The holiday season is about carrying on the traditions that are special to you, whatever they may be. It might be anticipating the daily antics of the Elf on a Shelf, curling up to watch a favourite yuletide movie or baking a classic family recipe. For me, it’s sending holiday cards.

I realize that in today’s day and age, sending paper cards by regular mail may seem ridiculous and archaic. It’s more expensive. It’s more time-consuming. It’s slower. It’s (as my son would say) “from the olden times.”

I LOVE traditions! Especially when it comes to Christmas. Most of us already have some sort of Christmas traditions, whether it’s a tradition we grew up with that we continue to do with our own children, or one we recently started. To me, traditions are some of the best things about the holiday season.

Paging Dr. McDreamy.

If seeing the Dr. was as easy as looking into the beautiful blue eyes of Patrick Dempsey, we’d all be taking a sick day to visit the Doc.

If you can already feel the “how the eff am I going to get everything done” anxiety reverberating through your body now is the time to commit to not losing your you-know-what this Christmas; to enjoying the season instead of merely surviving it.

Right now in Canada there are around 30,000 children in need of a permanent home, including more than 5,000 in Ontario alone.

30,000 is the entire population of towns like Stratford, Orillia and Orangeville. It’s everyone in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

My kids don’t play with toys.

For the last couple of years, my husband and I have made a conscious effort to give our boys experiences as Christmas gifts instead of toys. We don’t do this to be mean, we do this because we think experiences are much more valuable than a house full of toys. I would MUCH rather give them an experience that we can do together as a family, than bring another action figure or talking dinosaur into the house that they’ll play with for a week…and then toss aside in their bedroom or playroom.

One of my favourite things to talk about is adoption, and one of my favourite things about adoption is Gotcha Day.

We do a lot for our boys. When I say that, I mean we literally do a lot of things FOR them. Things that they should probably be doing themselves since they’re 7 and 9 years old. Let me be clear, it’s not that they CAN’T do any of these things for themselves, or that I ENJOY doing these things for them, it’s just…you get into a habit, you know? Over the years, you just get used to doing certain things yourself simply because you’ve always done it that way and well, let’s be honest, it’s usually easier.