Christmas Questions

Actually called for 30% chance of snow at my mother's last night.   We didn't see it before we left, however.  (It was actually a fun time! the best in many years.)  Heard this song in a department store on Veteran's Day, 75ish degrees F outside, and they were playing WHAT?!  I'd have been fine with a touch of snow last night, however.

So, now that it's after MY Thanksgiving:) I feel okay doing some Christmas-related stuff.   I got this from Sharon; she calls it a tag.   This Momma's Drama  My answers are below, and as typical, wordier than required:)

Your Name: Robin

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?   I don't like milk chocolate, so yes, definitely egg nog:)   Rarely do I add bourbon to it, only if I'm at a party and not driving.   We keep it in the frig, sans alcohol, all season long.   M will get herself a cup and add nutmeg on top, just because:)  If it gets her to consume something at breakfast time, what the heck, eggs and milk aren't bad, in moderation!  (We get picky, too, preferring the taste and texture of egg nog withOUT corn syrup, which is harder and harder to find.  This year's "find" is limited to Lactaid.) update: and Horizon's organic

 

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?    Depends how much time I have.  I prefer them wrapped.   I love that look, I love wrapping papers and details, and so often, underestimate the time.  M has snuck a few items under the tree, when she thought I wasn't looking, "from Santa," and hers are always wrapped.

 

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?  Probably colored, but, I really like the all white look.

 

4 . Do you hang mistletoe?   NOPE -- I have 5 cats, so not risking mistletoe in my home.  It'd be decorative in the office, but, um, NOT looking for any romance there!

 

5. When do you put your decorations up?  Whatever weekend M's home and we have a moment, lol.   At least, for the more important items, so she can share with it, especially for picking out and bringing home a tree and decorating that.   After Thanksgiving proper, I may go ahead and bring out the Christmas pillows she made me one year.   (Ya mean, you actually put away decorations?!  Ha, occasionally, some don't get put away but stay up all year.  My father used to put the decorated (artificial) tree in another room, and bring it out again at the right time next December.   That does actually work........   (This year, I've bought him red wreath hangers and will find cheap yet festive wreaths for his double front doors.)  This year, we may bring out some things, but not decorate fully until the week or weekend before Christmas itself.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?   Dish?   As in, food?  I couldn't care less about it.   I suppose making Santa's plate full of whatever favorite goodies of ours we have around at that time.  I have a few favorite actual holiday dishes, i.e., plates, however:)

 

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?   In junior or senior high, I suppose singing in the youth choir on Christmas Eve, the magic, the feeling of the Holy Ghost/spirit there, and the candlelit sanctuary, the glory of it all.  

One high school Christmas, a stuffed Garfield joined our home, with my mother, Bob, and my brother visiting, and I remember feeling happy.   Garfield looked a bit like my cat, Sundance.   Yes, there is a connection between my screen name and his name:)  Good boy he was, triple axle was his shelter name, orange tabby who loved watching car races on t.v. even and would chase the edge of my robe, even literally climbed a wall once.

Of course, in my youngest days years before my parents split, it was fun to open gifts on Christmas morning down by the tree.   One year I got up super early and found huge boxes in the dark that ended up being a toy kitchen for me.   My dad never did get the water to work in that sink:)   I was either 4 or 6 years old that year. 

 

I have some not favorite ones, also, my father not caring for church (perhaps as his mother, the late grandmother I refer to, was SOOO into it), and he wasn't exactly to be counted on to be sober.   My brother would just go into his room.  It was, however, still Christmas, or Christmas Eve as the case may be, and I had to learn to take comfort in that, God still with me, and all of us, never truly leaving any of us alone.

 

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?  I found "other" wrapping paper hidden under my parents bed.  I was asked not to tell my younger brother, Doug, and I didn't for a few weeks, anyway:)   I didn't like the dishonesty of it all.   I forget how he reacted, or my parents.

 

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?  Depends upon M's schedule (with her father and with me), when she and I "do" presents and at what home (various relatives on our side).   Sometimes we've needed to celebrate Christmas Eve morning w/ some of the family, or perhaps Christmas afternoon with someone else, etc.   So, just depends.  We prefer opening gifts with each other and our pets on Christmas morning.  My late grandmother liked the idea of opening one extra gift on Christmas Eve, so when we were with her, certainly we'd go along with it :)   One year she even stayed with us, oh, she'd get as giddy as a child, and M rather little.  It was fun.

 

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?  With only non-breakable items, being we've had young kittens the past couple years, and as late in the season as possible. :)  I like homemade ornaments, too, and lights.   I have a few from my late grandmother but I'll have to check if any are not too fragile.   We don't put up garland.   I like the look but hate the cleanup, and, well, cats like to eat it.

 

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?   Love it

 

12. Can you ice skate?    Of course!  :)   It's one of my favorite sports.

 

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?  Anything my daughter makes for me.  I did, however, ask for a truck one year as a child, and did receive it.   I enjoyed girly toys, too, but I remember that green truck fondly.   I must have loved that kitchen set mentioned previously, also, as it's one of my earliest Christmas memories.   Either that, or just the amazement as to what these huge boxes must be.

 

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?  The hope for peace, the miracle of Jesus and the spirit itself.

 

15. What is your favorite Holiday Desert?  Making, okay, decorating after making, sugar cookies with my large collection of cookie cutters.   It's the one thing that I LIKE to do in the kitchen, and I've passed that tradition down from doing them with my mother, to now doing this with M.   For eating, my mother's pumpkin log.:)     

 

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?  Ha, see above.  Also, midnight service on Christ's mass (Christmas) Eve, with candles and singing acoustic hymns and communion, with M.   I'll never forget her first 11pm (into midnight) service, as a very young girl, hoping to see the senior high girl she adored who was singing a beautiful solo.   She felt that spirit, that "magic" and specialness of it all, taking it in, her eyes wide even.   We also open up stockings before anything else, well, other than walking the dog, on Christmas Day morning, with food.   That's the important "meal" for me for Christmas, just fun stuff (it always includes cheese and crackers, too, not only sugar items, and sparkling cider, sometimes fake-sausage biscuits, sometimes other items even pancakes, whatever!).

 

17. What tops your tree?   An angel puppet I made as a child.   She has a pink dress on and gold doilie wings and a halo.   Not sure for this year, as we've agreed, thus far anyway, that our "tree" will be the cat's jungle gym carpeted tree.

 

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?  Giving, usually, it can be a lot of fun to chose something outspecial and indivualized.  One exception is if M gets joy from having me enjoy something she's given me, that is fun, too, admittedly.  

 

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? "Silent Night," hands down my entire life.   For a more modern one, I am partial to "Better Days" by the Goo Goo Dolls.  To me, both get right to the essence of it all.

 

20. Candy Canes, Yuck or Yum?    Well, yeah!  :)   As in, yum.   Even horses like peppermint.

 

21. Did you wait in a long line to purchase a Playstation 3 this season?  NO reason to whatsoevver that I can think of.   It's not even something we'd care for.

 

22. Have you ever waited in line to get a high demand item?  No.   Material items are just not worth that, to me, and possibly even go against the real reason of Christmas, depending on what and how the focus is.   If I wished to get M something with that high of demand, and it was out by the time I got there, I'd wrap up a photo of it instead for "the" day.   Hmmm, then again, if the high demand item was tickets for a show, I may stand in line for THOSE, lol.  :)  (and, ah, have!)

 

 

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