Ho, ho, ho – Fine Christmas Co-co-coa !

Hotel Chocolat is an excellent place to look for chocolate Christmas gifts with a wide selection of different choices across a large price range, from stocking fillers to luxury chocolate hampers. Hotel Chocolat is a British company who grow their own fine cocoa at their Caribbean cocoa estate on the island of St Lucia, and work with farmers throughout the world through their ‘Engaged Ethics’ to enhance the livelihoods of cocoa farmers whose products they use.

Hotel Chocolat makes chocolate from the finest and most wholesome ingredients, and is truly fanatical about using chocolate in all manner of unusual ways. The website has stacks of information that will fascinate the chocoholic; with gourmet cuisine recipes and a wealth of detail for the chocolate connoisseur on how different kinds of chocolate are made.

This seasons advent calendar collection includes the ‘Children’s Advent’ with three cut-out tree decorations, a ‘Teens and Over Advent’, the ‘Ultimate Advent’ in milk or dark, and the ‘Truffles to Share Advent’ with two truffles behind each door. Behind each window of the Ultimate Milk Chocolate Advent Calendar is different velvety 40% milk or 50% milk chocolate seasonal character, covered in nibbly cocoa nibs. The problem with having all this delicious chocolate hidden away is resisting the temptation to skip a few days ahead!

The 2010 Christmas gift range includes stocking fillers with some luxury chocolate selections, crackers and advent calendars. Stocking fillers include ‘Solid Festive Wreaths’- in fruit, nut, and caramel, mini ‘Christmas Dinners’ in chocolate cast shapes, and chocolate ‘Enrobed Fruit’. For children, ‘Milk Chocolate Jolly Santa’ is a merry, munchable Santa cast in mellow 40% milk chocolate, or choose a ‘White Chocolate Best Dressed Snowman’, snappily dressed in a winter berry chocolate scarf.

For a serious chocolate lover, the ‘Christmas Pamper Hamper’ is an excellent gift, with a Christmas Wreath and Yule log to slice and share, amongst eleven other luxury items including Purist range chocolates, including cooking ingredients and festive drinking chocolate.

Hotel Chocolat has an excellent selection of gifts at a variety of different prices so you should find something for anyone you’d like to spoil this Christmas. The advent calendars are especially indulgent and perfect for the exciting run up to Christmas, but remember – only one per day!

This is a guest post provided by Hotel Chocolat.

I have returned!

Please pardon my absence. I took some family time over the holiday week combined with some computer problems. I have spent lots of time hanging out with my son and family and enjoying just relaxing. I have been playing Bananagrams with my mom too. I am back and I have so many exciting and wonderful things to share with you all. I hope you have enjoyed your family time as much as I have!

December PBS Sprout Update!

Here is a PBS Sprout update that I received as a member of the Sprout Band of Bloggers!

We have enjoyed watching the Preschool Musical preview on Sprout everyday. Noah loves Caillou’s Christmas Eve and all of the other holiday themed shows. That is just a warm up for next weeks Preschool Musical on TWO sticks. Preschool Musical on Two Sticks: a musical Sproutacular with stick puppets featuring a variety of favorite characters on an exciting journey through a snowstorm. The show premieres Dec. 24th at 5:30pm ET.

We will be watching that as well of course. Noah loves Sprout. It’s not too late to make your own Sprout friends on sticks. You can go to the website and print off the pictures, then color them any way you choose and then have a grownup attach a craft stick on the back and you can play right along with your Sprout friends!

On Christmas Eve Sprout is having the Third Annual Snooze-A-Thon. It is a show that will help your children sleep on Christmas Eve. It is 12 hours of uninterrupted segments that encourage kids to go to bed on time since all of their favorite characters are already sleeping. Starts Dec. 24th at 6pm ET and continues through 6am ET on the 25th. I can’t believe Christmas Eve is on Thursday. Time has flown by this year. Hopefully it will help Noah sleep. He is really excited about Christmas but he is only three so he doesn’t completely have the concept of time and days down. So I am thinking he won’t have problems sleeping. Me on the other hand, I always have trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve. I get so excited and even more so now that I am a mom.

To count down to the New Year Sprout is having Countdown to Noon. Celebrate the New Year the preschool way as The Sunny Side Up Show crew counts down to noon starting December 31st at 11:30am ET. I think that is a great idea! Young kids won’t stay up till midnight nor would my son be allowed to. I had trouble staying up until midnight even when I was young. I used to spend New Years with my grandparents and my cousins. Most years we would change the clock to midnight at like 9 or 10 pm and go out and bang on our pots and pans and go to bed. We would have a huge party too. It was a lot of fun.

For the complete holiday schedule, please go to Sprout's Holiday programing guide
I hope that everyone tunes in to these wonderful Sprout programs. I want to wish you all Happy Holidays and I hope everyone has a safe and fun filled season.

Eat Your Sweets and Keep Your Teeth Too Review and LIVE Giveaway

Since is it Christmas time, It is time to do all your holiday baking. Many people make gingerbread houses. I personally love making gingerbread houses but I refuse to eat it. I don’t know why anyone would eat it. Just think the royal icing that is like cement and hard candy even the gumdrops end up like bricks. Of course you could eat it if you wanted to. I had the opportunity to review Williams-Sonoma No-Bake Winter Wonderland Gingerbread House Kit. I love Williams and Sonoma. They have the coolest kitchen and home items. I love to go in to my local Williams-Sonoma store and look around and occasionally sample some of the goodies they have out to nibble on.

It is a cute little house that comes with all sorts of candies that are different than the normal gingerbread houses I have made in the past. It is more like a designer gingerbread house. It is really easy to put together. It is really neat. Noah loves gingerbread houses. I made him a bunny house for Easter it was the cutest thing. So, naturally he loves the house.


One thing you have to worry about with all the sweets you eat is your dental health so I also received some Listerine products. I got a great assortment of dental products because you can Eat Your Sweets and Keep Your Teeth Too. I really like the Rembrandt toothpaste and the Listerine pocket packs. You just pop one on your tongue and it melts and freshens your breath! It’s great for those moments when you eat something that might give you stinky breath. I love garlic so its perfect for me! I have raved about Listerine before when I worked with them on the book review.


Thank you to Williams and Sonoma and Listerine for the gingerbread house and dental products for my reviewing purposes and for providing the giveaway package.

I have a live giveaway for you.

One person will win:

Williams-Sonoma No-Bake Winter Wonderland Gingerbread House Kit
This family-friendly kit includes a building tray for the house foundation, sturdy precut gingerbread walls and roof, and colorful candy decorations. Easily assembled, this is sure to create lasting holiday memories you and your loved ones will cherish.

Make Holiday Brushing Fun: *NEW* REACH by Design
Brush away gingerbread crumbs with the new exclusive brushes from REACH. Adults and kids alike will love the festive patterns that make brushing your teeth fun! Plus, the brush is designed to clean and remove more plaque in hard to reach places

For the Holiday Party: LISTERINE PocketPaks
Family get-together coming up soon? Keep this on-the-go solution for fresh breath with you at every occasion. These slender packs fit easily in your pocket or purse, so you’re always prepared to mix and mingle with friends and family!

Take Care of That Sweet Tooth: LISTERINE TOTAL CARE and LISTERINE Antiseptic
This holiday packaged duo is the perfect dop kit necessity. Plus, the individual travel-sized LISTERINE® Antiseptic and LISTERINE TOTAL CARE have germ killing action. Keep your family’s mouths germ free, while maintaining fresh breath and a healthy smile for those memorable holiday moments.

Mandatory Entry: Tell me a memory about making a Gingerbread House in the past
Then you may comment as many times as you want after the mandatory entry.
Comment #40 will win!

US RESIDENTS ONLY! (Sorry bout that)

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, there’s magic in the air! Today, we brought in our Christmas tree and got out some of our Christmas decorations. We bought our tree yesterday and had it out side in a bucket of water. Yesterday we hung the lighted garland and the wreath. Noah oohed and ahhed over the lights and kept commenting on how beautiful the lights were. Today, he got really excited about having a tree in the house. We have this toy where Santa comes down the chimney. We got it when I was younger. I can’t remember how old I was but I remember playing with it. It was really cool to think about me playing with it as he spent an hour making Santa come down the chimney. He laughed and smiled the whole time as he played.

I showed him a snow globe that plays music and he thought it was really cool. He had me pick him up so he could get a better look at the mantle and the decorations on the entertainment center. He is really excited about Christmas. It is so much fun. He is adorable when he gets excited. He knows that Christmas is Jesus’ birthday too. He will tell you all about it. Well as much as he can. For his first Christmas he got the dvd God made Christmas. We started watching it before Christmas and it was his first dvd. I remember him being a few months old sitting in his bouncer being mesmerized at the sights. We love all of the Baby Faith DVD’s. It tells the story of Baby Jesus. I was going to let him watch it today, but I can’t find it. I want him to know the real meaning of Christmas. I hope I find it soon. I know he will enjoy it still.

We also made a craft. Noah is learning about patience and waiting for Christmas. I thought we should make a chain that counts the days till Christmas. Every day we tear off one of the links and count how many more days. Noah did a great job with the glue stick and had a lot of fun. I bought the stuff to make candy cane reindeer. I must say candy canes have gotten expensive. They were two dollars a box. I thought things were supposed to get cheaper. I guess not. The pipe cleaners I got were striped. They didn’t have any solid brown ones so I figured it would be the closest thing. I have come up with a few other fun Christmas crafts and decorations we can do together.

What are some fun holiday crafts do you do with your children? Maybe I will get some more ideas. Please feel free to share them with me.

Wal-mart Santa

We went to Wal-mart yesterday. We had gotten our groceries and managed to make it out without a scratch from the frenzied shoppers. After walking all over the place, avoiding the toys of course we went through the check out. Our cashier was an older man with long silver hair and a beard. He was really nice. As soon as it was our turn he started talking to us. Most cashiers will say “Hi, How are you?” not this one. He started talking to us. He was talking to Noah too. He told us that we missed it. I was curious I thought we missed something really huge. We did. He told us all about how Santa was there and asked Noah if he wanted to see Santa. Noah said NO! That is the typical Noah answer. The man told him about how Santa gives candy. Noah’s eyes got really big.

The man asked him what he wanted for Christmas and Noah started talking about presents and wrapping paper. They had a really nice little chat. He told us that Santa will be there every Saturday morning. As we were walking out my mom who was with us said I think he was Santa. I said maybe Santa moonlights at Wal-mart. She thinks he is the Wal-mart Santa. I did notice a twinkle in his eye. There was something magical about him. So maybe we talked to the Wal-mart Santa disguised as a Wal-mart cashier.

Macy's Believe campaign and $25 Gift Card Giveaway- 2 winners!

One of my fondest memories growing up was writing to Santa what I wanted for Christmas. I spent a lot of time carefully composing my Christmas list and waiting until Christmas morning. To this day, I still have trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve. It is just so magical. Christmas is my favorite holiday by far. I love the traditions and the togetherness and the whole idea of Christmas. I am happy to share with you Macy’s newest campaign, Believe, which builds on the great success of last year’s holiday effort to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation. This year, Macy’s is adding to the spirit of “Believe” with a national Santa Tour, an honorary National Believe Day, a “Yes, Virginia ” animated special, and a new TV commercial featuring Queen Latifah.

The nostalgic holiday campaign was inspired by the New York Sun’s famous “Yes, Virginia , there is a Santa Claus” editorial from 1897 and includes letter-writing “Believe Stations” in Macy’s stores across the country. For each letter received, Macy’s will donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, up to $1 million.
If you are not familiar with Make-A-Wish Foundation they help children with medical problems and critical illnesses by granting their wishes. It is a wonderful foundation with a great cause. I invite you all to gather with your children and sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and write a letter for each of your children to Santa. Even if they can’t write you can help. Santa won’t mind. Use this opportunity to help other children’s dreams come true by bonding with your children and mailing your letters to Santa at your local Macy’s. You can share with your children this little secret. If you mail your letter to Santa at Macy’s no stamp is required because Santa has a special delivery elf that goes and picks up the letters for him.

For more information please visit Macy's Believe Website.

I have a giveaway for you.

Two (2) winners will each win a $25 Macy’s Gift card

Mandatory Entry: Tell me if you are going to sit down with your kids and write a letter to Santa and mail it at Macy’s and one thing that will be on their list.
You must do the mandatory entry for the bonus entries to count.
Bonus Entries

Subscribe to my blog via Email. You must verify it

Follow my blog

Follow @sheilacakes7 on Twitter and Tweet about this giveaway including a link to this post. This can be done once a day.

This giveaway is open to US Residents ONLY

Please remember to leave your email address in the comments or make it accessible on your blog.

This giveaway will end December 12, 2009 at 11:59 pm EST.

Thank you to Macy's for providing the the gift cards for the giveaway. I received nothing for this post.

Wubbzy's Christmas Adventure Review and Giveaway -- 3 winners

What’s little and yellow and super cute? It’s Wubbzy from the show Wow Wow Wubbzy! He is back in a new Christmas DVD! We really enjoyed watching Wubbzy’s Halloween adventures in Wubbzy Goes Boo. We just had to see the newest Wubbzy adventure. Wubbzy’s new DVD is called Wubbzy’s Christmas Adventure. Join Wubbzy this all-new Holiday collection! Everyone’s favorite bendy-tailed buddy pitches in to decorate The Figgity-Fig Tree, fix Walden’s snow sculpture and even solve the mystery of the
Snow Shoo-Shoo!

When I told Noah I had a new Wubbzy DVD to watch he got so excited. I told him I was going to go get it and he started to follow me up the stairs. I told him to wait down stairs and I would go get it. I heard him saying Wow Wow Wubbzy Wubbzy Wubbzy Wow Wow. I came down stairs with the screener and Noah started jumping up and down as the music started. He was so happy.

He watched Wubbzy’s Christmas Adventure with pure glee during dinner. There was a part where Wubbzy and his friends were dancing. Noah said I gotta get down and dance. I let him out of his little booster chair. He danced happily along. When the dancing was over he came back to the table and finished dinner. He watched intently to see what happened next. Laughing and smiling during the whole screener DVD. It was really fun to watch the screener DVD with Noah and also watch Noah’s reactions to what Wubbzy was doing.


When it was over, He wanted to watch it again. I let him watch part of it again until bedtime. I am pretty sure he was dreaming of sugar plums and Wubbzy and friends. The next morning Noah was sleepy and kind of grumpy. He didn’t want to do anything or watch anything. He was being a little stinker. So I put in Wubbzy’s Christmas Adventure and he was just as excited as he was the first time he saw it. We have grown very fond of the little yellow creature.

Thank you to Anchor Bay Entertainment for providing me with a screener and providing the copies of Wubbzy’s Christmas Adventure for the giveaway!


Three (3) of my readers are going to win their very own copy of Wubbzy’s Christmas Adventure (valued at $16.98 each)

Mandatory Entry: Tell me who you want to win this for and why.

You must do the mandatory entry for the bonus entries to count.

Bonus Entries:

Subscribe to my blog via email

Follow my blog

Follow @Sheilacakes7 and tweet about this giveaway please include the link (this may be done once a day)

Please remember to put your email address in your comments or make it accessible on your blog.Don’t forget to make each entry in a new comment.

This giveaway will end November 23,2009 at 11:59 pm ET

This giveaway is open to US residents ONLY.

Santas are at the mall and its only November 9th after all

When I was growing up it was the norm to see that stores had Christmas stuff out the week of Thanksgiving. Santa arrived at the malls that week too usually the day after Thanksgiving. Santa would make his grand and glorious appearance during the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. I have always thought even then was too early. I like to start thinking about Christmas during December. I start my Christmas shopping then. I understand if a company or store is doing a huge display of lights and that takes time but really…. its not even double digits of November yet.

I am doing some reviews for holiday gift ideas. That is completely understandable. I mean I know a lot of people start Christmas shopping in September or October and a few that are probably already done. You all want to know about cool gift ideas and I want to help you all out. So I wonder what is going on? Why does Christmas and Winter Holiday things get pushed up so much? What is the rush? I know time is flying by but seriously can’t we get more in to November already?

So far I have observed these things…

1.Holiday items in stores- Ok this one isn’t too surprising because it seems that it has been like this for a while.

2. Massive amounts of holiday ads on TV. There were always a few but it is like I am being bombarded by commercials about Christmas.

3. They are advertising a Christmas special to premiere November 17th or something. Why not make more Thanksgiving shows.

4. Santa is already at my local mall. Hello? It is November 9th. Santa’s break gets shorter and shorter every year. Poor Santa!

5. Tonight I noticed that my lovely neighbors have their Christmas tree not only in their home but decorated and lit. That is just plain silly in my opinion but whatever works for them.

6. I must confess I love Christmas Tree cakes so I happily bought a box yesterday.

Time really is flying by it is still November right? I didn’t wake up in the Twilight Zone or anything did I? I don’t remember becoming Sheila Van Winkle. I love Christmas don’t get me wrong I guess outside of reviewing products I don’t understand why Santa is out and trees are lit and decorated.

I still have my Halloween decorations up! We love pumpkins here. I just don’t get eating some week old Halloween candy then following it up with a candy cane while you decorate your tree. I hope I don't sound like Scrooge.

I am very happy to receive any opportunities of products to review and giveaway for the Holiday Season. It is not too early when it comes to the review process.