It's snowing today, somewhat lightly, but I understand more is coming later in the week. At the moment, it looks pretty, and I went out to the drugstore and the roads aren't bad, it's just winter in the Northeast. My attitude will change by the third or fourth storm, I assure you.
I read these cuties yesterday, but I guess my creative juices weren't flowing. The first one came originally from Golfwidow, but Cosmic got to it before I did. It's this:
If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad - BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON'T ACTUALLY remember about you.
Read Golfwidow's and Cosmic's false memories at their comments pages. People are weird, you know.
This is a Christmas meme that LA posted, and I liked it, but I wasn't sure how much of it I could do because Christmas was only a part of my childhood in that it was going on in the world around me, although not in my house. Even so, I guess it got through. For the record, the first Christmas I celebrated as such was when the Hubs and I were dating, in 1975. The first Christmas tree and celebration that took place in a home I was living in was when we were first married, in 1977. However, because Christmas was my parents' anniversary, as a kid, we often did special things on Christmas day, although not particularly for Christmas.
Year of the first Christmas you can remember When I was four or five, my mother took me into the city to go to Macy's at Christmas time. I don't remember if I sat on Santa's lap or not (which she had done annually as a child), but I remember getting dressed up to go, and the crowds and the bright decorations in the store.
An early Christmas memory This is not so early, perhaps, but when I was about thirteen or so, my father got tickets to see Fiddler on the Roof for us all, to celebrate their anniversary, so it was on Christmas day. It snowed while we were at the theater, and the ride home was completely silent, no one else on the roads at all, everthing completely blanketed in snow. It was beautiful. I always felt safe in the car when my father was driving.
Ever in a holiday play? Oh dear yes. I was in second grade the year it was the second grade's turn to put on the holiday play.
Did you play a role? Oh dear yes. Because I was the best reader in the class, I had the biggest part with the most lines. I played a little girl who was beset by imps to mis-behave at Christmas time. One of the things I had to do was pick up an ornament and throw it onto the floor, where it would break. I kept picking up satin ornaments, which of course would just lay there. I didn't know that some of the ornaments were made of glass, and that those were the ones I should go for. I had never touched a Christmas ornament before, or been up close to the Christmas tree. I think the irony that they had picked one of the few Jewish kids to play this part was not lost on my teachers.
Favorite holiday ornament (Past and present) I am really very attached to my Christmas ornaments, which, you know, have gone missing this year. The first year we were married, I made several from various craft kits so we would have something, at least, to put on the tree. I still have many of those. For years, I made at least one ornament a year. There are several the girls made at various stages of their childhoods. I would bring home at least one ornament from every trip I went on. There are many, many Disney characters. I have many Hallmark ornaments; I used to collect them. Hard to pick a favorite at the moment, since I don't have them right in front of me.
Decoration you dread seeing every year: Those giant inflated things on people's lawns kind of spook me. The worst, though, are those lighted up skeletal reindeer that move. About two years ago, K had just come home from school and we were stopped at a traffic light in a residential neighborhood and she had glanced over at a house and was looking at their decorations when the reindeer began to move their heads and she let out a shriek. Scared the crap out of both of us.
Classic Christmas song you never get tired of: To tell the truth, I loved learning and singing the Christmas songs in school as a kid, so I know many, many and I like most of them. I just found an interesting list of them here, btw. I particularly enjoy We Need a Little Christmas, which is actually from the musical Mame. There's also something so bittersweet about I'll Be Home for Christmas, since you don't realize until the end of the song that the singer probably never will be home for Christmas.
Classic Christmas song you loathe: Having said that I enjoy many Christmas songs, now I have to say that almost anything will send me around the bend when it's repeated enough. About ten years ago, I heard Holly Jolly Christmas by Burl Ives so many times that I reflexively begin to tear out hair when I hear it now. And since one of the radio stations I listen to began their endless loop of Christmas songs the week before Thanksgiving, the one that gets to me most (and that I hear continously) is the Johnny Mathis song "Sleigh Ride"
Modern Christmas song you never get tired of: I like the ones that make me giggle, like Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, and I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, which is really about 50 years old. Also, like LA, I like All I Want for Christmas is You, also because of Love, Actually, but I like most versions of it that I hear.
Modern Christmas song you loathe: There are new recordings of both Feliz, Navidad and So This is Christmas that seem pretty pointless to me.
Naughty or Nice? I am always nice.
If you have a Christmas tree, real or artificial? We had real trees in the first years of our marriage, but got an artificial the year we moved into the house, which is now just twenty. I liked the real, but I've developed all my allergies since then, so I don't see going back to it. The scent is overpowering to me.
Any holiday traditions unique to your family you'd like to share? Hard to say; I don't know what other families do, except the Hubs' parents, and we pretty much got all our traditions from them. For several years, I didn't wrap gifts, but had made big cloth bags for each of us out of Christmas cloth, kind of like Santa sacks, and we pulled our presents out of there. No paper mess to clean up and for the Hubs to worry about recycling.
If you were an elf what would your elf name be? OCD Elf.
Favorite Christmas Movie: I am very fond of A Christmas Story, which is run somewhere on a 24 loop on Christmas, and I could watch it all day. Also It's a Wonderful Life, which I never saw until after I was married. And then there's ...
Best Scrooge Ever: Mr. Magoo. He is the real and original Scrooge to me, since Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol is the first version I ever saw, and watched on TV every year when I was a kid. The Hubs is very partial to George C. Scott's Scrooge. About ten years ago, we saw Patrick Stewart do a one-man Christmas Carol on stage in the city; he played every part. He was pretty good, too.
Favorite Christmas Special: I don't know that I have one; I avoid most of them. Of course, I'm fond of the Charlie Brown, which was first shown about a month before my 14th birthday. (I remember that I was addressing invitations to a birthday sleepover while it was on.) It's probably that.
No, wait. I just remembered. When I was a wee thing, they would air something every year around Christmas -- it was on maybe five times -- called Amahl and the Night Visitors. It was an operetta written just for TV by Giancarlo Mennotti. Now, I am distinctly a non-opera fan, but the Sibs and I watched this every year, entranced. I wish they would show it again, or stage a new production.
Favorite Misfit Toy: I have never seen the Misfit Toys. I assume this is one of those claymation Christmas shows?
Have you ever re-gifted? Not in the strict sense. I have taken stuff I've been given and put them into office grab-bags, that kind of thing. And when we get home from the ILs on Christmas, the girls and I often swap things we've gotten with each other.
Do you still rush out and shop on the 24th? Never have, never will.
Can you wrap presents well? Yes, I can. Not for Christmas, but on other occasions, I will sometimes wrap the lid and the box separately, so that the lid just comes off and the box can be used for storage or something later. But I don't often do that, depends on the occasion. If I'm forced to wrap Christmas gifts in secret, and all I have to work in is a bed, they tend to come out kind of crappy looking.
What's one thing you know will always be in your Christmas stocking? . No clue. Some years, nobody puts anything in my stocking.
Best Christmas present ever? Tough one. The Hubs is notoriously uneven in this regard. Some years, I will get three or four books that don't interest me, and that's that. One year, he gave me a Pocket PC (the first little handheld computer), and two years ago a portable DVD player. My MIL famously gives me pink sweaters and lady-like handbags that are useless to me, but one year she gave me a little box and apologized, saying this gift was either going to perfect or pointless. It was three antique miniature volumes of Shakespeare plays. That may be the best ever.
No, wait. Of course. The best ever was in 1991, when I had come home from the hospital after brain surgery on December 24, and on Christmas morning, the Hubs walked me into the living room to sit there like a turnip and watch the kids open their gifts. Being there for Christmas that year was the best gift ever.
Spill a holiday secret: It's not so much a secret, but I love having a Christmas tree and all the ornaments and stuff. The Hubs, who is the nominal Christian in the house, could care less.
Started on your Christmas Cards yet? In 1991, brain surgery year, I sent no Christmas cards, and when the planet continue to turn on its axis, I gave up sending them forever. I do send one every year. It's in the works.
Do you bake Christmas cookies? I did this a few times, but there were always so many that they ended up going un-eaten. They do not eat what I bake at the ILs. The SIL was at one time a professional baker.
Do you leave cookies out for Santa? Okay, this is cute. When the girls were small, we left out cookies and milk. In the morning, they would marvel at the bites out of the cookies and some of the milk gone. One year we told them that it would be healthier for Santa to leave out orange juice, and carrots for the reindeer, and we started doing that. It was only years later that they realized that the change coincided with the year Daddy became a vegan. (No children in the house now, nothing left out anymore.)
Can I refill your egg nog? I like egg nog. I especially like egg nog with a shot of Kahlua in it.
You find yourself under the mistletoe with chai. What do you do? Whatever. I don't think I've ever stood under mistltoe.
