More Maggical Christmas

I received one of those e-mail "answer these questions and forward onto your friends" things today, which normally I don't do . . . but this one was Christmasy. And plus it inspired me to have one last Christmas shebang before I officially shifted into New Year mentality. So here's the idea . . . anyone interested in participating can copy this post, replace my answers with yours (though mine are pretty awesome), and post it on your blog. Then just add a comment to this post that you've done it and I'll come check yours out. Beats e-mailing and makes the whole thing embarrassingly public.

So, c'mon, do it. Everyone likes talking about themselves.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I've always felt gift bags are for those without opposable thumbs or with arthritic fingers incapable of neatly wrapping the gift. Therefore, I will always accept gift bags from my primate and elderly friends, but until I fit either qualification, you'll get gifts from me wrapped.

2. Real tree or Artificial? After the Great Foot-Stabbing-Dry-Needled-Two-Weeks-of-Greenery-Then-Arborial-Death Debacle of last year, we went with an artifical one this year.

3. When do you put up the tree? When I need something to put in the corner to hide the weird stain in the corner before holiday relatives start arriving.

4. When do you take the tree down? After all dangers of relatives with prying eyes or a fondness for pristine carpet have passed.

5. Do you like egg nog? I like saying "Egg nog" very much.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I would like to be able to say "the love and companionship of my extended family" but I'm afraid I'm going to have to go with the giant Lego castle I got when I was nine or ten. It allowed me to play out my fantasies of world domination and practice bad English and Scottish accents, all within a three feet by three foot area.

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yes. Two actually, both of them gifts. One of them is sort of homely but features all the traditional cast of characters, and the other is quite arty and beautiful, but there are no wise men or animals and Jesus doesn't seem to have a face. This bothers me. I know that scholars disagree with what Jesus looked like and what race he was, but I'm pretty sure he had a face.

8. Hardest person to buy for? People who can and do buy whatever they want for themselves during the rest of the year. Then I have to be sneaky and buy them something they always wanted but never thought of buying for themselves, like a hedgehog.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Myself. Aside from being magnanimous, generous with my time, and extremely good-looking, I also make Christmas easy on everyone by being easy to buy for.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? This is sort of like people who have llamas. Even though some llamas come in pretty colors, I don't have llamas because I don't have the space or the time. But just because I don't keep llamas doesn't mean I have a problem with other people who do have llamas.

11.Worst Christmas gift you ever received? This question is made impossible to answer by my answer to number 9. I did get a pair of pants once that was not at all befitting a future monarch of America. Maybe those count.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Definitely The Snowman. The soundtrack is amazing and I just can't get over how the choirboys roll their Rs.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I make a point of having most of my shopping done before Thanksgiving, so I can shake my head and tsk disapprovingly about the crass nature of Black Friday.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes. Though my lips are tightly sealed as to which gift it might have been. Although the Future Queen of America (that would be me) is easy to shop for, occasionally we (that would be me) receive gifts that have already been given to ourselves (that would be me). Then we magnanimously pass these on to others who can properly use them.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Food, mainly. Christmas is that time of year when I take a break from consuming cookie dough and sweet tea and instead gorge myself on turkey and rib roast. I can tell I'm done when my belly button pops out.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? I am a die-hard clear lights fan and my husband is a colored lights fan. Each year, before we take out the tree to cover up the stain in the corner, he and I arm-wrestle for the right to choose which will hang on the tree that Christmas. Though my husband has incredible biceps and I weigh 105 pounds, this year I won because I shouted "Look out the window! The cat is peeing on your cop car!" right as he was about to win. So, clear lights this year.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Musically, I've always loved the Coventry Carol. Lyrically, I've always liked the alternate version of "We Three Kings": We three kings of Orient are/ trying to smoke a rubber cigar/ it was loaded, it exploded. scattering us near and far.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? I would always travel at Christmas time if my relatives would move to San Diego.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Duh, yeah, and a lot better than Santa did. None of this Vixen, Comet crap . . . I would name them after powerful figures in world history. You know, Churchill, Washington, Peter the Great, Brad Pitt, etc.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I would like to have an angel on top of the tree, but I refuse to put anything up there with an assymetrically painted face. I'm not going to spend the month of December with some furry-eyebrowed angel leering down at me.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Okay. Someone explain this to me. We spend our entire lives convincing small children that Santa packs his sled on Christmas Eve and flies all around the world to deliver them on Christmas, and then some people open their gifts on Christmas Eve? Are we trying to make the children doubt us? Are we?

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Hands down, jewelry commercials. If I see one more pretty boy deposit one more giant rock on a smiling woman's hand, neck, fact, foot . . . okay, well, nothing will happen, but it still irritates me.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? To tell you the truth, I'm afraid to answer this. If I put something like "snowman" here, I can guarantee that next year I will be mobbed by snowman-themed gifts from members of my future retinue. Snowman ornaments. Snowman snow-globes. Snowman statues. Snowman plates. Snowman panties. Snowman toilet paper. Snowmen that sing "I watch you while you're sleeping/ I know if you've been bad or good" softly on my nightstand as I try to sleep. So no. No, I won't answer this!

24. Do you have a stocking? Two. They keep my feet warm.

25 Favorite for Christmas dinner? Something that went "moo" or "gobble" in a previous life.

26. What do you want for Christmas this year? Hundreds of blog subscribers. Wait, already got that. Sweet tea and cookie dough? Hey, I told you I was easy to shop for.