Christmas Preferences

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I love and adore wrapping gifts in boxes and tying ribbons around them. I really appreciate well-wrapped gifts. I've been kind of lazy about it this year, though.

2. Real tree or artificial? I grew up with an artificial tree because two of my siblings are allergic to real ones. One of my brothers is extremely allergic and gets congested very quickly and very badly by being around them. My first time to have a real tree, I was 20, living with 5 girls in an apartment. One of them bought a tree, and we all decorated it together. The next year I was married, so Eric and I bought a live tree. The year after that, we just used the artificial one that my brother gave us. This year we are living with Eric's parents as we prep to move to New Zealand. They have an artificial one.

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the day after Thanksgiving, now that I'm married and I'm in charge. But I'm not obsessive about it. This year we got it up about December 1.

4. When do you take the tree down? Some time after New Year's. I don't like to leave stuff up too long.

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, particularly if it's not too strong. But I prefer hot chocolate and wassail.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Sand Art. Yes, I was a nerd. Also, a stuffed bear that I named Manhattan.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, we have 3. Because my mom gets us one for each year that we have been married (2). Plus we bought ourselves one once.

8. Hardest person to buy for? My sister and her husband. I usually just get them gift cards.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My dad. He always gives a list in October. And then my siblings all get him everything on it. I am getting him the think nobody has gotten him yet. Easy.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A Grandma-like Christmas sweater? I don't really remember.

11. Have you been to the Nutcracker? Yes, three times. Once when I was 9, and my mom and I went with my friend, Dorothy, and her mom. Then, in high school I went to watch Dorothy perform in her high school's performance. And once a couple of years ago at BYU.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I haven't seen very many, which is cause for another post that I've been meaning to write. But, DEFINITELY A Christmas Story. I love that one.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Never early enough. Although! This year we bought some gifts back in April! We are amazing!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I don't think so, actually.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Chili. My mom's chili. And tamales. And taquitos. And chips and salsa. Of course, all these are actually Christmas Eve foods.

16. White lights or colored on the tree? I grew up with colored, but now I prefer white. One day when I am rich, I hope to have two trees. One will be the department-store-tree with white lights and fancy-pants ornaments. The other will be kid-tree with colored lights, fun ornaments, and the ornaments the kids make in school.

17. Favorite Christmas song? I really like The First Noel. It's really better to ask which songs I'm not crazy about. That deserves another post, as well.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Depends. Right now, we don't have kids, so it is easy to travel to visit others. I don't know if we'd ever travel somewhere to spend time away from family.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Yes.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I like angels. Eric likes stars. Good thing I'm the wife and I'm in charge.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Eve. Then Santa comes, and you get to open more presents in the morning!

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The feeling of being rushed to see everyone and get everything done.

Hand-made Goodness

I once sort of learned to crochet. Meaning, I learned the idea of crocheting, but I never became a crocheter. I really wanted to, but at the time, I just didn't have time. And now I have time, but I still don't know how to do it. I doubt I could learn from a book. I'm a hands-on kind of girl.

Last night we had our work Christmas party at the boss' house mansion. It has half a basketball court inside. Eight kids. All eight have their own rooms. You get the idea. The point, actually, has nothing to do with the house. It is the white elephant gift exchange. Eric and I neglected to bring gifts, primarily due to forgetting and time constraints, so we opted out of the exchange and were merely observers. Somebody didn't understand the whole idea of it all and brought an iPod. He got a bar of soap inside a stocky with somebody else's name on it. Poor guy.

One girl brought a home-made stocking. Inside was an old church manual (The Teachings of Wilford Woodruff), a home-made hat, and two home-made snowflake ornaments. For whatever reason, nobody picked up this gift, and it was left on the counter at the end of the game. (Which means that somebody who brought a gift left without one). Anyway, the girl seemed rather hurt that nobody picked her gift, and she just gave it to me. That was very nice of her. And now I have a pale-yellow hand-made hat.

It's really great. Really. I'm uber-excited about it. Baby duck yellow, as Eric would say. And I put it on before we left the party, and handful of people commented on what a cute hat it is. :)

Outdoor Christmas Decorations

Let's discuss Christmas lights and outdoor Christmas decorations. Maybe I am a bit of an outdoor-Christmas-decorations snob. That doesn't bother me. I have rather strong feelings about decorating your house for Christmas.

First of all, if you want to go gung-ho crazy for Christmas, do it inside your house so you don't subject your neighbors to your tacky decorations or ridiculous lights.

With that said, I don't think all decorations are tacky, and most lights are not either. I'll just give you a list of things I detest:

• Lights strung poorly. If you are going to hang them on your house, make them hang straight. Your roof is straight. Pull your lights tightly and secure them well so that they will be straight too.
• Don't leave your lights up. ESPECIALLY if they are icicle lights. So tacky.
• Lights on the house are pretty much all you need. I prefer them to be all in one color, but I don't necessarily think multi-colored lights are tacky.
• If you insist on putting lights on your trees, please do it Temple Square style, as seen here-

• Notice how the lights are strung around each, individual branch? It's a lot of work, yes. But if you are going to do it, you may as well do it right.
• And finally. Lawn ornaments. Most are just not worth having. ESPECIALLY the inflatable kind. They look cheap. Do they cost cheap? No. This is something I don't understand.

I guess the best option for me is to live somewhere that regulates such things. Unfortunately, I don't right now, so I have to see things like an inflatable Santa riding a motorcycle with two reindeer on the back. Classy. (This isn't the exact image, but it's close).

Review: Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is one of the most complicated board games we play. I feel like I can't even begin to describe it to you, but I will attempt nonetheless. The overall goal is to earn victory points. To do that, you have to load goods onto ships. To produce goods, you have to build settlements, provide employees to work the settlements, and build factories with employees to work at the factories. Plus you sell your goods to get money, which you use to buy factories and buildings that give you certain privileges.

That is a really simplistic description of this rather complicated, but extremely fun game. This might be my favorite board game these days. There is a lot of strategy involved, and some luck. Unlike other games, you really can't have the same strategy every time. You have to vary it according to the other players' strategies.

Puerto Rico is pretty intense and competitive, but it doesn't cause nearly the contention that Tigris and Euphrates does, perhaps because it is not a game of warring states.

The game is meant for 2-5 players. It takes 1-2 hours.

Review: Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Life of Pi by Yann Martel is wonderfully amazing. It is really and truly gratifying. One of the best books I have read all year.

Life of Pi is about a boy who is stranded on a boat with a Bengal tiger for 227 days. It is about religion, human nature, animal nature, the need for companionship, and the will to live.

The writing in this novel is clever and witty. I can't tell you how many times I found myself laughing, not necessarily at funny situations or events, but just good writing that was meant to make me chuckle. In that same vein, the book is exceptionally moving.

You must go get this book right now from the library and read it. RIGHT NOW!

I read this book aloud to Eric (I think he read about 10 pages, if that), and he really liked it too. In the middle it gets a little slow, but that's because Pi is in a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean doing pretty much the same thing day in and day out. I actually think the writing was intended to reflect the nature of Pi's rather dull life, and thus the less exciting writing.

But in the end, the book is amazing. It doesn't fizzle, as I worried it might. Amazing book.

Let it, Indeed!

Alli's recent post made me realize that I ought to talk about my memories of snowing.

In Dallas it snows sometimes. It snows and then it ices. And everything shuts down. It did this a few times when I was in elementary school, and we got snow days. My brother and I spent those days wandering around the neighborhood, sliding on ice and having snowball fights. That is, we had snowball fights until we realized that snowballs were actually sleetballs and they rather hurt. Mostly, though, we just enjoyed the fact that we didn't have to go to school.

When I was a senior in high school, we got two and a half snow days because of snowy/icy weather. I spent both of the full days working at the grocery store where I was employed. Because I lived so close to the store, the bosses knew they could call me in to cover shifts. One day I worked 13 hours. The next day I worked 11 hours. Those were long days. But they resulted in overtime, and a pretty substantial paycheck. It wasn't so bad. Plus, I got to sleep in and go to school late on the third day, which was also quite nice because, Hello! Early Morning Seminary was canceled. I enjoyed seminary, but it is hard to be somewhere at 6 every morning.

Then I moved to Utah.That year we got a lot of snow in the valley. In fact, we had a lot of snow by Halloween. I remember the during the first snowfall I ran around playing in it with two of my friends from California, Prisicilla and Chad. We probably looked like idiots. We didn't care. That year I also made my first snowman. On my birthday, it snowed, and I called my mom and told her, "Mom! Guess what! God gave me snow for my birthday!" It was a fun birthday. (The snow, combined with the fact that I had the flu that week, and on my birthday I was allowed out again without the risk of pneumonia).

That year, I visited my brother and his family in Jackson Hole. I went sledding for the first time, AND WOW! I love sledding! It is so much fun! I should probably be a little more mature and prefer skiing over sledding, but sledding is easier and less painful. Also cheaper. So I choose sledding.

The next year I visited my brother for Christmas, and I went skiing for the first time. I really enjoyed it, only fell a few times and ended the day pretty unscathed. Although, my brother did trick me into taking a pretty big jump saying that "Yeah, you can do that. You've been skiing great all day." Um....no. I biffed it pretty badly. Skis flying. Body rolling. Snow in face.

I went skiing again with my brother and his family about a year later, on a more difficult mountain. My nephews (8 and 6 at the time) whizzed by me as I fell, got up, fell, got up, fell, etc. Nonetheless, I rather enjoy skiing and one day hope to have it as my family hobby like my brother does. His boys go down black diamonds and have been doing so for a couple of seasons now.

Of course, the snow has been slow in coming this year. We got a little bit at the beginning of November, but it promptly melted. And then nothing. Until this weekend. I hope we get some more by Christmas so Eric and I can go sledding and take a walk up the canyon enjoying the snow-covered, leafless trees.