Fashion Beauty Friend Friday - 12.24.10

Another set of Fashion Beauty Friend Friday questions, courtesy of ModlyChic. The topic this week is holiday memories...

1. Your favorite holiday memory:
I don't know if there's a favorite ... but I can think of a worst. Well, it's a worst with a happy ending! In 2003, a ton of my husbands' family members, plus my parents, were gathering in Lake Tahoe for Xmas week, including a number of his relatives from the U.K. & France. Well, a few days after Xmas, he & I were scheduled to leave for Rio de Janeiro for New Year's Eve, followed by Argentina to leave on a cruise to Antarctica. This was a trip we'd dreamed about for a decade. So we could only be at this gathering (that was a 4-hour drive away from our house) for literally Xmas day.

We drove up on the afternoon of Xmas eve (as soon as we could get off work) & were immediately caught in a horrible snow storm on the one highway up to Tahoe. We put chains on the car, & then traffic was stopped for hours. Cell phone reception was spotty, so we could hardly tell our family what was going on. It was awful. We didn't make it to the Tahoe house until midnight.

But then everyone was thrilled to see us, & my husband's uncle from London had made a fantastic French onion soup that warmed us right up. The next day was great, even tho' we had to leave immediately the following morning. And, of course, Rio & Antarctica were amazing :-)

2. Were you ever a victim of those family Christmas party photo shoots? What do you think about them now? Care to share an old photo?
We never did staged family photos. But I love this picture taken on Xmas night, before we went out for dinner. It shows my mom, my stepdad, me, & our cat Sam (the cat is since deceased but he grew up with me like my little brother).

Not sure of the year -- around 1989? -- sometime during my first year or two at college. Soon after that Mom stopped getting an Xmas tree since I didn't live in the house.

3. Best Christmas gift you ever gave:
I'd like to say what I'm giving my husband this year, except it's on backorder, even tho' I ordered it in October, & now they say it won't arrive until February! Dammit, but if it arrived, I suspect it might blow his mind a little.

Otherwise, we don't do a lot of big gifts. Our three sets of parents, my husband & I all decided about five-ish years ago to only exchange handmade & charitable gifts with each other. It's a lot more fun & satisfying than going to the mall.

4. Craziest/funniest holiday family tradition:
My family is very small (growing up, it was just Mom & me), so we don't have a lot of traditions & not much in the way of  unique ones. The funniest story is probably when the cat (not Sam, an earlier, kinda mean black cat named Cat) knocked over the Xmas tree while I was at school. Being a latch-key kid, I came home, saw the huge, 7-foot tree down in the living room, & panicked. I thought I'd get the blame. By the time Mom got home in the evening, I was in tears. She gets a great laugh out of that story now.

5. Favorite type of Christmas cookie:
All of them! Hmm... I rather like gingerbread because I only have it in December, but I also love rolled sugar cookies. Love decorating both of these, so much fun (but I didn't have time this year).

1970s partridge in a pear tree ornament made by my mom, now on my tree.