The Perfect Gift

What exactly is the perfect gift?  According to the commercials it has to be a Chia Pet.  Or the Ove Glove.  Or maybe it's the Clapper or the Pogo Whisk.  Seriously?  Are those really the perfect gifts for anybody?  My husband says that they're still selling them, so somebody must be buying them.

I'm guessing most people would rather get something like an iPad Air, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, or a nice Samsung Galaxy S4.  U.S. Cellular customers can even get some of those phones for 5000 Belief points through the end of December, so now is definitely the time to think about getting a new phone if you or someone in your family is eligible for an upgrade.  Belief points can be used to accelerate that upgrade, too.

There are also plenty of accessories like phone cases, headphones, car chargers, Bluetooth speakers and headsets, etc. that would most likely be appreciated more than that Hello Kitty Chia Pet.  I'm thinking of getting some of those Bluetooth speakers myself.  Accessory  prices start under $25.

A tablet or smartphone has to be more useful for creating Better Moments and for keeping families in touch.  Sometimes it's as simple as using Instagram or Facebook to upload pictures of the food and desserts we'll share when we get together.  That's one I'm quite guilty of!  Then, of course, I have people asking for the recipes and wishing they could be joining us.  Speaking of recipes, Pinterest is a great app to have for storing all those amazing recipes from all over the web!  You can never have too many recipes, now can you?  That Chia herb garden might come in handy for recipes, but I'm still thinking smartphone.

What I like about having a mobile device like my smartphone, is that it's so easy to capture and share even the little things - pictures with Instagram, videos with Vine...  OK, so I haven't actually shared any videos with Vine, or Instagram, mostly because I usually forget that I have video on my phone.  Just being able to share the pictures (and video when I remember) is a good way to keep in touch with friends and family, even if we don't get to see each other all that often.

So, be honest - have you ever bought somebody one of those 'perfect gifts' from the commercials?  Or received one of them?  Is there some other crazy 'perfect gift' idea I haven't mentioned here?   Am I crazy to think anyone would rather get a smartphone full of useful apps and/or some accessories than The Clapper or one of the many Chia Pets?

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my participation in the U.S. Cellular Better Moments Blogger Brigade as well as receiving a new phone.  My experiences with and opinions of U.S. Cellular are 100% mine.

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my participation in the U.S. Cellular Better Moments Blogger Brigade as well as receiving a new phone.  My experiences with and opinions of

Make Your Own LEGO Minifigure Holiday Card

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of LEGO for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
 
One of our favorite toys growing up was LEGO.  We spent hours building with that stuff!  So, of course, when I had kids of my own, they had to have LEGO, too.  Cory especially enjoyed it and really loved the Bionicle sets.  He collected a lot of those and used to make the most amazing things.

Here's something amazing we can all make with LEGO - our own family!  Well, our own virtual LEGO Minifigure Family, that is.  You get to create a customized holiday card featuring Minifigure representations of your own family and share it with anyone you want.  It's really quite fun.  And easy.

Here's one I made - the family Thanksgiving card we didn't send (because I didn't know about this then):

You can add up to 13 family members and customize each one with skin tone, facial expression, hair and hats, and outfits.  I just added the four of us - Jeffrey, me, Beth, and Cory - and made the kids be kids again, even if they are all grown up now.  I don't know that any of us really look like us, and none of the clothing choices really looked like something we would wear in real life, but it was fun choosing.  Now that I think about it, I should have had us all dress in matching outfits!  Or the guys could match and the girls could match.  Or you can just let the Minifigure Family creator choose random outfits for everybody.  I did that for a bit just to see the crazy things it came up with!  However you choose to do it, it will be fun.

Once you have all your family members added and dressed, there are several backgrounds to chooose from, and then you just click and drag each family member to position them in the scene wherever you want them.  Then simply choose your message, and you're ready to share It.  You can download your card, which is what I did, share the link, send it via email, or share with Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.  Yeah, I did that too - pinned it to my 'fun stuff' board on Pinterest.

So be sure to check it out and create your own LEGO Minifigure Family.