Category: holiday
-
Mysticism, Divination & Tarot
•
We’ve reached that point of the year when the world balances between 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. This year it took place on Sunday, September 22. From hereon in, until the Winter Solstice, the nights will get longer, which creates a magical feel to our days.…
-
The wonderful world of vintage carousels – Pt 1
•
Music. Hot dogs and ice cream. Sunshine and breezes. Rides. Memories of childhood summers in the 1900s, and not just in that century. Happily, old-fashioned amusement parks still exist, and families still turn out to enjoy their simpler pleasures, free from timed attractions, long lineups and exorbitant prices. Summertime when…
-
The tradition of pranking and fooling
•
Amidst all the flap about the total solar eclipse coming up next Monday – since our area in Southern Ontario will lie in the path of the totality and up to a million visitors are expected for the event (many of us local residents will be hiding from the onslaught…
-
Ode to Eggnog
•
Imagine a chill December night, frost riming the grassy slopes leading down to the Hudson River in New York State. A young man with dark hair and haunted eyes removes his cadet jacket and slings it over the back of a colonial-era chair beside a small wooden table. He lights…
-
Indulge in a Christmas Tea
•
“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”– Henry James Afternoon tea is one of those lovely pauses in a busy day – small wonder it’s become extraordinarily popular in our crazed modern world. And what better time to…
-
Holiday magic?
•
So the Victorian Christmas wasn’t always so perfect, with all the social ills of the period, but in Dickens’ view, Christmas was what you made of it. And I think he understood the celebration far better than a lot of people do today. What makes a perfect Christmas, or other…
-
A humble pudding creates a ruckus
•
Now that we’ve been on the subject of British food at Christmas, who’d have guessed that a little bit of crusty, puffy goodness would become the nucleus of a holiday controversy? I can’t remember when I became interested in Yorkshire pudding; probably from an old boyfriend’s British mother decades ago,…