In my Christmas Present Giveaways I'm giving away a TinyMe £40 voucher, and here's a lovely example of what you can buy if you win. This year for the first time they're creating Personalised Calendars, and we were sent a voucher to order one for review.


Creating my calendar was a 5 minute job. It really was incredibly easy. The personalisation includes the wording on the front, the pattern or print, the inside layout with columns or a grid, and for most styles you can also choose the colours.

Big Fish Little Fish are, in their own words, "a music and events crew that put on family raves with all the freedom and excitement of a mini-festival, right in the heart of cities and towns".

I was asked if I'd be interested in coming along to review a Big Fish Little Fish Family Rave being held in Manchester. I had absolutely no idea what that was going to entail, but it sounded a laugh, and incredibly intriguing, so it wasn't an opportunity to be missed.

This is a post by Sam Rimini.

Children love to play video games. Traditional toys from the old days don't play the role they used to, although a good old teddy bear is always appreciated, especially when it can be personalized like at Build-A-Bear. Also, there is no problem with parents feeling the need to enact a new set of rules to govern how long their kids are playing, which is the case with video or games, or which titles they are consuming. While many of them offer a variety of benefits to players and they're not only meant for kids, there are numerous disadvantages, as well. The time has come to take a closer look at the pros and cons associated with kids interacting with video games!

I'm a huge advocate of buying books for Christmas, but books aren't the only things we can read for pleasure. Magazine.co.uk are the UK's leading magazine subscription site, offering subscriptions to hundreds of magazines, covering every topic you can you can think of and they usually work out substantially cheaper than buying each edition separately - regularly less than half price.



The savings by subscribing are possible because the magazine manufacturers aren't sending copies out to sit on a shelf and then go back, there's very little waste in the form of paper and ink, delivery, time and effort, so the savings from all of that can be passed on to you - and better yet, each issue is delivered to your door free of charge.

Christmas is expensive, and presents that are opened and then sit in the cupboard all year are a disappointment to everyone. Especially when you are buying the first sets, you want to make sure your LEGO investment will be a set that your child will like, and will open up a huge world of creativity for them.


The most important thing is to start by thinking of LEGO as a creative puzzle toy, rather than a brand. Following a LEGO instruction book to build a model is not so different from following any model instructions, or even completing a jigsaw. The difference is that once you've finished, you can play with it, dismantle it and rebuild it however you want.

Choosing might be more simple than you think, and to me has 3 main questions:

1. What toys does your child like playing with?
2. What is your price range?
3. What age and ability range is your child?

The Card Gallery are a Shropshire based online company selling personalised cards and other stationery. They started out 11 years ago catering for Weddings and Christenings, and now have a massive range of personalised products for all occasions including birthdays, thank you's, new babies and pretty much any event you can think of - including Christmas - and cards start at 70p each.

The Card Gallery also create personalised stationery and other products for business and schools. They even print iron-on name labels and personalised gifts for your child's teacher.

Ticket To Ride is one of my personal all-time favourite games. A turn-based board game for 2-5 players aged 8+ where players create rail routes from location to location in order to score points. The original ticket To Ride was first published in 2004, and there are now 4 different full game versions, all together selling more than a staggering 3 million copies already. There are also a host of expansion packs featuring different maps worldwide.


Until now I've only ever owned a copy of the Nordic Edition, but I've been sent a copy of the European Edition of Ticket To Ride to review, and I will also being giving one away thanks to Esdevium Games.

Last Thursday we were invited to a Magical Christmas Party at the Disney Store in Manchester Arndale Centre, to find out about their new charity initiative, which is taking place right up until Christmas this year.

"Take a festive photo in one of our stores, or dig out a classic from the family album and share it through Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #DisneyStoreFamily."

For every treasured moment shared, Disney Store will donate a soft toy to children's charities. This year their chosen charities for the UK are Great Ormond Street Hospital and In Kind Direct. If you don't have Twitter or Instagram, you can also share via The Disney Store's page on Facebook.

That's not all though, each family that submits a photo will be entered into a competition to win a family trip to New York, including a private shopping spree at the Disney Store in Times Square. It's a huge prize for someone, and so we gave it our best efforts to win while we were there!

Everyone seems to be having it a bit rough at the moment. The clocks changed and Halloween and Bonfire Night came and went and the rain moved in, and lots of us haven't seen much daylight since then. In another week it'll be less than 5 weeks to Christmas and we can start getting excited/panicked, but this week is a low. It'll pass.

The last month has actually been the hardest for us in a long time. It's been 15 months since Elspeth died, and to the outside world 15 months is such a long time. We should be learning to live with our new life. In many ways though, the new life is just beginning. Our child who was struggling and literally 'wasting away' has been in hospital for the past 3 weeks.

Friendship Games is the latest release this year in the My Little Pony - Equestria Girls series. A full length animated adventure featuring all of your favourites from the more 'grown up' branch of My Little Pony.

Lasting around 72 minutes, the Friendship Games movie tells the tale of the 4 yearly Friendship Games, where all of the regulars from Canterlot High meet up with their rival school Crystal Prep Academy to compete in a series of games with the aim to make friends and have fun, and bring harmony to all.