5QF - November 27th

It's cold outside. And it's wet. And dark.

But you know what else...?

It's Friday!!!

And that means it's time for Mama M's...



Let's do this thang.

1. Do you do a real or fake Christmas tree?

We're fakers all the way in this house. I would LOVE to have a real one but Ian won't let me. Mean, huh? I agree.

When I was single and still living at home, I convinced my mom to let me get us a real tree. I promised six ways to Sunday that I would keep it watered and would take care of putting it out and vacuuming up the needles after Christmas.

I chose one that I liked and shoved it into my car with the ends hanging out of the windows and drove home. I put it into the stand myself and cut the wrapper off it so the tree could "fall". That thing was HUGE. It was so wide that I had to go out an buy extra decorations just to cover the thing.

When Christmas was over, I was true to my word and removed the tree. I dragged it to the front door but because it was so HUGE I had to cut whole sections off just to get it to fit through the front door. I put it in the garage and vacuumed up all of the needles like nothing was ever there. Just like I promised.

However, I completely forgot about the tree in the garage and missed both pickup days. I ended up leaving the tree in there for a whole year, and put it out that year after Christmas for pickup. Well, to be honest...Ian put it out. He picked it up and all of the remaining brown needles fell off into a pile on the garage floor. So basically he put out a bare tree trunk and I got to clean up needles again. Nice.

Maybe that's why he won't buy me a real one? I don't know.

Ahem.

Moving on.

2. What is your favorite Christmas tradition with your family?

I don't know that this is a great thing to admit...but I'm going to tell you because we're friends, you and I.

Every year on the way to my mom's house we drive through the same red light.

It started several years ago when we were headed to my mom's on Christmas morning to open gifts with our nephew. It was early and I was excited to get there but we had to stop for a red light. It seemed to be a really long light and there wasn't another soul around so Ian drove through it.

The next year was the exact same thing. I suggested we do what we did the last year.

Year three I decided he had to do it because it was now a tradition. I think this was the year we actually waited at a green light for it to turn red so we could do our thing.

Don't tell on me.

Last year we skipped it and the whole day just felt wrong. ;-)

Seriously though, my favourite tradition is the big breakfast at my mom's house. Love it.

3. Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in your neck of the woods? And, if so...how many calories do you think you consumed yesterday?

We do, but since we're Canadian EH we celebrated it in October. I love, love, LOVE Thanksgiving. We don't need to talk about calories because that would be so last month. Besides, I think it's a faux pas to discuss calorie consumption when it comes to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter or birthdays.

Just sayin.

4. Have you started decorating for Christmas, yet?

Nope, not yet. I'm hoping to hang our lights this weekend though. Not sure about the tree yet either.

I've mentioned before that Ian is a professional magician and Christmas is his busiest time of year, so he's out a lot on the weekends. We'll just wait for a time when he's available and decorate then. None of us want to do it without him.

5. What is your favorite Christmas cookie?

I don't discriminate. I love all cookies equally.

I will let you in on a little secret though...I'm going to rock the sugar cookie thing this year.

Thanks Mama M!