My First Tag!

I've been tagged by Mary of Little Red House to play Christmas Hoopla. I will give it my best shot:
1. When I was growing up we spent every Christmas at my grandparents' farm. On Christmas Eve we'd go to candlight service at church and then everyone at the church would go back to my grandparents' house for eggnog, coffee and other goodies. My mom always had a special outfit for me and my sister and we'd get all dressed up for a magical Christmas Eve. Then it was off to bed and dreaming of Santa!
2. The first year my first husband and I were married I was expecting our first baby (I got pregnant 3 months after we got married) and could not even get out of bed to see my parents or his family because I was so sick. He went off to pass out presents and collect ours and when he got home he came in and sat next to me and we opened our gifts. I'll never forget he gave me a beautiful watch. I'm surprised that memory is making me sad thinking of something that happened more than 30 years ago - we were so poor but so much in love! (We're not together anymore).
3. Growing up I was horse crazy. I always got the neatest presents from my bachelor uncle who indulged my horse obsession. One year I anxiously tore into his gift - only to find a Whitman's sampler box of candy!!! My mom said the expression on my face was priceless as I lamely exclaimed "Oh, candy." When I opened the box, inside was the most beautiful horse shirt I'd ever seen - I should have known Uncle Charlie would come through!
4. I always try and get my Christmas decorations out and up the weekend after Thanksgiving but it didn't happen this year - too much going on.
5. Every year I buy beautiful Christmas cards but never send any out! Am I lazy or what?
6. When my children were little we went around to both sets of grandparents houses to open gifts and then Santa Claus came that night and they got their "big" gifts the next morning. Now that they are grown, we don't always get together on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day - now, Pop and MiMi (me and David) travel around to see what Santa brought the little grandbabies.
7. I love watching Christmas Vacation - it makes me laugh and cry. I also love A Christmas Story.
8. I try and take down my decorations on December 26th but for the last year or so my best friend begs me to leave them up so she can come to visit and see what I've done. She lives about 2 hours away and doesn't make it to my house until a day or so after Christmas - I HATE leaving those decorations up beyond Christmas!
9. After the decorations are down, my house looks empty and different. I forget where I put stuff that I took down in order to put up the Christmas stuff and I'm like a kid in a candy store when I "discover" all my "lost" items.
10. I am usually buying "one more thing" right up through Christmas Eve!
11. My husband and I don't buy each other big gifts at Christmas because we usually buy what we want and/or need all during the year. About two years ago, we had had our usual discussion about not buying each other anything - I did buy him a pair of sweatpants to wear around the house. Everyone was at my house on Christmas Eve and all the gifts had been passed out when he said he thought Santa had left something under the tree for me - OMG! He had bought me an "eternity" necklace! I felt so bad about not buying him anything but not bad enough that I didn't put that sucker on right then and there!
12. I love Christmas bonuses! Today my boss gave me a little Christmas cheer in the form of cash - CASH works for me!

Okay, that was not so bad. I'm going to tag Heather at Basiques Boutique; Kari and Kijsa at Kari and Kijsa ; Tracey at A Cottage Industry and Janet at Housepeepers

Now the rules as I understand them are to:
1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas.
2. Refer to it as Hoopla.
3. Tag specific people.
4. See the rules on Mary's blog as these aren't very good (Little Red House)