Christmas Questions

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?

I always like to have a glass or two of egg nog sometime over the holidays, but I “water it down” with regular milk and I drink it cold. I like hot chocolate and enjoy it more often, but truth be told, hot spiced apple cider would top them both. (And I make a hot almond drink that even tops the spiced cider.)

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?

Santa has never been a part of our Christmas traditions.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Outside it’s all white. The main tree is all white. Some smaller trees around the house are colored, and the “COKE” tree is in red lights.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
I have a tiny sprig of “fake” mistletoe that I sometimes hang, but it doesn’t usually even get noticed when I do.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Usually the weekend following Thanksgiving, but we didn’t have Thanksgiving until Sunday this year due to work schedules, so it’s down from the attic, ready to go up tomorrow night.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Cheese Fondue. We either do fondue for Christmas or New Years, depending on the year.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?
Oddly enough, at some point we started “making” our own Christmas trees. The first year it was a chicken wire cone covered with tumbleweeds, sprayed silver. Another year it was made of crepe paper and decorated with intricate egg ornaments hung by ribbons (much prettier than it sounds.) I loved it so much that I begged for it to be left up. When my mom could no longer stand it (probably about Feb. since she is a very patient woman) she told me if I wanted to keep it, it had to go into my bedroom. I kept it in my bedroom til the end of June before I could agree to take it apart. Another year, when I was in high school, we found an old dead woodpecker log that was hollow. My dad wired it for electricity and put globes on it. We loved it so much that it became our traditional tree which we used every year. Eventually we decided to leave it up year ‘round and it became our “seasons” tree. My mom still uses it to this day. We made another one like it for me and DH later, but it’s at my parents house in Colorado. Making our own tree was a great family bonding process and an unusual creative endeavor.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I was about 3. I started analyzing the whole thing, and realized it was a bunch of baloney. I asked my mom “There isn’t really a Santa Claus, is there?” She simply answered “no.” I never felt like I missed the “magic” of Christmas at all, and was always appreciative to my parents for gifts received. My mom was honest with me because she had been very hurt as a child by “believing” , but having been born into a very poor family. She wanted a bike in the worst way, but never got one because they could never afford one. Meanwhile the snotty rich neighbor kids down the road got oodles of wonderful presents. We decided not to ever start the Santa thing. Our kids learned about Santa from other kids and books, but he was always a fictional character for them. I recently asked them if they felt they missed out by not believing…answer, no. .

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
We’ve always opened one gift Christmas Eve. Sometimes I chose it (like new PJ’s for everyone, so photos would look good on Christmas morning) but sometimes they got to choose one.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
I buy the boys a yearly ornament to represent something about that year (some years, just one they liked.) DH always gets a Coke ornament (even though he is a recent Dr. Pepper convert…took me YEARS to get him there!) I buy several that I just can’t resist every year, especially from the after Christmas clearance sales at the Hallmark stores. For a while I've tried to buy something for the tree from every family vacation. We have so many sentimental ornaments that I have several small trees around the house (Coke, a mouse tree, a Disney tree, an Eskimo tree, and I may have enough S’more ornaments for a small tree this year.) Not all of the ornaments go up every year, but we all choose our favorites. When the boys leave home they’ll have enough to decorate their own trees.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
I LOVE to watch snow falling, love to stand outside and let the snowflakes fall on my face, love to walk in the snow and hear it “crunch” when it gets really cold, love making snowmen--one year on a snow day (remember I am from Colorado, and to get a snow day you had to get a LOT of snow), we made an Indian brave, and added a real feather. On the other hand, I HATE to drive on slick roads…so I LOVE snow… as long as I can stay at home. Of course, now that I live in TX, snow is like… a miracle.

12. Can you ice skate?
My family drove about an hour up into the mountains to a wonderful outdoor lake (Lake Pactolus) every Friday night for years. They would flood the lake so the ice was smooth and would blade off the snow by driving around on the lake with an ancient old pick-up truck (circa 1940?) with a plow on the front. It was a big lake, and you could find your own area of the lake and do whatever you wanted, you didn’t just skate around in circles (how boring!) The AMTRAK train went right by and we’d wave to the passengers. Sometimes the wind was so strong that if we held up our coats above our heads like sails, it would blow us the entire length of the lake! They had a warming house with wood benches and we’d always take some thermoses filled with hot chocolate. It was the highlight of my week. We could never afford lessons, but in high school a friend who was taking lessons was teaching me some figures, jumps, spins,etc. and I loved it. I can still skate, but wouldn’t try any fancy stuff anymore.


13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I've never been very good at choosing a single favorite thing of anything...As a youngster it was probably my red mohair sweater or my used manual typewriter. As an adult it was my jewelry armoire or my kitchen aid mixer, both gifts from my parents, or the 35mm camera from my DH one year.

14. What's the most exciting thing about Christmas for you?
Lights and decorations. I love driving around and seeing the lighting displays, seeing how the stores decorate, visiting homes that are decorated.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Chocolate fondue with fresh fruit.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
I love singing harmony with a group a cappella, so caroling is right up there, although I guess my very favorite would have to be decorating the tree as a family. We put on our Santa hats and some Christmas music. We usually have cheese and crackers and fruit along with hot cider or cocoa. We each reminisce about every ornament as we put it on the tree.

17. What tops your tree?
Finding a tree topper that I really love has been a challenge. We’ve had a lighted star, a lighted angel, a fabric angel, a glass pointed topper, etc. I still haven’t seen one I truly love. I’ve even used just a bow with streamers coming down.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
I am a giver. I love finding just the perfect gift for someone, and delight in watching them open it. My family isn’t very good about buying things for me or filling my stocking, but I don’t care ‘cause I’m too busy watching them anyway. I have to admit my mom usually surprises me with something wonderful, and it’s not usually on my list…she’s just great at knowing what I would love.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
As I said before…I’m never good at picking A SINGLE favorite anything…So, I decided to go with the first one that popped into my mind…On one of our Christmas records (a cheapo LP I bought at the supermarket when we were newly married) has a lively arrangement of “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night.” I’ve never heard another version I liked as much. I love traditional carols and contemporary songs equally, and I love singing along. Our church choir prepared and sang a cantata every year. Many of the songs in the cantatas used words straight from the Bible. I can hardly read the Christmas story without bursting out into song, since those words are now associated with wonderful melodies.

20. Candy Canes?
I love using candy canes to stir my hot chocolate, which looks pretty and turns my hot chocolate into mint chocolate, but I don’t eat them. I’m a chocolate or toffee girl all the way. Nothing else is worth wasting the calories on.