Feeling Xmassy

Thanks to ladyoneill for the meme (when I should be working...)

Favorite Classic Christmas Movie: It's a Wonderful Life. Yes, it's cheesy, but I love it.

Favorite Modern Christmas Movie: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Every year we make a giant pot of hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps, put this movie on, and decorate the tree. I also like the Christmas scene from the movie version of Auntie Mame, with Rosalind Russell. I want to be Rosalind Russell in my next life.

Favorite Animated Christmas Movie/Show: The Grinch!! "It came without ribbons, it came without tags, it came without packages, boxes or bags!!"

Favorite Christmas Episode of a TV Show: Buffy, Amends.

Favorite Reindeer: Clarice. The only known female reindeer. Booyah.

Definitive Version of A Christmas Carol: The book.

Favorite Christmas-Themed Commercial: I get all mushy over the Maxwell House ones, where some faraway child makes it home for the holidays. *snif*

Most Annoying Christmas-Themed Commercial: Everything else.

Favorite Religious Christmas Song: Oh Come All Ye Faithful but only in Latin. I just like it better in Latin. If I were Catholic I'd be agitating to bring back the Latin Mass. I'm weird, what can I say? After that it's a toss-up between The Gift, by Aselin Debison, which makes me effing WEEP every time I hear it (*snif snif*) and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Little Drummer Boy, which makes me want to drive a convertible very fast with the top down in December.

Favorite Secular Christmas Song: Snoopy and the Red Baron (Christmas Bells)

Favorite Christmas Sweet: Mom's home-made fudge. Nothing beats this. Nothing.

Favorite Christmas Beverage: My great-grandma's egg nog, which has rum, brandy AND bourbon. Grandma was quite a woman, as you might imagine.

White Lights or Colored?: White.

Artificial Tree/Real Tree?: Real, always and forever. Nothing is as sweet as that piney smell that infuses the house.

Fruitcake: Gross or Yummy?: Gross, gross, gross.

Favorite Christmas Ornament: No way I could choose LOL! My mom had a tradition of giving my brother and me an ornament every year, so I have 44 of those (yes, all the way back to my pre-first-birthday Xmas!); Spouse and I have continued it so we have eight together.

Favorite Christmas Tradition: see favorite movie tradition above. I had favorites when I was a kid but since we've all grown and scattered those have fallen by the wayside.

Mistletoe? Yay or Nay: Theoretically yay, practically nay, since I've never managed to find it or hang it. And of course there's my favorite fictional appearance of mistletoe, which I'm always in favor of.

Presents: Christmas Morning or Christmas Eve?: One (the smallest) Christmas Eve, the rest have to wait until Christmas morning. As a child we were allowed to get out of bed and open the stockings IF and ONLY IF the sun was up; after that we had to wait for the grownups to get up, make coffee, make breakfast, etc. and THEN we had the big present-opening. Orderly. One at a time. Which was nice, because we all got to admire each others' loot and it stretched it out much longer :) These days it's a much shorter process.

For you, when does the Christmas season start? Spouse says the day after Thanksgiving, but for me it doesn't start until we get the tree, whenever that is. That's what really makes me feel Xmassy.