Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama and GameStop are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family?

That we are all safe, happy and healthy together.
Yes, I know that's a very white-bread, vanilla, generically vague wish. We're lucky; we don't have any major issues right now, knock wood. But the alternatives to safety, happiness and togetherness are scary, and we need to remember to be grateful for every simple moment and (non-)thing we have.

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition?

We all wake up together, go into the living room and make sure Santa has eaten his cookies and milk and read the note he has left. Then we rip and tear and thank each other. Stockings are last, and finally we have a giant greasy breakfast.

3. If you could ask Santa for one completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be?

To fly away to London with my favorite fellow Anglophile girlfriends, meet up with AdieToots there and shop, relax and party British style.

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money?

We go for a walk with the dogs, all of us together. It's the best when it's snowing and completely silent.

5. What games did you play with your family growing up?

Monopoly, mostly. That or anything that involved throwing and catching something in the yard.

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood?

Santa leaves each person's gifts in a pile on their own special chair where we get to curl up and take turns opening.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip?

I'd love to spend Christmas Eve night at my parents' house and let my daughter wake up to Santa's gifts there. My mom has always lamented never getting to see any of her granddaughters' faces when they first see what Santa has done. Unfortunately, actually doing this would be a logistical nightmare and my mother-in-law would never speak to me again. Hmmm....

8. Check out GameStop and tell us: What are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year?

Ummmm, I'm going to go with a Wii Fit or the new Kinect system, Super Mario Bros for the DS because my daughter keeps asking and asking and asking for it, and Donkey Kong Country Returns (that is one of my all-time favorite games to play on our 12-year-old Super Nintendo. That's right; I still play on a Super Nintendo...I really need to win this contest, right? Sigh).

Merry Everything and Happy New Year!