Dysfunction Junkies
Two high school besties reconnect and commiserate their stories as they navigate the dysfunctions of life from marriage, families, illness, death of childhood families, and creating healthy boundaries. Join them each week as Chrisy and Kerry share their stories and life lessons all with a zest of wit, humor, and love. They may not have seen it all, but they have seen enough!
Dysfunction Junkies
Flash Back Friday: The Holidays
Welcome to “Flash Back Fridays” Where once a month we will feature a throwback episode. For our first throwback Friday its only appropriate we start with our number one downloaded episode from the very beginning the most dysfunctional time of year: The Holidays!
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Welcome to the Dysfunction Junkies podcast, where we may not have seen it all, but we've seen enough. And now here are your hosts, Chrisy and Kerry.
Kerry:Hello.
Chrisy:Junkies, I'm Kerry and I'm Chrissy, and we have a special treat for you today, Kerry, go.
Kerry:Yes, we do have something exciting to talk about. Well, we have heard so much feedback about some of our best episodes, and especially when we aired our uncut version a few weeks ago of our Ash Wednesday episode, so we thought we would start a flashback Fridays. What we're going to do is, once a month, we will feature a throwback episode, and at times these episodes you know they might have extra content that we didn't put on the original version, or maybe Chrissy and I will give you some insights from the show afterwards. Anyways, we are really excited about this. So for our first Throwback Friday, it's only appropriate that we start with our number one downloaded episode from the very beginning. The most dysfunctional time of year the holidays. So sit back, relax and enjoy.
Chrisy:Enjoy everybody.
Kerry:Hi everybody, welcome Dysfunction Junkies and welcome to your safe space. I'm Keri and I'm Chrissy, so today we are going to talk about, in light of the recent past, halloween and upcoming Thanksgiving holidays. We're going to talk about the creme de la creme of family dysfunction the best time of the year the holidays.
Chrisy:The lovely holiday season is upon us, that's right.
Kerry:So, Christy, where should we even start?
Chrisy:Oh, we're going to start with my favorite one, which is Halloween. It should be the only holiday out there. It's perfect.
Kerry:Not a fan, just not a fan. Why do you like Halloween so much?
Chrisy:Well, probably first of all didn't really understand why you would like it the most out of the holidays, and I say that because it's great while it's happening but I am a lover of. Christmas and Thanksgiving. I do like holidays, even though most of them have been disasters for me in the past and a lot of people. But because you don't really have any pressure of family for Halloween.
Kerry:That is a great point. I never thought about that. Maybe I need to reconsider my thoughts on Halloween, probably.
Chrisy:And maybe some people didn't get into Halloween, like maybe family and stuff doesn't really promote Halloween because it is not one of those holidays you could really muck up with family traditions. Yeah, I mean, this is true, it's a tough one.
Kerry:It is. Yeah, we did not celebrate Halloween in my house. I think part of it was because we lived out in the country and you know, like I've mentioned before, there was two cemeteries and then there was like two older people there wasn't really kids, so there was like like two older people, there wasn't really kids, so there was nothing to enjoy, there was no neighborhood community, there was no trick or treating. So, you know, we just didn't celebrate it.
Chrisy:I don't know you said you're by the two cemeteries. I think you're actually was in. That was an ideal spot for party time for me, but that's could have been.
Kerry:That could have been, but you know, it was like that was Halloween all year round, though for us, because you lived on the house or the street with two cemeteries staring at the cemetery. Right, exactly, and we kind of grew up with a ghost in the house, so you know the whole like who goes scary? Well, that was calm. That was every day for me, so every day was Halloween, I guess.
Chrisy:Yeah, you're definitely. That is going to be definitely your story to tell. I will sit here and be a good listener.
Kerry:Maybe another episode will save that one.
Chrisy:Yes, Some people will be rolling their eyes at that because I have had some experiences myself. But we have some disbelievers in the room and since there's only one other person. They know who they are.
Kerry:Yes, DJ Nick, total disbeliever. So did your family decorate for Halloween? Yes, dj Nick. Yeah, total disbeliever.
Chrisy:So did your family decorate for Halloween? Yes, back a long time ago, when I was real little, we had those traditional Halloween decorations, those 1970s, 1960s, 70s, the ones you just tape up on your windows the cats, the crazy they're so retro, they're great yes. In fact, I think you can still buy them. I think I've tried to score them in the past and I probably need to get some new ones, because they just really scream my childhood.
Kerry:Yeah, we didn't decorate hardly at all. If we did any kind of decorating, it was the fall decorating. So you might have seen a pumpkin on our porch, you might have seen a corn stalk, you know that kind of fall thing that somewhat carries over with Halloween, but nothing in the fact of like, no ghost in the yard or no spider webs anywhere or no stickums on the windows, none of that.
Chrisy:No, well, some people get really, really out there. I, as an adult, I got more crazy.
Kerry:Okay.
Chrisy:Now we just pretty much stuck with those things. On the windows Right A pumpkin was carved. That's pretty much it. Now I was a little bit older, sort of going to junior high. My dad would decorate a little bit more. He happened to take back when we used to get those great happy meals.
Kerry:Oh yeah, with the pumpkin and the ghost and all that.
Chrisy:My father created. He basically destroyed these some of them, which is kind of a bummer now, but stuck a hole in them, created these things, turned them into lights by stringing lights through them and he used to put on our front bay window where I lived. It looked like a pumpkin face.
Chrisy:Oh my gosh, it was actually pretty cool because the two Happy Meal things were the eyes oh my gosh. And then he had a string of like pumpkin lights that were the mouth. So it looked very cool, right, but it's kind of heartbreaking now to think that he put a hole in those Happy Meal buckets and basically useless. I did salvage some that are not tampered with.
Kerry:But that also means you got to eat a lot of McDonald's and Happy Meals.
Chrisy:Oh boy, did I, oh yeah not tampered with, but but that also means you got to eat a lot of mcdonald's and happy meals.
Kerry:Boy did I. Oh yeah, see, that was it. And it showed. A lot times too. That was a privilege in our house. That was like a it's your birthday, you get to decide where you want to go out to eat, and that was it was usually mcdonald's was the price range. So like mcdonald's was like a once a year thing for us.
Chrisy:Oh my god I know, I can know, I can't even know. It's just like I only got the orange and the white pumpkins. I need the other color. I mean how many I got to keep going yeah there was no control over that in my house, oh my God, so did you get my father's order wrong, because then you had to do. That's a whole other episode when you got dad's fast food order wrong.
Kerry:Oh no, stay tuned for that. There you go. So did you go trick-or-treating? Absolutely? Oh my gosh. Yes, I did not go trick-or-treating until I was probably in seventh grade. Oh my god, I know well. No, come on, I'm not kidding you, I'm serious. Again, what am I gonna do? Go to the graveyard, knock, knock, knock, trick-or-treat to the grave come on well, these days people, they take their kids to.
Chrisy:You know, we saw this a lot later on growing up because some neighborhoods weren't safe, yes, or at least the families didn't think they felt safe there. So a lot of times you would have truck them to the good neighborhoods.
Kerry:They would With the better candy.
Chrisy:And when I was younger I would get hostile about this, Like who the heck is this? You know, I don't know who these people are. But you get older and then you have kids of your own and you realize you know you really just want your kids to have a good experience, yeah, and you want them to be safe, Right.
Kerry:Well, that is why I didn't go trick or treating until seventh or eighth grade Because, again, didn't have a neighborhood, didn't have a neighborhood, didn't celebrate halloween. But when I was in, you know, seventh and eighth grade, I had a friend who lived in a real neighborhood and so I got to go over her house and go trick-or-treating with her and spend the night at her house. So I was one of those kids who infiltrated your neighborhood because we didn't have a neighbor but you were grandfathered and you came with a oh, I was grandfathered because you were resident.
Chrisy:you were with a resident. You were with. I was grandfathered in Well, because you were with a resident. You were with somebody. Yeah, I mean that's allowed. I had a pass. You had a pass, yes.
Kerry:So oh yeah, there's a whole thing.
Chrisy:We live in a neighborhood that has a specific Halloween time, which is established, sort of, by the families here and then is given out to the families through our HOA and we're pretty metric, and then is given out to the families through our HOA Uh-huh, and we're pretty metriced here. Yeah, that, and this is a different animal where I live now compared to where I was. That it's just for neighborhood. Oh, our neighborhood, kids and grandchildren.
Kerry:Do they shut the street down and have someone call monitoring the streets?
Chrisy:No, oh, okay, but if you give out that information about when our trick-or-treat times, are you can be tried and, I bet, hung Burned at the stake. Yes, so don't you dare give out that top secret information, because now, where I grew up, and where you grew up too, you had established trick-or-treat times depending on what side of town you were on, and you know like you were outside of the city of Youngstown, so you probably maybe would have had a different time.
Kerry:Yeah, we probably did.
Chrisy:Youngstown had its own time and what's funny is you can sort of you know what neighborhoods if you look back at that now are safe and which ones aren't by what time? Yeah, because I think in the city of Youngstown now you have have to trick or treat on Sunday between 10, 30 am and right after lunch, and then you have to. You're done, yeah, and then you'd like look at somewhere like where you were in.
Kerry:Austintown or Boardman 7 pm at night.
Chrisy:Oh, Camfield, I bet. You can trick or treat there all day until midnight. Exactly those lucky people over there you're like, yeah, someone's getting all the candy. What was your favorite halloween costume? I think I dressed up as like a vampire. Quite a few times I am a big fan of and our generation knows this, although you didn't participate as much, so maybe you don't they were called. They're the costumes you would have got at woolworth or the drug stores.
Chrisy:Yeah, I actually know the name of these things because, of the guy who sort of is the artist behind the whole idea of it, ben Cooper. Okay, costumes, which were those hideous hard masks with a teeny tiny hole for your mouth and the little pinholes for your eyes, and then, basically, it was a garbage, an elaborate garbage bag, yes, with a design on it.
Kerry:Ben Cooper, yes, and I have a.
Chrisy:T-shirt which I should have worn, but it has the Ben Cooper faces on it. I'll have to wear it. Maybe we'll post it, so people can see.
Kerry:That would be great.
Chrisy:It has the most famous Ben Cooper mask Nowadays. You look at this and you'd have to say this is beautiful artwork. If you're a fan of that kind of pulp kind of type thing, it's really a unique type of thing and they're kind of cool to collect. They came in these perfect little boxes yes where the mask was right, in the little window yeah, they're scary oh my god, they're so exciting when you go, and they had them all lined up in the store hills.
Chrisy:Yeah, woolworth, what's so funny is they have a commercial that floats around on youtube advertising for those costumes at halloween time and getting all your candy at woolworth's. And then they hold up this LP, a record album. They said this is like $1.79 with your purchase. I still have that album.
Kerry:You do not.
Chrisy:Yes, it's a spooky Halloween album and again, the artwork on these albums is fantastic.
Kerry:Oh, my gosh, if you like that kind of stuff, but when you did finally, trick-or-treat.
Kerry:Do you remember what you dressed up as the very first one? I remember is the very first time I went to my friend's house. I was going to be a pirate Because I had no concept of what this trick-or-treating and what physical labor involved. I thought it would be great to have a peg leg, and so I I got my jeans on and I had my leg like folded, like you know, bent so in my jeans so that it ended at the knee. And then my dad cut off like a piece of wood or whatever, and we tied it to the bottom. So I was literally hopping around on one leg because I was a peg leg.
Kerry:And so I get to my friend's house, all excited like ha ha ha, look at this great costume. And the mom and dad my friend's mom and dad looked at me in total horror, like how are you going to trick or treat? And I'm like, well, I hopped here, like you know, from the car. I'm like it was no problem, I could do it. And they literally went and got crutches for me. They're like, yeah, you're not gonna make it. Oh, my gosh, that's how naive I was. Yeah, let's just say I think by three houses. I went back and, like I took, I pulled my leg out of the jean and we had to, like, start all over.
Chrisy:So yeah, I'm guessing they were looking at you and thought now she's become a liability, because how am I supposed to run from? The whole idea of Halloween is just getting from house to house quickly to get more and more of that junk in your bag.
Kerry:I just never forget the look on the parents face. They were just like oh my God.
Chrisy:Well, hey, that's amazing, but your heart was in it.
Kerry:Yeah, it was, yeah, it was. So how do you think that Halloween is dysfunctional going with our theme of our podcast here?
Chrisy:Well, I think I'm sure there was always some level of dysfunction with it, but now the whole idea of having to think about it yeah, so early.
Kerry:Yeah.
Chrisy:It blows my mind and people are trying to. You know, look, when I was little, getting excited about something you knew was going to be coming up was fun. Yeah, but I'm talking, you know little.
Kerry:Yeah.
Chrisy:You know you're a kid.
Kerry:Right and.
Chrisy:I think it's so desensitizing when you go to a store in July or August even, and you see pumpkins and I know they really push all this on social media and how fun it is and people make these fun videos about how soon as independence day is over, yeah, I'm getting my pumpkins out, you know, and I feel like it sort of just takes away from that, I know, because it's such a long buildup.
Kerry:Yeah, but for what? To me there's.
Chrisy:I mean I like the buildup to Christmas, but for Halloween Well there are a lot of movies to get in in that time period.
Kerry:Yes, there are movies.
Chrisy:And if you like movies Halloween-themed type stuff you need to start watching them, unless you just don't have a life at all and that's all you have to do. Yeah, we could talk about scary movies.
Kerry:Yes, we've talked a little bit about this. You introduced me to my very first scary movie.
Chrisy:How? I don't remember I know, you remember. I know, but for some reason I must have just did my damage and moved on.
Kerry:Yeah, you damaged me, that's for sure. So I was always terrified of, you know, like scary things. You know, I just didn't like. I didn't like scary movies. But I remember, like our sophomore year no, it was probably our junior year, because we met in sophomore year, so halloween was probably already passed it was probably our junior year that you got me to watch children of the corn and I think I watched most of the movie. Looking between my fingers, I'm just terrified, terrified. I don't even know if I got through the whole movie.
Chrisy:So well, I'm surprised I started with that one, because generally my go-to for traumatizing and I have a friend who I grew up with in my neighborhood. If she's listening she knows I'm talking about her right now. It was the Exorcist. That was always my intro to let me see if I can get it. So you can't sleep for a while and sit here and giggle at you while you squirm watching this stuff.
Kerry:Yeah, and see, I think the reason why I finally got you not to watch that one with or make me watch that one, it was just a little bit too close to home because we had a ghost in our house and being very catholic like that was just like taboo I don't think.
Chrisy:I just didn't know. If you're catholic, that's taboo. It's got a priest in it. It's got two priests in it. I don't know it's perfect for the catholics. Everybody run out from the catholic church and go, if you haven't seen it.
Kerry:Shame on you, I don't know. In fact, honestly, I can't ever. I can't say that I've watched that movie and it's entirely. Even to this day.
Chrisy:I've seen pieces of it you know what I was really upset about? I don't know who cleaned up the floor after the little girl peed on it. It wasn't like the fact that she was like completely possessed by the devil. I'm like man. This woman was having a party and this little girl came down to ruin the whole thing because she urinated all over the carpet.
Kerry:Somebody's gonna clean that up, right somebody's gotta clean it up, yeah, and get back to the party and get her back in her room.
Chrisy:She's obviously a real downer for this event oh my gosh, that's so funny.
Kerry:Yeah, yeah. So I'm just not a halloween fan. The more we talk about, the more I'm like yep, nope, can't do it.
Chrisy:And the decorations.
Kerry:I just have to get back to that, because the decorations they just like. Right now people are just feeling like you know we're seeing the yards. You know people are starting to take things down because Halloween's passed, but still some of them keep them up all year round. But then you got those inflatables.
Chrisy:Oh boy, here we go. Oh God, Inflatables, Inflatables. Yeah, I never understood inflatables. They weren't always around. No, that was a new thing Back in the. I don't remember them being a thing when I was real little, which would have been in the 70s or when I was young, into the 80s.
Kerry:I feel like they came around in the early 90s. Must have been in the 90s somewhere and look, it's a great concept.
Chrisy:And you get a way better representation of things with these lovely wannabe Macy's Day parade inflatables. But you put them in your yard. I didn't understand the concept of them when they first came out and I would see them and they started popping up literally. Them when they first came out, and I would see them and they started popping up literally and I would drive past and I would be like, oh my God, there's like this big Halloween balloon of some sort in their yard and I would drive by and be like, okay, you know, it's lit up, it's night, it looks nice.
Chrisy:And then the next morning I go out and I see the remnants of it laying on the ground, completely deflated. And maybe this is a Youngstown thing. But I thought right away the first thing that came to mind was somebody drove by and shot these damn things down. Oh my gosh, I said, why are they not pumped? Somebody shot them. I guess that'll tell you Don't put balloons in your yard, Someone's going to come by and just peg them out with a gun. So then I would drive by the next night, you know, and the damn thing's up and smiling like an ass and waving at you and I'd be like, holy shit, they pumped it back up. They must have gotten a nice little patch on that damn thing, chrissy, you did not.
Chrisy:I didn't realize that you had deflated them. I thought they just stayed pumped up until you took the shitty things down. So then the next morning I'd drive by and they're down again. I'm like, god damn it, somebody. Really, they're dedicated. They don't want that shit in your yard. Quit blowing that shit back up. Somebody keeps shooting. You better watch, because it's not going to just be that that's going to get shot. You're going to be walking around. Someone's going to nail you with a flipping bullet too. Stop blowing these stupid things up. Oh my.
Kerry:God, I had no idea, chrissy. How long did it take you before you realized that?
Chrisy:Probably about five or six times dropping by.
Kerry:Oh my God, you're too much. But the sad thing is, I can totally understand why you thought that, given the general vicinity of where we live and things that happen here.
Chrisy:Well yeah, as soon as you see something laying in a yard that doesn't look well, you figured something got shot. Something got shot. You think somebody noticed that, I don't know.
Kerry:Oh my gosh, yeah, I'm definitely not a fan of the inflatables. Like I think when it first started and they had like one, it was like oh, that's kind of cool. But now, like like, even getting into the christmas holidays, you know where people, you know they had all the decorations, you know. And then, but now you'll go drive by a house that has like I'm not kidding you, there's two houses that, I swear to god, have 50 or 60 of these inflatables, one after another, and I'm like, okay, now that that's just, that's just lazy. You know, if you're, if you're gonna, if you're gonna go out, do you Chevy Chase National Lampoon's decorating?
Chrisy:I agree, I agree.
Kerry:I'm sure we'll talk about Christmas more closer to the season, but the inflatables at Halloween or those really big 15-foot tall skeletons, Really.
Chrisy:And then they leave them up all year round.
Kerry:Well, no, no, no, and they put a Santa Claus hat on the skeleton.
Chrisy:Really Well. They're very devoted to their specific holiday. I guess, that's their holiday, soul, you know. There's Halloween and they're going to go with it. I don't understand buying a black Christmas tree and putting orange lights on it and sticking the night before. Whatever that Tim Burton movie is, which I know I'm a movie person, but I didn't actually sit through Twins the Night before Christmas. I'm sorry, I like the other stuff. I just haven't sat through that yet.
Kerry:I guess I should say, though, too, is you know, this is just our personal experiences. These are our thoughts, these are our feelings. And for those of you that you know are avid Halloween decorators, and everything, and you love your little Halloween inflatables Wonderful.
Chrisy:Halloween inflatables Wonderful. There's an industry for that Right. Keeping people. I don't know exactly what type of people you're keeping in business, but you're keeping people working and I am an advocate of you.
Kerry:do you? Yes, yes, absolutely. So hey, you do you. You keep going. I'm just saying for me I don't get it, but I respect the dedication that people have to me.
Chrisy:And they are dedicated. And probably the only way you can scare me is if you sneak to where I live and you put up an inflatable in my yard and I wake up and there's this crazy balloon staring oh my god that would be terrifying to me.
Chrisy:Nothing else, not the exorcist, except maybe the little girl peeing on the floor. So, and halloween? When you think about it, it is like a totally dysfunctional idea. Though, though. Yeah, first of all, it's based on dead Right Death. You know they say oh, it's about people, that one night of the year that the dead people can come back Right. Whoever started that rumor? Not exactly sure about that. Somebody obviously wanted people to stay home.
Kerry:And then they love their family so much they actually wanted them to come back. I don't know that kind of love. I don't know.
Chrisy:That would be interesting. You get to do stuff with something else.
Kerry:Yeah.
Chrisy:So you get to pretend, which is okay, wonderful, and you go and you beg for stuff at people's houses and sometimes you say horrible things about smelling feet and stuff.
Kerry:I never understood that Trick or treat Smell my feet, give me something good to eat.
Chrisy:Yeah, I treat. Smell my feet. Give me something good to eat. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure you want to do that. These days, you might get something you're not bargaining, this is true. Careful kids, yes no I'm a big fan of halloween. I do love halloween. I like halloween decorating. I like the halloween not so much. As I've gotten older, I'm not into the scary movies. I've not seen all these new finagle oh yeah saw, never saw, I never saw, a saw never saw a saw, never saw a saw, never saw it.
Chrisy:Just because as you get older, at least for me, it's just a little too. Life becomes scary in itself.
Kerry:Yep, that is a really good point, and I don't need something to try and scare me.
Chrisy:I'm terrified. I can do it on my own.
Kerry:Yes, I get scared going through the car wash, I mean, and that'll be a whole nother episode. But yeah, I don't need to put visuals in my head on watching a movie. No, no.
Chrisy:But my favorite thing though, if you really I think people are ageing, and if you're younger and you enjoy this too, the cartoon Halloween stuff. I love the pumpkin that couldn't smile with Raggedy Ann and Andy.
Kerry:I love it.
Chrisy:It's hilarious. My husband, who I don't think watched any of these things too much growing up, I mean of course he saw the Great Pumpkin with.
Kerry:Charlie Brown, the typical stuff, the.
Chrisy:Garfield Halloween special was big once we were kind of in junior high, but still that's a classic. There's a Casper Halloween out there that used to run. There's this one that only I kind of know about people probably know about it but when I had my husband watch it he was like completely upset that I wasted 22 minutes of his time watching this 22 minutes of his life I think it was 22, because I think that's what a show usually runs if you have, what is this?
Chrisy:it's called the Halloween. That almost wasn't, and anybody out there?
Kerry:who knows?
Chrisy:what that is. I love you to death because this is one of them weird things. You gotta pull it up on youtube.
Chrisy:Judd hirsch from taxi oh plays drag and you got like all these people from like the 70s dressing up as monsters. The one guy from laughing is in it. Marri Marriott Hartley is the witch and it's basically. The witch is basically sick of Dracula getting all the press and she doesn't understand why he's like in charge of all the monsters I'll have to watch this and she threatens to basically quit. Oh, and Halloween can only start if she flies over the moon on Halloween night. Oh, and Halloween can only start if she flies over the moon on Halloween night.
Chrisy:Oh, so now Transylvania, which is full of a bunch of Americans, which is weird, okay, but all these American kids dressing up for Halloween in Transylvania are upset because the witch is threatening to quit and there's not going to be a Halloween without her. Oh no, what are we going to do? So now Dracula's got crunch time. He's going to have to figure out what to do with this dumb bitch who's going to cancel flipping Halloween on him. So he's, you know, going crazy trying to figure that out. He basically has to meet some of her demands and it ends with an awesome disco party at the end.
Chrisy:All right, this is before the dawn of 1980, people, so All right.
Kerry:Well, my homework tonight is going to be to find that on YouTube.
Chrisy:Yes, yes, my husband especially finds it very funny when Judd Hirsch is a bat and then he runs into the crypt door and turns into a vampire again and makes a stupid sound.
Kerry:Look for that people. So as we put Halloween behind us, now we're going to get into the real family time of the year.
Chrisy:Yes, the start of everyone's nightmare, exactly.
Kerry:Thanksgiving. Yes, oh my gosh. I don't even know where to begin my anxiety. Just even saying that word, my anxiety just went to like level eight, Like my chest got tight.
Chrisy:How many people at that day look at the bird on the table and think that that's the luckiest?
Kerry:That dead carcass in the middle of your table is the one that got lucky that day.
Chrisy:I'm never going to look at things again this day.
Kerry:Oh my God, you caught me off guard on that one, but that's so true. Anybody having ham that day, I don't know. You know, we've never did ham in my house, no, we didn't Every holiday, not for that. Every major holiday was turkey.
Chrisy:Thanksgiving.
Kerry:Christmas, easter, always Thanks, always turkey.
Chrisy:Wait a minute Easter.
Kerry:Oh yeah, easter was Yep. Oh yeah, easter was yep, easter too. And now like so, now that I'm, you know, married and my husband, he's always like he loves ham and he's like do we ever get ham? Oh my gosh. So I'm only now recently, in the past, you know, 15, 20 years, I've started to introduce ham on these holidays because of him, because growing up it was turkey.
Chrisy:Well, my husband would love that, because he actually prefers turkey. We only used to do turkey for thanksgiving, and then you never saw it again. And then, uh, we had ham generally for the other stuff, and and, of course, italian dishes, uh, which we can get into later on too.
Kerry:But I wonder if it had to do something with the cost of it. Like does, is turkey cheaper than ham? Maybe that was why we didn't do that well. Well, that, and because of the size of the family, you know, like yeah, you had a way we had.
Kerry:I mean, there literally were times we probably had 30 people like the dining room table would extend all the way out into the living room, form an l shape to go into the living room, form an L shape to go into the living room, and it was just like and then somewhere the kids table was shoved somewhere. I mean we had so many people it was. Oh, my God, no wonder I'm anxiety. I need to go take a pill. You have a flashback. I know I'm having PTSD.
Chrisy:Ours was not that big and again we could touch on this. But you brought up the kids table. Yeah, and I'm having a flashback Because I was basically the youngest out of everybody there was a point where and the kids table was still something that was respected you had to be a certain age to graduate to an adult table, and I was the last one at that. Kids- table.
Chrisy:Oh crazy, that's because we were the youngest yeah, I sat there by myself and you don't think you could squeeze one more. I'm only five, or whatever I could squeeze in, I'm small. They made you sit I had to say that damn thing by myself.
Kerry:That's horrible you know what? Why even have another? Considering the people at the table, I was like you and the turkey were probably the lucky. This was the best table in the house.
Chrisy:Assholes, thank you. I'd rather sit here instead of sitting with you. So yeah, and then maybe somebody tossed me some damn food. Because there was no food on the kids table. You had to have somebody prep your plate for you, but yeah, you had to, and I never really got the experience of sitting at the adult table with my grandparents, because I was still pretty young by the time like my grandparents started kicking off.
Kerry:Right. So yeah, by, but we still always had so many. Well, that, because my sisters were so much older that they were already procreating, and so you know, there was their kids, and then you just, mom, would bring in the local priest. They'd come in, you know, because what, yeah, yeah, like if the priest didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving, it would be not uncommon that the local priest and brothers you know from the monastery would come and have Thanksgiving with us.
Kerry:Or whatever strays you know, like you know people. Strays that you know were around town, and didn't you know? They would run into like oh you have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving, come to our house. Oh my gosh, that was exciting.
Chrisy:Wow, no, ours was closed session. Oh my gosh, that was exciting. Wow, no, ours was closed session, even though the people who were involved in it maybe didn't want to be there, but it was closed. Yeah, wow, you guys are really nice people. I can't believe that, priests.
Kerry:But so much Okay, but then on the dark side of it, there was so much trauma and abuse that happened during these times of year and it was like the more people that were there, like it was like you would think that things couldn't happen because there were so many people there, but it was like everyone again elephant in the room. We don't talk about things, we'll look at things, whatever. So I just have a lot of anxiety about the holidays, about being around people, that many people being it just. It's why today. It's why today that I like to have nobody around on the holidays. I want it to just be me and my husband. We often will find excuses to go on vacation during the holidays or have a Friendsgiving holiday. Like because of the anxiety, I can't handle it, it's too much.
Chrisy:Well, ptsd I moving, moving out of town. I'm not that far, but I'm far enough. Yeah, and just getting older and things happening for a long time. Now my husband and I and my kids, we've pretty much just done the major holidays together. Friendsgiving sounds wonderful. It's so good, but in general outside of me and you being able to connect again friends aren't anything I'm that interested in. Generally I like people very much, but never enough to really partake a holiday.
Kerry:Yeah, that seems amazing to me and I envy that and I think it's uh, maybe, maybe we should do that we should try it.
Chrisy:It would be fun, we could do that, it would be fun but I I I'm sorry for that, but I understand and I do uh envy anybody who can do the vacation thing during holidays because it's probably it's nice you're gonna be stressed out, doing the holidays and staying home. You might as well be stressed out and travel. At least you're going somewhere nice, exactly.
Kerry:So it makes total sense.
Kerry:The one time we drove to Tennessee on Thanksgiving and it purely was to get away from my family. So we went to Tennessee to visit my husband's sister and I don't know, it was like nine hour drive or something. It was like the worst drive. It was the most desolate kind of oh it was like are we ever going to get there? But it was still worth it because once we got there, you know his sister's normal, it was just like four or five of us. You know. There it was real nice, it was quiet, it was exactly what I wanted. But the drive there was so bad but I was like I'd still rather do that drive than be in the normal holiday thanksgiving. Oh yes, it's too much, I can't. And the food I just like. Everything revolves around the food, the food Like.
Chrisy:so much food. I do love food and I can understand. I can appreciate a holiday that worships the food and not anything else. It's not you know, a baby or any of that other stuff, the food worshipping Well.
Kerry:But here's what I didn't like about it was my mom insisted that the food had to be on the table, so she would like it was. We had to like everyone pass. Well, when you've got 30 people around the table, by the time you pass every here's the corn, here's the mushrooms, here's the turkey by the time you get everything, it's all freaking ice cold.
Chrisy:You ain't eating hot food, some of them plates probably came past you empty by then, exactly Depending on where you sat.
Kerry:Exactly so we would always say, mom, can we just do buffet style? Yeah, you guys definitely should have been doing that. Oh no, can we just do buffet style like that way? Yeah, you guys definitely it would be quicker.
Chrisy:Oh, no, no, wow, even to this day, that's the norman rockwell picture she was going for see because they wanted that terrible goddamn picture.
Chrisy:That painting that guy did gives all these people this false idea that you know and who the hell comes to the table with a whole goddamn turkey intact. I know why we never did. We butchered the shit out of it. It was cut. It looked like Freddy Krueger took out a whole turkey. Nobody had a sharp enough knife. Forget that electric knife shit. What the hell was that? That just made a bunch of noise and it just sawed into everything.
Kerry:You had parts of bone in your.
Chrisy:Yeah, I never understood how they show the people doing that and they're like cutting it like butter. Oh look, oh, this works so good.
Kerry:The remco whatever the commercial used to.
Chrisy:Hey, you remember those great commercials, the thing that used to clean your records and the electric knife? You're right, yeah, everybody in the mr microphone, yeah, so yeah, we just hacked the shit out of it and just right. I mean, some we were like complete chaos. Some of shit was on the table and some you had to go over to cross the room and find it. You know, somebody had something on their plate. You're like where the hell did you get that? And there's, oh, over there in that corner. Oh, wow. So you'd be like doing a scavenger hunt, trying to figure out where all the little lost tidbits are.
Kerry:There's like some really good stuff do yeah, but it and I totally get why yeah, but I refuse if I host any kind of party or whatever it's buffet, buffet and I, there's no other way.
Chrisy:We're doing it okay, but now here's no go ahead sorry.
Kerry:Here's the big question now. Your family, I think, partaked in a little bit alcohol different than my family, because you know, there's just the differences of how we grew up. But the only time of year that we had any kind of alcohol in the house was thanksgiving, christmas and easter, and what we had was mogan david wine. Have you ever had mogan david wine? It's pleasing light nothing to write home about. They still sell it. Oh yeah, oh yeah, still sell it.
Chrisy:It's still on our table. The country of origin, please? I have no idea. Oh, somebody needs to send us, oh, okay it's.
Kerry:Trust me, I'm sure it's nothing expensive, but it's very, very strong, sweet dessert wine. I tell you what? I'm not a wine drinker, but man, I guzzle that shit down during the holidays. It's the only way I get through.
Chrisy:What's really so my family is yes, my father liked to have a cocktail.
Kerry:Yeah.
Chrisy:He was a social drinker.
Kerry:Yeah.
Chrisy:My one sister probably would drink socially, but not so much. I enjoyed it very much at certain times in my life, maybe a lot. Yeah, my other sister would also enjoy having beverages, but what's weird is we never really had it during the holidays, which is where we should have been downing it Really.
Chrisy:I think we really wanted to torture ourselves. If you're going to have to do this, you have to do it sober. You've got to do it clean and sober. Baby, nothing here. When you leave, whatever you do is up to you. Probably that's when all the drinking really occurred. You went home and you just drank in the corner, crying.
Kerry:You had a roadie on the way there.
Chrisy:Yeah, but no, my family was really funny because we really just didn't.
Kerry:That's so funny, so I never thought man this whole thing with this.
Chrisy:I know If anything else is making me realize certain things. Yes, we should have been drinking during. It's the only way I get through the holiday these days grandfather who we're not allowed to say he was an alcoholic.
Kerry:Oh, because you normalize it's. Normalized it, right?
Chrisy:yes, we're going to talk about that. He was normalized. That's normal for him, right? Gramps drinking a big jug have you ever seen a big jug? Yes, carlo rossi, is that the name of it? Horrible, horrible wine that comes in a jug. It looks like you should put pickles in there or something. I don't know what the hell it was. My man loved the Carlo Rossi, you know, I think the reason why they might have liked the Mogan David.
Kerry:now that I think about it, is probably the church wine that might have been what they served at church. How is?
Chrisy:it. I don't know I got to look this up. I'll bring you a bottle.
Kerry:Mogan David Wait spell the last.
Chrisy:It sounds like David, but I don't think you're saying David. What are you saying? I think it is David.
Kerry:Mogan M-O-G-A-N.
Chrisy:Does our producer know anything about this? Dj?
Kerry:Nick, google this on your phone. So, mogan, david, I'll bring you a red. Or did it come in white? Did it come in rosé, I think? But it's very dark red. But now that I think about it it might be like church wine and that's probably. But what I'm saying is that was the only time of year that really they drank. Maybe my dad might have had a rolling rock or something. Really they didn't drink. Even the kids at the table were allowed to have it, but we had to put a little spray in it, so like oh, that's not a good mix.
Chrisy:I would have opted for the seagrams, if you're gonna make me put seven up or spray in this. Can we change it up from mogan david to uh somebody got some seagram seven in there, oh god, so wow oh, that's a lot.
Kerry:That's a lot, but yeah, so that's the holidays that we're getting into now everybody.
Chrisy:That is all of that. That is the best.
Kerry:So I'm sure, like in an upcoming episode, we'll recap our Thanksgiving and then we'll lead into Christmas.
Chrisy:Yes, the big Christmas episode Everybody has probably been decorated for Christmas for months already, exactly.
Kerry:Well, I want to tell you thank you so much for joining us today. All of you listeners out there, this is what we do. This is our therapy. Now, we are not licensed therapists, but this is how we have gotten over some of our childhood trauma. We laugh about it, we talk about it, enlighten ourselves about it.
Chrisy:We share it out there with all of you so that you can remember all the trauma you had. I mean, we don't want you to go without remembering that you also had this trauma If you were sitting there driving in your car thinking, wow, wait a minute, this happened to me too. Oh my. God.
Kerry:And and if you didn't have this happen to you? Oh God, you're so lucky.
Chrisy:Aren't they though.
Kerry:Yeah, I mean, come on, I'm sure they have some other dysfunction, because we all do, we're all messed up, we're all broken and we love to hear about those dysfunctions.
Chrisy:How were your family dysfunctions fun? Let us know. We love to hear and we want to be able to see if we have anything in common with what you've experienced Exactly.
Kerry:So I think we'll put some polls up on our Facebook page. Maybe we'll talk about what kind of Halloween decorations that you had, and maybe we'll do a poll on did you have turkey or did you have ham? Or maybe you really spiced it up and did something totally different and had Chinese food, I don't know. Cajun Cajun.
Chrisy:There you go.
Kerry:So, but in the meantime, yeah, check out our Facebook.
Chrisy:I'm sure that I'm going to get some hatred over them. Balloons, I mean whatever they're called. I'm sorry people. You love them, you got them you are allowed to have them. Again you do you, you do you. I'm going to drive by though I'm probably going to think somebody shot them when they're deflated in the morning.
Kerry:All right, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Check us out on our Facebook page Also. Wherever you're streaming our podcast from, please give us a five-star review so we can keep coming at you and we'll see you next week. Bye-bye.
Chrisy:Bye-bye.
