Christmas meme

Well we're officially into the Christmas insanity at work (criminal court). There hasn't been a day this week where I haven't been eating lunch around 5pm.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot chocolate, hands down. Eggs are good - in omelettes, scrambled eggs, fritatas, but are not meant to be part of any beverage. (but I will take just plain rum if you're offering)

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa wraps presents provided there are no labour disputes with the elves.

3. Coloured lights on the tree and house, or white?
Outside we have these funky acid-trip type LED lights that fade between blue and red and back (hitting magenta and purples in between) and tiny white LED lights on the tree.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Yes, on years we aren't renovating.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Never before December 1, usually in the first week of December is when things start.

6. What is your favourite holiday dish?
Oooh it's a four way tie here. My mum's stuffing rocks. SO delicious, perfect and yummy. We also have a recipe for a broccoli and cauliflower casserole that is absolutely to die for. The next two winners, not surprisingly, are desserts. Granny G makes wicked shortbread on its own, but also makes squares with shortbread on the bottom and pink marshmallowey stuff on top with candied cherries and pineapple in them that are unbelievable. Oh how I love those things. Grandma B makes fudge that will make your toes curl.

7. Favourite holiday memories from childhood?

• Being in all manner of Christmas pageants as a kid in church, but somehow we all ended up wearing tea towels on our heads.
• Going to visit neighbours on the sled with my parents puling us and my dad always tipping us over in the ditches.
  
• Belting out hymns in church, and occasionally singing more fun lyrics ("How great thou art" really wasn't meant to be referring to bodily functions of any dieties in hindsight) and making my mum mad for getting dad to say "fart" too. With my dad and I we were never really sure who corrupted whom.
  
• Eating the oranges and apples out of our stocking.
• Calling Uncle Eddie and other relatives in Scotland.
• My dad bringing home all the treats his students got him for Christmas and staking out the candies we wanted to eat with my sister. I'm lucky enough to have this as an adult too since Dave's a teacher, and even better he doesn't love chocolate so I get most of it! Can't wait until Friday!
• Waking up my sister Christmas morning and being told we have to wait until the furnace is turned up to go downstairs. No one could go downstairs until we all went down together.
  
• Funny aside here - My sister decided a few years ago she was WAY TOO COOL (my words, not hers) to get up early (9am) on Christmas morning like her (looooooserr) sister so she barricaded the door to her room so I could not get in her room that year and wake her up (tradition!). Little did she know that my parents were buying her a cell phone that year, which I programmed the theme to dragnet as the ringtone (dun-de-dun, dun, dun-de-dun dun DUNNNNN!) and had hid it under her bed Christmas eve, called her at 9am to wake her up. You should've heard her scramble to find the source of the noise.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Oh this is a good one. My dad was driving me somewhere in our diarrhea brown datsun and talking about the holidays and said "well we'll have to be careful this year, because your little sister still believes in a man in a red suit coming down the chimney."

Yep. My dad shattered Christmas for me (sob sob).

Actually to be fair I had my ideas he might not be real but nothing cemented until that moment. Way to go dad! Just like the goldfish! (see asterisk here)

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Nope, which is exactly why it was nearly impossible to keep me in bed past the required 8am as a kid.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
By placing ornaments on branches?

When I was a kid we always had real trees, so there was lots of swearing about getting the tree straight and the like, but then we'd string lights and tinsel and put up the ornaments drinking cider and playing Christmas carols.

11. Snow... love it or dread it?
Love it so long as I'm not driving anywhere, and we never get enough. :(

12. Can you ice skate or ski?
I can skate, so long as you aren't going to ask me to stop with any level of immediacy. Downhill skiing I've never tried but cross country I love.

13. Do you remember your favourite gift?
Nope but I'll show you a picture that looks like it must've been my favourite based solely on the expression on my face. Absent this photo as evidence I'm not sure I have an absolute favourite.



14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Spending time with family and friends.

15. What is your favourite holiday dessert?
Grandma G's marshmallow dreams. And the squares my mum makes. Oh the squares!

16. What is your favourite holiday tradition?
Church on Christmas Eve as a family watching the Sunday school kids perform and singing Christmas carols. Always a few unexpected laughs there.

17. What tops your tree?
Our tree has no topper. An ex-boyfriend of mine's parents gave me an angel to top my tree when I was 17 (does that sound odd to anyone but me?) but I think it's at my parents' place somewhere. I think we'll be investing in one when they're on sale shortly.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Giving

19. What is your favourite Christmas Song?
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas, and Santa baby are tops, but I love hearing O holy night, We three kings, Silent night, I saw three ships, it came upon a midnight clear and lots of the classics as well. I suck at picking just one favourite.

20. Do you go to church Christmas eve?
Yep!