Skip to main content

Christmas Meme

To counteract the evil spell Dive has placed on Christmas, I will complete his meme, upping the ante. Answer this, you curmudgeon.


1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg nog, nice and cold.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? I'm pretty sure he doesn't wrap them. The wrapped presents are from Santa frauds--parents who have no faith in the Old Man and think they have to provide the gifts.

3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white? I don't decorate the outside of my house because the roof line is too complicated. I wouldn't know where to put lights. My trees have small white lights, as do the garlands over the mantels.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.

5. When do you put your decorations up? The weekend after Thanksgiving, except at the lake house. I haven't made a trip there yet to put up the little fake woodsy tree that is decorated with birdhouses and cardinals.

6. What is your favourite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Probably my mother's cornbread stuffing/dressing, although the stew she serves over the holidays in old chipped bowls with mismatched spoons is always nice.

7. Favourite holiday memory as a child? I have written about this in detail--here.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I believe, I believe, I believe.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? My family has opened presents on Christmas Eve since I was twelve, but just last year we switched and now open them on Christmas Day.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? I use wide red and gold ribbon, strings of clear beads, and an assortment of ornaments I've collected over the years.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Snow, absolutely. But I haven't had a white Christmas in years.

12. Can you ice skate? No, it requires more physical coordination than I have.

13. Do you remember your favourite gift? My horn was a birthday gift, but I can't think of a specific Christmas gift that stands out.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? I recognize the sacred nature of the day, but for me it's an entire season, and it means a chance to spend time with my mother and sisters and their families. I only see them all for two days at Christmas.

15. What is your favourite holiday dessert? Pecan pie.

16. What is your favourite holiday tradition? If you didn't read the link at #7, then read it here.

17. What tops your tree? A large angel with a gold dress and burgundy ribbon. She plays a French horn.

18. Which do you prefer; giving or receiving? I prefer giving gifts, and prefer making those gifts for each specific person.

19. What is your favourite Christmas Song? Mel Torme's The Christmas Song. I also like Silent Night. My father always liked to sing it, and when I hear it, it's as if he were in the room tapping his foot and making up harmony, and words.

20. Candy Canes! I'm indifferent. But ribbon candy is another story, as is salt water taffy. When I was a kid, my poor Alabama grandmother used to ship a big box of homemade salt water taffy to us every year flavored with all kinds of extracts like anise and licorice.

21. Favourite Christmas movie? It's A Wonderful Life and Holiday Inn and White Christmas and The Lemon Drop Kid and Miracle on 34th Street. There is no short answer to this question. Maybe Dive's answer was best.

Comments

dive said…
Curmudgeon, yes, but I haven't cast an evil, Grinchy spell have I?

Your answers have squeezed a little bit of Christrmas warmth into my Scroogey old soul, so I'm not beyond salvation, surely?
dive said…
… although the small, wizened deity in charge of typos seems to think so …
Sassy Sundry said…
I answered at Dive's place.

Ribbon candy.... Yummy.
dive said…
Er… My little Brit mind is boggling …
"Ribbon candy"?
"Salt water taffy"?
I think we need a couple of new additions to our transatlantic dictionary here, Robyn.
I totally agree on pecan pie, by the way, but as there's only me and it's kinda hard to make that for one, it's not something I get to eat a lot of.
It's run a close second by anything that Peahen bakes. She's a wiz with an oven and a lorryload of sugar.
Scout said…
Dive, I'm not sure how to describe salt water taffy beyond saying it's small pieces of flavored and lightly colors taffy individually wrapped in wax paper. It's a big tourist draw on the coast, like in Atlantic City, but that stuff isn't anything like what my Granny (and yes, that's what we called her) made each Christmas.

Ribbon candy is hard candy shaped like ribbons. The delicate stuff is great--the thick imposter stuff is crap. I'll look for a picture.

Popular posts from this blog

No More Mr. Nice Guy

It's good to be a nice person--to say nice things, to do nice things, to write nice things--but I declare an end to the use of the word nice. Nice is what you say when you can't think of any other adjective. Someone shows you a picture of their back yard--that's nice. Someone tells you about their afternoon adventure--that's nice. Or someone describes their childhood in great detail and sometimes with painstaking effort--that's nice. It's a lazy word, and it's non-descriptive. Nice is like mashed potatoes with noodles and chicken gravy all in a big pile on one plate with some canned corn for garnish. Everything is the same color and texture and base substance--starch (this is a favorite Amish dish). Nice is like a partly cloudy day in April when outside feels like inside, and you can't tell a difference between the lighting and the temperature of your living room and the lighting and temperature of your front yard. Nice is a glass of lukewarm water. ...

Long Live Anita Bowser

You know I occasionally check my hometown newspaper's website to scan the obituaries (morbid, I know, but I'm at that age). Over this past weekend, I read the obituary of Indiana State Senator Anita Bowser . She was a noted Democrat who championed causes protecting the neediest in the state's population. She was respected on both sides of the aisle for her intelligence and plain and outspoken approach to law making. The picture on her senate page is lovely. I remember none of those things about Anita Bowser . My first year or so in college was spent at a branch of Purdue University, and in the early 80s, Anita was a political science professor. She taught my American Government class my freshman year, and she was a mess. Somewhere in my old text book, I have a sketch of her drawn on a particularly dull day in class--her hose sagged at her ankles, her slip showed at least half an inch all the way around, her hair had been slept on but not brushed, and her bright red lip stic...

Ish People

Tell an Ish person to show up around 9 a.m., and you'll see them somewhere around 9 a.m. Tell them to show up at 9ish, and you'll see them anywhere from 9:05 to 9:20. You have given them license to dilly dally, and who wouldn't take advantage of that? The other night at the big shindig dinner party, one of the drummers said the rehearsal the next morning would begin at 9ish. "I am an ish person," he says. Immediately the clanker goes off in my head--oh, good, I thought. I can deliver my daughter a little late. No Ish person is early, so if you say 9ish, that does not mean give or take 5, 10, 15 minutes. It's exclusively a taking phrase. Take an extra 10 minutes to drink your cup of coffee. We won't mind. We're Ish people. Sunday's rehearsal started at 2:00. Because it was conducted by the same people who conducted the Saturday rehearsal, my understanding was 2-ISH. My daughter is worse than I am about taking liberties with Ish time frames, so she d...