This is Christmas – Garrison Keillor

Christmas Magic – Fred Waring (Nostalgia!)

Christmas Carol – James Galway

Christmas at St. Thomas New York – St. Thomas (Boy) Choir

This is Christmas – Al Burt

2.

Muppet Christmas Carol

White Christmas

Christmas Vacation

(this leaves off many sublime and ridiculous ones)

3.

Russian tea cakes

Swedish meatballs

Moose munch

4.

Received -Big puffy slippers received my husband the Christmas before we were married.

Given – Bike given to my 5 year old son. He said, “I didn’t know Santa had bikes!” It was so fun to hide in the neighbor’s garage. . .

5.

My son singing “Cradle Hymn” as the Angel Gabriel 12/04 in the St. Mark Christmas pageant or me playing Mary in a blue bedsheet in the Christmas pageant at Our Savior Lutheran Church, San Clemente 12/65.

Movies:
1. Harry Potter films (no, they don’t mention Halloween, but always seem to have Christmas or winter in it. Pretty cool considering I suffer from SAD).
2. The Toy Who Saved Christmas (VeggieTales)
3. Christmas Vacation

Apps:
1. Buffalo Wings (it’s not just for football games!)
2. Christmas mints (kinda like Peppermint Patties, but better)
3. Buffalo Wings

Best gift received:
Getting dumped by my ex-fiancee. Seriously. Okay, it was the day AFTER, but does it count? Otherwise I’d probably never have dated my wife.

Best gift I gave:
So many years of gift cards… Probably the pampering pack I gave my wife a few years ago. Heated bag of beans (microwavable), a portable massager, and some microwaveable inserts for her socks. Reynaud’s).

Christmas memory:
After the children’s story time at church in Texas, heading home to grill steaks for my wife and me (kids were still eating chicken nuggets, having still not learned to properly use their teeth – what few they had – for tearing beef).

Favourite Movies:
Die Hard, Home Alone (not sure I can think of any other Christmas movies)

Favourite Snacks:
I always enjoy working on a boxing day jigsaw while munching my way through lots of Pringles and Licorice Allsorts

Best Present Given:
A Lightning McQueen toy car to my daughter, who despite receiving exactly the same present the past two birthdays and previous Christmas, was still overjoyed to receive yet another.

Best Present Received:
Well I was thrilled as an eight-year old to receive a LEGO castle (http://guide.lugnet.com/set/?q=6080_1&v=z)

Church Memory:
My church had a thing about singing every carol in the hymn book over the Christmas period. So the last Sunday of the year I dubbed “Scraping the Barrel” Sunday, where we sang all the left-over C-list carols after all the good ones had been used up at previous meetings.

Favorite movies:
1. MIracle on 34th Street
2. Since You Went Away
3. The Man Who Came to Dinner

Favorite snacks:
1. My grandmother’s fudge
2. Magic bars (the ones with chocolate chips, coconut, butterscotch chips, etc.)
3. Peppered pecans

Best Gift
Given — a portrait of me, my sister, & my brothers to our father (he cried for 10 minutes)
Received — a family tree album that my mom put together for all of us, complete with pictures

Favorite spiritual memory
The first time our church held communion on Christmas Eve

Christmas albums … hmm.. well I love Christmas music but I can’t really think of an album.. maybe the Transiberian Orchestra one.

Christmas Movies:
1. Its a Wonderful Life.. yeah I know, but I love it.
2. Almost any version of A Christmas Carol, *including* Mr. Magoo.
3. Charlie Brown… yeah… that Luke quote gets me every time.

Christmas food:
1. Olives, one for each finger of course.
2. Christmas cookies, especially the Swedish Stars which I can’t seem to find anymore
3. Egg nog

Gift given: I think it was the puppy I gave my son. The breeders actually let me pick it up on Christmas morning so I got a little snapshot of *their* Christmas morning, running around trying to get ready, rescuing one of their children from a locked bathroom, and selling a dog. LOL.
Gifts received: Hmm… I really can’t pick one.

I also can’t really think of a spiritual or church moment… well.. maybe the year my son played one of the shepherds in the children’s church play on Christmas Eve, that was pretty precious:)

http://www.redboots.org/

Favorite line from the story:

He asked, “what would you give God for Christmas?”
“Well,” said Gretchen, “I would give Him what I give him every day– my sins for His pardon, my weakness for His strength, and my sorrow for His joy.”