The Xmas thread

[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.

[MouseWife]

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot cocoa with candy canes, marshmallows and cinnamon.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Wraps. Even big items get covered.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Both. Colored on tree, white draped around the house, colored in the windows.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
I have previously and thought it would be fun for the teens this year but I love my Kitty so no.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Should have put some up by now but we get our tree on the Hubsters' birthday weekend, the 11th.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert.)
Homemade sweet tamales.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
After midnight mass seeing Santa at the liquor store in a convertable with some chickies. He played it off, telling us we had to go home and get to sleep before he got there.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
No one ever played Santa to us. We didn't have a chimney and so we figured everyone else was being visited. Hmm. I don't think I quit believing, I think I just gave up.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Most of our celebrating is on the Eve. We have our dinner and then open all of the presents. Christmas Day we have gifts from Santa. Whom our kids know is us.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
A mix-match of ornaments, collected over the years. I love putting up ones people have made for us or that have special meaning. I have one that was almost Goodwill-ed that I used to put on our tree when I was a tot. Probably toxic...

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
I love it and whine by the t.v. to go up to the mountains when it starts up. But, I know it isn't easy to live in.

12. Can you ice skate?
Nope and I am too chicken to try. I would love to go watch the skaters at the Hotel Del Coronado, though. They have a rink this year.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I really don't remember receiving it but I know it was my favorite because I dragged it around for years. My first X-mas {or second, mom developed pictures slowly...} I received a vinyl elephant with cloth ears. I called it Dumbo. I still have it.

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

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Homemade sugar cookies. Okay, from a can, whatever, but baked here at home and cut/decorated by us.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Having kids over to help us make those sugar cookies. We get as many together as we can stand, er, I mean have around the table. Gives their parents a chance to get some last minute shopping done and we get to enjoy them for a bit, too. We make sure they take some home for 'Santa' and mom and dad,too.

17. What tops your tree?
An angel holding a candle {or two?}. Her wings move. Gift to the Girl from her grandmother, I thought it would be nice to have on our tree while she grows up so she can take it into her home with good memories.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
I love to give. I ask people not to give me anything because I am not good at accepting gifts. Probably goes back to Santa never visiting me...

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
I love so many. Tiny Angels {sorry don't know the artist, Whittaker?} and Blue Christmas. Won't ever forget the Boy getting 'toasted' on cider and dancing around like Elvis eventually with a lampshade on his head. He says he doesn't remember it and we told him that is called a black out.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
I do not like the fruity ones. Blech! I enjoy my canes in my cocoa or a small one now and again. Too many is yuck. I saw that show, too! I love the Travel Channel.