A Christmas Story

Our Kid's Night made the cover!

Laura Wright (an Ottawa Citizen intern) came to join in the festivities at our busiest Kid's Night ever last Thursday night.

I thought she might give us a little blurb, or write up a "places to visit" paragraph about the shop. But no!

Saturday morning before work I rushed to the corner store to see what kind of coverage we got, and there we were.

Right there in the top right corner of the cover.

The COVER of the Saturday paper.

Inside, on the front page of the Business Section (did I mention this was a Saturday issue by the way? Like the fat one? The one all paperboys and girls dread delivering each week?) was a beautiful picture of our special door, and a very sizable article that even extended to the second page.

It was a pretty amazing article too.

The phone has been ringing off the hook with people asking if I'll be doing another night before Christmas. I won't. I can't. Don't make me.

But I may have to add a third night next year. (If you'd like to stay in the know about events at the shop, head to my website and join our mailing list.)

I could NOT have bought publicity like this. I am just totally thrilled about the whole thing.

Want to read it? Click here.

And if that wasn't enough to get me into the Christmas spirit, Brad, the Clemenator and I went to Cedar Hill Berry Farm today with Scott, Andrea and Sophia to chop down our first family Christmas Tree.

What a perfect day it was to do it too.

Outside it was (and still is) snowing those big, heavy, insulating snowflakes that make me actually enjoy the snow. The only way it could have been nicer is if it was a bit sunnier, but we had some gay old family time nonetheless.

We don't have a huge space for a tree this year, so it was nice to have our pick of the litter.

We packed up the kiddies and headed for Cedar Hill where loads of people had gathered in search of their own Christmas tradition.

We'll definitely do this every year.

When we arrived we hopped on a tractor-pulled wagon that drove us to the tree lot.

It took us a while to agree on a tree (in fact, I'm not sure we ever did) but we're home now with a pretty little Fraser Fir all ready for the tree stand.

Here's the one Clemmie chose.

I'll try to remember to take another one of her sitting in front of it when it's trimmed in our living room.

Clementine and Sophia (as you can see in this picture) enjoyed themselves immensely.

Two weeks until Christmas and I can't believe it's so close!!

I love December, but January really isn't my favourite when it comes to retail. I've got a few ideas brewing in hopes of stimulating some traffic, and it'll be nice to have a little break, but I love the hustle and bustle of the holidays.

I also love that I can rope Brad in to doing stuff he might not otherwise enjoy if it wasn't for tradition sake.

Like chopping down a tree in a snowstorm.

Dragging it half a kilometer back to the car.

And spending an hour in the cold garage hunting down a tree stand that's only going to give him grief anyway.

You know. Fun family stuff.

The end.

Em