At 11 tracks and just over 33 minutes in length, A Family Christmas lasts just long enough to down a couple mugs of eggnog, or to string half the lights on your tree — or, really, to play for hours while you cook dinner, wrap presents, or enjoy family time. Only two of these tracks aren’t available anywhere else (Johnny Bregar’s lovely acoustic take on “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and the Brave Combo’s “Jolly Old St. Nick”), but if you aren’t the type of person who’s likely to spend the money on, say, Leon Redbone’s Christmas Island — but still wouldn’t mind owning his delightfully droll take on “Let It Snow” — A Family Christmas is a decent value at $13.99. If you’ve already got a huge collection of holiday music, this isn’t anything you need to bother with, but if you’re looking for one Christmas album with enough breadth to please the whole family — and hold up to plenty of repeat plays — you can safely purchase A Family Christmas without reservations.

Before calmer heads had the chance to talk some sense into us we found ourselves in the office of one of the more prestigious pre-schools in the Los Angeles area. The children in this school system graduate to the next level with an average 85% or higher. They don’t mess around here. Only a handful of students per teacher. No holiday is celebrated or hailed so as not to leave anyone out. And the children are not forced into narrow cubbies when they are bad, though a few of them looked like they should be.

What really stood out to me though was when the principal sat us down to give us the low-down. I’ll skip all the details and get to the salient point:

“It used to be,” She said, sternly. “That children came to Pre-K to get ready for Kindergarten, where they would learn the alphabet and their numbers. Nowadays, children come to pre-school already knowing their alphabet and our job is to further enhance their experience to get them ready for a world where they are already ahead of the curve.”

Yipes. When did pre-school get so…advanced? When I was in Nursery school (as we called it) we played Duck, Duck, Goose! Now, the kids are practically pre-algebra! Daunting to say the least. But not impossible to overcome and I’m gonna tell you how we did it. Because it was remarkably simple and our daughter seems to be a genius. Albeit a genius who craps her pants and thinks cheesy poofs are part of the four food groups.

Toss out the flash cards. Forget Sesame Street (Please, god, turn off the TV. It’s a drug. And I’m not getting all preachy here. I have a 1300 square foot house, 2 Tivos, a dual mode DirecTV dvr, a slingbox and a converter to turn virtually anything I want to watch to iPod format. I LOVE TV. But turn off the TV. At least for the first 2 years. Trust me.)

Dump all that stuff because the answer is about twenty bucks away and you won’t have to do a thing. Just sit back, surf the web, make dinner, drink a bottle of wine, whatever, and relax as your child takes the giant step from incomprehensible babbler to genius:

The LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet Set.

It’s simple.

The machine attaches via magnet to your refrigerator or dishwasher. The 26 corresponding letters are also magnets and each one of them fits into the semi-circle slot on the face of the device. When your child puts one in and presses it as if it were a magic button, lo and behold an obnoxious but catchy voice sings, “B! B says ‘buh’! B says ‘buh’! Every letter makes a sound, B says ‘buh’!” to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell. Pull out the letter, and pop in another.

“V! V says ‘vuh’! V says ‘vuh’! Every letter makes a sound, V says ‘vuh’!”

or

“A! A says ‘ay’! A says ‘ay’! Every letter makes a sound, A says ‘ay’!…and ‘Aa’!”

Press the button on the right and the same juvenile voice sings the alphabet.

The success of just putting the letters in the correct slot (the only slot, but still) helps with motor skills and esteem. The repetition of the letters’ names and sounds coupled with the alphabet and this is a toy to be reckoned with.

Within two weeks of this thing in our house I noticed that Zoe was obsessively putting the letters in and making the device work. So I asked her to pick specific letters.

When I asked her to get the A, she got the A and put it in.

When I asked her to get the B, yeah, she got it.

When I asked her to get the W, or as she calls it, “double-boo”, yeah, she got it.

It was incredible. After all, this was not a preschooler I was dealing with. At this point in her life, my daughter had just turned 19 months. She hadn’t even begun to copy our cursing yet.

Then, while showing my wife just what a success her purchase was I pointed to a letter and, rather than ask her to get it, I inadvertently asked her what it was.

“X.” She said.

I pointed to another.

“Z.”

We applauded. She got excited.

“D!” She exclaimed, pulling the letter D from the dishwasher door. She plugged it into the slot, pushed the button and began to dance, spastically, to “D! D says duh! D says duh! Every letter makes a sound. D says duh!”

Now Zoe is our own little sideshow freak. We love to make her pick the right letters for company. Especially the parents who have not discovered this machine and who are very nervous about getting into the right pre-school.

Oh, we’re not too worried about that anymore.

But there’s one name you can trust, and I’m going to give it to you now. Are you ready? Here it is.

The Happy Kid Company.

Sounds ridiculous, right? Like the name of the company that the skeevy toy salesman played by Dan Aykroyd in the old SNL skit might have worked for? I know, I know. But hear me out, because I have real, empirical proof behind my claim. Check it out: The Happy Kid Company sent me its two flagship products, the Fortamajig and Connectables, and after taking them out of their bags and using them, I now have a happy kid. No — a very happy kid.

Just what is a Fortamajig, you want to know? I’m glad you asked. Observe:

Okay, so maybe that picture doesn’t do this colorful bag of awesome total justice. Maybe some extra explanation is in order, so let me try to explain. According to the official Happy Kid Company marketing materials, it’s “an 8×8 foot square of durable nylon ripstop,” which doesn’t really sound like all that much fun, except for the fact that they’ve added a mesh window and approximately 400 velcro loop tabs, so you can attach it to pretty much anything and make an instant fort.

Seriously — instant. Well, maybe not literally instant, but in less than 10 minutes, you can go from sadly fortless to 100% Fortamajigged, even if you’ve never so much tried to say the word “Fortamajig” before. When I opened the box, I had my doubts; I wasn’t sure what to do with the Fortamajig, or how the Connectables related to it. But once you unfurl that thing, you’re halfway to Happy Kid paradise.

Oh, and about the Connectables — as you may have guessed, they’re nylon squares and rectangles, equipped with the same velcro loop tabs as the Fortamajig, used for expanding and connecting it with various wall hangings, doorknobs, and pieces of furniture. To wit:

As toys go, they’re stupidly simple — which is why they’re so cool. I realize I’m sounding over-the-top positive with this writeup, but hand on heart, I’m totally sincere; this is a product you spend a few minutes assembling, and literally hours enjoying with your kids — and it’s versatile enough to use countless times before they get tired of it. Seconds after it went up — actually, even before we were done figuring out where we were going to attach all the loops — my three-year-old was curled up underneath the Fortamajig, pretending she was a guinea pig underneath the night sky, and my 11-month-old was crawling around at top speed, squealing like a maniac, with a face full of joy. If you have kids, or know kids, these make fine gifts…

…Except for the fact that, together, they cost around $160. Now, given what the time and materials would cost you to build something similar, and the endless replay value, I don’t think that’s too much to pay for these, but still, a certain amount of sticker shock is understandable, and the price does make it sort of unlikely that you’re going to be giving these as gifts to anyone outside your immediate family unless you’re in the McCain tax bracket. But if you can afford it, and if you’re tired of your kids taking the couch cushions and leaving them stacked on the living room floor, or you’re looking for a way to distract them from pestering you about building them a treehouse — or if you’re just looking for something that’ll make your young ones go nuts with happiness — then you’ve found the products you seek. They’re kid-tested, Dadnabbit approved.