10 for Christmas

Purloined from Lifenut, who poached it from Clover Lane, who, ostensibly, conjured it up right out of her own brain. And here I thought meme’s were plucked from the Great Meme Tree in the middle of the vast Forest of Self-Absorption!

 

If you post your own answers on your blog, please share! It’s what life’s all about.

 

1. Best childhood gift from Santa: You know, it’s really funny. We “did” Santa as kids, but I have no recollection whatsoever of anything he ever brought. He just wasn’t a big deal to me, apparently. My older sister, on the other hand, was permanently scarred when she was told he wasn’t real, and went on to categorically deny the truth until well into her tweens in spite of being the brunt of much fun-making on the part of her classmates. She then went on a tri-state killing spree for 6 months at the age of 14.

 

Okay, so the last sentence is a slight stretching of the truth. But only slightly.

 

This is a long way of saying that I don’t remember anything Santa brought me, but the year I received a Steiff bunny from my own loving mother pretty much set the bar for gift-receiving euphoria from that moment forward.

 

2. Best childhood memories: Helping my dad shingle the garage roof to our new home on Christmas Eve at 10pm in the freezing cold when I was in the 5th grade. I, along with my older brother, was handing him shingles as we discussed JUST HOW COLD we were. My father said “my nose is running like a faucet!” and my brother and I both thought that was really, really funny, given that my father did not normally discuss his orificial conditions.

 

Okay, so it’s probably not the “best” memory. But it certainly was memorable. And a telling clue to the fact that I come by my obsessive habits honestly.

 

3. Favorite Christmas cookies: Gingerman guys. AKA “gingerbread men”, but Gabriel re-dubbed them at the age of four and I think it’s a vast improvement.

 

4. Icky Christmas memory: Helping my dad shingle the garage roof….wait…

 

5. It’s not Christmas without: Visiting family!! We lived on the east coast for two years once upon a time and Christmas was so very, very…quiet…and lonely…and boring!!…without family to descend upon or upon which to descend.

 

6. Our Church Service: Sadly, our church doesn’t really have a Christmas church service. In fact, we hardly even sing any Christmas carols at Sunday services during the advent season, which is a real beef I have. There’s an evening Christmas dinner, but we don’t usually attend those because trying to seat our brood and actually get any food on our plates is an exercise in real exhaustion.

 

7. Christmas Pet Peeve: The pink Joseph:

 

Or the 5,000 year old Joseph:

 

 

Why, people? Just….why?

 

8. Favorite Christmas CD: Whoa Nelly that’s a toughie. I’ve gotta have Bing at Christmastime, and there’s an album from my childhood by Tennessee Ernie Ford that tickles me beyond all reason, but the most fabulous modern Christmas album that simply MUST be played in order for me to get in the mood is Relient K.  By turns traditional, hilarious, poignant, punky, and did I mention hilarious? you will not regret purchasing it.

 

9. Real or Fake: Why, they’re real, of course!! Oh…you mean the tree. Ahem. Sorry. Well, it’s real too! This year it was REALLY DEAD as soon as we put it up, so we went out and got a REALLY REAL second tree, and it’s the most beautiful thing ever.

 

10. I spend Christmas Eve: During the day, I spend it with my family, hysterical with laughter and eating and drinking and singing Happy Birthday to baby Jesus. In the evening, I spend it wrapping the 1,001 presents I thought I had already wrapped, stuffing stockings alongside My Beloved, and breathing deep breaths of delicious, oh, so very delicious, anticipation.

 

Because anticipation? It’s the best part.