Merry Christmas: Big Bertha and the 7 Fishes

Ever wondered why holiday decorating feels like both a joyous celebration and a hilarious battle? Join us as Chrisy shares her concerns about Kerry's minimalist approach to holiday decorations, sparking a lively discussion filled with laughter and unique ideas.  Dive into our brainstorming session on the whimsical world of holiday decor, encouraging you to embrace the lighter side and share your own creative setups with us. 

Prepare for a nostalgic ride through holiday traditions as we reminisce about the chaotic adventure of cutting down a Christmas tree. Picture the scene: hauling Big Bertha home in a station wagon, with memories as vivid as a classic "Christmas Vacation" moment. Our journey explores cultural customs, like the Italian tradition of eating fish on Christmas Eve, adapted to modern family gatherings. Alongside these tales, we reflect on the challenges and humor of maintaining beloved holiday rituals, from watering real trees to navigating static-filled tinsel.

As we wrap up our holiday series, we express heartfelt gratitude to our listeners, inviting them to join us in the joy of community and share their own holiday experiences.

Transcript

Holiday Decorating and Family Traditions"

Speaker 1 0:07

Welcome to the Dysfunction Junkies podcast . We may not have seen it all , but we've seen enough . And now here are your hosts , chrissy and Keri .

Speaker 2 0:19

Hello Dysfunction Junkies . Merry Christmas , happy Hanukkah , happy Holidays and all the other happiness in between . How are you doing today , chrissy ?

Speaker 1 0:29

It's Christmas and I need to talk to you real quick about one thing what's ?

Speaker 2 0:35

that , what'd I do ?

Speaker 1 0:36

Last episode . What'd you do Last episode ? You're telling me you don't decorate because you're always having a great time somewhere else . Lucky , lucky .

Speaker 2 0:45

Yes , I do tend not to decorate .

Speaker 1 0:47

I love you , Carrie , because we've known each other a long time .

Speaker 2 0:50

Yeah .

Speaker 1 0:50

And there's nobody I'm more comfortable with . From the time we put in in prison , I mean school . When I say what I'm about to say , even though I love you to death , it's our safe space .

Speaker 1 1:03

It's not that I'm concerned for your well-being here , which is horrible to say . What though I love you to death ? It's our safe space . It's not that I'm concerned for your well-being here , which is horrible to say . What I'm concerned about is that you're not suffering enough . Oh , chrissy , you got to decorate to suffer . Babe . I don't think there's anybody out there when you really diagnose , what you're doing out there with all your decorations are crazy Inflatables , the reindeer , the lights that never all light up . You got one out , you got a string out . Forget the fuse thing , the fuse thing that never worked . Decorating is for suffering and holidays are for celebrating I know they say family .

Speaker 1 1:39

It's really celebrating the suffering . Celebrate the suffering , Celebrate the suffering . And Carrie's not suffering enough people . I guess I'm not .

Speaker 2 1:48

No tree , nope no nightmare getting it up ?

Speaker 1 1:51

No nightmare having two bulbs the same way , too close together on the tree . That's my whole thing . I can't . I have to space out . You can't have two red bulbs next to each other , god forbid .

Speaker 2 2:00

Okay , wait , maybe this will calm your heart . All right , give it to me . We have one thing that I've failed to mention when I said we don't decorate because it's really not me who does it . This is my husband , jim . He loves the Christmas story , so we do have the full size in the front window from Thanksgiving until New Year's . Well , actually , I think it'suary 8th , because that's when , technically , you know that's elvis's birthday yeah , well , that's also the epiphany , christmas remember back in grade school .

Speaker 1 2:32

What back in ? Is that a ?

Speaker 2 2:33

catholic thing , yeah , when the three kings come and christmas technically ends . Were you high , were you ?

Speaker 1 2:39

drinking yeah yeah epiphany . I thought it's what you have when you have a good idea .

Speaker 2 2:46

Yeah , the good idea is it's all over , it's done . Oh my God . So from Thanksgiving until January 8th , elvis's birthday , that is when the full leg lamp is up at our house . So do we get credit for that ?

Speaker 1 3:00

Yes , only because I did mention that that is a legitimate fantastic Christmas classic , so I won't crap on any of that . Okay so we're redeemed . A little bit maybe , but the only decoration I have from that is I have a life-size version of when the kid's tongue is stuck to the pole . I put that in the window . No , I'm kidding , I don't have that . That would be great , that would be good .

Speaker 2 3:29

Because again , that would be somebody suffering . Oh my gosh , we have a big flagpole in the field that's next to our house . I think , along with the Karen inflatable , we need the inflatable of the kid that I can put up to the flagpole Now that I could get into for Christmas decorations .

Speaker 1 3:39

You know what , if I see this stuff in people's yards , I'm going to be first of all elated and excited and thrilled and then I'm going to get mad because we gave you the idea . But these are good ideas . Forget the other stuff . You need the Karen on the roof and the kid with his tongue stuck to a little pool .

Speaker 2 3:59

God that kid's name DJ Nick . You have to find out what that kid's name the one that stuck his tongue to there .

Speaker 1 4:03

It wasn't .

Speaker 2 4:04

Randy no , it wasn't Randy . Randy was a little brother .

Speaker 1 4:07

He was a little brother . Yeah , oh , it was Schwartz . No , it wasn't Schwartz . Schwartz was the one that talked the kid into it . Flick , flick , flick . I had to go through my names real quick .

Speaker 2 4:16

There you go Okay year to find or make some kind of a flick you know , scarecrow , dummy , whatever and put it on our flagpole . Yes , so I will have flick and we'll have the um leg lamp . That would be classic . Okay , now I'm like okay now you're excited about that . Now I'm excited about decorating , and christmas is over . This is oh no I still got time . This is only december 25th , I have till january 8th well , this is uh .

Speaker 1 4:44

You know I'll let it go for this . We'll have to discuss this further next year . See what you did . But again , people , if you decide to do this , we want to see those pictures . Send us those pictures .

Speaker 2 4:54

They're gonna be so great so when you were a kid okay you , you seemed a little shocked that we maybe cut our own tree down . So you've never done this going out and cutting your own christmas tree down no , really never .

Speaker 1 5:06

Okay , god forbid that sounds . My father would have probably punished me if I would have even brought that up as an option . I wouldn't have even thought of that .

Speaker 2 5:14

Yeah , no , we've done this as far back as I can remember and we're always . You know , that

Christmas Tree Adventures and Holiday Traditions

Speaker 2 5:19

was like always . The big thing is to go cut down the christmas tree , and so we would go find these places . And I remember one year specifically , we went to go cut down the tree and I think the place is still around , it's over there , like past Hubbard , someplace over there . But anyways , we went to cut down this tree . So we cut down the tree was my mom , my dad and myself and pull the tree to the station wagon .

Speaker 2 5:43

And it just cracks me up to this day , because this is , I think , why the Christmas story or I always say the Christmas story , christmas vacation movie cracks me up so much , because it was so much of our life growing up . So we got this tree but instead of putting it and tying it to the roof , my dad thought it'd be a great idea to let's just pull it into the back of the station wagon . So we lowered the seats down and we pulled it in . Well , it didn't fit because it was freaking huge . So my mom had to drive this home and this was like 20 , 30 miles away . So we had to take the freeway .

Speaker 2 6:18

You know , 55 mile , 60 mile an hour road to get home with this Christmas tree half hanging out the back of the station wagon and my dad and I were inside with the tree literally holding it on for like holding onto it so it wouldn't fall out as we were driving down the road . So I just remember us going down the road , me hanging onto this tree and hanging onto like the seed of the . You know that was folded down and my dad on the other side and the slush from the road flying up and stuff to cut this tree down . So then we get it home and we bring it into the house and they did have it somewhat corded up a little bit but it was , it was huge .

Speaker 2 6:59

So we did the whole thing where we put it in the stand and that whole scene from the um christmas vacation where they cut the wire and it put chings and you know , flat . That literally was what happened . So that specific tree was called big bertha and from then on every tree we ever tried to get always compared to big bertha . But yeah , I'll never forget hanging out the back of the station wagon going 55 miles down the road . No , no seat belt , you know well , no seat belt twine from the tree was secure .

Speaker 1 7:30

The tree , the tree was . All of you were gonna fly .

Speaker 2 7:33

We were collateral damage , yes , yes , but the tree was gonna be all right , so yeah , so that was the beginning of that christmas cutting down trees tradition in our house yeah , no , always in my lifetime had artificial did you ever even go to the tree lot and get a real tree that was already cut ?

Speaker 1 7:49

I think I remember driving by them sometimes and be like , you know , my aunt and her husband at the time and my cousins , when I was real little they used to have real trees , yeah , and I do remember this and I can still remember in the house where they well , at least where I remember actually I remember they had them in two different places in their living room . One was in the one corner , not too far from their front door , and then the other one was over by their front window .

Speaker 2 8:15

So they had two trees .

Speaker 1 8:16

Well , no , no , I'm just thinking different years .

Speaker 2 8:18

Oh okay , Not two trees at the same time , no , but I mean they were real trees .

Speaker 1 8:45

No-transcript . I used to have to go over there after school until my mom got off work and that tree , the icicles , would stick to the TV , yes , from the static , and I'd be like you know do you want to ? Rethink this Maybe placement . I can't see what's going on on the television . I'm stuck here and I can't see what's going on on the television I'm stuck here and I can't watch .

Speaker 1 9:08

Yeah , I remember being agitated by that and I do seem to recall there was always controversy as to who watered the damn thing . Did you water the tree today ? Is it watered ? It looks like it's drying out . Somebody watered the tree .

Speaker 2 9:19

Oh my god yeah , it's a lot of work yeah , no , no , no no no , and that is why again , why I don't like to decorate . Well , I can understand if I had to have a real tree it wouldn't probably be happening .

Speaker 1 9:32

I love the idea and people always talk about the smell of it . It's wonderful . It's christmas , it means christmas . The other thing I remember is they hurt yeah , if you touch them , they're pulling , they're gonna poke you but you got to get the right kind .

Speaker 2 9:43

If you get a white pine they have long soft needles and they don't hurt . So if you buy the right kind of tree , then it will Do .

Speaker 1 9:50

I look like somebody who would ever buy the right kind of tree . I'm probably going to buy something that's got thorns on it that would be my luck and constantly stab through the whole Christmas season . Thank you . Like having legos on your floor oh yeah , those are fun , um , so what's ?

Speaker 2 10:05

your family's tradition ? Uh , growing up , like what was your christmas eve , christmas day traditions did you have a nightmare one , nightmare two .

Speaker 1 10:14

Okay , so christmas eve , we are not a hundred percent italian . Well , I'm half . My mother was a hundred , okay . And my father was Italian , by default , I guess , because he grew up on a side of town that a lot of Italian families lived on . So he was comfortable with that culture , even though he was not Italian . So Christmas Eve was the nightmare of any of you Italian families out there .

Speaker 2 10:40

We had to eat fish , the seven fishes ? No , we never had seven .

Speaker 1 10:46

But that's what the tradition is , that is , and some I think there are some people who actually do like up to 11 . Oh my gosh , we , we scanned it down to about four . I mean , uh , I think when my mother was little , because she was closer to the whole full italian doing everything , yeah , um they used to do like eel , and there's a fish that's real salty .

Speaker 1 11:06

That begins with the letter B , dj Nick Muggala . Thank you , we didn't do that one . We had the basics Shrimp , okay , smelt Whitefish . Actually , I think we only got it down to three . Then , when my husband came and started celebrating Christmas with us , we revisited squid . Oh , but my mother didn't like to do squid but , he likes squid , I I like it , it's it's good um so we did maybe sometimes do squid , but what we would end up doing is the women .

Speaker 1 11:36

Yeah , would sit in the kitchen and usually the guys were at the table watching us suffer and we had like stations . Yeah , who was on shrimp station , whitefish station ? Smelt station and we would fry . We'd have all these like little kind of Tabletop fryers . No , Well , yeah , we did have that .

Speaker 1 11:54

And then my mom would have like this big heavy duty pot on the stove that she would put oil in and so you were in different places and you had the flour and the egg thing and the way you dip the fish , and all of that was sounds like so much work and your hands were coated in breading and the nails okay , that's gross , it was horrible and you smelled like fish .

Speaker 1 12:16

Why did we have to eat all this fish ? Why ? Why my father always had to make his cocktail sauce which was good , and he wanted it where he put so much horseradish in it , yeah , that when you ate it , your nose I mean you could your sinuses cleared For a week .

Speaker 2 12:36

That's my kind . I like that kind and it was good .

Speaker 1 12:39

It was good , but he had that was the one thing , dad made the cocktail sauce for the fish , and so , and then we had to have angel hair pasta .

Speaker 2 12:46

Oh , of course no meat .

Speaker 1 12:48

No , no meat , very offensive meat on Christmas Eve , don't know why ? Because you've got to have fish , I guess . So we had fish , did you ?

Speaker 2 12:57

go to any services like Midnight Mass or anything like that . No , okay . Yes , please , because I know that you did and I want to hear about this because this is sort of a novelty .

Speaker 1 13:09

Not that I have been to a midnight mass , but it was not something that we incorporated into our holiday .

Speaker 2 13:14

And this is one of the things

Christmas Eve Midnight Mass Tradition

Speaker 2 13:16

that you know . Again , disclaimer here we may joke around a lot and we make fun of things or we tease about things , but I do very much . I mean I have my faith and my religion and things , but you know , our family did take it to . My family took it to a degree . So when I say things like you know , pull out a rosary or whatever , you know I'm not at all trying to be mean or anything about my faith , it's just . It's just . That's how we grew up and so it was an old extreme . But when it comes to Christmas Eve services I do .

Speaker 2 13:45

My absolutely favorite service to go to is Christmas Eve Midnight Mass , but I want it to be at midnight because that's when it's supposed to be . There's different services if you have it earlier nine or whatever . So growing up we would go to Midnight Mass , which I really loved , and then what we would do is we got home from Christmas . Now we were always allowed to open one gift . So when we get home from Christmas Eve Midnight Mass , we were allowed to open up one gift , and usually it was like my sister , one sister that was still at home . We would be allowed to exchange each other's gifts . Yeah , then we would go to bed and Santa and the whole thing in the next morning . But now , as an adult , now what it's become for us is we go to Midnight Mass .

Speaker 2 14:28

Now , what it's become for us is we go to midnight mass and then when we come home we have the hot cocoa and we open up all of our presents so that way we can sleep in in the morning . We don't have to get up early . We don't have no reason to get up early to sleep in and enjoy it . But here's what's funny so as my mom and dad got older at their church you know a lot of older people so they wanted to do midnight mass , but none of them wanted to stay up for it , so they had midnight mass at 9pm . I just think that's just so funny . It's like , okay , that's not midnight mass , that's the 9pm mass . It's a little different , you know . But but they would say , no , we're going to midnight mass at 9pm . Sometimes it was at 8pm , you know , it just depended on the weather . If the weather was really going to be predicted to be bad , they would up the time . So I just think that's hysterical .

Speaker 1 15:10

They had to get you coming through those doors they had to get us through the doors and it got me adjusting Midnight Mass .

Speaker 2 15:15

Midnight Mass is really at 9 pm . Anyways , I always laugh about that .

Speaker 1 15:20

I'm curious Now . You went out at midnight . Yeah , you're not home . Yeah , not in bed . Yeah , what santa ?

Speaker 2 15:31

had a what park up on the roof with karen and wait for you to get home and go to bed . I guess he was servicing the other parts of the country .

Speaker 1 15:34

That until and then all the people who are at midnight mass were down on the list .

Speaker 2 15:38

Yeah , they had , we were later on the . Yeah , our delivery time was a little later .

Speaker 1 15:41

Wow , wow , that see I would have had a panic attack if I was little . It had to be a midnight mass . I'd'd be like you know , you guys got me here . I don't want to be here . Santa's going to get pissed . I'm not home , I'm not sleeping , I'm going to lose gifts over this . I'm screwed .

Speaker 2 15:58

I was never . It was never a worry because it was always just like oh , santa's delivering to the other people , when you go home and go to bed , it'll happen , you know , and Christmas morning . But here's what I did hate and I think you had a similar experience being that we had sisters that were older . So we grew up , you know , kind of by ourselves at this point in life is we'd wake up Christmas morning but you had to wait . Did you have to wait ?

Speaker 1 16:20

Well , I did , you also .

Speaker 2 16:22

Yeah , yes , especially once I got like in my teenage years where I knew how do I , how do I say this without ? Where the whole Santa Claus thing was a little bit differently perceived . Right , so to give any way any secrets about Santa .

Speaker 1 16:35

Right .

Speaker 2 16:35

But yeah , so we would have to wait until they got their asses up out of bed .

Speaker 1 16:42

Yeah , ok , I'm making crazy noises with my mouth because I'm just so frustrated with this whole concept that I had to do . My sisters were either married or just out of the house pretty much by the time I was eight nine years old .

Speaker 1 16:55

So , and I was a lover of Santa longer than most kids , because I was watching TV all the time , ain't no , but I wasn't sitting around trying to figure out the secrets of life , I was just watching TV . So Christmas would come , couldn't sleep all night . Yep , work my way downstairs , god damn , motherlode . Yes , gifts everywhere For me , right , right , yeah . Oh boy , oh boy , oh boy , don't you go near that tree . Mm-hmm , we have to wait for everybody to get here . Mm-hmm , what ? Yep , I got to wait .

Speaker 1 17:28

Now my sisters didn't start families real early after being married , but they were in no hurry , right , right .

Speaker 2 17:37

Because they're having their Christmas morning .

Speaker 1 17:38

One thing about my sisters was is that they really , really , really loved being able to get themselves dolled up .

Speaker 2 17:47

Oh yeah , I remember . And that was priority for them , and it wasn't a short process no , especially back in the day with that 80s in the hair , 80s hair .

Speaker 1 17:55

Yeah , all that hairspray makeup uh-huh , the lighter on the uh pencil yep yep black in them eyes , baby , oh yeah , because you're not going to present all for christmas . Unless you have raccoon eyes and big hair , how are we going to eat all the leftover fish ?

Speaker 2 18:10

what do they say ? The big hair closer to god . The bigger the hair , the closer to god that's right .

Speaker 1 18:15

So I was punished by having to sit there and stare at them things yep and wait for them . Usually I was gonna say yep , maybe finally , and then just agitation with gift opening yeah because somebody would try to hand out stuff you know , or look for tags and names , and here's yours . This is mine . What the hell is this ?

Speaker 2 18:39

I mean and here's the order you have to open them in like , let me just rip into it , let me pick which one I want to open .

Speaker 1 18:45

Oh no , you didn't have that . That sounds like a whole thing . What do you mean you ? They would tell you how you had to open your gift . Yes , which ones you had to open . Oh , no , you didn't have that .

Speaker 2 18:50

That sounds like a whole thing . What do you mean ? They would tell you how you had to open your gifts , yes , which ones you had to open , in which order , you know . Okay , well , you got to open this one because this is from so-and-so , or you have to open this before you can open this , and so you couldn't just like , oh , look at these presents . No , it was very structured .

Speaker 1 19:05

Yeah , no , I think it was every man for himself . Once we did open and once in a while you glance over to somebody and sort of look and see what the hell you got going over there . What do I got going over here , okay , okay . So the other thing too was my family . When my dad was still alive and I was already married , didn't have kids yet , but we had to buy for everybody . We didn't do a gift exchange , we didn't just buy for kids , and having to know everybody in the family and what they might like , yep , it's horrible . It's horrible . We don't do . We've gotten to the point . My husband , I don't even buy for each other because we have kids yeah , so that kind of went away and I miss it .

Speaker 1 19:46

No , it's just , you focus on children . You have your son , daughter-in-law , grandson , grandson , granddaughter .

Speaker 2 19:53

Granddaughter , and that's the fun , right . Well , and that was probably the one nice thing about growing up in a family that didn't have a lot of money is we initiated the gift exchange early , because it is ridiculous to buy , especially when we had a family . Remember , I said , you know our Thanksgiving and stuff . 30 people like it , and I mean that . You know . So if you had to buy for all those people , we couldn't afford that . So we did start the Christmas gift exchange early , so you only had to buy for , like one person you know , besides mom and dad and those you lived in the immediate household . With the rest of them you only had to buy one for . So that was good and helpful .

Speaker 2 20:27

But I'll never forget probably the last Christmas where we actually had to wait for my sisters was when I was 16 . So this was when we were in high school together . I don't know if you remember when I , we , my mom and we had Shelties . We had , okay . So the very first Sheltie that we got was at Christmas . It might have been my freshman year I can't remember if it was freshman or sophomore year . Well , anyway , might have been my freshman year . I can't remember if it was freshman or sophomore year , well anyway .

Speaker 2 20:49

So we get up Christmas and they let me open up a few gifts . But then we were waiting for my sister to come and I was waiting , and waiting , and waiting and it was like , oh my gosh , it was just like , come on , like it was just such a letdown . And so I guess my mom and dad could see that they were like like this is not going well , and they kept calling my sister , like you need to hurry up . And finally they couldn't wait anymore and so they said , ok , we're going to give you your real , like your big present . And that's when they bring up this puppy . They had gotten me a Sheltie puppy . Well , here , part of the problem they were having too was they couldn't keep the damn thing quiet and they were afraid that it was going to like it had to go outside , I had to pee , I had to go out , I had to eat , you know , and my sister taking too long getting there .

Speaker 1 21:29

So you're lucky the poor thing didn't just like collapse and you didn't open the box for a horrific surprise because it had to wait forever .

Speaker 2 21:37

Yeah , so that was . That was like . I do remember that was the end of waiting . You know we no longer , after that time , waited . It was like , look , you guys are going to be taken forever . You guys come whenever , but we're not waiting anymore on this . So that was kind of a good thing , but it took them 15 years to get to that point .

Speaker 1 21:52

Now I would have to say that is that one of your as far as being a child , still a young person parents buying things , santa bringing you gifts Is that your best memory of a gift that you received ?

Speaker 2 22:06

Like , what's your favorite , my favorite gift ? Yeah , that probably is . I know there was a couple things growing up , but again we were , you know , didn't have a lot of money . So I know , one year I got the whole Barbie , like where she got , where she had the horse trailer and the horse and everything . But I think it was like two years after that came out and so my mom probably got it on sale at like a flea market or something . But that was a big deal for me because I wanted that . But yeah , I don't really remember a lot of big presents . What about you ? What was your best gift

Nostalgic Toys and Holiday Feasts

Speaker 2 22:36

?

Speaker 1 22:36

Well , I can break it down in decades . For you , so in the 70s , it would have been the Big Wheel , oh , the Big Wheel . I love my Big Wheel . So I still have my Big Will . So much so I still have my Big Will . Do you really ? Yes , I do .

Speaker 2 22:50

Oh my God , Chrissy .

Speaker 1 22:50

Gotta love the Big Will 1976 . Big Will Rockin' , rockin' , rockin' God .

Speaker 2 22:56

Love the Big Will . Did you let your kids ride it whenever they were little ?

Speaker 1 22:59

No , oh God , it's got lead in it . You would have thought I did it's lead . Anybody play with our toys ? Our toys were poisonous . What are you crazy , carrie ? Good Lord , I never looked into the game Play with my big wheel , just for me and me alone . And then in the 80s I got the Barbie Dreamhouse . I got the Barbie Dreamhouse . There you go and you know how I got my Barbie Dreamhouse , according to my mom .

Speaker 2 23:27

What .

Speaker 1 23:27

She never let me forget the only reason I got my Barbie Dreamhouse , according to my mom . What she never let me forget , the only reason I got it was because she hit the lottery . Oh , because she liked to play the numbers Damn .

Speaker 1 23:41

But you know what sucks ? I got the Barbie Dreamhouse and she let me hit the lottery . She bought the version that didn't come with all the furnishings , so I had a piece . Good , that shit together it was bullshit . Go to barbie goodwill . And well , you just gotta . Okay , you gotta get the living room , gotta get the kitchen set , gotta get this , gotta get the bed . I'm like you know , mom , don't sit here and give me your crap about I got you the barbie dream house oh my god , I think I , if I have it anywhere again .

Speaker 1 24:09

I have some of these pictures somewhere . I have a picture of me like just sitting in front of that thing with a big cheesy smile on my face it was the Barbie dream house . Well , my mother sold her house . I left that house there . It wasn't put together anymore . Wow , I still think about it .

Speaker 2 24:26

You were able to emotionally detach and let go of something I didn't have a choice .

Speaker 1 24:29

My mom sold her house and was out pretty quick , and I took so many things . My husband's tried to be patient with me . I'm not going to give him too much credit , though , because he hasn't always been real patient . He doesn't understand the concept of keeping any of this crap Because , again , he does say that it is full of toxins that you shouldn't be touching anyhow . But I did maintain a lot of my Fisher Price toys , which were always oh , those were good I mean that's the best , that's the king of toys .

Speaker 1 24:56

But the Barbie Dreamhouse I remember it was bagged sitting in the corner in what we used to call the toy room in the basement . I did glance at it several times . But then I'm thinking you know 35 , 40 years and it's probably got my father disassembled it and just stuck it in bags , so it wasn't together anymore and I was thinking the screws .

Speaker 1 25:14

Who knows where the screws are . They're probably rusty if they're even there . And then my husband will kill me because he's not going to put this thing together , it's just going to sit in pieces .

Speaker 2 25:26

So I guess it's sitting in pieces in a landfill somewhere . But rest in peace . Barbie Dreamhouse it was a party while it lasted , Gotta love the Barbie Dreamhouse .

Speaker 1 25:33

So now I talked about fish and stuff for Christmas . Yeah , what was your menu usually for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ? Do you have specific stuff ?

Speaker 2 25:41

You know Christmas Eve we kept it kind of simple , didn't do too much on , I mean like we went to Christmas Eve mass . You know we went to midnight mass but we I don't really remember any kind of big dinner or anything .

Speaker 1 25:53

David , moe and Wine , am I saying ?

Speaker 2 25:55

it right , mogan David . Oh , I got the names mixed up the David moment .

Speaker 1 26:01

I mean Mogan David .

Speaker 2 26:03

I knew what you meant , no , so , but Christmas Day is when we would have the big dinner . So we would have , and we always ate at noon . Like all holiday dinners are at noon at our house . Don't really know why or how that came about , but they're always at noon . So we would have a turkey again , because that's what we had every holiday . I'm sure it had something to do with being cost-effective , but turkey and then we'd have just all the stuffing and all the traditional Thanksgiving kind of stuff is what we had for Christmas . So we didn't really have that . But that's when the Mogan David would make its appearance with its for us children mogan david , probably about a quarter of mogan david to three quarters of , uh , sprite . That's what we were allowed to drink .

Speaker 1 26:43

Was that what you were gonna ? Dj nick was gonna ask her because I think dj nick researched a little bit about your wine and , yeah , I think he saw that you're supposed to have it with like a lemon lime soda oh really , it's one of the recommended things is it ? It really it is .

Speaker 2 26:57

So you guys were doing it right Our own little wine spritzer thing anyways .

Speaker 1 27:02

Now I'm jealous of people who could have turkey again at Christmas . We only in my household had it once a year . That was at Thanksgiving . It was Thanksgiving and you never saw it again until the following Thanksgiving , and mom made homemade ravioli .

Speaker 2 27:15

Oh , that would have been good .

Speaker 1 27:16

Well , it was it ravioli , oh that would have been good .

Speaker 2 27:21

Well , it was . It was usually always good , unless it for what ? Did you have it with meat sauce , like a red sauce , or did you put it in like a broth ?

Speaker 1 27:25

no , no it was red sauce and we had , finally , after midnight christmas eve , you could have meat time to eat the meat . Um , so we had meat sauce , red sauce , and the ravioli it was ricotta ravioli in the middle and usually very good , very good . She would make them ahead of time , usually freeze them . Yes , she'd boil them that day some days , some years , she'd complain . They were the . The dough didn't come out right or whatever , and then we usually had the leftover fish yeah because we had just fried enough to write the ocean .

Speaker 2 27:56

I'm sure we put a dent in the life of the ocean with all the fish we had .

Speaker 1 27:58

Just fried enough to write the ocean . I'm sure we put a dent in the life of the ocean with all the fish we had to have and ham . Yeah , we had ham . Yeah , and my husband doesn't like ham so he'd prefer I do a turkey again . I've been trying to assimilate to new menus . It's not easy when you're beaten up with the same thing over and over again .

Speaker 2 28:16

My most favorite Christmas day and this actually just happened recently , in the last , oh , probably eight years ago . It was first of all because , you know , I don't really like the cold weather . So to me , cold weather should only happen from December 24th through January 2nd . That's when we could have snow , cold , whatever . That would be perfect . Then the rest of the year should be 80 degrees . Gotcha , that doesn happen here .

Speaker 2 28:39

But a few years back we had this beautiful christmas . It was like 70 degree weather . It was so nice . I didn't have to go anywhere . We didn't have to do anything . I forget where even the rest of everyone else was , but we had no obligations . So we got . We went to our christmas eve mass , had our hot cocoa at you know , one o'clock in the morning , opened up all our gifts , slept in Christmas morning . Then we went horseback riding . So my husband and I took we had three horses at the time . We rode two , I ponied one , and it was beautiful Seventy degree weather , didn't see anybody all day , and then we went out for dinner , so I didn't even have to cook that was when go for dinner on christmas .

Speaker 1 29:21

Was it day ? Yeah , it was christmas day , I don't know .

Speaker 2 29:22

Was it like the movie , or the only places opened , or asian restaurants , I think honestly , I think we went to like a perkins or bob evans or some someplace like that , but it was in the evening , so by then things were opening , because they started that whole thing getting ready for you know like everybody returning their stuff . Yes , yes , yes , yes . So it was like later in the day , but it wasn't anything grand , but it was just nice because I didn't have to cook it , gotcha .

Speaker 2 29:43

Well hey , so there's our Christmases Wonderful , and we're about done with this and now we'll get ready for the new year .

Holiday Season Recap and Thank You

Speaker 2 29:50

Oh boy , well , for all of you listening , we want to thank you again for all of your support . We hope these last few episodes have helped , made your holiday season a little bit better and a little more joyful , a little more tolerable , and we look forward to sharing the new year with you .

Speaker 1 30:06

Yes , we do .

Speaker 2 30:08

Alrighty . So please be sure to check us out on our Facebook page . We want to hear all those feedback from you on what you had for Christmas , what you did for the holidays , what you were eating . Just share it all with us , whatever you feel like sharing . Absolutely Alrighty . We'll see you soon , junkies , Bye-bye .