Everyone here at Time to Play and The Toy Guy wishes you and your loved ones a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We’re out of here until Monday. You can catch our pre-recorded Black Friday show on MomTV.com/TimetoPlay, airing at 1pm Eastern on Friday.

You can also catch Jim and Chris on various TV programs throughout the day on Friday.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Play Categories: Around the Web

by Jeff McKinney (follow me on Twitter)

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I’ve got food on my mind. Food and video games that is, which is why Cook Or Be Cooked is the perfect gaming compliment to tomorrow’s feast.

Cook or be Cooked from Namco and Food Network is a game that can also improve your real-world culinary skills. Using the Wii-Remote and Nunchuk controller, the game requires you to perform slicing and dicing actions as you play through over 30 actual recipes from the Food Network Kitchens. Play alone or challenge a friend to a cooking dual as you follow the on-screen cooking instructions.

If you enjoy the Cooking Mama games, then you will love Cook or be Cooked, which consists of a similar play-pattern but features real recipes that you can recreate in your kitchen.

Cook or be Cooked is in stores and available online now for the Nintendo Wii. The game is rated Everyone.

Play Categories: Video Games

The Muppet’s revisit a classic with their rendition of Queen’s 1975 hit Bohemian Rhapsody:

Play Categories: Around the Web

By Chris Byrne (Follow me on twitter)

Last Sunday night, I was in Chicago, and Michigan Avenue was lined with people there to watch a parade—and participate in the “official” opening of Chicago’s Shopping season.

For the rest of the nation, that begins the Friday after Thanksgiving—or so-called “Black Friday.” While it would be fun to say the name comes from my mood trying to navigate stores on one of the most crowded shopping days of the year, the real derivation of the term comes from financials. The Friday after Thanksgiving was traditionally the day that retailers went from being in the red to profitable—or in the black.

If you’re breathing, you can’t miss all the hype this year. Stores opening extra early (Toys “R” Us is opening at midnight.) and all the hype about “door buster” specials. It’s no surprise that everyone is a little hopped up about this. It’s been a dismal year for retailers, and shoppers who have held back all year are in a mood to buy.

But do you have to be out in a cold parking lot the day after the holiday? To me, the notion of getting through a holiday and then leaping into shopping is horrific. The odds of me getting one of the 50 deeply discounted TVs or appliances or computers or toys are so low that it’s not worth it. I start getting jumpy just thinking about it. That, however, is just me.

I’ve been surveying shoppers about their Black Friday plans both in person and online, and the views are pretty much evenly split. For every person like me who hates battling for sales (though I will be visiting stores that day in LA to see how toy sales are going), there are people for whom Black Friday is a family tradition. They anticipate the fun of getting up early and waiting in the cold. For them, it’s like a sporting event. They thrive on the crowds and the energy. As one woman told me, “I’ve done most of my shopping, but the holiday doesn’t really start for me till I feel the excitement of being in the stores. I wouldn’t be the first to posit that shopping can induce a drug-like state.

There are deals to be found, to be sure, and those deals will not be going to me, but I’m happy for the other people who will get them. We all pay in different ways. I’ll pay a few dollars more for things because I want to avoid the crunch. Others will pay with their time and energy to try to score the items they want. Happily, we both win. When choices are involved, people usually pay the prices they want to pay.

My sense, though, is that deals will be going on all season. Right now Amazon and Wal-Mart are engaged in a tremendous price war, which can only be good news for shoppers as all retailers compete for the estimated $437.6 billion that will be spent this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. So, it’s possible that we all may save a bit.

This is definitely a live-and-let-live situation. I don’t get the people who love being up at 3:00 a.m. any more than they can understand how I could miss the fun. From my perspective, we both win.

Have a wonderful holiday—just the way you like it.

Play Categories: Experiences, Opinions, holidays

By Jim Silver (Follow me on twitter)

You’re looking for a Zhu Zhu pet or a Mindflex and you can’t find one anywhere. It’s at the top of your child’s wish list, and you need to come up with this toy(this is where we need to define “need vs. want”). What should you do?

1. Bounce from store to store until you find it. This usually ends up in failure. If you’re going to try this method, go to the stores that carry the most toys. You can try calling ahead, but that doesn’t usually work, especially for large stores. Then try some smaller local toy stores, as sometimes you get lucky.
2. Get to know the sales help. They often know when the next shipments are arriving. And be nice! Acting crazy, rude or demanding won’t get you any good tips or information. The next NICE customer will get the tip – Always be nice!
3. Buy a different toy and a small gift card. Gift cards extend the holiday season, and allow a child to spend fun time walking through a toy store. For a child, visiting a toy store with a small gift card is an outing; they can spend hours there.
4. Go online. You’re already online reading this, start hitting the web sites that sell toys. A search for a specific toy will usually bring up several different sites. You could always go to eBay and see if you want to buy and pay now at a premium, or wait till later.

Play Categories: Advice, Experiences, products

By ComplicatedMama

Recently, when I went to pick up my son from preschool, I noticed his class had redone their display board as they do each month.

This month’s board, titled: “I am most Thankful for…” was decorated with one large tree and many little personalized leaves with the children’s responses. As I skimmed for my sons name I thought:

aww! maybe he said his little sister. That would be so cute!… Or maybe he couldn’t chose and simply said “my family” … Maybe he did chose, and he said “Mommy!”.. Oh! melt my heart.

The longer it took me to find his leaf, the more teared up I got at the thought of the sweet thing my son was thankful for… so you can imagine my disappointment when I read “SPIDERMAN”.

What? What has Spiderman done for him? This is a joke – right?, But it wasn’t and I thought clearly, this is a lesson we need to work on.

How do you teach a 4 year old the meaning of Thanksgiving? Sure, he knows to when to say thank you- but to truly be thankful for something, or someone? How do you teach that?

You could start by explaining to the child that you are thankful for things that make you happy and have them make a list. Surely, Spiderman will still be a front runner- but there’s a chance you may find a family member’s name come in a close second …or third. And that would be progress, right?

The truth is being thankful is not really something that is taught in one lesson. It’s a life of lessons, so for the average preschooler they probably don’t truly “get it” yet. And that’s okay. I don’t think I truly appreciated some of the most important things in my life until I was out of college.

So for now, it’s about the memories. It’s about the tradition, and including your little one in those traditions. Which for us, means cooking up a storm, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… and anxiously awaiting the unveiling of the new Spiderman float.

And that makes me most thankful.

Mother of 2 beautiful children, and wife to one amazing man; Corine documents her whimsical over analysis of every day Mommy life on her personal blog, ComplicatedMama.com where she is blogging to the world, desperately seeking balance and perfection, or at least a glimpse of her former self. She also contributes to the NJ.com Parental Guidance blogs as well as the NYMetropolista. You can find her on Twitter by following @ComplicatedMama.

Play Categories: Time to Play Guest Blogger

By Chris Byrne (Follow me on twitter)

Now you may wonder what in heaven’s name Kate Moss and her comments on eating have to do with toys and play, but stay with me on this one.

Moss is being pilloried for saying, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” in an interview. The outrage patrol, which jumps on everything to leverage publicity, has taken her comments out of context and attacked her for promoting anorexia. Of course, they did. As I repeatedly say, we’re outraged all the time over everything. Is anyone else getting exhausted by all this vitriol?

Moss was commenting on how she personally stays thin. Her publicists say the comments were taken out of context, and for once they’re right. The papers say that Moss is idolized by teens. Really, every teen and tween I’ve talked to lately is swooning over “New Moon.” A waspish model barely registers on their radar.

However, let’s take Moss’s comment apart. Moss is dependent on keeping her figure for her work, and one of the ways she does that is to remind herself of the consequences of eating certain foods. She didn’t say, “Starve yourselves into a fashionable shape.”

Yet when I look at obese and inactive families and young people lined up at McDonald’s in airports (where I am a lot lately) and carrying away trays loaded with shakes, burgers, fries and more, I’m concerned. When I read that costs of obesity are going to skyrocket, I can’t help but think that Moss, who is advocating conscious eating, may have a point.

Let’s face it, being overweight has serious health consequences, particularly for kids, which I don’t need to go into here. The way to control weight is reduced intake of calories balanced by increased expenditure of calories. Eat less. Move more. It’s not brain surgery.

For kids that means absolutely reducing what is eaten and be more active. Watch diet. Eliminate soda. Limit sugar and processed foods. And get out and play. I have yet to meet or interview any kid who has gotten their weight under control who doesn’t feel better about themselves or life. Kate Moss may have said things to make news, that’s what celebrities do, but it does feel better to be healthy.

That’s the goal of a new program from the NFL. NFL Play 60 program is designed to get kids, up, active and healthier. It’s an inspiring initiative, and full details on the Play 60 Challenge are here.

Many of us remember the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and attempts later by Arnold Schwarzenegger to get kids up and playing and to make physical fitness a cultural value. It’s sad that we’ve lost that. Hopefully, an entity as big and admired as the NFL can make some progress restoring physical fitness as something that’s part of our lives. The impact on the culture would be profound.

We all know that riding bikes, playing pick up ball, just plain running around all count. We have to make that happen, or we will inevitably pay the price in the end.

What’s ironic in the Kate Moss flap is that the outrage that makes headlines is always ginned up to allow people to reinforce their positions and avoid making any kind of change. The number of kids who will become fashion models is statistically non-existent. The number of kids who should be taught that being healthy feels better than subsisting on inactivity and a terrible diet is, well, all of them.

Let’s teach kids responsible eating, being active—and let them see for themselves how good that feels.

As for me personally, knowing I’ve avoided the 730 calories and 9 grams of fat in a 16-ounce fast food shake (more than 1/3 of the calories I should have in a day) feels a lot better than the soon-forgotten shake and the few minutes it took to consume it. Now, I’m not advocating an ascetic lifestyle. Occasional treats are fine. Occasional treats, however, don’t make kids fat.

So, let’s rephrase for Kate because she’s not getting a chance to: Nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels.

Play Categories: Advice, Opinions

by Jeff McKinney (follow me on Twitter)

I have to admit that somehow I missed the first We Cheer game so I’m really glad that Namco Bandai sent me the second one because it’s a blast. This Wii exclusive utilizes the Wii Remotes as pom-poms and has you up on your feet as you attempt to follow on-screen choreographed routines.

The routines are set to 30 cheer-favs like “Get Ready For This” by 2 Unlimited, “Mickey” by Toni Basil, “Just Dance” by Lady GaGa and one of my personal cheerific favorites–”Walk This Way” by Run DMC! Each routine is a challenging and aerobic, full-body activity that will have kids and adults burning calories while having fun.

One to four people can play together in one squad or face-off in competitive “Cheer Off” modes. While the game is going to appeal more to girls, there are also boy characters as part of the squad and all characters are highly customizable so players can create their own in-game cheer-self. We Cheer 2 also features various difficulty selections and options which ensure that gamers of all levels–from beginner to advance–can create and play a game that fits their skills.

We Cheer 2 from Namco Bandai is available now for the Nintendo Wii with a suggested retail price of $39.99. The game is rated Everyone 10+.

Play Categories: Reviews, Video Games

By Kerri Jablonski, Director of Operations, CityMommy Seattle, CityMommy.com
You can also visit her on Facebook

Let the holiday shopping madness begin. I can’t help but think that the season begins earlier and earlier every year. Maybe I notice it more now that I am a mom, but I swear I heard Christmas music on a commercial at the beginning of last month.

Gone are the days of sitting down with a Crayola marker and the Sears Wish Book. Now we are inundated with websites, television commercials, gigantic store displays, what little Johnny has at playgroup, and of course, mom websites. Ok, so guilty as charged. I am part of the problem. But how do I go about finding out what’s hip in the toy scene? How do I make sure that I have the coolest toys underneath the tree? Well, I ask other moms.

Last week I posed this question to my mom friends: What’s the word on the playground about the latest and greatest toys? What toys and games are your kids talking about? What are YOU talking about with other moms? I’d love to know!

Know what the most popular answer was? Zhu Zhu pets. I still have no idea what those are. I’ve seen the signs at Toys R Us notifying shoppers of limited quantities – but that’s it! Seems like kids also love puzzles, wooden toys and trucks…and board games. Did you have family game night growing up? Maybe this holiday season is a good time to start the tradition again.

For toys I never considered possible as a kid, like LeapFrog’s Tag Reading System (that reads to your child!) to the toys I remember fondly- Legos and Transformers (hey I had older brothers!) the wish lists our kids are writing are much like our own when we were young, with a modern twist. Did you ever think you would be able to carry your Nintendo in your pocket??

The hot toys change over the years, but the excitement is still the same when your child opens that hot new toy he has been asking for everyday for the past 10 weeks. Perhaps you will find yourself dreaming of an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time.

I hope Santa brings you whatever you are wishing for, and your child too!

Kerri Jablonski is the Director of Operations for CityMommy Seattle, a social networking site for moms under the CityMommy.com umbrella. If you’re looking to join the holiday chatter from local moms in your area, don’t forget to visit CityMommy.com and follow them on Twitter. If you hear of a must-have toy for your kids, Time To Play and our Most Wanted are here to help!

Photo by Keri Meyers Photography

Play Categories: Time to Play Guest Blogger