The Country Pundit

Friday Five 11 December 2003

So I'm going to participate in the Friday Five thing. Here goes:

1. Do you enjoy the cold weather and snow for the holidays?

Absolutely. The only thing bad about the East Coast snowstorms last season was the damage to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum. Snow rules the world, man. Having a permanent home in the mountains of Virginia usually makes it possible for me to get at least a little snow. Snowy weather (i.e. cold & crisp with battleship gray skies and ice crystals on the trees can make for absolutely magnificent visuals, even moreso at night when a full moon reflects off of a fully-covered ground. Gotta love it.

2. What is your ideal holiday celebration? How, where, with whom would you celebrate to make things perfect?

The ideal celebration? As far as I know, it involves my home, suitably decorated, with copious appropriate seasonal music (Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, Karen Carpenter, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and lots of other stuff heard the last couple of decades while growing up...) With all that, throw in some snow, and bring over the long line of friends I've had so far. Some are, unfortunately dead. Some are lost to me in the United States somewhere, and several of them have grown apart from me, but several I'm still in touch with.

At that point, everyone has the de rigeur Christmas food, with lots of things like Flav-o-Rich boiled custard, and so forth, because it's a Christmas party, eh. The more amorous folks have access to a mistletoe-rigged doorway---at least one of my old friends loved trying to corner women under the thing, if I remember right. The sight of him trying desperately (but usually succeeding, blast it) to steal a kiss from various girls in his life was always funny.

I'm not very sure of the details, but all this involves a good time telling stories, and just being together, eh. Of course, I'll cap off the whole thing by either going to bed, writing a rambling post to the blog about the whole thing, or trundling off to a late-night service at my local church.

3. Do you do have any holiday traditions?

Yep. One of them involves spending a lot of money at the local Hallmark store on ornaments with Mom---I'm convinced that we underwrite their fourth-quarter earnings to a degree. Another one's the gradual transformation of household decorations from Thanksgiving to Christmas. That takes literally all month, so usually the decorations are left up into January.

We also usually see the extended family and whatnot, although that isn't always a pleasure.

4. Do you do anything to help the needy?

Help the needy? What do you take me for, a liberal? Hah. In all seriousness, I don't do much else other than donate money to the most excellent Salvation Army kettle people.

5. What one gift would you like for yourself?

A G.I. Joe hovercraft from the mid-1980s! Santa didn't bring me one when I asked for it, and now I don't believe in him, so I'll be a sour bink until the last part of the movie, when one mysteriously appears under my tree. Well, actually, I'd rather just have "no regrets". That'd be the best thing, 'cause I could procure darn near everything else on my own.

OK, so there you have it. TCP's first Friday Five, and perhaps the start of a long-running trend.

Posted by Country Pundit at December 12, 2003 09:56 AM