Thursday, December 11, 2008

What Christmas Means to Me

After I saw Laura's, I had to do it.  Anything Christmas, I'm all in.

1.  Do you like hot chocolate or egg nog?
I love both.  Hot chocolate is darned near an addiction in our house (between the four of us, we go through it ridiculously fast).  This year I discovered the Land O'Lakes Egg Nog, which I must recommend--sssooo creamy.  I love to cut my egg nog with root beer, as well.  Delicious!  But best of all is hot chocolate made from egg nog.

2.  Does Santa wrap presents or just put them under the tree?
Growing up, Santa just put presents under the tree, and I liked that.  Now Santa wraps presents so that snooping little monkeys don't find out what their presents are even if they do find them.  This year he even wrapped the stocking stuffers!

3.  Colored or white lights on the tree/house?
For the tree I like the multi-colored lights.  They aren't quite as bright as the white lights, and I like the softer glow.  On the house I like either white lights or the big chunky old-fashioned colored ones.  Not a big fan of colored minis outside.  With garland, I usually like white lights.  I do like solid colored lights around windows inside, so long as they're coordinated.

4. Traditional Christmas or contemporary/Mod Christmas?
I have to agree with Laura here--Christmas is all about the tradition.  I think the trees decorated all silver and purple are beautiful in the stores, for example, but would hate one in my house.  Red and green and gold, big fir trees, green wreaths and fir and pine garland are what its all about for me.  I absolutely love all the little homemade ornaments on our tree.  No designer Christmases for me, thank you!

5. When do you put up your decorations?
Growing up we always did it on Gwen's birthday--the 10th.  We've been doing it the first weekend of December since we got married, but this year did it Thanksgiving weekend.  I think we'll probably start decorating Thanksgiving weekend from now on (and use the baby's birthday as an excuse to make gingerbread houses on that day every year).

6.  What is your favorite holiday dish?
Well, red Jello with bananas, of course.  :)   How to pick?  I love turkey, I love a good glazed ham, I love pistachio salad.  I miss Grandma's gravy. . .mmmmmmm.   But red Jello with bananas does rank right up there near the top.

7.  What is your favorite holiday memory from your childhood?
Every tree-cutting trip to the Stump Ranch--particularly the years there was enough packed down snow on the road (can you call that a road?) to hookie-bob (is there a "correct" way to spell that?) on the back of the van or truck.  And every evening spent decorating my Grandma's tree and hanging up her elves, setting up her train and drinking hot cocoa with Michael while we watched The Grinch, Charlie Brown and Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas.  Is anything more Christmasy than memories of Grandma's house, really?

8.  Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Of course!  You've gotta get those new PJs for Christmas.  We always did just that one present on Christmas Eve, and then lined everybody up in front of the tree for pictures.  This year, Keilana has pink Disney Princess flannel PJs, while Dylan will be enjoying his new navy blue Lightening McQueen jammies and Kylie will be wearing. . . .one of her brand new sleepers.  She doesn't get presents this year.  I'm giving her the gift of life and calling it good.

9.  How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
I don't know that there's much method to our madness.  Every year we get a few new ornaments over Thanksgiving vacation for everybody.  Doug always puts on the lights (which he does a fantabulous job at), and then the star.  This year, we let the kids put all the ornaments on so there was just a big clump of ornaments about 2 feet up and that's it (on a 7 1/2 foot tree--we spread them out a bit later).  Doug helped the kids put the candy canes on the tree and they liked getting up on Daddy's shoulders to put the high ones on.

10. Snow! Love it or dread it?  
Love it!  Miss it!  I was always very sad the years that there was no snow on the ground on Christmas.  I loved laying in bed and looking out my window, watching the snowfall under the light on the outside of the garage.  Is there anything more calming that watching snow fall silently under a street light?  I love snow ball fights, snow ball men, snow angels, snow shoeing, etc.  Its just such a wonderful play thing.  And so much better than here, where everything's dead but there's no pretty snow to cover it up--it just looks gloomy and dead.

11. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Not from when I was little, really.  I still remember the year we all got our own box of cold cereal.  Seriously, that was one of the best presents ever (we weren't allowed to eat "sugar cereal" when we were little, so it was a big treat).  But the best one I remember in a while is my senior year of high school, my parents got me a pair of Samsonite suitcases.  My goodness have they served me well in the intervening 7 years!!  And they're still in pretty good shape.  They've been overstuffed, hauled all over the country, loaned out, tossed around and they still get the job done great.

12.  What is the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Family and faith.  Its hard to enjoy Christmas without either one of them.  I miss my family and haven't spent a Christmas with them since my freshmen year of college, which I hope to remedy in the near future.  But the first year we were married, we lived in Hawaii, and obviously couldn't afford to make it to either family for Christmas. I thought I would cry through the holidays, but it was wonderful in its own way.  We lived between BYUH and the temple, so it was hard NOT to remember what Christmas is actually about.  Its probably one of the times in my life I have been most focused on keeping the Spirit of Christ in Christmas.

13. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
I'm going to have to refer back here to the red Jello and bananas and pistachio pudding.  And raise you one box of Grandma's fudge.  Oh, and lemon meringue pie.  I love lemon meringue pie.  Ok, lets face it, if its got sugar in it and we usually eat it at Christmas, chances are pretty good that I love it.

14.  What is your favorite holiday tradition?
When I was little it was the Nativity scene--one of our family traditions was making pieces for a clay nativity scene every year.  We eventually had to stop because our Nativity was getting so huge and for the sake of variety it was starting to have things like John Travolta shepherds, drumming (like at a full set) wise men and snakes.  Lots and lots of snakes.  Now I'm not sure.  We're still working on creating our family traditions.  Ask me again in a few years.

15.  What tops your tree?
A pretty star--looks like your traditional "nativity" star.  We just found it at Lowe's this year.  Doug and Keilana picked it out, and its beautiful!  Hopefully it'll last us a good long time.

16. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
Giving.  I mean, I like presents (who doesn't?), but especially on a budget, I would much rather be able to spend the money on my kids or friends than on Doug or myself.  Most of the things I want now are practical things anyway.  Doug asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told him nursing bras or a rocking chair. I'm not big on "stuff" unless its stuff I actually need, but I love to shop for my kids.   And seriously, who doesn't love an excuse to peruse the toy section?

17.  What is your favorite Christmas song?
Ooooooh. . .tough call.  Its really a toss up between O Holy Night (I love Josh Groban's recording--beautiful!) and the Little Drummer Boy.  Both fantastic songs of worship, though in very different ways.

18.  Candy canes?  
Love the look, not a big fan of the taste of traditional ones.  I'm just not a big peppermint fan in general.  But I love all the other varieties you can get now.  They always make me happy because they remind me of my dad.  When we were little there would always be some random day during the Christmas season when he would come home from a trip to Missoula for some reason or another, and would tell us that while he was in town, he ran into Santa Clause, who of course sent candy canes home with Dad for us.  It always makes me smile.

19.  Do you feel Christmas is too commercialized?
Absolutely!  My kids have sufficient presents, but we don't over do it and stay within our budget because debt and late bills are not what its all about, and neither are the presents.  Every night before bed we read a scripture with our kids about the Savior and on Christmas Eve, we will be reading Luke 2, of course.  Its very important to me that my children understand that the spirit of Christmas is the Spirit of Christ and all those good thing--love, generosity, charity, patience--come from him.  That all that "believe" stuff should be about Christ, not about Santa.

20. What is your favorite Christmas movie?
A Charlie Brown Christmas and Its a Wonderful Life.  Like I said, its all about the traditions (but a few others that top my list:  The Grinch [the original], Elf, A Christmas Story, Frosty the Snowman).

21.  Can you ice skate?
Yes.  I'm no figure skater, but I can stay on my feet anyway.  Its been years since I went though.  Wow.  I don't think I've ice skated since I was 15 or 16.  Too long!

22.  Are all your Christmas presents ready yet?
All the ones for our house are wrapped and ready.  I'm still finishing the presents for the grandparents.  I'm afraid the Montana grandparents and great grandparents are probably going to get their gifts a little late this year!

If you'd like to do it, consider yourself tagged.

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