When my friend Kate finally collected enough courage to end her 12-year marriage to Will, she was suffering all the symptoms of a victim of domestic abuse. She had panic attacks, was in a state of depression, her self-esteem was in the gutter, and her sense of reality was distorted.

In the beginning, Kate would have scoffed at the idea that she had been a victim of domestic abuse. After all, Will “had only cheated” on her. He had not laid a hand on her, yet he had managed to undermine and diminish her through his long-time affair with an old high school girlfriend.

Kate had done what many victims of infidelity do. She failed to realize that in trying to save her marriage, she had destroyed herself by not recognizing that she was as emotionally vulnerable as any abuse victim.

Why do I believe that infidelity is a form of domestic abuse? Because infidelity can be as devastating as a physical attack. Infidelity makes a spouse humiliated, hurt, and helpless. Ultimately, it is experienced as a grave loss, the death of trust. When a husband cheats, he directly attacks his wife’s sense of worth.

In coaching women who are going through divorce due to a husband’s infidelity, I’ve found there to be common characteristics with victims of domestic abuse:

• Both can become an ongoing aspect of marriage. There is a recurring cycle in which the abusive or cheating husband is repentant and the marital relationship functions well. Then there is another episode of abuse or infidelity.

• The husbands may show brief periods of guilt or remorse, but usually seem insensitive to the pain they have caused. Most will not accept responsibility for the suffering they cause.

Here’s the problem with most Christmas presents: you already have it or you don’t want it. And as soon as it’s open, you’ve already forgotten what it was. Worse if you’re the one giving the present, and you’ve just watched someone open three identical gifts, one of which was yours. Worse yet, when the ex-husband outspends you four-to-one on presents for your children.

Especially this year, throwing money around just seems wrong.

So here’s a proposal. Try coming up with Christmas and Hanukkah presents that pull people together instead of splitting them apart. That offer an experience instead of something to be dumped in the bottom of a closet, or regifted.

It takes some thinking (which is free!) and you have to know the person well. But here are some ideas for holiday gifts that keep on giving.

• The bored teenager who has everything (1)

You’ll never find the right clothes because what was in last month is now out. Electronics? You don’t even know what the kid has at this point (a lot). Instead, give an experience. For $100 you can give him or her a gift certificate for a flying lesson. Yes, in an airplane. I’ve had a great experience with Pilot Journey but you can also go to a local (ideally small) airport and just talk to an instructor. The astonishment, the worry, the preparation, the lesson itself will stretch out in memory. $100 is a lot of money, but this is a lot of experience. You only have one first flying lesson in your life. And the whole family can watch and take pictures with their cell phones.

• The bored teenager who has everything (2)

The day after Thanksgiving (known in retail as Black Friday) and the following Cyber Monday made barely a dent in our closets this year. There were no fights over designer outfits at the outlets, and trendy clothes are still sitting on 40% markdown racks at local department stores and mall boutiques.

We’re all on a clothes diet, applying the same selective attitude to fashion that we did to feasting, with stuffing, gravy, and pecan pie sitting untouched while the veggies and lean turkey got gobbled up.

Come to think of it, most women I know made it through this year’s celebratory day with a calorie counter and post-meal workout. Which means sooner or later you (or rather, we) are going to binge — it’s inevitable during the holiday season.

When you do, whether it’s double chocolate chip cookies or a pair of Current/Elliot jeans, you’ll be asking yourself, “is it worth it?” Most women say they’re desperate for a new pair of jeans but have taken a sensible, unsentimental approach to almost everything else.

Here’s my pragmatic guide to a little denim indulgence. It’s practically guilt-free.

Tell yourself:

1. Winter is really the ideal time to wear skinny jeans. They’re easy to tuck into knee-high boots, big Hunter rain boots, or Uggs. Think of them as leggings with more substance and control. In a thicker stretch denim, they work like a body shaper. Choose a medium rise, so you’re not tugging them up all day, and a very dark even-toned wash or black for ultra-slimming power. This style is where you can get away with a really low-cost jean, because what really shows is the top of thighs to knees; the rest is covered.

It used to be that opening brand name boxes — Tiffany's, Abercrombie & Finch, Ralph Lauren — would elicit oohs and ahs over the holidays. Okay, maybe they still do, but the diving economy has caused a shift in thinking, and now — hip hip hoorah — meaningful and personalized presents are the new status gifts this holiday season.

With that in mind, we have assembled a gift list that will touch the heart for $50 or less. In fact, these gifts could be considered priceless in that they hearken back to the original intention of the holidays.

1. Create a personalized photo book or calendar. Cull through all your old photo albums, slides, and memory cards and gather up some of your favorite pictures. Whether you choose one major event (wedding, birthday, trip), a shared history, or just treasured moments together, this is a wonderful present that can be appreciated for years to come.

Local retailers like Kinkos (calendar $19.99) and Ritz Camera both offer various options for creating unique pictorial presents from either digital or photo images. There are also online services like Snapfish ($18.99 for a 2009 photo calendar) that don’t even require you to leave your home, as long as you have digital images on hand. Our favorite is Apple’s iPhoto, which allows you to design glossy hard- or soft-cover photo albums with personalized captions.

You can assure your children that you will always love them and care for them, but a first Christmas post-divorce will be hard for them. A marriage lawyer in Scotland found that the holiday was one of the most contentious issues to be settled post-divorce.

"Christmas is always a problem,” Lesley-Anne Barnes said. She lectures in family law at Napier University in Edinburgh. “We would raise Christmas issues in October to try to get something in writing.”

Research by the Children's Society, a charity in England, shows that more than a quarter of children between the ages of 14 and 16 said they felt depressed, with one in ten being diagnosed with a mental health disorder. There are fears that the breakdown of marriages has led to a doubling of teenagers with emotional and behavioral problems from 1974 to 1999. And holiday season, with the stress of family get-togethers, and high expectations, can lead to an increase in behavior problems.

So you can make every effort to provide your children with the best emotional environment and a happy holiday season, but they may well be thinking of happy holidays past, and not know what to expect as children of divorce.

Below are a few suggestions on how to deal with your child’s stress during the holiday season.

Listen, Hear and Validate

Many children don’t express their concerns with a parent out of fear of upsetting her. Be sure your children know that you are available to talk, no matter what they feel the need to say. If they think that great Aunt Edna smells bad, you can assure them they won’t have to sit near her, while also cautioning them to be generous and forgiving of older people and their problems.

Americans may penny-pinch in other areas this season, but Christmas means seeing the light — and for some, the more the merrier. Come December, many families take their competitive spirit to new heights, because if there were an Olympics for holiday lights, we’d take the gold.

For example, in Anchorage, Alaska, the Lorangers shine 20,000 bulbs on a homemade Santa fishing from a pool of lights. At the Wills’ home in Mendota Falls, Minnesota, some 150 candy canes light up the exterior. A thousand miles west in Tuscon, Arizona, cacti sparkle. Down in Marble Falls, Texas, an electrified twirling lariat spells out Merry Christmas Y’All.

According to David Seidman, author of Holiday Lights!, Christmas lights began as a winter solstice ritual. When the nights grew long and bitter cold, people would bring in evergreens and burn slabs of wood. Eventually, this became the Yule log, and candle-lit trees soon followed.

In 1879, when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, his assistant Edward Johnson took some home and lit up his own Christmas tree. The fashion became tradition when President Grover Cleveland put electric lights on the White House tree. Then in the late 1940’s and 50’s, when electricity became affordable, it became all the rage to decorate home exteriors.

This tradition still continues. And while some may not string 600,000 lights on their house this season, it doesn’t take much to dazzle and delight both kids and adults.

Here are David Seidman’s 10 wildest neighborhoods that parlay tradition into high-wattage celebration:

Baltimore, Maryland

I love the brutal truth of HDTV. On old broadcast TV, everyone looked perfect thanks to thick layers of pancake, powder, and contour for definition. The muted gauze on the lens visibility meant you never saw the vast amount of makeup anyone wore.

As a frequent contributor during beauty and fashion segments for "The Today Show" and "The Early Show", the intensity of makeup that translated as normal onscreen always amazed me. It was easy to blank out all flaws from undereye circles to brow stubble (like hiding a lover’s glasses during sex since!).

Now, under the wicked eye of extreme clarity and magnified details of HDTV, you know who needs a brow or moustache wax, if they’re wearing gloss and lip pencil or just lipstick, and when they’ve traded their blush for bronzing powder.

I’m just fascinated with the new beauty strategy of TV journalists and I’m not alone. My friends think Katie Couric has the best eye makeup these days and I especially love Rachel Maddows’s makeup on MSNBC. I have been accused on many occasions (and especially during the recent presidential campaign) of paying more attention to correspondents’ hair and blush selection than to what they are actually saying.

My chum superstar makeup artist Sandy Linter tells me all the anchors including Diane Sawyer still wear strip fake lashes all the time. “It’s how they get through long days in the public eye without looking beat or tired.”

The politics of gift-giving — especially in blended families — can be fraught with peril. With kids being human calculators, knowing the value of absolutely everything, each one will measure exactly where s/he stands in the pecking order. Yes, families need to have the wisdom of Solomon to navigate these minefields but there are ways to diffuse potential bombs instead of igniting them.

Here's what I've learned over the years to create holiday memories.

Christmas Gifts

Sometimes, because of finances, you simply can't buy the kinds of presents that you could before. But parents have to be adults and not point fingers. Instead of saying, "Johnny, you can't get an X-Box and a bike because your Dad left with that woman and we can't afford it," you can say, "Johnny, there is a difference between luxuries and necessities. Right now, we can't afford to buy everything I would want, but you can have a choice between an X-Box and a bike. And at another time, I hope to buy you the other one."

That makes the choices value-based versus divorce-based.

Do not spoil your child to get back at your husband. This always backfires. Have faith that simple pleasures are still what kids remember, not the particular toy. Your attitude in dealing with changes will be the roadmap in how they deal with bumps along the way, so be as positive as possible.

Gifts for Stepkids

Unlike my childhood, where a gift might be signed "From Mom and Dad," and I didn’t get mad if Mom really bought the gifts, in a divorced household, a signature of "Jill and Dad" feels inferior and empty. It’s another example of a child being force-fed this new family.

Many stepchildren feel they are sharing their father with another family and already have only rationed time with him. When Dad picks out the gift, it feels more special — and I think they're right.