It's the holiday season, which might mean cookies, carols and Secret Santas, but it can also bring out your inner neurotic.

To combat your internal insanity, we recommend Zen Habits 15 Can't-Miss Ways to Declutter Your Mind and Wise Bread's 25 Awesome Ways to Beat Holiday Exhaustion. The cute kitty picture on the latter's post is a great step in the right de-stress direction.

But Santa borrowing against his home's equity isn't a step in the right direction, according to Gen X Finance. Gen X points out the insanity of a recent CNN story about a subprime borrower who used to tap into her home equity like it was a savings account to buy Christmas presents for her grandkids, nieces and nephews.

No one wants a Christmas without gifts, but if this is how you're funding them, think about giving yourself a budget for the holidays. The lunacy of this kind of financial routine is exactly what got us in this subprime fiasco in the first place and should serve as a wake-up call for people to evaluate how they spend and borrow. Sheesh.

On the more positive end of the borrowing spectrum, those legal elves at the credit card companies have a gift for you. Consumerist reports that if you had a Visa, MasterCard, or Diners Club Cards during any time between February 1 1996 and November 8 2006, you can get a $25 dollar refund from the credit-card company. It's not technically a gift since they might have screwed you on foreign-transaction fees, but I suppose it's as generous as they're going to get. Class action lawsuits RULE.

Also for the scrooges thrifty folk out there, the Digerati Life has some simple tips for saving money at the grocery store. And tip #16, "Don't shop with kids," will be especially easy after you read the Dough Roller's post on calculating how much a kid costs. And that's not even including this super rad LEGO holiday train set.

Have a great weekend and go elf yourself.

- Mary Pilon