Holiday Harbour

Monday Madness

1) Which holiday do you celebrate this time of year? (If necessary, modify the following questions to suit your holiday.)

The Christmas season, through Epiphany. (And Advent, of course.)

2) Do you begin shopping for gifts earlier than Thanksgiving, looking for the perfect gift? If not, when do you begin?

I shop for gifts all year long. I know what the people whom I buy presents for like and when I see an appropriate gift, I buy it.

3) Do you only purchase gifts that you know are perfect for the recipient and if you don't find that gift, do you just get anything?

I still try to get a gift that's appropriate. I had particular trouble with one friend this year, but found something in that person's sphere of interest at the last minute. I would have preferred something a little more personal, but this was quite close.

4) Did you receive or give any "obligatory" gifts this year?

I dunno if it's an obligatory gift--the nice fellow who cuts our lawn gave us an amaryllis plant. I wish he wouldn't; I killed the one he gave us last year. We really don't have anywhere to keep it and I'm allergic to flowers.

5) Do you decorate your tree as evenly as possible or do you skip the areas that are not visible?

I put the older ornaments in the back of the tree. (You can tell; they're faded.)

6) Do you like multi-colors on your tree or do you prefer monochrome?

The tree and front door wreath are multicolor; the rest of the lights are blue. Both James and I love the ethereal look it gives to the house. If we ever get a plug put into the front of the house we can put up more lights...

7) Did you bake "traditional" cookies, frost them and decorate them? or did you cheat and buy the ready to bake kind? (like I tried)

Frosting? Ugh! I did make traditional cookies, Italian wine biscuits. This is what my mom used to bake, along with almond bars and molasses cookies and butterballs. The butterballs had powdered sugar on them; that's as sweet as we got. (Frosting...shudder...)

8) Are you the host of a holiday gathering? which one? family, work, friends?

We have a Twelfth Night party on the closest Saturday to January 6. I've never done the cake, though. (You're supposed to put a bean in it and the person who gets the bean will have good luck throughout the year.)

9) With whom do you spend the holiday?

Sometimes we are invited to friends' homes, but this year we had Christmas on our own. We went to see James' family on Christmas Eve.

10) How did the holiday turn out? Perfectly? funny mishaps? miss anyone?

We had a nice quiet day which was quite relieving for this year! We had vacation at Thanksgiving and the week after and then two weekends where we did nothing but run off our feet doing errands and repairing things. We slept late, had presents, spent a quiet afternoon with the animals, had turkey for dinner and made turkey soup.