If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to save money, then please let my Christmas be an inspiration to you. It seems our family got the lion’s share of “As Seen on TV” products, and while some of them delivered as much entertainment as their commercials, others were gag gifts in the literal sense.

The Snuggie: A cheesy airline blanket, but an airline blanket WITH ARMS. Still a cheesy airline blanket. I give it two thumbs down -- but you can actually see that because my hands are sticking out of this cheesy airline blanket.

The Big City Sliders Station actually makes a pretty decent -- albeit tiny -- burger. The directions are a joke, so you’ll have to play with cooking times and technique, but otherwise, it was a fun novelty. The clean-up with a damp paper towel that they advertise on television is a big fat lie, unless you’re into food borne illnesses, but the burgers did not stick so that did make clean-up easier than say cooking them on a radiator grate made of Velcro.

The Chia Pet: Although I haven’t Googled it yet, I’m pretty sure “chia” is Taiwanese for “Legionnaires’ disease.” I realize if you actually extract a chia from the box you’re not exactly going for cutting-edge  décor, but even as a joke this is a big waste of time and alfalfa sprouts. We got the new SpongeBob SquarePants version, and the green slime oozing from his clay head looks like the power in a fish tank went out for a couple of weeks. The kids think it smells like a pineapple washed up from under the sea.

Big Top Cupcake maker:This is new this year, the silicone cupcake pan that bakes a giant confection 25 times the size of a normal cupcake, which can never be bad. It does take a considerable amount of baking time for a single box of cake mix, and you should read the directions to get the shape just right, but I don’t hate this.

The Bottle Top: Although I can’t actually figure out why I would need this plastic bottle top that goes on top of cans, it does indeed fit on a can and close tightly. I now have one more apparatus to wash, but no bees or other flying insects have entered our family’s soda since Friday afternoon.

Maybe next year we can look forward to Snuggies for our Chia Pets.

At least that might cover the smell.

-- Tracey Henry, the Suburban Diva

[Photos: The Today show gang in Snuggies (NBC); Big Top Cupcake]