Weekend events in Toronto should help put off the ennui you feel as reality bridges with the dreamworld that was your perfect 2015. Laundry's piled up and masses of strange, unwanted foods are spoiling in the fridge, so why not go out to laugh it off at a comedy festival, have a meal while watching live bands, grab free art, or see one of 2014's best Canadian films.
Here are my picks for the top events happening in Toronto January 2-4, 2014.
Feast in the East (January 3, Jam Factory)
A ticket to the first Feast in the East of the year includes a free Dutch dinner by Justin Go, and performances by stellar and spooky Toronto psych acts Doomsquad, Zones, Matrox, and Barbara. The gang are starting the year off right in the east end. All ages.
PARTY & MUSIC
Class of 2015 (January 3, SIlver Dollar)
No need to mope around after the NYE fuss is over - live music fans will have more fun launching 2015 with the New Year's Indie Music Honour Roll series at Silver Dollar. Running weekends from January 3 - 30 catch seven different line ups. Saturday's includes Only Yours, Wax Atlantic, the Holy Gasp, and Fever City.
FILM
Canada's Top Ten (January 2-11, TIFF)
TIFF excites the city each year, but it's our homegrown talent that fills our hearts with pride the most. The nominees for best Canadian picture are Denis Villeneuve's Enemy, Michael Dowse's The F Word, and Xavier Dolan's Mommy. In addition to these major films, the festival will Canadian docs and feature interviews with Naomi Klein, Avi Lewis, and Agent Johnny Utah (you know, Keenu Reeves). DF
ART
Take Home a Piece of Clare Twomey: Piece by Piece (Jan 4, Gardiner Museum)
If you've been admiring Clare Twomey 2,000 piece installation of dainty figurines at the Gardiner, this is your chance to the artists' work home - for free. For the price of admission ($15) this could stand as your best chance to be a fancy art collector on a shoestring budget this year.
THEATRE
Cinderella (Elgin Theatre, until January 4)
You can say this about the annual Ross Petty pantomime - you certainly won't be bored. Questionable taste level and overt corporate sponsorship aside (be ready for commercials at the theatre), Petty has a way of cramming each production chock full of local commentary, sight gags, and the year's pop hits. Check out our review from seasons past. $27-$93 KB
COMEDY
Festival of New Formats (Jan 1-5, Comedy Bar)
This free multi-day festival at Comedy Bar will have you laughing your way into the new year. The shows start on Thursday night and carry on over the weekend to Monday - check out some of the line ups here.
For more events this weekend click on over to our Events section. Have an event you'd like to plug? Submit it for free using this form.
Contributions by Keith Bennie
Photos by Kat Rizza
Winter music festivals in Toronto won't be quite as chilly as previous years, what with outdoor Brrrrr Fest not returning to Echo Beach, but that might be for the best. Live music is best kept as an indoor affair during the frozen months, especially since this summer looks like it will be 
A couple hundred brave souls rang in the new year at Sunnyside Beach yesterday morning by going for one frigid swim as part of the 10th annual Polar Bear Dip. The temperature outdoors at start time was -2 Celsius while the water was estimated at skin-stinging 3 degrees. Lest you think participants are completely whacked, it's worth noting that $70,000 was raised for Habitat for Humanity in conjunction with this year's event. That's pretty good for what tends to amount to a 30 second swim.
The bivalved aphrodisiacs of the sea are still the main draw at this seafood bar that's received a makeover and a menu change. But the new hot additions to the menu are still worth a try, like a daily whole-grilled fish or a gourmet burger that packs a serious flavour punch.
The best restaurants in Woodbridge, save for one, are Italian eateries. In fact, most of the restaurants in general have an Italian influence. But the best ones - the ones that started with the recipes and technique passed down from previous generations - have added their own twists and flair to make for one of the best restaurant selections around. 
2014 is in the books, but as we linger over the year that was for the first few days of 2015, let's take a look at some of the excellent photos shared through the blogTO Flickr pool. It's difficult to pick a top 10 from the 365 photos that we ran as part of our photo of the day feature without being purely subjective, so the selection criteria is simple: these were the most popular photos we posted in 2014. You'll find a mix of the newsy and quirky and also the downright beautiful.
The top events in Toronto this January rip the idea of a boring Canadian winter to pieces: live music and theatre, film festival screenings, massive dance parties, and beer and food-a-thons will be plentiful, but the month is especially exciting for art lovers. Design Offsite will return, Douglas Coupland's exhibit opens at the end of the month, and for the first time ever, contemporary art festival Villa Toronto will set up in Union Station. 
Toronto restaurants are accustomed to seasonal cravings, and come winter, they know diners are looking for traditional comfort foods. Satisifying that demand for familiar foods is easy enough, but adding a unique spin, or melding multiple cultures on one plate, is exactly where Toronto kitchens excel.
With our farewell to 2014, and a blissful freedom from 
The top concerts in Toronto this January absolutely spoil us - rumours about winter being a dreary time for live music have been wildly exaggerated. Beyond the 
The coziest bars in Toronto are like second homes for regular or first-time patrons. When the work day has been rough or the weather just won't seem to let up, Toronto's bartenders and business owners know what it takes to make an evening brew extra cheery with candles for ambiance and a little bit of charm. 
The 1940s was a tale of two halves in Toronto. The draining effects of the second world war kept the city in a state of austerity until 1945, when the six-year conflict finally drew to a close. In the years that followed, an uptick in the economy saw the construction of new affordable housing, the start of building work on the Yonge subway line, and increased attention to solving slum conditions in the inner city.
Northeast from the old Bank of Montreal building at the corner of King and Bay, demolished for First Canadian Place.
Store selling bankrupt stock at Dundas and Bay carrying an ad for Clayton's department store.
A Joy Oil gas station earmarked for demolition at Dundas and Parliament prior to construction of Regent Park.
Peggy's Cigar Store and Gold Seal Pharmacy on Dundas St. E. in Regent Park.
Moving house.
A muddy laneway that had drawn the attention of the Department of Street Cleaning.
South side of Queen Street W. at York. Now the site of the Sheraton Hotel.
The Scholes Hotel on Yonge St. 
Fire at Lyons Furniture Store.
Kids playing on Gerrard.
Crooked store on Adelaide St. W.
"A Good Hotel"
The old Toronto Star Building on King Street W. near Bay.
A Toronto Star newspaper stand.
The Maple Leaf stockyards in the Junction.
Sweet Caporal cigarettes for sale at University and Dundas.
Collection of trailers being used as homes near Centre and Gerrard streets.
Street cleaning team inspects a pile of garbage.
The exterior of the Union Hotel.
The historic Walker House hotel at Front and York streets.
Construction of the Bank of Nova Scotia building on the northeast corner of King and Bay.
North up Bay from Adelaide.
The pool at Sunnyside.
Bathers on Sunnyside beach.
Boathouse on the Toronto Islands.
Sailboats on a tranquil Toronto bay.
Toronto police show off their new uniforms,
Kids in a "typical classroom," 1940.
High school fitness class, 1942.
Dentist prepares to examine a girl at a high school clinic.
Doctor performs a routine health examination at a Toronto school.
Kids sleeping on cots at the Wilkinson Open Air School. Outdoor educational facilities were established to help combat tuberculosis on the assumption fresh air and good ventilation would be beneficial to health.
Visiting nurse feeds a baby.
Toronto Island milkman makes deliveries using a sled.
Toronto's Department of Street Cleaning's baseball team.
The baseball Toronto Maple Leafs take to the field.
Ticket lineup at Maple Leaf Stadium at Bathurst and Lake Shore.
The view from the stands.
A snow-covered parking lot during the storm of 1944.
Crews armed with shovels attempt to dig out a clear path on Bay Street.
Dutch immigrants at Union Station puzzle over a 1947 Ontario road map.
The typing pool at in unidentified office building.
Wartime "Food for the People of Britain" drive by the city's Department of Street Cleaning.
Food packages being wrapped for shipment to the UK.
Contestants in the Miss War Worker beauty contest.
Soldier with a baby at Union Station.
Returning soldier embraces children at Union Station.
Soldier locked in a passionate embrace on return to Toronto.
All smiles as a soldier returns from the second world war.
Miss Toronto 1947 poses for photos at Union Station.
City of Toronto tug "Ned Hanlan" in dry dock.
The Royal York hotel and skyline from the gutted upper deck of the SS Noronic. The lake steamer nicknamed The Queen of the Lakes caught fire while docked on the Toronto waterfront in early hours of September 17, 1949, killing 118 people.
The side of the burned out SS Noronic. 
A machine prepares to break ground for construction of the Yonge subway in 1949.
Dignitaries pose for ceremonial groundbreaking photos in the cab of a digger.
Subway construction workers begin digging down on Yonge St.
The excavated ground beneath Yonge St. in the late 1940s.
There have been lineups at El Furniture Warehouse in the Annex since it opened six months ago, and this new location on Queen West should prove no different. With every item on its food menu priced at $4.95, it's difficult to resist this "premium dive bar."
Free events in Toronto this week start your week laughing at others and end off with an afternoon of pant-less humiliation, as opposed to the regular kind that comes along with living down and out. In between the city offers sing-a-longs, indie music, and 80's porn (sort of). You can also grab free cupcakes at 
The history of Yonge Street is that of Toronto itself. As the street developed, so too did the city around it. Even as the first commercial hub in the city was located to the east of Yonge, by the turn of the century, it was already becoming our most important thoroughfare. In the time that's intervened, Yonge St. has become an iconic symbol of Toronto, home to 
Interior of Yonge St. Arcade, 1890s
Yonge and Temperance, 1900s
Queen and Yonge, 1910s
Board of Trade Building, 1920s
Yonge and Dundas, 1920s
Looking east from Yonge St. Arcade, Ca. 1920s
Yonge and Lawrence, 1920s
Yonge St. Mission, 1930s
Yonge and Bloor, 1930s
Yonge St. south of York Mills, 1930s
Yonge St. north of Charles, 1930s
Yonge St. subway construction, late 1940s
Opening day of the Toronto subway, 1950s
Silver Rail cocktail lounge, 1950s
Yonge and Eglinton, 1963
Yonge and Gould, 1960s
Yonge and Dundas, 1960s
Yonge St., 1970s
Yonge St., 1970s
Yonge and Dundas, 1970s
Yonge St., 1970s
Yonge and Bloor, 1970s
Yonge and Queen postcard
Yonge and Temperance, 1980s
Iconic Toronto logos offer a portal for nostalgia that's quite remarkable. Simple symbols carry with them layers of history fostered mostly by our (over) exposure to them. It's no surprise that banks, drug stores and restaurants feature prominently on this list. Ubiquity is mostly responsible for the iconic nature of these logos rather than, say, design genius. The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course, but if these symbols have any power to induce nostalgia it's because of our familiarity with them. 
The Shopper's Drug Mart font has undergone a number of redesigns over the years, but the iconic logo has been around since the beginning (over 50 years ago). 
Ubiquitous around the city, our official logo was selected in 1998 after amalgamation. The image above shows the three finalists, with the winning design at the right.
Quite possibly the most iconic Toronto logo of them all, the TTC might get a lot of things wrong, but the design of the logo should never change.
Toronto Zoo's logo is an example of a pared down design that becomes iconic before it's even aged much.
The logo of the Toronto-based clothing company is an exercise in explicit Canadiana that once seen is hard to forget.
The standard Leafs' logo, similar to the Canadian flag could be depicted above, but the retro logo probably has better memories tied to it from the time when the team was winning Stanley Cups.
Harvey's updated their logo long ago, but the original orange hamburger is an iconic bit of Toronto history that's worth remembering.
The bank that brought Toronto the "Green Machine" (back when one needed to brand an ATM because it was so novel) still sports the two-letter logo it did back then. 
The Diamond Taxi logo has been cruising the streets of Toronto since 1949.
Gray Coach Lines was dissolved by the TTC in the early 1990s, but its buses were once a common sight on Toronto roads and Ontario Highways. A rebranding effort in its final years brought the moderninized style logo.
The Toronto Blue Jays logo has received a few overhauls since the original 1977 design, but I'm sticking with that one because it's the one that's implanted in memory from growing up in Toronto during the 1980s.
Fans of small businesses prevailing in the face of large-scale developments will be happy to know that 
