{"id":6338,"date":"2011-11-22T10:31:34","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T15:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=6338"},"modified":"2016-08-14T13:37:12","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T18:37:12","slug":"holiday-countdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2011\/11\/22\/holiday-countdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday countdown!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"drop_cap\">W<\/span>ith the last of the leaves of the season finally (mostly) raked up and bagged, I could finally turn my attention to decorating the porch this weekend.  I swear, I have as much fun (and take as much time!) decorating the porch as I do the inside of the house.  It takes a long time to hang 25 feet of garland, lights and balls and affix them firmly enough that they don&#8217;t blow away before spring thaw!!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/postcardsfromthemothership\/5288774450\/\" title=\"2:365 8 hrs of Christmas 1 pm by Dani_Girl, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5204\/5288774450_043475e0f0.jpg\" class=\"frame aligncenter\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" alt=\"2:365 8 hrs of Christmas 1 pm\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And with that, I officially give myself permission to start getting excited about the holidays!  I feel like I&#8217;m a wee bit ahead of the curve this year, but I&#8217;m sure whatever lead on the season I have now will be lost by mid-December.  I&#8217;ve got the fixin&#8217;s for my famous shortbread and peanut brittle in the cupboard, and I bought a new set of cookie cutters so we could try one of those stacked-stars-into-a-Christmas-tree thingees this year.  I&#8217;ve got some wrapping paper and tags stashed away, and I&#8217;ve even started my Christmas shopping.  Yay!<\/p>\n<p>Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?  Are you an online shopper, or do you still prefer to head out to the shops?  I was quite pleased with myself on the weekend when I knocked off a good chunk of my to-do list with two online stores and a visit to the Third World Bazaar sale here in Manotick.  What a great selection they had this year!<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re an online shopper, you might enjoy this.  As you know, I&#8217;m blogging for Fisher-Price this year, and Mattel is pleased to offer this <a href=\"http:\/\/mattel.ca\/giftfinder\/\">online gift-finder<\/a>.  Or, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re more of a hands-on shopper, the Mattel Holiday helpers will be at various stores this Christmas season providing useful advice on appropriate toys for kids of all ages.  If you&#8217;re in the Ottawa area, you can visit them on the following dates and locations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>November 24 &#8211; 25, Zellers at Place d&#8217;Orleans<\/li>\n<li>November 26 &#8211; 27, Zellers at Billings Bridge<\/li>\n<li>December 3 &#8211; 4, Sears at Rideau Centre<\/li>\n<li>December 10 &#8211; 11, Sears at St Laurent Shopping Centre<\/li>\n<li>December 15 &#8211; 16, Zellers at Bayshore Shopping Centre<\/li>\n<li>December 17 &#8211; 18, Zellers at Hazeldean Mall<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mattel has also partnered with Holiday Helper Tarra Stubbins, a professional organizer. Mattel&#8217;s partnership with Tarra gives consumers access to expert shopping and organizational advice this holiday season on a series of YTV vignettes and on Mattel&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Mattel\/posts\/174890445878571\">Facebook page<\/a>. Mattel&#8217;s Holiday Helper will give families everywhere tips for holiday travel with the kids, efficient shopping strategy and advice for gift-giving. <\/p>\n<p>Between now and Christmas, I&#8217;ll write a couple of posts with my recommendations for some of the best toys and gear I&#8217;ve seen this year with Fisher-Price. I&#8217;ll start this week with my favourite ideas for older kids, and we&#8217;ll work our way down to the wee ones.  Sound good?<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, tell me: are you feeling the holiday spirit yet?  Are you like me, a bit of a kid who delights in the anticipation? Or are you dreading the extra work you&#8217;ll have between now and the end of the year?  What do you do that makes you feel like Christmas is finally on the way?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Disclosure<\/strong>: I am part of the Fisher-Price Play Panel and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the last of the leaves of the season finally (mostly) raked up and bagged, I could finally turn my attention to decorating the porch this weekend. I swear, I have as much fun (and take as much time!) decorating the porch as I do the inside of the house. It takes a long time &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2011\/11\/22\/holiday-countdown\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Holiday countdown!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happy-holidays","category-product-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6338"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6344,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6338\/revisions\/6344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}