Roots. Part One: Elise.

i was born in montréal, québec, in nineteen-eighty, to a seventeen-year-old high school drop-out (nobody took a moment to tell my mother that there was a school for pregnant teens or that there were any alternatives at all, for that matter) and an eighteen-year-old whiz kid who'd been working on one of the first prototypes of the electric car with some local scholars and who would spend a good decade sporadically reminding me that he'd turned down a full scholarship to concordia university because he had become a father and "someone had to pay the bills". with my dad usually holding down two jobs and my mom struggling with her new role as a housewife...

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25 Days of Etsy Christmas Gifts. Day Twenty-Five: Montréal, Part Five.

we have finally reached the twenty-fifth and last day of this series! i hope you have all enjoyed discovering new artisans and small businesses and that most of you have found gift ideas that appealed to you.  please note that almost half of these shops had much more inventory when i first scouted them out and bookmarked them but we're lucky because a good portion of the shops i had fallen in love with are currently set on vacation mode so i can't share them with you at all! today, the final ten etsy shop are all based in my hometown of montréal, québec. remember them throughout the year, too! 1. sara lagace offers...

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25 Days of Etsy Christmas Gifts. Day Twenty-Four: Montréal, Part Four

i always know why i write about shopping locally and supporting artisans and small businesses but tonight, as i touch this particular list up and prepare to publish it, i can feel it in my bones. i, who usually avoids malls as much as i can, ended up in two of them, alexis nihon and carrefour angrignon, today. mind you, i did so because i needed supplies for all of the hand-made gifts i'm preparing for my family, this year. if all of the other reasons i've listed are not enough to make you buy from small businesses and/or online, the frazzled insanity that packs those places should be. wow! here are ten more etsy shops based in my home town...

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