My partner K and I have a lot of Christmas traditions and we seem to add more and more every year almost effortlessly. I think that is how traditions should be, you should never say “We are going to do this and it will be a tradition” instead one year you do something and it is great, so you do it again! And again! And then before you know it you are saying: “well we’ve got to do that again this year because it’s tradition!”
I think the other great thing about traditions is that it’s always tempting to shrug them off when you are busy and maybe they feel more like obligations. The line between obligation and tradition is fuzzy. Sometimes you do things that are traditions that you really want to do and think… “you know what this isn’t us anymore” and then the tradition becomes something else. Sometimes you do something you really don’t want to do because it’s tradition and you think “oh I’m so glad that I forced myself to do that.”
It’s our tradition to put up our Christmas tree on November 25th (Or the closest Saturday to November 25th) and spend a whole day putting up the tree and watching Christmas movies. We decorate the entire apartment, we usually do some cleaning and organizing… and we drink as much of a bottle of whiskey as we can manage.
But it can’t be just ANY whiskey. Our tradition is that we buy a holiday gift set from the LCBO (which if you aren’t Canadian is the only place you can buy liquor from the government in Ontario) and we drink the whiskey out of the glasses that come in the set. Over the years we’ve collected many tins and boxes from these sets and we keep them to put our ornaments in. This is the one we bought this year. You can’t see it in the picture below but the box was made to look like a big book which I thought was really cute! Also, I really like Canadian Club so we have SO many of these glasses but that is okay with me!
I don’t want anything about this tradition to change but the past few weeks I’ve been poorly and in and out of the doctors. I woke up Saturday morning really not wanting to decorate despite looking forward to it all year but K had already cleaned the whole apartment while I slept and was READY TO GO. Which honestly was the best thing that could happen. We ordered a pizza for lunch and discussed our battle plan while we ate it and watched a Christmas movie. After that, we pulled the tree out from the closet (we basically have one entire closet that just houses the Christmas tree and decorations) and started pulling everything down from the shelves.
By 4:00 we were watching The Night Before and breaking out the Christmas Tree Whiskey. I didn’t drink as much as I may have in past years but it was still a nice day of decorating our tree (which is WAY too big for our apartment) and apartment more generally. I’ll do another post where I share some Christmas decor photos!
Also, in case you are interested, here are some “Christmas Tree Whiskeys” of years gone by!
We also picked up a bunch of other holiday things from the LCBO while buying our Christmas tree whiskey! I picked up this variety 6 pack of Christmas flavoured Breezers because I liked the sounds of Cranberry Citrus Punch. Both the Cranberry and Spiced Apple Mule were great but both K and I are too afraid to try the “Chocolate Candy Cane” which is ironic because I love ALL things candy cane and mint chocolate but I can’t get past the carbonation! Carbonated mint chocolate? IDK about that. Maybe I’ll update this post after I try it out this coming weekend.
We also picked up these festive beers from Lake of Bay’s Brewing. Neither of us is big on stouts but it’s okay because it made an awesome base of the stews we made that week! These all came in the “Toasty Toes Taster Pack” which also had A PAIR OF CHRISTMAS SOCKS which I thought was pretty amazing.
Lastly, we got this bottle of pre-spiced “Ugly” mulled wine. For our Christmas party we will make our mulled wine from scratch (well like spice and fruit it ourselves we aren’t going to brew the wine) but with this bottle you basically you just heat and serve. We are going to take it home for Christmas to have as a quick and easy treat on Christmas Eve! Mostly I just couldn’t resist the cute packaging!
That is all we picked up from the LCBO so far! But I’ve got my eye on a few more things! Like this little whiskey gift pack that has four little bottles for $19.99 and would make a good stocking stuffer for… me, or this peppermint Kahlua that would make a nice addition to my Saturday morning peppermint bark coffee, or this six-pack of Ernest Holiday Cider that features flavours I would have never even dreamed up like Orange Gingersnap and Snickerdoodle! I’m also hoping we can find a bunch of the Big Rock Christmas beer to take home for Christmas mostly because the can is an absolute work of art. I also like to stare longingly at this 41-year-old $300 bottle of Canadian Club that I would love to buy if I was a different person with a different job and a different life. What is on your LCBO shopping list this Christmas season?
Anyway, that is it for my LCBO Holiday Picks! My tree and lights are up and I’m now officially in full on Christmas mode! Who’s with me?
-Emma ❤
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