Trying to come up with a holiday cocktail I can use the maple flakes as a sweet rim option.

In Victoria, our favorite meals were at fishhook and Sult. We like interesting, we love seafood, I love Asian (my husband enjoys most Asian cuisines we've had, but he does not seek out dumplings the way I do ;-) We had dumplings at Dumpling Drop one afternoon - they were recommended by the bartender at Phillips Brewing when we were drinking and shopping and asked for good options. We tended to eat at odd times - late afternoon, sort of late lunch/early dinner, with snacks before/after, instead of a BIG meal at 7pm. It allowed us to get in to places we normally wouldn't have been able to find seats at (I hate reservations, I don't know what I want to eat in advance, I don't like having to commit ;-)

We didn't visit the Hand of Man "museum", but if you're nearby, we HIGHLY recommend the Pacific Raptors center. We adore raptors so we opted for the highest interaction option, but it's not that expensive to visit and see the aviaries and the fly-overs.

In this season, Butchart Gardens doesn't open until 3pm - I honestly would have preferred to go in the morning to see the gardens, not the lights ;-) So we arrived just after 3pm, got to see some of the garden design before it was too dark. But we also missed the first 4 days of Christmas before we caught on there was a theme. Ah well.

We did a lovely long walk along the harbor to Fisherman's Wharf park, seeing the houseboats there, watching the boats & seaplanes come in & out, herons feeding (in Heron Cove, as I noted a couple minutes later!)