All the pictures are here

First off two thank yous go out to two people:

One: Da. Thank you for caring for the cats while we were away. I can tell you I felt a certain amount of guilt for leaving you behind on Xmas, alone in Toronto but I hear you had a nice dinner with Brother Mike and that lot. Hope George Hamilton and Billy Dee Williams didn’t give you much problems.

Two: Syl. As always it was a treat to travel to your house and experience the holiday with your (my new!) family. Your house is amazing and your hospitality knows no bounds. Your Xmases always make me thankful for what my immediate family lost so many years ago.

Okay with that out of the way, let’s get to the bitter (Syl, all this is in jest, take no offense), the fun and the just plain weird:

Ever shop at the Christmas Tree Shops (ugly site – ugly store)? To my Canadian friends: Imagine all the unsellable crap from housewares from Wal Mart and dump it haphazardly into store isles and lo and behold you can call it Christmas! I think they take 10% off at the cash if you’re dressed in sweatpants. Extra 5% if you’re in sweatpant shorts on Dec 26th during an ice storm. I betray my race when I say the store caters to white trash. And my mother-in-law who enjoys shopping there, I guess.

Ever drink with your sister in law? This is what it’s like:

Americans and their ability to toss around the concept of “copyright” is laughable. See the mess SharkBoy got into over on his blog just by taking a quick picture of a mannequin head he thought was cute. Step back in horror as the shop keeper actually believes the words she is saying to us.

I got this bag. Humans will weep at it’s cool factor:

On the last day, Pogo, my Bro-in-Law, opened the doors to his warehouse and let us pour over skids and skids of older movies (2007 and earlier) for us to take home. He operates video rental kiosks from Quebec to Vermont and had just pulled 25 flats of videos from his stores to freshen stock. To SharkBoy this was like heaven. We showed real restraint by only taking 31 DVDs and towards the end of the spree, Pogo nearly had to drag SharkBoy from the warehouse, crying. Some gems include: The last season of Futurama (in individual movie format), a Robotech episode, The Bank Job (Jason ‘stop slobbering on my chest’ Statham!) and a curious direct to video Sandra Bullock movie I’ve never seen before. We’re in for the winter. Thanks Pogo!