Snowpocalypse and grumpy holiday meme

I'm little grumpy at the moment since I found out that Z's school has been cancelled for the rest of the week due to the Snowpocalypse. I was counting on her school time to do some more shopping and get all the wrapping done. Not to mention KEEPING MY SANITY.

OY.

I went to Target last Friday, needing dental floss and TP, and I laughed at all the crazy people stocking up on milk and bread for the coming Snowpocalypse. I mean, REALLY people. CHILL OUT.

Then today, after shovelling 18+ inches of snow off our driveway, I had to put on my gaiters and my snow pants and wrestle some polar bears on the way to the local gas station/mini mart to get some MILK AND BREAD.

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Since I'm not going anywhere, any time soon (18+ inches!), let's do a holiday meme! Stolen from the incomparable Swistle, who stole it from someone else.


Eggnog or hot chocolate? Any drink that includes the word (OR THE FOOD) "egg" should be outlawed. Seriously. And what exactly is a "nog"?? NOTHING I WANT TO DRINK, THAT'S WHAT.

Plus, hot chocolate has chocolate. NEED I SAY MORE??

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree? Leave them WHA under the WHA???? Were you people raised by wolves?? Santa and his happy little elves wrap each and every present and place them under the tree. I can only imagine the crazy child present orgy that would happen if all the presents were just laying there NEKKID.

Colored lights on a tree, or white? Colored ones on the inside tree. But white ones outside. And I just can't do icicle lights. That sh!t just ain't right.

Do you hang mistletoe? Not anymore. When I lived in San Francisco with three girlfriends we usually hung some mistletoe over a door but those swinging single days are LONG PAST. WOW THIS IS SAD. (NOTE TO SELF: BUY MISTLETOE NEXT YEAR.)

When do you put your decorations up? I'd love to be so on top of things that I could say they always go up immediately after Thanksgiving but it usually takes a few weeks to get a tree, locate the ornament box, find the time to set it all up, and rearrange the ornaments after Z puts every single ornament on three total branches.

What is your favorite holiday dish? CG's family makes this "cranberry salad" that is supposed to be part of the main meal but considering the fact that it's made with cranberries, sugar, whipped cream, walnuts and halved grapes, it's pretty much a dessert that you get to eat with dinner. What's not to love?

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? I've never heard of such a thing! Do people do this?? How can you do this? Does Santa come early??? Or is it just the presents from other people?

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? In CG's family, every kid gets an ornament each year, so he and his siblings have their own boxes of ornaments from their childhoods. We're doing that for the girls too. Our tree is a total hodge podge of family ornaments, gifts from people and a box of sparkly balls that I bought from Target our first Christmas together when we had exactly two other ornaments.

Snow: love it or hate it? I'm loving it so far. Here in VA, we've had two big snow storms both of which had large, pretty snowfalls that happened on Saturdays when we didn't need to be anywhere. Talk to me after it gets all icy and dirty. Talk to me after I spend the next two days alone and completely housebound with the two girls since Z's school has been cancelled. Talk to me in March.

Can you ice skate? Technically? Yes. Practically? I would most likely hurt myself and/or someone else very, very badly.

What is your favorite holiday dessert? Growing up, we always had this dark, boozy steamed English pudding that my mom would hide in the basement for a YEAR, periodically soaking it in booze before decorating it with holly and lighting it on fire. Gross AND bizarre! BUT! With it you got to eat "hard sauce" which is basically sugar and vanilla and butter. And I would just eat the hard sauce with a spoon.

What is your favorite holiday tradition? When I was a kid, my brother and I used to wake up at ungodly early hours on Christmas day. So Santa started a tradition of leaving one present outside our doors for us to open as early as we wanted. The gift was supposed to keep us occupied for an hour or three so that our weary parents could sleep in after being up all night wrapping. There was one unfortunate year when Santa messed up and left us both a t-shirt. So there we were at 4 am, staring at our t-shirts like WTF SANTA?.

Poor Santa got an early wake up call as a punishment.

Candy canes: yum or yuck? Eh.

Favorite Christmas show? Since the children's ballet company that I danced with growing up had the presence of mind NOT to do the Nutcracker (Instead, every December we did an adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson story "The Snow Queen"), I actually LOVE the Nutcracker. I'm hoping next year Z has the patience to sit through it because I'm dying to go.

Wow. Doing this meme made me less grumpy! How nice!