Hopefully, none of you were injured in any of the Black Friday melees at Wal-Marts last week. And hopefully, no one’s been conned yet into buying gifts that are not really gifts. You know what I’m talking about — Those strange gadgets and gismos no one really needs, but are priced so low they seem like a good idea to a hurried shopper.

Strange, unnecessary holiday gifts have become so common — and so annoying — that articles about how to avoid them are popping up all over the place. In fact, at Treehugger, Lloyd Alter’s put together a hilarious list of Seven Things You Don’t Want for Christmas**. Click over to admire the uselessness of the One Click Butter Cutter (below) and the dot-matrix toaster.

More seriously, Farhad Manjoo at Slate warns us of the six Black Friday “bargains” to avoid.** The duds range from photo printers that will cost you 3 times more per photo to digital photo frames that are unlikely to be used. Yet some people out there must be snatching these up, because companies keep making them. I encourage all eco shoppers to heed Farhad’s advice:

In general, don’t buy anything that you or your loved ones don’t need just because it’s on sale. This sounds obvious, but the rule is easy to forget during a shopping stampede. Remember, retailers are counting on your irrationality—the whole point of a “doorbuster” sale is to get you into the store to seduce you to spend cash on more profitable items.

Of course, perhaps the issue for you is not so much controlling your own buying impulses, but putting the kibosh on those of your friends and family. Afraid you’ll get a pie gate** on Christmas day? Then consider signing up for DreamBank.** This site lets you post a dream gift you’d like to receive — say, an eco-vacation in Australia — then ask friends and family to contribute a small sum toward that dream instead of buying you a triangular pizza cutter, a Dough-Nu-Matic, or other bizarre gadgets you don’t need. Dream big, and ditch bad gifts forever.

Image via whateverworks.com**

**You are leaving the FilterForGood Web site. The Brita Products® Company is not responsible for the content or data collection of that independent site.