christmas to me

I’m participating in Holidailies this year and made a solemn pledge to update my journal every day from December 7 to January 7.  It’s more difficult than I thought it would be because even though I have lots to say, most of it is best left off the internet.  So since it’s Christmastime I’m going to answer some questions about the holidays.  I got the questions from Sherry and if you make it through to the end you will know, in excruciating detail, how I feel about this time of year. 

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? I don’t like either.  Though at Dunkin Donuts they will make you a half coffee, half hot chocolate if you ask.  It’s nice because the hot chocolate there is thick like drinking melted down candy bars, so the coffee dilutes it and calms it down and makes it less HI YOU’RE DRINKING PURE SUGAR!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa does not wrap presents, ELVES wrap presents.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Colored.  And I wish I could get my hands on a strand of those huge fuckers I remember from my childhood that were the size of a baby’s arm and really gave off lots of holiday sparkle.  I think we had a strand with fifty lights total on our tree each year, and the whole corner of the living room where we had the trees set up would blaze like a house on fire.  My tree is currently wrapped in SIX-HUNDRED tiny colored lights and it’s still not enough to get a decent radiant glow.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.  It’s poison.

5. When do you put your decorations up? I would put them up in October if it were up to me because I love Christmas and as soon as the air turns cold, I’m thinking about sparkly ornaments and twinkly colored lights.  But since we get a real tree, and Eli won’t even talk about Christmas until Thanksgiving is over, we usually wait until the beginning of December.  Our first year together we bought a fake tree for twenty bucks and put it up mid-November.  By the time Christmas rolled around, the ornaments were dusty and the tree, after being knocked down once each week for so many weeks by the cat, was such a wreck I wanted it to burn down.  Though the delicate irony here is that we could’ve decorated it with lit candles and it still wouldn’t have burned down because it was fireproof!

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? We have Chinese Food on Christmas Eve.  So from that I like boneless spare ribs, lobster sauce, fried rice, lo mein, egg rolls, chicken terriyaki and beef broccoli.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? This isn’t my favorite, but it’s my most vivid.  I would get so sleep deprived during the holidays because of the magic of the season, the excitement of Santa and the promise of NEW TOYS, that I would start imagining strange things, like that the ornaments came to life after we went to sleep.  One night I got up and I was standing in front of the tree staring at a cuckoo bird ornament when I saw something move inside the tree. I ran back to bed totally freaked the fuck out, convinced that tiny elves lived inside the tree and only came out at night. What I actually must have seen was the warped reflection of my own stupid face off a big shiny ornament.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I learned early on that Santa is not good about quality control because I was plenty bad and yet every year I still made it onto the good list and got lots of presents.  That was the beginning of my doubt.  I think I learned the whole truth when I realized we didn’t have a chimney and my parents always kept the doors locked.  And Santa used the same wrapping paper my mom did.  And had the same handwriting.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? All gifts are opened around here on Christmas eve.  Except for when we lived in the Midwest and Eli and I spent one Christmas out there alone without our families.  Everyone sent us packages of presents and that year we had two solid weeks of Christmas.  We opened everything each night as it arrived in the mail.  I was playing Tekken on our new Playstation, a Christmas present from my parents, while talking to my mom on the phone a week before Christmas, asking her what on earth could be in that big box she sent us all wrapped up.

10. What kind of cookies does Santa get set out for him? I don’t remember leaving cookies, though I’m sure we did.  I remember being only concerned for the reindeer because of their workload, and always made sure to leave them carrots.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I love it when I don’t have to commute in it.  The highways I used to drive to work become hopelessly clogged the second a flake of snow hits the ground.  One morning last year I spent 4 hours in my car trying to get to work after a huge surprise snow squall hit.  The highways were paralyzed, the snow that fell melted on the roads and turned to ice and it was a horror show of vehicles out of control and sliding around helplessly.  I watched in my rear view mirror as an eighteen wheeler slid toward me and then jack-knifed into a guard rail behind me.  Luckily the guard rail stopped it from slamming into my trunk because I was just sitting still and had nowhere to go.

12. Can you ice skate?  No.  But I can rollerskate like disco’s bitch.  Sadly my expertise is for pavement and wood surfaces, and I never learned how to work my magic on the ice.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I got a Pac Man mini arcade game that looked like the real ones you see in the arcade, except lap-sized.  My brother got Donkey Kong and we played the shit out of them until our fingers blistered and we got eye strain headaches.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? The solemn observation and celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Ha, just kidding.  I’m all about tradition when it comes to the Holidays and my parents did a great job of making the holidays special in our house when we were growing up.  Certain smells and music and events that happen around the holidays bring back years of memories and now it’s my turn to create that kind of holiday feeling for my son to remember.  One of my favorite things this time of the year is getting out the box of Christmas tree decorations, sitting on the floor in front of the tree with Eli and going through our ornaments together.  Our parents gave each of us our childhood ornaments when we were married and then we have a bunch from our last decade together.  I have a ceramic bear with the words PAPER GIRL written on the stomach that one of my paper route customers gave me when I was 12.  I didn’t have a name back then, I was known around the neighborhood by my occupation: PAPER GIRL.  I have a special ornament from Eli’s mom that she gave to us our first year together in our own apartment.  It’s a hallmark ball ornament with the date on it (1995) and written along the bottom it says Baby’s First Christmas.  It was supposed to be a special reminder of our very first Christmas out on our own together, but she didn’t read it closely and missed the part about the Baby. It’s so funny to see it there on the tree, our very first ornament as a couple, knowing that in 1995 we weren’t even married yet and still almost ten years from having our first baby.  I treasure that dear, ridiculous ornament.  We also have six different Baby’s First Christmas-2004 ornaments that we received last year and that is the joke about having a baby during the holiday season.  Everyone wanted to mark the special occasion by giving us a special ornament, and if we ever have another child, and it is born in the summer, he or she is going to wonder, where the fuck are all my first baby christmas ornaments?

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? I like the candy that my grandmother used to make that is peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate.  I saw them once in a Cracker Barrel country store, I think they were called Bucky Balls.  Outrageous.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?  Growing up, we always listened to the same Brenda Lee Christmas tape (on 8 Track!) and a few years ago I was able to find the exact recording on CD.  I can still hear the click of the 8 track switching in my head between songs.

17. What tops your tree? Nothing because we usually get one so tall that there’s no room for a topper.  I cram a big glittery stuffed santa head up on the top branches near the ceiling.

18. Which do you prefer Giving or Receiving? I love giving, and I get so worked up when I know I’ve gotten the perfect gift for someone that I can feel myself choking back the vomit in my throat while they’re opening it.  I got my dad Red Sox tickets once and I couldn’t eat all day I was so excited.  I also love receiving, but I get overwhelmed because my family is generous to the point of stimulation overload at Christmas.  When I was little I could whine and beg for toys during the year until my throat bled, to no avail.  But on Christmas it was like the toy store of my dreams exploded in our living room and it was sometimes too much to handle.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Carol? Jingle Bell Rock

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? I like to look at candy canes, as they are pleasing to the eye, but I hate eating hard candy.  I don’t like lollipops, tic tacs, lifesavers, or jolly ranchers.  I hate sucking on sugar.  If candy canes were made of gum I would like them.

Comments

[katie]

Those peanut butter balls are called Buckeyes. They are the unofficial state treat of Ohio. I make them three times a year!

[sherry]

That was fun to read. I also really like the new look!

[April]

I had alot of fun reading this !

I make my own hot chocolate.

Yup, I am a control freak like that.