A White-out Christmas 

I'm not sure when it happened (certainly years ago), but at some point I stopped dreaming of White Christmases. Instead I dreamt only of quiet, slightly frosty ones. Something cold and crisp and refreshing. Like a cold beer after a strenuous workout. That's the way I want Christmas to be. Simple. Consumable. Recyclable. A refreshing pause to finish the year with.

Despite my wishes, it looks like we will have a white christmas. More than white. Piled-up-high white. Hard-to-get-out-of-the-laneway white. Last year, I think 4 of my 7 days in St. John's were spent shoveling. Between that and the Playstation I got carpal tunnel syndrome sumthin' wicked! I was holding out hope that this year, Toronto's mild winters combined with a well-oiled TTC streetcar would mean an easily traversed holiday. Since Friday however, "mild" became "wild" and I haven't been close enough to a streetcar to tell you if it is well-oiled or not.

One less thing to worry about, has been our tree. No less than three major media outlets (CBC, the Economist and the Washington Post owned Slate.com) have confirmed that an authentic Christmas tree is in fact more environmentally sound than a fake tree.

You can hear the explanation here.

Or read it here.

Thank God for that. Finally, I can rest easy, bathed in the eery glow of LED lights powered by our green power supplier as I consume local cheeses on home-made bread while drinking a beer made mere kilometres from my house. Damn, I'm good. I might just turn up the heat. It is natural gas after all.

Links in this post:
The Economist: O Tannenbaum
Slate Podcasts:Should I Buy a Fake Fir?