Merry Christmas from the slightly darker than usual Tdot.

A very Merry Christmas and I wish you power and heat for the new year.

Not that snowy by much of the rest of the country's standards, but pretty snowy for Tdot in comparison to the last 4 to 5 years

It's the official Toronto holiday greeting now. Things are a bit nuts here with the snow storm from two weekends ago and the ice storm of this past weekend. Power was knocked out on Saturday night for large portions of the city, and many people still don't have power or heat on Christmas day. Many Toronto Hydro workers gave up their own Christmas to try and get more of the city back up in time for Christmas. Happy thoughts everyone, and hug your local Hydro worker.

The Dinosaurs weren't too happy about the current weather either.

All of my family got very, very lucky and never really lost power. I had some flickers on the Saturday night, but woke up to a working alarm clock. Both of my work places still had power this week as well, which was a mixed blessing. I spent most of the early week entertaining friends to keep them warm. Today was the quiet family Christmas, and I was so happy to have a quiet, sleep-in, stuff your face day. It started with a great, quick recipe I found recently on Freutcake for eggnog french toast. I love eggnog and french toast, so this was going to go well regardless.

5 ingredient Eggnog French Toast
Stolen from Freutcake
Serves 4-6

1 1/2 cups of eggnog
5 large eggs
2 tbls of sugar
6-8 slices of brioche or challah bread, 1/2 inch thick. I used challah bread, and the inherent sweetness of it totally works.
8 tbls of unsalted butter, ish.

-Whisk the eggnog, eggs and sugar thoroughly in a bowl. I'd recommend whisking the eggs and sugar together first and then whisking in the eggnog. And whisk those suckers in a bowl, then pour them into a shallow baking dish.

 Noggey eggs.

-Soak bread slices for about 10 minutes or until completely saturated. The slices are super heavy when they're a soaked, so be careful when pulling them out to go into the frying pan that they don't pull apart.
(If doing all the slices in one go, preheat your oven to 200C and have a wire rack on top of a baking tray in there. After you fry up the slices, plonk them in the oven to keep warm while you're doing the rest of them.)
-Using about a tbls of butter per slice of bread, melt the butter in a medium heat pan. Fry each side until golden, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Fry it up.

 Melted butter works for a topping too.

 I'm sure this would have tasted even more amazing had I remembered to get some maple syrup prior to today, eg when all the shops were closed, but whatevs. Pretty awesome breakfast.

Merry Christmas y'all!

Christmas Decor 101: Trees

The Tree!!!

If I haven't made this alarmingly obvious already, I love Christmas. The season, the weather, decorating, food, all of it. I really, really love Christmas trees. Real ones. If they have to be fake, let them be silver or blue and made of tinsel from the 50s. One year at home when our family tree kept falling over, we had to trash it. I was gutted when my Dad suggested we stick with the fake decorative trees my Mom had a collection of at the time. My Mom agreed with me, and we went out on Christmas Eve and found another tree, luckily. We ended up having a forest that year. Although I don't seem to be the only one who is okay with this.
I think having a real tree is technically not allowed in my apartment building, but I only bring them in after the landlords are gone for the day anyway, or on the weekend. I also don't put real candles on a tree, and turn the lights off on them when I'm going to bed, so the fire risks are at least mitigated. I digress.

The Archives' Christmas tree last year. Note the red and green film stock, miniature hollinger boxes and "cold" sticker decorations.

New York City's Christmas tree back in January of 2011.

My home Christmases are filled with the weirdest collection of vintage, homemade and wonky ornaments and decorations that have been collected throughout my parents' and my sister's and I's lifetimes. All of them have meaning to us; an empty pack of cigarettes from when my parents were first married, the "Monty Python Angel" that sits atop our tree, the giant Chinese Dragon with beads coming out of its nose attacking the small Christmas village at the bottom of the tree. This year might a little quieter since my parents are attempting to downsize for a move planned in the spring, but it will still be uniquely decorated. I've kept this tradition with my smaller collection of decorations and ornaments, which includes some model boats from Halifax, a camel and paper star from India and a set of 1960s long, multi-coloured teardrop (maybe?) shaped ornaments that I found at Value Village years ago.

Last year's tree. Note the crazy penguin near the middle.

This year's tree has mooses.

And cacti. And chilli peppers. Yep.

I retrieved most of my weird Christmas light collection from home recently, so my tree has been decked out with several extra strings of lights this year.
The metal tinsel adds extra sparkle.

One of these days, I am going to have my own tinsel tree, antique or not. I've been very inspired by Meg Allen Cole's old Threadbanger tutorial to make my own tinsel tree, although maybe to a smaller scale than hers! I cleaned out the local Dollarama recently of this awesome blue/silver tinsel, so I have most of the supplies at least. I tried to upload the actual youtube video, Blogger didn't like that idea. Hence the link and no preview.

An Etsy Vintage Christmas

It's December!! Finally. I'm also not in school anymore, so I can actually enjoy it! Huzzah!

Since what I'm actually doing tonight is going to a hockey game after work, here's a fantasy Etsy Christmas post, with a boatload of sparkles and a healthy dose of vintage. One or two of these things are things I plan on attempting some DIYs of throughout the holidays. I have a mild tinsel addiction, and this is the time of year to work those things out.

I'd decorate my new, 7 foot tree from Phat Dog Vintage.

Trimming it with even more garland, from One Strange Girl.

I'd add more colour with these little pretties. Oooooo, pretty. Stolen from Tarragon Vintage.

And these. Want. Several. Snapshot Vintage.

This will be on the walls. From My Vintage Fix.

 This would already be on my door, probably smelling like "country kitchen." Wild Ridge Design. 

I'd be doing some Christmas cooking with snowflakes. Found Here, on Etsy.

And I'd wear this while doing said cooking. Pug Mug.

Or this one, from the Vintage Trunk.

Or this sexy number from The Mushroom Patch.

 And I'd probably be drinking some ice wine out of this berry bush. New Hope Elizabeth.

Or some Eggnog out of these glasses of holiday themed amazingness. I mean, really. Vintage Wolfy.

Le sigh... 

It's officially winter and Christmas season now, so more holiday posts to come, whether you like it or not.

Also, since I'm a decor addict, there might be a series of decor related posts throughout the month. Just saying.