Welcome to the 2006 Holiday Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends - Alternate Edition

Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. Okay, here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!! Just copy this entire post and paste into your own blog. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. 'Tis the Season to be NICE!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper.

2. Real tree or artificial? Real. You did say “tree,” right?

3. When do you put up the tree? Trra-dition!!! Christmas Eve.

4. When do you take the tree down? Sometime in January. It’s something of a family tradition to wait until most of the needles fall onto the floor. The rest can be easily dislodged and deposited onto the floor when taking the ex-tree out of the house.

5. Do you like eggnog? Hic! I’m gonna get me smor gnog. Wuntsum?

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Although I'm not really big on money for gifts, there were 2 Christmases where I saved my Christmas and birthday money to get a bike and a running suit.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Several. We never know which one will turn up in any given year, though.

8. Hardest person to buy for? The person whose name I draw in the extended family gift exchange drawing!

9. Easiest person to buy for? My wife.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A wooden trivet that required assembly.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail. Judging by the lack of responses, I’m never sure who actually reads my emails.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Original "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" with the voice of Boris Karloff as the Grinch.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Customarily (other than this year, which required that I begin shopping December 18), I do all of my shopping (wife, a goodly number of the kids’ presents, parents, nieces and nephews, family grab-bag and family adult gift exchange) in a one-day marathon shopping session which is generally December 22 or 23.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I have recycled presents for other occasions, but I don’t recall having done so for Christmas.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Russian Teacakes.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? This is a trick question. Assuming that “clear” means white or uncolored, my answer is colored, although we have both frosted and clear colored lights.

17. Favorite Christmas song? One I seldom hear: Angels From the Realms of Glory.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Go to church Chistmas morning, then go home and stay there.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Of course. And in fact now I know them better because their names are in a song called Christmas Chopstix that I sang in a Barbershop quartet this year!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We had 2 paper angels, one that my wife made, and one with an icon of an angel. But last year we got a funky topper that looks a little like a Russian onion dome. So, currently…neither!

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Stockings Christmas morning before church. Everything else after church.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Daily news reports about whether this year’s retail shopping results are on track to be a record.