Prologue:

As the end of 2008 started to come into view, the question of Christmas travel came up like every year. Of course, the questions that had to be asked were "how am I going to get back from Christmas in Canada", "how will I arrange Christmas with my girlfriend who will be going to Poland", and "how am I planning on picking up the last 1700 miles I need for *G next year". Obviously, the last two questions solve each other. While searching at length to find a way from ORK to POZ that didn't cost hundreds of euro, I decided to give LX another shot and of all the luck they priced in at somewhere below half of what a similar RT would have cost with the so-called LCCs. Plus, it was only slightly more to book into all sorts of mileage-earning classes for Aeroplan, meaning I could not only get to POZ and back, but I could leave my bags halfway (and not lug them around the continent), make it in time for my flight out of LHR, and STILL collect more than enough miles to requalify for 2009. Score!

Since the plan at the time was my girlfriend was going to go a few days earlier on the direct ORK-POZ, I would be solo on this trip and so was able to work out an even more convoluted routing than normal with an open-jaw through Poland to make a shorthaul from POZ-WAW on LO. So after some time booking both online and through the LX website, I was able to concoct the first part of this trip:
Segment #1: ORK-LHR on EI (Y)
Segment #2: LHR-ZRH on LX (Y)
Segment #3: ZRH-TXL on LH Cityline (Y)
Segment #4: Berlin-Poznan by rail

Part two simply consisted of the trip home, with an extra stop in the middle to meet up with a friend in London for some Dim Sum:
Segment #5: POZ-WAW on LO (Operated by EuroLot)
Segment #6: WAW-ZRH on LX (Y)
Segment #7: ZRH-LHR on LX (Y)
Segment #8: LHR-YYZ on AC (J)
Segment #9: YYZ-YXE on AC (J)

Unfortunately after the booking was finished, my girlfriend's plans changed significantly enough that she was now travelling on the same day but, since my plan had now metamorphosed into something inhuman, we found her a completely different route involving fewer stops and no overnights that worked out to be almost €100 cheaper than the so-called LCCs. It was really unfortunate, but we were at least going to get some time together in Poland before a few weeks apart over Christmas/New Years.

The only remaining question, "how am I going to get back from Christmas at home", took some work to organize. I had originally thought about just doing a simple YXE-LHR and hop over to ORK, but since this involves booking a YXE-LHR-YXE return, I did a bit of looking and eventually booked it through a number of tickets and discount codes (thanks again, MG) to beat the fuel surcharges on AC international and pick up some miles to begin the year, as well as set up for a possible trip in July. So part three became:
Segment #10: YXE-YYC on AC (Operated by QK) (Y)
Segment #11: YYC-YEG on AC (Operated by QK) (Y)
Segment #12: YEG-YYCYYZ on AC (J)
Segment #13: YYC-YYZ on AC (Y/J?)
Segment #14: YYZ-LHR on AC (J)
Segment #15: LHR-ORK on EI (despite my best intentions) (Y)

I've broken the trip report down into segments for ease of reading (it's a bit long) and tried to take pictures on the way, but the problem with this trip was that I've done a lot of these segments a few times now, and sometimes forget that I need to document everything really well. Plus, the shortest of these parts was just under 29 hours and at some point my brain goes into pure zombie-travel mode and I just given up taking pictures of everything. Pictures have been added, however they may suffer the same fate as my previous photo attempts due to picasa not liking FT as much as they should. Pictures are now fully tagged and commented, and available here

However with that disclaimer aside, I'd like to present Christmas 2008 in Europe and Canada.