Christmas Tagging

Welcome to the Christmas edition of "Getting to Know Your Friends."

See Dan, or Aaron. And now Stephen. Oh the humanity.

1. Wrapping or gift bags?

Wrapping - while not great at it, I can do a pretty good job if I stay focused. Cylindrical or spherical stuff is a bitch, as is anything in a blister-pack (that evil plastic coffin most things come in these days).

2. Real or artificial tree?

Neither - Primus likes to scratch her back with evergreens. No tree would survive her hedonist onslaught. We do put up a cheesy spiral of lights in the shape of tree out in our gazebo - we got it as a gift and from a distance it looks pretty nice. We also throw some lights on an actual living tree in the front yard.

3. When do you put up the tree?

We put the spiral thing up, along with our other decorations a week or two after Thanksgiving.

4. When do you take the tree down?

Shortly after New Years

5. Do you like egg nog?

In small quantities, and without rum. Why ruin rum by adding it to egg nog?

6. Favorite gift received as a child?

Lego Castle or perhaps a Commodore 64. (64K!!)

7. Do you have a nativity scene?

No - we hate Jesus. Just kidding.

8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?

Hmmm, I think I've blanked them out. Lots of clothing I would never wear.

9. Mail or email Christmas cards?

Faith gets us to do cards - this year picture cards, a huge improvement both in cost and convenience over actual cards.

10. Favorite Christmas Movie?

A Christmas Story

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas?

As close to Thanksgiving as possible, but I'm a natural procrastinator, so it slips. Thanks to the internet, there's little penalty.

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?

Chex mix, only because savory things are relatively rare and chocolate is too abundant.

13. Clear lights or colored on the tree?

White - moving to New England made it painfully obvious how nice a simply decorated tree could be after the excesses of Iowa and elsewhere.

14. Favorite Christmas song(s)?

Silver Bells.

15. Travel at Christmas or stay home?

Usually close to home, though every few years we'll hit the road to far off midwestern destinations.

16. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?

Yes.

17. Angel on the tree top or a star?

The spiral tree has a star, and I guess I'm inclined away from angels generally.

18. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning?

Christmas morning. As a child we had a family gift exchange (draw names, get something for a brother or sister) that we opened on Christmas Eve.

19. Most annoying thing about this time of year?

Bad Christmas music, both piped in all public spaces and butchered for radio ads.

20. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color?

See above.

21. What do you leave for Santa?

No children, no Santa.

22. Least favorite holiday song?

Blue Christmas - blech.

23. Favorite ornament?

As a child we had this psychedelic plastic sphere with multicolored lights inside - sort of like the ball that drops at New Years, but only 12" across. Laying in the dark watching that sparkle was super cool.

24. Family tradition?

Not really.

25. Ever been to Midnight Mass or late-night Christmas Eve services?

Yes. Growing up Catholic made that an inevitability, though I only participated once or twice.


Consider yourself tagged, or not. Blog posts shouldn't be demanding at this time of year.