body lotions, sprays, creams, butters, body washes... a stockpile of the most popular default gift, the aromatic body care set. I started to wonder if people were trying to tell me something, but decided that hygiene-wise I'm good.

Every year I receive at least one set from you-name-it body care store. And every year, it disappears beneath the sink to join the rest of the bottles and tubes. Not that I don't like smelling like a fruit salad, but at 5:00 in the morning, when I usually get up and bumble through a workout, the last thing on my mind is "Now where is that great, coordinated body wash/lotion/spray set? Today I want to smell like the Far East in springtime."

I've noticed these sets are, thankfully, not popular teacher-gift ideas. We usually get food or candy, which, now that I think about it, would make the scented bodycare set idea a little more logical: workout harder to burn said candy, therefore need better body care. Any student over fifth grade, however, would probably avoid giving a teacher a gift that even remotely suggests improving body scents.

I remember being a kid and pouring over the Toys R' Us catalogue, delighting in marking pages that contained something I wanted. I certainly did not get everything I wanted, and today I am embarrassed at my childish greed. My daughter, or I should say her grandparents, are limited to three gifts per gifting occasion to reflect biblical tradition. The children's book I have in the works is about such buyer-lust. We are all victim to it.

Practical gifts, the kind you really don't enjoy buying for yourself, are my best responses when asked what I want. A look around my house tells me I've got everything I need. Sure, there are some "wants", like xeriscaping the front yard, and a new deck out back. Yet there is comfort in knowing that these are indeed "wants", not "needs". More than half the things anyone "wants" are not "needs" anyway. You want the latest iPod, you need the toothpaste. This is a rather tough concept to teach as advertisers are so good at convincing us that we need whatever it is they are hawking.

I particularly like a rule I clipped from the business section, which is when you find something you really want, wait 72 hours to see if your craving for it is still as strong. Most of the time, the article states, the item is completely forgotten in three days.

As far as a great idea for the upcoming gifting season, keep the Starbucks cards coming. 5:00 workouts don't quite get the body in gear like a jolt of caffeine.

Better yet, find out what charity the teacher, or anyone for that matter, supports, and give a gift in their name. That warms the heart and soothes the body like no latte or lotion can.