It's almost a new year, and although Terri still has a hundred or so episodes of 2015 TV languishing on her DVR, it seems like a good time to look forward at the new entertainment we'll consume in 2016. Catherine resolved to try some new TV shows she's heard about but hasn't had a chance to watch yet, Terri resolved to read one of Catherine's book-club books (with sufficient notice), and they both resolved to get a Parks and Recreation binge-watch going ASAP. Listen to find out what other big promises we're making in our last ep of 2015, and join us next year to see if we keep 'em.

[This is an encore presentation of a Parenting Roundabout episode originally released on January 7, 2015. If you listened to it the first time, this is your second chance to follow up on all the resources and ideas mentioned that you just never quite got around to. And if you didn’t listen to it the first time -- hey, it's new to you! Either way, please listen and enjoy.]

This week on Parenting Roundabout, we talked about our New Year's Resolutions -- and whether resolutions are a good way to get yourself going toward a goal or just to make yourself feel like a failure right from the start of the year. Then we looked at some highlights of 2014, including birthday and school milestones for our kids, trips and injuries, and catching a pop-culture wave. For more on New Year's resolutions, follow these links:

• New Year's Resolutions for Family Fitness and Health
• Little Goals Can Be Better Than Big New Year’s Resolutions
• Realistic Resolutions
• Mini-Resolutions for Every Day
• Use New Year's Resolutions to Motivate Your Child
• Make a New Year's Resolution ... for Someone Else.

For other stories mentioned, read about gluten-free Girl Scout cookies on the Mashable blog, follow Terri's dog on Twitter, and meet Catherine's black dogs on Instagram.

It's hard to talk about entertainment this week without addressing the latest Star Wars installment. It's also hard to talk about Star Wars without breaking spoiler protocol. Catherine was one of those first-weekend viewers who now knows the film's secrets, but she tried to keep her review spoiler-free and focused on general enjoyment. After discussing something new, we looked back on older holiday fare that we often revisit this time of year, including Love Actually, Elf, Home Alone, To Grandmother's House We Go, and the "Noel" episode of The West Wing. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, go to parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

With the holiday season in full swing, we wanted to talk about that modern addition to Christmas tradition, the Elf on the Shelf. Where do we stand on that little spy? Catherine and Terri take a pass on shelf-elf wrangling (and really, house decorating of any sort short of the last minute), while Nicole's and Amanda's families have adapted the concept to their own creative purposes.

It's not like "toy elf mover" was ever part of any job description we expected to have in our lives. As we reminisced about old employment for our second topic, however, we found that our past employments have included such duties as crushing rocks, scooping ice cream, editing greeting cards, and memorized the names of every county in the state in alphabetical order. We're just happy to be able to add podcasting to all our resumes.

Finally, we shared our recommendations for the week: Catherine mentioned an article on her site on healthy New Year fun; Amanda revealed the Facebook page for the Yeti on the Shelf, her family's elf-substitute; Nicole liked a Forbes article on preparing your teen for getting a summer job, which it is apparently not to early to get started on; and Terri suggested tweaking your traditions to tailor the holiday experience to your family's needs.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episodes and Kristen Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

Susan Adcox, who writes about grandparenting for About.com, joins us on the third Wednesday of every month to chat with Catherine about grandparenting issues. This time, they spoke about holiday traditions and celebrations, especially adapting them for new circumstances and family members of different faiths. Find out what new traditions Susan is a big fan of, and one she thinks might be a little bit harder for her to get on board with. The book Catherine mentions is Dear Santa, Love Rachel Rosenstein. Happy holidays to all! (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

With Christmas just a certain number of days away that Terri refuses to acknowledge, it seemed like a good time to take a look at some TV and tunes of the season. Combining both those things is Netflix's A Very Murray Christmas, in which Bill Murray and an appropriately random gathering of celebrities put together exactly the kind of offbeat Christmas special you'd expect to be directed by Sofia Coppola. Thanks to the generosity of her podcast-mates, Netflix newbie Terri was able to watch it instead of just listening to Catherine describe it, and they give it two thumbs up, with particular kudos to performances of "Fairytale of New York," "Alone on Christmas Day," and a George Clooney-enhanced "Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin'." They then moved on for a chat about holiday music in general, what we're hearing on the radio and TV, and what constitutes a "contemporary" Christmas song. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

It's bad enough getting your child ready to go out the door and to school every morning. Then they have to keep moving that finish line, with delayed openings and early dismissals and half-days and snow days and days with alphabet letters and alternate hours. We gripe about the scheduling creativity that seems to be commonplace these days, while appreciating how useful the extra time is for teachers and wishing there was a high-tech way to get us coordinated.

If such school shenanigans make you nostalgic for your childhood when everybody went to the school at the same time every day, our second topic -- on whether our kids still watch TV or even believe us when we talk about how we used to watch -- will keep you looking back to those olden days when cartoons were only on Saturdays and you had to get up to turn the dial. We chat about your kids' screen habits and our own, and probably get the Love Boat theme stuck in your head too.

Finally, we share our recommendations for the week: Catherine likes a cute new PBS Kids show called Nature Cat, which she reviewed for her site; Amanda wants to point people to the site Angela’s Clues, from Angela Santomero, the educational consultant behind shows like Blue’s Clues and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood; Nicole passes on a guide to finding streaming shows on Netflix; and Terri thinks you might enjoy her Special Needs Christmas Carols.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristin Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

[This is an encore presentation of a Parenting Roundabout episode originally released on June 10, 2015. If you listened to it the first time, this is your second chance to follow up on all the resources and ideas mentioned that you just never quite got around to. And if you didn’t listen to it the first time -- hey, it's new to you! Either way, please listen and enjoy.]

With a summer full of superheroes and superhero merchandising ahead, Lexi Walters Wright chats with Amanda about the challenge of getting through a supermarket or a Target without accumulating a cart-full of pricey licensed items that really do not have superpowers no matter how much your kid believes. They talk about the lesson kids learn about advertising when the branded stuff disappoints and the financial challenge of finding the name-brand stuff your kid just has to have, and recommend these sites for parents fighting the good fight against licensed everything:

+ Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
+ Commonsense Media
+ Center on Media and Child Health

If you're reading this someplace without hyperlinks, visit http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

Since Catherine was busy all weekend watching her daughter's synchronized skating team compete, we thought we'd step away from our screens and consider the entertainment that energetic youngsters put forth on the ice, and the sometimes puzzling choices their coaches make on their behalf when it comes to costumes and music. Can you guess which popular song popped up the most? What a costume for a Casablanca-themed skate would look like? What late-night show inspired a team's theme? Or what carbonated beverage? Listen in for a mom's-eye view of the competition (and watch the video above to see what kind of skating we're talking about -- come to http://parentingroundabout.com to do that if you're reading this somewhere else). 

It’s that time of year when all the people have all the feels all the time, isn’t it? You're extra-busy, it’s dark all the time, it’s cold, maybe your kids are starting to have academic and behavior problems at school. And so you visit your social-media channels for a little dose of good cheer, and instead you get socked all over again. We have a good gripe session about how our social-media interactions affect our moods, how seeing certain topics in our feeds make us sad or angry, how certain friends appear to not know us at all, and how we have to learn again and again to NOT READ THE COMMENTS. (By the way, to all our friends who listen to the podcast, we're not talking about you. No! Of course not! Someone else entirely. You know, that person. Please don't write nasty posts about us.)

Next, we stop grumbling for a minute and celebrate those things we've learned in the process of being parents. Like how to make a competition-approved bun for an ice-skating kid using only our own two hands and a ton of hair gel. Or all the words to every heavy-metal song there is. Or how to score $300 worth of uncut keys and uncoded transponders online. Or who was on which lifeboat of the Titanic. Just like we recently said "Thanks, Podcasting" for a libsyn promotion, we now say "Thanks, Parenting!"

Finally, we share our recommendations for the week. Catherine directs us to her list of active toys for kids and her Round 3 with more suggestions from pediatric OT Meghan Corridan; Amanda thinks we should all go read Pew Research's "Psychological Stress and Social Media Use"; Nicole has a way to prevent that by studying up on ways to hide annoying Facebook posts; and Terri follows up on an earlier podcast with a checklist on when it's time to fire your pediatrician.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episodes and Kristen Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

In a special Round 4, Nicole Eredics, founder of The Inclusive Class and a member of our weekly Parenting Roundabout group chat, shares her experience yesterday in the vicinity of the shootings in San Bernardino, California. Although her family was thankfully not caught up in the violence, they did have to deal with the lockdowns and the manhunt that accompanied it. We talk about how events unfolded for her family, as well as whether students should have to take tests the day after a for-real lockdown, how we get our news in this age of social media, and how our kids have survived their lockdowns and lockdown drills (and we adults waiting nervously at home too). 

Each month Meghan Corridan, a pediatric occupational therapist, joins Catherine to share some of the toys and activities she uses with her clients and her own 5-year-old daughter. This time, they talk holiday gift-giving, because Meghan has a huge list of ideas for kids and tweens on her blog MAC&Toys. You can also see Catherine's suggestions for active toys at her site. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, go to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience).

Thanksgiving weekend is a great time to let entertainment flow over you. For this week's post-Thanksgiving episode, Catherine and Terri start with a chat about the gigantic balloon hovering over the holiday, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, discussing live vs. home-viewing options, the fun Broadway show snippets, the possibility of heating the area where Broadway performers in skimpy costumes perform, and the certainty that whatever you are doing and wherever you are going at this point in history, you will surely hear Shawn Mendes singing "Stitches" at least once while you are doing it. Then we left the NYC hoopla behind to talk about houses that would probably fit inside some of those balloons and floats. Catherine watched a lot of Tiny House programming -- who knew there was so much? -- and reports in on how FYI and HGTV are making a big splash with little living. (If you're watching this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)