Picking On The City Of Toronto

I realized on my way home yesterday that I have been picking on the City of Toronto.

It’s just so easy.

The politicians are a laughable bunch, the mayor drives me crazy and, together, they do things that are just ridiculous. The City of Toronto claims to be world class and perhaps that is what drives me most crazy about the city – arrogance.

I hate arrogance. I hate people who think they are better than everyone else. The City of Toronto is not better than any other city or town in this country, just different. Each place offers a different way of life, different opportunities and different things that make it great.

However, picking on the City of Toronto is sort of like biting the hand that feeds me and for those who are reading my blog and who have never ventured to the city, I feel as thought I should also be talking about what makes it great.

So here are some of the reasons you should visit the City of Toronto:

• The Ontario Science Centre.
This was my favourite place to visit as a kid because there are so many buttons to push and everything is hands-on and interactive. I haven’t been here since my now almost- 20-year-old stepdaughter was eight or nine – I took her for her birthday – but have read they now have activities for little ones as well.

• Black Creek Pioneer Village.
This was also a favourite destination of mine. We would go here yearly on school trips. I still love to go through the village, and would do it weekly, to see how life was like in early Canada. They have a great restaurant now and their nighttime Christmas festival is wonderful.

• Casa Loma.
For some reason I missed out on this as a school trip and went with a friend after college. It’s a beautiful building and many people get married on its grounds. If you saw Mike Myers movie Love Guru with Jessica Alba, you would have seen Casa Loma (Myer’s character’s home).

• The Royal Ontario Museum.
You actually need more than a day to explore this museum.

• The Bata Shoe Museum.
I am not a shoe fan but this was an interesting place. We took my stepdaughter’s friend here. The girls had a good time.

• Yonge Street, Queen Street and various neighbourhoods in the city.
My husband and I would actually love to grab a hotel in the city one night and just explore the city and its neighbourhoods. We have spent many days exploring the various streets, ‘towns’ that make up the city and historical sites. There are some beautiful buildings (old for us, new for European standards).

In May, Toronto hosts Doors Open, which is when buildings of historic or architecturally significant are open to the public free of charge. I would suggest coming to the city and checking it out.

It’s Christmas book time

There are several Christmas traditions I enjoy: baking cookies with my mom, sister-in-law, niece and now son; getting and decorating the Christmas tree the first weekend in December, pulling out the Christmas cookbook; and reading a couple of Christmas stories. One book I will discuss later.

But let’s first talk about A Christmas Miracle.

This collection of four short stories is considered a historical romance. I love historical books. I am usually not a fan of the romance, but these stories are more than just a nice love story and great sex.

Each of the main characters in the stories by Virginia Henley, Katherine Kingsley, Rebecca Paisley and Stephanie Mittman feature a strong woman who, while often from a lower class, teach the man in her world what is really important about life and the true meaning of Christmas.

Each story in the book is set in the past, in a time in history that I love (think Black Creek Pioneer Village time, which is likely why the Steeles Avenue historical site is one of my favourite places to go).

While I am not naive enough to think those times weren’t tough, particularly for someone who was poor, it also seems like it was a romantic, gentle time.

You had to work hard but the pleasures were simple - a horse-driven sleigh ride, skating on the pond, decorations and gifts that were made by hand and a celebration of family.