We started christmas with preparing the last things for the Christmas breakfast which we had planed for Christmas Eve at our Condo. Danielle worked on the Lemon Pie and the Apple Cinnamon Muffins while I was setting the table for dinner. It’s an extendable one which we fully utilised.

After all preparations were done we put on our ugly holiday sweaters and I’ve to say I really liked those cozy sweaters despite they were beyond ugly.

Besides the breakfast we also had some gifts under our tree for the four of us ranging from sugar to Noise-cancelling Bose headsets and Socks, sweaters and T-shirts. The food was delicious and most of it was gone before we went to a Christmas Eve Mass in the Eglinton St. Georges United Church. Yes we went to a church for the first time in years and we had some expectations since the building looks great from the outside (I borrowed the following picture from here).

At 9 o’clock the mass should have started but shortly after we a drunk woman started calling us out for all kind of things because her Christmas was ruined 3 years ago and then she didn’t want to leave and started drinking from the wine and playing with the bread.

After about 45 minutes the priest decided to continue the service downstairs in the gym but 5 minutes after we started the drunk woman had finally left the church after an Emergency Medical Support unit took care of her. 

And so we all went upstairs again to continue the service without going to the communion since the wine was gone and the Hostia (bread) wasn’t usable anymore since the drunk woman touched it. But the part that took place was good, especially singing Silent Night together while everyone hold a lighted candle…

When the mass was over we walked back through the pouring rain to continue eating, drinking champagne, beer and wishkey. And in the meantime we were watching the Movie A Christmas Story while playing Monopoly “A Christmas Story-edition”. That was one of the gifts we unpacked.

In the beginning it did”t look too good for me but in the end I won the game with have the green and the blue streets with houses on them in my hand. We finished the game at 2 o’clock. And after we took this last picture together with Suzy it was time to call it a night.

The day after we had a lazy start and walked around, found a GeoCache, had FaceTime calls with most of our family and in the evening it was time for dinner at Martin & Sabrina’s place. Martin decided to buy a piece of Salmon for dinner and he selected a 1.600 Gram piece. Sabrina did her magic with the “Techno-Thermomix” (A French kitchen machine) and we had a delicious dinner starting with a Squash soup, some vegetables, salad and a delicious potato gratin. That all combined with some Belgian White’s from the Mill Street Brewery made it a perfect Christmas dinner.

After dinner we went to bad a bit earlier as usual during a vacation since it was Boxing Day the next day. At Boxing Day the biggest sale of the year starts in Canada. And off course as the shopaholics we are, we needed to be there. Together with Martin and Sabrina we left our parking garage at 7:00am sharp and drove to the Yorkdale mall. And it was crowded already…but we ended up with some good deals like a 7-for-all-mankind jeans 40% off, a nice shirt for Danielle at Tommy Hilfiger from the new collection (40% off) and 2 nightstand lamps from Crate & Barrel.

The weekend after we walked a lot through and around Yonge & Eglinton since the weather was really nice. And we decided to try out a new restaurant the Mandarin Buffet Restaurant across the street. And one thin I can tell you every buffet restaurant you’ve seen in Europe cannot be compared with this one there was so much food to pick from and it was always available…

Needless too say we left there with stomach-ache and rolled back to the authorised of the street were we got back on the couch to watch a movie.

For the last time this year and for the last time for Martin & Sabrina we went to Absolute Comedy, tonight was the best show so far. Maybe it’s because of us starting to think in English instead of German or maybe the comics get better I don’t know but fact is it’s getting better and better every time.

For the weekend we decided to visit the Christmas Market in the Toronto Distillery district. We (Martin and I) had the best idea possible to combine the christmas-market with a beer tour at the Mill Street Brewery. After having a late start on that Saturday the day and night became awesome.

We started with a lunch at the brewery and then booked the tour at the brewery. In between we got some shots and after the beer we got to taste four different beers and a beer schnaps. They al tasted great. From there we left and had some more warm drinks at the market before we left by foot towards Union Station. From here we took the subway towards Yonge and Eglinton.

At Yonge and Eglinton we all agreed that we should visit the Unicorn, a local pub just around the corner from our buildings. And here we had some food and a lot of beer. Maybe a little bit to much…but one thing for sure we had a lot of fun until we left the pub around 1 o’clock to go back home.

The Sunday was less fun as you can imagine. But Danielle still was fit enough to prepare my favourite cupcakes for the last day in the office because that Monday I went to the office for the last day this calendar year and for Martin this was his farewell day since they will move back to Germany soon.

The Tuesday we went grocery shopping for christmas to prepare for our christmas breakfast and Martin to prepare for the dinner at the first day of christmas. After the groceries we went back home and Danielle and I decided to check out a Dutch Store we found out about on the Christmas Market. And I have to say I”m happy to live within 20 minutes driving for a nice Dutch Kroketje.

After using our Sonos Playbar for about 2 months now we decided that it was time to extend Sonos to our bedroom with the Sonos Play:1 and it’s nice to go to bed with some easy listening and waking up with some great music too.

Let’s prepare for christmas…