Um... well, that wasn't an actual example though most of the questions were about as difficult to answer.

Okay, here's my Friday morning conversation starter.

What's your favorite Christmas smell?

and...

What's your least favorite Christmas scent?

First for me would be standing at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning in my footie pajamas when I was four and smelling bacon and coffee and seeing presents under the tree.

Least: I've always disliked scented xmas candles, but I have an even worse association with last-minute mall shopping and getting a face full of Mrs. Fields cookies - normally a delicious smell - but somehow with the shopping shove-and-stress the vanilla seemed kind of gagging and noxious. Cinnabon also falls in that camp.

Bonus Good Smell: Coming home from college and walking into an open-house Christmas party and getting a whiff of their amazing Christmas ham on the buffet table. That was the best ham I ever had.

What's your favorite Christmas smell?

Christmas tree smell. Every year. For use it's usually a balsam fir. Sometimes, in years back it was a white spruce.

Also the smell of cloves reminds me of Christmas season particularly, and clove-flavoured hard candies we would have at Xmas.

What's your least favorite Christmas scent?

Smell of vegetables boiling on the stove. It's not just the smell, but the steamy, close feeling in the kitchen when all burner's are go, and my mom is stressing out.

This year, it's going to be me stressing over all those boiling pots!

gaming, nerds and male privilege.

[link]

gaming, nerds and male privilege.

Good article, but dang, I am too tired today to even wade into the comments.

Also the smell of cloves reminds me of Christmas season particularly, and clove-flavoured hard candies we would have at Xmas.

Nice! I've never had clove candy. Is that a Canadian thing? It sounds like the sort of thing Ple would eat. Or object to strenuously but she'd have an opinion, by gum.

Favorite is the smell of the Christmas tree, for sure. Putting up the Christmas tree while listening to Christmas music and drinking hot cocoa, trying to untangle the lights while keeping the cats from pouncing on them, unwrapping the ornaments and remembering where each one came from, that's probably the ritual I love best. And then you get a pretty tree with sparkly lights on it in your living room, and if someone has gotten home before you in the evening then you can see it through the windows when you come home at night.

Least favorite? Hmm... maybe the recycled airplane air, because I always seem to be flying somewhere over Christmas these days.

Heh! Somebody on AV Club tried to imagine how the Grinch narration would have sounded if Bela Lugosi had done it instead of Boris Karloff:

"Ahl zeh 'oos dahn in 'Oowill vid dehr noise, noise, NOISE!"

gaming, nerds and male privilege.

I could write a manifesto in how often I got mansplained in Firefly fandom like I had no idea what I was talking about.

gaming, nerds and male privilege.

Man, I am so thankful for my comic book store, where I cannot imagine that scene happening at all. The manager is a woman, and there are women on the staff, and there are plenty of female customers. I know that's not the norm, though.