Cheery title for the holiday season, don’tcha think?  It was the holidays, and the attendant shopping that goes along with them, that got this train of thought rolling in the first place.  One of the interesting things over the past five years in particular has been the big push towards e-devices, not only as the obvious alternative to traditional print media, but also with regards to games and entertainment.  During this time my entire family and extended family has gone “e” and for the first time ever I am finding that the things they really want, the “thoughtful” gifts are not going to be plastic toys, battery-driven cordless drills or even shiny shiny game DVD’s.  They’re going to be gift cards.

Yeah, I know.  Talk about impersonal.  Gift cards are what you give your babysitter, or your uncle in Tulsa because of the shipping costs, not something you get your *kids*.

Except this year.  This year we have finally reached the tipping point.  The point where the value of information, of data, the near invisible bits and bytes that go into creating e-media have transcended the tawdry plastic and glitter that once had my children pointing to every new thing on the screen and saying I *want* that.

The gift card market, the e-currency market has gone absolutely insane.  Walk into your local supermarket or drugstore and you’ll be faced with a wall of goodies, plastic cards that can be charged with dollar amounts ranging from $5 to $10,000 (yes, there are a few that you can put up to 10k on, though if you’re going to gift that large an amount, I suspect a wire transfer to a Swiss Bank Account might be more your speed).  The game industry, and in particular the “Free to Play/Pay for Stuff” end of the MMO industry, has embraced this middleman with a vengeance.  As a parent, it’s become an easy tangible tool to teach financial responsibility without exposing my credit card information over and over and over (and while each of the digital entities may have excellent security, having to buy minutes or credits or pips each time my kids want to spend their earnings will statistically increase my risk).  My kids earn up, then on our next trip to buy essentials, instead of buying plastic toys that will eventually clog up the landfill, or candy bars and soda, they get a card that will allow them to buy stuff in their favorite game, or will allow them access to the “members only” section for another month.

On the one hand, as a parent, I’m a little concerned about my kids willingness to chuck money at virtual products, and equally concerned that they want virtual goods as gifts, rather than the good ol’ fashioned action figures and tea-sets.  But you know, sooner or later every one of those action figures is going to end up in the landfill somewhere, even if I turn them over to a family in need.  I myself have finally made the transition from paper books (as much as I love the hedonistic feel of the pages) to e-books because, sooner or later, something horrible happens.  I have lost books to water, bugs, rats, kids, sewage (don’t ask) poor judgment and now I am facing down an entire library of paperbacks that will be given to a new home simply because I no longer have the space to support my book-hoarding habit.

It’s remarkably freeing.  I can divest myself (and my kids) of all this *stuff*.  Dispose of all the toys that have lost their luster and get rid of bookshelves full of stuff.  Take the focus off the material, off of owning the *thing* and focus on the idea, the experience, without saddling it with the onus of possessing an actual physical trophy.

But is it a real change?  By turning the focus away from the physical toy to a virtual one, is this an actual turn from the materialism that every parent, teacher and psychologist has lamented since the dawn of time, or are we simply becoming virtually materialistic? Or are we simply broadening the definition of “material” to include ownership of things that are, arguably, less real?  And if we are, does that mean that so many of the traditionally non-material elements that we value in place of things – knowledge, imagination, intuition, experience – are *just* as material as the action figures and robot vacuum cleaners?

I think perhaps, as much as I may embrace the new “e-era” and succumb to getting an extra month of an MMO here or a hundred “e-coins” there for the kiddos, there’s still going to be a few things under the tree that likely are made out of plastics, or Nerf foam, or one of the other more traditional materials of play.  As much as I might want them to be better than my “Material Girl” generation, I’m not quite ready to give up those trophies, those physical proofs of my affection.

Yet.

Maybe when they’re teenagers.