Sunday Stealing

1. What is your favorite holiday show/animated show? Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. I always watch that as I wrap Christmas presents.

2. What holiday character do you think you're most like? Jo in Little Women (there's more than one Christmas celebration in the book/movies)

3. What holiday character does your spouse think you're most like? Dunno, seeing as he doesn't exist.

4. Favorite Christmas/holiday song? Silent Night

5. Most hated Christmas/holiday song? Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

6. If you have an all holiday music radio station when do you start listening to it? Today. I was spinning the dial and found "Merry Christmas, Darling" by the Carpenters. (I have rethought the Carpenters, who I previously dismissed as a joke. She had a terrific voice and poignant phrasing. It's Richard's schmaltzy arrangements that so annoy me.)

7. If you have an all holiday music radio station do you love it or hate it? Yes. Hate it until the week before Christmas. Now I love it.

8. Have you ever wrapped yourself as a Christmas present? No.

9. Who is Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer's father? Donner. Duh.

10. Do you drive your neighborhood or one near you at night to look at other people's holiday decorations? No.

11. When you see a heavily decorated house do you think, 'oh that's lovely'? Or do you think, 'oh criminy, that looks like Christmas threw up all over their lawn'? I think, "Is this a good use of electricity?"

12. Are you counting the days to Christmas with excited anticipation or dread? Anticipation.

13. When was the last time you had your photo taken with Santa? Did you sit on his lap? 1966. Yes.

14. Do you make a Christmas list for your spouse or significant other or do you rely on them to pick your gift(s) without a clue from you? Since my "spouse or significant other" is imaginary and lives in my mind, he knows exactly what I want without being told.

15. When do you put up your tree? When I have a tree, I put it up over Thanksgiving weekend. Alas, this year I never quite got around to it.

16. Real or fake? Fake

17. When do you take your tree down? As soon as I return from Key West in the New Year (if I put up a tree to take down, that is)

18. Do you shop the day after Christmas sales? What do you shop for? No. I used to run out to stock up on next year's wrapping paper, but I find time is not imperative for this. You can easily find it for days and days after Christmas.

19. Is your work/office having a holiday party this year? Will you attend? Yes. No.

20. Do you have your New Year's Eve Plans set yet? No specific plans that I'm aware of yet. I'm going to be in the Keys, but don't know if we're going out to dinner, eating in, or attending a party. My friends down there make the plans for me and I merrily roll along with them.

To play along yourself, click here.

The first snow fall

Let's see now ... what did I do with this Saturday?

I got up early this morning and filled another bag for Goodwill. That's three donations this month. This morning's included 4 pair of slacks that I decided I wouldn't wear even if I lost the dress size required to fit into them. Honestly, it was as though Clinton and Stacy were in the room with me!

Then I went to Petco and bought my last sack of kibble for the year ... for the decade! Got my final haircut for the year (for the decade) and collapsed onto the sofa. This evening I watched a little Wizard of Oz -- always good for the soul -- and finally finished the Lisa Scottoline novel I've been working on for weeks and weeks.

It was all made prettier by the first snowfall. I don't think it stuck, but it was fun to be out in it. So much gentler and quieter than rain.

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: White Christmas

1. If you live where you get winter weather, do you prefer your Christmas to be white? If you never see snow, do you wish for it? Yes. I love a White Christmas. (It's those White Easters here in Chicago that can get on my nerves.) I especially love it when it's snowing at 12:01 AM on Christmas morning when I'm walking home from the candlelight service at church.

2. How many holiday cards did you receive from people you hadn't sent cards to, after the "mailing deadline?" Did you send a card anyway? So far, just one. I mailed a card to my Cousin Kathy and her family this morning.

3. When the clock strikes Midnight on New Year's, will you be at home, at a party, or somewhere else? I know I'm going to be in Key West, wrapped up snug as a bug in a rug in the love of my friend, Edgardo.

4. Have you ever taken the keys and driven home a friend that you felt was too drunk to drive? If not, do you think you would attempt to if that situation ever arose? No. I don't drive. Though I'd be happy to put us both in a cab.

5. Tell us about a gift that you either bought or made for someone else that you wanted for yourself! Nothing comes to mind. Though earlier this week and I went to Border's to pick up toys for a toy drive and left with the DVD of That Girl, Season 5. Does that count?

6. What chores do you have left for the holidays? I haven't wrapped a precious thing yet. And I want to go through my den one more time and put things aside for Goodwill. I must part with the old to make room for the new!

7. If you could buy one gift for yourself where money was not an obstacle, what would it be? A portable electric generator. I know, I know ... even my dreams are glamorous.

8. What is one of your family’s favorite holiday traditions? Going around the horn, opening our gifts one at a time at my mom's house on Christmas Eve.

9. If you could give a fellow blogger a holiday gift, which would it be and what would you give them? I'd give Miss SnarkyPants her favorite most "Cookie." (Nudge, nudge; wink, wink.)