squidbag: Xmas Meme

Network

My mom, who is easily the Christmasiest person I know, sent me this. I'm not the biggest fan of Xmas, and used to just hate it outright. Now I have kids, and several of my last few Xmases have been quite nice, so, while much still irks seven shades of shit out of me about what is known as the "holiday season," I am now only a part-time Scrooge. I did call a Salvation Army bell-ringer "Quasimodo" last week, though. Now I share this particular digital holiday virus with all of you.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?

Whatever works, slappy. Whatever works.

2. Real tree or artificial?

It's a real plastic tree. It's not a hologram or anything. The idea of a tree corpse in my living room put there simply to be decorative is a little odd.

3. When do you put up the tree?

When the time is ripe.

4. When do you take the tree down?

When it becomes ridiculous. Often in late January.

5. Do you like eggnog?

With enough whisky in it, yeah.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?

Life.

7. Do you have a nativity scene?

Absolutely not. I do have a nativity tattoo, though, and when I laugh, the Baby Jesus cries. I also often wear frankincense cologne, and a little myrrh behind each ear.

8. Hardest person to buy for?

Genghis Khan.

9. Easiest person to buy for?

Me.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?

Sweaters.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards?

Both are sent and accepted.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?

Scrooged. Though the George C. Scott "Carol" is a close second. The Ref would also make my list, as would Die Hard.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?

Pfft.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?

Oh, hell yeah.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?

My mom's sausage balls. Fudge. Random food that shows up in public places that only seems to appear at this time of year.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?

They're white, to my mind. I wish Bubble Lights would make a strong comeback, though.

17. Favorite Christmas song?

Christmas in Hollis by Run D.M.C. or Blue Christmas from Elvis.

18. Travel for Christmas or stay at home?

Usually travel like crazy people. Having a lean holiday season financially this year, so staying home. Should be a refreshing change, actually.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?

Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner (or Donder), Blitzen...yeah, I guess I can. Without a keyboard and time to think, I would invariably have thrown Dopey, Sneezy, Chuck, and Nixon in there as well.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?

Neither. It's a thing we went looking for specifically, because I missed them from my youth. We have two, and they look kind of like this. We have a gold one and a silver one with red and green stripes - we're rocking the latter this year.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?

All the time. Seriously - some of each.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year?

Without a doubt - anyone who explicitly or implicitly tells me how I ought to be feeling about this time of year or any of the things that come with it, subjectively good or bad.

23. What I love most about Christmas?

Excuses to hang out with people and do almost nothing except be with them.

I'd like to see Erin, Chagrin, Kat, Rich, EP, Josh, Amy J, JB, Sam Johnson, Carrie and Jesse all pick this up and carry it. And any blogless person who wants to do this in the comments.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

I would definitely put Gremlins in there for the x-mas movies too.

Posted by: Jimbo | December 06, 2007 at 13:02

OK, I ignore enough of the meme-tags. Here you go.

Generally paper, but bags have their place.

Real, with vigor. Don't get me started.

First week of December, generally. This year, that was in an ice+snow+wintry-yuck storm.

I *hate* taking it down. Generally Amy does it. Left to my devices, this is generally early Feb.

Meh.

That's tough. I'm going with the microcope, circa 2nd grade.

Like hell I do.

Usually my dad, or Amy's.

Kids. All of them. There's too much cool kid stuff.

Useless walmart-borne kitsch from extended family. Sometimes this stuff is even too far gone for regifting.

I'm not really a card person. Amy has been cyber-mail-merging photo cards through ofoto or similar in >50% of recent years, depending on motivation.

Not much of a fan of any of them. I was exposed to approximately 4328 viewings of _A_Christmas_Story_ in my youth, and a certain fondness has stuck.

Generally the second week of December. I'm amazon-oriented.

Not that I can recall.

Hoo-boy ... where to begin? Grandma's meatballs, Jeannie's chocolate-covered peanut butter balls, bombay sapphire, whatever we choose for the feast at my parents' house.

Colored. Puh-leeze.

I'm pretty well sick of all of them. I do like Bing Crosby's croon-tastic christmas album in a certain way.

Some of each.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?

No.

Star.

Morning, though "Christmas morning" is played out at least three times (once at home, then once with each set of grandparents).

The ubiquitous explosion of cultural depravity as evidenced by rampant and relentless commercialism.

Downtime with friends, family, and good food. The good parts about Christmas for me amounts to an extended remix of Thanksgiving, with gifts.

Posted by: Josh | December 08, 2007 at 11:40