If you’re not a regular reader of our main blog, you might not know that I love Christmas. (I love Christmas!) I was contacted two weeks ago about reviewing The Original Christmas Classics , Limited Keepsake Edition. I wiggled and giggled and said, “HOORAY!” What’s on this 3 DVD set?

• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Cricket on the Hearth
• Frosty the Snowman, Frosty Returns
• Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town!, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, The Little Drummer Boy
• Plus a bonus CD with seven classic Christmas songs!

As a side note, I can make the high pitched noise that Rudolph’s nose makes. Just ask FireDad. He learned that on our very first Christmas together when I made the noise for him and he looked at me like I had two heads. And yet he still married me. That’s love.

Anyway, I’m thrilled to have this DVD set in our holiday library. Nothing beats the classics. Rudolph is one of my all time holiday favorites followed shortly behind by Frosty. While all of the new movies and shorts being released with well known characters are sure to engage our children, I love bonding with my boys over things that I once loved when I was their age… and still love. Dearly.

The best thing about this DVD set, other than bringing seven great Christmas shows to one place? No commercials! You can argue that, sure, these are on television every year and you can catch them on a nice snowy evening with your children. Except that, as an example, my children go to bed before primetime and can’t ever watch them when they’re on television. Furthermore, shows like these when presented on television are packed full of commercials that make kids go, “OH! I WANT THAT!” No thanks! Skip the commercials and the gimmes and watch it on your very on DVD player.

Want it? Good! We’re giving away one full DVD set. But not just for commenting. We want some audience participation! We’re having a coloring contest*! (Contest is a loosely used word here. It’s still a random giveaway but you can’t be entered to win if you don’t participate!)

Here’s how to enter:

1. Print out this picture of Frosty and have your child(ren) color it. You may allow each of your children to color the picture one time. (Three kids? Three different Frosty pages. One kid. One Frosty page.) If they want to add stickers and sequins and paint, well, you have to clean it up and I don’t so, sure, go at it! (Note: Selecting print preview and changing the orientation to landscape and the size to 125% makes it a full size picture but is not required.)

2. Take a picture of your child with his/her creation. If you do not wish for your child’s likeness to be used online, take a picture of the creation itself without your child’s beautiful, smiling face.

3. Email the picture with the following information: your name, your blog URL and name (if you have one), your child’s name (as you would like to have it used online), and your child’s age. My email is firemom [at] stopdropandblog [dot] com. Please put COLORING CONTEST (in caps) in the subject line so I can find your entry! Please send a separate email and picture for each of your children. (That makes it easy to enter into my spreadsheet! Help me out!)

3a. You may also post your entry on your own public blog with a link to this giveaway for an extra entry. Please send a separate email with a link to your URL so that I may enter that on my spreadsheet as well. Use COLORING CONTEST (in caps) as your subject again.

Entries will be accepted until Friday, November 27, 2009 (also known as BLACK FRIDAY) at noon. The winner will be pulled via random.org and contacted via email. DVD will be shipped straight from my contact, not from me. Winner will be posted with the winning photo on Stop, Drop & Blog with a link to your blog (if you are a blogger). On that post I will also share pictures of BigBrother and LittleBrother’s coloring pages (but they’re obviously not entered in the giveaway; that would be silly!). We will also do a collage of all entrants and include links to all who participated (and gave their blog URL)  on that post. It will be a big, happy holiday celebration!

That’s about it! Go ahead and download the picture, print it out and get to coloring.

And if you don’t win? Pick up The Original Christmas Classics . It’s currently $21.49 on Amazon. A great gift for your children or a stocking stuffer for an adult who grew up adoring these holiday classics.

I know. Halloween isn’t until the end of the week. But I already have designed, ordered and received my Christmas cards. Don’t hate me. Or judge me. I’ve been on the ball this year! (I already ordered the boys’ Christmas pajamas as well.) I want to help you get on the holiday ball as well. First, let me tell you my experience with Vista Print and our Christmas cards.

I knew a few things about our Christmas cards before I even began to look at designs.

• I wanted a photo card.
• I wanted to use pictures from our family vacation at the beach on those photo cards.
• I wanted something that wasn’t going to break the bank.

I turned to Vista Print because they’ve been flawless for me for almost three years now. I was thrilled when I saw that they offered two sizes of photo holiday cards (4×8 and 5×7). I decided to go with the 4×8 cards. Why? Slightly cheaper and personal preference. (As a side note, Vista Print also offers non-photo cards, postcards for your holiday party invitations and even cute caricature cards!) When I decided to go with the 4×8 cards, I was then overwhelmed with my options as to style. I could have designed my own but I didn’t quite know what went with our beach pictures.

In fact, that was my biggest dilemma. Our beach pictures are not exactly holiday oriented. No snow. No long pants. They’re by the water. In the sand. In shorts. With short-sleeved green shirts. And a blue sky. Thankfully, Vista Print doesn’t only offer your typical green and red card with a Christmas tree (though they have those as well). There were over 20 pages to click through. These are the options I most pondered when trying to pick our design.

The palm tree was fun but slightly cheesy. The brown with green  and the green with black were both great. But we eventually chose the last, more colorful option with the Christmas ornaments. It just felt bright and cheery and seemed to match our chosen photos the best. We chose six photos to include on this particular card, uploaded them, added our text and came up with these amazing cards.

(If you are on my Christmas card mailing list, forget you have seen this card and be really surprised when it arrives in your mailbox!)

I was thrilled with how they turned out. We put the verse from Luke that is found in Charlie Brown’s Christmas on the back of the card as our family loves that particular one, verse and movie alike. Voila! The perfect Christmas card! For a fraction of the cost of some other places. Hooray! It was easy to put together (just upload your photos, adjust them if they cropped them wrong, add your text and ship) and the quality is fabulous. Again, I’m just thrilled. I want to frame our Christmas card.

And we want to give you 50 free holiday cards from Vista Print as well! We’re giving away 50 free cards of your choosing (one design). Here’s how to enter.

1. Visit VistaPrint’s Christmas card section and browse around. Come back to this post and let me know in a comment which design you would choose if you won. (You are not limited to the 4×8 cards.) As a side note, you can change your mind on your design if you win. You may do this once.

2. Tweet about this contest by copy/pasting the following into your twitter stream: Win 50 holiday cards from @VistaPrint and @FireMom: http://bit.ly/2HTZ4F . You may do this as many times as your followers will tolerate.

3. Post about this giveaway on your public blog, linking back to this post. Please leave a comment with your post URL so I am sure not to miss it!

This giveaway will be live until Friday, November 6 at noon. It’s a few days shorter than my normal giveaways but I want the winner to be able to create their cards with enough time for shipping, addressing and mailing back out. The time is especially necessary if the winner doesn’t have photos for their card just yet! We will choose a random winner who will be contacted by email. The winner has 24 hours to reply or another winner will be chosen! (Rules: Limited to the US.)

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

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[Disclosure: I received my cards for free in exchange for this review.]

Remember when I told you about the new Veggietales movie? We received a complimentary copy for review and I’ve had the chance to watch it (a few times). While I was already partial to VeggieTales in the first place, I’ve only fallen more in love with Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber and the whole cast of (delicious and healthy) characters.

In the movie, Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving, young and old(er) viewers alike are treated to a beautiful story about the importance and meaning of Christmas. I found it to be particularly relevant to life for children right now as one character, Laura Carrot, is worried that her dad might lose his job. As such, she may end up with nothing for Christmas. Enter a Christmas story about a boy (named Nicholas, of course) and what he discovered long ago that “changed Christmas forever.”

It’s an obvious Christmas story, made all the more wonderful by the VeggieTales characters, the wonderful music (remember the Matthew West and Amy Grant video?) and the general humor that Larry brings to this particular story. (He annoys Bob by interrupting his story. A lot. In funny ways, of course. But a lot.) I think, out of all the Veggietales movies we own, this may rank as a unanimous favorite. I love it for the teaching aspect, for the subtle and not-so-subtle lessons it offers my children without being boring. The kids love it because, again, while serious, it’s a humorous little treat. I don’t even think they realize that they’re learning.

We love this movie. Which is why we’re giving one copy away to a lucky reader! Interested in helping your children learn about the real meaning of Christmas and inspiring them to give year round? Here’s how you enter:

1. Leave a comment about how you plan on teaching your children that Christmas is more about giving than receiving. You may do this once.

2. Blog about this giveaway on your public blog, linking back to this post. Leave a comment here letting me know that you’ve done so.

3. Tweet about the giveaway. Copy/paste the following and come back with the link to your tweet: Help inspire your kids to give this Christmas w/ Veggietales & @FireMom: http://bit.ly/4cKEDM GIVEAWAY!

4. Post this on your Facebook or submit it to another social networking engine like StumbleUpon or Digg. Let me know via a comment that you have done so.

Restriction: US only.

This giveaway will be open until Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at noon. I’ll grab a random number (random.org) and contact the winner by email. You have 24 hour to respond before I seek out another winner. If you don’t win, the movie is available on Amazon for $9.99 right now (October 7, 2009).

I encourage you, even if you don’t purchase the video this Christmas, to teach your children the importance of giving this year. Many families are finding themselves in difficult financial situations, some for the first time ever. If you have any ability, please reach out to those families in need this year. The lesson you teach your child will be priceless and you will, quite likely, make the entire season for those to whom you give.

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This is just another post in our Media Review & Giveaway Extravaganza. Tune in tomorrow for another review + giveaway combo post!

When Parent Bloggers Network asked if I wanted to review some holiday books about faeries, my thoughts immediately jumped to the Munchkin. I don’t normally get to review too much girly stuff on the blog(s) as I’m the everyday Mom to two boys. However, for those not in the know, I am in a fully open adoption with the daughter I relinquished for adoption. I have to choose presents for her for birthdays, Christmas and at other times and, to be honest, I struggle with that process. So I jumped at the chance to review some books that were right in her age range and interests (faeries, for the win!).

The books are from Positive Spin Press and they are adorable. Adorable! The illustrations are interesting, cute and well-composed on the pages. The stories themselves are interesting for kids. While I liked the Halloween book well enough ( ), I am in love with Christmas Eve: The Joy of Giving (about Christmas, obviously) and Winter’s Eve: Love and Lights (about Hanukkah, obviously).

First and foremost, I probably love the fact that this publisher has a book with the same faeries talking about the two (well, more than two) different holidays solely because my daughter is biologically and adoptively (sure, it’s a word) part-protestant Christian and part-Jewish. She has been raised with the two traditions and I loved that these two books tied them together for her! How unique! Usually you find a series of books that only addresses Christmas or only addresses Hanukkah. This time, we see Eve, the fairy, experiencing the different stories in both books. It shows my unique little Munchkin that, yes, you can celebrate both (or others!) and be a pretty awesome girl. I was so very excited about this aspect of the series.

In Christmas Eve, which would be my holiday of celebrating choice, I loved how Santa and Jesus are both talked about instead of one or the other. This is important to me! His birth is discussed and the fact that we should be getting into the joy of giving at Christmastime. It was very heart-warming. In Winter’s Eve, we get to see Eve actually learn about many of the winter celebrations (not just Hannukah). I actually learned a few things in this book myself (yes, as an adult). I also enjoyed the diversity of this particular book; it is something we strive for in books for all of our children.

The only thing I didn’t like about all three books? The Curlz MT font on any of the special words. Yes, folks. That’s the only thing I can think to pick apart. And yes, it’s totally dorky to admit that I know the name of a font. In fact, I know the names of many a font. I accept my dorkiness. Do you?

Anyway, I would really suggest buying one, two or all three of these books for a little fairy lover in your life. (Yes, Halloween just passed but grab it for next year!) To boot? PBN is giving away three copies of each book! Go find out how to win! (Ahem. And go vote today. Thanks!)