A Week's Worth of Holidailies

12-03
Share your favorite holiday recipe. Where / when did you first try it?

During the 70s we, like everyone else that decade, discovered fondue pots. So from that point on, on New Year's Eve, we had a family fondue. Not cheese, not chocolate, but meat and veggies in peanut oil as we sat around the pot on the kitchen table. Mom made about half a dozen different kinds of sauces for dipping after things were cooked, and we had other stuff to eat while we waited for our food to cook. It was always fun because there was plenty of time for conversation and laughter--and for first aid for fork-stabbed hands. I miss the big crowd around the fondue pot, but we still do it here every year, even with just the three of us.

12-04
What is your favorite holiday tradition?

I really love advent wreaths, but I haven't done one at home in years. By the time I remember to get stuff together, it's usually past the first Sunday, so I don't see the point. Maybe next year I'll get my act together.

12-05
What is the best gift you have ever received?

I guess the Christmas of Pots and Pans was pretty good, mostly because we have pictures of me being stupid with them after opening each one. I'm just grateful for all the gifts, small and large, remembered and forgotten, that were given from the heart from people who really 'get' me. I even enjoy white elephant exchanges when everyone is on the same page.

12-06
What is the best gift you have ever given?

As above, I love to see that I've hit a bull's-eye on a gift. It doesn't really matter so much what the gift actually IS as long as the recipient's eyes light up and they forget to say thank you or anything much else because they're so stunned/excited.

12-07
Time to channel your inner child. Write a letter to Santa.

"Dear Santa, I have tried very hard to be a good girl this year. Please don't bring me anything but a changed attitude and a bag of Sourpatch Kids, but if you could manage a few days of Peace on Earth at some point in 2014, that would be so wonderful. Thank you."
To be honest, I'm much better these days at writing letters from Santa. Just as Sparky! ;-)

12-08
Grinch Week! What holiday tradition do you wish would please just go away?

Christmas cards. Not because I don't like receiving them--I absolutely do!--but because I hate doing them. They are hugely stressful and a giant waste of resources especially those that arrive with no letter or pictures. We aren't sending any this year again for the second year in a row. Maybe the third. It feels wonderful not to have that hanging over our heads!

12-09
Grinch Week! What currently popular meme / trend do you just not get?

Well, the whole "Christmas music 24/7 starting in November" thing annoys me. People have completely forgotten that religious Christmas songs are meant to be sung in the Christmas season, that is, AFTER Jesus' birth. And Christmas season lasts, yes, just 12 days, till January 6. So singing "Silent Night" in November is a million kinds of wrong. [this, of course, doesn't mean I cheat every year, but not 24/7 for a month!]

12-10
Grinch Week! Tell us about that traditional holiday food you just can't stand.

My mom used to make a kazillion kinds of cookies and candies for Christmas--a tradition I did away with years ago, by the way. She rarely made fruitcake, though, because...YUCK. Who the heck eats those things?? Actually, she did like a slice or two, but she was literally the ONLY person in the house, and even she couldn't justify making a fruitcake just for herself.

I'm really hoping to get back on this pony on a daily basis tomorrow. We'll see how that works out!