Rockin’ Around The Christmas Meme….

{Ganked from )

1. Do you have a real or fake Christmas Tree?
Fake, sadly. I love the smell of a real tree….but it’s just easier and cheaper to have a fake one. We have a good fake, though.

2. Do you put up Christmas lights on the exterior of your home?
Haven’t since I was a kid….but we’re going to look into it this year. (I get paid this week, so this coming weekend will involve much shopping, including decorations)

3. What’s your favorite Christmas song/carol?
My all-time favorite is quite obscure. It’s the song “Lord’s Bright Blessing (Razzleberry Dressing)” from the animated “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.” I like quite a lot of Christmas music, though. (This year’s favorite: “I Wanna Rock You Hard This Christmas”, thanks to and .)

4. What do you like better turkey or ham?
Duh. Turkey. Ham is OK, but Turkey kicks its little piggy ass.

5. Do you open up any Christmas presents on Christmas Eve?
Occasionally. My daughter has always been an advocate of the tradition of getting to open 1 present after Midnight Mass (so, actually, I suppose that’s technically very early on Christmas Day). I let her indulge, but don’t always do so myself.

6. Have you ever been Christmas Caroling?
Nope.

7. What was your most memorable Christmas gift(s) that you received?
Christmas of 1983. I had gotten way fewer gifts than my little brother, but had resigned myself that this was the result of being a teenager…Christmas was for little kids. My Father then asked me to go get him something from the dining room….and when I went, I discovered a gloriously polished red 12-speed racing bike, parked on the dining room table. Naturally, I flipped the fuck out. That bike was my constant companion and faithful steed, right up until I left for college.

8. What’s your favorite Christmas movie?
It’s a tie between “A Christmas Story” and “White Christmas”….although my true favorite exists only in my head: A musical version of “A Christmas Carol” that combines the best songs from “Scrooge”, “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” and “The Muppet Christmas Carol”, into a new live-action production.

9. Have you ever built a real Snow-Man?
Duh….I grew up in the Northeast.

10. Have you ever peeked into a present and found out what it was before Christmas?
Not “into a present”, as such….but I did use to try to find where my parents were hiding the presents before wrapping.

11. What is on the top of your Christmas tree?
A very Victorian-looking angel.

12. Do you own a Santa hat?
Yes.

13. When was the last time you had your picture taken with Santa Claus?
No idea. My family was never really that into that particular tradition. I actually played Santa, though, in 1992 when the comic store I was working at had a Christmas Sale.

14. Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?
Nope. The problem with working for myself: I only get paid once a month, on the 15th. This coming weekend will be non-stop shopping.

15. Do you put candy canes on your Christmas Tree?
Yes, and I always look for odd, non-peppermint ones to add to the mix as well. (Last year saw the standard peppermint, along with plum, mint-chocolate and cherry-flavored canes.)

16. Who is hardest person to buy for?
Nobody. I’m pretty good with the gift-giving, I think.

17. Who is the easiest person to buy for?
, since she’s into a great deal of the same stuff that I am.

18. How old were you when you realized Santa was imaginary?
I’m not convinced that he is merely imaginary….I think that he may well exist, at least as a mass-created deiform archetype, within the collective unconscious.

19. What does your morning of Christmas routine consist of?
Sleep as late as I can, then get up. The coffee gets started, then the opening of the stockings, followed by the opening of presents. Then breakfast, followed by journey to whatever familial gathering is in the offing.

20. Egg nog?
HELL yes. I start on that stuff as soon as it becomes available. Love it, “leaded” or “unleaded.”

21. What do you want for Christmas this year?
To see my kids together, and see my parents. They’re all coming here, so I’ll get my wish. Aside from that? I always want to have a Merry Geekmas: DVDs, comics, books, etc. Interested parties looking to grant this wish should contact , who has a list. :)

And another thing: I make a point of posting this to my journal every year. It’s a little tradition of mine, and it sums up how I feel about the Yuletide season….how a pagan like me can love Christmas. It’s from Dickens:

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew: “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

I think that the season actually has the power to make us consider each other. That’s a good thing.