Twelve Days of Quinn’s Christmas Quirkiness

Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_DescChristmas is hands down my favorite holiday. I love the excitement, the anticipation, the smells, the decor, I love it all! When Geoff and I decided how we were splitting holidays with families this year, I have to be honest when I say I was thrilled that I got Christmas. I just love my traditions! I mean, I know marriage is all about new traditions, but I’m not ready yet 🙂

Which got me to thinking about all of my idiosyncrasies/loves/favorites of the holiday season. So I give you a Twelve Days of Christmas rundown about me:

1. You will never see me write, type or say X………mas together. My mother used to tell me all the time, “You can’t take the Christ out of Christmas,” and even though I don’t regularly (ahem Catholic guilt) go to mass, this has always stuck.
2. I am a sucker for holiday movies. My favorites include Meet Me in St. Louis, Home Alone, National Lampoon Christmas Vacation, White Christmas, The Santa Clause, and does anyone else remember The Night They Saved Christmas??? It ranked up there with The Neverending Story, The Boy Who Could Fly and Flight of the Navigator on my repeat rental circuit at the Video Den.

the night they saved Chritmas

3.Every year I am given an ornament that symbolizes that year. I got an ice cream cone when I scooped ice cream at an ice cream parlor; I got a soccer girl when I played soccer; I got a sorority one during my Kappa Alpha Theta days; I got an Austrian/German looking Heidi when I visited my friend in Austria that fall; etc. It’s a great tradition and I love that it’s so symbolic for my life. Each ornament tells a different story!
4.I have a Sesame Street stocking – still. My mom handmade all of our stockings out of felt back in the day, and mine was of all the characters. They look EXACTLY like the Jim Henson version. She had quite the talent. I still can’t part with it!
5.We open stockings, eat some coffee cake and sip coffee, open Santa presents, open family presents and then have an Eggs Benedict brunch every Christmas morning, in that order.

Egs benedict brunch

6.I snoop. A lot. I think I inherited it from my paternal grandmother. I found Ballerina Barbie one year before the 25th and you know what happened? Santa never left it under our tree 🙁
7.We used to go ice skating or to the movies every Christmas afternoon. We’re reinstituting that tradition this year, and I’m excited!
8.When I was a kid, every Christmas Eve my sister and I were given matching Lanz nightgownsas early gifts so that we could wear them to bed and wake up matching for Christmas morning.

9. I love in the months after Christmas, still smelling pine when you run the vacuum.
10. Running to the mailbox after school or work to find Christmas cards waiting to be opened. I love me my technology, but nothing beats receiving some lovin’ in the old fashioned snail mail form.
11. Decorations! When I would be riding on the bus back from volleyball games in high school during the winter season I would count how many decorated houses I could spot to and from. And simple candles in the window, while elegant, didn’t count.
12. Sears Catalog. I can’t say I have the same affinity for this that I did once upon a time before the advent of the internet (I think with homeownership on the horizon I might change my tune), but I LOVED looking through the toy section and circling everything I wanted Santa to bring me – that I would inevitably go digging through closets to find. Guess I never learned that curiosity killed the cat!

What are YOUR favorite things about Christmas?

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By: Updated: December 12, 2009