Just a thought… The best ideas spark your brain but touch your heart. [an Erin original, so do with it what you will]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Well, here we are in Standard Time – which, of course, we re-entered on the weekend with clocks going back, but I flew into the Eastern Time zone Saturday; I’m here in Toronto for an emcee event all day today for the Canada Awards for Excellence, and then for the Breast Health Centre at Markham Stouffville Hospital on Wednesday evening with my buddy Allan Bell and his incredible team there.

But it’s more than only a work trip: my friend Lisa Brandt is on her way here on Wednesday from Port Stanley, then staying with me that night and on Thursday – put this in your phone or your calendar or write it on the wall – yours truly will be sitting in the guest chair for a few segments on CTV’s The Social. That’s this Thursday (check your local listings – it’s on at 1 pm in most time zones) and I’m very excited and, yes, nervous.

It came about because I interviewed Lainey Lui of E Talk and The Social (for a podcast I do for the Canadian Real Estate Association) and we hit it off so well she suggested I might sit in. So thank you, Lainey. I don’t know what we’ll talk about, but it’ll be fun.

This Friday, as you well know, is Remembrance Day. After that, of course, it’ll be no holds barred for the Christmas crush and you can be sure that as stations dust off the Bing and Bowie for another six or seven weeks (thoughts and prayers to the hosts; I’ve been there), the ads will be hitting hard and fast trying to part consumers and their money.

So it was with delight and no cynicism whatsoever that I saw what arrived about a month ago at Brooke and Phil’s house: a real, honest-to-goodness catalogue – not for a brick and mortar store like The Bay, but for an online shopping site. THE online shopping site, Amazon.

Now, I will preface this by saying, please, please, if you can, shop locally, support the store owners whose lives are wrapped up in this season’s sales, and keep your town or city going by putting your money where your postal code is.

What captivated me about this Amazon holiday kids’ gift book is that it was such a call back to older times, when we would go through catalogues, circle or cut out, and make sure our parents knew what we were having sugar plum dreams about. Maybe if we were really lucky, we’d get ONE of those things we really wanted. Sometimes, not. But this catalogue is something else. It has fun stuff like stickers…

…and word searches…

…to make it a great idea for parents or grandparents to pass along to the littles in their lives. And, of course, while they’re there, kids can flip the pages and see the stuff that Amazon is selling.

And what do they do when they spot what they want?

Put it on the list, of course…or get a grown-up to do it.

It’s a brilliant marketing idea. And again, so unexpected from an online shopping behemoth to come up with something as simple and old school as a catalogue.

Again, please shop locally. But why not use this little catalogue as a way to find what the kids in your life want, and then search them out at the store on your town’s main street? There’s always that option. We don’t have to keep supporting the billionaires’ companies whose own employees need food donations (as is the case at Walmart) or have to pee in bottles because their shift doesn’t allow them bathroom breaks (looking at you, Jeff Bezos). I’d rather keep our little town of Sidney’s toy store going if I can, using the kids’ wish list to know what I’m looking for.

To each his or her own. Money is tight and they say in 2023 it’s getting tighter. But I just had to share with you something that tugged at my heartstrings and made me want to say, “Well done!” What you do, that’s up to you!

Enjoy your week – a long weekend for some with this Friday’s Remembrance Day. I’ll be flying home next week, but will try to get a journal to you here early in the week, with pictures. There’s a new Drift with Erin sleep story awaiting you tomorrow. We’ll be bringing in our Christmas and holiday stories soon, so keep checking in for those, too.