Moss Green
Dec. 12th, 2011 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyDon't do drugs. Apart from anything else, you just don't know where they've been.
Also, I kind of admire this guy. That's commitment. What killjoy relatives, ringing the paper.
A Christmas meme:
1. Eggnog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot chocolate, I suppose. It's not really the weather for either.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa, back in the day, would wrap presents and put them on the end of my bed in a pillow case decorated with a hobby-text picture of two little girls doing ballet in green and red tutus. These were opened when I woke up. Presents from family were wrapped and put under the tree to be opened after lunch. These days, my mother and I open a present each when we first meet on Christmas morning; the rest of the presents are under the tree for later.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Neither. My family has never done lights inside or out. I have a little string of lights for my little tree, but if I do remember to put it around the tree, I usually forget to turn it on.
4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No. I don't think I've ever seen any other than on TV.
5. When do you put your decorations up?
Christmas Eve? Maybe a day or so earlier. More to the point, when do I take them down? My mother would have them down by dinner time on Christmas Day. I am much more lax, so I give them till Boxing Day at least.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Pavlova. Oh, I've just read question 15. This is meant to be a non-dessert food. Okay then, shellfish.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
Perhaps not favourite, but most amusing. My grandfather wasn't a religious man; while my grandmother made the rest of the family to go Mass on Sunday, he stayed at home and looked after the roast. To please my grandmother, though, he came to Mass on two days each year: their wedding anniversary and Christmas. One year, we went to the 10pm vigil Mass on Christmas Eve at our tiny country church. He stopped to chat to someone while the rest of us went inside to the family pew. Just before ten, there was a rumble of thunder; the church lights flickered and the back door blew open to let in my grandfather, looking bemused by his dramatic entrance.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I saw the Easter Bunny and worked it out from there.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No. My family is all about delayed gratification. Any whining that you couldn't wait just meant you'd have to wait longer.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
I just sort of throw things at it and they stick. Tinsel and baubles and whatnot.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Would be delighted by it, but it's unlikely at Christmas.
12. Can you ice skate?
Never tried, but I'm going to say no.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
One year, my mother's partner, John, was building a garden shed in his garden shed. I spent weeks playing in the timber frame and wondering why he wanted another garden shed when he already had one. When we got home from Mass on Christmas Eve, there was a crane lowering the 'garden shed' into our garden as my cubby house. It was painted yellow with a blue door; inside it was wallpapered with horse wallpaper and John had also made a little table and two little chairs for it and my mother had made me an embroidered tablecloth and some curtains. (I still have the table in my living room; the cubby itself is with John's grandchildren.)
Also, Castle Greyskull.
14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you?
That would be the holiday nature of the holiday. No work. Especially at my office, where the week between Christmas and New Year isn't taken from our annual leave. It's a bonus holiday!
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Pavlova, as in question 6.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
The way the news suddenly pretends we care about yachting. (Er, this would be because of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race that starts on Boxing Day, which gets an exorbitant amount of coverage courtesy of happening during a slow news period.)
17. What tops your tree?
A star.
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving?
Both, I suppose. It's all a big circle of gifts.
19. Candy Canes?
I've never really seen the point.
20. Favourite Christmas movie?
I don't really have one.
21. Saddest Christmas song?
The one about Santa not making it to Darwin because of the cyclone. Other categories: the most hateful is The Little Drummer Boy. Most menacing: The Carol of the Bells.
22. What is your favorite Christmas song?
Oh Holy Night.
Also, I kind of admire this guy. That's commitment. What killjoy relatives, ringing the paper.
A Christmas meme:
1. Eggnog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot chocolate, I suppose. It's not really the weather for either.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa, back in the day, would wrap presents and put them on the end of my bed in a pillow case decorated with a hobby-text picture of two little girls doing ballet in green and red tutus. These were opened when I woke up. Presents from family were wrapped and put under the tree to be opened after lunch. These days, my mother and I open a present each when we first meet on Christmas morning; the rest of the presents are under the tree for later.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Neither. My family has never done lights inside or out. I have a little string of lights for my little tree, but if I do remember to put it around the tree, I usually forget to turn it on.
4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No. I don't think I've ever seen any other than on TV.
5. When do you put your decorations up?
Christmas Eve? Maybe a day or so earlier. More to the point, when do I take them down? My mother would have them down by dinner time on Christmas Day. I am much more lax, so I give them till Boxing Day at least.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Pavlova. Oh, I've just read question 15. This is meant to be a non-dessert food. Okay then, shellfish.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
Perhaps not favourite, but most amusing. My grandfather wasn't a religious man; while my grandmother made the rest of the family to go Mass on Sunday, he stayed at home and looked after the roast. To please my grandmother, though, he came to Mass on two days each year: their wedding anniversary and Christmas. One year, we went to the 10pm vigil Mass on Christmas Eve at our tiny country church. He stopped to chat to someone while the rest of us went inside to the family pew. Just before ten, there was a rumble of thunder; the church lights flickered and the back door blew open to let in my grandfather, looking bemused by his dramatic entrance.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I saw the Easter Bunny and worked it out from there.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No. My family is all about delayed gratification. Any whining that you couldn't wait just meant you'd have to wait longer.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
I just sort of throw things at it and they stick. Tinsel and baubles and whatnot.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Would be delighted by it, but it's unlikely at Christmas.
12. Can you ice skate?
Never tried, but I'm going to say no.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
One year, my mother's partner, John, was building a garden shed in his garden shed. I spent weeks playing in the timber frame and wondering why he wanted another garden shed when he already had one. When we got home from Mass on Christmas Eve, there was a crane lowering the 'garden shed' into our garden as my cubby house. It was painted yellow with a blue door; inside it was wallpapered with horse wallpaper and John had also made a little table and two little chairs for it and my mother had made me an embroidered tablecloth and some curtains. (I still have the table in my living room; the cubby itself is with John's grandchildren.)
Also, Castle Greyskull.
14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you?
That would be the holiday nature of the holiday. No work. Especially at my office, where the week between Christmas and New Year isn't taken from our annual leave. It's a bonus holiday!
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Pavlova, as in question 6.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
The way the news suddenly pretends we care about yachting. (Er, this would be because of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race that starts on Boxing Day, which gets an exorbitant amount of coverage courtesy of happening during a slow news period.)
17. What tops your tree?
A star.
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving?
Both, I suppose. It's all a big circle of gifts.
19. Candy Canes?
I've never really seen the point.
20. Favourite Christmas movie?
I don't really have one.
21. Saddest Christmas song?
The one about Santa not making it to Darwin because of the cyclone. Other categories: the most hateful is The Little Drummer Boy. Most menacing: The Carol of the Bells.
22. What is your favorite Christmas song?
Oh Holy Night.