Jana tagged me for this holiday meme, and it’s perfect for the little space between the end of my work day and the beginning of my paper-slaving for school projects due next week.
I’ve never been big on Christmas. As I got older, we emphasized the Japanese New Year’s (Oshogatsu) over the Christian holiday, though we still did the tree and presents. My enthusiasm for December is not increased by its association with end of the year programming deadlines (esp. in 1999) and final exams and papers.
If you’re a Cthulhu fan and want to skip the cheery stuff, scroll right to #19.
1. Eggnog or hot chocolate? Eggnog…with a tablespoon or two of brandy. Yum!
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just put them under the tree? Santa Jana wraps them. For all my Japanese genes and mad origami skillz, I wrap presents like a man with mittens. Blindfolded. Behind his back.
3. Colored lights on the tree, or white? Definitely white. But if they made blacklight tree lights, then everything else would glow.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Jana said, “I wish. Anyone have some for me?” I’m on it!
5. When do you put your decorations up? I press-gang ask the kiddos to volunteer. My job is to go into the scary, spider-infested outside storage and recover the Lost Christmas Supplies.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?Turkey, stuffing and gravy. Or Japanese New Year’s cooking (esp. shiruko, zouni with mochi, and osechi-ryouri).
7. What’s a favorite holiday memory from your childhood? Getting teary-eyed when Bert and Ernie sang “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Not sure. Pretty young, since I can’t remember ever thinking that Santa was real.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Didn’t when I was growing up, but we do in our family.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Jana can tell you.
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Love it, especially when it’s silencing the world and there’s a warm home to return to nearby.
12. Can you ice skate? Pretty well, from playing a lot of street hockey some years back (falling on the ice is easier on the skin, though).
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Jana crafted a book of “vision” quotes that’s still a prized possession. The GPS runner’s watch my dad got me last year was very nice, too.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Family. And food. And finals are done! When I was growing up it was a time to reinforce my Japanese heritage as well. I miss that.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Mincemeat pie. I’m crazy like that.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? O-zouni, a hot miso stew with mochi, on New Year’s morning. Also going to Messiah sing-a-longs.
17. What tops your tree? A big golden bow.
18. Which do you prefer - giving or receiving? Both, but in moderation, and when accompanied by some heartfeltness. I’m not big on giving out of duty, though I engage in it.
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? I love singing “Still, Still, Still” and a few Christ-centered carols (ironically, I’m not a big fan of the secular ones). Until this year, I pretty much despised Christmas music (though Sting’s “Gabriel’s Message” is an exception).
All that is changed now. My brother sent me a bunch of Very Scary Solstice songs (including “It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Fish-men,” “The Carol of the Old Ones,” and the crowning “Oh Cthulhu” to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus by the Dagon Tabernacle Choir) that have left me ironically cheery and terrified. One of my favorites is “I’m Dreaming of a Dead City” (mp3 sample). Scroll down in the link above if you’d like to hear some samples. Thanks, Joe, and a very scary Solstice to you!
20. Candy Canes! Yuck or yum? What’s really cool is to suck an armor-piercing tip into one end and then stab at inanimate objects until the point breaks. Repeat until only a nub is left, or until your kid brother goes crying to a parent (then quickly devour the weapon).
Back to the books! Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza, Yoi o-toshi o mukaete kudasai, Scary Solstice, and to atheists everywhere, Have a Nice Day!*
*I wish I came up with this, but credit goes to a clever marketer at the X96 alternative radio station in SLC.
8 responses so far ↓
1 amelia // Dec 15, 2006 at 8:29 am
if you want unusual renditions of traditional carols, check out sufjan stevens recently released songs for christmas. he does a lot of the traditional christmas stuff, not much of the secular stuff, an original or two–all with his typical understated, paired down sound. and they sound so genuine. i’m really enjoying them.
2 Elise // Dec 15, 2006 at 9:41 am
Miko - My husband is a German fanatic and introduced me to Gl?ºhwein a while back. We just moved last weekend and spent our first night in our new place sitting amidst boxes and other stacks of chaos, admiring our freshly painted walls and enjoying a glass or two of hot Gl?ºhwein. Yum!
Also, everytime I mention how much I love Christmas, he promises to take me to Christkindlmarkt someday. Glad to hear you love it, too.
Is German your second language?
John - Hypothetically, if Ryan and I were to invite a friend over with Japanese heritage (and said friend’s family, of course), obtain a list of necessary ingredients to make yummy Japanese food, and purchase those ingredients, would it be reasonable for said friend to teach us how to make a few traditional Japanese recipes?
3 Miko // Dec 15, 2006 at 10:08 am
1. Eggnog or hot chocolate? Gl?ºhwein (mulled wine, German style); I find eggnog to be abhorrant; I used to like apple cider (the packets of barely-flavored sugar you get from Costco?) but now that I discovered you can heat milk and then melt chocolate into it, I like hot chocolate now, too
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just put them under the tree? Santa’s elves choose and wrap. Santa has lots of elves. Like, one for every present. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten an xmas present from my “parents”. [For example, daddy got ties from Santa’s Little Haberdasher; one year I got boots and poles from Santa’s Little Skiier; &c.]
3. Colored lights on the tree, or white? If I had a tree (I’m afraid the cats might be nefarious), I would want it to be uniformly white. Because I’m anal retentive. My parents use colored lights and I like the way it looks, but…
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Usually. It’s one of my favorite traditions. I used to like it for the kissing. Now I like it because it’s one of the primary ingredients of Asterix’s magic potion.
5. When do you put your decorations up? This year, we’re decidedly un-Christmasy. I bought a tiny wreath at TJ’s about a week ago because otherwise, in the apartment complex I look like the Grinch (or is it Scrooge?). I usually put them up before SMD so that we can really have a holiday meal, but I was doing so many other things this year…
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Goose. Although we never had it at my parents’…I don’t like turkey or stuffing or ham. Usually, though, my great uncle would call just before coming over and claim to have some crab just lying around, would it be okay if he brought a few pounds? He would then show up with about 10 lbs of fresh shelled crab. Now that he’s dead, mom just buys crab and we start the meal with crab cocktail. But the point of that introduction was that I like the cocktail sauce that she makes. I think that counts as my favorite holiday dish. You have to make it a day eary and let it steep for a while.
7. What‚Äôs a favorite holiday memory from your childhood? Meh. I only really started liking “the holiday season” about a year ago. Maybe this year. If high school counts as “childhood”, then I love and totally miss the Christkindlmarkt (say: crissed-kindle-marked) in Munich. When there’s snow crunching (or, more often, slushing) under your feet and you’re all bundled against the cold; the stalls are all christmassy and you’ve either got a cup of Gl?ºhwein to keep you warm or N?ºrnbergers in a Semel with mustard, also to keep you warm but well fed. That’s what Christmas should be.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I was suspicious for a while because grandma used one kind of wrapping paper, Aunt Eve used another, and mom, dad, & santa used the same wrapping paper. That was very concerning. Then, I was collecting trash around the house and found a receipt for something santa bought me in mom’s sewing trash. I cried. And then I brought the trash down so dad could take it all out. And next year, after midnight mass, I stayed with my parents to put presents under the tree.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nope. Christmas at my parents’ house was an exercise in will-power. You had to either go to Midnight Mass or Christmas Morning Mass. And if you went to morning mass, you didn’t have to wait in the house with presents, but if you went to midnight mass, you wouldn’t have a chance to shake everything before everyone got home. It was a tough choice. Stockings were fair game once you woke up. Otherwise, you had to wait until after everyone came home from mass, had breakfast, and dishes were done before you could open anything.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? See #3 regarding cats. I’m making a bunch of blue-papered origami cranes because I think they would look cool, but I don’t see myself having a tree anytime soon. At least not until I can burn it afterward (mmm, pine).
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Love. It. Love to walk in it, drive in it, romp in it, ski in it, play in it, be inside in it, watch it fall, watch it melt, watch it turn grey…I love snow.
12. Can you ice skate? Not sure. After I discovered skiing, all other winter sports (even sledding paled in comparison and haven’t been attempted since. I can roller skate and roller blade. And I presume that, somewhere between them, that means that I can ice skate (my fingers just typed “ski” instead of “ice” there…Freudian?).
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Boots and poles. I had acquired skis the season before and had been hounding my parents to let me have boots and poles by the next season. So I got a very small envelope that said I was entitled to boots and poles and, if stores weren’t closed for all 8 days of Christmas and beyond, I would’ve drug my dad to the store that day. When we finally went, I was like a kid in a candy store.
14. What‚Äôs the most important thing about the holidays for you? You know, I’m slowing understanding the whole concept of “holidays” and why some people might enjoy them. For me, it was just time off school. Or space between one field trip and ski-week. But now I actually enjoy hanging out with family. This will be my first Christmas at my parent’s since college and I’m looking forward to trying out their customs. I’ve been sampling my husband’s families’ customs the past few years.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Right now? Stollen. But I think that’s because it’s hard to get. I actually like my mom’s fruit cake…oh! She makes these peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate. Those are my favorite. She would put dates in at least half of them so that I wouldn’t eat all of them :-p
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Fondue Feast! Sometime between about a week before Christmas and a week after Silvester, we have a Fondue Feast. It is scheduled so that the maximum number of people can attend. We usually have about 15 people, all sitting around many tables that have been pushed together and are now in more than one room. About 4 people per fondue pot. And we have beef, chicken, & shrimp; mushrooms, peppers, & cherry tomatoes; many delicious sauces; and then, for dessert, Chocolate Fondue with bananas, oranges, apples, pinapple, and stale angle food cake.
17. What tops your tree? I. Don’t. Have. A. Tree. :-p I guess I would put a star up, as long as it was silver.
18. Which do you prefer - giving or receiving? I enjoy both, but it’s really much more fun to just be in a house with lots of people. Either socializing or not, but having people around. That’s what I always enjoyed about the holidays: all my sisters (and friends!) came home. Sometimes we got snowed in. But we were all in the house together.
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? My favorite carol is O, Holy Night. When we get to “fall on your knees” I start to cry. My favorite song is Mary, Did You Know?. When Kenny Rogers and Wynona Judd get to…basically any of the lyrics that are not actually “Mary”, “did”, “you”, or “know”, I cry.
4 Miko // Dec 15, 2006 at 10:15 am
(sorry for the mismatched order, I forgot to close my tag)
Elise: I actually learned both languages at the same time until I was 5. Then I quit German cold turkey. When I started up again when I was 15, it came back naturally but my teachers all dispaired of my physical inability to be taught any of the rules. It’s just a matter of whether or not it sounds right to me…and what sounds right to me is actually right about 70% of the time. Now that I don’t speak it anymore I sound like a disaster, but if I practice it on a regular basis, I have a heavy southern accent. If anyone who doesn’t speak German asks if I’m bilingual, I say yes. If they are German, I say my German is very bad :-p What’s your recipe for Gl?ºhwein? Mine is here. I really want to take my husband to Germany and show him all the cool stuff. But I can never decide what time: September is cool ’cause it has the Oktoberfest, December is cool because it has the Christkindlmarkt, and January is cool because it has the skiing! Is your husband German? Did he ever live there…?
John: if you agree to Elise’s request, will you post it?
I’m told that the second best Japanese breakfast in LA (the first is s/w in Little Tokyo) is at the Hyatt on Avenue of the Stars.
5 John // Dec 17, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Amelia, I’m looking forward to trying out some Sufjan.
Elise, I am intrigued by your hypothesis–it should be tested throughly and peer-reviewed.
Miko, I’m having some tea with my stollen (courtesy of TJs). And I may have to steal your fondue tradition.
I have to warn you all–I’m much better at eating than at cooking Japanese food.
6 Miko // Dec 17, 2006 at 5:53 pm
I was going to make some comment about how everyone’s better at eating than at cooking but I suppose that it actually does take talent (for us Westerners) to eat with chopsticks, so…
7 nee // Dec 18, 2006 at 8:11 am
I’m a fan of Sting’s “Gabriel’s Message”, too.
8 Elise // Dec 18, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Miko - the only kind we’ve had is actually pre-bottled from a German market/restaurant in Carlsbad. I’m intrigued at the idea of making my own now and plan to try some this holiday season! I doesn’t look too hard and I’m sure it would be better. My husband lived in Germany for a couple of years and speaks the language fluently - I can’t wait to go someday!
John - I’m reviewing the idea with your favorite peer. If all else fails, we can make modifications to pre-made Trader Joe’s Japanese food and call it cooking. I make a wicked stir-fry…..does that count?