Rhothaerill’s blog

Sent to me by Jody who demanded I put my own answers up...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?  For birthdays I prefer the ease of gift bags, but for Christmas I usually wrap gifts.  Last year though, I really wanted to use gift bags as we were hosting Christmas at our new house two weeks after moving in...and we were still working on getting the house ready at 2am on Christmas Eve, before even starting to wrap presents.
2. Real tree or artificial? Real.  I don't care much for plastic trees.  It just doesn't help evoke Christmas for me.
3. When do you put up the tree?  Nominally the weekend after Thanksgiving, but this year we were so busy that it didn't get done, nor the weekend after that.  We'll likely be going tree hunting tomorrow.
4. When do you take the tree down?  January 1st.
5. Do you like eggnog? Bud's Egg Nog is the best...so much so that I have to ration myself now.
6. Favorite gift received as a child?  There were a lot of gifts when I was younger.  My parents were a little wealthier back then and made an effort to give me what I wanted.  I remember one gift in particular from 1984 because of the story behind it.  I was very much into Transformers (the first incarnation of them) that year and wanted Optimus Prime.  There were none around and no Amazon, etc. at that time.  My parents told me not to expect it as it was so hard to find.  Well, what they didn't tell me was that my mom had found a store offering some and got up early in the morning to be first in line.  The store only ended up having one (employees probably snagged the others) and my mom was able to grab it.  I was very surprised.
7. Do you have a nativity scene?  Yes.
   
8. Hardest person to buy for? I've never really found it hard to buy for anyone.  Unlike a certain SIL I don't have a problem giving gift cards if the person doesn't have a list (or like my sister wants a computer or a $2000 purse) and I can't find anything else that they would want more. I do like finding items that the person didn't think about, but if that's not possible a gift card is just fine.
9. Easiest person to buy for? My parents.  They always give me lists and I use it about half the time.
10. Worst Christmas gift ever received? Can't think of one off hand.  My cousins tend to give out gifts that end up being regifted as I can't use them or don't want them.  Even thought they live in the same town I'm not at all close to my cousins (except for one).
11. Mail or email Christmas card? Christmas cards are fun.  We took family pictures for a Christmas card again this year (didn't last year because of the move).  Now we just need to get them out.
12. Favorite Christmas movie? Heh, I always get strange looks for this but DieHard.  It's a Christmas movie.  It takes place on Christmas Eve and on into Christmas morning. :-D
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Around now.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? See #10 above.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Pecan pie...my wife makes the best.
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored
17. Favorite Christmas song? Carol of the Bells (best version I ever heard was a high school chorus) and Little Drummer Boy 
18. Travel at Christmas or stay at home?  Since we met Christan and I have always done the holiday shuffle between families to see both.  Last year was nice since we invited both families over to our house, though the prep work was fairly horrendous (see #1 above).  But my uncle and cousins sort of invited themselves and generally made nuisances of themselves.
19. Can you name Santa's reindeer? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, Blitzen, Rudolph.  It's easy just to copy Jody's but I knew it anyway. :-) 
20. Do you have an angel on top or a star? I think we bought a new angel again last year after using a star the year before.  A few years ago Christan bought an angel tree topper that ended up having LED lights all over it, etc.  She hated it but we couldn't find a better one.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning.  When I was younger I got to open one present on Christmas Eve.  When Andy is older we'll do the same thing for him, but not this year.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Rude people.  I worked in retail for a few years during college and the month of December was incredibly hellish.  I lost any and all Christmas spirit I had those years.

Video: Show us a video that makes you laugh.

Funniest Star Wars video ever...

And finally...the spoilers to ALL the movies...

Heh, this one is quite clever for being so short.  Why couldn't it happen?

At least there was one good thing that came out of this clip...guess which one.

Maybe that's how there were so many redshirts in Star Trek too.

Boba Fett has issues

In the vein of "What really happened after the Death Star blew up" here is the true story of the walrusman from Star Wars: A New Hope

The picture says it all

Road in maui

Who is the very first friend you ever had?  Are you still in touch?

Hmmm, the first friend I can remember was named Raymond Nutt.  He lived a block down from our house when I lived in Loomis, but moved a year later.  I haven't had contact with him since I was 5 years old.

Truthfully, I have no contact with any of the friends I had in school.  My high school group was already drifting apart our senior year and I didn't look back after graduation.  There are only a few friends that I remain in contact with nowadays.  The only friends I remain in near constant contact with consists of the members of my gaming group (christan, Jody, and Yod) and a friend from work that I've known for about 10 years.  I have a few other friends, but we don't remain in contact very often.