Winter Wonders: A Christmas Blog Tag

 

I've been tagged again! This time by Julie - thank you! It's nearly Christmas now, and personally I can't wait!

Guidelines:

1. Acknowledge who tagged you

2. Answer the questions

3. Tag friends & notify them

4. Fill out this form to have your blog challenge post spotlighted on The Moonlight Wanderer's December Newsletter! (Optional)

5. Have fun!

The questions:

1. What are some traditions that you and your family have leading up to the holidays? And what's something new that you want to try this month?

One thing we do is make all our own Christmas cards. It's fun, if frantic. We don't put up our decorations until Christmas Eve, which just makes it all more special, particularly as we don't take them down until Candlemas (2nd February). For Advent, we have an Advent wreath, and Bible readings that we do every day. On the 17th-23rd December, too, we read the O Antiphons - the antiphons for the Magnificat at Vespers - and we occasionally do activities based round them. For instance, last year, for the 21st December, which is "O Oriens" (O Radiant Dawn) we drove round our neighbourhood and looked at the Christmas lights. This hasn't happened so much this year as we've been disorganised!

Something new I want to try this month is finished my Christmas presents on time, so I'm not sitting upstairs on Christmas morning frantically knitting. Also, I'd like to go to Midnight Mass, Mass of the Dawn, and Mass of the Day, but, until I've passed my driving test, I don't think that will happen! Maybe next year.

2. What's your favorite Christmas recipe, food, or drink?

Christmas pudding, definitely. I just love it! Yes, we always set ours on fire. Also shortbread and cheesy biscuits. I like Pringles, too, which we only ever have at Christmas. Also, I don't exactly like gingerbread, but we make it every year so I like it in a nostalgic sense even if I don't like the taste.

3. Every Christmas is different, and some years come with unexpected twists. But if you could make the perfect Christmas, what would the day look like for you?

I've thought about this a lot recently, not because I am desperate for a perfect Christmas, just because fantasizing is fun. My perfect Christmas would begin with Midnight Mass, coming out to find it snowing lightly, but not enough to stop our getting home. We would wake up after a refreshing sleep and go to Mass in the morning, and come out of church to find it snowing more heavily. We would chat to friends (and maybe have a snowball fight!) then come home and eat lunch (something light, not Christmas lunch, as it's pleasant not to be cooking and washing up for most of the day). Then we would open presents slowly, and then maybe sing carols in the evening, read, talk, and eat dinner (our main meal, usually gammon and vegetables, followed by treacle tart, our invariable Christmas fare). Then, on Boxing Day, our whole family would cook our Christmas dinner. The rest of Christmas-tide would be spent visiting family, singing carols, watching Christmas films, eating the delicious things we've cooked and baked for Christmas, and socialising, with a judicious amount of time spent alone. (About 90% happens already, so I'm lucky!)

4. What are some of your favorite winter activities? (e.g. caroling, sledding, drinking hot cocoa)

I love to make presents for Christmas, make candles, go for long walks in the countryside, and sing carols and Advent hymns.

5. Do you decorate? How?

Yes. Oh yes. We do indeed decorate! We have a tree, a couple of Nativity scenes, and various other decorations, mainly passed down from family. We have lots of red and gold baubles that were used at my parents' wedding reception (they were married in Christmastide) and we like to use holly, ivy, other greenery, and paper chains too. The tree (usually pretty tall) has lights, strings of sliver bells, ornaments we've made or were given, and tinsel. This year, I've crocheted some lacy snowflakes to hang in my room, and I'm planning to make paper snowflakes to put in the window. In short, we love decorating! (It is tasteful, I promise!! I plan to do a sort of Christmas craft round-up post in the new year, so you can see some pictures then.)

6. What is your favorite Christmas song or hymn? Why is it your favorite?

Oh, I love all of them! Let me choose... I like "Silent Night", "Stille, Stille", "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", to name just a few. Oh, and listen to this version of the "Alma Redemptoris Mater". It's haunting. I tend to love Christmas carols that are movingly traditional or just plain fun - those with rousing organ parts or descants are especially invigorating to listen to. I don't tend to listen to non-religious songs, only because one hears them so often in the shops that one has had enough of them by halfway through Advent!

7. What's a gift or experience you're truly wishing for this Christmas? And what's your favorite gift to give others?

I don't mind what I'm given for Christmas! I always enjoy getting piano music or books, or yarn, or fabric, or anything handmade (both my sisters are good at drawing and painting... hint, hint).

I like to knit people things! Come 1st October and I'm manically knitting to make things for people. Normally, I then forget about it for the whole of November and panic for the whole of December. Happy days!

8. Describe some of your favorite Christmas memories. :)

I have a lot... going to Vespers on Christmas afternoon, singing in the choir for Midnight Mass, seeing family, spending lots of time together, singing carols in parts with my sisters...

9. What is your favorite Christmas-y book? Movie?

The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Goudge, or A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens for the book; and The Box of Delights for a film. If you haven't watched it, it's very good fun! Oh, and The Blue Carbuncle, both film and book, are well worth it too.

10. List ten words that encapsulate the feeling of Christmas for you.

Christ

Mary

Mass

Vespers

Family

Carols

Joy

Hope

Candles

Wonder

11. In your own words, what is the meaning of Christmas?

At Christmas, Jesus as God, "begotten of the Father before all ages" and born of the Virgin Mary, comes into the world as its Saviour and Judge, thus beginning the work of our salvation. We rejoice and give thanks for God's gift of himself, and we especially honour the Blessed Virgin Mary for her willing consent to God's Will that made salvation possible. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).

As for tagging, I believe that most people I know in the blogging world have been tagged, so I'll leave it there for now!