Lisa Carnley is managing editor of the Lampasas Dispatch Record. Christmas shopping is an experience. One that we, as consumers, are doomed to repeat every year.

Because we promise our kids the latest toys and our husbands and wives the latest gadgets, we find ourselves in the malls, shopping centers and discount houses seeking that perfect gift for each of our loved ones. You know, the gift they can’t live without in December but have managed to live without up until then.

We scour sales flyers, surf the Internet, wait for midnight madness (as if shopping were anything else during the holiday season), and look for circulars with special prices.

And do those stores make promises. They each offer the “best,” “brightest” and “biggest” at the lowest prices “guaranteed.” I honestly believe prices are (over)inflated during the holiday shopping season to reflect people’s panic at finding requested treasures for gift-giving.

The reason for that is simple: Each year, toymakers, for example, have one item that every child simply must find under the tree. You know, like the one where the super-figure can contort its body 12 ways before shooting flames, or the doll that not only tells time but can do it in three languages while changing its own diaper.

I’m convinced toy manufacturers purposely offer a limited number of these items to drive up the prices. Parents think nothing of paying several hundred dollars for a video game system, and toymakers know that.

I am one of those parents, too. Guilty, as charged. I remember one year when the latest version of X Box was offered for sale. I put two of them on layaway (when that was still allowed by retail establishments that now assume parents can plunk down a fortune all at once).

The game systems, to me, were expensive, but I knew my kids wanted them (and they believed they just had to have them). I also purchased games for them, and the boys seemed happy to get them.

They played with them for a short time, and then they were outmoded, replaced by the next big thing -- a newer game system with higher resolution, more realistic figures, better color and sound. And of course, the newer versions don’t accommodate the same games (at $40 a pop) as the other system did.

Now, the X Box machines sit on shelves gathering dust, and you can’t even sell them at garage sales (unless you want to be offered $10 for that expensive game system).

I sure thought I was smart when I didn’t get suckered into buying the newest game system. I swore I wasn’t going to waste my money on anything like that again.

Instead, I went to gift cards. Those never go out of style. And no matter how much the store’s merchandise changes, my kids can pick out the latest items -- things they just have to have. You know, something they can’t seem to live without in December but have managed to live without up until that time.

And since buying a pair of designer jeans (that come complete with holes in the knees) can be as expensive as a game system, I don’t think I’m really coming out ahead. It just makes me feel better not to see them sitting on a shelf gathering dust.