The Christmas Questionairre

I’m really starting to feel the holiday spirit (even though it's still not white out there)!  As the season really winds up, here are a few details about my seasonal traditions.

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
I'm definitely more of a hot cocoa person, but if given the option of any Christmas beverage, I'll still opt for my favorite tree trimming treat: a mug of coffee with a shot of Amaretto (since I’ve been old enough, of course) and cream.  Warms the cheeks and the soul.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?
I think it was my eighth Christmas morning that I noted how strange it was that Santa had the same wrapping paper as my mom.  Even his penmanship was a match.  My mom stared at me when I confronted her about this, slightly taken aback, and then my dad smirked and said, “Well, he delivers them all in one night.  You expect him to wrap them, too?”

3. Colored or white lights on tree/house?
Personally, my preference is white lights outdoors, colored on the tree.  I’m a minimalist.  However, I love the people who take the time to create the cookie cutter looking houses.  I haven’t done a lights tour in years.  That’s a tradition that I want to reinstate with my own kids someday.

4. When do you put your decorations up?
It varies each year, but I assure you, never one day before Thanksgiving.  We are a family that believes in celebrating one holiday at a time, and Thanksgiving gets its fair share of attention before we worry about hanging the holly.

5. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Green bean casserole is essential, but no holiday season is complete without my Aunt Jody’s cheesy mashed potatoes. It has cream cheese in it.  Yeah.  You know you just made the Homer Simpson Sees a Donut noise.  Don't even act like you didn't.

6. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
This isn’t specifically a Christmas memory, but I have a vivid and cherished recollection of my dad, every winter, standing on the hearth in front of our wood stove, warming his haunches and relaxing after a long day at work.  One hand would be in his pocket, the other usually clutching a can of Busch Light, with which he gestured and pointed animatedly as he regaled us with long stories of his day, life, or pure creation.

7. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
“Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.” –Chris Van Allsburg

8. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
For as long as I can remember, our Family Christmases have been on the same day each year.  Christmas Eve has always been spent with my dad’s family, Christmas morning at home, and Christmas Day with my mom’s family.  It has been such a beautiful blessing that my entire family (both sides) has stayed, for the most part, within a twenty-or-so mile radius of one another.  So yes, we were allowed to open Springsteen Family Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve.  Santa and my parents saved their treasures for the next morning.

9. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
See my previous entry for full details.

10. Snow: love it or hate it?
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE IT.  Do you hear that, Mother Nature?  I’m STILL dreaming of that white Christmas.  Get on it.

11. Can you ice skate?
When I was little and Pearl Lake would freeze, we would go down and shovel off a large square in front of the VFW Park.  Then my dad would take a few buckets of water out and pour them on the ice, to smooth out all the rough edges.  The next day we would come back to find our ice rink ready, and often in use.  To this day ice skating is one of my favorite winter activities, though I don’t claim to be very graceful or good at it.

12. Do you remember your favorite gift?
The year I received a pink tutu, pink tights, and pink pig slippers (which I OBVIOUSLY wore together, because that’s clearly how they were supposed to go), I refused to take the outfit off for all the world.  After what I’m sure was a pretty epic battle, I remember sitting victoriously in the backseat of the car, wearing boots (the pig slippers begrudgingly left behind) and a puffy winter coat over my ballerina garb, on our way to my Aunt Tammy’s.  Though I loved my tutu, I think it was winning the wardrobe battle that I truly cherished.  Victory.  Best present ever.

Giant red winter mittens were another choice accessory.

Give me some credit.  They match better than Sister's socks.

Do not let that shy smile fool you.  I was a monster.

13. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?
I know it probably sounds like a canned or cliché answer, but family truly is the most important thing in the world to me.  That said, I include many people in my family.  My friends are my second family, and I love them just as fully as if they were blood.  The older you get, and the more hardships you face, the more you realize that people are what makes life worth living.  Without companionship, the world is a dull and invalidating place.  This, of course, is a sentiment that we should carry with us throughout the year, not just on the Yuletide, but this is the time of year for reflection.  It is a good time to pause and consciously consider how much there is to be grateful for in the world.

14. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Though I’m far more of a salt than a sugar person, I do love cream cheese cookies.  I’m pretty boring, though.  I don’t want a bunch of frosting on them—just plain, simple and slightly doughy.  I could polish off a platter by myself.

15. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
 In recent years my mom and I have started the tradition of drinking a beer together and listening to our favorite “grown up Christmas story” on CD.  David Sedaris’ The SantaLand Diaries is a side-splitting good time.  If you haven’t experienced it for yourself, I highly recommend it.


16. What tops your tree?
As far back as I can remember our tree-topper has been a straw star that my mom found at a garage sale.  It doesn’t light up.  It’s nothing special, but it fits our taste perfectly.

17. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
I think in my heart, I’m a hobbit.  So obviously, I prefer to give.  I love thinking about the perfect gifts for people and seeing their faces when they tear the paper away.  I think that’s why I’ve never been an advocate for Christmas lists.  They stress me out, both to write and to read.  I can never think of anything I desperately want that I can’t just get for myself.  I feel selfish and greedy.  When I read them, I feel like it takes all the fun out of the treasure hunt.  I love collecting ideas throughout the year and then springing something on someone that they mentioned in passing back in March.  The whole thing just feels far more fulfilling when I have to dig for clues and then really crack it.  Frankly, just set aside some quality time and have a conversation with me that we haven’t had time to have in months.  I promise that will mean more to me than any trinket.

18. What is your favorite Christmas song?
“Old Toy Trains” by Roger Miller

 
Maybe my grandpa used to sing it, or maybe that’s something that I made up in my head.  Either way, it makes me think of him, because he loves Roger Miller and sounds a good deal like him when he sings.  This song just warms my heart.

19. Candy canes: yes or no?
Definitely yes.  I love to avoid biting them until they become needle sharp.  Of course, then I always stab myself in the mouth at some point, but I can’t help doing it again the next time.

20. Favorite Christmas movie?
I LOVE Christmas movies.  Forced into a corner, I have to settle for three equal favorites.

Favorite Funny:

Chevy Chase circa 1989...mm mm mm...if I had I time machine...

Favorite Fuzzy:

 Michael Cane is, hands down, my favorite Scrooge.  Also, Muppets.

Favorite Family:

I probably reference this movie about twice a week...and that's a low estimate.

 
21. What do you leave for Santa?
Dad said that Santa was likely to get diabetes, eating that many cookies in one night.  At his request, we always left him a beer, and sometimes a plate of cheese and crackers.  After my dad passed away, it became more of a present for him than Santa.  I like to assume that he took over Santa’s local route fourteen years ago, for my family at least.

Decking the Halls

Today The Librarian (aka my mom) and I decorated the house for Christmas.  We have been dragging our feet in the hopes that by the time we got around to it, there would be a pristine blanket of white outside, but alas, winter in Mid-Michigan remains M.I.A.  However, with the aid of our Pandora Christmas Station, we managed to get into the spirit and trim the tree.

First order of business, make sure the lights all work.

After the grueling task of yanking out dead bulbs, rummaging through the 30 year old brown paper bag full of "Colored 'Ho-Ho' Lights" (scrawled upon it in my dad's handwriting) and finding replacement bulbs, Christmas Tree 2011 at last glimmered cheerily from the corner.

After the annual light bulb battle, it was finally time to adorn the tree in our favorite ornaments.  In my 24 years on this planet and my sister's 27, we have accumulated roughly enough ornaments to decorate a small woodland grove.  Each year of our respective childhoods, we received an ornament from my Grandma Springsteen, which was always a fun and exciting tradition.  I have lots of favorites, and as the collection has grown, it has gotten harder and harder to choose.  This year, I had to be fair and represent Sister, too, as she is currently soaking up the sun in the Gulf of Mexico, working on a schooner.  I was pretty fair...she has one or two ornaments on the tree.

All in all, absent Sister and absent snow aside, it was a festive day, and the house looks beautiful.

And one of me doing something, for good measure.

You know, it's hard to admit that you had to move back in with your mom because you're jobless, moneyless, carless, and unexpectedly single.  That said, days like today make it feel like the most natural thing in the world to be back here.  'Tis the season to love, cherish, and heal.  I may be a bit of a sap, but looking at our Christmas tree (no pun intended) does fill me with a sense of inner peace.  By the way, imagine The Peanuts Christmas music is playing in the background, and that whole paragraph goes from being a little bit cheesy to completely moving.  Try it.  It works.

Christmastime is here...happiness and cheer...