Teacher Lady tagged herself so I am tagging me.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I love gift bags but this year I’m about half and half.
2. Real tree or artificial? Er, is this what we want or what we have? I have a real tree. And it’s very nice. But it doesn’t hold up some of my favorite ornaments, the pewter ones.
3. When do you put up the tree? We had it up the week after Thanksgiving.
4. When do you take the tree down? Sometime between the 27th and the 1st.
5. Do you like eggnog? No.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? A red headed doll as big as I was in a brown tie dye miniskirt given to me by the elderly couple who lived next door to us. I was 4 or 5 and we had no money.
7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. One handcarved out of walnut, with just the holy family. One from South America which a friend picked up for me while he was down there; the angel looks like a zombie and there is a multicolored chicken.
8. Hardest person to buy for? Me.
9. Easiest person to buy for? My husband. His wish list is always available.
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever got? Never got an awful one. But it turns out I gave one. My gpa-in-law wouldn’t tell me anything he wanted for Christmas except pigs. They live in town so I knew he didn’t mean live ones. I was at a white elephant trade and saw some pig salt and peppers, so I got them and gave them to him. He hated them and I got a reprimand from my FIL later.
11. Mail or email Christmas cards? I send real Christmas cards to the soldiers. I don’t send any others.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? It’s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? early December, for the next year!
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Candles.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Turkey, mashed potatoes, and grama’s green beans.
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear. I like colored ones too, but then I’d have to have one color of ornaments and I like many colors.
17. Favorite Christmas song? Mary Did You Know and a country song by the Statler brothersthat says

“There are people who are whispering, and the rumors are running wild. There’s a woman who’s not married and she’s going to have a child. She’s a virgin from down in Nazareth, now listen close. She’s going to marry a man named Joseph but the baby’s father is the Holy Ghost. Now who do you think would believe such a thing, would believe that the story is true?… Here’s hoping to heaven you do.”

No one ever plays it on the radio, but I love it.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We switch holidays every year. One year we go to Arkansas for Thanksgiving, the next year we go for Christmas. When we’re at my parents’ for Christmas we go to… Disneyworld, Belize, and North Carolina…
19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeers? Why, yes. Isn’t that a requirement for third grade graduation? (Okay, I appropriated [nice word for stole] that answer. But yes I can.)
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I have a silver star. It’s not on the tree because we have too big a tree. So there’s an orange ornament that’s hanger is broken and it’s turned upside down.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Eve. Thankfully my hubby’s family did the same.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Traffic.
23. What I love most about Christmas? Having time off with the family.