a perfect winter day

I have to say, yesterday was pretty much the most perfect winter day.

Not only did it snow buckets of crunchy, sticky, white fluff, but my parents called to say that they had gotten last minute tickets to go see the Nutcracker.

I have never seen the Nutcracker, not even as a child (it’s sad, I know). Even though I’m not a very dancey kind of person, I thought it would be something I should probably experience, at least once in my life.

Even though the dancing was, indeed, a little much for me sometimes, the sets were soooooo breathtakingly sumptuous. It’s definitely worth going if you consider yourself at all the kind of person who enjoys some eye candy (even if you aren’t very dancey either).

Let me add that the ballet is set it in imperial Russia so the entire second act centers around a giant, gilded, Fabergé egg that is big enough for ballerinas to come pirouetting out of it. There was pretty much always enough going on on-stage to keep my dad and Liam entertained (and if you know those two at all, you know that’s a big deal - I mean, it’s ballet, and they’re dudes).

On the way home, we passed by the park a block down the street and noticed they had a real live outdoor skating rink with real live skaters playing hockey. It was too surreal. Toronto has not had Winters that were cold enough for that in a while (at least, not this early in the year). I had forgotten it was possible.

Coming back home and looking out over the moonlit, snow covered eaves of my little Toronto neighborhood pretty much cemented it as the best winter day ever.