Musings from Brian J. Noggle: The Best Christmas Gift Ever!

The Best Christmas Gift Ever!

I have been tagged by a meme! I don't know if I have ever been done so before. Thanks to St. Wendeler of Another Rovian Conspiracy, I've answered the following:

Wrapping or gift bags?
Gift wrapping. I was a bagger for a couple years in college, so it's hard for me to respect the "effort" required to put something in a bag.
Real or artificial tree?
I'd prefer real, but the wife is highly allergic, so we have a very realistic artificial tree. So realistic that it drops needles.
When do you put up the tree?
This year, we put the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving, we put lights on it about two weeks after, and we put ornaments on it about a week and a half later. We wanted to acclimate our child to its presence slowly.
When do you take the tree down?
Sometime immediately after the first of the year.
Do you like eggnog?
I did as a child, but I can't stand it now. Maybe I got really drunk from it at age seven, blacked out, and developed the aversion then.
Favorite gift received as a child?
Commodore 128 received in 8th grade, followed by Atari 2600 I received in 6th grade.
Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, but we don't put it out because we have cats who would drop it from wherever we would put it onto the aforementioned child.
Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Come on, I don't think there is such a thing as a bad Christmas gift. However, in 2005, I got the Bad Cat desk calendar from my mother in law, and it was so inappropriately not funny that my coworker and I started most weekday mornings groaning over the captioned photographs of cats. The humor relied a lot on drug and sexual innuendo. I thought it was so bad that I was a little disappointed that I didn't get a 2007 version.
Mail or e-mail Christmas cards?
Mail. E-mail, contrary to what the SEC would have you believe, does not provide permanent artifacts.
Favorite Christmas movie?
As you know, gentle reader, it is Lethal Weapon; I posted my top five list in 2003.
When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Whenever I first see something that I think someone I know would like for Christmas. But mostly in October/November.
Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
My mother's pumpkin pie. My mother can cook only one or two things well. This is one of them, and it always pushes my gluttony button.
Clear lights or colored on the tree?
Colored lights this year; I think we used white last year. Whichever I find first, I guess.
Favorite Christmas song?
I like Mannheim Steamroller's "Deck the Halls" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". Another winter favorite is Dean Martin's "Baby, It's Cold Outside".

I have not, however, tagged anyone else. Sometimes, you can take the Scrooge to the meme, but you cannot make him by a goose for Cratchit.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:01 PM