A Month-Plus of Christmas and New Year's Fun Here and in Canada

Saturday, December 1 - Ashlee was one of the lucky ones to stand in line last month to grab one of the highly-coveted  Wine Advent Christmas Calendars from Aldi grocery stores before they quickly sold out.  Each small bottle contains about two glasses of wine and.Day 1 was a nice procescco which she shared with me.  We toasted my tiny alma mater, Whitwell High School, winning their first-ever state 5A football championship earlier in the day. Cheers to the Tigers!  Go Big Red! 

Speaking of advent calendars, Ashlee got us this one this year to share small gifts with each other leading up to Christmas.  This will basically be the extent of our gift-giving  to each other this year since our big trip to Canada at the end of the month is our main gift to each other.  

Saturday, December 8 -  It was time once again for our almost-annual Christmas Party and as usual Ashlee had every tree in the house decorated...even the cat-tree this year.  The theme this year was "Christmas Around the World" and costumes were encouraged.  Our guests outdid themselves (and our lame attempts) and the contest to pick a winner was very tough.  Our friend, Tony, dressed as a pinata squeaked out the victory over Nate as Krampus.  It was a great evening of food, fun and frolic.  Thanks to everyone who attended and made it such a great night! 

Sunday, December 9 - After dinner tonight with our friends, Wendy and Charly, at the always-delicious Cherokee Steakhouse up on the lake here in Lebanon, we drove through Chad's Christmas Wonderland over on Hwy. 109.  This amazing private endeavor has been going for 37 years and grows in size every year.  

Wednesday, December  19 - We returned this year to The Dancing Lights of Christmas at the Wilson County Fairgrounds.  This time with Ashlee's mom, Evelyn, and  our kittens, Doris and Byron, in tow.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the show immensely.  

Of course, I think Byron was more excited about our visit to Sonic afterwards for dinner.

Friday, December 21 - We had a helluva good time  tonight inside one of the winter igloos atop The Bobby Hotel in downtown Nashville along with 8 other friends.  It's a pretty cool concept and overall it was fairly warm inside despite some rain and chilly temps.  The food offerings were slim, so we took matters into our own hands and ordered a couple pizzas from the nearby Caesar's (not Little Caesar's) over on 6th Avenue that were tasty and quickly gone! 

Before our igloo reservation time, Ashlee and I slipped down the street to Secret Pop-Up Christmas Bar in the basement of the fancy Noelle Hotel for a libation.  It was beautifully decorated and we loved the "Sinnin' for Santa" neon sign above the bar.  This pic is one of the first Ashlee took with her new IPone 10S which I upgraded too also, so expect some better pics in the blog from here on out!   We were lucky to get in when we did.  We tried to go back in after our igloo experience and there was a long line out the door to get in.  Damn millennials! LOL 

Monday, December 24 - We had a nice, quiet Christmas Weekend in Chattanooga with the fam.  Our only real alone-time with each other came today for a tasty lunch and a couple beers at Chattanooga Brewing downtown.  

What started as a plan for a quick New Year's trip to Canada somehow turned into a week-long, 3-city, planes-trains-and-automobiles tour of The Great White North with our pals, Wendy and Charly (here's what happened in 2018):

Saturday, December 29 - We took a late morning flight to Toronto via WestJet, a budget airline out of Canada that offered us a great one-way flight rate.  As we entered the Great White North I got this cool shot from the plane window. 

This was our first time using WestJet and despite a slight delay taking off and the fact they use these tiny little turbo-prop jets (which weren't as loud as we we feared they would be), it was a smooth, quick flight with good service.  

 We used the quick and affordable UP train (Pearson to Union station) to get to downtown Toronto from the airport.  We got a great buy-it-blind hotel rate for a couple nights at the ultra-nice Westin Harbour Castle Hotel right downtown on Lake Ontario.  

Collage Flashback:  Amazingly. this is the exact same hotel we stayed in during our one and only other previous overnight visit to Toronto way back in 1994 when we flew into Detroit on Southwest Airlines on the cheap and drove into Canada and on to Niagara Falls as well.  The old girl's definitely had a face-lift since our first visit so many pre-blog years ago.

After dropping our bags, it was time for food, and we sought out dinner at Smoke's Poutinerie, because, hey, we were in Canada and that means having some poutine! Mine was the Philly Cheese variety (pictured above) and it was great.  We ambled across the street after dinner to The Craft Brasserie and Grille for some libations and laughs.

So, it's cold in Toronto in winter, so finding some indoor entertainment was a must.  During my trip research, I stumbled upon a unique new place called LOB Toronto.  It's a game that basically combines bocce ball and putt-putt golf.  For a set price, you play as much as you want on the nine "hole" course they have set up in a basement of a large commercial building.  Throw in some snacks and beer and you've got some fun!  We played two full games and I am proud to say I earned "most-improved" when I was dead last in game one and tied for first in game two!  Hole 3 (pictured above) was one my favorites since they had sports (i.e. hockey) projected on the wall behind it.

Sunday, December 30 -  We awoke to a dusting of snow as seen from our hotel room in the photo above.  We had a full day to enjoy Toronto ahead of us.  We started the morning going in separate directions as Charly and I took in the fantastic Hockey Hall of Fame nearby while Ashlee and Wendy slept in a little and did a bit of shopping.  We all met for lunch at the amazing Marche' Movenpick marketplace-style restaurant in the Brookfield Center.  They had so many options of amazing looking food that it was hard to make a decision.

After lunch we strolled over to the Toronto Railway Museum, an inside-and-out complex of vintage trains and equipment.  Next door is the Steam Whistle Brewing Company set up inside part of the huge historic railroad roundhouse where we had a tasty adult beverage.

We continued our downtown Toronto stroll on northwestward and stopped at the hilariously named Cannabis and Coffee shop  Yes, pot is legal in all of Canada now, but only recently.  So recently in fact, this store only had the latter in their name and not the former...yet, but you could call a legal dealer and he would deliver it to you there.  Despite the picture above, Ashlee, nor anyone else in our group partook in anything other than a warm drink and a Coffee Crisp candy bar...made by Nestle, but only available in Canada...yum!!  

Our final destination on our afternoon stroll was the Instagram-famous Graffiti Alley.  This cool street-art section of Toronto takes up several blocks and is definitely still an alley despite all the tourists.  So much for Toronto being so clean...

We had walked a good distance, so we Ubered back to the CN Tower, but were unable to go up in it and have a look at the pretty sunset due to really long lines.  But it was still quite a site from below.

Collage Flashback:  We've been up in the CN Tower before on our first visit to Toronto which was very, very pre-blog (about 24 years ago).

We had a little time to kill before  meeting up with our friend, Sharon, who lives just outside Toronto now, for dinner; so we ducked into a little Irish pub called The Lucky Clover for a libation or two.  I swear we didn't partake in any of the aforementioned cannabis and yes, we were about to go to dinner, but we just couldn't pass up the Doritos nachos on the menu! Why hasn't this been done before!  And why hasn't it been done in America!!  

We met up with Sharon and headed over to a small, but very nice Indian restaurant called Aanch.  The food was outstanding and the location was perfect since it was just around the corner from  a show we all had tickets to at The Second City called "It's a Wild, Rowdy, Wonderful Life."  It was a side-splitting show of laughs throughout.  We were really impressed with one of the players named Clare McConnell.  Be on the lookout for this tall, red-headed funny-lady.   She's a future star we think.

What a fun, full day in Toronto!  On to Montreal! 

Monday, December 31 - We said goodbye to Toronto and the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel (again) and took the VIA RAIL train to Montreal late this morning for a five-hour ride to northeastward along Lake Ontario to Montreal. 

Granted, the ride from Toronto to Quebec isn't super-scenic and the lack of snow didn't help.  But, it was fast (96 MPH, baby!) with free wi-fi and comfy seats.  We pulled into Montreal on time and relaxed.

Unlike ultra-modern Toronto, Montreal is beautiful mix of the old and the new.  This is a snapshot of the Place du Canada Park just outside our nice digs for the next couple days, the Hotel Bonaventure.  We had an excellent dinner (and beer!) at Bier Markt nearby to start our Montreal visit off right! 

After dinner, we headed over to the Old Port of Montreal to partake in the New Year's Eve festivities going on there with live music, street food and beverages and fireworks to come at midnight.  Still decked out for Christmas, the area was beautiful.

As we reached the Old Port, it began to snow in big, beautiful wet flakes adding to the charm and beauty of the city and the night.  

Happy New Year!!  The fireworks show out over the water at midnight was excellent and the large Ferris wheel. La Grande Roue, all lit up made for an excellent backdrop.

Strangely, as the night got deeper the temperatures actually rose and the snow from earlier turned to rain on our walk back to the hotel, but it couldn't hide the beauty of this magnificent city or dampen our spirits of the hope of a new year.

I caught this interesting shot on my phone from the MyRadar app tonight showing the line of snow vs. rain in the Montreal area, but also the white horse image the snow created.  See it?