By the tail of the arctic fox, I still love this commercial!!

Also... Dean Martin


*sniff*


So, anything going on this year for you guys? Any special plans or so? I think we´re gonna have a regular Christmas over here, just at the new place my parents moved to. It´ll be nice, my mom is really good with both decorations and food

I got one of those Christmas calenders with chocolate bits in it; one a day

That sounds nice crow, always good to have family, that's for sure. I started Xmas shopping a couple weeks ago, I'm usually pretty good at getting it started early because I hate getting stuck in crowds. Ugh ... just the thought ... My daughter's getting a LOT of gifts, which is the advantage of having just one child; I can focus on her, and so can all her aunts & uncles. Grandparents, etc. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to shop for .. let's say .. more than two. Urk.

I was debating whether or not to get Minecraft for her. I'm not so sure. She's going to be 12 soon. I am interested in Minecraft myself, but I simply don't have time for it. So I start thinking it'll be good for her, but as I start to read about it, I'm not so sure. I don't know if it's too "adult" or not, what do you think?

We'll probably go to my sister's place on Xmas day. She lives in the country, next to a horse farm.

Is it off-topic to talk about egg nog? That's always a Chirstmasy sort of drink. Usually in America we start seeing egg nog at our markets right around Thanksgiving (last Thursday in November), but this year I noticed some right around Halloween!

Edit: that's a nice commercial. Love the lighted Coke trucks.

I reckon Minecraft would be fine for a 12-year-old, but it all depends on your daughter and what other stuff she's into. I was playing all sorts of games when I was 12, but I know other people whose parents were much more strict with that sort of thing.

Minecraft is rated as being suitable for 7+ by PEGI, and for 10+ by ESRB, and I think that's fair. There are different modes in the game, so you could always limit your daughter to the 'Creative' mode which is purely focused on building and exploring.

Egg nog is fine Haven´t had any though so I don´t really know what it tastes like. And don´t tell me to just google it!



*munches away on today´s piece of chocolate*

This year´s Christmas tree has been selected. It´s one growing close to a road so I might as well take that. Could have use my parents´ plastic one as they had to get a shorter one for the new house but meh. I want a real one

We´re putting up the old plastic tree in the cottage instead.

I've never seen that commercial before, that was very cute! I am not great with decorations, usually leave it to the men-folk to handle while I cook, lol.

Plans = get in new house by X-Mas. I'm trying and hoping.






Ooh, just like in "Bad Santa!"

Great choices indeed in your opening post here, mirocu!

Apple[™] gave me Stevie Wonder and Andra Day for Christmas.

This year we are hosting Christmas for my family for the second time. With TLMM[™]'s hand in a cast that means that the task of decorating and cooking falls to me. I imagine that my Christmas will be spent doing a lot of !

Great lyrics! Uh, in the late 1980's Stevie Wonder called the police on his neighbors (who were friends of mine) because their dog was barking. So he doesn't win my vote as neighbor of the year, lol. But he does write some great lyrics.

So cool you have friends living next door to Alice Stevie Wonder, mALX!

Nice Christmas song contribution, Destri Btw, I think you´ll get a lot more done in the kitchen if you don´t run around in circles...


As per one of my December traditions I´m watching mr. Bean celebrate Christmas in his own special way!

BWAAHAA!








Oh no, hand in cast? I'm so sorry to hear that! But you cooking a whole Xmas dinner? Hope you can cook good then!

Alpine, New Jersey. The place is chock full of people notable for one thing or another, but primarily wealthy. I only know just one of them, though; the one whose adorable puppy obviously irritated Stevie Wonder into calling the law (instead of just calling his neighbor or sending a man to the neighbor's door to ask them to bring the dog inside or something).

Me - I used to love Stevie Wonder, but I threw out all my Stevie Wonder albums and cassettes after that incident.

Poundland is the best thing about Christmas!


Ashens is awesome!

Good luck, Destri! I imagine there will indeed be a lot of , but it will look like to everyone else!


The decorations are coming along at the Grits house. Tomorrow (hopefully) we will go get a tree.

With everyone linking X-mas vocals I figure I might as well toss my hat into the ring with this perennial favorite.

BWAAHAA !!!! There were too many spots to pull out and mention in this one,

A tree already? I usually get mine around a week or so before Christmas, but maybe I should get it earlier this year and enjoy it more





It´s especially funny if you knew the characters beforehand

So far my plans are solely food related.

I plan to make coquito, which is a Puerto Rican Christmas drink with rum and coconut cream. I don't like rum much, but my sibling and dad love it so it'll be a treat for them.

I'm hoping to make nacatamals, which are Nicaraguan tamales. I bought a Nicaraguan cookbook and found two recipes that sound amazing. We usually make Puerto Rican tamales (called pasteles, which also means "cakes" so it gets confusing talking to people about them sometimes) but I hate them. They're not horrible, but not only do they look like giant slimy slugs, the masa is just... well, not that pleasant. The meat inside os good though.

Mom and Dad has just put up their new and smaller Christmas tree of plastic. The other one that was a bit too big for their new location is now proudly standing in the cottage with lights on a timer and everything

I plan to get my tree from the woods on Wednesday or so and have it all decorated and done by the weekend.

Me and da Krew are gonna spend Christmas and possibly New Years in Tokyo.

We Osaka Boyz are gonna tear $#!7 up!!!!!

Don't get caned!

And thus Tokyo as we know it will end...

I used to love real trees, and everyone gathered round decorating it. But I was looking in a flyer that came in the newspaper, and for 25 US dollars I can have a full sized tree with all the lights and ornaments already attached, just yank it out of the box and plug it up !!!! So...hmmmmm...it sure is tempting!







Wait, when I lived in Miami my neighbor was from Nicaragua - and her food was delicious! It didn't look as good as it tasted, but - really,really delicious! From your description here, I was picturing Tara preparing it and Clarissa playing in it with a dismembered limb!

Bugger! I just got Taylor Swift´s version of Last Christmas ruined by noticing there´s a guy singing along in the chorus!

Maybe that was you?

I wish!

This is pretty much how their Christmas would go at the moment

Christmas tree is down!

Tomorrow I´ll prepare it and possibly take it home!

Christmas tree is in da house!! Possibly the best one I´ve had; the branches are perfect and it´s not too sparse



Anyone one else with a friggin tree inside their home?

Does Bonsai count?

No! A real friggin tree taller than you are!

We got our tree inside today, but we won’t decorate it until tomorrow or Friday. I forgot last week that we were having a crowd over for dinner and to watch a concert, so the tree had to wait. Also we had to burn all of the wood that had been brought in first. The Christmas tree goes uncomfortably close to the fireplace, so it’s candles only until January!

ghastley, my roommates and I used to tie bows and paper snowflakes on a Norfolk Island pine and drape tinsel over the palm tree at Christmas. Our ficus tree dropped its leaves if anyone even looked at it too hard, so after the first disastrous year of lights we left it alone. I’d say a potted tree definitely counts!

Ah finally! The secret revealed!!





I'm no chef (wasn't TK one? Where is he when I need him? ), but I do know my way around a kitchen. TLMM[™] is something like 1/4 Italian, so that trumps every other ethnicity she has going on at X-Mas time. She likes to do the feast of the seven fishes on the 24th and it has quickly become something the whole family looks forward to. This years version starts with a clam chowder. We are then planning a crab salad for the second course. Lobster, shrimp, calamari & scallops all go into the pan for a bake… and are accompanied by salmon with vegetables on the grill. Shouldn't be too hard (famous last words ).

We spent all day yesterday hunting for the perfect tree before settling on the first one we liked at the first lot we visited . Should have gone with ghastley's idea! I'd love 5-6 coquitos right about now, Jacki (not sure what to make of the nacatamals tbh)!! Good luck with the tree decorating, Gritsy... and congrats on the tree separating, 'rocu!!

Ah, but you can´t ignore the true tree hunting tradition, can you? You simply must pick one out directly, then wander around for about an hour in search of a better one and then finally go back to that first one


I love the smell of Christmas tree when I enter my apartment!


Edit: We can´t forget about Mr. Mochi and his Christmas special!

We also observed the tradition of looking at all of the trees before bringing home the first one we saw. However we confined our search to one lot so we got it home before dark. Our Christmas trees are grown on farms in the mountains about four hours away due to our climate. They all look good, are the right size, and are already cut.

Smells like Christmas here, too. I love opening the front door and smelling fir tree.

It´s the best!


Hey, any of you Muricans gonna go crazy overboard with Christmas decorations? I´ve seen TV shows of homes completely overrun by ornaments

Not us. We have to leave room for the people.

A drive in the country is always rewarding this time of year, though. Some folks have a whole freestanding garage to house their decorations during the off-season. Which they decorate, of course.

My favorite neighborhood decoration was a string of lights adorning a porta-potty that someone's contractor had installed in the center of their front garden for the duration of the holidays. It was pretty funny.

What are you talking about?

That´s your house to the right, eh, mALX?

My late X husband thought we should buy Christmas lights for the neighbors so they could get all decorated up - we'd get the goodwill, they'd get the high electric bills,

(a better idea than his "give them a pool" one, ).

Mr. Grits and I attended our final scheduled Christmas party of the year last night. We dropped off our food and drink offerings, made cheerful contact with each conversation group, dodged the buffet line, and gracefully avoided the photo-op of adults sitting on poor Santa’s lap. In and out within 45 minutes. It was the surgical strike of party attendance.

Gee, sounds like you really didn´t want to go, Grits..



Also, I see you´re changing your avatar quite often. Are you trying out which one you like best?

I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to spend my entire evening there.

I’m trying out the ways different forums use files for avatars. The current avatar is Gritsen. The same picture looks better elsewhere. I might have had her as my avatar here before without the Christmas lipstick, but I don’t remember.

We put our tree up today (and by 'we' I mean that my sister and her boyfriend did it while I stayed in my room and watched cartoons). We have a plastic tree, and have done for about 10 years now.

I'm not actually a huge fan of christmas. I just like it because it's winter, nobody expects me to go anywhere, and there's lots of nice food.

Sweeeet

Bold =


I don't like Winter, but love to see a Christmas tree decorated and lit up in my house; love to see the beautiful wreath on my door and the candles (fake) lit in every window as you drive up to my house. Other than those and the fireplace hearth with the stockings hanging and bowls of Christmasy fruits and nuts around (and egg nog) - that is about all I do, but I love the way it looks.

Christmas Eve!



It’s 73 degrees in Grits world and it finally quit raining, so the family spent the afternoon outside in flip flops and shorts shooting pellet guns at water bottles. We are just about ready for the zombies. Barbecue for dinner again, because apparently the last one I cooked wasn’t spicy enough and therefore “didn’t count.” My elf business is nearly complete. I just need to figure out how to wrap these arrows. (Really.)

Merry Christmas, Chorrolites!