Christmas Tag

Gem from Roughcut Gems (I love cool blognames that play on the blogger's name!)
tagged me with this one:

Christmas Tag

1. Hot Chocolate or apple cider?
Hot Chocolate if it's really good and creamy and stirred with cinnamon. Otherwise, hot apple cider. I'm not picky, I just like things perfect.=)

2. Turkey or Ham?
Ham is for New Year's. We don't always do a big meat meal for Christmas. Often we've had Spinach Lasagna. We did duck or goose one year.

3. Do you get a fake or real-you-cut-it-yourself Christmas tree?
If it's not a real tree it's not really a Christmas tree, now is it?

4. Decorations on the outside of your house?
Not this year.

5. Snowball fights or sleddin'?
If I have to go outside I guess it's sledding. I don't like it when people throw things at me.

7. Do you enjoy going downtown shopping?
No.

8. Favorite Christmas song?
Hard to choose. Patapata Pan, done correctly (as in with medievel instruments) is lovely. Coventry Carol. And Joy to the World as done by Claymation Christmas.

10. How do you feel about Christmas movies?
I like them.

11. When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music?
Any time before the day after Thanksgiving.

12. Stockings before or after presents?
Stockings are last because we save the best for last.

13. Carolers, do you or do you not watch and listen to them?
Watch them? Where? WE live on a country road miles from civilization.

14. Go to someone else's house or they come to you?
Ordinarily we have people come to us, but this year we are going to Granny Tea's because they have the bigger house. Incidentally, Granny Tea reads this blog but thinks we do not know it. IN fact, she thinks that we think that this blog is a secret. Hi, Granny!
Funny story: Sunday somebody asked me if we were going to my parents' for Christmas dinner and I said yes. Then I realized I'd not been invited. I was going to bring that up tonight, when Granny Tea told the HG that she'd assumed we were coming for Christmas dinner, but she'd just realized she'd forgotten to ask us. Scary, iddn't it?

15. Do you read the Christmas Story? If so when?
We read Luke about once a year. No particular time. We read Holly and Ivy; The Gift of the Magi; The 24 Days Before Christmas and other stories every year, too. Those are our Christmas Stories.

16. What do you do after presents and dinner?
Play games.

17. What is your favorite holiday smell?
Christmas tree smell, baking.

18. Ice skating or walking around the mall?
IN Claymation Christmas there is a section where a walrus does ice ballet on a frozen pond, flattening several penguins and cracking the ice. The penguins, btw, are priceless. If you've seen that, you can picture me ice skating. No, not the penguins, silly.

19. Do you open a present or presents on Christmas Eve, or wait until Christmas day?
ON Christmas Eve we dim the lights, light candles, sit in a circle, and starting with the youngest member of the family, that person chooses a Christmas Carol, then we all sing it, and that person chooses a present to unwrap while we watch and make appreciative noises. Then the second youngest chooses, and we repeat the cycle.

20. Favorite Christmas memory?
Now how can I choose just one from:
The year we adopted two children unexpectedly two weeks before Christmas is pretty precious; The year the Headmaster had his wisdom teeth out so I only made soup for Christmas dinner so he wouldn't feel lonely and left out (and he would have, too, if I hadn't ); the year I'd just had a baby; the year that baby was sick and feverish on Christmas Eve and climbed out of bed and into my lap in her bright red flannel nighty and asked me to read to her and sat up while I read the entire book of When We Were Very Young and then she asked for more 'po-tee'(she was two); the year the single guys we fed all year long showed their appreciation by buying me a decent set of pots and pans (still going strong, guys, Thanks!!!); the years we took our tree and old wrapping paper down to the beach in Okinawa and burned them in a big bonfire while singing hymns with friends from church; the many, many delightful Christmases spent with the family at This Castle Rocks.'
Ah, there's the year that a new friend insisted I come to her house for Christmas. I told her how much I dreaded the thought of going anywhere but my own house for Christmas dinner, and that having it our house was so very special to us, but she guilt tripped me into reluctantly agreeing to have Christmas dinner at her house. And then she called me two hours before showtime to say that she'd overextended herself and just couldn't face company, so she was canceling. So we defrosted and roasted a chicken and had chicken, biscuits, and green beans for Christmas Dinner, just the four of us (that's how long ago it was).


21. Favorite Part about winter?
First snowfall. Not being miserably hot. Christmas music.

22. Ever been kissed under mistletoe?
Yes, but we don't hang up mistletoe anymore. We can kiss without it.=)

23. Tagging...
Mrs. Happy Housewife
B Durbin from Booklore
J Quinby of Me Autem Minui
Mother Auma, at CM, Children, and Lots of Books
Colt's Mom at the Godfrey Homestead
The Charmingly named "My Boaz's Ruth" over at the deliciously named A Dollop of Sour Cream.

And these people at This Castle Rocks, even though they are not even checking their blog comments anymore so they can approve them. They are our oldest real life friends in all the world, even though they are not blogging regularly enough to deserve it. We met them in Japan when they were teenagers and we were barely out of our teens. We had two children. They had one, a baby. When we started to homeschool they said, "That's really weird. I don't think we could do it. They've been homeschooling only about two months less than we have. Our oldest children are now older than we were when we first met, and collectively we have, well, a slew of young'ns. Y'all go bother them and tell them that The Common Room sent you and we all want them to post more.

If anybody I tagged already played this, then I apologize for missing it. Oh, Krakovianka, you couldn't do the ornament game, but I'd be interested in your answers to this one, if you're so inclined.