Mike, "I don't give a kumquat whether we are warming or cooling..." I am offended by your implication that there is anything negative about kumquats. They are great. I grew up with a tree that bore way more fruit than I could ever eat, and the extras served as excellent ammunition for throwing at my friends--especially the green ones b/c they are much harder. :) It is pretty funny with this current cold weather how much people on both sides of the debate cite it as evidence in their direction. As if one piece of datum out of context can lead to any kind of significant conclusion. Whenever winter rolls around gardenweb seems to slow down, which I find annoying considering I live NorCal where we don't have much of a winter. So I appreciate discussion topics that I find interesting regardless of how "on topic" they are for the various forums. I do find it interesting all the people that chime in about how this isn't a worthwhile discussion. In a free society, isn't any any all discussion worthwhile? You are free to discuss and free not to. Cousin floyd, do you not think that colony collapse disorder exists, or are you just saying you don't think it is a new thing? I didn't realize that was even a controversial topic. ryan

Christmas Eve, we go to the candle light service at church as a family, (my husband and I, our son, my mother, our grown daughter (my step-daughter), and our granddaughter (see loves it) included.) Then we drive around and look at Christmas lights and then we go by the only restaurant open by that time (the local Chinese place) and get take out, go home and eat together and then try to get everyone that has to leave to go home and everyone else in bed. My husband and I usually go on to bed set the alarm for about 2:00am and get up and put out "Santa Clause". Things will be a lot different this year. My mother always spent the night with us; she and my young son would sleep in my husband and my bed (we would just kind of camp out in the living room). It was a given that "Mamaw" would be at out house on Christmas Eve. Well she passed away in January. We still miss her so much. I don't know how things will work out this year, but I still want to keep as many of the traditions as we can. She would want it like that. She was a kind and loving Christian woman.

I go all out for my BFF of 50+years! I look for particular things, but I like to follow a 'color theme'~last year it was everything turquoise(because it's her favorite color), and the year before it was leopard print. I get things like mittens or gloves, scarf, wallet or purse, pj's, sofa throw, velour sweat suit, sunglasses, socks, and just about anything that I can find in whatever color i've chosen. A few years ago it was everything monkey's~~this year it might be the color pink, and since she loves cats, make it a *pink* cat theme. ;o)

since we've had kids we always stay home for christmas day. my mom and mil were big on this. mil- always had to travel across Ma. to her grandparents for the day. they got to be there for about 2-3 hrs and then return home. no presents from her grand parents and no chance to open them at home before they left. no turkey dinner either. pretty sad tale of woe, she didn't wish that sort of xmas on any one. my mom said it was important for us to have our own traditions. so we stay home. usually our family gets together sometime over the holidays, but no matter whose house we're at everyone has a 300-400 mile drive-- so we usually have to commit to a weekend of guests. my wife and i have always giving everyone in both our families an ornament for christmas. we try to stay under $5. for these, but are on the look-out whenever we travel during the year or pay attention to what people are interested in, or some significant event in their life that year. for the kids, it gives them a collection so when they leave home they have something for their own tree. for the adults it avoids having to buy a fan-tab-u-lous present. since we live the farthest away from all our relatives, ornaments are easy to ship. when kids were little we usually send their moms & dads a check so they could do the shopping for us, now we send the ornament and a gift card. we've tried a gift exchange where we draw names, but my youngest brother whose kids are 10-15 years younger than the rest of our kids thinks that his kids get gypted (everyone still gets his all kids presents, because they still get a big thrill out of opening them, and no one else has kids under 10 anymore)with this method--so we all get everyone a present-- an ornament works nicely there too. at home because my kids are autistic and don't deal with their routines being changed, we eat xmas dinner at dinnertime. so we have plenty of time in the morning to get up and open, play, watch tv, before we have to cook. we usually let the boys open their stocking(usually all the goodies are consumed for breakfast) as soon as they get up, but they wait until we get up to open presents under the tree. We we join the land of the living-- about 8am, we get out the cranberry bread, stollen and panetone the coffee and hot chocolate and start unwrapping: kids first, then mom and dad. about 11, we'll make 'brunch'-- eggs and sausage, toast and juice. then we get started at dinner. about 4pm we put out a relish tray and cheese and crackers so we can make it until dinner time. since my wife and i arew both in food service, and the week before christmas is the busiest time of the year. we usually have a tradition of doing laundry all day long every holiday while watching football games. on christmas eve we usually have seafood for dinner about 10:30 PM after finishing wrapping and then go to service at the church, so that when we get home we can go to bed!!!! sometimes we'll exchange a special present when we get home from church. diggerb