{Tiny Wings}

Thank goodness for these things! Thanks once again to Sophia on 2peas for this!

1. Colored lights or white lights on your house or not at all? If we put them up, they are white ones. The past few years, though, Mike has snuck some blue lights out there. Not real keen on those.
2. Hot chocolate or Egg Nog? As the Flynns call it: “Nug”. Spiked Egg Nug, of course.
3. What’s your favorite holiday dish? This must be a trick question. Does “Christmas Cookies” suffice? Too much good food, in general.
4. Does Santa wrap the presents or just sit them under the tree? You mean they don’t have to be wrapped?? I’ve never heard of such a practice. They’ve GOT to be wrapped!
5. Do you hang mistletoe? Yup. I love finding “victims”, too!
6. When do you put up your decorations? Usually the day after Thanksgiving (with the exception of the tree, which happens after the first week of December). This year, decorations are a little late in coming out. That’s on the agenda for tonight.
7. What’s your favorite holiday tradition? Again, so hard to choose. There are many. The most annoying (but I’d miss it if it didn’t occur) is my mother surprise attacking me with the song “We Need a Little Christmas”. Hate that song. Love the tradition.
8. What’s on the top of your tree? An angel.
9. Do you have a nativity displayed through the holidays? Yes, and a very special one. It it a ceramic one painted by my mother for my grandma. Grandma gave it to me after I got married, and it’s precious to me.
10.Candy Canes, traditional or flavored?Or Chocolate Covered Cherries? Peppermint canes only in hot chocolate. Otherwise, I guess the chocolate covered cherries.
11.What’s your favorite holiday goodie to make and share? My favorite thing to make and share is our annual Christmas card. Always an exercise in creativity, and seems to be much appreciated by many people.
12.What’s your favorite Christmas song? Traditional = O Holy Night. Contemporary = DMB’s A Christmas Song.
13.When did you learn the truth about the “magic” of Christmas? Oh geez. I don’t even remember. I don’t remember being terribly crushed by the truth, though.
14.Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We open gifts from my parents and sister on Christmas eve.
15.Is there a special ornament or Christmas decoration that you wouldn’t feel like Christmas without? Again, hard to choose. My mom had the tradition of getting us a new ornament every year, so there are many with “stories” attached. The one I love to tell, however, is the one about the pom-pom bunny that I beat out several other children for at my Tot Time Breakfast with Santa. Every time I tell the story, my kids groan. Love that!
16.Do you take neighbor gifts/treats to anyone, everyone, a select few? We have neighbors?? No, we don’t do this. But we used to in our old neighborhood, where everyone was close.
17.Is your big meal on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning or Christmas afternoon? Christmas afternoon, with the Flynns.
18.How do you decorate your tree? It’s very eclectic. All of my childhood ornaments. The kids ornaments. Beads, pearls, bows, white lights.
19.Snow? Love it? Dread it? Tolerate it? I used to love it, but now I realize that I much prefer sitting in the hot sun, poolside, in my bikini with a margarita in hand. Can’t exactly do that with snow on the ground.
20.Do you remember a favorite gift? I can still remember favorite gifts from when I was a child! So many memories. I guess Rover, a stuffed blue and white dog, would go down as one of my all time faves. He came from my Dad, and supposedly “jumped into the cart” at Gimbels. Of course, I immediately busted Dad on his story . . . because Gimbels didn’t have shopping carts. LOL. I must have been 5 that Christmas.
21.Do you have a family get-together during the holidays with extended family? Christmas Eve is with my family, Day is with Mike’s. We used to go to both places on both days, but once we had kids that became too much. So that was the solution.
22.What’s the most important thing that you must do each Christmas season? Mike would answer “Watch ‘Home Alone’ no less than a dozen times.” LOL. I’d probably have to say driving around and looking at Christmas lights. Or play Christmas carols on the piano. There are a lot of ritualistic things I must do to make it officially seem like Christmas.
23.Do you bake Christmas cookies? When I have time. For the past few years, Mike and the kids have been making the cookies while I do the shopping, wrapping and other insane details.
24.Do you leave cookies and milk for Santa? Of course. We don’t want to jeopardize our relationship with the chubby red guy by not leaving him treats! We also leave carrots for the reindeer.
25.What’s your favorite Christmas memory? In 1996, telling my family and Mike’s family that we were pregnant!