Holiday/Christmas Meme

I saw this little Meme over on No Whey Momma, and thought I'd go ahead and fill it out too.


Eggnog or Hot Chocolate?
I'd choose Hot Chocolate if I'm choosing between the two.

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree?
Hrm... if they are big gifts like the scooter Santa got the B this year for christmas, it is left unwrapped with a big bow under the tree. All other presents are wrapped. P.S.- In my case Santa still wraps my presents and leaves them under my parents' tree and then my Papa drives them over on Christmas morning and says, "Look what Santa left at OUR HOUSE!" Yep... there is absolutely NO, and I mean NO disbelieving or discussing the possible non-existence of Santa Clause in my parents house... otherwise "Santa" gets all cranky and threatens to not bring any presents next year. Serious.


Colored lights on a tree or white?
I have to do the white lights. I can't do the colored ones. I'm extremely OCD about my tree.. it is very hard for me to give up my creative dictatorship and allow the hubs and B to help decorate. For the record, my father in law uses colored lights that both blink and play music and it's just as obnoxious as you're thinking it is. ZOMG... I cringe every time we have to go over there for christmas.

Do you hang mistletoe?
no... mostly because I never think to.

When do you put your decorations up?
After Thanksgiving... and after that it just depends on what I get done and when. For example... I only got my outside decorations up last week. I only got them plugged in like... 2 days ago????

What is your favorite holiday dish?
Papa makes gumbo every year around this time.... mmmmmmmmmmmmm.... gumboooooo.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Growing up- NEVER. Remember the thing about Santa? Yeah... there were no presents to be seen or found (not for lack of trying) until Christmas morning. Now that I'm older and we have to juggle our visits between the two families, we occasionally will do christmas presents on christmas eve with my parents or with Tim's family. However, in the case of my family if we have to christmas eve all presents are address from "Mom and Papa" and then he still brings Santa's presents on christmas morning.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
Remember my OCD? Yeah... I decorate it the way I like it. Which is fairly traditional. Reds, greens, whites, and golds. You will never see purple, blue, pink, or other spring related colors on my tree. Most of my ornaments follow the woodland type theme with lots of pine cones and red berries and such like. Also, all ornaments are shatter proof. This is because when my cousin was a baby she bit into one of those shiny glass christmas balls and had to have stitches and now that i have my own babies, I'm terrified of living that experience with front row seats.

Snow. Love it or hate it?
How bout... Snow- only seen it ONE time in my entire life. I live in South Alabama... it doesn't snow here except the one off the wall time we had a freak snow storm in the middle of march and we all got to miss school for a day so we could hurry up and play in the snow before it melted.

Can you ice skate?
Sometimes... certainly not well by any means.


What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Two Words: DIVINITY FUDGE. Nom nom nom nom... My grandmother used to make it every year. LOVE IT. CRAVE IT!

What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Picking out a Tree. Growing up, Momma and Papa never did the fake tree thing. It was always a big trip out into one of the local tree farms to pick out the "perfect" tree. But first there was the week before when Papa would tease about how we weren't going to get a tree this year, or that he was just going to Charlie Brown it and chop down some sad looking specimen from the woods behind our house.

Then when he'd finally decide to go get the tree, he'd load us all up in the back of his truck and off we'd go to the tree farm, where we would then spend hours in the cold picking out the tree. Why? Because I come by OCD honest. The tree had to look just right from every angle, even though no one ever came over to the house and bent over sideways at the waist and cocked their head up to the side and looked at the tree that way... it still needed to look okay from that angle. No holes or gaps, no twisty trunks, etc. Then when he'd fine one, he would station one of us kids to stand next to the tree and "save" it while he looked around some more.

The trip usually ended up with you standing by a tree by yourself throwing sticks in the air until the rest of the family found you. It was AWESOME! EVERY YEAR! Then we'd bring the tree home and it would never fit in the stand and it was always leaning and we'd have to wait for three hours while Papa fussed and wrestled with the tree and the stand to get the tree right and when it was finally up... low and behold there'd be a hole in it. Which is why Mom and papa's tree is always in the corner. Then there was the decorating.... but that's another story all on it's own.

Candy Canes. Yum or yuck?
I love candy canes. But only the peppermint kind. I don't like all the fruity sour kind they have now although the hubs loves em.