Dec 02 2008
A Christmas Tag
I have plenty of other things to blog about today, but Christmas is obviously first and foremost. I am so excited about the season and love the way my house looks all decorated, the smell of my gingerbread candles burning nearly all day long and the foods, cookies and treats I am already beginning to cook and bake. So why in the world shouldn’t I do a Christmas meme too.
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? wrapping paper for most gifts - often if items go together I will place them in a gift bag. Also I don’t use gift bags too often for our family, but for neighbors and friends I do.
2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial. I cannot possibly deal with the mess a real tree makes, plus deal with five kids and four pets and everything else at holiday time. Plus I love my pre-lit tree - so much less work and looks simply beautiful.
3. When do you put up the tree? I wound up putting it up early this year because of Thanksgiving and my brother’s wedding and activities relating. But I normally put it up either Thanksgiving night or the day after Thanksgiving when all the rest of you nuts are out during Black Friday 
4. When do you take the tree down? Usually sometime during the first week of December. Sometimes the second week. The ornaments often come off first and then a day or so later we might put the tree away. We’re slow, but nobody minds.
5. Do you like eggnog? I really don’t. I don’t know if I’ve just never had a good batch, or what. But I strongly dislike it.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? I can think of a lot, but honestly I loved getting a keyboard as a teenager. I used it a lot. It was WAY better than my piano. LOL
7. Hardest person to buy for? Ed, my step dad. He has everything.
8. Easiest person to buy for? My four daughter’s are the easiest to buy for. My son is often a bit more challenging.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. I collect Boyd’s bears (or rather I used to, not much anymore) and last year as a gift, Mike bought me the Boyd’s bears nativity set and accessories. I absolutely love it and it is on our fireplace this year. Looks so great. We did have one before but I didn’t like it.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail! Do people actually consider “emails” their Christmas cards?
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?a hideous pink faux snake skin date book that had a calendar that was two years old. Yeah. (it wasn’t even re-giftable) LOL
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Holiday in Your Heart and the kids and I watched Christmas Shoes (Rob Lowe) a couple months ago and we loved it.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? The day after Christmas the previous year. No seriously. I try to assign a child to each month but then also pick things up we find on clearance and on sale we know they would like. They all have outfits they’ll get and those were purchased six months ago (yes, we made sure they would still fit!)
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? yes I have, and I am actually proud of it. There are some gifts you get that you know the person didn’t spend a great deal of time thinking about. (see worst gift above). If you cannot use it, why not pass it along to someone else? I don’t do it with anything handmade, personalized or “special”.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Gingerbread
16. Lights on the tree? Clear glass lights are preferred - and I have a smaller tree all to myself that I get to put my clear lights on. The family tree has colored lights. The only one who truly loves the colored lights is Mike. LOL The kids all LOVE my clear glass light tree.
17. Favorite Christmas song? Holiday in Your Heart and All I Want For Christmas Is You (I Love the song but it does depend on who is singing it)
18. Travel at Christmas or stay at home? Stay.At.Home. - no traveling for me, thank you.
19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer’s? Yes. And it’s DONDER people, not DONNER.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We have the option of both and we change it out each year. This year it happens to be an angel on the main tree and a blue, white and silver Santa on my clear light tree.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Well, we give the children three things on Christmas eve. A pair of pajamas (for the perfect pictures Christmas morn in cute new pj’s), an ornament to hang on the tree and we change it up each year as to what the other item is. We have done Webkinz, a book, a movie, a CD, a special bath set, etc. EVERYTHING else is opened Christmas day.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Just the time crunch to be honest. I am one of those weirdo’s who wishes Christmas started back in October because I would love to lengthen the season and really enjoy the sights and sounds while still being able to get shopping done, etc.
23. What theme or color are you using? I’ve explained my two trees. So the one is multi-colored with a stronger emphasis on green and red. My sweet junior tree is beautiful in all it’s silver, white and blue glory. The area the small tree goes in is all white, blue and silver from the tree skirt to the decorations on the shelves above. The rest of the house is pretty much red/green. Outside we are doing all clear lights this year. It looks so pretty.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Everyone hear loves ham, but I usually request a small turkey too, because I don’t eat ham very often.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? an iPod Touch. (probably won’t happen)
26. Do you have a favorite ornament, what? It’s a toss up between a few that my children have made, and a few on my special tree.
27. Gifts from Santa? Wrapped or Unwrapped? Santa doesn’t wrap his gifts. (look at pictures when he pulls the toys out of his sack - unwrapped) - so we put them under the tree unwrapped. We do a hang tag with the child’s name on it in big bold block letters.
I’m not tagging anyone in particular but if you do this meme or HAVE done this meme, please leave me a comment so I can come read your answers 
