Thoughts on Christmas shopping

So I think I’m finished most of my Christmas shopping. (Although, perhaps unwisely, I will probably continue to buy things for the next week or so at least. Stop me before I shop again!)

1230 pm

What’s interesting to me is not so much that I’m pretty much done two weeks before Christmas (remember, I’m an inveterate procrastinator) but that for the first time this year I think I did more online shopping than bricks-and-mortar store shopping. The only mall I visited was the Rideau Centre, and even that was very task-oriented: I knew what I wanted, I went in to one store, I got it. No endless hours of browsing and agonizing over the choices. I gotta say, I like this much better! And you know what I really love? Watching the parcel tracking online! I swear, shipment tracking is like NORAD’s Santa tracking for grown-ups – I check on all my deliveries at least once a day and love watching them leapfrog across the country to me!

It was only in 2007, the Christmas I was hugely pregnant with Lucas, that I did the first of my Christmas shopping online. Hard to believe it took only five short years for the online shopping to eclipse the mall wandering! With the conveniece of free shipping and an ever-greater selection of stores and merchandise, it just didn’t seem necessary to brave the crowds this year. I did do one particularly big blitz at Indigo kids, but with armed with a 20% off coupon and a store literally across the street from my office, that was none too painful either.

Choosing gifts has always been a meaningful task for me. As in, it’s very important for me to choose just the perfect gift for the people closest to me. I don’t want to steal Santa’s thunder or let the cat out of the Christmas sack, so I can’t tell you exactly what I found online, but let’s just say that 10 minutes on Google is a lot more productive than driving around to half a dozen specialty stores in search of the perfect gift!

Beloved, on the other hand, is not much of an online shopper. Then again, he also doesn’t live with one hand on the keyboard like I seem to do. What about you? Are you an online shopping junkie? Care to share a few tips on snagging a good deal online? Or are you still circling the parking lot, trying to get into the mall before it goes REALLY crazy next week?

Speaking of adventures in publishing…

Before I became obsessive about photography, I was in love with words. I’ve always loved to tell a tale, and to find the perfect words to do it justice. Once upon a time, I thought I might even write a book some day.

Well, I didn’t exactly write a book, but in the same week I self-published not one but TWO photography books on Blurb.ca, take a look at what else is in print: my very own article and photograph in Ottawa Family Living magazine. How fun is this?

Ottawa Family Living magazine, December 2012

OttFamLiv Mag Dec 2012 pg 2

That’s my byline! I wrote the article AND I took the photo of Watson’s Mill. I’m pretty darn pleased with myself. 🙂

Watch for your copy of Ottawa Family Magazine (also featuring my friends Sara McConnell and Karen Wilson, among others!) in this Saturday’s Ottawa Citizen.

Edited to add: oh look! Here it is online!

Great idea for teacher gifts – goat and chickens and sheep, oh my!

Instead of teacher gifts at Christmas, each year we have been buying a donation of a backpack of school supplies in each of the boys’ teachers’ names, and enclosing information about the donation in a hand-made card. The teachers seem to genuinely appreciate the notion, and it does support the principles of Catholic education.

Faced with a list of no less than seven teachers this year, I figured it was easier to just send a bigger donation of a goat to a family in need and dedicate it to the whole school. The boys are tickled by the idea of the goat, but there’s a lesson about privilege in there, too, and a conversation about how truly blessed we are. And look at me, I’m even doing this before 10 pm on the penultimate day before the Christmas break, which is when I traditionally get around to this. I’m so pleased with this idea that I thought I’d share it.

Here’s a press release I got from Care Canada with a bit more information:

(OTTAWA, December 3, 2012) – For too many Canadians, the holidays can be a time of stress and frustration.

The spirit of the season seems to get lost searching for a parking spot, slogging through malls and finding that “perfect gift” to be a dud.

This year, CARE is calling on Canadians to skip the mall and give their loved ones a gift that truly keeps on giving. A CARE gift will empower women and girls around the world to be healthy, educated and able to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

“It’s so easy to get caught up in the need to buy material items,” says Kevin McCort, president and CEO of CARE Canada. “A CARE gift is a perfect alternative for those who want to give their loved ones something that helps the world’s poorest communities build better lives for themselves.”

CARE’s new holiday catalogue features more than 40 fun and unique gift ideas that Canadians can give friends, family and coworkers to support CARE’s efforts to fight poverty worldwide. These include:

· Give the gift of a safe birth for a mom and baby in a developing country.

· The gift of a goat will improve a family’s nutrition and access to income.

· Send a girl to school for a year and give her the power to lift her and her community from poverty.

· Help a woman start a business and empower her family and community to thrive.

Why head out in the cold? Canadians can browse these gift ideas and more from home with the online catalogue at www.care.ca/holiday. Each gift comes with a personalized holiday electronic card that shoppers can send to their gift recipient.

Why not give the gift of donation of a chicken or a goat or a pack of school supplies instead of a coffee mug or other bit of kitsch? What do you think of this kind of donation gift? Would you want to receive something like this as a gift, or give it to the person who truly has everything? As a teacher, how do you feel about this type of gift?

A very good year with Fisher-Price

Phew, it sure was an exciting year to be blogging with Fisher-Price!

Aside from the amazing cruise and the equally amazing trip to Mexico, we got to play with some truly terrific new toys this year! There’s no doubt that our absolute favourite toy of the year was the Imaginext Eagle Talon Castle. It wins for sheer play value, for engaging all three boys, and for our new family inside joke – nobody hears a knock on a door anymore without calling out “Who eees it?” in the same sing-song voice that the toy bleats out when you open the drawbridge. Shhhhh, don’t tell, but we actually went out and BOUGHT the Imaginext Ogre and Dragon for Lucas this Christmas because it was the only thing he asked Santa for other than a Furby (and, well, he’s absolutely not getting a Furby. *shudder*)

We were also charmed by the Wheelies Loops and Swoops Amusement Park. At almost five years old, Lucas is on the upper edge of the age range for this one, but he still loves to shoot cars down the ramps and it delights him every single time the cars successfully navigate the loop-the-loop. I’d put this high on the Christmas gift giving list of anyone with a little boy to buy for!

Beloved’s favourite Fisher-Price surprise of the year was definitely the DC Superfriends Little People line. The intersection of superheros and Fisher-Price just about perfectly evokes his (not-so) inner child.

Wonder Woman's Invisible Jet

When I say the whole family plays with the Imaginext Batmobile, Bat Cave and Joker’s Lair, I’m not exaggerating! 😉

Na na na na na na - bat cat!

(Beloved called me from the toy store earlier this week as he was doing a little shopping for the boys. “Did you know they have a full line of Toy Story Little People now?” he asked. And he was so excited about the new Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Little People line that Santa may have to stick a set under the tree for him. ;))

Fisher-Price came out with some pretty amazing products for moms this year, too. Did you know, for example, that Fisher-Price makes diapers? They make adorable onesies called Stretch ‘Ems, too, which I am told are in fact awesomely stretchy. (I gave mine to a friend – she said they were her favourite onesies!) And they’ve even designed a series of new “Fast-Finder” diaper bags in a range of styles to suit every family.

All in all, it was another amazing year with Fisher-Price. Although Tristan made this card specifically to say thanks for the cruise, I think it does a good job of expressing our gratitude for an entire year of fun surprises.

Untitled

But wait! There’s more! I have one last Fisher-Price post to share with you this year (and another one to post over on the Fisher-Price site.) I’ll be back with the details in just a few days!

Disclosure: I am a Fisher-Price Play Ambassador and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

En français

It was only when I got an odd look from the man walking past me that I realized I’d been concentrating so hard on practicing an internal dialogue for my upcoming French exam that I had actually been speaking aloud. There I was, walking down George Street in the Byward Market in the pre-dawn gloaming, chattering away to myself badly in French along the lines of: “I work for the government of Canada in the field of public affairs, and I’m the team leader for the social media programs.” His half-smirk was priceless. Only in Ottawa is this not a mark of insanity but simply another beleagured anglophone in search of a bilingual bonus.

You might remember I spent most of my summer vacation in 2011 practicing for my reading and writing tests in French, which I needed to come back to the CRA from my stint with the Army web team. I passed those, but my oral exam results expired in October of 2011, so I’ve been taking lessons for the last year to gear up for it. When I last took the oral exam in 2006, I failed twice before getting the required B level result (B = bearable), so I am half expecting the same result this time. My exam is a week today – wish me luck!

I’m actually fairly confident. One thing I have going for me this time that I didn’t have going for me back in 2006 is two little French speakers to practice with at the dinner table. Tristan is in an immersion French program and Simon will follow suit next year. It both kills me and fills me with pride to hear their perfect little accents and the unselfconsious ease with which they speak in French. They’re more fluent after just a couple of years than I am after 20 bloody years of French lessons. Must be latent on Beloved’s side – his ancestors were apparently in Louis XIV’s court way back in the day. There’s no French on my side to fall back on, though, and I have a much easier time rolling a Scottish burr than rolling a French rrrrr.

It fascinates me how differently they are learning French than I did. No rote memorization of noun gender, no endless conjugation of verbs, no lectures on agreement of adjectives. They just Рspeak. And listen. And Рgasp! Рunderstand. They have no idea of what the pass̩ compos̩ might be, but they use it.

I had mixed feelings when the kids were wee about sending them through the immersion program at school. I was worried they wouldn’t be strong in either language. Clearly, I had nothing to worry about. They’re strong in both languages, and my four year old has a vocabulary that would make an English teacher proud. I have a deep envy of people for whom a second language comes easily and would love nothing more than to be unselfconcious when speaking French myself.

Alas, I think after 20 years of trying, that goal may be unattainable. I think I’m doomed to muddle along, translating in my head as I go and muttering to myself in an incomprehensible mix of both languages. So if you see me walking down the street talking to myself, just smile and say ‘bonjour!’

Look, I’m a book publisher too!

Squee! I am so excited! I just ordered this from Blurb.ca:

Why why WHY have I not done this before now?

I love this so much, and I think I will start offering them as part of my portrait sessions too! If you had a portrait session this year and you’d like me to make one up for you, shoot me an e-mail and we’ll chat!

And remember, if you’re making your own Blurb.ca book this year, I have a discount code that’s valid now through December 12, 2012.

Now what else can I make into a book? Should I start with 2011 and work my way back???

Santa? There’s an app for that

(Ha, I started writing this post and then remembered I’d written something similar. I dug around in the archives and found the one I was looking for, from 2009. I’m sure I haven’t looked at it since I published it three years ago, but I had taken exactly the same approach and even used some of the same wording in the original opening paragraph to this post that I used back then. I’m not sure if I’m plagiarizing myself or showing early signs of senility!)

Ahem. So, apparently back in 2009 I wrote this post about five ways to interact with Santa. The five ways were:

– the Portable North Pole
– letters and e-mails to Santa via Canada Post
– NORAD’s Santa Tracker
– follow Santa on Facebook
– follow Santa on Twitter

FWIW, the Portable North Pole is still my favourite, and NORAD’s Santa Tracker a close second. As far as I know, the magic of Christmas is intact in the imaginations of my offspring, and I credit the videos from PNP (and perhaps an unwillingness to jinx the appearance of presents on Christmas morning?) with their utter lack of skepticism.

Because they were so charmed by the PNP (and have even started wondering when their videos will ‘arrive’ this year in Mom’s inbox), I think they’ll be equally delighted with this: you can now make an appointment to Skype with Santa. How cute is that? You can reserve your child’s 10 minute Skype with Santa courtesy of the Toronto Eaton Centre now through December 23.

Although I’ve used Facetime, I am embarrassed to admit that this social media maven has never actually used Skype. Like making a Blurb book, this is another thing I’ve been meaning to conquer but never seemed to get around to, so it will be good practice. Feel free to share Skype tips!

I figure it’s only a matter of time before technology brings us a holographic Santa that pops out of the chimney on Christmas morning…

(Edited to add: and ha, again. Apparently I wrote about Christmas apps in 2010 too. Oy, I really am starting to repeat myself!!)

Christmas Tree Quest, 2012 edition

We are firmly in the ‘cut down yer own’ Christmas tree camp now. I can’t believe we resisted for as long as we did! The problem this year was that December 1 seemed a wee bit early to get one, but December 8 seemed way too late. In the end, we carpe-d the diem and launched the festive season with a vengeance yesterday. First, we went to the Manotick Santa parade, always a favourite. Then, we grabbed our saw and headed out to Thomas Tree farm.

The first year we got a live tree, we went to Ian’s Evergreen Plantation, which is apparently now called “Ian’s Christmas Adventure Park”. It’s a great place! There’s a play structure, a petting zoo, bonfire and wagon rides. We loved the experience. Last year, we went to Hillcrest Tree Farm just south of Manotick. It was a very different and much more low-key experience. If you’re looking to simply get in, get your tree and get out without a lot of walking, I’d highly recommend Hillcrest, and we adored our tree last year.

We debated the ‘experience’ versus ‘convenience’ factor and instead decided to embrace the unknown by trying something new this year, so we headed out to Thomas Tree Farm just a touch south of North Gower. We’ve found a new favourite, and we’ll be heading back there next year!

We bypassed the wagon ride out to the field and decided to walk the path out to get our tree. How lovely is this, they way they line the paths with leaves?

Wintry path (we're hunting Christmas trees!)

We scouted around until we had the perfect tree. I liked this one that Mother Nature had already decorated. (Amy said on Instagram that this one was clearly the lot tramp, prolific little thing. Had I seen that comment earlier, I would have had to take this one home with us. Beloved likes the Charlie Brown Christmas trees, but I’m fond of the trampy ones!)

This one comes with decorations!

Eventually, we found one we could all love. Beloved set to work with the saw while Lucas made sure he was on track.

Christmas tree quest 2012-1

(My children look like they got dressed in the dark, I know. They do have hats and mitts that more or less match their jackets, but they loved the Ottawa 67s logo hats they got from the Riverside South Broadway Restaurant at the Manotick Santa parade. Definitely the funnest parade take-away!)

Christmas tree quest 2012-3

Tristan’s now big enough that he helped carry the tree back! (sob!) But not big enough to actually cut down the tree, despite his insistence otherwise.

Christmas tree quest 2012-3

Christmas tree quest 2012-8

The menfolk enjoyed the hot chocolate and cookies while I took more photos.

Christmas tree quest 2012-11

None shall pass!

Christmas tree quest 2012-10

If you’re hunting and gathering your own Christmas tree this year, I highly recommend both Ian’s Tree Plantation and Thomas Tree Farm. I’d heard the drought this year was particuarly hard on the tree farmers, but all the trees we saw were healthy looking and it was hard to choose among many wonderful choices.

Guess what we’re doing today? I’m willing to bet there will be more photos to come!

Speaking of photos, I lost the thread of my photo-of-the-day project for a while with sporadic posting after we got back from our cruise. I’ve made a fun new project for myself, though: an Instagram-a-day with a Christmas theme every day from now until December 25. Want to play along? I’m Dani_Girl on Instagram, and I’m tagging them with the hashtag #santstagram.