It's a White Christmas, Indeed!

The snow that's plagued much of the country finally descended on us yesterday. Firstborn was stranded in town overnight, the Captain slept in his office and my awesome neighbour came this morning and scraped our driveway for us. Here's a shot of what the kids have to look forward to when we get them a new sled (the old one's buried under there someplace):

In other news, thirty years ago this month, I received my first Sindy doll! For those of you not familiar, Sindy is the (more realistically proportioned, fashion-forward, and probably smarter) British version of Barbie.

I always assumed that one day I'd be buying my own daughter her first Barbie doll. Then I found myself in the middle of nowhere, animals running all over the place, and surrounded by stinky boys. Talk about a shock to the system! But last weekend I discovered the solution to this (very minor) problem.

Our local Zellers store has teamed up with Children's Services and put up a tree with tags at the front of the store. Shoppers can pick a tag with an age and gender on it, buy an appropriate gift and drop it off at customer service for a less fortunate child in our area. To make a long story short, there's a 5 year-old girl out there somewhere who'll be getting a Barbie doll with some seriously kicky outfits this Christmas! It's a piddly thing in terms of giving (I hope one day to be able to do what Jude did this year. Go have a look--it'll bring tears to your eyes!), but so far, this has been the best part of my holiday season!

I know times are tough economically, but I really encourage giving for the sake of giving where you can. There's no other feeling quite like it.

And on the topic of giving, I'm working on getting together the biggest gift basket I can make for the mom of Firstborn's best friend who is a single mom, works all day, goes to school at night and yesterday took in 4 extra kids who lived outside of town and couldn't get home. Not only did she take them in and keep them all safe and fed until the roads were cleared enough this morning for them to be rescued, she gave them all a bath, washed their clothes while they were sleeping so they'd have something clean to wear, and made them all lunches in case school was open today (it wasn't). Above and beyond the call of duty, no? The girl deserves some wine!