I received this e-mail from a neighbor. It’s one of those things where you read their answers, then fill in your own and pass it on to the people you’d like to hear back from. Seeing as how while most of you will be getting ready for work or what-have-you this morning while I’m undergoing prep for surgery to get “unscrewed”, I won’t be in much of a blogging mood, and thought I’d leave this here for you to enjoy.
Please feel free to leave your own answers in the comments, or post to your own blog and link to it in the comments. Merry Christmas!
Welcome to the 2007 Holiday Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends! You know the drill. Don’t be a scrooge! Fill it out, pass it on, blah blah blah. I would love to hear your answers.
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
This time of year, I have to go with the nog. I can get hot chocolate any time.
2. Does Santa wrap the presents or just sit them under the tree?
Growing up, Santa just left stuff under the tree, or on the coach next to the tree, etc. Since then, he seems to have upgraded his process, as the gifts he leaves are now wrapped.
3. Colored or white lights?
I prefer white, though I do enjoy the colored lights when they’re done well.
4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Nope. I’m already kissing the person I want to kiss the most.
5. When do you put your decorations up?
We have no hard and fast rules on this one. The tree just went up this weekend, and the lights were put on last night.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Can I go with the nog again?
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?
The older gentlemen, Mr. Gridley, who lived next door to my grandparents, would dress as Santa and come over to hand out our presents when we did Christmas at their house. As a child, having Santa right there, handing you the presents he’d brought all the way from the North Pole? Incredible.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I’d have to check with my folks, but it was likely somewhere around ten or eleven years of age. I overheard some other boys talking about, and I confronted my parents with the information. They told me the truth, but swore me to secrecy, as my sister, five years younger than I, still believed.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
That usually depends on where we might be, but generally, yes.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
White lights, with ornaments from my childhood, plus some that were gifts from my mother-in-law, my mom, and my grandmothers. They’re pretty much all personal momentos of one sort or another. No tinsel or garland. Pretty simple, the way we like it.
11. Snow: Love it or hate it?
Love it, just because, growing up in south Louisiana, and now living in north Texas, we don’t see snow often.
12. Can you ice skate?
Nope. Heck, I barely remember how to roller skate!
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
So many were favorites at so many different times of my life, I really couldn’t say.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Spending time with the family. It’s great to see Christmas through the eyes of a child–my son–once again.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
A tie between my grandmother’s chocolate pie, and my grandmother’s lemon pie. The tie is always broken by having a slice of each.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Watching my son open his presents on Christmas morning.
17. What is on top of your tree?
An angel.
18. Which do you like best giving or receiving?
Definitely the giving, though I won’t lie and say the receiving–especially when it’s something from my carefully assembled wish list–comes in a close second. Hey, at least I’m honest.
19. What is your favorite Christmas song?
I’m a sucker for a well done “What Child is This?”, and I also love “Joy To The World” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”.
20. Do you like candy canes?
To eat? Not really, but I don’t mind them otherwise.
21. What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Technically not a movie, but I love “A Charlie Brown Christmas”
Tag: music
Originally slated for inclusion on the Joshua Tree album twenty years ago, this song remained unfinished until just recently:
It can now be found on disc two of the 20th anniversary edition of Joshua Tree.
[Wave of the phin to the Fontosaurus.]
Mark Lowry performs our national anthem as a baritone, with some “surprise” accompaniment:
(Via Lee via IM.)
Tom tagged me, asking I note the last five songs I’ve purchased. Since I don’t often purchase individual songs, my list will mostly contain my favorite songs from the last few CDs I’ve purchased.
1. “Once Bitten Twice Shy” — Great White
Tried out the new Amazon MP3 store and got this. It’s the only Great White song I’ve ever liked, so why bother buying an entire album to get it?
2. “Disarray” — Lifehouse, Who We Are
I really like the way this song kicks off the album.
3. “Every Man” — Casting Crowns, The Altar and The Door
I love the reminder this song gives me that everyone needs the salvation God offers in His Son, no matter who they are.
4. “Dirty And Left Out” — The Almost, Southern Weather
Because what’s a rock album without a ballad? And boy, have I felt this way at times.
5. “Long Live the King” — Aaron Shust, Whispered and Shouted
Shust builds this song perfectly. I don’t usually associate the words “anthemic” and “fist-pumping” with worship music, but this one gets the blood moving.
I don’t really like “tagging” folks and propagating Internet memes–gee, I guess if I really feel that way, I should stop participating in them, shouldn’t I?–but I confess, I am curious as to the last five songs purchased by Brent, Nathan, Michael, Wes, and Raena. (If you don’t feel like blogging your response, lady and gents, feel free to leave it in the comments.)
[Wave of the phin to Dean Barnett for the pointer on HotAir.]
“Arctic Monkeys see slower sales for new album”
I guess they gave up trying to come up with Shakespeare.
I’m not sure if there’s anything to the fact that as George Thorogood’s “Who Do You Love?” was playing, I came across Steve’s great poem, “my convenient social gospel”, but regardless, it’s a good poem. Thanks, Steve!
Earlier today Brian twittered about Patrik Stenberg’s “curious covers”, and I listened to them all. My favorites are “Break-up” and the “Rock Medley”.
I didn’t used to be one for custom ringtones on my mobile phone. When I got my Sony Ericsson T616 a few years back, the only additional ringtone I used on it, other than Sony Ericsson’s fairly nice included set, was a ring that sounded like an old telephone. But when that phone went belly up, I ended up with the Motorola V551 (since replaced by a V557). The ringtone selection that came with the Moto was anemic, and you can bet I wasn’t shelling out three bucks for ringtones from Cingular AT&T.
I’ve become one of those people who can’t stand the default rings on most phones, and for whatever reason it irks me when someone’s phone rings in public and you can instantly tell it’s a Nokia, or a Motorola, or they’re with Cingular AT&T, or Verizon, because they never bothered to change the default ring. And so many people don’t change the default ring, how do you ever know it’s your phone that’s ringing when you’re out in public?
But I digress. Yes, there are plenty of of free ringtones available online, but this time around I thought I would just make my own. One copy of iTunes, one copy of Audio Hijack, and voila!–instant custom ringtones. I only needed 22 seconds of any particular song, as that’s how long the Moto rings before it goes to voice mail.
The first song I ripped was The Who’s “Baba O’Riley“. The synthesizer at the beginning makes a great ringtone, and people always seem to look at me with a sense of wonderment when they see it’s my phone making that sound. They may not be able to place the music at first, but they know they’ve heard it somewhere before. This is my default ringer.
The other song I ripped was New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle“. This ringtone was applied to all of my wife’s numbers in my address book.
“Bizarre Love Triangle”?? Really, Chris?
Yes, I know it may sound odd to have a song so named be the default anthem for whenever your one and only beloved calls, but there’s a profound and sensible reason behind this.
Oh, this should be good.
Oh it is. You see, when I was in high school, I was a metalhead. Oh, I didn’t necessarily hang out with the metalhead crowd, but I was in to heavy metal and hard rock, with a little punk thrown in on the side. This was my big teenage rebellion; having grown up on a lot of classic country (some of which I still enjoy), along with Neil Diamond and other assorted light pop, I went a different direction, musically. This is nothing new; the kids who followed Elvis and The Beatles were rebelling against their parents’ choice of music, too.
My wife, on the other hand, was in to the “New Wave” stuff, the alternative stuff of the ’80s before it took on something of a grungification in the ’90s. One of the groups she followed was New Order.
After we met in college and began dating, I was gradually exposed to this world of music her high school years had been spent in, and out of all of that, there were a handful of songs by New Order that I could stand, and a couple I actually liked. “Bizarre Love Triangle” was by far my favorite New Order song. So because it was something from my wife’s past that I grew to like, thus becoming something we now share, and it has that cool opening to the song, that’s how it became the custom ringtone for when my wife calls me on my mobile.
Okay, okay. That’s pretty good.
See? I told you. Now, you’ve read this far, and you’re probably wondering why the heck I’m bothering to tell you all of this. Here’s the payoff:
I’ve been using BLT as my wife’s ringtone for coming up on a couple of years now. Yesterday, in the Pilot on the way to the little phisch’s karate class, my phone rings. “Bizarre Love Triangle” begins to play, and the from the back seat, without any input from me whatsoever, the little phisch cries out, “It’s Mommy calling!!”
This morning, my wife is taking the little phisch to school, and on the radio, what song should happen to come on? You guessed it. At this point the little phisch cries out, “It’s Daddy’s phone!!”
Kids have amazing minds.
“Fat Tuesday” by The Friendly Indians is most apropos today.
Check out some of their other songs on their music page.