Tara Garcia

Holiday ornaments hold a special place in our hearts. With our Christmas Keepsakes promotion, we asked you to submit a photo of your most treasured Christmas decoration/ornament and tell us why it's so special to you. We wanted to share some of our fantastic entries with you. 

Richard's submission

While the weather outside is frightful, many will likely be spending more time indoors during this holiday season. 

As a result, furnaces, heaters, and other fuel-burning appliances will be working overtime. 

In order to ensure everyone has a safe and happy holiday, SaskEnergy is providing customers with their top three natural gas safety tips for this time of year. 

Christmas came early for the choir at Central School as they recently found out that they have been selected to perform as part of the entertainment for Telemiracle 2023. 

Celia Hammerton, Arts Ed and Music teacher with the school provides details on what the audience can expect from the performance. 

With the big day just around the corner, CAA Saskatchewan are reminding customers to stay safe this holiday season whatever their plans may be. 

Christine Niemczyk, Director of Communications provides some useful reminders regarding household decorations. 

"If you are staying home for the holidays and you have Christmas trees, make sure that if it is an artificial tree, that you have checked to see that it is fire resistant. Live trees as they say should always be kept fresh and moist and keep all trees away from fireplaces and heaters and other heat sources as well."

It appears as though many southwest Saskatchewan residents will be ditching their winter gear for sunscreen as they head to warmer destinations. 

Travel Consultant with Marlin Travel in Swift Current, Kelly Cavanagh provides some input on the most popular destinations this year. 

"Lots of people are looking for a break from the cold that Saskatchewan is famous for. We have been booking a variety of destinations including Mexico, Hawaii, Cuba, Dominican to some further away like Vietnam and Cambodia, Ireland, Egypt, and even Italy." 

Work continues towards the building of a new inclusive playground as discussed at this week's city council meeting on Monday evening. 

Jim Jones, General Manager for Community Services with the city of Swift Current provided an update on the work already done. 

The numbers are in from Statistics Canada, and they show that the provincial unemployment rate has dropped to the second lowest in Canada. 

Job numbers for the month of November in the province set a record after adding nearly 12,000 jobs. 

Statistics Canada revealed the stats which show that provincial unemployment has dropped to the second lowest in Canada. Seasonally adjusted, the unemployment rate decreased from 4.6 percent in October to 4.2 percent in November and is down from 5.3 percent since last year. 

Three lucky southwest residents are $5000 richer thanks to a new monthly sweepstakes promotion at Standard Dodge. 

Since September Standard Dodge in Swift Current has been running the sweepstakes allowing customers who come in and test drive a vehicle to receive one entry and those that go on to make that final purchase of a new or used vehicle will receive an additional four entries. 

General Manager at Standard Dodge, Jason Dyck explains the purpose behind the new promotion. 

Some have described this upcoming winter season as a respiratory virus party. 

Dr. David Torr, Medical Health Officer for Southwest Networks 4, 5 and 6 says that the influenza virus has come up fast, furious and aggressively.

Dr. Torr describes that what was observed first and foremost was that when we were going through Summer here and the Southern Hemisphere was going through Winter, they had a pretty intense influenza season, and it is now likely that we can expect much of the same. 

Toys, toys and more toys was the theme at Canadian Tire this weekend as part of the 4th annual Toys Days program put on by Canadian Tire in Swift Current and the Salvation Army.

Bill Mailman from the Salvation Army in Swift Current reflected on the generosity shown by the local community once again this year.