Holiday Faves...

Now that we are officially in the holiday season, I'm putting up my faves... I should preface this by saying that I am Jewish and never celebrated Christmas until I met my hubby. Now we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas, so we have a mish-mash of answers going on here - I'm not schizo, honest *g*.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?... Hot chocolate - no contest. Egg nog? Blech.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?... When the kids were little, Santa had his own wrapping paper and his own labels. Until the DVD player Santa brought us didn't work and we knew just where to return it. That's when Jeff figured out there was no Santa. Now presents come from Santa Bob, Santa Lori, Santa Jeff and Santa Steve.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?... The lights on the tree are white. I love the way they look. For a while we had blue and white lights on the house in honor of Hanukkah, but it looked dorky, so now we just have white lights on the house, too.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?... No, although we did a couple times before we got married. Just for tradition, you understand.

5. When do you put your decorations up?... It depends if Hanukkah and Christmas overlap. If Hanukkah comes first and is finished before Christmas, I put those up first and take them down after Hanukkah. Then I put up the Christmas stuff. If they overlap, then we get the truly blended holiday household about 2 weeks before the holiday. The tree always goes up a week before Christmas.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?... Love brisket. I have my grandmother's recipe. It is sooooo good for Hanukkah. Nothing beats the smell of 10 pounds of brisket cooking in the oven. Except maybe the turkey at Christmas. My hubby does love the story of when his Jewish wife made him a ham for Christmas, though.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child... My sister, brother and I used to go to the movies every year on Christmas day.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?... Well, since I'm Jewish, I always knew...

9. Do you open any gifts on Christmas Eve?... Nope. Unless it's also Hanukkah *g*

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?... We have white lights. One ornament with the year marked for every year that we've been together. One ornament with the year marked for each year of each child's life. And one ornament for each of our pets (we still hang the ones for our dearly departed pets). Plus a few extras that we've acquired that the kids either made or were gifts.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?... I love it! I just wish we got some of it here in SoCal!

12. Can you ice skate?... I used to be really good. But now I'm kinda sucky at it LOL

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?... The first year that Bob and I dated, he got me a pair of opal earrings. The second year, he got me a pair of Garfield slippers. I loved those slippers! (and the earrings, too *g*)

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?... I love making dinner and having everyone over and being together with my family.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?... by far, it's pecan pie.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?... Christmas morning, the kids grab all the stockings and come into our bed. They pull out the candy and little gifts. This allows us the time to wake up and still allows the kids to enjoy a bit of Christmas, too.

17. What tops your tree?... a big beautiful gold bow. Since I'm Jewish, we decided against the whole angel thing on the tree.

18. Which do you prefer - giving or receiving?... I like them both. But at the holidays, I have to say, I do a lot more giving than receiving. And it's out of choice for sure.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?... Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? ... Yum! But only the regular red and white minty kind. What's with all the the new-fangled kinds of candy canes nowadays, huh?