12 Christmas Facts

Let the tagging continue... Dana tagged me for sharing 12 Christmas facts about me. How ever do I narrow them down?? :)

Here they are in no particular order...

12 Christmas Facts

1. My favorite Christmas TV special of all time is "A Claymation Christmas." If you haven't seen it, come talk to me. It's amazingly bad and awesome at the same time. I mean, it has the California Raisins!! How can you not like it??
2. My mom made ornament lists in order to keep us from fighting over who's ornaments were who's at the end of each Christmas season. The lists contain the ornament description and who gave it to us by year... it started when we were born and continues up until she gave us each our boxes upon moving out. (And people wonder where I get it from...)
3. Every year my mom makes us Christmas breakfast (which of course we eat after we open presents). For several years she made this AWFUL dish called a "puff pancake". It was this weird fruit filled pastry and I don't think anyone in our family liked it. Nobody had the heart to tell her so year after year we all suffered through the puff pancake and joked about it when mom left the room. Finally, about 3 years ago someone (I honestly don't remember who, but it was probably me) got up the gumption to ask why, after all these years, we continued to have puff pancake since nobody likes it. Mom had no idea we didn't like it - she didn't even like it and luckily, the puff pancake has never graced our presence since.
4. All of the kids' stockings in my family were sown by (I think...) my mom's aunt. I'm pretty sure they were hand made anyway... Though I'm probably going to have that sweet memory dashed by posting this and getting corrected by mom. :)
5. My mom is the only person I know that has a completely separate set of dishes she uses around Christmas.
6. Colored lights anywhere is a big no-no in my book. Colored lights inside the house should be a criminal offense. It drives me BATTY! (Even though for the first 15 or 16 years of my life our house was filled with colored lights everywhere.)
7. I own three santa hats. Why do I own three? I don't know. Just in case? And for the record - they are awesome.
8. It 100% does not faze me that I had to remove my TV, find a new place for an arm chair, completely rearrange my living room, and ask a friend to house my TV console for the holidays just to fit in my Christmas tree. It's all for the cause...
9. My Christmas music folder comprises almost 35% of the music content on my hard drive. I have everything from A Twisted Christmas to Kenny G. And yes - I listen to all of it. Oh yeah - for me, Christmas music season doesn't start at Thanksgiving. It starts somewhere around early November with pheasant hunting season. Do I hunt pheasant? Nope. But my ex did and we started the tradition then. Even though we aren't together any more, I think it's a good policy so I kept it. :)
10. Every year we get underwear in our stockings. The sad part is, most years it's one of the things I look forward to most! It's a tradition, what can I say. I can't wait until I have nieces and nephews (because, let's admit it - I'm probably not going to join the kiddo band wagon) so I can put underwear in their stockings too!
11. My dad played the Grinch one year in our church Christmas play. We were all Whos who didn't know what to do. It was hilarious. And the biggest thing I miss about being home for Christmas? The candlelight service on Christmas Eve with the handbell choir. I'm still looking for something like that around here.
12. My favorite Christmas candy of all time is my mom's homemade toffee. Each year she makes around 8-10 batches to give to people. And each year I get warned that I'm not allowed to eat it all. And each year I end up eating 3-4 batches on my own, rather handily I might add. I love the stuff. Most people eat it in 1" pieces. I knock off a fourth of a pan (they are about 12" round pans) at a time. It's amazing.

This reminds me - I really need make a batch of toffee. Maybe that's why it hasn't felt like Christmas yet...

Oh yeah - I tag Todd, Josh & Lisa, and Melissa! Quick like a cat - it's almost Christmas!