Christmas Questions!

Some of my adoption buddies have been answering this fun Christmas survey this week. My answers follow. Several of you have e-mailed me with the Number One Question on your mind: Have we received a referral this week? Answer: No - not yet. Maybe a Christmas miracle yet to come......

Anyways, on with the show:

A 50 Question Christmas Survey Before Christmas

1. Does your family send out Christmas cards? Most years - a picture and a Christmas letter.
2. How soon do you start shopping? EARLY! I finished my shopping in early November! Hooray!
3. Who do you shop for? Family, close friends

Decorations
4. Do you put up a Christmas tree? Always, always, always!
5. If so, is it fake or real? It has ALWAYS been real til this year. I grew up in Colorado, and picking a Christmas tree was a HUGE Christmas memory for me. However, our tree experiences in OKC have been dismal (last year our tree HATCHED and we came home from visiting family to find small bugs about our great room - yikes!) so we gave up and bought a fake tree this year. At least it's a really big, beautiful, 9-footer with tons of lights - but it's still not like going to the tree lot in the snow.
6. Do you like tinsel? Didn't they stop making tinsel in 1976? :)
7. Do you use homeade or storebought ornaments? Purchased - we buy ornaments on many of our trips. Often they come from little hole-in-the-wall art galleries or tiny Mom-&-Pop gift shops. Now, 15 years and LOTS of airline miles later, we have some great, unusual ornaments from all over the country. Oh, and now, a new Will ornament for each year - this year is a soccer-playing Mickey Mouse!
8. Do you put Christmas lights outside your house? Always before OKC, we were in tiny apartments, so no. Then we moved here and thought it would be a great thing. Three weeks later, several precarious experiences with the roof and a 12-foot ladder, and arguements that nearly required serious marriage counselling, we finally finished the lights. This year, NO lights and a happier family!
9. Do you put lights on the tree? Bill threw them all out (along with the tree tree skirt, and tree stand!) last year due to the bug issue (See #5 above!) So sad! The fake tree came with lots of lights though!
10. How about popcorn and cranberries? Nope, but we hung them on the barn on my Grandpa's ranch when I was a kid!
11. Is there a wreath hanging on your door? Not yet, but Bill's been out of town for the better part of the last two weeks. It's on his honey-do list for this week. (Ya think it'll get done now that College Football is over?)

Christmas Eve
12. Do you celebrate it? You bet - a highlight! The church, the candles, the music! Our favorite part as adults!
13. Do you hang up your stocking? Yep - good things come in small packages, and we are ALL big-time Santa believers in our household!
14. Does your family read "Twas the night before Christmas?" Yep, yep, yep! Almost every night during December. Of course on Christmas Eve, right after the Christmas Story from the Bible.

Favorites
15. Christmas Movie - Funny one: Elf (It just makes me crack up when Will Farrell puts that syrup on his spaghetti!) Sappy one: The Charlie Brown Christmas Special - we could watch it a hundred times!
16. Character from any Christmas Movie - Linus in the Charlie Brown Christmas
17. Christmas Song - Soooo hard to answer, because I love them all, but probably Joy to the World
18. Christmas Memory - I loved the Christmas seasons we spent in the city. Almost every night during the Christmas season, I'd walk down Michigan Avenue, eating chestnuts, seeing the store windows, humming Silver Bells, often with a light snow - fantastic! And oh, my goodness, for all of you post-Thanksgiving shoppers, you've never really experienced it until you've done it city-style! One Friday-after-Thanksgiving, we went to Michigan Avenue, with an estimated 500,000 other shoppers, wandered the big, brightly lit stores, ate dinner at the Marshall Field's Walnut Room, went to the Christmas parade that night, and watched fireworks over the Chicago river in the heart of downtown while it was snowing. Fireworks in the snow - just about the most magical thing I've ever seen. The fireworks all reflect in the windows of all the skyscrapers too, so it's like you have fireworks all around you. Really something. One of the things on my "Experience this Before I Die" list is to go to New York City for the Macy's Thanksgiving parade, see the store windows in all their glory, and watch the lighting of the Rockefeller tree in person. I can only imagine how grand!

This or That
19. Give or Receive? Give, give, give some more, get in trouble with my husband for giving too much, give, give, give.......
20. Eggnog or Cider? Eggnog unless it's really cold outside. We always had cider when we went ice skating as kids
21. Red or Green? Beautiful Chrismas Red
22. Ham or Turkey? PRIME RIB! Yum, yum, yum, yum.....
23. Star or Angel? Angel
24. White Lights or Colored Lights? White
25. Blinking Lights or Still Lights? Still, but we had those bubble lights when we were kids and they were awesome! It's a wonder we didn't burn the house down 'cause they were so hot, they'd hurt your finger if you touch them, but man, were they great when I was eight!
26. Were you Naughty or Nice this year? Mostly nice, but, um, I have my moments! :)

Presents
27. What do you want for Christmas this year? Boy, I have to be honest and say a referral on this one! I told my husband, maybe a referral or a trip to Meredith's spa! :)
28. When do you open your gifts? We have an early Christmas for our family of three before we leave, then on Christmas morning this year with Bill's family, and a few days later with mine. I counted up, and by the time we make the full loop (it takes awhile to go to Denver, CO and then Lubbock, TX), we may actually be celebrating the twelve days of Christmas this year!
29. What's the best gift you've ever gotten? Bill gave me a year's worth of manicures and pedicures last year - that was pretty darn great.
30. What's the worst gift you've ever gotten? Wow, do I ever hate clothes for Christmas. Hated them as a kid, hate 'em now. When you are over 30, you just gotta pick out your own stuff!
31. Who gives you the most gifts? Bill & Will - they really spoil me! :)
32. Have you ever had a secret Santa? Not since I've been a stay-at-home momma! Hey, we should revive that tradition!
33. Do you like wrapping gifts? Yes - it's my artsy craftsy side. I love the look of really pretty presents under the tree. This year, almost every present travels, so they get a bunch of gift bags and tissue, and it's just not the same. No matter how cute of a bag I get, it's not like a beautiful, shiny ribbon bow on crisp wrapping paper!

Random
34. Do you put change in those red buckets? Yes - all of it! Will is a Salvation Army kettle junkie.
35. Do you burn a yule log? Nope, but we ate one several years - yummy!
36. Can you name all the reindeer? Yes, I can sing them too. Will's doing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in his preschool Christmas concert, so we sing it about 50 times a day.
37. Do you bake cookies? Yep - see previous reindeer blog post! My favorite Christmas treat though is candy-making! I love to make fudge, Martha Washingtons, Peanut Butter Buckeyes, english toffee, and I think I may try homemade caramels this year. (Shhhh, don't tell my family - it's a surprise for them!) Recipes to follow in future posts!
38. Have you ever seen your mommy kissing Santa Claus? Nope!
39. Have you ever gotten a kiss under the mistletoe? Yes!
40. Do you go caroling? No, but I sing like crazy every Sunday at church - and around the house too. I have a shameless collection of Christmas CD's, and they live in all the cars and at the house, so we sung this week with both the King's College Choir and Alvin & the Chipmunks!
41. Do you drive around and look at the Christmas lights? yes - and take the Bricktown boatride!
42. Have you ever left Santa cookies? every year
43. Have you ever sat on Santa's lap? As a kid
44. Who do you celebrate Christmas with? Everyone
45. Where do you celebrate Christmas? Everywhere
46. Have you ever had a white Christmas? Oh, those white Colorado Christmases! So grand!
47. What part of Christmas do you look most foward to? Christmas Eve service - doing the candles and singing Silent Night with Bill & Will
48. Have you ever had your picture taken with Santa? Pictures of Will
49. Does your family always take a picture at Christmas? No
50. Have you ever heard the song "Thank God For Kids" by The Oakridge Boys? Yes, but I didn't realize this was a Christmas song! My parents were big Oakridge Boys fans in the early '80s - sooooooo corny! :)