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todayiamadaisyIt is Christmas Eve, and I have the day off, so what better thing to do than a meme?
1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
I've never had egg nog, so hot chocolate by default. Not really the weather for it, though.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Sadly, Santa no longer visits, but when I was little, Santa wrapped his presents and put them in a special Christmas sack at the end of my bed overnight, to be opened first thing in the morning. Presents from other people were wrapped and put under the tree to be opened after lunch.
3. Coloured or white lights?
This year I have a string of tiny, solar-powered coloured LED lights hung about the back verandah. They're not really for Christmas, though, just a summer decoration.
4. Do you hang a mistletoe?
No. I've never known anyone actually do that.
5. When do you put your decorations up?
A week or so before Christmas? More to the point, they get taken down a few days after Christmas (or Christmas night, if my mother is feeling particularly tidy). We aren't really into Christmas decorations.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
We usually do a seafood platter at some point during Christmas, including a quick little stir fry of prawns, scallops, squid and white fish covered in panko mixed with salt, pepper and lemon pepper. I make the same thing during the rest of the year too, but it's only at Christmas that we have all those things together.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
I won a cheque for five dollars in a newspaper's Christmas poetry competition. Take that, TS Eliot.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I learnt about the Easter Bunny first, and extrapolated from that.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No.
10. How do you decorate your tree?
Just sort of... hang things on it until I run out or it looks done? Just random decorations gathered over the years. A couple of strands of coloured beads, a few wooden decorations, a few baubles. Nothing fancy.
This year people at my new job were complaining that we didn't have decorations, making our windows look sad compared to the offices on either side, so I asked my manager in Canberra if I could buy some. We thought we'd best go for a cohesive look for public consumption: a (plastic) tree, lots of silver baubles in different sizes and one box each of small pink and blue baubles as accents. It looks classy. (But not as classy as the insurance brokers next door with their three — three! — real trees sparsely strewn with gingham bows and twine. Show-offs.)
11. Snow - love it or hate it?
This is a very northern hemisphere-centric question, meme. Snow has nothing to do with Christmas. Christmas is the gateway to summer. Tinsel glittering in hard sunlight. People in new t-shirts. Televised yachting.
12. Can you ice skate?
I've never tried, but I'm sure a natural athlete such as myself would be excellent at it. Ha.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
One year I awoke to a boxed set of encyclopaedias with a magenta Malvern Star bicycle perched on the top.
14. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Pavlova. I love pav; I would eat it all year round. But I don't. I make just the one each year. This year: a pav with raspberry syrup marbled through it, which, on the day, I will top with whipped cream, blueberries, raspberries, crushed pistachios and powdered dried peaches.
15. What's the most important things about the holidays?
Togetherness and family and yada yada yada. Also, I get a week off work. :-)
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
The Making of the Hedgehog. I believe this is called chocolate fridge cake in other parts of the world? Although I have just looked up chocolate fridge cake recipes, and they aren't the same. Then again, I also just looked up Australian hedgehog recipes, and they aren't the same as my grandmother's ancient recipe either. I was going to link to one of them, but I'm not going to now I've seen they add condensed milk to it. Condensed milk! In hedgehog! Ugh. (I will make hedgehog for New Year, I think; if I do, I'll put the proper recipe here.)
Anyway, a few days before Christmas, my grandmother would make a batch of hedgehog, which I was allowed to help with. Crushing the Marie biscuits. Beating the egg. Stirring the sauce into the biscuits. After which I was rewarded with a saucerful of hedgehog mix and a teaspoon to eat it with: warm chocolate sauce on crushed biscuits. Yum.
17. What tops your Christmas tree?
It's a gold star with cut-out sections filled with red, like a sort of stained glass effect.
18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
One goes with the other, doesn't it? Receiving a present without giving one feels awful.
19. Favorite Christmas song?
I don't mind a bit of "O Holy Night" or "O Little Town of Bethlehem". Songs that start with O seem to be my jam.
20. Favorite Christmas movie?
I don't really have one. Gremlins?
21. What do you leave for Santa?
Nothing, because I'm not five. When I *was* five, though, I left out a glass of milk and a mince pie (and a carrot for the reindeer).
1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
I've never had egg nog, so hot chocolate by default. Not really the weather for it, though.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Sadly, Santa no longer visits, but when I was little, Santa wrapped his presents and put them in a special Christmas sack at the end of my bed overnight, to be opened first thing in the morning. Presents from other people were wrapped and put under the tree to be opened after lunch.
3. Coloured or white lights?
This year I have a string of tiny, solar-powered coloured LED lights hung about the back verandah. They're not really for Christmas, though, just a summer decoration.
4. Do you hang a mistletoe?
No. I've never known anyone actually do that.
5. When do you put your decorations up?
A week or so before Christmas? More to the point, they get taken down a few days after Christmas (or Christmas night, if my mother is feeling particularly tidy). We aren't really into Christmas decorations.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
We usually do a seafood platter at some point during Christmas, including a quick little stir fry of prawns, scallops, squid and white fish covered in panko mixed with salt, pepper and lemon pepper. I make the same thing during the rest of the year too, but it's only at Christmas that we have all those things together.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
I won a cheque for five dollars in a newspaper's Christmas poetry competition. Take that, TS Eliot.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I learnt about the Easter Bunny first, and extrapolated from that.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No.
10. How do you decorate your tree?
Just sort of... hang things on it until I run out or it looks done? Just random decorations gathered over the years. A couple of strands of coloured beads, a few wooden decorations, a few baubles. Nothing fancy.
This year people at my new job were complaining that we didn't have decorations, making our windows look sad compared to the offices on either side, so I asked my manager in Canberra if I could buy some. We thought we'd best go for a cohesive look for public consumption: a (plastic) tree, lots of silver baubles in different sizes and one box each of small pink and blue baubles as accents. It looks classy. (But not as classy as the insurance brokers next door with their three — three! — real trees sparsely strewn with gingham bows and twine. Show-offs.)
11. Snow - love it or hate it?
This is a very northern hemisphere-centric question, meme. Snow has nothing to do with Christmas. Christmas is the gateway to summer. Tinsel glittering in hard sunlight. People in new t-shirts. Televised yachting.
12. Can you ice skate?
I've never tried, but I'm sure a natural athlete such as myself would be excellent at it. Ha.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
One year I awoke to a boxed set of encyclopaedias with a magenta Malvern Star bicycle perched on the top.
14. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Pavlova. I love pav; I would eat it all year round. But I don't. I make just the one each year. This year: a pav with raspberry syrup marbled through it, which, on the day, I will top with whipped cream, blueberries, raspberries, crushed pistachios and powdered dried peaches.
15. What's the most important things about the holidays?
Togetherness and family and yada yada yada. Also, I get a week off work. :-)
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
The Making of the Hedgehog. I believe this is called chocolate fridge cake in other parts of the world? Although I have just looked up chocolate fridge cake recipes, and they aren't the same. Then again, I also just looked up Australian hedgehog recipes, and they aren't the same as my grandmother's ancient recipe either. I was going to link to one of them, but I'm not going to now I've seen they add condensed milk to it. Condensed milk! In hedgehog! Ugh. (I will make hedgehog for New Year, I think; if I do, I'll put the proper recipe here.)
Anyway, a few days before Christmas, my grandmother would make a batch of hedgehog, which I was allowed to help with. Crushing the Marie biscuits. Beating the egg. Stirring the sauce into the biscuits. After which I was rewarded with a saucerful of hedgehog mix and a teaspoon to eat it with: warm chocolate sauce on crushed biscuits. Yum.
17. What tops your Christmas tree?
It's a gold star with cut-out sections filled with red, like a sort of stained glass effect.
18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
One goes with the other, doesn't it? Receiving a present without giving one feels awful.
19. Favorite Christmas song?
I don't mind a bit of "O Holy Night" or "O Little Town of Bethlehem". Songs that start with O seem to be my jam.
20. Favorite Christmas movie?
I don't really have one. Gremlins?
21. What do you leave for Santa?
Nothing, because I'm not five. When I *was* five, though, I left out a glass of milk and a mince pie (and a carrot for the reindeer).