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*****CLOSED & WINNER ANNOUNCED*****GAME: The Great December Debate | DYD 2025

scrapchyck said:
I'm lovin' everyone's stories and experiences and hoping no trees catch on fire this year! If you're just joining us, you can go back and answer the earlier questions. If you've already answered our first two questions don't go back and add to your previous post, because I'm tracking your entries as we go.

THIRD QUESTION--NOVEMBER 14th

Twinkle Lights: Pure White or All the Colors of the Rainbow?
(Unless you're high tech like @Brendazzle and your fancy tree does both!)
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I wasn't paying attention and when I scrolled through the first page of posts (20 of them) I thought that was all and went ahead and answered the first two in one post. Now I'll do it right and answer each as I come upon it.

Again, I like both for different reasons. In general, I love colorfulness, so when I see multi-color lights, that makes me happy. But I also appreciate simplicity and all-white lights are very pretty and more elegant.

It's okay if you disqualify me for being indecisive. :lol

Edited to add: I just thought to mention I have white lights strung along my ceilings in my family room and my home office, and have had them up and running for a few years straight. All year. I put them up in 2021 or 2022 and haven't taken them down. Probably won't until the day far in the future when we move out.
 
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scrapchyck said:
FOURTH QUESTION--NOVEMBER 14th

Elf on the Shelf: Visits every day or Why would I do that to myself?
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Hey! Finally one on which I am decisively one way. Although I agree there have been some cute ideas for the project, I hate the idea of someone watching over, being judge-y. I didn't even fully do Santa Claus with my kids. I was so glad my kids were beyond the age for such things when Elf on the Shelf became a thing.
 
scrapchyck said:
SIXTH QUESTION--NOVEMBER 15TH

Opening Presents: Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning?
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When I was a kid, when my family started celebrating Christmas just before I became a teenager, I think it was my older sister who promoted the idea of opening presents on Xmas Eve, and we did. We were usually going to a relative's house on Xmas Day or having relatives over to our house, so it was sensible.

With my kids, my husband and I decided together to do presents Xmas morning. I don't even remember a discussion (our first xmas with a child would have been 2001). I just remember always doing it this way.

My kids created traditions circa the turn of the decade from the 2000's to the 2010's. On xmas eve, we would drag mattresses and pillows downstairs to wherever the tree was set up, so we basically had a sleepover with the tree. And we read aloud. For a few years, our tradition was to read all the Xmas chapters in the Harry Potter books. In later years, we watched holiday movies.

I think I have made a scrapbook page with one of my favorite photos from one of those days. I was just becoming competent with my DSLR at the time. The photo shows the stack of Harry Potter books in sharp focus in the foreground, with the tree a colorful bokeh blur behind them. Maybe I can find it and add it here.
 
scrapchyck said:
SEVENTH QUESTION--NOVEMBER 15TH

Christmas Dinner: Ham or Turkey?
Some of you have already answered this, and I can see that some don't do either, so feel free to just share what you do for your Christmas meal...whenever you have it!
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Until the 2022 holidays, when I was becoming vegan, I made ham or salmon or Mexican food or whatever . . . except usually not turkey, because I'd just done a turkey feast four weeks before. We've been very regular about the Thanksgiving turkey feasts for most of this millennium (and even back into the previous; my Mom made great T-day feast too). Now my husband and kids do the same kinds of feasts they're used to, but I've been making vegan dishes like creamy lentils in butternut squash one year and, last year, moussaka, which is layered eggplant and potatoes and mushroom and herbs and tomato sauce. So yummy.
 
Holiday Vacation: White Christmas or Tropical Paradise?

White Christmas all the way!

In 2012, my mother died on December 22, just three days before Christmas. My dad died three months later, on March 13, 2013. When it came time for Christmas 2013, I just couldn't do it. Couldn't put up the tree, couldn't do the holiday baking, just couldn't do it. I was still overcome by grief. So we went to the Bahamas instead. And it was lovely, it was wonderful, but it didn't feel like Christmas (which was of course the point).

Christmas for me is snow-topped evergreens, and going out to midnight Mass in the ice and snow
 
scrapchyck said:
EIGHTH QUESTION--NOVEMBER 15TH

Holiday Vacation: White Christmas or Tropical Paradise?
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I've actually never vacationed at Christmas time, unless I call visiting my parents in the house where I grew up in San Diego a vacation. And I did call it that, especially in later years, as it did feel more and more like a vacation over the years since I moved across the country to Virginia in 2000. And San Diego does have palm trees!

But I do enjoy a little bit of snow, as long as I don't have to drive in it. Can I have both?
 
scrapchyck said:
NINTH QUESTION--NOVEMBER 15TH

Die Hard: Christmas Movie or Action Movie Filled with Gratuitous Violence?
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I've never watched it and haven't paid attention to any talk about it. I have heard of people calling it a Xmas movie. But I'm not into action movies and have no interest in watching this, so I have to stay out of this one.
 
mary kate said:
Holiday Vacation: White Christmas or Tropical Paradise?

White Christmas all the way!

In 2012, my mother died on December 22, just three days before Christmas. My dad died three months later, on March 13, 2013. When it came time for Christmas 2013, I just couldn't do it. Couldn't put up the tree, couldn't do the holiday baking, just couldn't do it. I was still overcome by grief. So we went to the Bahamas instead. And it was lovely, it was wonderful, but it didn't feel like Christmas (which was of course the point).

Christmas for me is snow-topped evergreens, and going out to midnight Mass in the ice and snow
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That sounds incredibly hard. Wonderful you were able to able to get away for awhile like that.
 
@scrapchyck Nope, there are turkeys I just prefer pork. I would say Turkey isn't as popular. There would also be corned beef and tongue for Christmas, which is also a hard pass from me.
 
I am hoping for White Christmas this year. Althoughy kids tell me there could be snow later this week. Because we do summer Christmas here anyway, tropical does not appeal.

No ways is Die Hard a Christmas movie. I am confused as to why it even is considered. But I have seen it being touted as one. I googled. According to the director it's Christmas action fusion. Let's just say that I prefer less action in my Christmas movies then.
 
TENTH QUESTIONS--NOVEMBER 15TH

Lighting the Menorah: Matches or Lighter?
I know most of us probably don't have a Menorah, so maybe you can answer about your Advent Candles or Kinara.
 
I'm a matches girl. I like wooden ones, but happen to have a cardboard matchbook right now, and that'll do.

We got some serious OPINIONS about Die Hard! As the guys say:

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Also, I just want to say I feel for all of us that have lived through less-than-ideal Christmases with grief and loss. I don't think I shared this on this thread, maybe in the Chatty Pad, but my sister died on Christmas Eve the year my youngest was born, my dad on the 14th two years ago, and my kids' other grandfather committed suicide on the 22nd three years ago. For those in the midst of it right now, just know it's okay to take a break from it all. I got off the Christmas merry-go-round for a few years, and no one kicked me out of the club. Holidays can be fluid! This year, I feel like participating a little more, but if grief hits, that will be okay.
 
@scrapchyck Sorry for your losses. It's a balance holding joy and grief. It seems like there are many of us.

I would use matches to light candles just because my lighter has no fuel anymore. It was easier when my Mom and her lighter were around.
 
Holiday Vacation: White Christmas or Tropical Paradise?
Neither... I'm a stay at home and relax kind of person. Most of South Africa shuts down in December ... our summer holiday.... and then the crazies head to the beach and leave Jhb.... so we stay home where it is quieter.
It has rained at Christmas but never snowed being mid-summer. Hence they started the Christmas in July thing a few years back so we could do the colder climate things.... I think I did that once! Very hard to find Christmas Crackers in July.
 
scrapchyck said:
Call me uneducated, but I am assuming there are no turkeys in South Africa, so that makes total sense. Do you do any kind of potato salad? I love potato salad with cold ham!
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We can get turkeys... frozen and imported... and at time available all year round. It's just not really a South African tradition. Lots of families here like to braai (bbq) for Christmas.
 
Die Hard: Christmas Movie or Action Movie Filled with Gratuitous Violence?
None thank you... must prefer family style movies with a good wholesome story.... not necessarily a Christmas themed one... I did an almost marathon of those on Netflix last year and it got a bit overdone by the 4th or 5th movie.
 
Lighting the Menorah: Matches or Lighter?
We had to be prepared with Loadshedding for quiet a few years so stocked up on lighters... made life much easier to light candles (or gas stoves!) than matches. Hubby does still tend to look for the matches when he lights the braai... hehehe. Now we do torch light which is much easier, just need to remember to charge them.

Back to the Christmas theme though... I only did advent candles one year and then I think we used matches. It's not really part of our Christmas preparation, though we follow along with advent at church for the build up to the actual day.
 
Opening Presents: We do both! My family on my Dad's side has always gotten together on Christmas Eve for food, games, and presents. Sometimes my Father in Law comes over on Christmas Eve to give my kids their gifts, too. And then on Christmas morning, the kids open their gifts from Santa (ha, ha, I still write that as well as from Rudolph on some presents) eventhough they are 21, 18, and 15. I think I enjoy wrapping the presents a little too much, LOL!
 
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