I still celebrate the snow. Coming from Australia to Michigan, it still makes me smile when we get a blanket of snow. Which makes everyone else here suspicious of my sanity.

Holiday Music - I used to sing in a huge choir of over 400 singers and performed for thousands in CO. Seeing the faces of children light up and everyone enjoying the joyous time... for that moment no one had any worries.

Because my family is in the Midwest and I can't get there during the holidays, I've developed my own tradition: spending it with other people's families, preferably non-Christian ones. It's become an exercise in surreal experiences.

The best was last year, when I had a "Jewish Christmas Eve" -- i.e. Chinese food and a movie -- with a lovely Jewish family, whose daughter is a friend of mine. Then I went home, reading a Saul Bellow novel on the subway. On Christmas day I had Indian food in Jackson Heights, Queens, with another stranded friend. When we left, our Indian waiter said, in a thick Bombay brogue, "Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year." We just had to laugh (once we were outside, of course).

Cookies!!

When I was a kid, ok the tradition lived on until my mom died a few years ago, my mom, sisters & I would bake all day. Sugar cookies, thumbprint, those peanut butter cookies with a Hersey Kiss on top, on and on. I loved that. Last year was the first year I really tried to recreate it with my daughter. I'm sure we'll have a baking day again this year. Our friends will enjoy eating too!

My favorite thing is apple cider with homemade donuts! And the stockings full of little presents...

We always made a shopping run to Long Grove, a turn-of-the-century village turned into sort of an outdoor mall, with little shops in all the houses. The two shops that stick out in my mind are the general store, which would smell of potpourri when you walked in, and the chocolate shop, which made everything itself and was always packed to the gills. Chocolate-covered strawberries were a decadent Christmastime luxury that the whole family savored.

when my nephews tell me that the hats I knitted for them are 'sick' and 'tight' ;)

I still have amusing memories of watching my Grandma eat a huge pile of Brussel sprouts on Christmas Day and then being totally unaware that she was filling the air with anything but festive spirit for the rest of the afternoon. R.I.P Grandma.

I always look forward to the holiday season thinking of the lights and the music - making NYC one of the most amazing places to be...however, it isn't until vendors start selling Christmas trees that I am truly in the holiday spirit. There is something about walking past the line of trees and smelling the very unique scent of pine that lightens my heart and makes me smile, no matter what my day was like.

I love this time of year when i'm delusional that i'll actually get my christmas cards designed, ordered, filled out, stamped and mailed. i have visions of pouring myself a glass of wine, lighting the tree and writing out the cards, being careful to put some festive greeting into each and every card.

ah, the joy of being so naive.

give me a week-- that's when all my friends' cards with their perfectly posed, scrubbed clean children will arrive in my mailbox to taunt me. yeah, i said it. those kids all taunt me. i dread them.

uh oh... panic is now starting to set in.