For the forty-sixth year, St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church brought together the community of Little Italy with a procession marking Good Friday. Torontoist was there, capturing some of the faces of the neighbourhood event.......

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......

"There is nothing more valuable to families than time together. And yet it seems tougher than ever to find, with so many of us living such busy lives." So declared Dalton McGuinty on last October's announcement of a new holiday: Family Day! And McGuinty's right: work is hard, days off are totally sweet, and families are pretty great! But we're curious: are you actually going to be using the holiday for its intended purpose?......

Photo by mappamundi. Happy Year of the Rat! The Chinese are superstitious and like to start a new year on the right foot. Here are eight ways for luck, fortune, and prosperity. (Eight, in Cantonese, is considered lucky because it sounds similar to the word "wealth." Four, however, is unlucky because it sounds like the verb "to die.")......

Oh, how this time of the year can be so unexciting. Holidays are done, the New Year has come, and there is not much to look forward to until, well, the new statutory holiday. Until then, Musicologist recommends indulging in the odd show that surfaces from the woodwork and makes trekking through 20-below weather worthwhile. This Friday, for example, is worth that trek: Metal Kites and Great Bloomers are playing the Rivoli for a mere......

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......

Contributor Tony Makepeace is taking us for some spins around our city with his fantastic VR panoramas. You can look up, down, side to side, in and out—pretty much every direction but back at yourself, which would be kind of creepy. Say hello to Panoramaist: the Toronto shoe-gazer's worst enemy. Click on the preview image above to launch the QuickTime VR panorama in a new window. Panoramaist is best viewed on a fast computer.......

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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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......

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......

The ever-reliable Transit Toronto has just posted a comprehensive list of a number of Ontario transit services' holiday hours. If you have any intention of using any or all of Barrie Transit, Brampton Transit, Burlington Transit, Durham Region Transit, GO Transit, Guelph Transit, Hamilton Street Railway, Milton Transit, Mississauga Transit, Oakville Transit, Orangeville Transit, Region of Peel Transhelp, Toronto Transit Commission, or York Region Transit between today and December 28, the list is an invaluable......

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......

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......

The holiday season is a tribute to excess. We gorge ourselves on a lot of fatty food and we fill up on fruitcake. We make sure to drink copious amounts of wine, enjoy our rum and eggnog, sip a snifter of brandy, or even down a nice cup of Manischewitz. Beer, however, often gets the short shrift during the holidays. Some find it too filling for a post-turkey nightcap; others think that beer should......

It sounds pretty simple. There's one rule, right? Don't get so wasted that you a) spill the beans to your boss about i) the fact that you hate him/her or ii) the fact that someone is quitting, b) touch someone inappropriately, or c) throw up in your boss' lap. And yet come holiday season, we're bombarded by so much inane advice on how to not screw up at your office party that it's enough to......

In what simultaneously has to be one of the most hilariously inspired and gut-wrenching punishments in the history of parental discipline, a local GTA father has set a new standard for puffing penalization. The man—an elementary school teacher known by the screen name "k_lid"—decided to sell his son’s Christmas present on eBay (a notoriously hard-to-find copy of the best-selling Guitar Hero 3 game) when he returned home from work early to find 15-year-old Isaac......

While the word "nutcracker" might evoke some painful mental images in some, for many it's a familiar part of the holiday season. The original ballet was composed in Russia by one Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1892, and The National Ballet of Canada has been performing The Nutcracker since 1964. James Kudelka did a revamp of the choreography in 1995, and since then The National Ballet's Nutcracker has become what The Globe and Mail has......

It's the holiday season, which means that stress is high and we're not always thinking when we spend our money. But this time of year is also a busy season for fraudsters, who love to take advantage of people's holiday forgetfulness. Paying by debit is one of the easiest ways of paying for your goods, but it's the easiest to compromise. We know several people who have had thousands of dollars drained from their......

Photo by knittingskwerlgurl from Flickr. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa or Festivus, this is the time of year to give gifts and eat way too much food. Torontoist is no exception in enjoying these pastimes, and finds that giving a gift that is food is most often the best way to go. Giving a box of chocolates is a pretty sure way to make someone's day better, and is a firm favourite of......

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve. play for today BY MOONWIRE RELATED ON TORONTOIST: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Chr... Uh... The Holidays......

With parking at a premium this holiday season, shopping malls see an increase in lazy, self-important jackasses who park in Accessible Parking spaces and abuse legitimate disability permits. The mind boggles at the selfish sense of entitlement this takes, and the Toronto Police Service won't care that you "just had to return a video." The Parking Enforcement Disabled Liason Unit have just entered a month-long enforcement blitz, focusing on those who park illegally in......

It's time to sharpen your skates, start bubbling up the hot chocolate, and get out your kneepads (and asspads and helmet, if you're like us), because today kicks off the skating season at Nathan Phillips Square. If skating isn't your bag, then you can still come down tonight to check out the Cavalcade of Lights kickoff. The events include performances by Jully Black, Sarah Slean, and Kim Stockwood, as well as a performance by......

If you like crowds, candy, and Christmas, but hate––absolutely hate––having time off of work, celebrating holidays at the proper time of year, and snow, this weekend's Santa Claus Parade is your month-too-early Mecca. Now in its hundred and third year, the parade will begin on Sunday, November 18, at 12:30 p.m., traveling from Bloor and Christie, east along Bloor to Avenue, south on Avenue, around Queen's Park, and further south along University to Queen.......

There used to be a sign above a video arcade that proclaimed "Yonge Street is Fun Street." Back in the 1960s and 1970s, much of that fun was to be had at the many bars and clubs that lined the street south of Gerrard––Le Coq D'Or, Steele's Tavern, Friar's Tavern, Zanzibar Tavern and so on. Depending on the venue, you could listen to music, dance the night away or catch a striptease. Today's advertiser......

New laws will officially criminalize identity theft by making it illegal to gather personal information which can be used for criminal purposes. Fun fact: if your identity is stolen online, the chances of the crime ever being investigated or prosecuted are practically zero. Surf safe, kids! Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton did a little preaching to the choir yesterday when he told a crowd of supporters that Canada's banks should "stop whining and start paying......

According to Doug Flavelle, "there are a lot of women with guitars in their closets." His studio, Guitar Girl, aims to get them out. The studio, which opened its doors in a loft-like space at Queen and Greenwood in September 2006, offers guitar lessons solely for girls and women. The focus is on six-week group courses, though they do some private lessons and have held Rock 'n' Roll camps during March Break and summer......

We know that you have been enjoying the LED lights on the CN Tower, but so far, they have just been ironing out the kinks. Until now. Tonight, June 28, there will be an official lighting ceremony. And it wouldn't be the world's largest phallic object freestanding structure that we know and love if it didn't throw a huge bash to celebrate the event. Starting at 9 p.m. there will be live entertainment and a......

In the tradition of reporting on undervalued national holidays, we bring your attention to the one occurring today: National High Five Day. The holiday is observed on the third Thursday of April each year, and celebrates the power of the popular hand-based greeting, which apparently also turns 30 this year. Those of you wanting to celebrate en masse -- but probably only in spirit -- can join the other 1500 people taking part on......