The Xmas thread - Page 2

Capt Jack · 12-01-2006, 01:42 PM

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Baileys and coffee actually. My traditional xmas breakfast. I may try to forego that this year.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
formerly (and quite formally) wrapped. Im not even sure there'll be a tree this time.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
nada. the only time I ever did that outside, xmas eve, I came out to find some grinchie son of a bitch had stolen them. inside, the usual colored LED ones.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
used to. my dear departed wife would stress herself silly over the fact that they were poisonous and insist on it being hung in a DOUBLE zip lock bags so the dogs wouldnt get sick from it. always looked a bit odd to me. the kissy face thing was fun though.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
traditionally not more than a week before, but they would stay up until well after new years.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert.)
whatever I could coerce someone else into cooking.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
my dad trying to keep all stone faced but occasionally getting caught cracking a smile as my brothers and I would tear into the booty and sit stunned that somehow, he'd actually had a clue. what a guy. props to pops

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
what truth would that be?

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
used to. probably not this go round.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
a very old set of various hand made ornaments that had been collected over the years, each meaning one thing or another based on where it came from or from who.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
thats that white lumpy rain stuff, right?

12. Can you ice skate?
not even close.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
no doubt, the first "grown up" gift from my dad and mom. the mechanics tool set I still use to this day. it set the tone for some of the best moments of my life and saved me from some of the worst.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
this year? survival

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
fruitcake. yes, I am the one that actually eats them....and with gusto I might add.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
my baileys and coffee breakfast and letting the dogs open their own presents.

17. What tops your tree?
a very small pink beaded angel my mom made when I was a wee tad.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
pitching..oh..uh. nevermind.

by far, giving.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
blue christmas by elvis.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
eh. I can take em or leave em. after all the dental work this year, more than likely leave em.

katiesue · 12-01-2006, 01:56 PM

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Chocolate with a shot of peppermint schnapps. My preference though is hot buttered rum.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Wraps them of course.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
As a kid we always had colored. This year it's white on the tree but blue everywhere else.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Nope

5. When do you put your decorations up?
First part of December.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert.)
Au Graten Potatoes

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
This will sound odd to pick as a favorite but it is. My mother goes totally and completely bonkers around christmas. Frist there's all the stuff for school (she's a teacher), then all the baking, then the tree and finally the annual knock down drag out over going to christmas eve services. My sister and I will never go home for the holidays.

Anyway one year my mother was in overload baking mode. She makes dozens and dozens of cookie plates and includes all kinds of cookies, breads and candies. She says up all night for days baking, making her crankier than usual. So anyway she decides she wants the tree up NOW.

So she starts in on my Dad to get the tree put up she's been waitng for days blah blah blah blah. Now my Dad was watching a football game or some such and totally ignoring her which didn't help. At some point she completely flipped out so my Dad stomped outside to "get the damn tree".

We'd cut it a few weeks before and my dad had layed it in a kiddie swimming pool with water to keep it fresh. Well it was cold so the water had frozen and half the branches were submerged. So he took and axe and hacked it out.

Brought it in the house and set it up, with one side missing half the branches where he'd hacked it out of the ice. My mother was not pleased and of course went on having a hissy for days. My sister and I somehow found it totally amusing.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Somewhere in grade school. I don't have an exact memory of it but we did keep pretending we didn't know otherwise no Santa for us.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Just one and like LSPE it's usually pajamas. Feetie ones of course.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
My tree is white. When I finally decided to get a fake one I figured if you're going to be tacky go all the way. So we do different color schemes every year. Last year was blue. I used blue rope light and blue bulbs as well as some of our nicer ornaments. This year Madz wants pink. I looked everywhere but I can't find inexpensive pink rope light so we're going with white ropelight and pink ornaments.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it. I miss living where there are seasons.

12. Can you ice skate?
I've tried once. I didnt' fall down but I'm not sure it qualifies as knowing how to skate.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
A natavity scene I got when I was about 5. My sister and I would play with it for hours and hours. Re-arranging everything. Making the charaters "talk".

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Celebrating with family and friends.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Gingerbread cookies and my mothers fudge.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Christmas carols

17. What tops your tree?
This year a pink star.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
Giving. It's so much fun to search for just the perfect gift.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
There are so many. White Christmas by Bing Crosby, Please Come Home for Christmas - Bon Jovi version (sad I know). God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman, Silent Night and of course my Dad's favorite, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Love em!

tracilicious · 12-01-2006, 02:20 PM

Love the poll. I'll answer it after Xmas!

Can I politely request that if people feel so inclined they also talk about what they are doing for christmas this year?

Alex, you crack me up.

tracilicious · 12-01-2006, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stan4dSteph

Is this where we shamelessly include a link to our Amazon Wish Lists?

The problem with Amazon lists is that there are a bajillion things on most people's. So, while handy for people actually buying those people gifts, nto so handy in a thread. Just a personal preference, but I'd rather hear people's top five wants, etc.

RStar · 12-01-2006, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
What is snow?

You know, that white powdery stuff you inhale through a straw!

Capt Jack · 12-01-2006, 03:22 PM

wow...havent had THAT kind of a white christmas in ages!

Brigitte · 12-01-2006, 03:24 PM

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Chocolate with a bit of peppermint syrup or stirred with a candy cane (so you know the answer to the last one now!)

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa does not wrap presents at our house. Too much confusion if the paper is recognized. Santa leaves his presents next to, under or near the stockings.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Colored now, though we've done just white before too.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Too busy on Thanksgiving weekend with all the family around. First weekend afterwards usually.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert.)
I don't have a real favorite. All the food served at any family gathering is about the same and they evoke many happy holidays.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
Again, I don't recall any one Christmas sticking out above the rest. All were happy family times though.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I don't remember exactly either, but I do remember having to keep the secret for my sister (she's 6 years younger than me).

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
We do. It is always PJs too. My family didn't do this when I was a kid. It's something we started when the kids were born so they'd have clean, new jammies on for Christmas pictures

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
We have a lot of Disney ornaments, which makes the tree colorful. We get the kids each an ornament every year too, that they pick out, so there's a few non-Disney on there. We did do color themed trees for a few years too, but with kids, they like to see their stuff on it too. We'll have lots of years to have it our way later on. I do a separate tree in the daycare as well that is all kid-decorated. Paper chains, handmade ornaments, etc. But I send the ornaments home each year and only keep the "sample" for me to keep. So it starts out pretty bare when it goes up, but we fill it up by Christmas.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Ask me this again in July.

Seriously though, I think snow is pretty, looks wonderful when it's snowing softly and the trees are all decked out. I could watch it for hours if I had the time to, it's rather soothing. If only we could eliminate it from the roads. I hate hate hate driving the big daycare (15 passenger) van in it to do school runs.

12. Can you ice skate?
I took lessons as a kid and went now and again when I was in elementary school. Haven't been on ice skates in probably 20+ years. Does that count?

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I remember getting a Merlin handheld game one year and playing that for hours. I remember getting a globe one year, not so much a favorite, but it was fun to look at (how geeky is that?). I even got a DustBuster my first year of college and was thrilled!

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Seeing the kids find the same joy in the holiday season as we did. With so much being so different from when I was a kid, it's nice to see that my kids still enjoy the season and hopefully will have lots of happy memories from it.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
All those Christmas Cookies!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Putting the tree up as a family and, yes, it's fake

17. What tops your tree?
An animated Santa Mickey with a lantern

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
Giving, knowing when you find something that is the perfect gift. I like getting them too though

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
White Christmas, I'll be home for Christmas, Silent Night, stuff from the classic tv specials.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Yum, see question 1

Snowflake · 12-01-2006, 04:00 PM

Another favorite Xmas memory as a child.

My Mom used to decorate the mantle of the fireplace (1960s California ranch house) all the way across, very kitschy cottonwool snow, little people, trees, Santas, reindeer, elves, the whole shebang. The lighted houses and chapel were endlessly fascinating for me.

My sister kept all of it and continued the tradition for years.

CoasterMatt · 12-01-2006, 04:07 PM

I got my Rose an upgraded wedding band and something else for Christmas (she got the new band today- she has NO idea what else is coming).

All I want is a new graphics card... and as of last night, a new power supply (this hasn't been a good year for the Cheeseburger 9000)

LSPoorEeyorick · 12-01-2006, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tracilicious

Can I politely request that if people feel so inclined they also talk about what they are doing for christmas this year?

Aww, I'm sorry, I hijacked your thread! I did answer your question when I posted it, though. What is everybody else doing?

12-01-2006, 01:42 PM	#11
Capt Jack check your head Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 4,174	1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Baileys and coffee actually. My traditional xmas breakfast. I may try to forego that this year. 2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? formerly (and quite formally) wrapped. Im not even sure there'll be a tree this time. 3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? nada. the only time I ever did that outside, xmas eve, I came out to find some grinchie son of a bitch had stolen them. inside, the usual colored LED ones. 4. Do you hang mistletoe? used to. my dear departed wife would stress herself silly over the fact that they were poisonous and insist on it being hung in a DOUBLE zip lock bags so the dogs wouldnt get sick from it. always looked a bit odd to me. the kissy face thing was fun though. 5. When do you put your decorations up? traditionally not more than a week before, but they would stay up until well after new years. 6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert.) whatever I could coerce someone else into cooking. 7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: my dad trying to keep all stone faced but occasionally getting caught cracking a smile as my brothers and I would tear into the booty and sit stunned that somehow, he'd actually had a clue. what a guy. props to pops 8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? what truth would that be? 9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? used to. probably not this go round. 10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? a very old set of various hand made ornaments that had been collected over the years, each meaning one thing or another based on where it came from or from who. 11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? thats that white lumpy rain stuff, right? 12. Can you ice skate? not even close. 13. Do you remember your favorite gift? no doubt, the first "grown up" gift from my dad and mom. the mechanics tool set I still use to this day. it set the tone for some of the best moments of my life and saved me from some of the worst. 14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? this year? survival 15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? fruitcake. yes, I am the one that actually eats them....and with gusto I might add. 16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? my baileys and coffee breakfast and letting the dogs open their own presents. 17. What tops your tree? a very small pink beaded angel my mom made when I was a wee tad. 18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? pitching..oh..uh. nevermind. by far, giving. 19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? blue christmas by elvis. 20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? eh. I can take em or leave em. after all the dental work this year, more than likely leave em. __________________ a clear conscience is a sure sign of a fuzzy memory
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12-01-2006, 01:56 PM	#12
katiesue Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: San Diego Posts: 4,678	1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate with a shot of peppermint schnapps. My preference though is hot buttered rum. 2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wraps them of course. 3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? As a kid we always had colored. This year it's white on the tree but blue everywhere else. 4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nope 5. When do you put your decorations up? First part of December. 6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert.) Au Graten Potatoes 7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: This will sound odd to pick as a favorite but it is. My mother goes totally and completely bonkers around christmas. Frist there's all the stuff for school (she's a teacher), then all the baking, then the tree and finally the annual knock down drag out over going to christmas eve services. My sister and I will never go home for the holidays. Anyway one year my mother was in overload baking mode. She makes dozens and dozens of cookie plates and includes all kinds of cookies, breads and candies. She says up all night for days baking, making her crankier than usual. So anyway she decides she wants the tree up NOW. So she starts in on my Dad to get the tree put up she's been waitng for days blah blah blah blah. Now my Dad was watching a football game or some such and totally ignoring her which didn't help. At some point she completely flipped out so my Dad stomped outside to "get the damn tree". We'd cut it a few weeks before and my dad had layed it in a kiddie swimming pool with water to keep it fresh. Well it was cold so the water had frozen and half the branches were submerged. So he took and axe and hacked it out. Brought it in the house and set it up, with one side missing half the branches where he'd hacked it out of the ice. My mother was not pleased and of course went on having a hissy for days. My sister and I somehow found it totally amusing. 8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Somewhere in grade school. I don't have an exact memory of it but we did keep pretending we didn't know otherwise no Santa for us. 9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Just one and like LSPE it's usually pajamas. Feetie ones of course. 10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? My tree is white. When I finally decided to get a fake one I figured if you're going to be tacky go all the way. So we do different color schemes every year. Last year was blue. I used blue rope light and blue bulbs as well as some of our nicer ornaments. This year Madz wants pink. I looked everywhere but I can't find inexpensive pink rope light so we're going with white ropelight and pink ornaments. 11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it. I miss living where there are seasons. 12. Can you ice skate? I've tried once. I didnt' fall down but I'm not sure it qualifies as knowing how to skate. 13. Do you remember your favorite gift? A natavity scene I got when I was about 5. My sister and I would play with it for hours and hours. Re-arranging everything. Making the charaters "talk". 14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Celebrating with family and friends. 15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Gingerbread cookies and my mothers fudge. 16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Christmas carols 17. What tops your tree? This year a pink star. 18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Giving. It's so much fun to search for just the perfect gift. 19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? There are so many. White Christmas by Bing Crosby, Please Come Home for Christmas - Bon Jovi version (sad I know). God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman, Silent Night and of course my Dad's favorite, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. 20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Love em! __________________ My life is so exciting I can hardly stand it.
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12-01-2006, 02:20 PM	#13
tracilicious avatar transition Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: in-between Posts: 2,487	Love the poll. I'll answer it after Xmas! Can I politely request that if people feel so inclined they also talk about what they are doing for christmas this year? Alex, you crack me up. __________________ And now Harry, let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure! - Albus Dumbledore
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12-01-2006, 03:22 PM	#16
Capt Jack check your head Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 4,174	wow...havent had THAT kind of a white christmas in ages! __________________ a clear conscience is a sure sign of a fuzzy memory
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12-01-2006, 03:24 PM	#17
Brigitte Whatcha doin'? Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Loungin' with the kids Posts: 418	1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate with a bit of peppermint syrup or stirred with a candy cane (so you know the answer to the last one now!) 2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa does not wrap presents at our house. Too much confusion if the paper is recognized. Santa leaves his presents next to, under or near the stockings. 3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Colored now, though we've done just white before too. 4. Do you hang mistletoe? No 5. When do you put your decorations up? Too busy on Thanksgiving weekend with all the family around. First weekend afterwards usually. 6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert.) I don't have a real favorite. All the food served at any family gathering is about the same and they evoke many happy holidays. 7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Again, I don't recall any one Christmas sticking out above the rest. All were happy family times though. 8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't remember exactly either, but I do remember having to keep the secret for my sister (she's 6 years younger than me). 9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We do. It is always PJs too. My family didn't do this when I was a kid. It's something we started when the kids were born so they'd have clean, new jammies on for Christmas pictures 10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? We have a lot of Disney ornaments, which makes the tree colorful. We get the kids each an ornament every year too, that they pick out, so there's a few non-Disney on there. We did do color themed trees for a few years too, but with kids, they like to see their stuff on it too. We'll have lots of years to have it our way later on. I do a separate tree in the daycare as well that is all kid-decorated. Paper chains, handmade ornaments, etc. But I send the ornaments home each year and only keep the "sample" for me to keep. So it starts out pretty bare when it goes up, but we fill it up by Christmas. 11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Ask me this again in July. Seriously though, I think snow is pretty, looks wonderful when it's snowing softly and the trees are all decked out. I could watch it for hours if I had the time to, it's rather soothing. If only we could eliminate it from the roads. I hate hate hate driving the big daycare (15 passenger) van in it to do school runs. 12. Can you ice skate? I took lessons as a kid and went now and again when I was in elementary school. Haven't been on ice skates in probably 20+ years. Does that count? 13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I remember getting a Merlin handheld game one year and playing that for hours. I remember getting a globe one year, not so much a favorite, but it was fun to look at (how geeky is that?). I even got a DustBuster my first year of college and was thrilled! 14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Seeing the kids find the same joy in the holiday season as we did. With so much being so different from when I was a kid, it's nice to see that my kids still enjoy the season and hopefully will have lots of happy memories from it. 15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? All those Christmas Cookies! 16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Putting the tree up as a family and, yes, it's fake 17. What tops your tree? An animated Santa Mickey with a lantern 18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Giving, knowing when you find something that is the perfect gift. I like getting them too though 19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? White Christmas, I'll be home for Christmas, Silent Night, stuff from the classic tv specials. 20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Yum, see question 1
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12-01-2006, 04:00 PM	#18
Snowflake lost in the fog Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: San Francisco Posts: 7,831	Another favorite Xmas memory as a child. My Mom used to decorate the mantle of the fireplace (1960s California ranch house) all the way across, very kitschy cottonwool snow, little people, trees, Santas, reindeer, elves, the whole shebang. The lighted houses and chapel were endlessly fascinating for me. My sister kept all of it and continued the tradition for years. __________________ Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. - Oscar Wilde
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12-01-2006, 04:07 PM	#19
CoasterMatt BRAAAAAAAINS! Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: One Step Beyond... Posts: 8,802	I got my Rose an upgraded wedding band and something else for Christmas (she got the new band today- she has NO idea what else is coming). All I want is a new graphics card... and as of last night, a new power supply (this hasn't been a good year for the Cheeseburger 9000) __________________ Do you like my photography? Visit photosbymatt.tumblr.com to purchase prints!
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