1. Apple cider, eggnog, or hot chocolate?
Yes, please. Let’s warm the apple cider and swirl a cinnamon stick in it, sprinkle the eggnog with a generous dash of nutmeg, and drop a puff of whipped cream or marshmallow fluff in the hot chocolate while we’re at it.
2. Turkey or Ham?
Erm… yes, please. Why make a choice between the two when you can have both? But, keep these two meats for pre-and post Christmas Day sandwiches, please. I like Roast Beast for Christmas dinner.
3. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?
The jolly old elf sets them in my hands and I wrap them.
4. Colored lights or white on the tree?
Oh colors, please! Blue, red, green, gold – lights are the reason I still keep setting up a tree, even though I live alone in a tiny space.
5. Do you get a fake or real-you-cut-it-yourself Christmas tree?
All my trees have been real. Most of them I’ve tromped into the woods to cut down myself, but now and then, when I can afford it, I buy one whose roots are wrapped in burlap for planting after the holiday season is over.
6. Favorite Christmas song?
Manheim Steam Roller produced a Christmas album some years ago that is still my favorite. Next come Brenda Lee’s Rockin Around the Christmas Tree and Elvis’s Blue Christmas (can you tell what era I grew up in?). My favorite carols are Silent Night and Away In A Manger (holdovers from a happy but Catholic childhood).
7. How do you feel about Christmas movies?
Give me the Grinch Who Stole Christmas every year. I also loved the World’s Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever and the one about Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.
8. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Oh, that should be plural! Warm, sugar-frosted stolen on Christmas morning; rare roast beef for dinner; the addictive almond brittle smothered in chocolate that I learned to make as a teenager; my mother’s dark fruitcake laden with fruits and nuts and soaked in brandy; decorated cookies – spritz, sugar, gingerbread; a high, three layered, lemon-filled white cake, frosted with buttercream icing and smothered in coconut; warm cherry-cranberry pie.
9. When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music?
Start the barrage two weeks before the day. Anything before that makes it all redundant.
10. What is your favorite holiday smell?
Another plural. Balsam; snow; cookies baking; chocolate, warm bread.
11. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Do you mean the truth that he still exists despite the silly rumours to the contrary?
12. What kind of decorations are on your Christmas Tree?
My tree is a haven for nostalgia. There are old glass ornaments from my parent’s first Christmas, some frosted, glitter-sprinkled ones from my childhood, a number of wooden ones from my children’s home years, and a few newer ones that have been gifts. Colored lights weave amongst the branches and reflect in the tinsel that hangs from each branch tip. A small angel overlooks it all from her perch on the spire.
13. Do you open a present or presents on Christmas Eve, or wait until Christmas Day?
Both. We have always had a Christmas Eve celebration where one gift each is opened. When I was a child, we drew names and bought for that one person. The rest of the gifts are opened in the dark of Christmas morning. We light the tree, make coffee or cocoa and take turns oohing and ahhing.
14. Go to someone else's house or do they come to you?
Both. When I was a child, my grandparents came to our house. When my children were small, their grandparents came to our house. Now that I’m the grandmother, I go to see my grandchildren on Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is spent with my brother and his family and whichever of my children can come home to me.
15. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
Both! There is great pleasure in either one; such fun to watch someone unwrap a gift you’ve chosen especially for them and equally fun to unwrap a treasure someone else has chosen just for you. If we don’t receive gracefully, how do we allow another the pleasure of giving?
Happy Holidays to all.
6 comments:
Pauline it turns out I was thinking about you yesterday, yes you, although I did not know it at the time.
I was musing, as I often do, on completely nonsensical, unrelated to my current reality matters and this was the thought that popped into my head, "Someone must like fruitcake. There must be someone out there that enjoys fruitcake, otherwise they would have long since vanished. I wonder who that person is?"
It's you. I've found you. Who knew? Well, you did, clearly.
That was a fun list, Pauline. Guaranteed to bring about a smile. You take joy in things, and I thank you for sharing it.
My favorite Christmas song is the lyrics to "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" sung to the tune of "Holly Jolly Christmas."
It really works - one of the few compositions that my sister and I did in middle age. Our best, at the height of our powers when I was still in college, may have been using the tune of John Denver's "Country Roads" to go with lyrics that we co-authored concerning John Boy Walton in that episode where he gets a brain tumor.
We were almost The Carpenters...
LOS - my mother's dark, rich, brandy-soaked concoction would change anyone's mind about fruitcake
Paul - saying hmmmm under my breath. To each his own ;)
Great tree! Small is beautiful :)
Count me among the fruitcakephiles! Especially as described herein...
And I am with you on the colored lights and Grinch (provided it is the original made for TV animated version).
Pauline, have a wonderful time with your family!
Peace,
Qazse
I love Christmas cake laden with brandy! Never have it these days, but the memory lingers on.
Joy & Happiness for your Yuletied SeasonXXXX
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