IT’S CHRISTMAS SEASON AGAIN. Perhaps I should dig up one of my other 29 Christmas columns, shuffle the words around a bit, and rerun it. Who would know? If you’re out there, I want to meet you if you’ve been with me that long. I’ll buy you an unsweetened tea, hot or cold, your call.

Redundantly speaking, I do so enjoy Christmas, even more than Halloween. Both involve decorations, costumes, great lighting, and celebrations centered around those who have passed on whom we beckon with ceremony to rejoin and rejoice with us. It’s all one great big pumpkin. Between Halloween and Christmas we all get a turkey dinner. Ya gotta love winter.

I’ve often written of shopping systems I follow of my own design. It was all hooey. Every year I change the way I shop sometimes. Some years I’m cynical and others I’m Santa himself. I go from frugal to fantastic pretty quick. I actually plan to be impulsive on a semi biannual basis if you can believe that.

This year I’m being impulsive. I’m poking around the online gift sites and hitting Add to Cart with little hesitation when I see something that fits a friend or relative. One problem I’m having is that it’s usually a gag gift. I just ordered some Tampon flasks and a fish clock.

When I look at crazy gift ideas, I can always think of someone to give them to. When it comes to practical purchasing, I’m not so good. I tape the receipt to the dress or vase or other failure.

I’m calling this year’s behavior impulsive, though it might seem contradictory. I ask the person, “What do you want for Christmas?” They tell me, and I buy it. I don’t consider its practicality or its cost within reason, I don’t try to surprise, I just Add to Cart.

I called my son-in-law, Chad, the other day. I said, “Hey, Chad, we want to buy you kids some new bar stools for Christmas. We saw that yours are beat up. I figured one of you needed to know to help us pick them out, then we’d surprise the other person.”

Chad said back, “Dude, you picked the wrong spouse. I would NEVER assume to pick out bar stools. Are you crazy? You’ll have to talk to Kristi.”

“OK, put her on,” I said.

Speaking of impulse, my youngest grandson, Adam’s boy, River, 6, is downstairs watching “Antz” on Netflix with Nana. We’re babysitting. I heard them talking, “Blah, blah, Santa, blah, blah.” That reminded me that I needed to buy him and my son of 37 some holiday toys. No shirts, shorts, or socks from me. That’s mom country. I’m the toy man.

Adam, now a computer technician for Napa Unified, loves electronics. Last year I bought him a Raspberry Pi, the mini palm-sized computer. He’s been having a lot of fun with it, and it led him to join Benicia Makerspace.

Because I moonlight teaching Napa teachers about emerging trends in educational technology, I have the opportunity to do focused research on what’s new and cool and be paid for it. That fits me fine.

Apostrophe: I just noticed a developing irony. I started to tell you about something I did impulsively two paragraphs ago and I’m still providing background.

So in my research on The Internet of Things on a topic for a Tuesday night lecture, I came upon a product called littleBits, at littleBits.cc. The box contains an assortment of electronic components — bells, whistles, lights, fans, buttons, splitters, motors — that snap together with embedded magnets to create wild projects like windmills, robots, WiFi fish feeders, pinball machines. That tickled my fancy. I searched them out on YouTube and found a great one-minute film called “Getting Started with littleBits.” Wow. I wanted one for myself. Adam would like this, I remember thinking two weeks ago.

So just now, which was actually about 15 minutes ago because of the background story, I used my coolswitch, Alt-Tab, to flip over to Chrome Amazon where I typed in littleBits, picked the mid-range collection, and hit Add to Cart. Deed done. Then I flipped back and began typing about it.

But before I hit the first key I realized River’s gift was as yet ungot. I called him up to my den. “River, what you want for Christmas?”

My other grandsons already told me their gift requests over Thanksgiving dinner at MacDuffs Restaurant in South Lake Tahoe. No dirty dishes for us this year. Jack at 10 wanted a metal detector. For a second I thought of 108 reasons why that was impractical, then I said, “Sure thing. I’ll order it today.” Tyler at 12 wanted a Chromebook. A reasonable request for a seventh-grade lad, I believe. I said, “Sure thing.” Now it was River’s turn. I had Amazon up on the screen. “What do you want, son? I’ll order it right now.”

He looked a bit bewildered. “I have a list,” he said.

“Well, get up here on my lap and tell me what’s on your list.”

He hopped up there and we shopped for Legos. Ho, ho, ho.

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.