Boxing Day pricing seemed to kick in earlier and continue on later this past holiday season than in any other year in recent memory—retailers’ response, one can safely assume, to the economic downturn and to the threats it posed on consumer spending.

Now, six months or so into this “recession,” or “depression” — it’s hard to keep track of what they’re calling it these days — there are a number of signs, at least in our neighbourhood of Little Italy, that discounts aren’t just for retail anymore.

On College Street alone, there are a number of restaurants offering limited-time menu specials, giving all of us a little extra incentive to eat out instead of in.

• Boom! Breakfast & Co. | 808 College Street | $3.99 Egg-O-Nomic Bailout Breakfast, Mondays through Wednesdays until May 31, 2009

• Il Gusto Ristorante | 796 College Street | $15 prix fixe menu, includes house salad, any pasta on the menu, dessert (offered weeklong, until further notice)

• Sorriso | 588 College Street | $21 Winter Feature prix fixe menu, includes soup or salad, main course and dessert, Sundays through Wednesdays

This is just to name the ones I happen to have noticed—there are likely other restaurants on the strip (and elsewhere in the city, for that matter) offering similar menu specials.

The cynical among us may identify the reference to the recession as a clever marketing trick, but in this case, I prefer to call the possibility of eating out for less: a win-win situation!

The streets of my neighbourhood are dotted with Christmas trees tonight—tomorrow morning is the last day the City picks up those final green remnants of holiday cheer. It’s one way to mark the end of the season.

The holidays were short, but lovely. A few highlights, expressed in weblinks:

• A “Christmas Basket Party” in support of the Parkdale Parents Primary Prevention Project
• Playing “Thieving Santa” at the office Christmas party. Got a fabulous and festive CD (100% CanCon!): The Gospel Christmas Project
• The Festival of Lights in Kensington Market
• Montreal comes to visit: Cameron House, Ronnie’s, La Hacienda, Fresh on Spadina
• Mini high school reunion at Victory Café
• Dirty Dancing at the Royal Alexandra Theatre
  
• Enchanted
• Midnight Mass
• Mom’s favourite: Almond Roca.
• 32nd Annual Christmas Treats Walk at the Toronto Zoo. (Narrowly escaping death?)
• Celebrating New Year’s at a ’smelly condo’: in the absence of Cranium, making our own mad-libs inspired game out of red and green construction paper; watching the 100th anniversary of the ball dropping in Times Square
• Afternoon tea at the Royal York Hotel