Christmas is by far my most favourite time of year and I eagerly await to get the signal from the hubs that I can begin decorating, playing carols and wrapping gifts under the twinkle of the lit Christmas Tree… *Fa la la la… laaaaa*. However my enthusiasm is curbed by the hubs till the start of December at the earliest… otherwise the tree would be up in July! However there’s one thing he can’t crush and that’s my Christmas gifting tactics! HAH!

I like to think of myself as being organized but when it comes to gifts I can go overboard. I’ll spend hours mulling over what to get, then buy stuff and forget that I bought them or worse… lose some of them along the way! Given that we travel quite a bit I enjoy picking up Christmas gifts for the family (26 people and counting at the moment…) that are unique and uber cool. Ofcourse most of these are small given that luggage space is at a premium, so I also buy additional gifts to complement them. Besides….what’s better… many gifts or just one? You know the answer to that!

Just last week I found a pair of earrings we had bought for the hub’s (and now my..) grandmother two years ago during our Babymoon in Quebec City! Yup.. it was one of  those gifts I had misplaced and then had to run around last minute trying to find a new gift. I really need to make a list of what I’ve bought for whom and have it on my phone so I can access it everywhere. Given that we have family who live in other cities, I try to get organized with the gifting process so that I can easily send them through someone travelling to the city versus spending a fortune mailing the gifts out. This way I get to send some nice heavy gifts instead of just paper gifts (to keep costs low).

This year with two kids under the age of three I had come across a lot of online shopping deals and cool toys reviewed by fellow bloggers…however my memory isn’t as good as it used to be. Which is where Pinterest came to play! I built a board called gifts and started pinning things I saw that were cool onto the board so that when the time came to start shopping, I popped in there for ”inspiration”.

As you can see this year the Barbie Dreamhouse has been pinned… now I’d like to say it’s for the Little Monkey but anyone can easily guess who’s going to have just as much fun with this! Yes me!Ain’t no shame in that. I stumbled upon the Dreamhouse when I was fooling around the Mattel site (coz you know..what else do you do when you’re preggers and getting kicked from the inside at 3 a.m.?).  The Mattel site has a Gift Guide (you can narrow it down by age, price and brand) and a Wish List to keep track of the toys (that way you won’t end up like me… buying 10 things for one person and not buying anything for another!).

Disclosure: I am part of the Mattel Holiday Blogger Campaign with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are totally my own

The Little Monkey received her first Barbie last month and I can’t wait for Christmas morning when we’ll set this Dreamhouse up. Unfortunately she saw this Hot Holiday Toy walk in through the door and her eyes lit up. Luckily a quick distraction and we were able to hide it away. I had a Barbie House as a kid and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ofcourse nearly 20 years later and modern technology has come a long way…the Dreamhouse has a light-up oven, a light-up mirror, “flushing” toilet and even someone singing in the shower! Oh and did I mention the lift? The Dreamhouse is three stories after all.. sigh.. can I move in here?

I like that there’s plenty of interactive elements in Barbie Dreamhouse to engage everyone involved. Lately we’ve been battling with the fact that the Little Monkey watches way too much TV. Her interactive play is seriously at a dangerous low and I’m partly to blame as there’s only so many hours in the day and I tend to plop her in front of the Tv so I can work. Ofcourse with the Barbie Dreamhouse… I’m bound to want to join her during playtime! Much like I did when she got the Little People Disney Princess Klip Klop Stable for her birthday! The galloping horse caught us both by surprise and we couldn’t help but spend two hours playing with Princess Rapunzel and Aurora. “Klip Klop” was all you heard every afternoon during the week we got it…I’ve since stopped playing with it but she continues to do so. The horses were fun enough that it took us two weeks to realize that we could spin the thumbwheel on the dance floor to start some music and make the horses “dance”! Talk about me being slow! OOOPs!

It’s nearly December and I for one am thrilled that I can get the carols going, mulled wine steeping and tree decorating started. I still have quite a few gifts I need to buy but luckily the kids are sorted! How about you.. any must have hot toys under your tree this year? or are you still tackling the wishlist?