1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
I like egg nog. But only one glass a year. And I've already had my glass this year. I've never had it with booze, but I'm only a social drinker and have never had egg nog in the presence of friends who are.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
If you're giving them, wrap them.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
I've never had or decorated a Christmas tree but far prefer multi-cultured Christmas lights to monochrome.
4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Never have. Have never kissed or been kissed because of mistletoe. I come from good Germanic stock, interpersonal contact is to me avoided at all costs. Kissing means you have to marry the person.
5. When do you put your decorations up?
The most extensive Christmas decorating I've done is hange a wreath that was a present from my dad on our front door. Currently our front door is metal so that won't be happening.
If I were to decorate, decorations should go up over the weekend after Thanksgiving and come down by the first weekend after New Year's (this is inherited from my grandparents; the only people in my family who decorate for Christmas).
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert.)
I don't have any dishes I consider "holiday dishes." Egg nog is the closest but if it were readily available in July I'd just as likely have my annual glass then.
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
We were practicing Jehovah's Witnesses but Christmas was the one time of year my extended paternal family was in town (my maternal extended family all lived within a couple miles of each other). So, while we didn't celebrate Christmas, us kids were sent over there.
We had asked (and even then I truly didn't like receiving gifts completely independent of religion so I was happy to ask) not to receive Christmas gifts.
When we got there my grandmother took me back into her bedroom
and said "this isn't a Christmas present, just a we love you present" and gave me a backgammon board. Somehow the fact that it wasn't wrapped made it not a Christmas present. That was when I first realized that some of the family members I loved could be pricks. Also, apparently she only loved me on Christmas and my birthday.
I know that seems odd for a "favorite" but really that is an important lesson for children and I look back on it fondly.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I have no specific memory of it, but do know that when I was 7 I helped my mom put out the presents and stuff the stocking for my sisters.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Not unless the only visiting would be on Christmas eve. That happened more as the number of households I was obligated to visit for Christmas (both of my parents remarried and then my first wife had a very large local family) expanded.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
I don't. I considered getting a cheap tree this year just to watch the cat play with it, but if I do I probably won't decorate it.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it as long as I don't have to watch other people try to drive through it.
12. Can you ice skate?
In the sense that I can go around in circles and not fall down, yes.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
For one glorious Christmas one relative (my Mom) actually accepted the fact that all I wanted were books or money with which I could buy books. That Christmas (I was 8, I think) she bought me a leatherbound collection of Twain. I thought it was the most impressive book in all the world. I think it is the only Christmas present I have ever received that I still own. Of course, now I realize that it is just a cheap pleather Barnes & Noble edition-type book. But then we were poor. But it was the best Christmas gift I ever got.
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Absense of obligation. I don't celebrate Christmas because I am not a Christian and so when I am doing something Christmas related it is through some other sense of obligation. I enjoy the idea behind Thanksgiving but feel no obligation to spend it with my family or even friends.
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Again, I don't really think of any desserts as tied to a holiday. The closest would be pumpkin pie and Halloween (but really that is pumpkin pie and Lani's birthday). My grandmother makes a chocolate upside down cake that I love and vaguely associate with Christmas but only because that was when I was most likely to have it. When there were family picnics at other times of the year I had it then as well.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Over my time as an adult I don't think I have any. I have now spent two Thanksgivings out of four at the Tuscany Suites Casino in Las Vegas so maybe that can be one. The first time I was playing blackjack there when I learned my father died. This time, so far as I know, nobody in the family was killed by my sin of gambling so that element of the first one is apparently not a tradition.
17. What tops your tree?
See above.
18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
Giving. But I find that if I give, others feel obligated to give back. So I try to give gifts at "non-obligatory" times and as a surprise. I like the idea of someone giving me a present on July 23 and simply saying "I saw this, thought of you, and thought you'd enjoy it." I hate getting presents that are essentially "a couple centuries of social engineering have pressured me into buying a gift to give you today; if it weren't for that you'd never get one from me."
Plus, I'll admit to having a bit of a psychological problem with receiving anything that feels like charity. And I know that isn't how it is meant but to a small part of me that is still how it feels.
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
Don't have one, though I can think of dozens of really annoying ones.
20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Look nice, taste awful.