Winter Wonders: A Christmas Blog Tag

Julie over at The Moonlight Wanderer has very kindly tagged me for her Winter Wonders: A Christmas Blog Tag! Here are the rules:

1. Acknowledge who tagged you
2. Answer the questions
3. Tag friends & notify them
4. Fill out this form to have your blog challenge post spotlighted on The Moonlight Wanderer’s December Newsletter! (Optional)
5. Have fun!

Christmas is creeping up absurdly fast, so let’s start feeling festive and anticipatory by answering Julie’s lovely questions.

1. What are some traditions that you and your family have leading up to the holidays? And what’s something new that you want to try this month?

One fun tradition we have is that we open our stockings on St. Nicholas’ Day, December 6, rather than Christmas. We only put a few things in the stockings, so it’s a nice low-key way to anticipate Christmas festive-ness. We also listen to a lot of Advent hymns and Handel’s Messiah during Advent, and only start listening to instrumental Christmas music a few days before Christmas – and then on Christmas Day we break out the real Christmas music. (Though I admit I might sometimes listen to a couple of the more secular Christmas songs earlier.)

As for a new thing? Hm…I have a couple new decorating ideas, but I don’t know if that really counts. I’ve been on the lookout for quite some time for one of those little light-up ceramic Christmas trees…I think they’re so cute and vintage-looking. I did find a ceramic Christmas tree music box at the thrift store, which is at least a very similar concept.

Isn’t it cute? It plays Jingle Bells (and begins to sound very doleful as it nears the end of its time and starts slowing down, but that just adds to its personality).

Oh wait, I remembered something else; I’ve been planning on trying out more vintage recipes. I’ve tried several recipes from the Good Housekeeping Cookbook from 1955 (their mushroom recipe has become a favorite) and I want to experiment with more vintage cooking over the holiday season.

2. What’s your favorite Christmas recipe, food, or drink?

Eggnog is a big favorite for me. Something else we make every Christmas that I love is a drink called Dickens’ Punch – it’s cider and black tea brewed with fruit and spices and brown sugar, and it tastes absolutely wonderful (because honestly, with those ingredients how could it not?).

3. Every Christmas is different, and some years come with unexpected twists. But if you could have the perfect Christmas, what would the day look like for you?

On the perfect Christmas we would go to Midnight Mass, but I’d still be able to get up pretty early the next morning and feel rested. I and other early risers would have fun drinking coffee, nibbling some breakfast, and inspecting all the packages under the tree while any not-as-early-risers got themselves up, and then we’d do our traditional extremely leisurely opening of presents. We’d spend most of the day after that just relaxing and chatting, ending the day with eggnog and our (also traditional) watching of the 1951 A Christmas Carol.

Oh yes, and snow would be an essential, of course.

4. What are some of your favorite winter activities? (e.g. caroling, sledding, drinking hot cocoa)

Weirdly enough, I take great pleasure in shoveling our patio…it makes me happy to watch the pile of shoveled snow get bigger and bigger. I also love being indoors with a hot drink while snow is falling outside, and wrapping presents and decorating for Christmas are favorite winter activities in and of themselves.

5. Do you decorate? How?

But of course! We have an extremely ancient false tree who I love dearly, which we always decorate rather lavishly with colored lights and bead garland and ornaments. We also set up a couple Nativity scenes, hang a lot of garland and lights (mostly the multi-colored kind) around the house, set up a cute little winter village scene on top of the kitchen cabinets, and do various other little decorating things which are too numerous to name.

6. What is your favorite Christmas song or hymn? Why is it your favorite?

It’s nigh impossible to answer that definitely, but one of my favorites is O Holy Night – it perfectly captures the mysterious, awe-inspiring wonder of Christmas, and is just a beautiful song, both lyrically and melodically. Here’s one of my favorite versions of it.

7. What’s a gift or experience you’re really wishing for this Christmas? And what’s your favorite gift to give others?

Oh, well, you can’t just say outright what gifts you’re hoping for. In the Hexam household the preferred method is to drop extremely broad hints as Christmas approaches…like, “oh yes, I’m planning on buying such-and-such IN THE NEAR FUTURE but probably NOT JUST YET, and did you know that you can actually get it pretty inexpensively from Walmart? Isn’t that cool?” There isn’t one specific gift I like to give others, but I always love being able to give something that’s tied into an inside joke or some interest very specific to to the person receiving it.

Experience-wise, I hope I can really immerse myself in and ponder on the real meaning of what Christmas is all about, and just in general manage to be in the present moment and feel all those wonderful festive Christmas vibes.

8. Describe some of your favorite Christmas memories. 🙂

Listening to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas CD in the car on the way back from Midnight Mass…decorating the Christmas tree late on Christmas Eve while drinking the aforementioned Dickens’ Punch…sitting by myself in a dark room, praying or wrapping presents or some such, and looking out the window at neighbors’ Christmas lights…sneaking presents under the tree on Christmas Eve, pretending not to notice as other family members do the same, and making jokes about Santa hiding somewhere in the house and jumping out with presents as soon as our backs are turned…

9. What is your favorite Christmas-y book? Movie?

Book-wise: either A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (though it’s been shamefully long since I actually read the book), or Where Love Is, There God Is Also, which is a short story by Tolstoy that I read in its original form last year (though I’d already heard the basic story) and absolutely loved.

Movie-wise: the 1951 A Christmas Carol probably heads the list, but I also love It’s a Wonderful Life and The Man Who Invented Christmas.

10. List ten words to that encapsulate the feel of Christmas for you.

wonder
joy
hush
darkness
cozy
snowflakes
carols
wrapped packages
steaming drinks
candelight

11. In your own words, what is the meaning of Christmas?

Christmas is about soaking in the concrete reality of the fact that we have a God Who loved us enough to become One of us. All the gifts and lights and music and ‘externals’ of Christmas is in celebration of that one fact.

All right, I’m just going to tag a few people, so as to leave a few left for others to tag…

Hannah at Inkling Corner
Caroline at Truths Universally Acknowledged
The Hopeful Pen at With Joy for the Work
…and anyone else who would like to take it!

Here’s a clean copy of the questions for you:

1. What are some traditions that you and your family have leading up to the holidays? And what’s something new that you want to try this month?
2. What’s your favorite Christmas recipe, food, or drink?
3. Every Christmas is different, and some years come with unexpected twists. But if you could have the perfect Christmas, what would the day look like for you?
4. What are some of your favorite winter activities? (e.g. caroling, sledding, drinking hot cocoa)
5. Do you decorate? How?
6. What is your favorite Christmas song or hymn? Why is it your favorite?
7. What’s a gift or experience you’re really wishing for this Christmas? And what’s your favorite gift to give others?
8. Describe some of your favorite Christmas memories. 🙂
9. What is your favorite Christmas-y book? Movie?
10. List ten words to that encapsulate the feel of Christmas for you.
11. In your own words, what is the meaning of Christmas?