The Spirit of Christmas Fuchsia

Today I had no idea what to blog about until I saw this meme at Carole's. I'll happily accept it as a gift from her, no wrapping paper, tape or bow required.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper, usually, but I'm leaning more and more toward gift bags: so easy, so reusable. By family tradition extra-special gifts get wrapped in the previous Sunday's funny papers.
   
2. Real tree or artificial? Real, both indoor and outdoor. We're not having a tree-trimming party this year, but when we do we give bird treats to all the kids to go hang on the outdoor tree, a blue spruce growing in our front yard. This year we'll probably do up some pine cones ourselves. I used to consider artificial trees unbelievably tacky and not in the proper Yuletide spirit (says the woman who for several years running used a maypole made out of a patio umbrella stand and a length of PVC pipe), but, once again, the reusability aspect could eventually win me over.
   
3. When do you put up the tree? Right before our tree-trimming party, when we have one; otherwise, right before Christmas.
   
4. When do you take the tree down? As soon as possible, especially if it went up a couple of weeks ago for the party. Once, traveling for Christmas, we actually took the tree down on December 23; our friend who had volunteered to feed our cats nabbed it from the back yard where we had tossed it and used it in her turn. We were pleased to have it recycled (and not to have to dispose of it ourselves).
   
5. Do you like eggnog? Big time.
   
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Hmm... probably a toy train with gears and wheels and all in a clear plastic case; you could take the whole thing apart and put it all back together and it was very easy to see where everything went. As I recall, all the different sizes of gears were color-coded. This was long before human-factors engineering was invented, or at any rate before most people had heard of it.
   
7. Hardest person to buy for? It would be Grant, except that we have gotten to the point now where he notifies me that he is buying himself the scholarly tomes he wants online as his gift from me. My dad is tough too; he can always use a pair of handknit socks, though. I suppose I should start them soon.
   
8. Easiest person to buy for? Miss B. She loves clothes and books and gadgets and is quite open about specific things she wants, and also easy to please if you don't get her those but find her something else really cool instead.
   
9. Do you have a nativity scene? No.
   
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail, when we remember. Maybe we should try email this year.
    
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? This is a tough one. Apart from clothes that didn't fit when I was a kid — and I confess here and now that even if they had fit, I would have disdained them, as I thought Christmas was for fun, not useful, an opinion I still mostly hold — I'd have to go with the seashell sculpture with SOUVENIR OF FLORIDA stamped on its concrete base that my parents gave us. This is cheating, because we found it at a Christmas flea market and gave it to them first. I can't remember who has it now, or if it broke and was mercifully consigned to oblivion.
    
12. Favorite Christmas movie? Not really a movie, but I'd have to go with the Grinch. I always choke up at the end. Does that make me dorky? Don't answer that.
    
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I pick up things year round if I see something special for someone, but I shop in earnest in November and December.
    
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? See tacky souvenir above — that doesn't really count, though, because the point is to keep giving it back. I think at some point I must have passed on some generic gift I got from a coworker to a distant relative, or vice versa, but I don't recall what exactly.
    
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? I have to pick just one? Pecan pie, or maybe bark candy. Or maybe roast turkey with homemade gravy. Or... see what I mean?
    
16. Lights on the tree? Of course! Colored indoors, clear outdoors.
    
17. Favorite Christmas song? My favorite religious one is “Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming” (a very tough choice) and my favorite pop one is “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” (I thought about not admitting that, but Santa would know). And my favorite Yule song is “Deck the Halls.”
    
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Since Taz got sick everyone has usually come to us, but this year we are going to my SIL's in Ohio. We will also do a home celebration with my folks.
    
19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Of course.
    
20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning.
    
21. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, as it were, all my favorite radio stations' starting way too early with the wall-to-wall Christmas music. Especially “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree”: 1) Brenda Lee should never have given up her day job 2) even were that not so, it still wouldn't be necessary to play it every 20 minutes.
    
22. Favorite ornament theme or color? Like Carole, I'll go with the red and green.
    
23. What do you want for Christmas this year? World peace. Really, I have too much stuff as it is.
    
24. Angel on the tree top or a star? Depends on the year.
    
25. Favorite Christmas dinner? Turkey with all the fixins works for me.
    
26. More fun to give or receive? Give, almost always. I don't even get close to nailing everyone's gift every year, but I can't beat watching the face of someone opening a gift I've chosen with love and great care, especially if I made it just for them.

(I added that last question: I had to throw something into the pot.)