It's Christmas Eve. Hope you have your shopping done. If not I'm sure we'll see you on KING 5 tonight when they air one of their hard-hitting pieces about "last-minute shoppers" that producers put together this time of year when they want to mail it in so they can get home early for the holiday.

Got my gift purchasing finished yesterday. Started sometime around 3:30 p.m. Wrapped things up by 8:30 p.m. Didn't have to resort to gift cards either.

It took me a little bit longer than I had anticipated because I was trying to make a conscious effort to avoid buying crap made in China.

Now I'm pretty open minded about these things. The "Made in USA" label is obviously the benchmark everyone should be demanding. But if it's made in Canada, Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Great Britain, Germany or pretty much any other democratic country in the world free trade should reign supreme.

Case in point: was looking to purchase a simple hand-held can opener. It is winter and the power goes out all the time. The old one had long since died because it was one of those awful "safety" can openers that cut into the side of the can and not the top because you don't want to accidently lay your throat open while tossing a sharp can lid in the trash.

Worst invention since mustard gas.

As for my purchase I wanted it to be a little fancy with a black ergonomic grip and that matches the rest of the kitchen utensils. Had in my mind some solid affair made of good Krupp steel that you can march across Poland, France and Russia with opening any canned food item that crossed your path.

Started out in Target (pronounced Tar-ge'). Knew it was a mistake. Sure enough when I flipped over the package to read on the back, every can opener had the tiny words "Made in China" printed in the lower corner.

When forced to I prefer to do my mall shopping at South Hill Mall in Puyallup. It caters to the blue collar and lower middle-class demographic that I've proudly sprung from. Shopping in Seattle would be preferable but the powers that be feel that it makes good business sense to add a $5 to $15 surcharge for the luxury of parking in town before spending your money. Bellevue and its you-must-be-rich-so-we'll-tack-on-15-percent-extra-to-the-price-tag-marketing is almost always avoided. Places like South Center or Tacoma Mall would be fine if you don't mind getting your car stolen while returning fire during any black vs. Asian gang wars. Everywhere else is too far of a drive.

Went to every single store in the mall that sold kitchen wares. No luck. All of the can openers that I found were made in China. Left the mall and started hitting up the strip-malls on Meridian. Same deal.

My quest finally ended at Bed, Bath and Beyond ("Heck" Yeah!). If you're a guy and not married, this store is not for the faint of heart. At the entrance I half expected to go through three trials "The Breath of God", "Word of God" and "Path of God" and then fight a grail knight afterwards. Sadly this wasn't the case.

More disheartening was that here too every can opener had China stamped on it.

To be sure there was plenty of other merchandise made in "friendly" countries. German-made waffle machines, Italian coffee makers. I even picked up some drinking glasses that were made in the good old US-of-A. You can tell they're quality because each one was made with about 20-ounces of glass.

For a second I almost scotched the whole gift idea. I had spent an extra 90-minutes trying to shop with my conscious and not my pocketbook. But I bought the Chinese-made can opener. All while knowing that China is creating a blue water navy, modernizing its air force and expanding its ballistic missile program in order to be on par militarily with the United States in two decades with dollars derived from our current trade deficit.

I chose poorly.