“What Is Love To You?” Christmas Holiday Challenge Questions
I enjoy the season enough to have a few memorable answers for this challenge
I’ve always had sort of a bittersweet relationship with Christmas. It was more sweet than bitter as a child. Then it got a bit more bitter as I got older. And even more so at this point in my life.
I still get the Christmas spirit around this time of year but the holiday for me and my partner personally has a lot of ups and downs. He lost his grandma the day after Christmas and I had a significant indiscretion on Christmas Eve 8 years ago.
I try to avoid the topic of Christmas around Mike but I’m still very fond of the traditions and the celebrations around the season. I also can still feel the love and the giving spirit within the season as well.
Here is Lucy Socha’s original challenge.
Here are my answers to the challenge.
Question 1: The love part
If truth be told, who is the one person you would get hugs and kisses from that you always wanted but never experienced?
I had to think long and hard about this. I don’t have any of my grandparents left but I know that I’ve been hugged and kissed by both of my father’s grandparents since we traveled to Texas from California so often when I was little before my grandfather’s sudden heart attack in 1989 and my grandmother’s death from a long battle with cancer in 2007. I think that since I never met my mom’s parents that I’d want the hugs and kisses to be from one of them.
They lived in the Philippines and I never got to travel to the Philippines with my mom at any point so I never met them before they died. My grandfather lived to be 95 and died in 2010. My grandmother passed away in the late 1990s. I would’ve loved to have had hugs and kisses from either one of them. If my mom was capable of such love and compassion, I could only imagine how much I could’ve received from my grandparents.
Question 2: The food part
What is your favorite Christmas cookie? (Doesn’t have to be a Christmas cookie, per se.)
My favorite cookie is oatmeal raisin. I love the texture of the oatmeal in a cookie mixed with the sweetness from the raisins. The more raisins, the better for me. I’m absolutely obsessed with these types of cookies. I’ve been known to polish off an entire rack by myself despite being diabetic. I know, I know. It’s not great but it’s not like I do it every day.
Christmas is especially a time of year when I love eating those cookies with hot chocolate, coffee, or tea. One year as a kid, I even left Santa some of my favorite cookies with milk on the countertop. I imagine that my dad ended up tearing through that as it was gone in the morning.
Question 3: The holiday movie part
What is your favorite holiday movie?
I’ll have a few in this section. I’m not really into many Christmas movies but I’ve enjoyed a few over the years. I really enjoyed the first two Home Alone movies with Macaulay Culkin. As I got older, the movie Elf with Will Ferrell and Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton really made me laugh, cry, and shout with joy. I’ve always enjoyed the Grinch movies, especially the one with Jim Carrey as the Grinch.
More recently, I enjoyed a Christmas movie from 2020 with Kristen Stewart, Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie, Dan Levy, and Mary Steenburgen, among others, called The Happiest Season. The newest movie was about a lesbian couple going to one of their family’s houses for the holidays and then Kristen Stewart’s character finds out that her girlfriend never came out to her family. It was funny, heartwarming, and full of surprises.
Question 4: The holiday music part
What is your favorite Christmas song? Attach the song when responding to the challenge.
I thought about this one the longest since I love music so much. I have a few that I’d like to include in my favorites for holiday music. I have one song from 1967 by Stevie Wonder that he remade with Andra Day seven years ago. It’s the classic song Someday at Christmas.
The song was very timely as it was written during wartime and also written during a time of civil unrest in the United States as the Civil Rights Movement and many other social movements were in full force in the country. The song lyrics remind me that Christmas is a time of love and peace and that all the singers want is peace and love on earth. It’s a very powerful message.
I also have a special connection to the song O Holy Night. It must be a holdover from my religious upbringing. My favorite version of the song is from pop crossover artist, Josh Groban. His voice is magical, soothing, and dare I say angelic. I love this song so much that it also used to be my favorite version of the song to sing in karaoke. This 2002 version of the song is arguably the best version I’ve ever heard.
And the last song I want to include here holds a special place in my heart. It is an epic duet that is always played around Christmastime that is in both English and Italian. It is sung by one of my favorite male vocalists in the world and also my favorite female pop vocalist of all time, Celine Dion.
The Prayer is such a special song and is one of the most inspiring and beautiful songs to listen to during the holidays for me. She’s also done a version live with the previously mentioned artist, Josh Groban. Josh Groban has also done a lovely version with an opera singer, Charlotte Church.
I hope that you all enjoyed reading my answers to the holidays/Christmas challenge. I hope that people will be up for the challenge.
I had such a blast putting this together. Lucy Socha has the plan to put all of the songs gathered in the challenge for a “What is Love to You?” Christmas compilation and I think that it’s a wonderful idea.
I’m going to tag three writers to spread the Christmas spirit and write one of their own: Blogs by J, The Celtic Chameleon, Bernice P.
Anyone who’s reading this can participate and I encourage you to if you’d like.
I was tagged into this challenge by two fellow writers, Klara Jane Holloway and Robert Ralph.
Klara’s story
Robert’s story
