Martha-In-Training: Christmas Recap

My family is big on tradition.

My birthday dinners (save for one year) are always spent sitting down to a giant bowl of spaghetti and meatballs at the Spaghetti Factory.

Christmas is the time of year where it becomes apparent how closely we hold our traditions to our hearts.

It started well over 10 years ago, though I can't seem to pin down the exact year. I know we were doing it the Christmas I was 12 and we likely had done it the year before.

Each Christmas Eve, my family (including John, now a 4 year veteran) gets into the car and we drive downtown to Nathan Phillip's Square. It used to be that Robin and I strapped on our skates, toes frozen, and circled the rink a few times. Nowadays tradition has become watching the other skaters and taking pictures of all the lights.

Once we've had our fill we walk to the Spadina Garden Restaurant for dinner, being sure to pass by the high rise buildings, prompting Dad to tell us the story about the old woman who froze to death on her balcony when she accidently got locked out of her apartment. Morbid? Yes, but my dad's need to tell a really good story even though he's forgotten that he told us the year before means that it's tradition.

It used to be that we went to the Hoo Wa (I'll check spelling at a later date) but that has since closed down. I even cut out the article in the paper that accompanied it's closing down.

Nathan Phillip's Square on Christmas Eve

The Christmas Tree was moved to the other side of the square this year. We had a momentary panic, thinking it was gone. John made a funny joke about Rob Ford really stopping the gravy train.

This year was weird without Robin. But we'll hopefully be doing it all over again for Christmas round 2 when she comes home in a month.

This year in an effort to save money, I put together Christmas goodie tins for people.

The tins I got from Dollarama (natch) for $1, $1.50, and $2 depending on size.

I adorned them in gold ribbon and added a jingle bell, an ornament, and a cracker, all from Dollarama.

Inside the tins were coconut lace cookies, chocolate espresso snow-caps, sugar cookies, peppermint fudge, and chocolate cheesecake truffles (AMAZING, will post recipe!).