IS THAT A GIANT TREE IN YOUR CITY HALL OR ARE JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME

This Saturday evening past, Collette and I attended an annual Toronto sign of the season ... No, not sniping overburdened Russian trophy wives in Yorkdale malll; no, not watching Mayor Rob Ford fill up his Cadillac's gas tank with egg nog; no, not hunting drunken elves in the provincial Parliament ...

We attended the Cavalcade of Lights at City Hall. I originally misread the description and was disappointed when thousands of festive lights did not come crashing down the twin towers of City Hall ...

Oh wait, I get it, Cavalcade, not Avalanche of Lights .. I see.

Anyway, I've never before been to this event. They throw a party in Nathan Phillips Square in front of City Hall. This year the Grey Cup is in Toronto so they drained the skating room and lined it with astroturf; I think it was the prototype for a brand new sport, Ice FootPuck.

They string lights all around the square and they bring in this tree; it's a mutant tree, a giant tree, the sasquatch of trees, the Chewbacca of trees, it was brought in by a giant building crane and a troupe of Special Forces Ents.

It's a big fucking tree.

They tried to build a sense of excitement leading up to the big event, the actual lighting of Tree Mullet (hey, this is a Canadian tree), with a show featuring a bunch of incredibly generic and moderately talented singers, every one of them billed as "Canada's next superstar" Really? We can only have one superstar? So will all these singers get down on the artificial gridiron and throw down with mic sharpened mic stands and shuriken head sets? Will it be a battle royal until the last one standing is declared The Superstar? There can be only one!

Um, that didn't happen of course. Les sigh.

Having never attended this event I wasn't quite certain to expect. They had this giant tree, Tree Hockey Hair, and it was festooned with thousands of lights, so I was kind of expecting to see the lights coming on in succession, maybe starting at the bottom and climbing up to the top. I mean, this isn't too much to ask for, we have the technology. We built the CN Tower, we have new subway trains, Tim Horton engineered how to put jelly inside of a donut ...

What we got instead were the lights coming on. One moment they were off, the next moment they were on. It was sort of eerie, it was like someone flipped on a switch ...

Oh stop whining Kellar. Here's the video

CHRISTMAS

Yeh, yeh, yeh, it's been a while since my last post. My business has a large seasonal element to it which means the month or so before Christmas I am editing into the morning hours and dodging the whining calls from my studios on the cell phone.

Christmas also means our travelling season is upon us. Collette gets a couple of weeks off for the Christmas holidays and since our families live in different cities, we usually spend a good percentage of that holiday on the road.

In the 25 years that Collette and I have been together, we have never spent a Christmas by ourselves, in our own house. Look, for me, being as atheist as one can get, the only significance Christmas has is a calendar date to get together with our families so it is something I look forward to. Still, it would be nice to spend at least one Christmas in the city where we actually live .... or some southern resort getting sun burnt and getting some rum-inspired tattoo I just know I will regret later.

The other significance Christmas holds for me, is that it's the anniversary of my mother's death. This is not a sad occasion. Ma has been gone long enough, now, that I can use this time to remember her, the person she was, the major influence she was in my life, and how much I miss her.

Which brings us to this Christmas just past. Collette's father, Nick, has just moved into his new condo and although he has a room mate, Fred, it's his first Christmas without his wife. There was not going to be a big family gathering this year so we wanted to go up and at least cook the old guy Christmas dinner.

So up we go to Parry Sound. This winter our entire country has been inside a giant snow globe of crazy weather but if you want winter, go to the Canadian Shield. I cut a little video (at the bottom of this post) that will give you a brief a glimpse of a true Ontario Christmas ... even if one day was more snow than rain.

There was no room for us at Nick's place but luckily his old house had not closed yet .. but it was empty. So we packed up our double air mattress, one of my small monitors and the Xbox I got for Christmas, loaded up some DVDs, a couple of games, some beer (you knew there would be beer didn't you?) and set ourselves up all comfy.

Collette spent a lot of time with her dad and Miss Hayley and I tramped around town, taking video and playing with the ball and exploring the Fitness Trail. Christmas Day Collette did the chef honours (being back north always brings out her domestic side) and we had a quiet time with Nick.

We didn't get to spend much time with the rest of the family as they live 40 minutes away from Parry Sound and the weather was sketchy. But the purpose of the trip was to spend as much time with Nick as possible, which worked out as his room mate, Fred was away for his own Christmas day.

So, a quiet day, without the usual chaos and clutter, giving something to someone who needed it, even if it was just company, some attention. For a guy who doesn't believe in Christmas, that works for me


Untitled from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.