Five Favourite Holiday Traditions a la Schuck Casa

Like my attempts at Spanish? Well so Twitter Moms issued a challenge and contest this morning and I thought what the heck I am up for it today as I am really procrastinating doing any actual work I am supposed to do. (For your chance to win a $100 Amex gift certificate visit http://www.twittermoms.com/ )So here without much fanfare at all are our five favourite things to do at Christmas.

1. Gingerbread House: Every year my girls love to build and sneak bits off the top of our gingerbread house. It is fun with a capital F and it is our tradition.

2. Get active: We love to sled or toboggan after the holidays on a really excellent hill in London called Doidge Park. Seriously excellent liftoff, but this year I will make my kids wear helmets for sure. We had one broken arm already this year. No more ortho clinic for me.

3. Skate: No year is complete without taking advantage of the annual Tim Horton's free skates. Tim Horton's sponsors several times and days over holidays where families can skate at local rinks free of charge. They do the same in summer at swimming pools. At New Year's we head to Victoria Park in London for the early skate and family New Year's celebration. We've done this probably four out of five New Year's Eves now.

4. A fun Christmas snowball fight or other backyard activity while turkey cooks. Seriously we have very active kids who need to burn off a lot of steam so we head outdoors as fast as we can. Sometimes we climb the snowy climber out back and fly down the slide into a huge mountain of snow. One year I slid so far I almost crashed into the fence and did some damage to my shoulder. Good times!

5. Letters to Santa, cookies and ornaments for the kids. (See cookies above. Love these Lofthouse ones. Oh sometimes we bake too, relax!) We love to build letters to Sanat each year and then take them to the parade and wait for the excellent letter back from the jolly old elf. Also of course we leave cookies and milk out for him. My favourite thing though is building up my daughter's unique ornament collection. They each have a special Rubbermaid container that sits in their rooms and we give them a new special and unique keepsake each year. When they leave home they will have enough ornaments to decorate their first tree.

Dinner With Princesses and Superheroes

This is who came to dinner the other night and frankly that's more than okay by me. This is my Ainsley, five-year-old girl superhero. I love all of her many sides, the kickbutt girl who charges through a room like a bull in a china shop and the scared toddler hidden just beneath the skin unable to control her reactions to the world and her place in it. The fearless fish who plunges into six foot deep water and races across the pool like mini Michael Phelps and the kid with sensory processing disorder who screams - perhaps to shut out the other sounds that annoy her and cause her physical pain. She is fearless and bold and she can wear whatever costume she wants to dinner. I have always been okay with that. (Save for the one caveat that if it is winter I don't want them wearing shorts outside and getting frostbite.) From the start I have looked the other way when my kids sometimes choose the silliest mismatched ensemble going and bravely tread out the front door. I couldn't do it myself and, back in the day when I was a kid, well let's just say if I had charged out the door to school looking like this well my mother would have turned eight shades of purple and hit the roof. When Payton, now 8, Ainsley's older sister was three she would wear a ballet tutu or a princess dress on various outings to the library and I loved that. I loved that she wanted to be creative and I thought it was cute, so did most of the other people we'd encounter on our way. Last night I played Hide and Seek with a girl in a cat costume. Ainsley, on the other hand, often wears a knight costume with full armour to school. For kids, choosing outfits can be an issue of control and identity. Few children feel in control of their life. Most feel small and powerless. Tiny, inconsequential and often confused, overwhelmed or scared by big emotions. When you add to that mix of childhood feelings issues of abandonment, grief and confusion that surround being adopted or being in the foster care system, it's pretty easy to see why a child would need to control something/ anything that is within their power. So in our house, unless it's a funeral or wedding, children can wear what they wish, be happy, dream and grow wings.

Christmas Traditions

I have a holiday tradition started when my babies were each so tiny they couldn't even say the word Christmas and it is one I maintain each year. Sometimes realtives also get in on the fun as I do. Every year I buy a Christmas ornament - started with Baby's First Christmas and then Baby's second Chistmas and so on. My daughters are now five and eight and they love to periodically get their own Rubbermaid Christmas ornament containers down and peer at each of the ornaments they've been given. Each one holds a memory. There's precious granddaughter and a Hallmark sisters one that breaks apart so each sister has a piece. Last year my Ninja girl Ainsley got the sweetest handcrafted girl doing karate ornament that is personalized with her name. My goal with this is for each of my children to have a lovely keepsake and a chest full of ornaments when they are grown and when they move out and have their own first Christmas trees. My mother-in-law didn't have the same exact tradition, but she did pass a couple of ornaments down to my husband Jim and now that she has passed away these are truly some of the most treasured items on our tree each year. Anyways while hunting on line the other day for some special needs timers - yet to find a decent one by the way - I stumbled on this site with the most lovely jewelry and Christmas ornaments and wanted to share it with you. I ordered these two ornaments (seen above) from http://www.deirdreandcompany.com/ 2209 Elliot Ave. S #2 in Minneapolis. I didn't receive any of this for free but loved the ornaments so much ($7.50 each) and received them in the mail so quickly that as I said I wanted to share. You can personalize this jewelry and the ornaments too for an extra fee. The ornaments in the picture above say "You Are Loved" and "Shine Brightly" and I had difficulty choosing as they were all so lovely. Both the ornaments and the jewelry are very adoption friendly and would make fantastic adoption day gifts too. Deirdre's jewelry is sterling silver and unique and I may have to purchase more, but for this year I have found the special ornaments each one of my girls will receive.

Weekend Christmas Sales

It's here officially tomorrow a.m. for 10 days - the Samko and Mike Toy and Book Warehouse Sale. Every year the toy sale comes to Western Fair for 10 days and thriftymomma has gone for the last couple of years. The first year I attended the sale I loaded up on dozens of bargains for my children and nieces and nephews. One year I went twice - at start of sale and got a couple of things and then when I went on the last day of the sale I was even more pleasantly suprised as further discounts had occurred and I scored some amazing deals. Crayola products and other various craft kits and supplies are always excellent deals here. This year the sale runs from Nov. 20th to 29th at the Western fairgrounds Canada Building. Opening day is 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Excellent brands are usually available with Barbie products (often one season old. So maybe this year you could find Barbie Twelve Dancing Princesses or whatever last year's Barbie movie was and next year the current Barbie and The Three Musketeers will in all likelihood be there.) Great deals on Diego and Dora products and usually a couple of larger items as well like dollhouses and this year the flyer advertises Barbie's A Throne of My Own. Baby products are plentiful and Graco, Little Tikes, Playskool and Fisher Price items are always available. As well certain charities are often given a portion of the profits from sales. Last year the Children's Aid Society of London-Middlesex received a portion of the profits and this year a whole host charities are registered. Happy Shopping!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

While there may not yet be snow, there's an awful lot of Christmas-y stuff going on lately to herald the season. London's night time Christmas parade was last weekend and, as you can see here, we attended the annual kickoff to shopping season. Despite a few glitches, gaps in between floats, and cars somehow not following the traffic barricades and dangerously driving down Dundas Street prior to start of parade, it was a hit. The temperatures, which hovered around 10 to 15 degrees Celsius all day beat last year's hideous snowstorm that we foolishly braved. My daughter this year purchased a pair of dollar store binoculars so she could be first to spy Santa way down the road and while I was skeptical they did in fact work remarkably well. So in a quick ode to dollar stores I am going to point out all of thriftymomma's excellent dollar store bargain deals, tips and pointers. Oh and stay tuned for an Xmas-y giveaway....
Dollar Stores deals I can't live with out for my family:
1. Birthday and other various event cards. $1.
2. Paper plates and birthday party supplies.
3. Adorable Dora, Hannah Montana and SpiderMan Ziploc baggies for lunches.
4. PlayDoh. It's the real deal unlike some of the other craft junk they sell there.
5. Wrapping paper and Xmas gift bags.
6. Sketch books and construction paper. My children go through this like it grows on trees. Get it?! I can hear you groaning. Enevelopes too.
7. Tiny character trinkets. Notepads with Hannah Montana, barrettes, wallets, pens and pencil cases. I stock up monthly and either send them to school as gifts for Francoprime store (the store at daughter's French immersion school. Kids are rewarded with tickets for speaking French and then they get to buy trinkets)
8. Craft kits. Wooden and seasonal sometimes ornaments too. My children love to paint, colour, mould and shape these things and fun for $1. Woohoo!
9. Decorations. Xmas and Halloween. For $1 it doesn't matter if they last that long.
10. Umbrellas. Honestly all of our umbrellas break whether they cost $10 or $1, so why not pay $1 and then draw on it or paint it with fabric paint and have a blast.
11. Kid's character hangers. Normal hangers don't hold children's items.
12. Mitts.
13. Bristol board for children's projects (school and Brownie's)
Oh and my smartest idea yet...lately I take my older daughter a couple of times a week and hand her a pile of change then tell her she can buy as much as it is worth. (typically less then $3 or $4. Naturally I help her figure the money calculations out as needed, but it's the best way I've discovered of helping her understand money. This also prompts discussions about whether we should waste $1 on another whoopie cushion when we already have like three. You get the idea...
Anyways, this giveaway is just in time for Xmas. Rainbow Magic Fairies are wonderful little chapter books for girls (and some boys) aged 5 to 8 or 9 at most. There are many different parts to the series in which two girls Kirsty and Rachel help solve small mysteries with the help of fairies. We started with the weather series when Payton was five or so and now her sister likes to read them to. The book at right here is Rainbow Magic Pet Fairies, Harriet the Hamster fairy, by Daisy Meadows, a Scholastic book. I got it free when I bought two other books, so I am giving it away to one lucky reader..
To win, leave a comment on thriftymommastips about what your best dollar store find is. Leave your email, blog or twitter ID.
Follow the blog and
Also follow me on twitter @inkscrblr.

I will draw this one on Random.org Dec. 1st.

Deals in the a.m.

Well here it is almost Monday morning yet again and I can't let these two excellent deals pass all you thriftymommas by. This morning McDonald's everywhere start free coffee again. Oh I will so be there lining up after school run for my coffee. (If you were at the Santa Claus parade on the weekend you may have heard parade participants from the McD's float yelling about free coffee. It is free for about one week, so get it while you can. Also today is Talize's 50 per cent off everything day. For those of you who don't know Talize, it is a slightly used and secondhand shop, sort of like Value Village only a bit cleaner usually. Prices are similar. I have on occasion bought my children books, toys and gently used clothing here. This deal is only good for one day so check it out. Also Talize typically donates profits from their store to some worthy charity. Don't know if it has changed but it used to be Children's Wish Foundation. In London Talize is at the corner of Highbury and Huron Streets.

Gifted

Maybe it's the time of year, closing in on Xmas as we are right now. Maybe it's the adult onset ADHD I seem to be developing. Maybe it's just the fact that I've been sick and am now feeling overwhelmed by all my blessings. I started out today thinking I was going to blog about bargains this weekend, or maybe the Santa Claus Parade in London tomorrow night. But then I started doing email and I began chatting with someone I hadn't really talked to in a long time. I started telling them about all the wonderful things my eight-year-old has been doing and I quickly realized today's post was leading me in a different direction. It is Adoption Awareness Month and so this is a post about adoption and gifts and the really awe-inspiring task of being given a child. This girl, my Payton, is one of the two greatest gifts I've ever been given. She came to us, my husband Jim and I, when she was only six weeks old, a tiny perfect baby girl. Straight adoption. These were phrases we'd been told would never be uttered in the same paragraph when we took our adoption training workshops so many years ago. And then poof there she was beautiful, perfect, ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes, happy all the time. She was born smiling or so it seemed and smart as a whip and I recall so many days waking up feeling as if it was Christmas morning, walking to her room so excited to see my tiny gift in the crib smiling up at me. And then dressing her. Well, that was a whole other side of heaven I never thought we'd come close to seeing. She is my gifted girl and my gift too. She is me and not me and that's okay. I look at her and see her birthmom. They look almost identical according to the pictures we have. Ours is a closed adoption and while we send letters back and forth to a social worker that finalized our adoptions, she is bound by confidentiality and privacy laws (from the time when we adopted Payton) that say she can only hold onto these things and wait to see if the birthmom or birthdad of my beautiful angel ever should inquire about the child they conceived together. My daughter has, I like to think, some of my creativity. She certainly has my sweet tooth  - proving that must be environmental and not genetic. This year my daughter was asked to be an Original Kid. She's only eight and after summer camp at Western she was invited to join the really prestigious acting troupe in town here. This is nothing I ever could have done at her age. I was painfully shy and would rather have gnawed my arm off than been in the spotlight. Payton is so smart. She read chapter books at four, told a family friend she wanted to be an architect at three when the friend asked if she wanted to be a builder. "No, I would rather be an architect." And her voice is a gift. Her voice is truly magical. It may sound lame but when I hear her sing I am routinely moved to tears thinking how lovely the sound. Part of me thinks too when I hear her sing I wonder whose voice she has. Is it birthmom's, a biological aunt's? I know it is not mine. I am scarcely able to carry a tune. She is mine and not mine, part of me, part of someone else, part herself too. I do not feel saddened in any way by this or threatened or haunted by lost chances at having a biological child. I am honoured. Grateful and blessed. Gifted.