8 days. 8.short.days left until Christmas 😀
Has it hit you yet? The Christmas spirit? Mine has been coming and going for most of December, but with basically a week left, I’ve definitely been feeling festive a little more frequently. Yesterday in particular had me humming Christmas songs all day long, so when it came time to sit down and write a post, I knew I wanted it to be Christmas themed… and what better way to do that than survey style? 😀
Feel free to ninja this sucker for your own blog, because not only is it fun to fill out, but it’s lots of fun to read about how other people do Christmas too.
Before Christmas…
Do you send out Christmas cards?
Sure do! Although I kind of slacked on that one this year. Sowwy.
How soon do you start shopping?
😆 Well, there’s a week left until Christmas and I have yet to really start, so… yeah.
Do you have a lot of gifts to buy?
Not this year. Most people in my immediate circle agreed to keep things small and simple, which I’m super happy about. Christmas is becoming a little too commercial for my tastes.
Do you bake cookies?
Is this a serious question?!? Of course! I go through so many batches that I’m usually sick of them by the time Christmas actually rolls around.
Decorations…
Do you put up a Christmas tree?
Sure do! A big one, a mini one, and a Snoopy one.
If so, is it fake or real?
Fake. Real trees sound nice in theory, but I always run into SNAFUs in the execution. That and my building doesn’t allow us to have real trees anyways…
Do you like tinsel?
NO! God-awful stuff that gets everywhere and is impossible to take off.
Do you use homeade or storebought ornaments?
Storebought. The tree at my parents’ place has a lot of homemade ornaments that I made when I was a wee little thing, but they all get clumped near the back — no hard feelings 😆
Do you put Christmas lights outside your house?
No. I live in a condo, and while I suppose I could string some up on my balcony, I save most all of my decorations for inside.
Do you put lights on the tree?
Yes. Well, not technically, since my tree comes with the lights already attached, but… pft… details.
How about popcorn and cranberries?
How about ’em? OH! On the tree? No, but I’ll gladly eat both.
Is there a wreath hanging on your door?
Yup! One on the front door and a few on the inside as well.
Christmas Eve…
Do you celebrate it?
Yes! Our main celebration actually happens on Christmas Eve. My family is Polish and we celebrate Wigilia on the 24th. We’ll have a meatless supper, open presents, and then attend Midnight Mass.
Do you hang up your stocking?
Of course! How else would I get my yearly supply of Christmas socks?
Have you ever left cookies out for Santa?
I have! And he always left one on the plate with a little note telling me to enjoy it along with my presents.
Favourite…
Christmas Movie?
Ooo tough one. I could never settle for just one, but if I had to choose… A Christmas Carol.
Character from any Christmas Movie?
I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the old-school Rudolph.
Christmas Song?
Oh Holy Night.
Christmas Memory?
The one year I got to spend Christmas with my grandma. All of my family (besides Mom and Dad) live in Poland, and while I get to see them during the summer, I’ve never been able to spend any holidays with them. Having my grandma around for one Christmas was definitely a special treat.
Christmas Cookie?
Please don’t make me choose… I love snickerdoodles and chewy gingerbread, but all I can think about right now are these white chocolate cranberry cookies…
This or That…
Give or Receive?
Give… even though I always stress myself out trying to get the perfect gift.
Ham or Turkey?
Turkey… mostly because my family has never really done the ham thing.
Star or Angel?
Star… although my tree top is currently naked. Oops.
White Lights or Coloured Lights?
White so I can play up a coloured theme with ribbons and ornaments.
Blinking Lights or Still Lights?
Still… the blinking ones make me feel restless.
Were you Naughty or Nice this year?
I’d like to think I was a good mix of both.
Presents…
What do you want for Christmas this year?
My two front teeth…
When do you open your gifts?
Christmas Eve and then a simple stocking on Christmas Day.
What’s the best gift you’ve ever gotten?
You know that one toy that you placed on a pedestal when you were a child? Mine was a Playmobil dollhouse. I remember wanting one for a few years before finally getting one for Christmas one year. I was basically over the moon, and that thing is still hanging out in my parents’ house to this day.
What’s the worst gift you’ve ever gotten?
I’m pretty sure someone gave me a box of peanut butter filled chocolates once, which I thought was very thoughtful of them 😯
Do you like wrapping gifts?
I feel like I’m in the minority on this one, but I actually love it. Gift bags are a no-no around here.
Random…
Can you name all the reindeer?
“You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall, the most famous reindeer of all? Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer…” Now you’re singing it.
Have you ever gotten a kiss under the mistletoe?
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mistletoe outside of the movies. Do people really do that?
Do you go carolling?
No. That’s another one of those things I’ve never seen people do outside of the movies.
Do you drive around and look at the Christmas lights?
Yep! There’s a street in my city called Candy Cane Lane where basically every house is decorated. It’s been a family tradition to go for pretty much as long as I can remember.
Have you ever had a white Christmas?
So I live in Canada… I don’t recall ever not having a white Christmas.
Who do you celebrate Christmas with?
My family, aka: Mom and Dad. We don’t have a lot of family here in Canada (they’re all in Poland), so our holidays are usually small and cozy. I’ve always kind of wanted to know what it was like to have those huge, 30+ people holidays, but I also really love it being just the three of us.
Have you ever had your picture taken with Santa?
Yes, many times as a child — and I was BAWLING in every.single.one.
What part of Christmas do you look most foward to?
Midnight Mass — it just wouldn’t be Christmas without it.
Are your holiday celebrations big or small?
What’s the best gift you ever got?
What’s your favourite Christmas tradition?
Feel free to answer any others!
I love your Christmas decorations and Christmas plate you have pictured 🙂
I prefer Turkey too.
Best Christmas present I ever got is probably a Kindle from last Christmas since I’ve used it so much.
The blinking lights make me feel restless too – They’re only good if… Well, you know! LMFAO! And then you will eat your body weight in Christmas Cookies and Popcorn and Cranberries.
My favorite XMAS tradition is honestly just going home and having ALL of my siblings and parents (makes it sound like I have more than 2 – lol) there! I just love when we are all together. I didn’t think my brother was going to make it this year but he found out last Friday that he can take time off from work – so WOO WOO!!! PUMPED! My family isn’t actually celebrating Christmas until the 28th though, so I plan on doing some AFTER XMAS HOLIDAY SHOPPING – aka: EVERYTHING IS ON SALE!!! WHAAATT! This could very well be a new tradition!
Aw I love this post!! And I agree about the holidays becoming MUCH too “commercial.” It makes me sad to realize how many people don’t even talk about what Christmas really, truly is about anymore.
Also, could I use this survey for my own blog post?? I’ll obviously share that I got it from here – it seems like a lot of fun to do!
Definitely! I’d love to see your answers 😀
Awesome! Thanks! 🙂
I’m so glad you posted this! My life is all about my internship these days and I feel like it’s not even close to Christmas yet. This helped to put me more in the holiday spirit though! 🙂
Our Christmas celebrations are medium sized – there’s usually about 12-15 of us. Sometimes we celebrate with my mom and dad’s side of the family at the same time though, and then there’s more like 25-30 people!
My favourite Christmas tradition is playing board games with my family on Christmas Eve.
That would have been bad had you bit into that chocolate not knowing it had PB!! OH NO!!
Best gift ever… a puppy when I was a kid. I don’t think I have ever been so excited!! lol. I might have to steal this!!
A puppy?! Omigosh that was seriously my -dream- when I was younger! Sadly I got my first dog some time in April 😆
Our holiday celebrations tend to vary! This year they will be on the smaller side which is kind of nice. The best gift I received – a ‘life-sized’ puppet show theatre is definitely up there!
I’ve never heard of Wigilia before. That’s interesting!
I only decorate the inside of my house too. We rent a town home so it’s not worth the trouble. Maybe when we own a house someday!
I think you are amazing because you haven’t done Christmas shopping yet either.
I completely agree with you about the mistletoe and the carolling? I’ve never seen either- Although what DO you do if carollers came around? Give them candy? Comb their hair? Hit them over the head with a rolling pin?
You like wrapping gifts? That is borderline punishment. I probably make presents look WORSE after wrapping them. Ahh Amanda, you are one confusing spoon.
Stop encouraging my bad habits 😛 And my first answer was going to be “comb their hair,” but most people wear hats around here because it’s so cold, so I’m really at a loss… Something involving fruit cake, maybe?
What a fun survey! My favorite holiday tradition, that I will be missing this year is appatizers and family friends over for a party on Christmas Eve. After a fun night eating and drinking we head to midnight church. It’s such a fun experience.
We don’t have a lot of family so my husband and I often have an orphans Christmas with a couple of friends or volunteer for the holidays- this year we are volunteering to work at a homeless centre. The best gift I ever got was a bike when I was 8- I don’t really get many presents at this time of year actually. Lack of family thing, and my friends just give each other little gifts, but it’s the thought that counts. My favourite Christmas movie is about a boy (it has Christmas in it :)) and Love actually. I really love baking at this time of year- I made chocolate Caramel slice and millionares shortbread already. Both tamed my pregnant sweet tooth :)!
I love this !! Every Christmas Eve I WISH I could open all my gifts LOL but I don’t want to ruin the fam tradition on doing it together every year. I love Christmas!! Nowadays its so much more about spending time with great friends, awesome family & of course a good ol’ drink in hand doesn’t ever hurt anybody!!
This survey officially put me in the Christmas mood!! I wasn’t really feeling it before, but all this talk about the movies, gifts, and traditions is warming me up 🙂
My favorite Christmas cookies include pecan pie tarts (can that count as a cookie?), snickerdoodles, and honestly….those Pillsbury quick-bake sugar cookies. Those things are delicious.
Favorite Christmas memory: Being in Florida for Christmas and New Year with my favorite people ever— my immediate family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and best friends. All in the same house. It was one of the best holidays ever! It probably even trumps the time I saw the Pope at midnight Mass in Rome…because I was 7 years old and I fell asleep anyway 😉
Glad I was able to get you feeling a little more festive 😀 And yes — pecan tarts totally count 😉 Confession: I love those quick-bake sugar cookies because I’m -horrible- when it comes to freezing and rolling dough.
Love this! What a cute survey!!
Fun! love it! will probably steal 🙂
the one thing I say each year that I will be better on is christmas cards, I am so sad I had zero time to do them this year. I love home making them. Just a nice touch to the season i think
How fun! Totally stealing this one! 🙂
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is attending our church’s Christmas Eve service!
I am definitely going to work on this survey for tomorrow’s blog post! Thanks! I didn’t realize you were Polish. My grandpa was Polish and his mother came over from Poland. So I’m a little more distantly Polish, but my parents still have Polish dinner for Christmas Eve… Kielbasa, Perogies, Saurkraut. It’s awesome. No one outside my family seems to appreciate the cabbage/saurkraut like we do. Loved the survey and pictures as usual!
Love this survey! So much fun :D. Hahah I completely feel you on your answer to “Have you started shopping for Christmas gifts yet”. I procrastinate like no other when it comes to that one!
Also, I’m going to be writing a post that includes 8 of my favorite healthy sweet treats. Mind if I include your no bake almond protein bars? They’re definitely a favorite for me!
Definitely don’t mind!
Fun! I just updated my Christmas survey from last year to post on Thursday. Love these!
I love stuff like this 🙂 My family’s holiday celebrations are small…like it’s the four of us (now five with joe) on Christmas eve; joe’s family, however, has everyone known to man over which was completely overwhelming the first year we were together so i hid in the kitchen drinking wine while he cooked with his brother…i still do 😉 both are lovely but i think i prefer the smaller one. More intimate and less prep work required! My favorite holiday tradition was spending the night “sleeping” beside the Christmas tree with my brother growing up. We’d sneak down after santa came and lay under our blankets beside the tree, talking and trying to guess what he had brought. I miss those days a lot, although I do like how we split up the days between my fam and Joe’s since Christmas Eve was always more special to my family. Joe and I get up early like little kids on Christmas morning too which is a lot of fun 🙂
My holiday celebrations are usually kind of a medium size, depending on how much of my mom’s big Romanian family is coming in. This year I’m spending Christmas with my family and also my best guy friend’s family. I’ve already met about 30 of his relatives (aunts, uncles, and cousins), and that isn’t even 1/3 of his mom’s side of the family! So at Christmas I’m meeting the next third! I’m going to making a lot of dessert this year! And the most exciting thing for me is that for the first year ever, I’ll have the chance to put up a Christmas tree once I move in two days! Just have to get through 3 more exams first 🙂
Favorite tradition is simply just drinking hot chocolate watchign christmas movies in front of the fire. Wine wouldn’t hurt either..
Spiked hot chocolate, maybe? 😉
Totally agree with the Christmas Eve mass, except we go at 7 pm instead of midnight (our “midnight” mass is at 10 anyway, soo…). We always have a nice dinner, go to mass, come home and watch a movie, and drink hot chocolate. Simple and sweet!
Loved reading this survey. I may have to ninja it, as you say, next week 🙂 PS. Glad the peanut butter gifter didn’t get ya. I think we all want you around these parts!
Let’s see – yes, mistletoe is a thing! I’ve been to Christmas parties where a bit of mistletoe was hanging. I’ve never been kissed under it though.
Oh Holy Night is one of my favorites, too. It’s so beautiful.
I haven’t started Christmas shopping. Actually, I don’t even know what I’m getting my parents, so this is a huge fail. Since I’m traveling home, I figured that I would just shop once I got there. Hopefully that won’t bite me in the butt.
Love this survey, I might need to steal it, sorry ninja it! I have a really small family too, so I’m used to the smaller Christmases. Best gift ever was the year my husband (then boyfriend) and I decided to go to Cancun instead of buying each other gifts 😉
Great survey! This is really just such a wonderful time of year! I love it! Since we’re Italian, we have a big Christmas Eve fish dinner at my parents’ house. On Christmas day, we go to my in-laws for our main Christmas celebration. Lots of food, family and fun! 🙂 I can’t wait!
Thanks for sharing. I love hearing about peoples’ traditions. Your Christmas sounds so cozy and peaceful.
My favorite tradition: When I was growing up my mom would buy a new Christmas book every year. On Christmas Eve we were allowed to open one present, it was always new pajamas. Bathed and clothed in our new duds my mom would read us the new Christmas book. Following that, my father read the real Christmas story from the gospel of Luke. Then off to a sleepless night (way too excited to settle down!)
Our church put on an annual Christmas pageant. One year, the choir director wrote a song for the performance, Every Tiny Candle. The song became a special part of the pageant. Outside of our tiny church no one has ever heard of the song. It is incredibly beautiful and every time I sing it I can recall the feeling of serenity and wonder that I felt in that candlelit church dressed in an angel costume.
The past few years, because of the eating disorder, I have dreaded the holidays. But this year I am feeling the spirit of the season. Thanks for invoking that spirit through your posts.
Your Christmas traditions sound wonderful, Sarah 🙂 I lost a lot of Christmases to my ED as well, but the good news is that there are plenty of Christmases left to come, and each year is a chance to have an amazing one.
Yay Christmas! It’s the most wonderful time of the year. 🙂 I’ve been singing carols to E seemingly non-stop!
Make sure to read him “The Night Before Christmas” too!
My parents live in BC, which is where my brother and I were born and raised. The rest of our family lives far away! So it is usually just the four of us for Christmas, which I kind of like.
The best gift I ever got was a car last year! I fully acknowledge my spoiled-ness 😀
My favourite Christmas tradition is drinking apple cider around the fire on Christmas eve and talking about the past year with my family and playing cribbage with my brother, even though I always lose.
Thank you for sharing a bit about your Polish background, I love hearing about all the different ways people celebrate Christmas around the world!
This is a fun one! I haven’t seen it before but maybe I’ll steal it for next week sometime 😉 I think you just came up with my way to kill time today before I head out later… christmas movies. I’m feeling The Holiday. Always a classic, especially when curled up with some hot chocolate.
That’s a gooder. LOVE Kate Winslet.
Aww I love this! Might steal this one too, but then people might get annoyed finding out even more of my CHristmas love 😉 Haha I do have family gatherings that are huge, and wish you could take part in one too! Maybe one year you will have your family from Poland here or you be there!
Oh wow! What a survey! Oh and…..can I please join your holiday season next year, including celebration?
I love this season, I really do – so much. The sad part is, that the memory of the last christmas with Dad (before he passed) is so horrible, that we all kind of lost the joy. It’s cruel especially for someone like me who used to be all about the traditions. I guess I just have to create a family to relive it all! 😉
There’s still some favorites. Song: Let is snow. I can listen to this one over and over (even better when from Bublé). Tradition: Christmas Market with mulled wine. This is SO holiday feeling!
And I also love Santa Clause Day in the holiday season. Mom’s baking is to die for!
I love going around and looking at lights. Actually last night we loaded up the girls in the car to do just that and I have to say they were fuddy duddies the entire time. They couldn’t wait to be back home, not sure what is up with that. Our Christmas celebration is usually small we celebrate with J’s family on Christmas Eve and then on Christmas Day we have our little celebration that morning and then invite my family and his over for Christmas Brunch! Yum!
So agree, Christmas has become so commercialized these days – we keep the gifts to a minimum too, but it is so much more fun to give and see the look on someones face when you manage to guess what they really want or need!
Other than a couple Christmases when my cousins and their families came to visit us in Atlanta, our Christmas celebration is pretty small too – me, my daughter, my sis, mom and dad. Growing up, my parents would make a traditional Sri Lankan cake (which is an amped up fruit cake with booze) and we would go to Midnight Mass and then come home and have a small slice and open presents – good times!
My daughter and I have a “Carol singing” tradition where we play the songs so loud it drowns out MY voice and we try out something new for breakfast Christmas day – before we go hang out with my parents and sis. Speaking of caroling, it is a lot of fun – I went when I was visiting friends in Indiana and then again about 3 yrs ago with a friend of mine who was a pastor and some others from his church…we walked and sang down a busy city street, and we had so much fun in the process!
Love this survey idea Amanda! Definitely a good link up idea!
What a super fun survey!!! I loved reading about your Christmas traditions and memories!!!
We always open presents on Christmas Eve and do stockings Christmas morning, too.
Feel free to come wrap my gifts – not my favorite and none have been wrapped yet!!!!
With pleasure! I accept payment in cookie form 😉
Aww, your love/excitement for Christmas is putting me in the mood!
Are your holiday celebrations big or small? small, just my immediate family, which is nice.
What’s the best gift you ever got? a ghostbusters proton pack & ghost trap.
What’s your favourite Christmas tradition? for the past few years, i’ve gotten up early and went for a jog (the weather has been unusually warm!) over to my parents house for breakfast. I like spying on peoples christmas mornings during my run.
Cookies for Santa, yes! I always used to leave carrots for the reindeer too 😉 and I agree, Rudolph is by far the best Christmas character there ever was and ever will be. Love that little guy <3
Christmas doesn’t happen in my world and as a kid I found this to be simply terrible. I usually end up at the movies, eating Chinese food or more recently, at The Cheesecake Factory on Christmas Eve since they are open! I do like driving around to look at lights though. The holidays are much more fun when Hanukkah falls around Christmas – it helps to feel the festive like the rest of the world!
Cute survey!!! We have the same ornaments and the same reindeer plates. I used to be a purist like you and only like white lights. For some reason (I blame weird pregnancy hormones) I totally switched this year and we put colored lights outside. You should come to the dark (colored?) side soon…
😆 I can’t — my tree has white lights already attached to it.
My favourite family tradition is seeing a movie on Christmas Day! My family goes every year and when C and I started dating I was sad I wouldn’t be able to go but then he surprised me when he told me that his family goes to the movies too! Match made in heaven haha