Friday Five: Don't Call It a Comeback Edition

Note from this blogger: between Advent preparations, Thanksgiving travels, and the complicated, emotional process of accepting a new call, blogging has taken a back seat lately. I will do my best to be more regular about writing in a few weeks. Maybe post-Christmas. But for now, at least a little fun with the Friday five is a nice break in the day.

Please tell us your least favorite/most annoying seasonal....
1) dessert/cookie/family food
Lutefisk. No question. Gelatinous fish dried in lye and then re-enervated in soggy white sauce: even real Norwegians don't eat this crap anymore.

2) beverage (seasonal beer, eggnog w/ way too much egg and not enough nog, etc...)
Hate eggnog. Hate it. Makes me gag.

3) tradition (church, family, other)
You know, I'm coming up blank on this one. No annoying traditions here, I guess.

4) decoration
I hate those blow-up oversized snowglobes people put in their front yards. (Or anything in the blow-up family: big snowmen, Winnie the Pooh and his friends decorating the tree, Rudolph, etc.) I just don't get it. They're ugly. And they make your house look like the residence of a creepy Disney-phile who's gone on the It's A Small World ride one too many times.

5) gift (received or given)
I collect nativity scenes. I have many lovely and beautiful ones. But I also have a few humdingers people have given me over the years, including a plasticine Alaskan Eskimo nativity. It's not kitchsy enough to be fun and not hideous enough to throw out. Just strange.

BONUS: SONG/CD that makes you want to tell the elves where to stick it.
Anything by an artist dressed in a too-tight red elf costume with fur around the cleavage. Mariah Carey, maybe. I don't enjoy looking at the cover and wondering how many hookers actually do work at the North Pole. One too many ho ho ho's, if you know what I mean. There is also some sort of pole-related joke here, but I'll let that one go.

You know, this was kind of cathartic. All my holiday annoyances out in print. I feel much better.