Although it didn’t feel like it, we finished our Christmas shopping relatively early this month. Between our trip to Grove City for Black Friday and online shopping, we hardly had to go to the mall. This was useful, because a couple of days before Christmas, Toronto was hit with a severe ice storm which knocked out power throughout various parts of the city. We lost power at home for 108+ hours which meant there was no hot water or heat either. We stayed at home for the first two nights but as the temperature dwindled down to -12°C, we stayed over at Pauline’s parents who still had power.

Driving around Toronto during the ice storm aftermath, especially at night, was really dramatic. Seeing numerous condominium buildings standing in the dark, completely void of light, seemed like we were in an apocalypse or zombie movie. This was by far the news story with the most impact of the month, even pushing Rob Ford out of the limelight (except for this duties as the mayor in a time of crisis).

Christmas itself was not very lively. I attribute this to not having to go to malls much during the month, and just in general, not being outside. When you’re not exposed to the mass marketing of Christmas cheer, you won’t get influenced to be in the spirit! Instead, the holidays just felt like a few days off.

I didn’t take time off except for the statutory holidays over the break. It wasn’t too bad working though. As you might expect, a lot of coworkers were on holidays and there were no pressing deadlines. Plus, we hadn’t planned any trips to go anywhere during the break. Instead I used some of the down time to do some blogging (end of year stuff), and continue preparing Apollo’s room.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: recap, toronto