How to make Mother’s Day extra special for your cottage mama

If you’re heading up to the cottage for a weekend celebrating the loveliest lady in your life, here are some surprising ideas (in more ways than one) for making her Mother’s Day extra special:

Life Hack: Emergency Cookies For The Rookie Chef

Easter is this weekend, which means sugar consumption levels are going to be through the roof - just the way we like it. Marshmallow candies, cupcake, stale chocolate eggs that taste like they were made last Christmas...ah, a joyous time. Sidenote: parents with kiddies who are expecting the annual egg hunt, this is your friendly reminder to both purchase and hide the eggs.

How to Celebrate St Patrick’s Day: Go Big, Go Green, Or Go Home!

While this crazy backwards weather is making many of us feel down on our luck, St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching with the luck o’ the Irish in tow! I don’t know about you but I could sure use the magic of a four-leaf clover right now.

Making the Most out of March Break Madness

photo credits to
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Welp. On the heels of Canada’s glorious Olympic victory, I find myself stuck in a post-Sochi slump. Anyone else feeling it?? With no big hockey games to anticipate and wake up at ungodly hours for, my life feels so dull. So empty. So bronze medal. You know? So I was thinking about how to defeat my winter blues when I suddenly remembered - duh! March Break is coming up! How could I forget? That sacred time of year when kids rejoice for their freedom and parents freak out about what they’re going to do to entertain them for a whole week. For some, whisking away to tropical islands with friends is the annual go-to option. “Spring Breakers”, anyone? Some much needed R&R under the hot sun can be just what you need to refresh. But then again, there’s the exorbitant cost of travel, accommodations, food...trying to squeeze into last year’s swimsuit (Selena Gomez makes it look easy). So if you find yourself cooped up at home with the family for March Break, why not make the most of it?

Top 10 Crazy Christmas Songs (with a Canadian bent)

When I’m with family, I love to listen to charming Christmas tunes of yesteryear or the more typical renditions of festive favourites by popular musicians.  But when I’m with my friends, nothing beats a bit of Christmas comedy.

Want to magically unite your friends in a chorus of merry sing-a-long up at the cottage this year?  Pull out a couple of these top 10 crazy (and loved) christmas songs of every year...

How to throw a white elephant gift exchange

White Elephant is no ordinary gift exchange.  We love this game in our annual Christmas tradition because it's that wonderful and elusive combination of simple and hilarious.  All you need to do is to show up with a wrapped gift and hope you don't end up with the white elephant ...

Top 10 Popular Christmas Songs

After the rest of the family saw my lovingly prepared list of Top 10 Christmas Songs of Yesteryear, I was bombarded with a number of rather salubrious requests for changes to the list. (Okay, salubrious may be pushing it.  We are in the decade of epic fails and twerking, after all.)

Rather than sacrifice the sentiment and originality of that inaugural list, we decided to compromise on the creation of a brand new list.  So here we go, our family's Top 10 never forgotten - and always loved - Christmas songs of every year.

After all, it's Christmastime, pretty baby...

Add Extra Laughs to Your Holiday with an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

In parts there yonder and around (huh?), the Ugly Christmas Sweater theme has already broken ground and made its way into popularity.  We went to our first one last year and absolutely regret not having participated, so this year we vowed to host our very own.

Wherever you spend your holiday party, we hope this activity makes it into your traditional rotation of Holiday time highlights...

Top 10 Christmas Songs of Yesteryear

When I was a child, I used to love to listen to my mother's four album Reader's Digest "Joyous Noel" song collection.  It was special to me not only because I was only allowed to play it in the month of December - under threat of death from my, shall we say, slightly less-than-joyously-spirited big brothers - but because it had a quality of songs and singing that I rarely heard otherwise. Suave voices of the 1940's and 50's, mixed in with 30's big bands and soulful singers of the 60's. When you're in the middle of the Big Hair 80's, hearing someone sing with passion and soul, accompanied by real instruments rather than electronically generated sounds, is like an ice cream sundae for the ears.

For most of my adult life, I've been parted from my beloved Reader's Digest collection and I recently found myself trawling high and low in what is clearly the 21st century's version of a dusty, old attic - the Internet - seeking tunes that evoke the same sense of childlike wonder and awe for the quality of the sound and the innocence of the message being sung.

I have stumbled across a number of beauties and I thought it would be appropriate at this sharing, caring time of year to give a little back to the Internet, and you, in the form of my personal Top 10 list of perhaps forgotten - but always loved - Christmas songs of yesteryear.

Here's hoping you and your loved ones will enjoy sharing them, each and every one!