It’s Monday, and that means Melanie’s Share Your World questions are waiting to be answered. Oh wait. It’s Tuesday. How did I miss Monday?

Do dogs ‘talk’ (communicate) with their own species?

Dogs definitely communicate with other dogs, although, except for some vocalizations (e.g., barking, growling, whimpering), it’s mainly non-verbally through the use of body language, like the way they carry and wag their tails, how they position their ears and eyes, their posture or body position, their movements, and their facial expressions.

Have you ever had to work on Christmas Day?

Yes, one year the firm I work for received a Request For Proposal (RFP) from a very large company on the Monday of Christmas week and the response was due on the first workday of the new year. It was a major project, so everyone who was assigned to work on it had to come to work every day for that two week period, including on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

If someone gifts you something that you immediately loathe, do you pretend to really like it anyway or are you brutally honest about your opinion?

I don’t recall ever having “loathed” a gift anyone has given me, but even if I don’t particularly care for it, I will thank the gift giver. I won’t pretend to really like it, but I won’t embarrass the giver, either, by telling them that their gift sucks. Besides, I can always exchange it for something I really do like!

Which popular drink, found during the Christmas season most often, is called “milk punch?”

I don’t know, but I’ll take a wild guess: eggnog.

How many ghosts show up during “A Christmas Carol?”

Even an old atheist like me knows that there were four ghosts. The first was Jacob Marley’s ghost, and the other three were the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

Are you all about the holly and jolly or more about remembering the alleged ‘true’ meaning of Christmas?

Ha! The “true meaning of Christmas.” That’s an oxymoron, right? That’s really funny!

Please share a memory or thought about the holiday season if you’d like, whatever kind of celebration you may observe.

A Christmas memory: The time in high school when I went to Midnight Mass with my two best friends, who were both Catholic, and the three of us were asked to leave the church because we were acting “inappropriately.” Ah, good times!