14 days until Christmas!

Hard to believe we are only two weeks until Christmas! We've been very busy, which has been a lot of fun, but we're both really looking forward to the break too.

We bought a beautiful real tree, which was very exciting - picture below. We wrapped it up in big black garbage bags to take it on the bus. The driver wanted to make sure it wasn't a dead body - I guess that's what happens when you take the East Hastings bus?

We went to the lighting of the Christmas tree in front of the art gallery, but we actually missed the show and got there just in time to see them turn the lights on and then everybody left. :-) But another day we went to the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens to see the Festival of Lights, which was just gorgeous. I loved it! Pictures of that are below too, but they really don't do it justice.

This weekend I did my gingerbread house, which was a bit disappointing because I couldn't find meringue powder to make the icing. But the house stayed together very well, which was a nice change! I put it together on Sunday as the Santa Claus parade went down our street, so I kept taking breaks to wander out to the balcony and check out the parade. It is still very warm here - hasn't really been below freezing yet - although rumour is that will change this weekend. We may even see some snow!

We've also had a very busy week theatre-wise. Saturday night we went to see Jesus Christ Superstar, with Ted Neeley. I saw Ted as Jesus about 15 years ago, and he was a bit old for the part then ... well, suffice to say he's gotten older. :-) We did enjoy the show, but it was nothing special.

On Monday night we went to see The Drowsy Chaperone, which had a fantastic cast, and was just wonderful. Todd really enjoyed it too. Thom Allison, one of my favourite Toronto actors, was playing Aldolpho, and he was hysterical.

And then last night, we went to Beauty and the Beast, which I hadn't seen in several years. And Todd has NEVER SEEN THE MOVIE, if you can believe that! Anyway, we had excellent seats, and the production was really good - the Gaston and Lumiere were particularly good.

Tomorrow night is my work Christmas party, and then we have more plans over the weekend and the coming week - all part of the fun of the season! I am almost done my shopping, and actually don't even have too much to carry home, since I took a lot home in November. I decided to take the 24th off work, so we're actually flying home the evening of the 23rd now, which will be nice because it means I'll be at home in time for the fondue on Christmas Eve! And more time with everyone, which is always a good thing.

We did have some disappointing news this week when we got the results of our request for Olympics tickets - we were only able to get tickets to one event, the short track speed skating final. I'm very sad not to have gotten any of the figure skating tickets that we requested. I know lots of people who didn't get any though, so I'm trying to feel grateful that we at least got something.

Hope you're all enjoying your Christmas preparations too!!

Our beautiful tree

My gingerbread house

Some of the beautiful lights at the Festival of Lights

Me under a canopy of lights at the botanical garden