Wednesday, December 06, 2006

I am incapable of writing about real life, so I'm giving you a meme, Shannon.

1. Eggnog or Hot Chocolate? (And 'fess up - do you spike your drink, and if so - with what?)
Eggnog. Because you can drink Hot Chocolate all year 'round. Actually, for real holiday-only beverages, I'm partial to our own family holiday drink, The Nutty Irishman, baileys and frangelico... Mmmm.

2. Colored lights or white lights?
I like white lights on the outside of a house, it just looks cleaner. Colored lights on the tree. I'm all about the messy family home made decorations type tree.

3. Does Santa wrap presents at your house, or sit them underneath the tree unwrapped?
He wraps them. Last year, I did my santa wrapping at mom's house and left the santa paper over there. The Kid discovered it late afternoon on Christmas, and came and got me and said, Look! Meema has the same paper as Santa! She always knows the best places to shop!

Phew. That was a pass.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Nope. I'm pretty minimal on the christmas decor.

5. When do you put up your decorations?
Usually the weekend following Thanksgiving. I got my balcony lights on that weekend this year, and if I remember right, last year. But the week following Thanksgiving this year and last year were a little too tumultuous personally and I was late last year getting my tree up. This year, I've not even been home enough to even think about the tree. So, from the outside, though, my house looks decorated for Christmas. My dear friend Jaci reminded me that this is a good thing, as it is always better to look good on the outside. ; )

6. What is your favorite holiday food?
Moose munch. Who invented chocolate covered popcorn? I will marry that guy. Shoot, I want to marry moose munch.

Well, and Hamloaf. It's a family delicacy. God I love that stuff.

7. What is your favorite childhood holiday memory?
My sisters have reminded me of playing Name that Tune with our Uncle Bob. I've been laughing all day about it. It's hard to describe, but his humming... Oh, funny, but indescribable.

Basically, Christmas memories mostly center around my sisters and just being super duper silly with them. Every year we have some kind of running joke going... Last year? 'That's cool." In two thousand fizzle? Ah, shizzle it was return of the kizzle. Oh, and it is an annual mission to quote Elf as much as possible.

8. Do you believe in Santa? If not, why?
SANTA! SANTA!!! I know him!!!! (see what I did there? Did you HEAR THAT?)

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No. We don't do that. I think we'd have a hard time stopping if I allowed that.

10. Describe your Christmas tree:
It is 4.5 feet tall. I place it on a little ottoman table thingie I have so it will feel bigger. Most of our ornaments are lovingly home made, or candy canes. There were a couple years there where I was making my friends make ornaments for us if they came over to my house. Jaci and Erin, I still have the ornaments you made for us. Our angel will have to be remade this year, I'm just remembering. Hmmm, sounds like craft time! Whoo hoo!
Most of the stuff on my tree is sentimental. My favorite ornaments are the ornaments I made as a kid, the ornaments from our family tree that my mom has given me (nothing valuable, I assure you), the holy family Jaci gave me, the Tiger Jaci gave me and most of all The Kid-Picture-Wreath he made two years ago.


11. SNOW. Love it? Or Dread it?
Dread, I think, is the most perfect word for how I feel about snow. I don't hate snow. I enjoy it often. Snowmen, snowball fights, I like to ski, etc. But even on nice peaceful nights, when the city is being blanketed in snow, all I can think about is scraping my windows off the next morning. And then driving my ten miles to work with 100,000 freaking a-holes.

12. Can you ice skate?
Yes, yes I can. I'm all like that Sasha Baron Cohen bitch up in an ice rink. Like, exactly, sexytime, fo sho.

13. What is your favorite Christmas gift of all time?
Wow, I had so many. There would be the boom box I got in 10th grade, I was all psyched about it, but then quickly turned to brat because it wasn't accompanied with The Police Box Set, but then my family tried to give it to me all Christmas Story AFTER all the other presents were opened, and I felt like a poop. But both of those things gave me endless joy.
I also remember getting my doll house that had working lights.
Oh, and every girl has their "my first ambulance toy" story, right? All girls pine for and pitch fits about model ambulance toys with little working stretchers and comes stocked with super beefy EMT's? Well, yeah, I was lucky enough to get my very own ambulance toy when I was about 7 or 8. I was also a complete brat about it because it didn't have a siren (as I parent now, I understand that!), but then I played with that sucker for years and now all of our children have played with it too. It's a pretty kick heinie ambulance.

14. Which do you prefer: Giving or receiving?
Oh, without a doubt, giving.

15. Tell us about your favorite holiday tradition.
The Kid and I haven't truly developed a tradition. We usually read The Night Before Christmas, and we ALWAYS set out cookies and milk for Santa, and spread oats out front of the house for the reindeer. Beyond that, not too much.
What I love to do, and what I have done since I've been old enough to acheive it, is to be the last one to go to bed on Christmas eve. I just LOVE to sit in the dark (well, all dark but the tree), sometimes listening to Xmas music, sometimes silently, just basking in the glory of the tree. In fact, I used to sneak out of my room early morning as a kid so that I could do that. It's not really a tradition, because it isn't shared, but it is by far one of my favorite things about Christmas.

16. What tops your tree?
Well, we made a big yellow star out of construction paper and glitter, and then glued together and stuffed with cotton balls, and it was kind of ugly, but we had so much fun making it, but anyway it totally kicked the bucket last year. So, The Kid and I have a job cut out for us. Angel or star? I'll leave it up to him.

17. What is your favorite holiday movie or tv special?
It's a Wonderful Life. That movie truly has no equal. Second place? Elf. Third? A Christmas Story.

18. What is your favorite Christmas song?
Bing's White Christmas, isn't it just a yummy song? I love the Charlie Brown Christmas album so very much as well.

19. Candy canes ... yuck? or yum?
Yum! I'm surprised that people out there think they are yuck!

20. Describe the oddest or most unique Christmas you've experienced.
21 years old, I traveled around Europe with my ex-boyfriend (and technically, he was my ex even then, so that was something, like straight out of the freaking Amazing Race). We spent Christmas skiing in clouds at Chamonix, France. We stayed in a youth hostel with a bunch of insane ski bums from around the world. There were a bunch of amazingly sustained-drunk aussies (and some possibly british, it was honestly difficult to tease out the accents between the slurring), two really sweet japanese girls, a kindred spirit of an argentinian girl that I shared a bottle of wine with after sourpuss ex boyfriend went to bed. It was incredibly lonely, and the only Christmas ever that I haven't spent here in my mom's house, which I love.



Merry Christmas everyone!
And, since I'm supposed to tag people at the end of a meme, if that is what one could consider this, I will tag all of you. Mr. Lady's unique take on Christmas as a recovering jehovahs witness will be good, no doubt. I want to hear from Caty, Sarah, Alison and Diane too!!!

4 comments:

Alison said...

Dammit. Now I'm going to spend all day thinking about what to write...

Anonymous said...

Me too. I might not get a post in until the weekend.

I always stay up last on XMas Eve as well, just to bask in the tree lights. I'm glad you do that too.

Diane said...

Will do when I get some time to think and write.

Diane said...

Molly g,

Thanks for the tag. Just posted it.