Holiday Get To Know You Questionnaire

Another collaborative post, this time thanks to Amanda.

Eva's responses to the first 6 (of 20) get-to-know-you holiday questions:

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
   Both are dairy based, so no way, josé! (Actually, I used to make my own egg nog, raw eggs and all. I figure salmonella makes a bout of lactose intolerance seem like a walk in a X-mas lit park. So perhaps I'm better off with a restricted diet.)


2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
   He definitely does not wrap. The man, together with his elves, is much too busy for tape, paper and gift tags.


3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white?
   For the past several years we've been journeying across an ocean for the holidays, typically staying three weeks at a time, which makes for a very unhealthy tree back home. So we've relied on my mother's tree, which boasts every colour in the rainbow. This year, back in Canada for good and in our own home with 10-foot high ceilings, a Christmas tree is a must, as are white lights...only.


4. Do you hang mistletoe?
   Never. Being forced to kiss friends and family indiscriminately could very well take the charm out of the holiday season.


5. When do you put your decorations up?
   I'm thinking now might be a good time. (This past weekend in Montreal we had our first significant snowfall. Utterly beautiful!)


6. What is your favourite holiday dish?
   Nothing in particular, apart from the homemade sweets.


India's responses


7. Favourite holiday memory as a child?
   My grandparents lived in a huge and beautiful Tudor hall and one year I remember being there with all my cousins when Father Christmas came. All the lights were switched off, and we heard distant sleigh bells, then the door opened and he came into the firelit room. I was totally spellbound, and utterly convinced it was the real thing. Ours was the sort of untidy, busy (permanently gin-soaked) family that didn't usually get around to doing things like that, so it was very special and very memorable. He gave me a silver locket, which I still have somewhere.


8. When did you learn the truth about Santa?
   What do you mean?


9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
   No, never! (well, I did once, but my brother told on me. I haven't since — honest!)


10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
    With cutting-edge cool, of course. This year I've gone for an ironic-industrial theme, featuring glitter-sprayed used car parts tied on with lengths of electrical flex. (OK, I have an impressive collection of pasta-based Christmas decorations hand-crafted by four year olds. One year I'm sure I'll read in Elle Decoration that they've become the epitome of festive chic.)


11. Snow! Love it or dread it?
    Love, love, love.


12. Can you ice skate?
    No. But I can ice a cake.... does that count?


13. Do you remember your favourite gift?
    The first Christmas I spent with my husband (before he was my husband and was just a sweet boy with a huge overdraft) we lived in a tiny, damp studio flat with no heating, and he gave me a pair of soft, stripey M&S men's pyjamas. These contrasted very sharply with the useless little scraps of peach satin and lace masquerading as nightwear given to me by previous boyfriends and I loved them — and him for his sweetness and practicality. (However, the Black and Decker sander he gave me the following year didn't go down so well, proving that too much practicality can be a bad thing.)


Annie's responses


14. What is the most important thing about the holidays for you?
    Time off work, good food, fine wine and selective company.


15. What is your favourite holiday dessert?
    I'm a traditionalist so Xmas pudding, double cream and brandy butter.


16. What is your favourite holiday tradition?
    Old family tradition — walking after lunch.


17. What tops your tree?
    The fairy from the Christmas trees of my childhood.


18. Which do you prefer — giving or receiving?
    No preference. I'm equally happy doing either.


19. What is your favourite Christmas song?
    "Walking in the Air" sung by Aled Jones — taken from the animated film "The Snowman", which I watch over and over and over every Christmas.


20. Candy canes — yuck or yum?
    Before Xmas pudd, cream and brandy butter — yum; after — yuck.

Now it's time to announce who we're tagging: Sue aka MsCreativity, Susan Stephens, and Brown.

And Happy Holidays to all!!!

Tagged...again

Sue, via Sharon, has tagged us again. It's the second time now, isn't it, Sue?

It's a worthy cause, so we don't mind. Here's the deal:

To help other writers by providing access to a repository of information, all drawn from personal experience, we are to list five things not commonly known about us. If our personal experiences prove interesting to writers out there, published or unpublished, they are free to contact us to draw from our vast wisdom.

So here we go...

First, Annie:

1. I work as a legal secretary.
2. I'm married to an air traffic controller/flight instructor/pilot (yes, all at the same time - well, I get bored easily).
3. I have a slipped disc.
4. I had a kidney removed at 21 (not brain surprisingly).
5. I'm a licensed athletics' coach.

India:

1. As part of my English Literature/Language degree I did a dissertation on Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath.
2. My second baby was a footling breech (i.e. her feet were the presenting part). I gave birth to her naturally — a practise which is now considered too high risk to be carried out by the NHS.
3. Last year my husband and I bought my childhood home. I am now bringing my children up in the same house in which I grew up.
4. At secondary school I played the bassoon.
5. I used to work for Laura Ashley, so despite being rubbish with numbers am surprisingly good at working out how much fabric you'll need for your curtains, madam.

Eva:

1. I am a technical writer.
2. I have lived in three different countries and visited another 20 (at least).
3. I am lactose intolerant and wheat-free (think no pizza, no cookies, no sandwiches, no ice cream, only goat cheese and ewe cheese, only some chocolate bars...yes, depressing!).
4. I had a car accident when I was eighteen and I only drive now when ABSOLUTELY necessary (i.e., the last time was five years ago).
5. Today is my birthday and I am...gulp...forty years old (no kidding!).

A note from Sharon, the creator of People Collection posts: "PLEASE LEAVE THE FOLLOWING IN ALL ‘PEOPLE COLLECTION’ POSTS:

Remember that it isn’t always the sensational stuff that writers are looking for, it can just as easily be something that you take for granted like having raised twins or knowing how to grow beetroot. Mind you, if you know how to fly a helicopter or have worked as a film extra, do feel free to let the rest of us know about it :-)"

We, in turn, tag Brown, Amanda, and Stacy Dawn...sorry, that's all we could come up with, Sue/Sharon.

Never been tagged before

It's a first. We've been tagged by Ms. Creativity. (Is it a form of cyber tag/tig? If so, it looks like we've been caught fair and square!)

The question is:

"If you could write a novel about any subject, what would it be?"

First of all, since we're all writers here, and therefore have presumably already exercised our right to choose a subject of interest, what is this question really asking? Perhaps...what might we write if we didn't have to worry about pitching, selling, market demand, making a mint, etc.?

Then, I'd venture to say:

I'd write a story featuring an unreliable narrator...first he lulls you in, you believe every word, and then by degrees you begin to wonder, to doubt, and ultimately to disregard him. When the axis upon which the book revolves is suddenly gone, the reader must find another character on which to depend for veracity. Even, perhaps, the heroine on whom the narrator has become fixated, his objectified obsession? Gad, could she be the character capable of providing the moral compass integral to the story, despite her many flaws?

[Now for the game. Scribes' Sanctuary, in turn, tags Sharon Jacobsen, provided she's online once again, Amanda Ashby, Stacy Holmes, and Brown over at the Romance Writers of Edmonton blog.]