[Strangler Lewis]

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Irish coffee or mulled wine. Or something brown with a little ice and a sweater. I did have my annual egg nog in latte form at Starbuck's. That was enough.

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

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White. We just do the tree, although my wife just bought a new seasonal icon that's very festive.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No. Then I'd have to kiss the neighbors. We're all respectable people here.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
About a week before Christmas/The first night of Hanukkah.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert.)
Don't have one other than Christmas cookies. This year we will take a crack at latkes because the kids want to.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
A tie between 1) trying to figure out how Santa would get in through the incinerator of our building and then break into our apartment and 2) starting Jewish Sunday school and telling my non-Jewish mother that we could not have a tree because we were Jews. ("This year, mama, the tree stays in the box!")

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
From kids like Euro.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Yes.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Lights, ornaments, gold leaf eggs and wheat wreaths that my wife hand made. We buy special ornaments every year for everybody that somehow relate to the year that has passed.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it.

12. Can you ice skate?
It's been a while since I went regularly, but if I stretch my tendons out in my boots for about ten minutes, I can get going.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Like some of you above, I'm hard to buy for. This worries me a bit because in "The Country of the Pointed Firs," there was a character who knew she had everything she wanted and that meant it was her time to die.

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

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Christmas cookies, gingerbread men for the tree.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Decorating the tree. Holiday music. Holiday programs, movies, etc.

17. What tops your tree?
A yarmulke. No, nothing actually.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
Giving.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
Johnny Mathis Christmas album. Charlie Brown's cool, too.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Yuck. Although it was interesting to learn from The Food Network recently that they are bent in their wrappers while warm.