How A Perfect Tree Became A 48-Hour Disaster And A Bird Sanctuary

Did Kerry Suffer?  Well, the “perfect” Christmas took a nosedive—three times. We brought home a gorgeous live tree, filled the stand with sugared water, and watched the branches settle like a promise… until gravity introduced itself to our slanted old floors. What followed was equal parts comedy and gut-punch: sticky wood, late-night triage, and heirloom ornaments that didn’t survive the third fall. We walk through the mess with humor and honesty, then ask a bigger question: when the tradition breaks, do we double down or choose peace?

Transcript

Setting The Scene: Holiday Suffering

SPEAKER_00 0:06

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 Carrie.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Hello, junkies. I'm Carrie. And I'm Chrissy. Oh, Chrissy. It's the day that we're gonna talk about how much I suffered.

CHRISY 0:29

Yeah, I I this is a I've been sitting around thinking about this for a while because you haven't shared with me exactly what happened, what occurrences have occurred, and whatever. So yes, here you go.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Okay, well, let's take a few steps back to fill in maybe some of our lower newer listeners. But uh we had talked about last Christmas that about decorating and when you're decorating for the holidays, how much dysfunction and suffering that causes. And I had made the comment that I hadn't decorated for Christmas in quite a few years.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

But I had said this year I was gonna do it. I was gonna decorate, I was gonna suffer.

CHRISY 1:07

Yeah, because I felt, yes, you weren't suffering enough, so you needed to get this part of your holiday cheer, your holiday cheer on.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Well, let me tell you, there was a lot of suffering. There was a lot of suffering. I have made up for all the years I did not suffer, I suffered this year.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

All right.

Cutting The “Perfect” Tree

CHRISY 1:30

Well, I feel a little bit because I was I participated in a little bit of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah, so uh farmboy Jim and I got Chrissy to go out with us when we went out and cut the tree down, and uh it was really fun. We had a really good time, and uh Chrissy kept saying, I'm not gonna do anything. I'm not gonna do anything, I'm just gonna sit and comment. But farm boy Jim, he got Chrissy down under that tree, cutting that tree down.

CHRISY 2:00

Yeah, thank you, and thank you for bringing a towel because that would have been really bad.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yes, I I have learned from experience to bring something to put on the ground so that way you have something to lay on because you never know what it's gonna look like. So but we did. We had a really good time. We picked out a lovely tree. It was beautiful, it was beautiful. I was really excited about this tree. I was having the time my life. I'm like, this isn't suffering, this is fun and great.

CHRISY 2:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Then we got home.

CHRISY 2:30

I know.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

I guess you did.

CHRISY 2:33

I saw evidence of this in pictures.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

So let me walk you through this. All right, as you know, I've been moving. I've my house is a little bit in disarray, but I pulled up all the boxes. I had all the Christmas boxes pulled up out of the basement. I swear there was probably like 20 boxes in my dining room. So I started going through and you know, going through the decorations that, okay, yeah, this I'm gonna keep. This we're gonna put on the tree. This can get donated, this I can give away, this can go in the trash, blah, blah, blah. So by by Saturday, when we cut the tree down, I was ready. So we go cut the tree down, bring it home, get it in the tree stand. It's looking all beautiful. Frames so beautiful in the in the dining room with this big picture window. It's looking lovely. So, of course, you know it's a live tree. So I had to get the five gallons of water, mix it with the sugar and the baking soda and all this stuff you have to do to help make your tree live. So I pour it in there. Tree is sitting there beautifully. Sunday. Okay, I'm gonna decorate. So I spend all day Sunday decorating. Decorate the tree, decorate the house, get all the boxes put away. House is looking beautiful. Oh, decorating. Oh, this is good. This is good. It wasn't too bad of suffering. A little bit on on the first day, pulling up everything. Yeah, it all ended there.

CHRISY 3:54

Well, you sent me a picture of the tree in the picture window, standing lovely, and it rested, like you said. Yep. So, because uh Jim is concerned that where were you gonna put bulbs because it seemed very snug. All the branches were very tight together. But they relaxed. They relaxed, but yet it wasn't like there was big gaps in it. Exactly. It was like perfect.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

And it was, what was it, an Austrian pine or something like that?

CHRISY 4:18

Yeah, what was the one you really wanted button?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

I wanted a white pine, but they didn't have it. But they had an Austrian pine, which was similar, had nice long, soft, fluffy needles. It was beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Yes.

Decorating Highs Before The Fall

SPEAKER_01 4:28

So Monday morning, get up, had the tree lit. Oh, it was so looking nice. Go to work 10 hours or eight hours later, nine hours later. I don't know how long I worked that day. Come home from work, get home, gock into my dining room to turn my tree on. There's no tree. Where's the tree? Oh, the tree is on the floor. It fell over, and five gallons of water had leaked all over my dining room floor, dried up and sticky. The tree is on the floor, and there's nothing to blame. I mean, there was no animal loose that did it. It was just, you know, old 1900 farmhouse that probably had a little bit of a slanted floor, and I didn't over-correct it enough. So trees on the floor. That that's the beginning. I spend the next hour picking it up, cleaning it up, sweeping up the needles, scrubbing the dried sugar water off of the floor. Get the tree up, but it's a little disheveled, you know. Uh it needed some, needed some rehab, but I was like, I'll deal with it a little bit later. We had something going on that night, so whatever. I was like, it's okay. Thank God none of the ornaments broke, which I was so glad because the only ornaments on the tree were like ornaments that really meant something. Right. And uh, but nothing broke. So okay. Tuesday, Monday night, go to bed. Tuesday, get up, come downstairs. Tree is on the floor again.

CHRISY 5:50

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

So I picked the tree up, kind of get it to a different spot in the room. I'm like, okay, clearly this spot is not going to work because of my old farmhouse. We need to do some more work, but I was busy, so I put it in this other spot of the room. Okay, we couldn't deal with it that night. I said, Wednesday, we're gonna be off. We'll deal with it on Wednesday. Jim and I together will get this tree back up. All right, I'm I'm okay. I'm gonna I figure, hey, this is the suffering. This is the suffering that Chrissy talked about. Okay, I'm suffering. Okay, good. I don't know if this was exactly what I had in mind, but you've brought a new level to it, yes. Yeah. So then, so that was Tuesday. Wednesday comes around. I happen to not be the first one up, which is a rarity in our house. Usually I'm the first one up. Jim was the first one up, probably by a good 30, 40 minutes. So he gets up. I don't hear anything, I don't hear any like comments or explicitives coming from him as he's going down the stairs. So, you know, I'm like, okay, life is good. I get up, walk down the stairs. The tree is laying on the floor for a third time.

CHRISY 6:53

It's fallen and it can't get up.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

It fell and it could not get up as right. And now the beautiful ornaments that lasted two falls the third time was a charm. Broken ornaments everywhere. All of them? Um, probably a good 30% of them. Oh. Yes. Oh no.

unknown 7:13

I know.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

And so now I don't know who to be more mad at. Am I mad at the tree? Or am I mad at Jim? Because I've picked this tree up off the floor twice, and he walked down and just cut walked on by it and got his cereal and is watching his stories and eating his cereal and drinking his coffee as if nothing is wrong in our world right now, that the tree is laying on the GD floor.

The First Crash And Sticky Floor

CHRISY 7:37

I think because it fell so many times, he just probably assumed it was gonna be on the ground when he woke up. In fact, he probably would have started making noise and saying something that you would have heard if it was standing up when you came down. He was probably thinking he didn't tell you, but when you went to bed that night. It's gonna be on the floor.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

You know what? That's a good point. It could have fallen before he went to bed, because I usually go to bed sooner. It might have fallen the night before. I did not think about that. That might be why he wasn't so surprised. Oh, Jimmy, you're in trouble. No, I have no proof of this.

CHRISY 8:12

I have nothing to go on. So what was the problem? But Karen, I keep trying to understand. Is it a stand malfunction or well?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Okay, so when you have these live trees, you know, there's different ways that it connects to the base. And the one we had, because it was one you can put water in, they have these like little screws that you screw in and it's supposed to hold the tree in place. Well, they were at its like max, and so I that was part of the problem. And I knew I needed maybe some shims to put in there to tighten it, but I also think that the tree trunk at the very end took a little ink, like a little, a little elbow turn. When it looked straight, the base wasn't straight. So we probably needed to cut a couple extra inches off the bottom of it. I'm irritated, quite irritated.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

So it's all Chrissy's fault because she cut your tree down.

CHRISY 9:05

No! I was I was thinking that. I was like, did I? But Jim did start the tree and he did finish it. But I still but I remember they wrote his initials on the bottom and it looked pretty clean.

Round Two: Repositioning And Denial

SPEAKER_01 9:18

It does, and if you remember right, when we went it up, went up and they did the shaker thing and they wrapped it, they actually took, they tried to make it a clean, straight cut there. But I think what needed to happen is it needed to go up a few more inches to where that little bend went away. So, in any case, I'm sitting in the kitchen and I'm just fuming. And we had a long day ahead of us. I had to go to doctor's appointments, we had we had stuff going on. And Jim said, so I oh, I went and I got the tree standing back up again, and I shoved it now in a different corner and like barricaded it in the corner of the dining room. But by now the tree is like it, it's got like one string of like beads hanging off of it, all the ornaments are down, it's got lights just all disheveled everywhere. I mean, it it was a hot mess. Okay. So Jim now walks through the living room and he's or the dining room and he sees us and he's like, Oh, is that gonna be where we're gonna put the tree? And I'm like, You don't even know where I want to shove that tree right now. And he he knew at this point to tread lightly, and he goes, honey, whatever you want to do with this tree. I know I can see it's bringing you anxiety and stress. And this is where he starts talking my love language, because he knew I was I was at level 12, you know. And I said, if we didn't spend 90 bucks on the tree, I tell you what, I would shove that tree and throw it in the backyard right now. And he goes, Whatever you want to do. So the tree is now in the backyard, leaned up against my lilac bush, and it is now home for the birds for the winter outside in the backyard. 90 bucks. 90 bucks to cut down a tree, relocate it 48 hours, Chrissy. I only had decorations up 48 hours. I got so mad that when that tree went in the backyard, I took every decoration down out of the house. There is not one Christmas joy. Not even your leg lamp. No, well, the leg lamp is up, but the leg lamp, yeah, that's Jim's. Leg lamp is the only thing up. I forgot about that. But no, the Christmas stockings are down. The little Santa decorations. Christmas stockings! Ow. They're packed, done. Over it. 48 hours. That was it. I'm done. I have suffered.

CHRISY 11:33

My God. Uh well, I'm not gonna argue with you. Um, I've never had a tree, you know, knock on wood, fingers crossed, go down, but I'm not dealing with live trees, and I don't have like seems that cats are the culprit of this a lot. Not that a dog couldn't do it too, but it seems that I've seen more videos of cats knocking trees.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

My cat has two legs. She's disabled. She does not have back legs, she cannot climb. This did not happen because of my cat. Wait a minute.

CHRISY 12:03

How is it that I didn't know that you have a a two-legged cat? I don't know. How do you know where is this cat?

SPEAKER_01 12:10

I've been over a few couple times. Yeah. Well, if you're she's sitting, you can't, you, you would not really realize unless you really looked. But yeah, she's got two little stumpies on her back legs. There's like only, I don't know, quarter or halfway there. She was born that way. And uh, so she walks on her front two legs, and yeah, she doesn't have she can't climb and she can barely jump because she can't get lift.

CHRISY 12:31

So I guess then she is not a suspect at all. She is not a suspect. She has a really good excuse. She has a wow. Well, God bless the little kitty. Uh and God bless you for taking in the little kitty with the little page.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, that'll be a whole nother episode of trying to get prosthetics for my cat, but we'll talk about that later today.

CHRISY 12:53

They have the little wheel things I see they put on the dogs all the time. I don't know if you do that with cats.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

I mean, they could, but no, we actually try to get our prosthetics. But like I said, we'll talk about that a little bit. Okay.

The Third Fall And Broken Heirlooms

CHRISY 13:04

So that suffering has happened. On a scale of one to ten, you're suffering.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

12. 15.

CHRISY 13:13

Well, I'm a dark person, so I always think there's a lot more other things that could have come into your story that like one of you was under the tree when it fell down, or you know, uh the house catches on fire from the glide. So there's there was so I give you eight to nine out of ten. Yeah. Well, because you're a nine? Well, that's high. Oh, Chris. Well, nothing caught on fire and nobody got trapped under the tree. And then I thought maybe you're gonna tell me there was something in the house that kept knocking it over, some evil spirit.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

No. Maybe that that relocated. Don't put that out in the universe. No, no. I think this was purely your house is slanted this much. I have a 1900s farmhouse yet.

CHRISY 14:00

I understand that. And I've been in old homes where you walk and all of a sudden you've shifted two feet the wrong way because the floors are crooked.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Well, you know what's funny is while we were digging things up out of the basement, we had this old artificial little pencil tree, and my mom used it when the last year at the house to decorate. And Jim goes, Why is there a five-pound bag of rice in a pillowcase in this tree? And I remembered it was to keep the tree from falling over because it was in that same spot, and in that little spot there is a little bit of a slant. So that bag of rice was keeping the tree from falling over. I had forgotten about that. Wow. Because it'd been so long since I decorated.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Yeah. Yeah, but we still need shims for our 10-year-old house to put our tree up. She had to you had to put shims under our tree.

CHRISY 14:48

Well, because the stand, there's something with the stand in it, and the tree looks a little crooked. And then I so I do I take cardboard and I fold it along. Same thing to sort of boost up the one side.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

And we had actually done something like that. Jim went and got like a couple pieces of like two by four or whatever, and we had that under there to try to balance the tree out, but well, I my Christmas just come and gone, is all I have to say. I had 48 hours.

CHRISY 15:17

Well, I know you're probably gonna be spending the day with sister.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

No, we'll be home that day. We'll go to Sister's house the day after or something. But but yeah, I'm over it. I'm okay. Well, I'm totally fine living in a completely undecorated house that's full of boxes in mayhem right now.

CHRISY 15:32

You're always welcome here.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

I'm impressed when I came here today. You are definitely getting in the decor. Yeah, and you've got a lot of boxes everywhere. So you're in suffering on the boxes.

CHRISY 15:44

Was it really? I I did very well. Please give me credit. Yeah, Nick's shaking his head over here. Did you see the thing I sent you?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yes.

CHRISY 15:52

That I and that was a little suffering on my part. I found that I found a nativity that I've had forever. Obviously, it predates me even. I inherited this somewhere. So it's like this little kind of old school, probably from I'm getting, I'm bet you it's from the 60s.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Oh, yeah, I bet you.

CHRISY 16:11

And it's like a nativity that you can like flop open the front of it, and all of a sudden there's Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. And I there might was there a little animal in there somewhere? I think it was. I took a picture of it. Yeah. Well, I had never done this in the whatever how many years, 40 years I've had this thing. I never flipped it over and looked at the there was the price tag was still on the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Exactly.

Blame, Old Floors, And Bad Stands

CHRISY 16:33

And my heart kind of like just like dropped, but I was like kind of hurting a little bit because you have this memory. The tag said GC Murphy's on it. Uh-huh. Which is a we brought that store up before where I got my goldfish uh or whatever they were from uh there that my mother made them go away. Yes. And uh GC Murphy's was a store, uh department type store. We had one in the city of Youngstown on the west side. We had a plaza over there, the Mahoney Plaza, and GC Murphy's was in that plaza. It was a beautiful store on the inside, from what I can remember, but it's been gone. Yeah, it was gone a long time ago, but it still had the tag on it. Go ahead, Nick, tell her how proud you are of me.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

I'm very proud of her. I think that her hearing you that you're gonna finally really go through all your Christmas stuff, and me 20 years of vaguing for her to do. She did it. Yeah. We got rid of a ton of lights, and basically we we set, you know, a lot of the lights that only half of them work because you get to change the fuse, but that never works. You change a fuse and it's still my luck. I always pick the wrong fuse, and then the whole damn set doesn't work. Exactly. So we pitched all those, and you want to play with those. We had about 15 or 20 light sets that worked, and we donated them.

CHRISY 17:49

Oh, good for you. Yeah. You know which ones I donated though? The the newer ones. Oh, okay. There were actually newer ones. Because I can get those. The the coloring on these new lights is different to the point where I think they hurt your eyes. Yeah, I hear you. They're strong colors. I did maintain my old, they could say the incandescent lighting. And that that one box of Kodak lights from Hill's Department Store. He plugged it in. He's like, if this still, and it's still it lit up. So I said, You will not. No. I'm doing this, Nick, but don't you dare get rid of my life. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

But I even think, even more importantly, the lights were just one small part. She's actually I I pulled all the bins up, like you pulled your bins up. Yep, yep. She went through them all and really downsized. We threw away stuff. Good. And she'll go into it more, but some of the things reminded her of death. So she Oh, we got rid of those.

CHRISY 18:44

What was it that reminded me of death?

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Some of the old stuff. You said because the people that like Oh, because the people that you got.

CHRISY 18:51

The people that I associated them with. Yeah. We'll get into this another time, but I think Christmas in general is actually um I it's more about death than Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

So she even though it's it's about the birth of Christ, it's it's it's more about that.

CHRISY 19:07

Jesus had a horrible ending, didn't he? Oh, Chrissy.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

So at any rate, I did go. I'm super thrilled. Now, if we can get her to do the rest of the crap.

CHRISY 19:17

I'm willing to do it, but I gotta do it.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

But that's a great good job, Chrissy. That was a good start.

CHRISY 19:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

So you've been suffering in your own way.

CHRISY 19:26

Not as much as you. I will I'll forgive you that that is like a ton of damn suffering.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

I'm gonna I'm gonna post the pictures of the stages of like in the tree of the backyard.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

She's only about a two or three on the suffer meter. So I mean, yeah, no, my I admit I she was actually happy because you know what? She was really good about it. So kudos to my baby.

From Showpiece To Backyard Bird Home

CHRISY 19:52

Good job. Thank you. And I did put out my delicate bulbs I told you about. Yes. I found the box, and they are. I'll have to show you a couple before you leave. They're beautiful glass ornaments that we never we hadn't used maybe one or two times. I I think somebody had abandoned, not abandoned, but that like in our old neighborhood where I grew up. Somebody, the father had passed away and the son decided to leave, and they kind of left a lot of stuff in the house, and they were told some of the neighbors, hey, if you want to come in and if you want anything, go ahead and take it because they're coming in just to throw everything out. Yeah. And I remember going over there and they had a bunch of Christmas stuff, and they had these beautiful glass bulbs. So I took them and they are beautiful, so I was happy to finally put those out.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Well, I hope your tree doesn't fall and they survive. Oh my God. Please no.

CHRISY 20:40

Yeah, we'll I'll put more stuff underneath it. Now you got me uh paranoid. I gotta make sure that things not crooked anywhere. I mean I'll pull my level out. We can see if it's level.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Please, every day. Or tie it to the wall, like secure it to the wall or something. I don't know. Oh my gosh. That's not a bad idea. So what else you got going on here? It looks like you've been doing some baking.

CHRISY 21:02

Well, yeah, and planning, and I'm not doing a lot. Yeah. But I got pretty much everything ready to go and in the mode to start, hopefully. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Because we're basically a week away from Christmas. I know.

CHRISY 21:15

So yeah. I usually do better in crunch time. I am a procrastinator, and sometimes when I'm like really desperate, I really can perform my best uh at that level, but still don't know what to feed everybody uh because I don't want to do fish. I'm done being forced into that whole idea of having to have fish on Christmas Eve. In fact, I'm gonna go the I think I'm gonna do a prime like a beef tenderloin or something. Oh, okay. Because why was I told I couldn't have meat that night? Why? I don't know. We even had like pasta and it was like it was meatless.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah.

CHRISY 21:51

Marinara sauce and nothing else.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

I'm thinking that I might do something like a Christmas story. Maybe we'll go for Chinese on Christmas. That I yeah, if you Because I I can't cook much in my house. I packed it away. That would probably be I'm not going to my sister's house on Christmas Day, but we're gonna stay home.

CHRISY 22:07

That's a good idea. I like that idea. I do like that idea. Oh, and so yeah, I was gonna say, why why death Christmas does remind me of death.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Okay, explain this. It just I mean I know you're I know you I know you have a tendency to get dark, but this is really dark.

Downsizing Décor And Letting Go

CHRISY 22:21

No, it's I bet you I'm not the only one. I bet you people out there are going, yeah, you know what? Because really, you know, you think you're all happy. And there might be a couple of Christmases where you're kind of happy. There's a very short window of time where you actually uh you never have everybody that you'd like to share the holiday with with you. It's impossible. Because when you were little, you had grandparents and aunts, uncles, cousins that you probably but as you get older you realize was I really having a good time with these people? I don't know, probably not. And then your kids are little if you have kids or your stepchildren, step and the grandkids and stuff like that, and it's wonderful in the moment. So I probably have to say there's probably a good, you know, with my kids, yeah, you know, they're older now. That's wonderful, but generally we're forced to think back to Christmases, and a lot of people are just not here. Parents, grandparents have been gone for a while, and maybe you're just not close, yeah, or living close to anybody. So you kind of you do get pulled into the whole death thing, and probably because I'm a big fan of uh a Christmas carol, which is yeah, that's a lot of death in that book. That is death, so yeah, Christmas is kind of like a death thing. And the other thing I was gonna do is we didn't talk about it. I don't know that we could have done a whole show, but maybe we couldn't, maybe we'll think about it in the future. But real quick, what is with these overly emotional commercials? Explain, give me an example. Well, I sent you one and you even said that it drained you. Oh, yes, that was horrible. Chevy seems to have the market for the this year.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

It's Chevrolet.

CHRISY 24:02

Yeah, there's that one, there's another one where explain this one so that our listeners can. Well, it just Oh, this is horrible. They're like little mini stories too. They're not short 30-second spots. I mean, these are like probably a three-minute minute, three to five-minute commercial. Yes. And it's just takes you through usually the people are older now, but then they're remembering when they were young and getting started and the struggles, and their kids were younger.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

And they're looking in the backseat of the car and remembering the little kids, but then it flashes to now and it's and the dog dies. Oh, where'd the dog go?

CHRISY 24:38

I'm like, oh my god, the dog didn't make it. It's like it goes through a 30-year period. Well, then the dog is gone. I know. And then even the guy had to say at the end when he saw their his kids' dogs, oh, you remind me of a friend. It just got me chills thinking about it. It's horrible. Oh, it is horrible, yes. And we're supposed to want to buy a Chevrolet after this. I did. I'm not talking to him or about this situation.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yeah, we had a little bit of a domestic before we started um recording today.

CHRISY 25:15

Somebody took it upon themselves to trade it by their German-engineered vehicle for a good old-fashioned American brand, I guess, that has commercials that tear your heart out. Yeah, that's a good one. There's another one about grandma. They all go to the house. This is another one, and the woman is struggling with dementia, Alzheimer's. And the granddaughter, she just can't have this. This woman's sitting here and she doesn't know who all the people are, and she drives her around town and helps her remember.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

It was an old Chevy, it was her husband. It was another Chevy.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

What's up? What's Chevy? She does Chevy. She needs someone new in marketing.

CHRISY 26:03

Around town, and then the yeah. Yes. And then oh my god. What you gotta watch movies for two hours, and I'm not this, you know, devastated. Yeah. A five-minute spot, and I'm gone all day. I'm done. I can't communicate with anybody. I'm devastated. I can't function anymore. I'm blubbering like an idiot. So thanks, Chevy. Not a sponsor, but you should be, since you devastate us like this. Talk about a dysfunction at holidays.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Well, yeah, the dysfunction of these commercials.

CHRISY 26:36

Oh my god. Watch the fun old ones, like uh, you know, like the guy who's talking about the spicy meatball or uh, you know, uh the the what is that one where the Santa Claus is on the electric razor? Nuroko. The Nuroko. That's an awesome commercial. Those ones are fun. Maybe Fred and Barney when they were having their cigarette ads. Those are good. Those I recommend. Chevy, no, out, done. Don't come knocking.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

The other thing is they rank these commercials rank right up there with your some of your Christmas movies.

Lights, Nostalgia, And GC Murphy’s

CHRISY 27:08

Yeah, well, oh, come on. Now, I didn't tell you, and we have an honorable mention because I watched it since the last time we moved. And I don't know if anybody remembers this one, but it's called an American Christmas Carol. And I think it was made for TV. I don't think it was an actual like in the theater movie. And it's from the 70s, and it is so good because it's got Fonzie. Oh Henry Winkler. Oh, okay. Now this I might have to watch. As although his name is Benedict Slade. Slade. Because it's American. Sound familiar. You'll remember it. You can, it's free. Just Google it or whatever you do on your phone TV and you'll find it. Okay. And it's during the Depression. And it is so good.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

It's Ponzi was my first crush.

CHRISY 28:01

Probably not.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

I got a poster of him on my five-year-old birthday. I have a picture of it.

CHRISY 28:06

Oh. And uh, all right. We got this is our last chance to talk about the Christmas that almost was it. Didn't watch it yet. That one you might not be able to get for free. I don't know. Although maybe, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

I but Jim and I talked about it, and I just was like, I just can't do it.

CHRISY 28:22

I just can't do it. This is a long one. I know. It's not like the half-hour ones I gave you before. That's why. And it's Italian because it's uh I don't want to say the wrong name because sometimes being uh uh someone who's watched The Godfather probably way too many times, I always want to say Luca Barazzi. It's not, it's Rosanna Barazzi. Okay actor from like the 50s and stuff, decent-looking guy, real suave. He plays.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

It's on a lot of those free streaming services. Okay. It's not on your smart TV like to be Pluto, some of those TV. It's it's not that. Yeah. Philo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are like all free streaming services.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

We can find it on there. That's because that's how bad it is.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Or is I like saying nobody wants to watch it.

CHRISY 29:09

I do. Uh-uh, but it's really good because, like I said, it's made in Italy, but it has some American actors. Yeah. And that you can kind of tell the actors who couldn't speak English real well because like the voice doesn't match the way their mouth is moving. Oh, jeez. And it's real cheesy. And obviously, Santa Claus has a landlord named Phineas T. Prune.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

And he hates Christmas because I hear there's a problem from the beginning with this that Santa Claus has to have a landlord. Well, you know Santa Claus can't just have his own place. No. He can't have a lot of fun.

CHRISY 29:48

Here we thought Santa was living it up.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah.

CHRISY 29:50

No, he he's a land he's paying for his uh house to a landlord. Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Well, but this is interesting.

CHRISY 29:59

But and he hates Christmas because he asked Santa for a sailboat when he was uh little, and Santa never got sent him anything. So for like this guy's whole life, he has just had this vendetta against Santa Claus. And he was gonna stop Christmas from happening because he's gonna evict Santa. He's gonna keep raising his rent. Well, he just He's just evicting him. He's the price is so high now. Santa can't afford it. So, long story short, all the kids come together because they realize they gotta help Santa. So there's like this big dramatic like scene where all the kids from the flipping village come running and they like have their piggy banks and they give Santa all the money for the rent, and then he makes it just in the nick of time to nick of time. The nick of time. The nick of time in Saint Nicholas. And they give him the money. Now that prune guy is totally upset because his whole thing has been foiled. Yeah. And then he's got this guy, his head elf, Jonathan. They wanted to find out if this guy ever sent a note, a letter to Santa. So he's been doing research the whole movie trying to find out if this guy he has any record of this kid. So at the last minute, he gives Santa this letter he found while Santa's trying to take off to deliver all of his toys. And it's a letter from Phineas T. Prun asking for a sailboat. It fell behind his desk.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Oh my lord.

Suffering Scale And Dark Humor

CHRISY 31:20

This is why he didn't get it. So they end up stopping off to Phineas Prune's house. And they give him a sailboat. They give him a got now. This guy's like six years old, but he got a sailboat. And now all of a sudden he's like happy. Yeah. And he's gonna there's one scene Nick gets very upset about because he's like, that is so cheesy. I that's why I don't want to watch this movie. He's like walking around saying Merry Christmas to everybody. And he's got this picture of this like painting of this like person in his house that looks like you know historical or something. And the guy does not have a good look on his face, he's just like angry. And so now Phineas is all happy because he got a sailbot. So he says, Merry Christmas to the picture. Uh-huh. It's so 60s. And then when you flash back to the picture, now the picture's smiling. Oh my gosh. And Nick gets very upset about it.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Well, do you blame me? I mean, it's cheesy.

CHRISY 32:13

It's cheesy, but it's a Christie. Come on, everybody. Get the Christmas spirit. Try not to think about death, even though I'm pretty sure all these actors, except maybe some of the kids, are not dead, but everybody else is dead. That's the other thing. You watch all these classic movies.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Oh, so this isn't a cartoon, it's real.

CHRISY 32:28

No, this is live action. It's live action. It's a movie. Okay. I can't tell you anybody else famous in it, but Rosanna Barazzi actually was in the film version of South Pacific with Mitzi Gaynor.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

There you go. Wow. You are a wealth of knowledge at times with these movies.

CHRISY 32:43

Useless facts. Yes, I have useless facts, but I got them.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

We want to know how everyone's suffering is going this last week before we hit the big day of Christmas next week. We're going to post pictures on our Facebook page of uh my suffering, my tree debacle. We're going to post a couple pictures of Chrissy's beautiful tree and her beautiful fire mantle that she has up there with all her decorations on there that she's not suffering for. And we want to see all yours in between. Yes.

CHRISY 33:11

We want to see real trees, fake trees, metal trees, trees with no garland. We talked about that.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Palm trees, trees decorated, cactus decorated if you're out west. I want to see it all. Yes, we want to see it all. Alrighty, everybody. Well, happy new year, Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, whatever all the other sayings are. I know there's like a Kwanzaa one, um, but happy holidays to everybody. Happy holidays. See you next week.

unknown 33:38

Bye.