Hello again, friends! Let’s see if I can keep the writing momentum going for a while because I’ve sure got some icky cobwebs to clear out of my dusty corner of the internet. I’ve decided to keep the joy of Christmas alive over here for a bit longer because this year has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.

For fun, I thought I’d answer some adorable Christmas questions about my childhood from My Sweet Home Life.

So let’s go…

1. What’s the first Christmas you can remember?

The Christmas I can distinctly remember was when I was in grade one and living at Puckapunyl, an army base just outside of the township of Seymour. My siblings and I got a cubby house for Christmas that year, and it was the most exciting thing. My mother filled up empty cereal boxes with paper and taped them up so we could have a pretend little shop going along with our play money. For a seven-year-old it was the coolest thing ever, and our little shop was pretty legit in my eyes.

I still remember us kids having our photo taken in front of our cubby’s emerald green door that Christmas Day. I was beaming with happiness, wearing a pink fairy costume. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find that photo in time for this post, so a picture of Christmas morning when I was three years old shall have to suffice.

Is it weird that I want to give myself a hug? Like, look how happy and cute I was! Oh, and my first bike was everything *heart eyes emoji*. I adored that Strawberry Shortcake tricycle. It was very me. Still is; I'd love a grown-up version of that bike.

2. What was the best present you ever received as a child?

I was given one of those Speak N’ Spell thingamajigs, and I thought it was the bee’s knees. For those of you who are too young to know what I’m talking about, a Speak N’ Spell was a tiny, portable PC like electronic spelling corrector. It would churn out words for you to spell and you had to punch in how you thought a word was spelt and the machine would tell you if you were correct or incorrect. It was kind of like a spelling bee, but without the competition and pressure.

I LOVED this thing. Oh, I can still remember the robotic voice with an American accent saying ''Spell DINOSAUR''… ''You are correct.'' I spent many hours sitting on the floor with this device in my lap, crossing my fingers after spelling each word and hoping I wouldn’t hear ''You are INCORRECT.''

It was such a fun way to learn how to spell, and I credit it for turning me into a spelling and grammar wizard.

Mine was similar to this. Ahh, nostalgia.

3. What was the worst present you ever received as a child?

I don’t think I ever received a terrible present as a kid, or even as an adult for that matter. I pretty much love anything and everything, and I am so grateful for whatever I am given. If I did receive a less desirable gift, it must have been so bad that I’ve erased it from my memory!

4. What did your family used to do on Christmas Eve?

We did very little. My sister and I would sometimes lie underneath the Christmas tree next to our wrapped presents and try to guess what they were.

We never believed in Santa because we were far too smart, so we didn’t leave any food out on Christmas Eve or anything like that. Although some years we left a midnight snack out for our father if we knew he was staying up to assemble gifts.

Christmas Eve wasn’t really a special celebration for us, so if I end up having a family of my own one day, I definitely want to create some fun traditions.

5. What’s the earliest you ever woke up on Christmas Day?

Opening presents was the most exciting thing ever as children, so we rarely slept and come 4am we were usually buzzing with anticipation. One year my sister and I were so excited that we ended up chatting most of the night because we couldn’t sleep. Sometimes our brother would poke his head in our room to tell us he also couldn’t sleep.

It’s a different story now as an adult. I’m much more excited about giving presents than I am about receiving them, and of course now it’s hard to stop sleeping. The earliest I’ve gotten up is 6am to get ready for church, but that’s a rarity.