I am such a sucker for holiday fun and when I saw Natasha, Lindsay, Alexandra and Tina post a holiday survey on their blogs, I just had to hop on board!
I love reading about holiday traditions (your comments about special ornament traditions in your family made my heart melt), so I figured I would do the survey and then you can participate in the comments section of this post if you would like to share a little insight into how the holidays go with your family! Select any (or all) of the questions below to play along!
25 Questions: Holiday Style
- Eggnog or hot chocolate?
Both. And both with whipped cream.
- Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
He wraps them! All of my presents were always wrapped in one type of wrapping paper and my sister’s gifts were wrapped in another!
- Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White lights outside and colored lights on the tree! Now Ryan and I have white lights inside and outside.
- Do you hang mistletoe?
No, but we do have a mistletoe headband that comes out every year with mistletoe that dangles from the front of it so you’re always under the mistletoe.
- When do you hang your decorations up?
The day after Thanksgiving.
- What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Our Christmas morning breakfast is my favorite! We always have an egg and cheese breakfast casserole called cheese puff casserole and monkey bread.
- Favorite holiday memory as a child?
Our annual “Rudolph Walk.” Just thinking about that walk every year makes me so grateful for my wonderful father and the effort he put into making our Christmas so special.
- What is on your Christmas wish list?
The “big ticket” item on my list this year is a lululemon stride jacket, but I’m not holding my breath! I also would love a roll-up toiletry bag and the gunmetal BIC Band headband.
- Do you open a gifts on Christmas Eve?
We only open one gift on Christmas Eve and it’s always a new pair of Christmas pajamas.
- How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
With lights and random ornaments. Nothin’ fancy! I just want my tree to be filled with ornaments that have memories attached to them and that make me smile.
- Snow? Love it or dread it?
Love it and miss it terribly. My family’s first Christmas in Florida after moving from Illinois in 2003 was hard. It felt weird to see palm trees decorated with Christmas lights and go for a walk on Christmas wearing only a light sweater.
- Real tree or fake tree?
Impartial.
- Do you remember your favorite gift?
I was a serious tomboy growing up and I remember being so excited for the Christmas when I got a life-size cardboard cut out of Michael Jordan. Yes, I am serious. I also loved the framed copy of Ryan’s proposal speech that he gave to me the Christmas after we got engaged.
- What’s the most important thing about Christmas for you?
Spending time with my family.
- What is your favorite holiday dessert?
I think monkey bread should count as a dessert, no? If not, my grandma’s homemade sugar cookies can’t be beat.
- What is your favorite tradition?
Now that we live in Florida, we decorate my parents’ boat with Christmas lights and take it up and down the nearby canals on Christmas Eve while blasting Christmas music. That’s a Florida Christmas for ya!
- What tops your tree?
An angel. Every year my family does a “drumroll” while my dad puts the angel on top of the tree.
- Do you prefer giving or receiving?
I kind of want to be Santa. I get so, so excited to give people gifts, especially when I think I got them something they will love but may not have asked for outright.
- What is your favorite Christmas song?
O Holy Night.
- Candy canes, yuck or yum?
Meh. Put them on top of some peppermint bark and now we’re talkin’!
- Favorite Christmas movie?
Christmas Vacation. My family quotes this movie year round.
- What do you leave for Santa?
Cookies and milk for Santa. Baby carrots for the reindeer.
- Do you have a Christmas morning tradition?
My parents used to make me and my sister wait until we could see the first signs of sunlight before we’d get up! We always open our stockings at the breakfast table while eating cheese puff casserole and monkey bread and drinking orange juliuses.
- Do you prefer to shop on-line or at the mall?
At the mall!
- Christmas letter or Christmas card?
We always do Christmas cards in my family, but I love reading Christmas letters from other people.
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MJ was the bomb! I remember liking him so much more after he was in Space Jam.
The only thing on my Christmas Wish List this year is for my mom to have a good Christmas surrounded by family and friends. She was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and has been undergoing some intense chemotherapy over the past 3 months and going in and out of the hospital. She learned yesterday that she doesn’t have to have chemo again until after the first of the year (yay!), so I’m hopeful that she will get some of her strength back and be able to spend Christmas around those that she loves.
what a perfect christmas wish! wishing you and your family a happy and healthy holiday! and praying for your mom’s recovery.
My parents would always make me wait till I saw sunlight too! When I was really little I started waking them up at like 5 am because I was so excited and they weren’t too pleased with me. haha Therefore the sunlight rule was enforced from then on! 🙂
I loved reading about your holiday traditions!!!!
Santa always used different wrapping paper for mine and my sisters’ gifts as well!!!!!
Yay! I loved reading your answers to this survey :). We leave out the same things for Santa and his reindeer haha. And I totally want that mistletoe hat…that sounds awesome! I should tell my mom to make monkey bread this Christmas! I LOVE that stuff but haven’t had it in such a long time!
I love your tradition of decorating your boat with Christmas lights! That sounds so fun! All these holiday posts are getting me SO excited for Christmas :).
Great post! I loved hearing about all your family traditions 🙂
I just did it on my blog too. Thanks for the idea 🙂
http://smallhomebigstart.blogspot.com/2011/12/holiday-survey.html
Our families are very similar with Christmas spirit! I always say that Santa lives in the my soul! I love this time of year. May you and yours have a great Christmas 🙂
I love this post! I’m so duplicating it on my own blog, if you don’t mind.
We had a few traditions growing up, but what I’m most excited about is creating my own with my own little family. This year (and last), my 4 yr old stepson and I made a gingerbread house together. This year we also made a Christmas chain so he could count down the days to Christmas. He even asked me if we could do it again next year. So cute!
How fun! I think I’m going to have to put one of these on my blog too! 😉
And snow during Christmas is one of the things I really miss by living in LA. Thankfully since my family is still in Chicago, I can usually get a taste when I go home to visit them.
I love surveys. I feel like I can learn a lot about another person based on their answers, especially because it’s often stuff they wouldn’t usually bring up without being asked.
awww I love your Florida Christmas on a boat! haha that sounds so fun. I can’t believe you were a tomboy growing up! I was a MAJOR one too. ahem…think, baggy “gangsta pants” with a big “gangsta” gap tshirt. lol!
I love this! Christmas Vacation & O Holy Night (especially Josh Groban rendition) are definitely the best Christmas movie and song! Oh, and I’d be happy to give you our snow in Ohio – I can’t stand it!
How fun! Think I’ll also be partaking in the holiday survey! 🙂
Julie,
I’ve been reading your blog for a long time and I have a piece of constructive criticism I’d like to offer. There are 15 links in this post alone, many of which are to your own site. This post is actually unusual in that you link to external sites – rarely a post goes by without several internal links. Every time I come to your blog, the first thing I see is a stream of orange hyperlinked words, which gives me a bad initial impression of the post. Putting a link to anything you can, no matter how trivial, just for SEO purposes leaves a very bad taste in my mouth and I would urge you to look into quality-driven alternatives for driving traffic to your blog.
Thanks so much for the feedback, Orla! I can tell you that I am not linking internally to my site for SEO purposes (I actually used to work for an internet marketing company and linking the way I do isn’t beneficial for SEO at all – good SEO links have questions or key words highlighted, not longer phrases). I really don’t blog w/ SEO in mind, but I do blog with new readers in mind. I honestly get questions about things that I’ve blogged about numerous times in the past every single day, so I include links to make it easier for people to look back to see what I may be referencing. Or I link back to something to save myself from having to explain it over and over again (like the “Rudolph Walk” reference above) b/c that would get really redundant for regular readers. I really do appreciate your feedback and knowing that it could be off-putting to some is important to me. I guess I’m not bothered by interlinking on other blogs and sites, so it’s not something I think about a ton on my blog, so it’s good to know when it turns someone else off.
I bought myself the Stride jacket even though it is way more than I would usually spend on myself. I’ve had it for a few months now and I’d say it is totally worth the money. I’ve worn it hiking, running (it keeps me warm even in the snow) and just out for errands and such. I love, love, love it. It was my reward to myself for meeting some fitness goals I had set – sooooo if Ryan doesn’t get it for you, you should definitely treat yourself!
Aww I can’t wait to do this!!! Thanks so much!!
Julie(or Ryan or Leslie or pbparents)’
If i can make a suggestion instead of the in stride jacket from lulu try the live simply jacket. It’s cheaper, comfier, sharper, and 10x better then the in-stride.
I just got mine and it’s the perfect Florida jacket!
http://lulumum.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-live-simply-jacket-white-black.html
Happy holidays!
Interestingly enough, I’m a Dani, too and I totally agree! i feel like the in stride just doesn’t really do much for the body… if I could return mine, I would!
oh! thanks for the info, dani!
doesn’t this suvery put you in the christmas spirit? I did it on my blog as well :]
I just got the lulu jacket as an early christmas present from the BF, i absolutely loveeeeeeee it! keeping my fingers crossed for you! 🙂
do you have a recipe for the cheese puff casserole? I need something just like that to make for my family’s Christmas brunch that I am making this year!
i’ll try to get it to post when i go home for christmas! it’s SO good!
*hot chocolate. i don’t think i like eggnog : /
*def. wrap! people just put presents under the tree sans wrap?
*have to be white. white lights are simple and elegant
*sometimes. depends on if it jumps out at me at the tree lot or not.
*varies – in past few years have done it right after thanksgiving but it’s usually a week or two after. um, but they’re not done yet. partly b/c we had no luck finding a reasonable tree last weekend!
*my dad’s scalloped potatoes. no cheez. so good you could eat them cold – and sometimes i do the next morning!
*favorite memory? well, i could tell you about my mom’s NOT favorite memory. probably the one when i was 3 and got up early and opened everyone’s gifts!!
*always open some gifts on Christmas Eve since i’ve always spent it with my dad and that side of the fam
*tree is decorated with white lights and lots of snowmen and snowflakes
*snow – dread it. too many scary driving memories when i went to uni in canada. but i’m a cali girl, so we don’t really get snow in the areas i’ve lived in here
*real tree – with all that is in me
*mom always got us an advent calendar. i’m doing two this year with my toddler. first one that reveals a Scripture each day telling the story of Jesus’ birth, and THEN she gets to open the one with chocolate. we’re also doing elf on the shelf.
*i LOVE candy canes. esp. the fat sticks. no, seriously. they taste different from the small ones. and none of those cherry kinds!!
*for movies, i like the classics like rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
*online shopping as much as possible
loooove the first photo of you and ryan.
i got the gunmetal band recently. found bic bands thanks to you.
and you did a great job answering orla. very professional and undefensive. the interlinking doesn’t bother me at all – i love to click on things to read more or discover something new! personally, i think her commentary was better suited for a personal email.
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