In the Spirit {Christmas Favorites}

Tonight, Billy and I are hosting our first Christmas celebration at our house with my parents. Since they recently sold their house and moved into a temporary one while they are building, I thought it may be nice to have it at our house instead. We have to celebrate tonight because we are heading to Cleveland on Friday to celebrate with Billy's family. Somehow (many late nights this week) we managed to get all our gifts wrapped for both families, the house cleaned, and all stockings stuffed {ahem Rocky} and are pretty much ready for Saturday to be here! 

Bring it on Christmas..

We're ready for ya!

For our first Christmas celebration tonight, I plan on lighting as many Christmasy scented candles as possible and putting Home Alone on the tv in the background. Two of my favorite things. For as long as I can remember, my Dad is known as the "Brandy Alexander man" in his family during Christmas...that is, after the alcoholic drink. Not sure what a Brandy Alexander is?! It's creme de cocoa, brandy, and half and half mixed in with ice and put in the blender! It's strong, but good. If you make it, serve in little glasses friends-this drink goes a LONG way and you don't want family toppling over before 9pm hits {or do you? ;)}. So, he is sticking to the tradition and is going to make them for all of us tonight. Yum.

Here are some of my other favorite things

about Christmas...

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate. I can honestly say I've never tried egg nog..it just looks gross.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Technically the elves wrap them and Santa delivers..but for question purposes, I'll go with Santa wraps!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?  When I was younger, I had a big fascination with colored lights, but now we prefer white on our tree. For the house, I like all different types, just not too much if you know what I mean {ie Griswolds?}.

 

4. Do you hang mistletoe? I haven't in our house yet. Maybe I need to next year!

5. When do you put your decorations up? The day after Thanksgiving. This year I put some up before Thanksgiving but the mister wasn't a big fan of that. He likes to do them all at once and make a big night out of it.

 

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? How can I just pick one?! I love everything! Since this year I've become a vegetarian, I will probably eat at least 3 oversized portions of every delish side dish to make up for not having any meat.

 

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? This is a tough one. I have so many good memories with my parents. I would have to say getting our puppy, Shiver, was my favorite memory. Funny story about that name: my parents told me he was cold on Santa's sleigh when he was delivered to me and we needed to really hug him and cuddle him to make him warm again. When it came time for a name, I thought "C-c-c-c-cold" was most fitting. They didn't seem to agree, so I settled with Shiver. Gimme a break, I was like 6 or 7.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure I caught them putting the gifts under the tree. Simply terrifying I tell ya ;)

 

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? In high school one year, we started opening just one gift on Christmas Eve, but then we switched and opened all gifts on Christmas Eve because we would go to my Dad's side of the family for Christmas morning!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? I love the sentimental ornaments from my childhood and also ones me and Billy have got together. Gotta add some bling on it, too.

 

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I love snow - especially when we have white Christmases here! But if I had my way it would snow around Christmas, and then leave around the mid-end of January.

Last year I took this looking out one of our windows

 to the beautiful snow

and the snow on our street...

12. Can you ice skate? Yep! My first house growing up had a big pond in the backyard and when it froze over everyone in our neighborhood would skate on the ice! That is another favorite memory of mine.

 

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Go Go My Walking Pup as a child {LOVED that thing}, and typically anything that Billy gets nowadays is wonderful!

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?  Spending quality time with family and remembering loved ones that have passed on.

 

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? As bad as it is for you, I've come to love/be obsessed with Pecan Pie. But let's be serious..I love any holiday dessert - cookies, peppermind bark, you name it.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Making my Mom's lasagna while putting up our Christmas tree together and watching Christmas movies.

 

17. What tops your tree? A star

 

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Both..of course I love opening gifts, but I also love giving them and watching peoples reactions. I hate when people stare at me when I open gifts though..I get so nervous! ha ha

 

19. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum?  Yum, but I don't really eat many of them!

20. Favorite Christmas show? Home Alone, Elf, Serendipity.

21. Saddest Christmas Song? Any Amy Grant Christmas song makes me sad because I can still remember/hear my Mom singing them, but they also make me happy because they were her favorite and I enjoy the memories of her.

22. What is your favorite Christmas song?  any Amy Grant..for the above reason. Every year right after Thanksgiving {sometimes before}, I pop her holiday album in my CD player in my car and it typically stays in there until the end of January. It makes me feel like she's still here. sorry for the sappy last answer.

What are your Chritmas favorites?!

feel free to copy this little survey so I can learn

 more about you, too!

and if I don't talk to you before Christmas, I hope ALL of you have a very
MERRY CHRISTMAS

from Katie, Billy, and Rocky....