Hello, dear ones!
Linking up today for a quick Q&A with the gals at The Blended Blog for another edition of their “TBB Asks” series. Today’s questions are holiday-themed and were fun to answer. Hope they will be fun for you to read, too.
15 Holiday Questions: TBB Asks
- Real or fake tree? Fake. But I spray it with balsam fir fragrance and use balsam fir air fresheners all over the house in hopes of diminishing the plastic smell a bit.
- Favorite Christmas cookie? Lemon almond cookies. Check out the recipe, here. We had a near-catastrophe at our house last year when I thought I had lost the recipe for these cookies. They are the girls’ favorite cookie. I looked on the Internet and found what seemed like a very similar recipe from what I could remember. We baked a batch and they were delicious. After Christmas, when I was putting the house back together, I found my recipe. It had fallen between the cushions on the couch. When I compared the two recipes, they were identical!
- Home on Christmas morning or traveling? Home. Almost always.
- Clear or colored lights? Clear. More like icicles and snowflakes, in my eyes.
- Send Christmas cards? Not any more. Sometimes I send an ecard from Jacquie Lawson.
- Favorite Christmas present received? A little cardboard playhouse I received from Santa when I was about 6 years old.
- Favorite Christmas present given? New bedroom furniture, bedspreads, curtains, pictures on the wall, decorations for each of my daughters the year I bought my first house. I was a single mom and I tucked the girls into my bed on Christmas Eve. Then I took their new furniture up to their rooms. Made their beds with all new linens. Hung pictures and curtains then arranged nick-knacks on their books shelves. When everything was perfect, I carried each daughter up to her room and that’s where they woke up on Christmas morning.
- Stockings or no stockings? Yes!
- Christmas PJs? No, but maybe this year?
- Favorite Christmas carol? Silent Night. I love the lines “Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child. Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.”
- Favorite holiday tradition? Setting out gifts the gifts from Santa and filling the stockings with trinkets.
- Early shopper or last-minute? Depends on my bank account. I try to start by Thanksgiving but often don’t know when to quit and can be buying gifts up to the Christmas eve!
- Favorite Christmas movie or show? George C. Scott in “A Christmas Carol”, Jimmy Stewart’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the original Waltons show with Patricia O’Neal, “The Homecoming”.
- Favorite holiday beverage? Mexican hot chocolate. You HAVE to try my recipe, here.
- Cookies and milk for Santa? Always. Because that means I get to eat them!
Your Turn
You’ve read the questions and you’ve read my answers. So now tell me in a comment below how you would answer some of these. What’s your favorite holiday beverage? Do you have special Christmas pajamas? Please tell me all about your Christmas preferences and celebrations!
As I type this, I am curled up on the couch of my mom’s apartment in Lexington, Kentucky. So glad to be able to get up to see her again. She is an amazing 90 years old and going strong. Meet my mom in a post I wrote a year ago, here. We are headed to Ohio tomorrow for a couple of days and then will be back to Kentucky on Friday.
Hugs and kisses,
Your answer to the favorite gift you’ve given made me cry! What a beautiful gesture for your daughters!
On a lighter note, get the Christmas PJ’s! You won’t regret being festive and comfortable. 😉
What a beautiful gift for your daughters Leslie, I bet that is one Christmas they will remember. I wish I had know about this link up I would have participated. My favourite holiday beverage is Champagne! Bubbles always mean a celebration and it is Summer in Australia so nice and cool to drink. We did try mulled wine for our Christmas in July this year which was delicious and perfect for colder weather. Happy holiday preparations Leslie. xx
Sue, if TBB does the Q&A posts again going forward into the new year, I will let you know. They are fun and easy to write. I wish I had thought to share with the gang!
I love how you enjoy your champagne. I never think to drink champagne and I love it. That and sparkling wine. It does mean ‘celebration’. Your tradition of bubbly and gift giving with Mike on Christmas eve is dear.
I love the story of the girl’s bedrooms. I didn’t know you had done that. I bet they really had a sparkle in their eyes when they awoke to their new wonderlands. What magic. I have never heard of your lemon almond cookies. I barely knew this was your answers. I have not produced this magic or tradition for Trey. I would not even be able to answer most of these questions. I am upset that we never had this Christmas excitement. You are a wonderful mom and Mimi/Gabby(?). I love you little big sister.
This is so much fun!!!
Loved your #7…awesome supermom 🥇
Thank you so much. It was fun to answer these questions…my kind of easy post. I am not much of a supermom but I sure do love my babies. Thank you for your sweet words.
OK. The gift to your daughters got me all teary eyed. That was beyond beautiful.
I wish that we’d done something like matching pjs or the like… I mean, I wish we had traditions but we were so boring and just kinda hoping to survive, ya know?
Aww, thank you for the sweet comment about my Christmas surprise for my daughters. They were both pretty surprised. The older daughter sat up in bed and looked around and then went back to sleep, sure she was dreaming. The youngest daughter woke up and started screaming because she didn’t know what was going on. She went from having a mattress on the floor to have an all new bedroom!
We really don’t have traditions much either. Not together, anyway. So that was why I decided to create a Christmas bucket list. To come up with some new activities that might be candidates for becoming annual traditions. Will see how we fare.
Going to do a favorite Christmas books post, quick and easy, on Friday the 15th. Would love to have you join in if you have a book or two to share!
I love the story about you redecorating your daughters’ bedrooms! What an amazing mom you are! And I could totally go for a Mexican hot chocolate right about now.
Oh, Whitney, what a sweet message. I really am not an amazing mom but I really, really love my babies. Thank you so much for your kind comment. Can’t wait to mix up a batch of Mexican hot chocolate as soon as we get home from our trip to Kentucky and Ohio. Have a hankering for it! And about to freeze up here, too.
Oh that story about your daughters’ bedrooms when you were, likely, a struggling single mother . . . so, so sweet. Tears in my eyes sweet. (Virtual hugs to you right now!)
I’m amused at home many of us have fake trees. In my case, I did live trees for 20+ years, and after more mishaps than I could count (hello fully decorated tree now mysteriously flat on the ground; I’m talking to you!) I said “Enough!” and we bought a fake one. My daughters gave me so much grief, but they each lasted less than three years before throwing in the towels and buying fake trees. I think the year each of their trees fell over fully loaded, including water pans, was the year the caved. 😉
Oh, Tamara, thank you. I was a struggling single mom for a number of years. At one point, shortly before this particular Christmas, I was waitressing at Pizza Hut at night and working full time as a librarian during the day. Thank you for the virtual hugs. I can always use and always appreciate a hug of any sort!
Live tree smell wonderful but they can be trouble, too. Especially when they fall over, water pan and all!! And those pine needles, drying out and falling to the floor and getting stuck in the carpet. I would find them for months after. We are all a fake tree family now days. But nothing beats the fragrance of a fresh-cut fir.
What a lovely thing to do for your daughters – they must have been so surprised when they woke up!
I loved reading your answers, Mexican hot chocolate? That’s a new one for me!
Oh, Debs, you have to give Mexican hot chocolate a try. Really unique and delicious. Definitely worth giving a-go.
My babes were so surprised/confused when they woke up the Christmas morning that I redid their bedrooms. One looked around and went back to bed! Sure she was dreaming. The other started screaming because she didn’t know where she was!! My sweet girls!
This is so fun to read!!
I just bought a new pair of pjs—not that they are really Christmas ones, but they have moose on them—does that count??
XOXO
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
Yay for moose pjs. They work for Christmas and the whole winter through!
I still haven’t tried your Mexican Hot Chocolate!!!! I need to!! I was laughing over your lost cookie recipe story, not because it was funny… but, I know how that is! I hate when I lose things, it drives me crazy… but, it is always nice when they do show up later. That is amazing you found a recipe online and it was identical to it!
Carrie
curlycraftymom.com