My daughter Ava and I checked out Oakville’s new iFly Toronto indoor skydiving centre yesterday, and we weren't disappointed. Honestly, the only drawback to the two-hour experience was that it may have encouraged Ava (pictured at left) to pursue a career in jumping out of aircraft, which did seem pretty cool as we gaped at the iFly pros’ mad skills in the 20-metre-tall wind tunnel. And that was before we flew into it ourselves. What did we like about it?

 1. It destroys the holiday doldrums
The second week of the December holidays can be challenging for families: The luster is starting to fade from new toys, dad still hasn’t figured out how to charge the Tiny Tots Toy Taser, and exhaustion is starting to replace the adrenaline rush of Dec. 24 and 25. So what better way to kick-start Week 2 than by being lifted off the ground by hurricane-force winds?

2. It’s great bucket-list prep
I know I’m not alone in wanting to parachute out of an airplane one day. I’m not sure when this will happen — probably once my daughters are financially self-sufficient — but after two minute-long flights with iFly (pictured below) I now know for certain that skydiving is bucket-list material.

3. Just about anyone can do it
It amazes me that children as young as four can take part in the iFly flights; I regret not bringing Grace, 5, along. It actually seemed easier for the three youngsters in our group than it did for the adults, what with their limber extremities and fearlessness. It’s not at effortless activity, with my core and arms having to work quite hard to push back against the rushing wind. But with standard flights lasting just 60 seconds each, my 75-year-old father-in-law, who came to watch (and heckle?), seemed eager to give it a go.

4. It’s simple
The flying itself may not be effortless, but the 30-minute orientation and training session is easy to follow, with the six hand signals — relax, lift your chin, straighten your legs etc. — seeming quite intuitive, especially once you’re airborne.

5. It costs nothing (sort of)
My visit came courtesy of the the Aeroplan loyalty program, which offers “introductory” iFly packages — two minute-long flights with all gear and training — as a 9,500-point reward.

6. The outfits
On one hand, I always enjoy pulling on Super Dave Osborne-style onesies, helmets and goggles. On the other, flyers can't conceal much on their windward sides, and after a week of festive gorging, well, let’s just say the Goodyear logo would have fit right in on my outfit.

7. The show
The lower section of the wind tunnel is encased in glass, with comfortable seating provided for spectators. You can purchase photos from iFly, of course, but friends and family can also take great pix and video.

8. The pro show
After each group finishes their outing, their instructor jumps into the tunnel to demonstrate the eye-popping dives, flips, spins and more that seasoned skydivers can pull off (pictured below). This on its own is worth the price of admission.

9. The ear plugs
The roar of the wind is deafening in the tunnel, so flyers are required to wear disposable ear plugs (hence the hand signals). After a week of fielding festive requests pretty much non-stop, the surreal silence of the flight was strangely soothing.

10. There’s room to grow
Our instructor gave us the option to soar with him “to the top” — right up to the ceiling of the tunnel — for an extra $10. When he first asked, no one in our group accepted the offer, but a couple flyers did during their second flights. I’m not sure why I declined — I guess it was because I was having a good time thumbs-upping my family through the glass — but I’m glad there will be a new experience waiting the next time I fly.

If you’ve still got a whack of holiday shopping to do, you're either insane, masochistic, or plan to snap up a bunch of email-able gift cards. If it’s the latter, well played, especially if you intend to focus on travel-related swag. According to a recent survey by American Express, 62 per cent of Americans want travel as a gift, and since we share the world’s longest undefended border with the States — along with the Great Lakes and William Shatner — Canadians’ predilections are probably similar. I know I would happily trade that Shatner-print Snuggie under the tree for a gift card from one of these travel players:

Free (sort of): Aeroplan Beyond Miles
If you’ve got some Aeroplan miles to spare, the loyalty program now lets members donate them to its Beyond Miles charitable program on behalf of someone else. That someone then receives an e-card informing them of their contribution to one of 10 charitable partners, or to more than 450 pooling accounts that let members support grassroots causes in their own communities.

$1 and up: Airbnb
This justifiably popular online lodging-rental service doesn’t sell gift cards directly, but you can still give the gift of someone else’s pad (in around 33,000 cities and 192 countries) via Giftrocket, which lets users give money with a suggested expenditure attached. That said, the recipient can always ignore the suggestion and blow the cash on a Shatner-print Snuggie.

$10 and up: Flight Centre
If you want to guarantee that your gift will be spent on travel, one of the world’s largest travel agencies is a solid bet.

$25 and up: Air Canada
On one hand, Canada’s domestic airline scene is almost as bad as its wireless industry when it comes to customer gauging. On the other, a gift card from its largest airline can help you get to more than 175 destinations, and can be used to pay for travel options, advance seat selection and change fees. And who doesn’t want a change fee for Christmas?

$25 and up: Spafinder
This website lets you book spa treatments and wellness vacations at 20,000-plus locations worldwide. Will come in handy after the rigours of the holidays.

$5 and up: Liftopia.com
This website lets you buy lift tickets at more than 250 ski resorts in North America. Parlay this with a massage via Spafinder, and you have an entire first ski day covered!

$100 and up: BedandBreakfast.com
Sure, you could go for a $25 gift card here, but you get a free $25 for every $100 you spend, and who wouldn’t want some extra dough to go toward stays at more than 12,000 properties worldwide?

$33,000 and up (give or take): Exclusive Resorts
Formerly the domain of the extremely wealthy with its $170,000 lifetime memberships — plus $1,100-a-day fees — this supremely luxurious destination club now offers a “Gateway” card that delivers 21 days of vacation redeemable over the course of three years. The cost? $1,550 a day, plus various extras. It sounds steep — OK, it is steep — but one look at the properties involved (Banyan Tree's Seychelles resort is pictured above) might make you fork over your Christmas bonus (assuming you work for the makers of American Girl).

This is the time of year when big travel companies release surveys encouraging Canadians to get away for the holidays. A Hotels.com poll, for instance, found that 95 per cent of respondants would give up their gifts for travel, while the Expedia Canada Holi-Data Survey found that travel is on the mind for six out of 10 Canucks, with 29 per cent planning it and another 29 per cent wishing they could be travelling.

The surveys typically go on to reveal respondents’ beach-or-ski preferences and favourite sun-and-sand destinations. But these queries are irrelevant to me. After all, my in-laws live in Hamilton and parents reside in Ottawa, so the brood and I are usually on the road over the holidays. The six-hour drive between the two isn't enough to justify alternating yearly visits, which means Christmas Day at my parents' place, Boxing Day in Steeltown (or vice versa), and sometimes New Year's at my cousins’ chalet near Mont Tremblant, Que.

Here, then, is a survey for those road-weary Canadians who can honestly say they know how Santa feels on Christmas Eve:

1. You know it’s time to pull over when:
a) A snowboarder cuts you off
b) You see Yukon Cornelius (pictured above) trying to hitch a ride
c) The slow-plows are plowing you
d) You forget the lyrics to “Feliz Navidad”

2. What’s the most important rest-stop amenity?
a) Caffeine injection site
b) Ice-scraper showroom
c) Child Tasers
d) Earworm removal station (re: “Feliz Navidad”)

3. What’s the best alternative to the ice-scraper that inexplicably vanished from your trunk?
a) A CD case (remember those?)
b) A maxed-out credit card
c) A nativity character (the donkey works well)
d) A sleeping child

4. What’s the best way to ensure good child behavior during a December road trip?
a) A rousing game of “I Spy” (something that is white)
b) A rousing game of “Gift Wrap Sweat Shop”
c) More Santa-related threats
d) Gravol

5. What’s the best way to recover from a long winter drive?
a) Massage therapy
b) Psychotherapy
c) Fill a pitcher with eggnog, dump out the eggnog, fill with rum
d) Fire up that new “aromatherapy device”

6. Why do you keep doing this, anyway?
a) Guilt
b) Masochism
c) “I Spy” competitiveness
d) Good practice for upcoming “Ice Road Truckers” audition

Snowy vista (pictured) outside my office* window? Check. Sidewalk shoveled? Check. Spray-on disposable child snow-pants deployed? I wish!

It's beginning to look a lot like ski season around these parts, so I’m really starting to crave some Ontario turns. I was up at Blue Mountain Resort last month for a “Soak and a Statuette” (you know, that old chestnut), and it was coming down pretty heavily for mid-freaking-November.

Then I remembered that never-before-skied moment from February last year, when I hit one of Blue’s runs all by myself — as in alone, solo, with no one on the trail except yours truly.

On a typical winter weekend Ontario's largest ski resort is packed. This was certainly the case during my February visit, when most of the lift lines spilled out of their roped-off lanes and every restaurant and bar was hopping.

But one section of the hill (pictured below) was dreamily serene. How did I get away from the madding ski crowd? By heading off-piste, Ontario-style, to "The Orchard" (pictured below), a 64-acre section of cleared and graded Niagara Escarpment that was labelled as "shoeshoe trails" for years. But that changed last season, when Blue completed a $10 million expansion consisting of a high-speed, six-person chairlift and night skiing on three of the Orchard's six new runs, one of which, at 1.6 kilometres, is the longest beginner trail in the province.

My alone-time on the trail only lasted about 15 seconds, as I was soon followed by Collin Matanowitsch, the PR manager at Blue, who gave me the go-ahead to take a test run out of bounds.

The life-long resident of nearby Collingwood seemed quite pleased to be joining me, what with the inch of fresh snow coating the gentle, groomed slope. You just can’t go wrong with fresh tracks right after the demolition derby of Happy Valley.

Even when it lacked a lift, Blue opened the Orchard on select powder days; it took me about five minutes of leisurely cross-country to get there from the Beaver Tails hut near the top of the Southern Comfort chair.

So let it snow, okay? Because without it, there will be no Beaver Tails atop the Niagara Escarpment.

*More like a dining-room table walled off with Lego bricks, kindergarten art creations, Hama-bead kits and a drowsy raccoon.

Sin City is one step closer to having an NHL franchise now that potential owner Bill Foley has been given the green light to conduct a season-ticket drive.
I love the idea of catching my Calgary Flames on the road right after I zip-line down a space needle. But I'm less excited by the Vegas team names I've heard. The Gamblers? Predictable. The Blackjacks? Slightly cheesy. The Sidewinders? Vaguely B-league.
How about a name that embraces the surreal quirkiness that is Vegas? We already have the Devils, so why not the Sin City Sinners? I also think the Bankrupts has a nice ring to it. The Sequins, Tassels or Pasties could make for some eye-catching jerseys. How awesome would it be to have Wayne Newton sing "The Star Spangled Banner" at every Newtons home game?
My favourite, however, is the Las Vegas Neon. The cheer writes itself: "Glow team glow!" Plus, I have a thing for team names that lack an "S" at the end. And imagine the uniforms! Eat your heart out, 1980s Vancouver Canucks (pictured)...  
What I do not want is a moniker that caters to a G-rated audience. The Las Vegas Frozen, for example, would undoubtedly fill seats with families -- and cater to the elusive prepubescent female demographic -- but I can't support anything that encourages kids to visit.   
I am the proud father of two girls, aged 5 and 7, but perhaps the best part of my trip to Las Vegas last May was their absence. Sometimes mommy and daddy need a break, and nothing delivers a holistic adult getaway quite like oxygen-infused casinos, disco ball-equipped stretch Escalades, a quartet of Elvis impersonators riding in the Batmobile -- in short, diversions that produced nary a reminder of our offspring. 
After years of working to reinstate the "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" motto, I would hate to see the city relaunch its ill-advised efforts to lure families. This strategic shift in the early 1990s gave rise to the Strip's least-appealing hotels: Circus Circus, Excalibur and Treasure Island. Why pick on these properties? Because outside their massive casinos, they are full of children.   
Vegas is no place for kids. In fairness, you don't see a lot of them, but those you do encounter bring down the hedonistic tone. Granted, I'm sure many have to be there as flower girls or ring-bearers and such, but I for one would support a system whereby anyone under 16 must wear a white tuxedo with black bow tie so they can at least impersonate Tattoo from Fantasy Island.
If you feel I'm being unfair to families who want to play together, let me remind you that there are thousands of destinations around the world where they are welcomed with open arms. With all these options it seems misguided, if not selfish, for parents to choose Vegas for a family holiday.
To frame my argument another way: How outraged would parents be if, on a visit to Disney World, they encountered a nice young man handing out cards advertising "Hot Girlz 4 U XXX Donkey Show"? 
That's it! The Las Vegas XXX. Now there's a name I can support...

I can’t wait to hit some of the big mountains I just covered in a Globe and Mail roundup of worldwide ski resort news. More on this to come, hopefully…

But what about the smaller resorts of Eastern Canada? Their new additions may make smaller waves, but they’re more relevant to me (and to most of Canada’s population). After all, I’ll make more turns in Ontario and Quebec than anywhere else this season. Plus, relatively speaking, enhancements at smaller resorts can have a bigger impact on the overall ski experience than can multimillion-dollar upgrades on taller peaks. Here, then, is the biggest 2014-15 news from Eastern Canada’s public ski resorts (beyond the $4.50 lift tickets mentioned in the Globe):   

ONTARIO
Horseshoe Resort: A newly designed Parkscapers/Bosse Snowpark features a slopestyle area, rail plaza, and ski- and snowboard-cross course. Plus, there’s a new magic carpet lift in the beginners’ zone.

Brimacombe: Located at the bottom of the Vault terrain park, the new Brickworks Plaza includes interchangeable features such as an urban-style planter box, two ledge boxes and a close-out round bar rail. It will also host Brimacombe's new Battle of the Plaza event series on Jan. 17, Feb. 7 and March 14.

Laurentian Ski Hill: There’s a new magic carpet lift on the beginner hill, as well as a handle tow for the terrain park and three new features.

Snow Valley: A new 300-seat chalet will offer marketplace-style dining.

QUEBEC
Camp Fortune: A second magic carpet will carry beginners to the top of a new “Discovery” learning area.

Mont-Sainte-Anne: Not a “small” resort by any means, Mont-Sainte-Anne is naming a new expert run after mogul skier Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau, who started skiing at this Quebec mountain at the age of 4 and went on to 23 World Cup podiums, a World Championship, and a fifth place at the Vancouver Olympics.