1. What was your most memorable present you received as a child? Good or bad.
The first Christmas present I remember receiving as a child was a Pac-Man sleeping bag (one of those cheap, cloth bags that you give children for “camping out” in the house). The most memorable would have been the Nintendo I received when I was something like 8 or 9, where my dad had set it up on a small TV set in the living room before we even came out to open presents, and I opened the box for the NES only to find that there was nothing in it. I got seriously worried until they showed me that it was just over about 15 feet in the living room. I felt pretty dumb, but I got The Legend of Zelda fro my birthday that year, so I wasn’t all THAT heartbroken for too long. They pulled a box switch on me with my Super NES a few years later, too - they stuffed all the parts into a shoebox. That was fun.
2. What is your most favorite holiday memory? Tradition?
My favorite holiday memory would be the first Christmas I spent with my wife. I think that’s about to be supplanted by the first Christmas we are going to have with Joshua this year. My favorite tradition so far is taking all day to put up decorations and watch movies on the day after Thanksgiving. I like that a lot.
3. Hot cocoa or hot apple cider?
Neither. Hot wassail!
4. Egg Nog. Yes or yuck?!
Personally, I can only drink it if I’m in the mood to drink it.
5. What’s your favorite Christmas song or carol?
I think I really like “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” but one year, I got to sing “Borogoditse Devo,” which was about the neatest thing I think I’ve ever had the privilege of performing.
6. What’s your favorite Christmas movie and why?
Die Hard. “Now I have a machinegun - ho ho ho”
7. Do you spend the holidays with your family or with your friends or neither?
Both, if possible. I try to spend the lion’s share of the time with my family, but friends are always welcome. I’m more than a little sad this year that I don’t really have any friends in the immediate area, and we won’t get to do very much travelling to see family, either, but both are important. And besides, good friends are family.
8. What is the most thoughtful gift you’ve ever given to someone?
That’s a pretty good question - and I’m not entirely sure I have an answer for it. If I had to guess, I think I would say that the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever given is the Christmas present I’m giving my wife this year (shhhh).