Happy Family Day! Happy, that is, unless you're part of the seemingly endless parade of business owners, executives, police officers, parents, people who have to work today, cynics, bitter old men, or plain old ne'er-do-wells in general who believe that Family Day is going to ruin life—and, more importantly, the economy—as we know it. Well, buck up, kiddo. It's just not that bad. Just how curmudgeonly do you have to be to focus your......

Feeling S.A.D.? Toronto's Christmas spirit wore off weeks ago and waiting outside for the streetcar has become more face-numbing than going to the dentist. Thankfully, the City of Toronto is stepping in to cure us of our winter blahs by organizing the 5th annual WinterCity Festival, which runs from January 25 to February 7 in Nathan Phillips Square. While the cool kids have probably already marked the free Saturday night concerts by Tokyo Police......

The post-holiday cleanup slowly continues across the city. Tree collection winds down this week, decorated lightposts grow patchier, and leftover sugar cookies are available for deep discounts alongside remaining Halloween candy. Religious displays are not immune from the slow pace of cleaning, though we suspect that this nativity scene at St. Francis of Assisi Church at Grace and Mansfield also depicts an event that the Bible overlooked. Religious scholars debate if burlap, hemp, or......

Torontoist Environment Editor Chris Tindal is currently engaged in a federal by-election campaign. This weekly column is an attempt to offer a "behind the scenes" glimpse into what it's like to be that mysterious Other: a politician. Right before Christmas (and just days before the deadline) the prime minister finally called a by-election for the riding of Toronto Centre, left vacant by Bill Graham last summer. He also called by-elections for three other ridings across......

Kincardine-born, Mississauga-bred, Toronto-based, and Berlin-bound, Joel Gibb is the musical and managerial head of The Hidden Cameras, the fantastic and always well-populated music collective whose members have included Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy), Reg Vermue (Gentlemen Reg), Laura Barrett, Maggie MacDonald (Republic of Safety), Dave Meslin (founder of the Toronto Public Space Committee), Bob Wiseman, Steve Kado (founder of Blocks Recording Club, member of Barcelona Pavilion and Ninja High School), Ohad Benchetrit (Do Make Say......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list which is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse. SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others.Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. Is there anything as satisfying as waking up to that little dancing alarm clock every morning on Breakfast Television?......

All photos by Kristin Foster. After a blur of relatives, feasts, and gift wrap, some of us have returned to the confines of the office for peace and quiet while others are on the couch. Welcome to the Holiday Hangover! Torontoist told you what was going on for Christmas Day, now we've found a great way of avoiding Boxing Week in the comfort of your own neighbourhood. With 49 outdoor rinks maintained by the......

Gift cards may make convenient presents for Christmas, but they're a lump of coal for the environment. According to the Consumers' Association of Canada, Canadians will spend $3 billion on gift cards this year, which means a lot of rectangular pieces of plastic will end up in the garbage. Gift cards can be reloaded to extend use, but a person who receives multiple gift cards for a retailer usually keeps only one to reload......

A short but sweet season's greeting for you from some of CBC Toronto's mid-1970s personalities. Dig those frames on young Hana Gartner! The passage of time has made it hard to determine if the "oh yeah" was part of the original ad or a sarcastic comment by a previous reader. Note that two of the personalities featured in today's ad have passed away since last Christmas: longtime morning show host Bruce Smith and writer/activist......

Oscar Peterson passes at 82. The great jazz musician was a Canadian hero and he did many amazing things, including spending the twilight of his career essentially playing jazz piano one-handed and doing it better than most people who had use of both their hands. Police catch 12-fingered man. Moral: if you have extra fingers, do not try to assault people. It's kind of a dead giveaway. Pope Benedict urges Catholics to "set aside time"......

In some households, hockey is a key element during the Christmas break. Skates under the tree. That long-desired California Golden Seals sweater from Santa. Fans that cannot be pulled away from the TV during holiday games and tournaments. Christmas songs recorded by a favourite player. We didn't make the last one up. There were people who believed that goaltender Johnny Bower had patrolled the net since the dawn of man, which wasn't far off......

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.......

What to do if you are alone tomorrow, either because you don't celebrate Christmas, or because there's no one around to celebrate with: Spend your day curled up with the almost-human warmth of your laptop, watching the WPIX Yule Log and listening to "Blue Christmas" (the Bright Eyes version), both on endless loops that resemble depression spirals more and more with each whiskey-and-tears cocktail that passes down your throat, which, come to think of......

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Queen Elizabeth II––who you will recall is our Head of State and yet still won't pony up to fix the TTC ––- has had her annual Christmas address posted on YouTube this year. The 81-year-old monarch gives a dignified formal message about her thoughts on the past year and hopes for the future before stripping to bra and panties and lip-syncing to Nellie Furtado's "Promiscuous." Stephen Harper made a perplexing statement on immigration, suggesting......

Each week, Torontoist shows off the most interesting, creative, and cool submissions to our Torontoist Flickr Pool. We're especially partial to photos that show our city in a new light, highlight a recent event, and remind us why we live here. Join the Flickr pool and show us what you've got. UntitledBY SQUEAKYRAT Ring Of FireBY DOSHA City Hall at NightBY ARIEHSINGER FrostyBY SWILTON 50%BY REBOOTYOURCOMPUTER hibernateBY jasfitz Harbord St., snowBY ANDYSCAMERA miniBY JORDANBOWER Creepy......

In every neighbourhood there is one dude who goes a bit overboard with the Christmas lights. It's the stuff of bad Christmas movies. But few go quite as far as the Lindsay family, who seem to be trying their best to outdo the ZooTV tour. Every year since 2000, the Thornhill family has dressed up their home with a bigger and better light show. The lawn lights are buried under snow right now, but......

The Missed Connections forum on Craigslist is usually a repository of "the urban equivalent of messages in a bottle." It’s home to those wishing for a second chance at a serendipitous encounter and to cute, shy-person flirting, as nameless, faceless people share their private emotions in a very public way. The messages usually affirm that no matter how much coldness there seems to be at street level, there’s just as much hope and optimism......

Still missing some gifts on your holiday list? Here's a last-minute suggestion: the 2008 Toronto Fire Fighter Calendar. What better way to suffer a snow storm than with the company of 12 buff do-gooders? In addition, proceeds go to Princess Margaret Hospital to benefit the Fire Fighters' Cancer Research Fund. We caught up with Mr. July himself, Drew Foote, at a autograph signing at the Bay on Yonge Street this afternoon. Drew is a......

Really not much on in terms of Christmas films this week. The Bloor is showing National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (which is about as far away from a Christmas classic as we can imagine without being a film about aliens from another galaxy that have never heard of Christmas) and White Christmas. We’re still happy to recommend Enchanted (we just saw it, and it was absolutely lovely), but for those of you who want to......

Photo from Deko-ze. The holidays are normally a time for rest but nobody told that to Deko-ze. The man dubbed Canada's hardest working DJ has a doozy of a week. On top of the Christmas Bash he is throwing at Footwork on Friday, Deko-ze will be spinning a six hour extended set at CZ on Sunday for Mass and is a part of CZ's Christmas Come Get Your Fcukin Beats party. He's also at......

Oh yes. There Will Be Blood is the latest film from P.T. Anderson (he of Magnolia and Boogie Nights). Set across turn-of-the-century America, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a miner-turned-oil tycoon, and scored by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, the film is making pretty much everyone who loves movies lose their mind: Gaze upon its 95% on Rotten Tomatoes! Its 9.3 on IMDb! Its 382 Google results for "'there will be blood' 'best film ever'"! And it's......

Photo by karlofun from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. So Christmas is a week from... yesterday? Well, shit. Might be time to get on that gift-buying thing. If you're like us, you can count the number of shopping days left on one hand and the number of presents you've bought on the other—including three bottles of wine, two of which you will be driven to drink yourself after spending a mere ten last-minute minutes in......

Gate House goes coed. After a series of puerile, childish, vaguely misogynistic stunts, the infamous all-male U of T residence has been come down upon by that stuffy old dean. Of note is Gate House's claim to be an inspiration for the movie Animal House, just like every other "look at us we're so wild" frat house on every college campus ever, despite the fact that Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis went to McMaster.......

'Tis the season for gift certificates. Whether you're scratching your head trying to figure out what to give to an impossible recipient or selecting your loved one's favourite store or service, the selection of certificates, cards and vouchers seems unlimited. More than a few local sports woke up on Christmas morning three decades ago to find one of today's passes for the Blue Jays' second campaign as a stocking stuffer. The Jays finished their......

The Harper government will introduce legislation to protect consumers more effectively from dangerous products, in part by holding importers more accountable for the goods they bring in. Christmas isn't going to be the same without the traditional lead-laden toys and minor brain damage. Facebook is suing a Toronto porn company for allegedly trying to hack their databases and steal info about members. Istra Holdings, trade name SlickCash, is being accused of making multiple attempts......

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.......

Toronto seems to get its annual dose of legendary outsider filmmaker John Waters around this time. A couple of years back he was hosting the TIFF gala of his latest film, A Dirty Shame, then in late 2006, he could be found gallivanting around Roncesvalles overseeing the transformation—for good or ill—of his 1988 comedy, Hairspray, into this year's hit family-friendly musical starring John Travolta (based more on the 2002 Broadway remake than on its original......

Each week, Torontoist shows off the most interesting, creative, and cool submissions to our Torontoist Flickr Pool. We're especially partial to photos that show our city in a new light, highlight a recent event, and remind us why we live here. Join the Flickr pool and show us what you've got. The Wolf and FirkinBY TAYLOR ZHOU UntitledBY COTROPITOR BMO DomeBY sevennine LulaBY TOM.COMET Dressed to the k9sBY TAYLOR ZHOU SunriseBY SALTYSEADOG Cloudy cellBY CHRISJACKSON......