Animation software makes a great stocking-stuffer for an animator - but it can be pretty expensive, even moreso when you look at the high-end animation software that's compatible with the Mac OS. Most free or low-cost software is developed with PCs in mind, but not all of it. Here's five programs for the Mac that not only animate well, but won't empty out your wallet.

The key draw of Flash is interactivity; not just an animation tool, it's a fully-interactive production studio that allows you to create movies your viewers can participate with, rather than just watch. But it can also work with other interactive platforms such as PHP to enhance its functionality and increase its capabilities. This includes letting you gather user information and use it to customize your Flash animations, such as with this Christmas E-Card.

You can winterize your windows, winterize your tires - but you can also winterize your website, although the process doesn't exactly involve weather sealing. Instead it's just a little animation, a little actionscripting, a little DHTML, and you can use the Flash falling snow animation as an overlay on your website content to create a festive (or blizzardy) feel.

Ever tried drawing smoothly in Flash? Are you any good at that? If the answer is "yes," you're off my Christmas card list. (Just kidding.) Seriously, though - for those of you who have difficulty drawing in Flash, there are a few nifty little tools that come in handy and just might save your squiggly, wiggly, wrinkly artwork. They're called the Smooth and Straighten buttons, and they exist to clean up your lines and fills so they look just a little cleaner and a little less wobbly.

Flash libraries are like office desks: no matter how you try to organize them, they end up a mess of clutter that you can't seem to find anything in. Categorizing everything into separate libraries just means that when you want to find something, you have no idea where you've put it (just like when you clean your house). You can make things easier on yourself, though, by organizing your symbols into separate libraries - and then keeping multiple library panels open in your workspace.

Saving swatches of custom colors that you use frequently can make your Flash workflow a lot easier - or at least save a lot of use of the eyedropper tool. Just a few clicks and you can create a miniature army of swatches, in whatever delightful or hideous colors you want. (Even chartreuse. Does anyone even use chartreuse anymore? Saffron? Eggshell?)

If you think you can do better than the latest submissions to the Animation Showcase, don't hesitate to submit your work for display. It'll get you publicity, at least, and if you include a link we'll be happy to link back to you. Just remember to follow the guidelines to the letter, because Adri gets very, very cranky when he has to convert your QuickTime files into the appropriate format.

This submission to the Animation Showcase uses Flash, and Terry Sinclair uses it to experiment with Flash. For a first-timer in Flash, the grasp of movie clips, segmented characters, and cyclical animation is pretty good. At the very least it's a good example of timing audio with motion, and of using cycling clips for repeated motions.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I opened submissions for the Animation Showcase - but what I'm getting is a surprising number of novices who aren't afraid to show off their first efforts. Such is the case with "Blink Kitty Love" (I have no idea what that means) by Michelle D. Norton, which shows that you don't need an expensive animation program to try to get your story across. She created this in Flip Boom, which has a very limited toolset and color palette - and with that in mind, she didn't do half bad...though I would advise muting the audio.

Normally I'm pretty excited when I get to review new software; in this case I think I might have shot myself in the foot, as while I enjoyed WidgetCast and it's a darling piece of software with extremely useful features, I nonetheless found it to be a little bit of a letdown (probably because I built it up too much in my head). It's basically Sprout Builder with a few extra capabilities and a much larger price tag - but for what it's worth, it does its job well as a product that can neatly deliver Web 2.0-ready microapplications / widgets, capable of interacting with a range of popular social media platforms to enhance the interactive online experience.