1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Egg nog–I drink hot chocolate the rest of the year. ‘Course, I do put egg nog in my hot chocolate sometimes. Now Aviana likes it that way too.
2. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
I like white, Kevin likes colored- so we have three strands of white and one colored on the tree since I did the decorating
3. When do you put up your decorations?
Whenever I get to it. So we still don’t have lights in the windows.
4. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
My Aunt Twila’s sugar cookies–I don’t consider this to be dessert!
5. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
My parents did the “make believe Santa” with us, which is what we’re doing with our children
6. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No
7. Snow! Love it or dread it?
Love snow! We just got 2 1/2 inches of rain. Which if it were snow would have been over two feet. And I wish it were!
8. Can you ice skate?
I can rollerblade?…
9. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Being with my family. Laughing with my family. Loving on my family. Being loved by my family.
10. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Pie. Cookies. Torte.
11. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Going to Christmas Eve service. I’ve never missed a Christmas Eve. Even when I wasn’t a Christian, I’ve long loved a good candlelight service. So much so, we had a candlelight service in our wedding.
12. What is guaranteed to make you smile over the holidays?
My sweet bambini
13. What makes you weepy during the holidays?
Umm…nothing specific, just the regular everyday sort of weepy I might encounter any other non-holiday time
14. How will you spend Christmas Eve and Day?
Tomorrow morning, Kevin is going to be doing the paper route and then he will chisel plow until about 11 while I am hanging out with the kids. Then we will spend the day as a family and go to Christmas Eve service with his parents at 5. Christmas morning I am making a French toast casserole and fruit slushes and his mom is bringing over egg/sausage casserole to eat after we open presents. After his parents go home, we will once again hang out with just the four of us. That is a special treat in and of itself, we don’t do that nearly often enough for me.
15. What was your most memorable Christmas and why?
Probably Christmas 2003, when we announced we were pregnant with Aviana
16. Christmas form letters from friends — pro or con?
Great big giant PRO. My take on it: If we are only keeping in contact once a year anyway, what is the point of just signing your name? I mean, I’m glad you thought of me, but I don’t know what is going on with you at all. AND I’D LIKE TO KNOW!! Please, throw me a bone, send me an email, send me a form letter– anything’s better than nothing, ya know?
17. In your home is Christmas more of a religious or secular observance?
More religious–remembering God’s sacrifice for us, so we could spend eternity with Him is the whole point of Christmas. We tell the story of Jesus’ birth and talk about it to Aviana– although Aviana insists that the Holy Family is Jesus, Mary and Moses, and our Baby Jesus is lost from our nativity scene; she was rocking Him and singing Him a lullaby, and now He’s just disappeared!
18. What is your favorite Christmas Carol?
Maybe Carol of the Bells. Maybe O Holy Night. Maybe Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree.
19. What is your deepest prayer for the world this Christmas?
So I pray that God, who gives you hope, will keep you happy and full of peace as you believe in Him. May you overflow with hope throught the power of the Holy Spirit.-Romans 15:13 (emphasis mine)