Christmas Meme

[redneckgaijin]

1. What is your favorite Christmas carol/song?

There are so many. Favorite to play, back in HS band, was "Adestes Fideles," better known as "O Come All Ye Faithful." To sing- on those rare days when my throat is capable- "O Holy Night," which is both a major challenge and, musically, one of the most interesting I can think of. For just listening to, the soundtrack from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

2.White lights or multicolored?
Solid strings of white light are UGLY. Multicolored, if your electric bill can take it- ours here can't.

3. Do you have a cut tree, live tree or an artificial tree?
No. We go to my aunt's house for Christmas.

4. Eggnog, mulled cider, or hot chocolate?
Hot chocolate, reluctantly. I don't like any hot drink, unless you count soup as a drink. And to me eggnog tasts FOUL.

5. Do you decorate your house with lights?
Nope- a lot of work and money better used elsewhere.

6. Do you write a Christmas letter?
No. The few I'd send it to already know how I'm doing.

7. Do you like receiving Christmas letters/photos?
No, not really.

8. What is your favorite Christmas story/movie?
Die Hard. The sequel is almost as good.

9. Have you ever made a gingerbread house?
No.

10. Poinsettias or holly?
Neither. I'm allergic to flowers, and I live where holly grows wild in places. I can still feel the scratches from having to push past a holly tree while walking in the woods.

11. Do you display a nativity scene?
No, but... Last year all the WLP webcomics had a Christmas special strip with the same theme- letters to Santa. This year the theme is Christmas stockings, although Chichi-chan is doing the "Person Saves Christmas" thing this year. Next year... perhaps... nativity scenes featuring comic porn characters? Wonder if I'm daring enough to do it...

12. Do you bake Christmas cookies?
If I had a recipe I liked, I might. This year, no plans to.

13. Ham or turkey?
Ham. The longer I've lived here, the more I've come to hate turkey.

14. In what languages can you wish someone a Merry Christmas (without cheating)?
Is it cheating if the other language uses more or less the English words? (Japanese: "Meri Kurisimasu," Hawaiian "Mele Kalikimaka".) Aside from that, English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

15. Do you know all the words to Jingle Bells?
One verse and the chorus, and I never have yet seen any more "official" verses. Jingle Bells is one of the most filked tunes under the sun, though...

16. Do you put presents under the tree?
Depends on circumstances, but usually not.

17. How do you eat a candy cane?
Break off a piece, suck slowly on it for an hour, put away the rest for later. When young I could make a candy cane last for several days.

18. What is your biggest holiday pet peeve?
The unified concept that (a) EVERYONE must observe Christmas, (b) NO ONE must observe anything else this time of year, and (c) that anyone who doesn't is actively intent on destroying all of Christianity and America. There isn't a fucking war on Christmas, there's a war on non-evangelicals.

19. What is your favorite Christmas tradition?
Gift-giving. I can't afford to give much in the way of presents- average cost about $4 per gift to go around twenty-five to thirty people- but I love giving out stuff, even little things, to family and friends. The holiday would be worth it absent any religious message for that tradition alone. (However, I find my aunt's family tradition of wrapping up her nativity's Christ-child as a present and getting the youngest child on Christmas day to unwrap it as somewhat heretical, in a graven-image way...)

20. What was the best present you ever got for Christmas?
I remember, just barely, getting a chalkboard and a bunch of colored chalks my third Christmas. I don't remember where it went- I didn't have it very long- but I remember being very fond of it indeed.