Martin County Star Newsmakers
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Martin County Star Newsmakers
Part two of our Christmas Traditions episode. Chris, RIcky and Shawn end their visit.
Gather around for a heartwarming episode of the Martin County Star's Newsmakers Podcast as I, Mike Ennis, share a lively conversation with my sons Chris, Shawn, and Ricky. Picture this: Ricky's son in Haiti is embracing humanitarian work, while his Daughter-in-law Meca is navigating American holiday traditions. You'll get a front-row seat to hear about our family's unique blend of holiday customs, from Haiti's vibrant celebrations to the cozy American cornerstones we all know and love.
Ever wondered how holiday meals evolve over time? Our family has shifted from lavish feasts to simpler, more meaningful gatherings, like a pot of chili simmering away while we soak up precious family time. Listen as I recount the solo act of putting up our Christmas tree—decorations on hold—for Mindy's return, sparking playful debates over decorating styles. And don't miss the tales of Chris's antics, as he becomes the catalyst for our spirited Christmas morning chaos.
Through cherished Christmas Eve rituals and hilarious holiday memories, this episode shines a light on the essence of family togetherness. From attending candlelight services and indulging in hot chocolate, to reliving childhood Christmas stories, we celebrate the bonds that make the season so special. Tune in to share in our laughter, love, and perhaps glean some inspiration for your own holiday traditions.
All right, welcome to Martin County Star's Newsmakers Podcast. I'm Mike Ennis. This is episode number 14. We just did 13, right, 14. And I have with me my sons. They flew in now it's going to be a couple of weeks ago, to TriMont, or they flew into Minneapolis, drove down here to TriMont for my birthday, to wish me a happy birthday. We have Chris from Delaware, Sean from Wyoming and Ricky from Texas. Last episode I always say from Houston, and he goes why do they get states and I only get a city? Because I always figured everybody knows where Houston is. Anyway, it made no sense, but we did it anyway. So say hi, Ricky, You're up first.
Speaker 2:Hello Welcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Tell them a little bit about who you are, because you know different listeners sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I live in Texas. Yeah, I mean, a lot of you guys probably maybe have read or heard us talk about Haiti with Love. That's my son, him and his wife down there in Haiti. Of course, you know people ask about hey, how are things going? You know, and we just ask, you know, continued support and you know at some point they'll get here to the States. Right now we're just kind of waiting on some visas to get through with my daughter-in-law.
Speaker 1:And by the time actually this episode airs the episode, the issue on the newspaper will have been out. Where Diane is, she's going to give us a couple of update stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're excited about that. You know, just, we're going to try and share kind of what Christmas looks like over in Haiti, in a third world country, and just kind of you know, maybe you know, hey, do they use wrapping paper? Do they find wrapping paper? How does that work? Things like that.
Speaker 1:Well, you shared with me before I bit about how it's totally different in Haiti, christmas is it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, they don't experience the snow, you know. So a lot of times my daughter-in-law would share with me how you know they might get. She might get one gift for a niece or nephew and they don't wrap it, they just walk it in, put it on their bed and they walk out. Right, that's their Christmas. That's kind of she's learning some American cultures and American traditions. Now that that my kids are there are kind of making their own tradition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, so, yeah it's just kind of neat to see what they're doing. Yeah, I know you shared with me before about. You know Zach was like no, no, that is not how we celebrate Christmas. You know, he's obviously American and he's kind of more American influences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's obviously American and he's got more American influences. Yeah, so last year Zach was home in November and we sent him back with a suitcase full of presents that we had wrapped for them, and when he got home, mika's never seen that many gifts for her, let alone even wrapped, and so for her it was just an emotional. And so now she's all about Christmas and everything Christmas, and it's just like, oh my gosh, when's Christmas again?
Speaker 1:So she's totally on board with the Christmas traditions. Let's have Christmas every month.
Speaker 2:Yeah to her it's Christmas all the time, but she's on board now with all American tradition. You know Christmas traditions and stuff, so we're excited.
Speaker 1:They have a baby Naya Yep. Naya is four monthsdaughter.
Speaker 2:So Sage is four, stevie just turned one and Naya is four. Wow All right, sean.
Speaker 1:And then we have Sean, who's from Wyoming. Sean, you can turn it your way, sean, we figured out our buzz a while ago. Sean is from Wyoming, where he went to Riverton, Wyoming. He went to what? What's the school?
Speaker 3:Central Wyoming College.
Speaker 1:And you took film? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:Only film school in Wyoming yeah.
Speaker 1:Sean already had his bachelor's degree and he went back to school to learn film. He has an incredible interest in film.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah. It was kind of one of those passion things. I was in a dead end job that the only thing I could do is move laterally, and Megan and I were like, hey, I'm just going to put in a film school in Wyoming, let's see her family that's my wife's name, is Megan and her family is all from Wyoming Put it in found Central Wyoming College. And then we started thinking about it and then everything kind of fell in line. We kept praying about it and one thing after another just kept falling in line and it was Tetris. Everything was coming together right and then we moved out there and then as soon as I graduated I graduated on a Friday and Monday the school picked me up and now I'm the marketing manager over there.
Speaker 1:Now, Sean, also to our readers. They know you as Sean Michael, and you are the movie guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Continue to sponsor and support. That that's always great to to see is, uh, all the all the readers reading about my randomness and my random thoughts about film yeah, and sean has some random thoughts.
Speaker 1:Very much so yeah hey, we have cats scatterbrained everywhere. We yeah right, we have a lot of fun. When your column comes in, I always read it and then I put that disclaimer Not all opinions are supported by Martin County Star. These are his and his alone. And then, anyway, sean, you have two children, I do.
Speaker 3:I've got a 12-year-old daughter named Ariadne from a film I do. I've got a 12-year-old daughter named Ariadne from a film, and then I have a 11-month-old little boy named Leighton. So yeah. I just thought that was a cool name. It is a cool name I had a kid in middle school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:One day I was like dude, that's an awesome name. I'm going to name my kid after that.
Speaker 1:And there he is, yeah up. You know, took a lot of years later yeah, you know yeah. And then of course, uh, here, give chris your mic. And then, of course, chris. Chris is the oldest and chris is from uh, delaware. I don't know what town it is, but uh the milford, delaware area okay, all right all right, chris just moved to delaware. It's been. It's been a year, yet it's been a year and a half.
Speaker 4:Year and a half.
Speaker 1:Okay, they were in Peoria and he's in Delaware. We haven't had a chance to go visit yet because, golly, we bought a newspaper. But Chris lives in a picturesque area which is kind of a little tourist area.
Speaker 4:It's like a Hallmark movie.
Speaker 1:A Hallmark movie, honestly Okay movie, a hallmark movie, honestly okay you think of a hallmark movie, it's.
Speaker 4:It's basically what it. How far from the ocean uh, 15 miles is a crow flies, wow. So it takes us, you know, 25, 30 minutes to get there you have to go wound about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is this a walking beach or?
Speaker 4:uh, yeah, yeah, there's, they definitely have walking beaches. And then there's other ones that you just you kind of you go to and you stand over and look and you see these things are called horseshoe crabs. Okay, they look like something out of a sci-fi movie. If I could explain it, it looks like a roach that has a tail, and horseshoe crabs are crazy, but they're known there in Delaware and there's no real significance to them.
Speaker 1:Don't you think they eat them we?
Speaker 4:don't eat them. Yeah, no one eats them. Oh, they eat muskrat, but not horseshoe crabs. Yeah, yeah. That's my face to it too.
Speaker 1:All right, oh, so we were talking in the last episode, yeah, right before, and then we just thought, hey, let's make this a to be continued, because we were at about 24, 25 minutes, yeah, sure, and so it was like let's make this to be continued, and we were talking about your tradition, first of all. Yeah, chris has the coolest tradition ever. Tell them again. Let's remind our listeners, yeah.
Speaker 4:So we have seven people in our family, five kids and my wife and myself, and so for the longest time you would have two appetizers, two side dishes, an entree and two desserts. So that equals seven. We put those titles inside of a hat and then everybody in the family picks one. I have in a. I think we've been doing this now for 15 years. I have never gotten entree, really yeah, and I did not get it again this year.
Speaker 1:No kidding, what's yours this year?
Speaker 4:I have appetizer this year.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:All right, so I don't know what we're going to do yet. I know that one of the appetizers is going to be chicken and dumplings.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, explain what happens first. So here's what you have to do you have to eat.
Speaker 4:You have to have a little bit of something or a little bit of everything on your plate, okay, and then you eat it in order. So it comes appetizers, and then you get the entree and two side dishes and then the dessert. But you can do it however you want. So if you want for an entree, if you want chocolate cake, you get chocolate cake as an entree. If you want for an appetizer, if you want to have ice cream floats, you have ice cream floats, or blueberry muffins or popsicles. I mean, you know, it's whatever you want. It's basically a yes day for food and you can do that for the tradition. For that I don't know exactly what everybody's doing. Yet for this year they haven't all turned it in, but we've all drawn and we all know what item we have.
Speaker 1:But now you've added two more, so you have nine.
Speaker 4:Right, so how?
Speaker 1:that works is since Tristan has a wife, they just combine it. Oh, they're one, they're one, you still keep it at seven.
Speaker 4:So it's still always going to be two entrees two appetizers or one entree two appetizers, two side dishes two desserts. Okay, but whenever the kids get married, their spouse now gets to help choose their one item.
Speaker 1:Have you ever had a year when you never really had any kind of a main dish had?
Speaker 4:a year when you, you had your, you never really had any kind of a main dish. No, because mel, because mel and I, whenever we pick mel's very my wife is, uh, she's like we got to have some kind of protein, we got to have some kind of okay so you guys are, the are the voice of reason yeah, but not, but not even like the normal thing.
Speaker 4:Okay, so my my mom came to visit one year and mom we were like all, we'll let her in on this, by the way. This is why if you come and visit from out of the family, you don't get a choice anymore, because my mom ruined it. So she loves ham. Her husband, david, got the entree, and we were trying to explain to them you don't have to choose a typical entree and entree. And we were trying to explain to them you don't have to choose a typical entree, just pick whatever you want. David wanted something different and she made him get a ham and so we ended up having ham as the entree. It didn't ruin the experience, but it just made it normal.
Speaker 1:And it's such an odd experience, such a non-traditional thing Give them a taste of some of the things that you guys have had over the years.
Speaker 4:Okay, so we've done like for appetizers been chocolate cake or chocolate pudding pie, and so you would start your meal with a chocolate pudding pie and corn dogs, corn dogs, and then for your side dishes, maybe you get, you know, a popsicle. I think we've done that for a side dish. Once you get a popsicle.
Speaker 1:That came from Ryan. I guess it had to have.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was going to say the entree that year was blueberry muffins, so it was a popsicle blueberry muffins.
Speaker 1:And then I think nachos was the other side dish I could have.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I mean it's not bad. And then you know, and then, like I love green bean casserole, and then you have something else and it's such an odd way to eat, but it was so much fun because we just wanted to have something different that nobody else was doing. This is like our thing. Now, if you want to do it in your family, please do it in your family. We'd love to have you do it next year. If you want more explanation, reach out.
Speaker 1:I'll let you know. Yeah, reach out to me and then I will. Uh, let chris write up the rules. Yeah, you may be onto something here. It's, it's, it's we candy, and I always can't wait until we see your guys's menu. We always sit there and go, wow, okay, I couldn't do that one, you know we were in on it.
Speaker 4:We were in on it and we enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:We had time of our life yeah, anyway, do you.
Speaker 4:So that's one of the traditions we do yeah, do you guys do traditions? We do. Yeah, Do you guys do a tradition, Rick?
Speaker 1:Sean, dad, do you guys do a tradition? I'll start Candy and I always do hot chocolate and pizza on Christmas Eve. Okay, that's our thing. We always go out and we just buy a pizza Domino's, whomever and we bring it home and we get hot chocolate. We have a hot chocolate machine and it makes the get hot chocolate. We have a hot chocolate machine and it makes the best hot chocolate ever. It whips it. It goes for about seven to eight minutes. You pour your milk in, pour any kind of hot chocolate you want in powder, it whips it and we put big marshmallows on it or whipped cream and then we sit and watch a movie. There's lots of great Christmas movies and we might watch two or three. So that's our big deal, sean.
Speaker 3:Depends, if I had it my way. So, megan, the way her family grew up is, before they open presents or anything like that, they eat breakfast.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then they clean up and then they go do presents, which drives me nuts, because we'll talk about it here in a minute.
Speaker 4:Okay, of our traditions, right.
Speaker 3:And so if I had it my way, I would just get some paper plates, throw six packs of donuts on there, the little mini ones, and then call it good. If you want to be really fancy, we'll get you the powdered donuts. That's great. But Megan will be Ari and I will wake her up and we'll be like all right, it's Christmas time, let's do this. Well, we got to eat breakfast first. I'm like well, it's 4 in the morning, let's, let's get going.
Speaker 3:You know, I'll wake up early just to make a breakfast and then I'll be like all right, I'll get the paper plates, I'll do dishes and I throw that stuff away and we get on with the good stuff yeah, so for our family, um, kind of like the hot chocolate pizza christmas eve, um.
Speaker 2:But when the kids were little, though, I was tired of having my wife Diane feeling like she had to cook a big meal on Christmas.
Speaker 2:So one year I said, hey, just throw a stew in the crock pot, just throw chili in the crock pot, we'll have a big meal on Thanksgiving. But let's focus on spending time with the kids and their toys and putting together toys and all that. And we've actually that's what we do now. So even this year, we're empty nesters. We still are going to have chili in the crock pot and we're just going to enjoy the day, not really having to stress about dinners and meals and stuff like that. And then also, the other tradition is we have to have the Christmas tree up by the end of Thanksgiving weekend, so it's just kind of what we've done 25 years, right? So this year, though, my wife was gone on Thanksgiving weekend. Well, I couldn't let the tradition fail, so I got the tree out and I put the tree up by myself. However, I did not decorate it, because my wife enjoys that too much, so I put it up and sent her a photo that it's up. So keep the traditions alive.
Speaker 1:You know, candy used to always say Honey, are you going to help me decorate the tree?
Speaker 4:And I'd say honey you going to help me decorate the?
Speaker 1:tree and I'd say I really don't want to.
Speaker 1:And she'd go, no, please. I'd say, okay, fine, so I'd get up off the couch and I would take a Christmas ball, you know ornament. I'd hang it on the tree. She goes ooh, is that where you want it? I'd go, no, I guess not, where do I want it. And she would say, well, over here would be a great place for that blue bulb. I'd say, okay, so I'd hang it over there. I'd grab another one. She'd go oh, that one doesn't. That will clash. Can we put that? I'm going. Look, you really don't want me helping. Why don't I just sit back down? I'll watch you, I'll applaud, I'll tell you how wonderful you're doing. But you know, is this a guy thing? I mean, chris, do you help? No, he's shaking his head.
Speaker 4:No, no, it's very widely known in my house. So we all have our kind of our ornaments.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, yeah, we have tree ones, but there's family member ones.
Speaker 4:And so we put it up. But um, they'll, mel and the kids will put it all up, and then they'll even go. Dad, are you ready to put your ornaments up? And I'm like no you guys can go ahead and they'll put my ornaments up, and so it'll be easy to go ahead and keep that tradition going, because I'm not a big fan. I love the Christmas tree, I love Christmas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, all of it, yeah.
Speaker 4:I just I'm not a very good uh decorator, and my wife has told me this year I actually did help. I put all mine on and she said it doesn't matter where they go, I just want you to be a part of it. It. But see, here's what we did. That was different.
Speaker 4:Like rick said, we used to have to um, we used to have to wait to put the christmas tree up until thanksgiving weekend like after thanksgiving, black friday right, um, but, and I've begged to have it up like as early as we can, and so this year in our new house, mel was like all right, we put it up. And we put it up like a week and a half before thanksgiving, so we had our tree up, for actually it was most of november. We had our tree up, oh and uh. It was so cool and so I thought, well, if she's going to do that for me, I'm definitely gonna. I've got to tell you a story about your wife okay, all right.
Speaker 1:So chris calls her mel, her name is melinda, I call her mindy, and the rest of the family we all call her mindy, don't we? Yeah, yeah, you guys, yeah, yeah, we've known her. We've known your wife since she was in, like I think it's eighth grade and she was part of the church, and we've known her forever. Her little sister, her little brother, I mean, they're part of the family as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, mindy used to come over to the house and she'd come over and visit this was before you all and she'd go you need any help with wrapping your presents? I'd say, oh, yes, so I'd go get all the presents out, I'd bring it in the paper, I'd bring her in the scissors and the tape. I would lay down on the couch and just watch her as she wrapped presents. She's meticulous, oh yeah, oh yeah. She's incredible. And I was like whatever you want, you want hot chocolate, you want pizza, anything you want, it's yours, just keep rapping. I would have done whatever it took to keep her rapping. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:Well, you know.
Speaker 1:That's Sean talking.
Speaker 3:It's a great segue that we have because you're talking about, you know, older traditions that we have as a family.
Speaker 1:Mindy coming over to help you rap Right wrap right.
Speaker 3:What about some of the wars that we've had during christmas?
Speaker 1:oh my god, we were going to get to that so parents versus the kids, right yeah yeah, so I'll start. Yeah, okay. So the boys when they were little this started a long time ago and I'm going to blame chris, I think, probably the instigator of that they would will you wake your brothers up at like four in the morning and they'd get up and come in. It's christmas. It's christmas you. I'd say no, it has to be six o'clock at least before we can have Christmas, right? Next thing I know is Sean, go ahead.
Speaker 3:So this is for the younger audience, this is before. Think about this. It's going to be hard to understand, but before internet, before cell phones, before all that stuff we had to set our own alarms every night on the call oh, that's right yeah.
Speaker 3:So what we did was we started to get smarter and as soon as we figured out how to change the times, we slowly did it a couple minutes here and there, you know, a few days before, and then we would switch it like OK, two hours, and then they wouldn't notice it because we got them trained to be like oh, it's this time, it's this time.
Speaker 1:Like a puppet.
Speaker 3:Yeah basically, and so what we do is we have six o'clock, sure, that's fine. We would set it to two hours back or two hours forward, whatever we wanted to do to manipulate it.
Speaker 1:So we would win, and then I realized, wait a minute, it's not six o'clock, it's four o'clock. So then I would take and I would set the clocks forward four hours. And so when you guys set them back, supposedly the concept was it would be back to where it's supposed to be. How'd that work out for you? It went not so well, okay, ricky or who's talking?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know so kind of piggybacking off that I remember where I think you said well, fine, we're going to change the way we do it now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do we rewrite the rules?
Speaker 2:We're going to hide your stockings and you can't wake us up until you find all the stockings you want to talk about that kind of maybe one of the best places you hid the stockings for us.
Speaker 1:Well, you're right, we made it to. Where look you find your stockings? You can have whatever's in the stocking, but you can't wake us up until 6 o'clock. Well, one year, though, going back just a second, I turned the electricity to the house off. I flipped all the breakers off. Now we were in Texas, in the Houston Texas area, christmas Eve is. You know it's 55, 60 degrees. It wasn't no one's in danger, but I turned all the electricity off so your guys' alarm clocks would go off.
Speaker 2:But we set the windows open so it would be cold, so we'd wake up.
Speaker 1:So anyway, they find their stockings year after year. So one year I put all their stockings in a great big box and wrapped the box up. Chris still figured it out. So another year I stuck them in the freezer.
Speaker 2:Would you like to know why we figured it out? Why?
Speaker 1:Why.
Speaker 2:Because Sean and I went down. So dad pastored a church, so we went down. On Christmas Eve we went to the nursery and we borrowed the baby monitor. We stuck it underneath the couch so we could hear where things are going to be placed.
Speaker 1:Oh, so I just thought it should You're grounded.
Speaker 3:I loved it, though, as a kid, since I'm the youngest Chris is about nine years, eight years older than me, ricky's about six or seven years older than me. And nine years, eight years older than me, ricky's about six or seven years older than me and so they would try to help me. They were being great big brothers. Sean, look above the CD case and I'm like five or six, I can't find it. Guys, look right in front of you. I don't see it. They'd finally grab it, hey, sean. What if I found it?
Speaker 3:No they didn't go do that, ricky would eventually find his and then Chris would just be like all right, I know where it's at, and they would just wait until it would be like 4 o'clock on the dot and Chris would be like mine's over here, blah, blah, blah, like Rainbow style.
Speaker 4:You know, just like it's over here blah blah, blah.
Speaker 3:Look down, sean, go get him and like a rabid dog I would sprint Rab, that's grass man. Give dad a concussion because I had no idea where I was laying.
Speaker 4:I had no idea where he was.
Speaker 3:And then the party would start and then dad would do his famous joke let's open one present every hour on the hour. But the funny thing is, here's something that always threw me off. As a kid we would do our thing, We'd wrap our presents right. Ricky would check mine to make sure I didn't find a present that I didn't open yet. And I didn't throw it away because I just kind of threw all my paper everywhere. And then all y'all would go back to bed. It would be Christmas Day.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, we're all tired, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I was like I loved it because for those two hours I had the pick of the litter. I'd throw my movie in that I got. I'd play my GI Joes.
Speaker 1:I would destroy something of Chris's and then call it good. Sounds pretty normal, right yeah?
Speaker 4:It's funny not to bring down the mood, but it's funny to think about it at Christmas time. All the years over that we spent together. I'll be 50 in September. It was amazing. I know you. You look, so I'll be 60.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I, you were 10. I know that's how that works.
Speaker 4:That's amazing. That's the house Right. Right. But you think about, you know all of the different Christmases. There were times when I know it had to have been a struggle. There were times when I know that it had to have been hard and yet I can't remember a time when we ever went without at a Christmas. I can't remember a single time, but I bet it was.
Speaker 1:It wasn't easy, it wasn't Well and you probably didn't get a lot of stuff that you think we probably yeah, I mean we we sometimes would wrap your batteries.
Speaker 4:You know, I mean yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, but you do what you had to do you do what you had to do I remember waking up and having our stockings and you would have like an orange in it. You know to fill it out, and so you were like Santa, what's going? On, you know, and Santa's putting in stockings and bananas.
Speaker 1:I'm like all right, all right, that was your mother. She made sure you guys always had it, and she always did she always did, she did.
Speaker 4:And so we've. You know, in our house one of the traditions we've actually gotten away from, the like just tons and tons of presents. We do four presents now for the kids. They get something to wear, something to read, something they want and something they need. Oh, is the thought process behind that? That's good. You know it comes from the story in the Bible. You know, when the wise men showed up, they had there was three gifts for Jesus, basically Right, obviously there. There might've been more, but we don't even know that there were three wise men. But that's kind of where. You know, we, we want to take this whole story and and so we do this now. But can I tell you, wherever you're at, whatever situation you're in right now, you're alone. Maybe you feel alone, you feel lost, you feel you've got, you know you don't have as many presents as you want.
Speaker 1:It's these memories that you said we talk about, it's these things that's the meaning.
Speaker 4:It's the reason behind why we celebrate and get together as family.
Speaker 1:What you're saying. Yeah, and what you're saying is really kind of funny, because more than one time your mom and I would look and you guys are going to have all these presents, and then we look over and they're playing in the box, right, right. That's an old commercial right, yeah, they made a fort out of the boxes and you know, and we're going why didn't we just?
Speaker 1:give them some empty boxes. Yeah, they were perfectly happy. Let's segue a little bit. What traditions do you have as far as on Christmas Eve, towards like church and the story of the true meaning of Christmas? Do you guys like read the Bible story Do you? I know, sean, was it last year Sean? Sean called me and he had me read the Christmas story to Ari. Oh, cool On the phone.
Speaker 1:And they gathered around their phone and they put another speaker on and I was humbled and honored to do it. It was like, wow, this is cool. I remember we used to do that as kids.
Speaker 4:You would have us read that Always. I don't remember, though, if it was Christmas Eve or Christmas Day before we did this Christmas Eve, always Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1:What do you do so?
Speaker 4:I was a worship pastor for nine years at a church and still involved in leading worship at other churches, and so for us it's going to a Christmas Eve service somewhere Not one of the late ones, no, just because it just never was something we ever did, right. So we go to that and then we have a tradition of we open up one present and then we tell the christmas story. That night we read the christmas story and, um, you know, just kind of yeah, kind of the normal tradition is something we share, and then the present usually is is a uh like a, uh, a pajama, you know, a family pajama. We all do that, something that's just kind of practical, okay, and then maybe some popcorn or some hot chocolate. Well, you guys would have killed me if I made you head pajamas, I know, and that's what you got for Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1:It would be like okay, mutiny, our kids love it.
Speaker 4:But you know, and then we sit around and we read the story and that's yeah, that's kind of where we're at. We don't really do much more than that.
Speaker 1:Okay, that was Chris Ricky. Ricky's going to talk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for us, I mean with the kids, you know it was always about hot chocolate, pizza and then going to church, right, yep, and a lot of times, you know, we'd have one service at our church. We'd go to the church candlelight service and then go back and the kids would open that one gift. Now that it's just my wife and I depends on which kids come home for Christmas or not. We kind of changed it up a little bit now to where we go to church. So, like this year, we have a 5 o'clock service, we'll do candlelight service and then we'll do pizza, hot chocolate or pizza and coffee.
Speaker 2:But then we always buy a game that the family can play, and so those that are at the house with us play a game that night. You know, read the story from the Bible, but they just kind of play a game and just enjoy that. We don't really. You know they used to do like one gift, but we don't really do that now, so it's just kind of more just play a game, hang out and visit, because sometimes, now that all of our kids are out of the house and they're in different places, we may not have a ton of time with them and so we just want to play games you know and visit where we can with them saying chris ricky and his family, they are professional game players.
Speaker 1:They're way good at it. That's what I'm getting at. They're way good at games, man, they, you know, I go there and play and I, I always am out first.
Speaker 3:I'm not too good, all right sean oh, it's a lot of what they already said yeah because they our traditions are always you know, yeah, source, right, that was what
Speaker 4:we did as kids we always got.
Speaker 3:I remember we got the omega strand and we begged you for it for christmas eve, because this game was the one that, like talked to you and you had certain amount of time to play it and and there was like a virus that was going on all this craziness in the game, but it was so cool because it was interactive and it talked to you and stuff, and I was like this is amazing and from that day on, I was like every Christmas, even when I was in the military, by myself, me and my friends, we'd get together.
Speaker 3:Now, our games would be like Halo 2 or something like that, and so we play, you know, xbox together, but we link them together. But we'd always do something like that. We'd always get a tradition going and so, with a family, we would do um, we usually do like chili, nachos or some finger foods, throwing the grinch and rudolph and a lot of the 30 minute specials, just back to back to back. We'd have them, you know, rapid fire, and we'd sit there and then we'd stop and either I would read the Christmas story or Megan would, or we called you last year because I was like, you know, you got to hear from dad, dad's amazing with it, and so we would, uh, we would do that and Ari loved it. She was sitting on the phone, just glued to, just listen to you Right.
Speaker 3:And we would do that, and then, um, we might have a present. But it's a lot what you said, chris. Where it's like something practical, where it's not like, you get that crazy shock of this is what I always wanted. And then, boom, you know, the high goes down. Right, it's not about that, it's about you know what the christmas really is about. So it was. It's usually something practical. And then we watched the santa tracker because ari and layton, you know they always want to know where's santa at.
Speaker 3:Well, maybe not late yet another year he's going to be like where's Santa at man, and so we watch the Santa tracker, and when he starts getting closer, they go off to bed.
Speaker 1:When I was in radio, back in radio in Cottage Grove one year, I got a CD from the US Air Force. They put out a CD on tracking Santa. They had all these excerpts and so you could put them on and I sat there and so I I planned a Christmas Eve service, a Christmas Eve radio show. And so we went to the elementary and we got to first graders I think it was second graders to sing Rudolph or something for us. We recorded that. And then we went and we ordered hot chocolate and pizza and we traded it out. So we got it for free, traded it out for a mention on the radio show, and then we had a bunch of little features.
Speaker 1:But this tracker, I would put it on every like 10, 15 minutes and it was hi, this is Captain John Jones, and we are tracking. Wait, you know, there's an unknown object. We need to scramble Air Force, you know. And so they would do this. And so then I'd say folks, that was it, this is incredible. And then we'd wait five, ten minutes, I'd play a couple of Christmas songs, we'd come back and here's an update, and then you'd hear Air Force pilot. Well, we just flew by and we don't know what it is. It was the most fun I'd ever had doing that show that night.
Speaker 3:You know I got to say and it's making memories, like what Chris said earlier and that right you remember it like the Dallas play kind of memories, kind of thing, right. Right, you know about that, I do Well. So what are your guys' favorite? Maybe a memory or two of Christmas that you have from our Christmases.
Speaker 1:Now that we're adults, you mean, you guys are adults.
Speaker 3:The audience would they're going to think about it.
Speaker 1:I remember that that was a great one.
Speaker 3:I enjoyed that a lot I remember hanging up the lights one year in Texas With your phone. The way it worked was dad was going to hang up lights. Dad's afraid of heights, ricky's afraid of heights. Chris would be like, hey, I've got to go do something real fast.
Speaker 1:I'll be back in five minutes. So Chris was afraid of heights too.
Speaker 3:Three hours later and I was too small. So therefore, our Christmas lights went up, and they were up for the next year too, because we were preppers, I guess, and we were ready. We had lights up. They might still be on that house, I don't know. I think they are, rick. What do you think? What memory do you have?
Speaker 1:His eyes got big.
Speaker 2:I mean I think we kind of talked about some of them, right. Yeah, his eyes got big. I mean I think we kind of talked about some of them, right, yeah, yeah, just anything from trying to outsmart mom and dad, waking them up early, to having to find our stockings, to just going out caroling right, sometimes we go Christmas caroling as a church, yeah, to where you go, and then you get that hot cup of hot chocolate or whatever it was from different houses from the church.
Speaker 1:Your guy's his Aunt, linda. This is my sister, linda. She was wild and we moved to Oregon and Linda invited us over for Christmas Eve along with her family, and so she goes. But you have to come prepared to do a sing, a song, do a poem, something. It was kind of like a talent show they had, and so we showed up and we did a little skit.
Speaker 1:But Linda and her husband's name was Jack, linda and Jack, they had this whole bit. So he's sitting in a chair. Linda came over and sat on his knee and Jack put his hand behind her and Linda acted like the dummy and Jack talked and she would move her mouth and he would give us a whole thing. It was hysterically funny. It was so funny watching them do this, and she had put so much work into it. Linda had a lot of disabilities, and so this was quite an achievement for her, and so I remember that and I I I've thought about that often because she's gone now and and, uh, she was uh, very special to me, and so I have a lot of really great memories.
Speaker 3:I remember one that always stands out.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh, the Christmas ladder. Yes, okay, Tell the story. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you brought it up.
Speaker 3:Uh, dad, candy and I, we went out to the Oregon forest. We got our tag. We were going to go get a tree and I would find one that was like the Griswold one. It was 30 feet high. I'm like that's the one, Dad, and you're like, are you?
Speaker 1:No, we're not doing that.
Speaker 3:I can't get it home Dad would find a Charlie Brown one. It was really small you know, hanging to one side already without the ornament. I would get shot down like every time, and Candy would find a great one, but then you would look on the backside and the other half was gone, or something like that. So we came back after it had to be six hours Six hours Driving through the.
Speaker 1:Oregon forest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we come back and we're just kind of defeated and Candy goes. I have an idea we're like okay, just kind of defeated, and candy goes. I have an idea like okay, and she's like just give me like a day, I'm like all right what are you gonna do? You're gonna just like get a human and put them up there and we'll just do like human ornament people or something like that.
Speaker 3:I didn't know what was going on, and so we come this is why we don't normally allow shot to talk, but go ahead but so we come back a couple days and she has this ladder made out of driftwood and I was like, well, that's a cool project. Do we have an arts and crafts? What's going on? Because I was being a little jaded, you know, being a high school teen boy, right, and she goes well, this is going to be our Christmas ladder. And she goes, wait until tonight. I'm like, all right, cool, we're know, it's really impressive. Turns on the lights, it shines up, and it was just at that moment.
Speaker 1:We were all just floored and we added all kinds of whatever items you wanted to yeah, like your tennis shoe, or you know, it was your ornaments and things. It was a junk ladder, and so you come out and you hung a spoon on it and different things, and so we still have the Christmas ladder. Yeah, and every year I've asked as soon as I got here, is the Christmas ladder up yet, and it's not up yet.
Speaker 3:It's so cool, but it's again like we said it's a memory. We remember the whole day 50 years from now.
Speaker 1:We're going to remember the whole day. I remember driving. I barely remember today. Anyway, we've enjoyed this. We've had a really good time talking Ricky.
Speaker 2:Yeah, enjoyed this. We've had a really good time talking. Ricky, I'm just curious what would your guys' go-to Christmas?
Speaker 1:movie be Go-to movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, For me I'd probably go to the Home Alone. That's kind of nostalgic. We grew up with that movie, I mean for me.
Speaker 1:That's from the Home Alone, yeah, which I like too.
Speaker 3:Also Die Hard, yeah, I was going to say Die Hard, I'll switch it up Die Hard 2.
Speaker 1:Okay, actually, I like Home Alone. I think it's funny. I love Die Hard. I also grew up, though, with Miracle on 34th Street, and the first one, though not the second, not the remake it's probably fine, but I love the part when he brings those two letters up to the judge and he goes. You know, this is a United States Postal Service right, a branch of the government. If they say that Santa Claus is Santa Claus, do you accept that? And the judge looked and he goes well, yeah, because he's the one to get out of this thing. It was Christmas Eve, and then the attorney for you know, trying to get this guy committed. He says well, it's only two letters, who cares? He goes well, what if I had more? Well, if you want to produce more? And the judge goes bring them all, Put them on my desk, and they come in with like 20 bags of letters and they dump them all out. That, to me, is the killer moment. I'm going oh, yeah, that's it right there, chris.
Speaker 4:Chris, you know this question gets asked a lot and with a radio show it's. You know we talk about this and I'm like man, I can't narrow it down to one. No, it's hard, so I have, I have my four.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:So it's a white Christmas. It's a wonderful life. I like that one. But go ahead. Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Right. I like that one, but go ahead. Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, yeah, right, you need Jesus boo, it's okay.
Speaker 4:Elf is one of my absolute favorites, okay. And then the fourth one is, I would say, die Hard, but I just, I love that all year round, but Jingle All the Way. Oh that's funny. It's such a great Christmas movie. The Cranks is funny also yeah. Christmas with the Cranks is funny also. Yeah, Christmas with the Cranks Christmas with the Cranks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a funny movie.
Speaker 4:Those are good ones. So you know they're all kind of commercial but I just love. It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas.
Speaker 1:The ones I don't like.
Speaker 4:Are any of them on?
Speaker 1:Lifetime or Hallmark Movie.
Speaker 4:Channel. That's what I meant, yeah, hallmark Movie.
Speaker 1:They're all the same, for heaven's sakes. Yeah, Hallmark movie.
Speaker 4:They're all the same, for heaven's sakes. They make some money, oh.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they do. I mean, the guy comes back from the big city where he's very successful, and he meets the girl from high school that he always knew and he's like ooh. And she's like oh, I'm sorry I left you at the altar, Remember, I ran away and you're like oh come on, don't go back to him.
Speaker 3:Can I tell you something? Yeah, it's a billion dollar industry.
Speaker 1:I'm sure it is. We need to make one.
Speaker 3:If it's so easy, let's just do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, let's do it. Yeah, I'm for you. Okay, let's write a movie. Folks, we got to go write a movie.
Speaker 3:No, We'll see you later.
Speaker 2:We'll be back in nine months.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:This will be no shocker to you guys Are you changing your vote. But the Christmas card on the Hallmark Channel is pretty good.
Speaker 1:Is it?
Speaker 2:I'm a fan of that movie. I can watch that one time a year.
Speaker 1:What's it called?
Speaker 2:The Christmas card.
Speaker 1:I don't know it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. All their titles start the Christmas something so I understand why you're
Speaker 1:confused.
Speaker 3:I will say for the people who like horror movies, terrifier 3 and Silent Night are great.
Speaker 1:Those can't be confessed. All right, we're done, he's out. Yeah he's out, he's out, all right. Anyway, folks, it's been great doing this, we've enjoyed this a lot. Say goodnight everybody. It's Ricky, goodnight Sean, goodnight Chris, goodnight Gracie, merry. This a lot, uh, say good night everybody. It's ricky, good night sean, good night chris, good night gracie merry christmas yeah, say good night gracie. I have to do that first. Good night, gracie. All right, there we go. All right, thanks, folks, talk to you next time.
