Have a Holly Jolly Hodgepodge

1. Are you cooking Christmas dinner? How many will be round your table this year? What are we having?

Christmas dinner is turkey and dressing, which delights me to know end. I get it twice a year, at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I love it! We will be at my brother-in-law's house, and I believe there will be 22 of us, all of my man's family plus a couple of other parents-in-law. I am providing the sweet potatoes, the broccoli casserole, and the pecan pies. I am also doing most of Christmas Eve lunch at my MIL's, which is traditionally tamales and Mexican food.

2. What is one must-have Christmas cookie in your house?

Well, these are not cookies, but I always make peanut brittle for the family and to give to friends. And I make pralines for Christmas Eve.

3. Santa likes a glass of milk with his cookies. Do you? What kind of milk is on tap at your house-skim? almond? soy? full fat (Gasp!)

If all 4 of us are here, we have 2% for my boy, chocolate for him and for my coffee, and fat-free for the rest of us. And we go through about six gallons a week. When the boy is at college, it's just the fat-free and I keep just a pint of low-fat chocolate to splash in my morning coffee.

4. Time magazine recently named their 'Person of the Year' for 2011. This is the person the editors believe had the greatest impact, for better or worse, in the past year. This year they chose 'The Protester'. Your thoughts? Who would you name Person of the Year for 2011?

While I agree that the right to protest is an important freedom, I thought that was a clearly liberal statement. I think sometimes folks protest about things they really have no business getting their knickers in a knot over. People are way too easily offended these days and far too concerned about perceived -- or even real -- offenses. If they put as much effort into straightening out their own lives as they do criticizing other folks, the world would be a lot better off.

I am totally blanking on who I would choose. I'm sure there's been a story of someone who is an ordinary person making an impact in their world just because that's what they are called to do, not because they have anything to gain. That is the Person of the Year for me!

5. December 21st is National Flashlight Day... when was the last time you needed a flashlight and did you know right where to find one?

National Flashlight Day?! Seriously? There's a day for everything.

(I was about to say, "Next you'll tell me there's a National Toilet Paper Day," but decided I better Google that, just in case, and THERE IS! Good grief!)

Back to the flashlight question - I needed one just the other day and yes, I knew where it was.

6. Candy canes...yum or yuck?

Peppermint flavor is okay, but I prefer it in a pop-it-in-my-mouth mint. Licking a candy cane gets sticky, even if you leave the wrapping on.

7. What Christmas carol lyric means the most to you?

Oh, wow. It depends on the day. If you're strictly confining it to carols, as in the ones in the hymnal (which would eliminate O Holy Night, for example), it's still a hard choice. I LOVE O Come, O Come Emmanuel. But another one that I've loved for years is It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. I posted the verse about resting our loads a couple of weeks ago. This is another wonderful verse, and so fitting today with the political tensions between nations and here within the USSA:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Saw this on Facebook this week and loved it. It's apparently a poster from Australia.