Events

SEE ALL THE LIGHTS! Our annual tradition lives on! After a holiday event downtown, we’ll cruise the giant inflatable Santas on Inglewood Drive and SEE ALL THE LIGHTS! RETURN TO […]

Toronto Christmas Market It’s our annual tradition! Today, B and I will go have a lunch in the Distillery District and Ride the Ferris Wheel at the Toronto Christmas Market. […]

Holiday Beatnik Coffeehouse As you may have noticed, I took suggestions from the teenagers as to what they’d like to do on various days in Advent. In addition to the […]

St. Lawrence Market Cheese Board This morning, we’ll get up before dawn and travel to the amazing stalls at St. Lawrence Market, gathering the ingredients for our Christmas Dinner and […]

Today, we’re making the Bûche de Noël for our Christmas Dinner! We’ll either be making this amazing Chocolate Mint Buche de Noël or my all-time favourite Lemon Bûche de Noël with […]

Here it is! The annual Christmas Eve Checklist! □ Go for a Brisk walk with our mini-schnauzer, Elvis! □ Make tons of Christmas cookies. □ Live stream Jon Solomon’s 30-Hour […]

Merry Christmas! RETURN TO THE ADVENT 2018 EVENTS PAGE

TRAIN FILMS!!! This year’s New Year’s Eve film fest will consist of movies that take place on a train or which feature a train scene as a main plot-point. Since […]

It’sthe firstday of Advent!Time to trim the tree! First, we’ll have to choose one!This afternoon, we’ll trek over tothe local Scouts lot for a tall, slim fir. Then, we’ll turn […]

Design your own Bookplate! Today’s Advent TBD is a MAJOR THROWBACK to our very first online Advent Calendar in 2011 ! The kids were too young to get involved, and […]

Provide Baby Blankets via Plan Canada Gifts of Hope Today, we’re providing three baby blankets to children in need via Plan International Canada’s Gifts of Hope. How will you be […]

Make Clementine’s Famous Crullers Today, we’re going to be conquering our “fear of frying” by making Clementine Paddleford’s famous crullers. Clementine is the lady with the pencil, above! Her Cruller […]

Family Book Exchange 2019 This year’s Advent Family Book Exchange shall henceforth be known as “The Hardcover Edition.” Go big or go home. Everyone’s going to pick a name from […]

Festive Streaming-Service Binge It’s Friday. We’re going to chill on the couch with some Fish and Chips from our local and have a proper binge of a new-to-us series of […]

Carols, Cocktails, and Cookies a.k.a. Winterize the Song of the Summer Last year, our carol-off consisted of a day of writing punk-rock Christmas songs. This year, we’re back on a […]

Concert & Pinochle Today’s the Saint Michael’s Choir School Christmas Concert at Roy Thomson Hall. It’s going to be an afternoon of rehearsals, dress up, performances, and dress-down. After the […]

Make Block-Printed Tea Towels Anyone who knows me knows my obsession with tea-towels, especially calendar tea towels. If we’re going to have a good time this afternoon, DIY calendars may […]

Donate to Forests Ontario Let’s flight climate change, dozens of trees at at time!Today, we’re making a contribution to Forests Ontario. How will you make a difference today?

Make Fried Chicken Last year’s Advent Calendar started us off on a Fried Chicken tour of the city. This week in conquering our “Fear of Frying,” we’ll be frying chicken […]

Mail Christmas Cards Gone are the family photo cards. We’ll be handwriting a select few Christmas cards this year and sending them out as we go. Formerly broken hands need […]

Spooky Santa Lucia Hold onto your stockings and ignite your candle crowns! It’s the Feast of Santa Lucia AND Friday the 13th! Jinx! You can darn well bet we’re going […]

It’s Christmas Canning Day And, last minute UPDATE, we’ve got a friend coming over who’s never made jam before! So, grab your cross-back aprons, folks. It’s going to be a […]

Perform and Record a Classic Radio Play We did it in 2017, and we’ll do it again….Tonight, we’re going to perform and record a classic radio play. We’ll choose a […]

Glam Cans 2019 Back when the kids were young, we took part in Well Preserved’s Pimp Your Preserves Holiday Contests! We designed our own canning labels and really dolled up […]

Food is a human right, yet 1 in 7 people struggle to find adequate sustenance in our own city. Today, the family will be putting food in the Daily Bread […]

Toronto Christmas Market Today, the ladies are heading out to Toronto’s Distillery District for our annual luncheon and a loop around the Ferris Wheel. We’ll also tour the booths and […]

Dinner and Star Wars I can’t believe they’re still making these films…..And, since there’s always a new hope, we’re still grabbing tickets months in advance. Tonight’s the final installment, or […]

Sketch a Winter Window Scene Last winter, Bea sketched the snowy view from her bedroom window. Today, we’ll all sit down to sketch a winter window scene, whether that’s a […]

The United Bakers on Spadina in Toronto. Great Canadian Holiday Cookie Bake Off Last year we had a few rounds of Holiday Cookie Wars, wherein we tested our favourite recipes […]

Reinvent the Bûche de Noël Oh, look at sweet sweet Julia throwing icing sugar on her classic yule log cake, which has already been covered in meringue-mushrooms and lain in […]

Christmas Eve Checklist 2019 □ START THE BRISKET: For a change, this year, we’re skipping the Feast of the Seven Fishes and Making Bon Appetit’s Red-Wine Braised Brisket   □ […]

WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! STAY TUNED FOR OUR NEW YEAR’S EVE MOVIE MARATHON POST! IN THE MEANTIME, HAVE A BROWSE OF ADVENT 2019! Advent Calendar 2019 Advent Love-To-Do […]

After last year’s exceeds-even-our-wildest-expectations Train Movie Marathon, it took a long time to come up with a theme for this year’s New Year’s Eve Film Fest. Since we’re looking towards 2020, […]

IT’S TIME FOR OUR ANNUAL TREE TRIMMING PARTY! Take a look at the post for our Cookie-of-the-Party and our newest Favourite Photo Ornaments!

SSJ’S ADVENT LOVE-TO-DO LIST 2020 IS LIVE! Check out the full deets here! AND BUCKLE YOUR SEATBELTS! SSJ’S OFFICIAL ADVENT COUNTDOWN LAUNCHES TOMORROW, DECEMBER 1ST! FOLLOW ALONG DAILY BY ACCESSING […]

It’s Giving Tuesday! And SSJ’s Official Countdown to Christmas begins with a contribution to the Daily Bread Food Bank. View the official Advent Calendar Post for all the details: Advent […]

Today, we’ll be testing two candy-cane-shaped retro bakes from my childhood: Candy Cane Coffee Cake & Candy Cane Cookies. FIND THE FULL POST AND ALL OF THE RECIPES HERE.