What Are Your Favorite Christmas Things?

My husband and I are getting ready to take a mini-vacation, just the two of us, to celebrate our 14th anniversary (which is actually on December 18). We haven’t had a trip like this since the boys were just little, so we’re very excited and very appreciative of his parents’ willingness to stay with the kids and give us the opportunity to spend some time alone together. I've never left Boo overnight like this, so I'm kind of nervous, and the boys are a little nervous to have us leave, too, but we are looking forward to this trip. One of the perks of my husband's doing so much traveling with the Army is that, since he flew commercial airlines, he was allowed to collect the frequent flyer miles, so we got very cheap tickets. I’m sure I’ll have pictures from our trip when I get back to blogging again, but the blog will be quiet for a few days.

In the meantime, I thought I would leave something fun and hopefully interesting. This has been popping up around the blog world this week. I lifted mine off my friend Heather because she had some extra questions from an e-mail version her friend had sent her. I’ve compiled them together and answered the ones I want to answer. Blogging slump averted for today!

Christmas Meme

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Usually wrapping paper, but sometimes it’s just easier to use a gift bag when the gift is a strange size. I’m not the best wrapper in the world, and I usually don’t remember to put bows on the packages, either, but they are at least wrapped, even if they aren’t up to Martha Stewart craftiness snuff- far, far from it.

2. Real tree or artificial? Real. We love the pine smell and the fun of going to pick one out. There is a cut-it-yourself tree farm near our house, but the last few times we went there we always ended up with too big a tree. It’s hard to judge when you’re standing out there under the open sky, and the tree looks much smaller until you get it into your living room! Think Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation…..The last couple of years we've gone to a lot where the trees are already cut. They have a humongous inflated snowman and the kids love going there.

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the first weekend of December. My husband usually has Army Reserve drill that weekend, and we get the tree when he comes home Sunday evening. The tree may not be decorated that night, but within a day or two it is.

4. When do you take the tree down? The day after Christmas if I can get away with it! I love the buildup to Christmas, but once the gifts are opened, I’m ready to have my house back to normal. I like to have the tree down within a few days of Christmas. I once went to a birthday party for one of the boys' friends and that family still had their tree up in February! That was so depressing to me, let me tell you. I'm climbing the walls at my house if it is still up by New Year's Eve.

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes! So do the boys, but my husband doesn’t.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? There were lots. But two I remember right off the top of my head at this moment were a play kitchen one year that I really liked and a stereo (with a record player - anyone remember those??) one year when I was older.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. A couple of years ago, my mother-in-law gave me the Willow Tree nativity set and it’s on our mantle, having replaced the one we had used for years that I didn’t like as well. I’d like to add pieces to this set, but have too many other things I need to buy this year, so that will have to wait.

8. Hardest person to buy for? My parents and my husband’s parents. We often give gift cards to places we know they like, so they can pick out what they would like or eat someplace special.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My kids.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I really don’t remember a worst gift. As a mom, however, I hate how any toy the kids get is so hard-wired into the box you about need a screwdriver and some dynamite to get it out. And, forgetting the batteries that are not included is not fun, either.

But, since you weren't asking, you know what I told my husband would be my dream gift? I wish I had someone who could come in and tell me how to decorate our home with those special added touches and matching furniture and organize our storage of stuff (especially kid stuff) in a way that would be lovely yet would not break our budget. That would be nice. I'm totally dreaming, but it would be nice!

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail. I’ve got my letter written and I’m waiting on our picture – should have it this week, I hope. I love hearing from friends and family and seeing the pictures and hearing their updates.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story – funny! My husband likes Christmas Vacation. We all like Charlie Brown, too.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I hate, hate, hate to shop. But I try to get it done early, because I hate dealing with the crowds more. I didn’t make it this year. I’ve got the main things for the boys, but I still have to get everyone else’s. Where has the time gone?

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Not that I can recall.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Cinnamon pecans, cake, cookies, chocolate………..This is why losing weight is so hard.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear. I don’t like the colored lights anywhere, though one year I did relent and let my husband put them in the branches of the palm trees out front and had to admit they didn’t look too terrible. This year, there was a light out on the tree, and M found a blue bulb to replace it with, and that one blue light among all the sparkly clear ones drove me nuts. I finally said something and he offered to find a clear one. Lovely child.

17. Favorite Christmas song? O, Come, O Come, Emmanuel; Oh Holy Night; Joy to the World; What Child is This

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Only if I sing the Rudolph song.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? One the night before, everything else in the morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Busyness and cranky people in the stores and letting myself get overwhelmed when I really would rather make it a more worshipful event. The temptation to buy more stuff rather than keep it simple for the kids is immense, but I don’t want Christmas to only be about the ‘stuff,’ and I want my kids to remember the wonder of the fact that Jesus is the Word made flesh and has come to save His people from their sins.

23. What I love most about Christmas? The music and lights and sparkle, and the wonder of contemplating God’s amazing grace. I love reading the Christmas story to the children and reminding myself. My favorite is the account of the wise men and how they saw His star in the east and came to worship Him, and I cry every time I read about Simeon in the temple praising God because he had seen the Messiah.

24. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? I have to choose??

25. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? We don’t really do the Santa thing. The kids have stockings, but they know it comes from us, and if there are presents too big to wrap they will appear under the tree Christmas morning. This year all the presents are staying put away until Christmas Eve because Boo is into everything, and I want to have a peaceful Christmas season!

26. Do you hang mistletoe? I have a fake mistletoe ball, but I don’t always hang it.

27. When do you put up your decorations? Same day as our tree, whenever that is. I have to mention here that I am decorationally challenged. I don't seem to have the gene necessary to be able to look at a room and know how to put those pretty little touches in just the right places to make our home look lovely. Our home is functional and comfortable, but I'm something of a failure when it comes to knowing how to accessorize. I do marginally better with Christmas decorations, but only marginally.

28. What is your favorite holiday dish? Acorn squash casserole, pumpkin pie, and my coconut cake, but I probably won’t be making that one this year – way too rich and fattening when I’m trying to lose 15 more pounds.

28. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? One year we were waiting for Grandma and Grandad to arrive, and my mom had made a crockpot filled with chili cheese dip and other goodies were waiting so we could eat when they came in. My brother and I kept wandering into the kitchen and nibbling on that cheese dip and chips. We loved it. My other one isn’t so much a memory as a story I’ve been told for years since I don’t actually remember it. When I was about 5 and my brother was about 2, my parents have told me that at about 11pm I came dragging my sleepy brother into the living room thinking surely it must be Christmas morning. After all, I’d been asleep and was now awake, so it must be time, right? They hadn’t even finished putting out the presents and had to put us back to bed. For some reason, it has always stuck in my mind that this was the year I got that play kitchen I mentioned on another question, but I may just be lumping those two memories together.

My favorite memory as an adult is that we were married one week before Christmas, December 18, 1993. Beautiful wedding, and wonderful husband!

29. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? We didn’t really do much with Santa growing up. I knew the stories, but never thought he was for real. We decided not to do much with Santa with our kids, either, though people seem to think we are weird because of it. Jesus is just so important we didn’t like mixing Santa into our Christmas traditions, at least not to lie to the kids and make them think he was real only to disappoint them later when someone told them he wasn’t. In fact, I hated the movie The Polar Express. It is just depressing to me that Santa is all there is to Christmas for so many people, and that is what it is becoming as Christmas becomes more and more secularized. The wonder of Christ’s Incarnation is so precious and fills me with such awe, that that is where I want my focus to be, so we pretty much ignore Santa.

30. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Not usually, but the kids do.

31. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? White lights, silver star on top, silver balls, my favorite ornaments near the top and the kids’ ornaments near the bottom.

32. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it! I only got to live in it one year, and loved that quiet sound it makes when it falls at night and how the whole world seems to glow on a snowy night. I did NOT like driving in it – especially since it was my first experience driving in it and my husband was half a world away in Bosnia that year.

33. Can you ice skate? Barely, but the last time was a long time ago in an ice rink. I would probably break something if I were to try it in the open on a pond or something.

34. Do you remember your most favorite gift? Getting married to my best friend and celebrating that every December.

35. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Jesus and thinking about and remembering His great love and mercy and grace.

36. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Coconut cake (made the way my mom taught me!)

37. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We have a birthday cake for Jesus with little angel candle holders my mom gave me that we had used when we were little.

38. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Giving.

39. Candy Canes? Not my favorite, but melted in a cup of hot cocoa they are wonderful! Now that I’ve learned to like coffee, I may try them melted in coffee this year, too.

40. Do you feel Christmas is too commercialized? Absolutely. No question about it.