Very exciting - my son and his gf Courtney got engaged last weekend! I was standing in line at Massey Hall when he called to tell me, "She said yes!!".

Courtney's from New Brunswick and is going home for the holidays so he did this whole thing with a riddle wrapped in a giftbox with clues leading to other clues around their apartment and ending with a hangman puzzle in his pocket. The puzzle spelled out "Will you marry me?". I am so pleased - Courtney is perfect for Ryan and bonus - I genuinely like her! They are planning on a wedding in 2008 in NB. Courtney has a huge family there as opposed to the 8 of us in Toronto.

When he called me, I was just going into Tafelmusik’s annual performance of Handel's Messiah. The appeal of this Christmas event is that you purchase the musical score and sit in the appropriate section - alto, soprano, tenor etc - to perform the chorus.

The conductor is very entertaining in character as Handel and the two and a half hours flew by. We were very late getting there and had to take seats in the soprano section. You guys KNOW I am not a soprano by any means. Plus my eyes automatically go to the alto line in the score so there were a couple of embarrassing moments where I started to sing a few bars before the sopranos. You have to imagine the scope of this - standing in the middle of 2500 people all belting out the halleluja chorus is...overwhelming and FUN. The Nutcracker is OFF the list of Christmas traditions. I'm definitely going to do this again next year.