'Tis the Season

My friend Katy suckered me into this--I read her latest post, as I loyally (and with great delight) do every time one pops up on my blogroll, and there at the end, she tagged me by default, since I read it. I'm it. Turn about is fair play, since I've tagged her several times. So here we go:

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Either, depending on the gift, who it is for, and how wrappable it is.
2. Real tree or artificial? I was raised with artificial trees, since I grew up in the tropics where real ones weren't, but we faithfully choose a real one every year now. After ComputerDaddy's parents divorced, he started going down to the nearby tree lot and buying a small tree and dragging it home behind him as a gift to his mother. Christmas isn't Christmas to him without one. There's something very special about the sight and smell of a real tree.
3. When do you put up the tree? When we get the time, sometime in the weeks after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. We have to do that soon, but not sure when...
4. When do you take the tree down? Before it bursts into flames. Preferrably.
5. Do you like eggnog? ComputerDaddy LOVES the stuff. I keep trying it in the hope that it will grow on me. So far, not so much. Despite the rum. I'd rather just drink rum cream and forget the egg and/or nog. Mmmmm, rum cream...
6. Favorite gift received as a child? The beautiful two-story seven-room-plus-a-full-balcony wooden dollhouse that my grandfather built and my grandmother decorated when my sister and I were younglings. We played with it for years...
7. Hardest person to buy for? ComputerDaddy, his father, and my sister.
8. Easiest person to buy for? DramaBoy. It's more about NOT buying everything we find. The Widget is easy too, but gets a lot of hand-me-downs.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yep. Haven't put it out lately because it's pottery from Africa and far too breakable.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Conceive, plan, and never actually carry out Christmas cards--that's what you meant, right?
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A too-small, ugly, BOY'S belt from family friends who somehow forgot both my age and gender (I was in sixth grade). Bizarre.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Oh geez...I love many. Um, Elf. I laugh every time.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Around Thanksgiving.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Probably. I don't recall a specific one. I know there are a few presents that have been donated or returned. That's recycling...
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Christmas Eggs: wrap slices of bacon around the sides of muffin tins, crack eggs into the middle, and pour a bit of tomato juice on top. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bake and enjoy!
16. Lights on the tree? What? You mean there are barbarians who DON'T use them?
17. Favorite Christmas song? Again, a toss-up. I love What Child is This and Silent Night and Breath of Heaven (a la Amy Grant) and Jewel's renditions of Ave Maria and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.
18.Travel at Christmas or stay home? We generally travel to my father-in-law's for Christmas morning. We spend the rest of the day either other family's or our house.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? There's Sneezy and Happy and Grumpy and Doc and...Oh, wait...
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? A point of contention for me and ComputerDaddy. I always had an angel; he always had a knot of garland and perhaps a star. Garlands were new to me. We compromise: there is a knot of garland with a wee delicate white angel nestled within, lit by lights.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Oh, definitely morning. The only time we do such a thing on Christmas Eve is if my sister and brother-in-law are in town and will only be here that day before heading up to his family for Christmas. So, yes, this year.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? The radio stations that not only start playing Christmas music TWO MONTHS before Christmas, but apparently can only play the same forty songs over and over--and not all of them are the good ones, and the only newer ones they play are the HORRIBLE ones, like boy band versions and such. Ick. Oh, and the fad gifts that people will literally trample over other people to get. Did you hear that a doorman got killed that way at a WalMart in New York this year on Black Friday? And people just kept shopping...
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Eclectic, all the way. Ornaments should have memories, not just be beautiful.
24. Favorite Christmas story (besides THE Christmas story)? I'll have to go with The Grinch Who Stole Christmas on this one.
25. Favorite Christmas tradition? Gathering with extended family, whoever it may be, on Christmas Day. I love my little family of four, but the spirit of Christmas needs to extend outside our little quartet.

And now YOU are tagged! Go on, you can do it...