We haven’t had one in awhile and since we’re nearing the end of the year and folks are about to get away for the holidays, I thought I’d throw a short one at you. Show all work and no cheating.
1. What is the one thing you must see or hear or do that tells you in no uncertain terms that it’s the holiday season?
2. Of the three, which is your favorite: Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s Eve?
3. Is the holiday season typically fun or depressing for you?
4. Have you been good this year? Do you deserve a visit from Santa?
5. How old were you when you figured out there was no Santa Claus?
6. What was the best toy you ever got as a kid?
7. What adult toy would you like someone to give you?
8. What is your fondest memory from 2004?
9. To what are you most looking forward in 2005?
10. Are you optimistic or pessimistic as we enter a new year?
My answers:
1. I have to hear Nat King Cole’s rendition of “The Christmas Song.” Not some contemporary version, not some instrumental and certainly not some hip hop version. The classic, one and only original. Then and only then have the holidays begun.
2. Frankly, I like Thanksgiving best. It’s all about family and food (and football). No commercialism, like Christmas, nor societally imposed happiness, like New Year’s Eve. Just gather together people you love and eat a lot.
3. A little of both. Thanksgiving is fun, Christmas a little less so, New Year’s is totally overblown and meaningless for me. But in the past several years, I have also taken time off from work around this time, so if nothing else it’s restful.
4. I don’t now about good, but I’ve worked really hard and been pushed to my limits and survived. I deserve something, dammit. But I doubt if I’m getting anything in the way of gifts. In my family we’re all adults and can pretty much get the things we want ourselves, so we’ve kinda stopped giving gifts. The things I really want are on the wishlist if anyone cares. But I’ll have to be my own Santa to get them.
5. I don’t recall, but it was early on. Two and two just kept adding up to five. We didn’t have a chimney, so I didn’t understand how he could get in. My mother would always circulate the Spiegel Christmas catalog and ask us to make out our lists and I wondered what the connection was. I sat down and figured with all the people in the world, how could one man hit every home in one night. It just didn’t make any sense. Then of course there was the time my brothers and I found the toys hidden in my parents’ closet.
6. The “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” toy gun. It was so cool. It was an automatic pistol, with a silencer, a shoulder stock extension, a sight, and tripod legs so you could lay on the ground. It fired caps and had a shoulder holster. Yes, guns are what little boys asked for in the ‘60’s.
7. Well, the Segway would be real cool. I’d also like a camcorder.
8. Hmmm….maybe starting culinary school, because I’d been thinking about doing it for so long. The stars all came into alignment to allow it to happen.
9. Finishing school! The schedule is kicking my ass weekly and I’d like to be done already.
10. Optimistic on a personal level, because I feel excited about my future professionally, but pessimistic for the country as a whole because of the dangerous right wing extremists who now occupy the White House and Congress. How we will get through these next four years is anyone’s guess.
5 comments ↓
1. Get sick off of egg nog
2. No favorite, but anticipating the coming year is always the most meaningful
3. Fun! Days off to frolic around with the ones you love!
4. Good? I’m sure if I were “good” Santa wouldn’t have anything to do with me! If he wanted “good” he’d be at home with Mrs. Claus, right?
5. I don’t think I ever believed in Santa, but I played along until I was about 8 or 9 …
6. Big Wheel
7. KY Warming Gel
8. People showing up to my virtual rent party
9. Getting my photography out there
10. I feel beat down, but optimistic nevertheless. I guess I’m just drawn that way.
1. What is the one thing you must see or hear or do that tells you in no uncertain terms that it’s the holiday season?
Money. Yes, I can hear money. Can’t everyone?
2. Of the three, which is your favorite: Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s Eve?
Probably New Year’s Eve. The secular fanaticism around Christmas and the reminiscence of family at Thanksgiving make this one my favorite of the three. Nothing like a good countdown, I tell ya.
3. Is the holiday season typically fun or depressing for you?
Depressing. Friends usually get scarce, and family…well, this is why I don’t like Thanksgiving, right?
4. Have you been good this year? Do you deserve a visit from Santa?
I certainly think I’ve been good. Others would say elsewise. Bah to them. Three cheers for a hirsute White man in red velvet!
5. How old were you when you figured out there was no Santa Claus?
Four. I remember the Christmas vividly because I received a K-28 computer (which I subsequently disassembled), a jigsaw puzzle, a yellow metal Tonka truck and an inflatable Heathcliff chair. I wore yellow Pooh jammies with the feet in and the rear buttoned. Then Death-Phoenix told me that she and my father were Santa Claus and that I better never forget it. I never did.
6. What was the best toy you ever got as a kid?
As a kid? Hmm…of gifts received, it would probably be that Tonka truck. After that, I kinda stopped getting things for Christmas and was forced to get up year after year to watch my brother unwrap presents. Hmph.
7. What adult toy would you like someone to give you?
An Apple iBook.
8. What is your fondest memory from 2004?
Hmm…it’s a tie between my 23rd birthday and the first time I met Opportunity.
9. To what are you most looking forward in 2005?
The endless possibilities. Travelling more. Making dreams come true. You know, all that sappy shit.
10. Are you optimistic or pessimistic as we enter a new year?
Optimistic man. I’ve got big plans and dammit, I’m going to make them happen!
1. A Christmas tree tells me.
2. Thanksgiving
3. Very fun.
4. Yes, especially a Santa witha checkbook
5. Seven, but I didn’t tell my mother.
6. Spirograph.
7. A DVD collection of porn of course!!!!
8. Seeing my relatives in one place. Even though it was for a funeral, it was good seeing everyone and connecting.
9. More of the same. 2004 has already been a great year.
10. Optimistic. My body and my mind believes it.
i’m posting my responses here (my site is down and i sure as hell be glad when it’s back up), here i go:
1. listening to christmas music
2. Thanksgiving
3. It is fun because I have a daughter and I get excited just watching her on Christmas morning, if I didn’t have her it wouldn’t be as fun and it’s not like it used to be, now people are so busy spending $$$ on gifts and not celebrating christmas what it is actually for.
4. No I haven’t been good who has? Yes I deserve a visit from Santa and he needs to have me a nice Coach Bag!
5. 8 yrs old, I found all my stuff hidden in the attic, that’s what I get fro being nosey!
6. My barbie dollhose and car
7. A mercedes E class and not the scale one either
8. my trip to ATL to visit my friend
9. Peace, Joy, & Happiness
10. Either or
HOLIDAY POP QUIZ
Read on to find my answers to this Holiday Pop Quiz. And hit me back with your own responses if you feel it.