Getting to Know Me, the Christmas Version

I always see different questionnaires floating around in the blogosphere or on Facebook and often choose not to participate.  In the spirit of Christmas and getting back into blogging, I thought this would be a great way to let my readers into a little piece of my world and heart.  So here goes:

Hands down, it’s hot chocolate!  I enjoy a little splurge on a peppermint hot chocolate or sea salt caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks.

When I was a little girl, most of Santa’s gifts were unwrapped right by the fireplace on Christmas morning.  This will be my little girl’s third Christmas.  For her first two, all of her presents were wrapped.  As my little girl gets bigger, I think Santa might have a hard time wrapping some of the larger items.

I grew up with colored lights on the tree and on the house.  I think the white lights are so pretty, though.  My favorite outside lights on houses are the white icicle lights.

We usually decorate the first weekend after Thanksgiving.  I think this was the first year we had everything up and ready to go before December 1st, though.

I grew up with a fake tree and never knew anything different.  My husband grew up with real trees.  In our first apartment, we did a real tree.  When we moved into our house, we got a fake tree and have used it ever since.

We have a silver star that lights up.  It’s not my favorite, but we’ve had it all these years and just never got around to replacing it.

I always looked forward to doing advent calendars.  When I was growing up, my mom had hand-made calendars.  Several years ago I bought two calendars for us.  One has really worked out well and the other isn’t my favorite because it isn’t very practical.  Last year I bought an additional calendar for my daughter.  It has little wooden doors that open up.  Each day her elf, Candy Cane, brings her candy from the North Pole.  This year I bought two more.  If you’re counting, that’s five calendars for 3 people – yikes!

Now, when I was little I wasn’t always a perfect angel.  I can remember one Christmas my sister and I were running around the house and we accidentally bumped the tree.  It fell over onto the couch and we quickly had to try to piece everything back together.  I also remember unwrapping one of my sister’s gifts under the tree and trying to wrap it back up before anyone found out I peeked.  Whoops!

Nothing really sticks out as a favorite from my childhood. 

Definitely giving, especially to younger children.  As I’ve gotten older, I have found I’m not really fond of surprises under the Christmas tree and probably show it all over my face.  I think I’m getting to an age where I want it to be all about the kids rather than the adults.

I love singing Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with my daughter.  I love listening to Silent Night and O’ Holy Night.

They’re yummy if they are the traditional peppermint flavor.  I’m not crazy about all the weird flavor and color combos they have these days.

Christmas Vacation – this movie NEVER gets old.  I can watch it every year (more than once) and still laugh like crazy.

Mostly online, but sometimes I will go into the stores for the little things.  I’m not a fan of all the impatient and rude shoppers.  Amazon is my favorite store 🙂

All of the above!  I give props to all the families that can get them sent out every year.  We managed to do a photo card last year.  I loved it, but I just couldn’t find the time to fit it all in this year.