Every year around this time, holiday catalogs and circulars plump up the Sunday paper and I begin to think about what to give my grandchildren for Christmas. Every year, I have the same conversation in my head, one that revolves around love and values and materialism and messages.

I want my grandchildren to see me as their loving, warm, kind Grandma Joni, whose gifts are thoughtful and fun and remind them they are always in my heart.

Nothing like setting myself up for failure, right?

This season’s bundle of holiday advertising looks a little different. Major retailers have re-engaged their lay-away plans and now push deeply discounted prices that make it more affordable than ever to over-spend. One offers scores more gifts now $10 or less, another has affordably priced board game sets designed to evoke those fond memories of family game nights.

I flipped through the first few pages of inexpensive toys, but the farther I got into the flyers, the more expensive the gifts became. One new toy promises kids the ability to move objects using only the power of their little minds, and I wonder whether we really want to encourage that ability in children.

But the image in the center of the next page stopped me cold.

A television screen emblazoned with a colorful woodlands scene.

A smiling boy, perhaps eight or nine years old.

Shouldering a pump-action shotgun.

It’s a video game, I know that. Certainly, the child must know that.

But still.