Christmas Meme

I found this Christmas meme a while back, and I’m sorry I don’t remember from where. But I thought it might be fun to do.  

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?  I think I have to choose hot chocolate. To be honest I’m French Canadian so I never even heard of egg nog until I was about ten years old and even then I had no idea what the heck it was. What’s a Nog anyway??

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?  Santa wraps them. All of them. Very tightly with lots of scotch tape. Sometimes ribbons and bows if he feels like it and has time.
 
3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white?  Has to be coloured. Up until last year, we had the big seven watt oldschool opaque bulbs, tons of them on both rooflines. But wow is that expensive to run, not to mention not very environmentally friendly. This year, all LED multicolour, and only on the shrubs and trees. Still a pile of lights. I like lights.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Again, I think this is an English Canada or American thing.  I never heard of it till later in life.  In Quebec, if you want to kiss someone, you just do it, you don’t need an excuse.

5. When do you put your decorations up? The lights outside usually go up on the last warm weekend in November. But as a rule they don’t get turned on until Dec 1^st. I broke that rule this year because LED lights are cheap cheap cheap to run. Inside decorations go up first of second week of December.

6. What is your favourite holiday dish? Any desert really. But also my mother makes about 6 or 8 tourtières, and the smell means Christmas to me. I love it. She freezes them and they come out throughout the holidays. (It’s French Canadian, a sort of meat pie)

7. Favourite Holiday memory? I can’t really think of a favourite. One that comes close was the year that I was in the hospital in Toronto and was able to come home just in time for the holidays. It was always great to come home from the hospital, the quietness, that “home” smell. But to come home to a fully decorated house with all the holiday smells, whoa, even better!!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure it would have been my friend Johnny who broke the news to me, probably when I was around 7 or 8.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We used to open them at midnight and then have a big meal and then go to bed. Again, I think that’s a French Canadian thing. Midnight mass, eat, presents, bed. But I’m too old for that now. I can barely keep my eyes open past 10pm. So we just go to bed and open the gifts the next morning. Whenever.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Lights and decorations. I’m not sure about this question. Are we asking with what? Or are we truly interested in the methodology used to affix the ornaments to said tree?

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it. Well, ok, only at the beginning of the winter. By February it can go. I’ve had it. But I’ve had it with cold by then too. Basically if it’s going to be cold, we may as well have snow. Lots of it.

12. Can you ice skate? That would be a neat trick. The closest I’ve come is having someone push me around the ice rink in my manual wheelchair when I was a kid. That before insurance companies made such things “against the rules”  Oh, and if the weather is just right and we get ice rain coating the driveway in a nice sheet of smooth ice, you’ll find me out there doing doughnuts in my power chair.

13. Do you remember your favourite gift? ? I think I was around 9 years old. I got everything I wanted. A train set AND a full set of LEGOs.

14. What’s the most important thing about Christmas? Quiet time at home with loved ones. I love that it’s one of the last holidays where everything is closed. The way Sunday used to be. Peaceful.

15. What is your favourite Holiday Dessert? Bûche de Noël (Yule log)

16. What is your favourite holiday tradition? Well, see, we aren’t real big on traditions. Never have been. We just do our thing and enjoy the holidays.

16.5. What is your least favourite holiday tradition? Aha!! See number 16. When you don’t do them, you don’t have to worry about having to do one that you hate. I guess Kelly and I are in agreement here.

17. What tops your tree? A very old angel with lights around it. The lights are orange and red and give the angel a beautiful glow. We’ve had it for over 20 years, and one of the bulbs does not work anymore, no matter what I do.  But that’s ok, the angel is fine, just the way it is.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? I love giving. Getting is great too; I would be lying if I said otherwise. What kinda fool doesn’t like getting? But giving makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

19. Favourite Christmas Song? The Eagles version of “Please come home”. Unless of course you mean the classics. In which case I don’t really have a favourite. I do have some I don’t like. Bah humbug on 12 days of Christmas. A lump of coal for little drummer boy too.