While it's only four days until Christmas, it's only a few hours until sundown and the start of the eight day festival of Hanukkah. It's not every year that Hanukkah and Christmas are celebrated together (Hanukkah can start as early as November), but it's kind of nice when they do and today I'm featuring the Hanukkah Menorah.

I don't know as much as I should about the festival, but it was interesting to read up about it this week and learn, for example, why there are nine lights on the Hanukkah menorah, not just eight. In addition, this week I heard a great NPR piece on the Major League Dreidel Tournament, read about a Matisyahu concert in Toronto and once again heard the annual playing of The Hanukkah Song . It's funnier every time. And so, to quote from Mr. Sandler himself, "Have a happy happy happy Happy Hanukkah!"

Only 5 days till Christmas! The city is now covered in snow, school is out until the new year and relatives are on their way for the annual feast! It all happened so fast.

I grew up in one of those houses with only one string of lights. My brother wouldn't even have time to freeze his butt dragging it out and throwing it on this sad looking bush we had in the front yard, but that was our idea of decorating for the holidays. Naturally, I grew up envying all the other houses with all the fancy lights, reindeer on roofs and candy cane walkways, but I never really appreciated how much work, or energy, went into such a thing.

The house above, on Brock Avenue in Parkdale, was by far the brightest house I saw this year. Now that's something I can stare at all day. Just a marvel of a house! I think I could have fulfilled all my christmas countdown photos just on that one lawn. View more pictures of the house here.

Only 6 days until Christmas! This is my guess, with less than a week to go, everyone's stress is either quickly rising or completely fading. Today I feature another photo essay documenting Toronto's holiday exhibitionism. Todays theme is candy canes.

Candy canes are yummy and pretty, and being the first holiday decoration I've covered you could actually eat (except, I guess you could ingest snowflakes and snowmen, but they wouldn't taste very good), I made sure to sample some of the of the sweets with more than just my lens.

Before you see the rest of the photos, I should highlight that top photo was taken on the southbound platform of Bloor Station. I wanted to give the TTC a mildly enthusiastic applause because on Tuesday this week, TTC subway driver Jack Snider and the TTC's Rachel Caulfield (pictured above) dressed up as Santa and Santa's helper to hand out candy canes to passengers. Best part was, passengers were able to get a polaroid, that's right, an old-school polaroid photo taken of them with the jolly old man.

Love it or hate it, the city is once again covered in holiday glitter and glamour. I've been searching all corners of Toronto for holiday exhibitionism, good or bad, and for each of the remaining 7 days until Christmas I'll be posting a different photo essay documenting the annual make-over. Today I feature stockings.

Although thousands of stockings are hung by the fireplaces all across the city, there are surprisingly few hanging in storefronts, on lampposts or any other place I found wreaths, trees or snowmen. Fortunately I found enough to cover the 7 days till Christmas!

Love it or hate it, the city is once again covered in holiday glitter and glamour. I've been searching all corners of Toronto for holiday exhibitionism, good or bad, and for each of the remaining 8 days until Christmas I'll be posting a different photo essay documenting the annual make-over. Today I feature snowmen.

Like with snowflakes, I had every intention of including at least one actual snowman in this series, but winter clearly hadn't given the city enough snow staying power.... until today! Great timing! I think I just might get out there and make myself a snowman! One thing though, as I was taking photos of snowmen, I kept thinking, why aren't there ever any snow-women? Seriously, that's strange isn't it? What did Frosty do for fun?

Love it or hate it, the city is once again covered in holiday glitter and glamour. I've been searching all corners of Toronto for holiday exhibitionism, good or bad, and for each of the remaining 9 days until Christmas I'll be posting a different photo essay documenting the annual make-over. Today I feature poinsettia.

I'm probably the worst speller ever, so I naturally had to look up how to spell poinsettia (it wasn't as hard as I thought). In the process, I learned a lot about the plant, like how it got it's name, where it originated and what percentage of poinsettia are purchased by women. I also learned that it is an urban myth that the plant is poisonous, although "those sensitive to latex may suffer an allergic reaction." Who knew!?!