Christmas Questions

I found a list of questions about personal holiday traditions and I tackled this in this post. So, here's a little about me and my Christmas practices.

What is your favorite Christmas film?

I actually have several favorites and it is difficult to pick just one. Here are the first few I thought of.

The Ref

(1994) - A cat burglar is forced to take a bickering, dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve.

Gremlins

(1984) - A boy inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town. 

Die Hard

(1998) - An NYPD officer tries to save his wife and several others taken hostage by German terrorists during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.

Rare Exports

(2010) - In the depths of the Korvatunturi mountains, 486 meters deep, lies the closest ever guarded secret of Christmas. The time has come to dig it up. This Christmas, everyone will believe in Santa Claus.

A Christmas Story

(1983) - In the 1940s, a young boy named Ralphie attempts to convince his parents, his teacher and Santa that a Red Ryder BB gun really is the perfect Christmas gift.

Trading Places
(1983) - A snobbish investor and a wily street con artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.

Scrooged

(1988) - A selfish, cynical television executive is haunted by three spirits bearing lessons on Christmas Eve.

Have you ever had a white Christmas? 
I grew up in the Midwest so I've had plenty of white Christmases. (minus the cocaine)
And, yes, Christmases is the proper plural for Christmas.
I offer Bing Crosby's words as proof.

Suck it, grammar nazis!

Where do you usually spend your Holiday?
This will be my fourth consecutive Christmas outside of the US. I am not only out of my home country, but I've been in countries (China/Vietnam) where they don't even recognize Christmas. So, not only do I not go anywhere, I usually have to work.

What is your favorite Christmas song?
Carol of the Bells
Anything played by Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Do you open any presents on Christmas Eve? 
We tried a couple of different traditions when I was a child. We eventually settled on Christmas Eve presents AND we always saved one to be opened the day after Christmas. I don't remember why. Today, we don't exchange gifts.

Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?
At one time I could and might still be able to, but since most of them never bothered to learn my name, I just don't care anymore.

What holiday traditions are you looking forward to the most this year?
We don't really have any traditions. My wife and I only spent one Christmas in the States after we got married. Since then, we have been outside the country. We are away from family. We have no children around and it is typically a workday. We try to get out for a nice meal, but that's about it.

Is your Christmas tree real or fake?
I grew up with a fake tree, so the idea of bringing a real tree into the house was totally foreign to me. As an adult, I learned that we only used a fake tree because it was discovered that my younger brother Kyle was allergic to the real tree.

As an adult, once I got divorced I discovered that my kids weren't really interested in the tree, so I haven't had one since. That was over ten years ago. I will probably never have a tree again.

What is your all-time favorite holiday food/sweet treat?
Reindeer Testicles

Be honest:  Do you like giving gifts or receiving gifts better?
Honestly, I hate both. I find the exchanging of gifts extremely uncomfortable. I refuse to participate in Secret Santa activities any place I work and only begrudgingly do it at family events. I don't know why I am this way, but I am.

What is the best Christmas gift you have ever received?
When I was in high school, my parents got me a stereo. I didn't even know I wanted one until I opened it. It was great. It is probably the gift I got the most use out of.

What would be your dream place to visit for the Holiday season?
I have no idea. I hate cold weather, so no traditional places. I already live on a tropical beach, so no point in aiming for something like that. So…I guess I'll go with the Moonlite Bunny Ranch.

Are you a pro present wrapper? Or do you fail miserably?
I rarely give gifts (see above answer), but on the rare occasion that I do, you'll be lucky if I even take it out of the shopping bag.

Most memorable holiday moment?
Every year brings to mind the time I wandered into the kitchen hours after the big family meal and found a plate on the counter already loaded with turkey, mashed potatoes and dressing. I didn't know who's it was, but I tossed it in the microwave for a moment and snuck off to enjoy it without getting busted by whoever prepared it. I learned later that it was food which had been scraped off people's plates and was about to go out to the dogs.

What made you realize the truth about Santa?
My brain. I'm not stupid.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions?  Do you stick to them?
I made resolutions when I was younger, but I do not anymore. I haven't made any in years. I learned long ago that it is a waste of time. Change happens when you really decide to make the change and dedicate yourself to it. Not because the calendar changed.

What do you wish for Christmas this year?
I feel like I have a pretty good life. My wish is that it would continue.

What makes the Holidays special for you?
There is a lot of assumption built into this question. The holidays are not special to me. I have nothing against them (other than having to hear Christmas music for three months straight), but they are not special. I enjoy seeing my family, but I enjoy that any time. Holidays or not.

Favorite Christmas smell
My favorite smells would be mostly nostalgic. The smells of my mother baking Christmas cookies and making mint chocolate. The smell of a fireplace or wood-burning stove. The morning of the family get-together and the house smelling of all the food that is being prepared.

What is the worst/weirdest gift you have ever received?
The weirdest was given to me by my sister-in-law. Christmas morning, she handed me a very cold gift. I opened to discover an 8-pack of Klondike bars. She laughed as I opened it and said, "You know. Because of that joke you said."  Neither my wife nor I had any idea what she was talking about.

The worst (not that bad, really) came from an aunt. My mother's side of the family was much further away than my father's. We didn't make it to see them every year, but when we did her sister always made sure she got us a gift. It was the same thing every time we came. A Matchbox car. At 17 years old, I still got a new Matchbox car. It was sweet that she bought us anything. I am not complaining. I guess that since they did not see us very often, it was forgotten how old we had gotten.

Favorite Holiday drink?
I discovered egg nog a few years ago. Don't know why it took me so long to try it. I love it. Spike it with cinnamon and bourbon to make it even better.

Have you ever spent Christmas in another country?
Ha! Yes.
Puerto Rico in 2001 (not really another country, but felt like it)
I spent two in China.
This will be my second Christmas in Vietnam.

What place/landmark in your town do you love to visit during Christmas?
I honestly don't have a place I like to visit other than my family's house. When I was a kid, several of us would go to my great-aunt's house down the road to go sledding because she had a huge hill in her front yard.

Were you naughty or nice this year? 
That really depends on who you ask.

Do you own/wear a Christmas themed jumper or T-Shirt?
No. The closest I have come to Christmas themed clothes was a tie that had the manger on it. I wore it to church one year, but it is long gone.

You Get a Vial & You Get a Vial & You Get a Vial

Red and I have been married a little over five years and things have been great. We really were made for each other. Despite having moved about a dozen times around three different countries in the short time we have been together, the worst stress we've encountered was when our bedtime routines happened to coincide and I started brushing my teeth a few moments after Red had started.

After a few brief flirtatious smiles in the mirror back and forth, the reality of what was happening came crashing down on us. The unspoken words were instantaneously birthed and started frantically flitting about the tiled room:

"Who's going to brush the longest?"
"Who cares about their dental health more?" 
"First one to stop is disgusting and does not deserve love." 

Today, we won't even enter the same bathroom at the same time. And that works for us.

Despite those occasional moments of crazy, our interactions are typically far from problematic. We work very well together. And we understand each other.

Well…most of the time.

Today, due to a problem we are having with our passports, Red casually mentions, "Well, maybe our new passports not showing up is just God taking care of us because I'm going to be dead in a few days."

Red generally leans toward believing she is currently living her last week on earth. She hasn't been right a single time, but I know she will rub it in my face the first week she is.

Since this is typical of many conversations in our house, I simply replied, "That would be nice to keep us from wasting that money."

This slowly morphed into a conversation about what to do if one of us did kick the bucket. And living in a foreign country, there is much to consider.

• Does the body get shipped back to the States? 
• Is there a need to fly home for some sort of service or does the surviving spouse just make a phone call to their in-laws to give the news?
• If I do have to send my wife's body back, should I pay for the exorbitant shipping or could I just buy an extra seat on the plane and lug her around myself? 
•  Could I get away with folding her in half into a large suitcase and save the extra seat fee?

This all led to the conversation about how my wife wants to be cremated anyway. So, if I could get that done here before heading to America (or shipping her), the cost consideration completely changes. However, for the first time, I started to consider what I would do with her remains after she's been Thanosed into powder.

Do not read anything into this, but I would not be keeping the ashes or displaying them anywhere in the house. This has nothing to do with how I feel about my wife. It is just not me. I also would not have an internment somewhere to be able to go visit and Red's only wishes are that they should go to whoever might want them. This made me realize something I had never considered. Ashes are not like a whole body. There is no law that says they all have to go to one place. They can be split up and sent to as many different places as you want.

OK. Who wanted the dark meat?

This means that anyone who wants a piece can have one. I got online to see how much ash a human body produces and found a formula that told me that my wife would break down into a little over half a gallon of ash. Specifically, between 10 and 11 cups. You can find anything on the internet.

This means I could send a cup to each of her four siblings, a double portion to her parents and still have over four cups left to sprinkle a little into my pancake mix each morning.

Or…I could separate them into much smaller portions and place them in decorative vials to be worn as pendants or carried in the pocket. And before you think this is strange, there is already a market for this.

Click here to buy these in a variety of styles

Little birdseed packets are often handed to people as they exit a wedding to throw at the happy new couple as they leave the service. These Red ash-filled vials could be handed to the visitors as they leave the funeral. The main difference is these can be thrown at anyone since the person of honor will not be making an appearance.

Or…I could sell and ship them to her hundreds of cousins. (She has a very fertile family.) I could even start various bidding wars for family members to prove how much they loved her. The more they're willing to pay, the more Red's memory is honored.

I think I'm onto something. I'm going to start a GoFundMe page to get money for vials.