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Holiday movies as modern traditions · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

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We are faith and fury.
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Love and fire.
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This is the human equation.
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Where every voice counts and every truth cuts deep.
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With your host, Joseph Pangaro.
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Hey everybody.
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And welcome to the human equation.
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I'm your host, Joe Pangero.
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So I hope everybody had enough turkey.
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I hope you're stuffed to the gills with turkey and uh what else do people have?
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Ham?
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They have ham right on this holiday and uh lamb.
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Lamb is more of an Easter thing, but turkey is the big one, right?
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So did you have enough turkey and brown gravy and cramped berry sauce, and now you're filled with L tryptophan.
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But I'm glad you're here listening to me.
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I brought the panel in tonight because you know, we can talk about politics till we're blue in the face.
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We can talk about all kinds of crazy stuff.
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One big thing about being a human being on the holidays is there are a lot of traditions wrapped around them, right?
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Like people have turkey.
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We have turkey for Thanksgiving.
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And then people, some people, you know, do things.
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I like to watch movies for the holidays.
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That's always been something me and my family have done.
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Uh we would watch the Christmas movies with the kids and you know, uh ice cream and sit around the table, right?
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But Thanksgiving was always the kickoff for us.
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So I brought the panel in so that we can talk about some of our favorite movies and some holiday uh remembrances and things like that.
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So uh we have Barry Evans here.
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Barry, how are you?
1:34
I'm good, Joe.
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How are you?
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Excellent.
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And we have Jack Edwards.
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Jack, how are you?
1:38
Hey, Joe, good to see you.
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That's fantastic.
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Well, I'm glad you guys are here.
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So when we were talking before we uh before we came on air here, we're saying, oh, what movies have you seen, and what movies have I seen?
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And most of us, I find interesting is that we've all seen a lot of the holiday movies that are out there.
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And traditionally, don't we watch them like every year, right?
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You watch the same movies every year, and do they get old?
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Do you get ever get sick of certain movies?
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I know in my house, you know, we have we have our group of favorites, and we would start try it to try to start Thanksgiving night after the turkey and the food, and everybody's gone.
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We'd watch our first movie.
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But we were all tired and full, and but you so but we wanted to do the tradition.
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So a lot of times we would watch the Jim Carrey Grinch, How The Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey, because it's a great movie.
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He unbelievable how he played that part.
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He was the Grinch, he became the Grinch.
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Uh and and we would watch it because it it didn't get too deep.
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You could just watch that movie and sit there and be tired and enjoy it and laugh at the funny part and then be done.
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But it's that's what kick off our our holiday uh season.
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Later on in life, uh, we found a movie that I didn't well, it's been out a long time.
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I just never realized it was a Thanksgiving movie.
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It's become one of my favorite holiday movies, and I do watch it before Thanksgiving, right?
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And we sit down and watch that, and that would be planes, trains, and automobiles.
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Who knew that that was that and I guess the people who made it knew that, and people who watched it regularly, but that was never one that found its way into our orbit.
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We just never, you know, okay.
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John Candy is great, I love him, uh, and Steve Martin, but never realized it was a holiday movie.
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You you fellas know that movie?
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Oh, absolutely.
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Loved it.
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What did you like about it?
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Loved it.
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Uh I just like the the interplay between John Candy and uh Steve Martin.
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Steve Martin.
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I mean, it those two guys, it was amazing, amazing movie.
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Uh especially the ending, it was uh it it was it was a tearjerker at the end.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, it really turned out very, very well for uh for John Candy's character.
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Yep.
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And you know, it's funny that you say that.
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When I watch that, I say it turned out good for John Candy's character, but I think it actually turned out good for Steve Martin's character.
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I think he had a lot of humility.
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I think he saw the world in a different way than he did before.
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The birth of a lifelong friendship, I think was the was the Yes.
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And uh end all be all of that movie.
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You know, and and Barry, I want to I want to hear what you think about, but for me, when I watched that movie, what I saw was through Steve Martin's character, learning the world, somebody else's world through their eyes, things that maybe you never thought of.
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And you know, we're all busy living our lives, and we uh you know everybody's you know thinks the whole world revolves around us, but you don't realize there's people out there that have a totally different existence than we have.
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Uh and life things can change your existence uh in a blink of an eye.
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We all know that.
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But that's what I found.
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What did you think about that, Barry?
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So Jack kinda took my thunder there.
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Um yeah, uh great movie.
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Every time you get Steve Martin, John Candy together, um, polarity's gonna ensue.
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So, yeah, uh just Steve Martin at the end of the movie, um, just having the awakening or the rebirth now of his character, um, seeing life through new eyes, so to speak, a new vision, uh, new outlook.
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Um, thought it was a great movie.
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Yep.
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Now, it one of the things that I found, I think the first time that I watched it, you kind of feel the frustration for the Steve Martin character.
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You know, here's a guy, he's just trying to get home.
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And, you know, who was in there?
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Kevin, uh, Kevin Bacon was actually in that movie.
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You don't realize it.
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He was the first kid that tried to steal his cab.
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Him and Kevin Bacon eyeball each other on the street, and Kevin Bacon sees the cab with the, you know, I'm open, and so does Steve Martin.
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They go running for it, and they're jumping over people, and of course, you know, uh, Kevin Bacon's character gets there first.
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He was a young actor in that.
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But then you, you know, okay, I see a cab, and here's Del Griffith and his trunk.
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He trips over the trunk, and then he looks up and there's Del Griffith in the car and away he goes.
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And you say, Boy, that how frustrating he had to wait in that meeting with the boss for all that time, and then he finally gets to get together.
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How about this though?
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Did they have to go through airport security during that movie?
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No.
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That was in a time before 9-11.
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Right.
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You just if you could get to the airplane, you could get on the airplane two seconds before uh they close the doors.
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So the next scene you see, he ends up getting himself uh to the airport, and they're sitting there waiting and waiting, and you see all the uh uh delays, Chicago.
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They go to Chicago, right?
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They go on from from uh to Chicago from New York to Chicago.
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And he's like, uh well, there's delays, and Del Griffin, who is uh uh what is he sell?
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Uh shower curtain rings, and he travels all the time.
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So he's very familiar with the delays and the the winter weather in the Midwest and all that, and he says, Well, we're not getting out of here, and he says, What are you talking about?
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Well, planes are delayed.
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So they get on they get on the plane and they're flying, and then he does what?
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He's taking his shoes off and his socks off, and he's got the smelly feet.
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It's it was just the combination of these two guys.
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I felt the frustration of Steve Martin at first.
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I really did.
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You know, this guy seemed like a nice guy.
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Dell seemed like a nice guy, John Candy's character, but boy, was he annoying.
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You know, he just was really annoying.
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Well, they land and they get diverted from Chicago and they go to uh someplace uh Kansas City or something like that, and they get stuck there overnight because now they can't get so they have to go and stay in a hotel.
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So how are they gonna get to the hotel?
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Right?
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Steve Martin says, hey, I uh you know a friend of mine, a cab guy, and I love all the little things like they're driving uh in this cab, and he's like, how come we're not on the interstate?
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Hey, how come you didn't go on the inner state?
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Oh, I figured you're here, you wanted to, you know, you want to see our community.
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What was he doing?
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It was just spreading out the the cost of care brackets.
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Right enough to fair.
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Um those are some of the my favorite scenes.
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What what did you guys like about the travel as they went?
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You know, the planes, trains, and the automobile park.
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Just a disasters, one after another after another, and persevering just to get home at desperate you know, it turned into a uh what's the word I'm looking for?
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It turned into a quest just to try to get back home, anything they were willing to put up with anything, do anything, fire, rain, whatever it took to get home.
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It was that it made it so funny.
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Right.
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Barry, the Braidwood Hotel.
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The Brightwood Hotel.
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Yeah.
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Um just every just everything.
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It seemed like as they were accomplishing one thing, something else was coming up, and you you just were just had to go along for the ride with it and let it play out.
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And you know, a lot of times you see that when they make these movies, especially holiday movies.
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There's lots of scripts that people write to come up with a holiday movie, and everybody's looking for that next holiday movie that's going to be a classic, right?
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But you never know when you're doing them.
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I mean, they're all goofy, goofy stories, and you know, are they gonna be funny and this and that?
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Well, that that movie, uh, when they got to the Braidwood Hotel, and of course, I can get your room and he gets there, and there's only one room, and they have to share it.
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And how how that feeling when they walk in, they see one bed and they look at each other.
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You could feel that awkwardness.
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These two guys don't really know each other, but they're gonna sleep in one bed.
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Um, which I thought was funny.
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But one of the classic lines from any movie came out of that scene.
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Obviously, uh they're trying to go to sleep, and Steve Martin's gonna go to sleep, and John Candy spilled beer on the bed where he sleeps, right?
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Uh he's and then he's with the with the nose and making all these noises and and all of these crazy things, and it made it very difficult.
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And then he gets up and he loses it on the guy, right?
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He he absolutely really cook all his frustration is vented out.
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And I think for me.
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Personally, you guys tell me what you thought.
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I thought at that moment when he was venting all that frustration, it was what I felt about how that this guy Dell's just a pain in the neck.
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Why can't you just go into bed and be quiet and go to and he and he let it loose?
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And it was the magic of John Candy as a great actor to watch his face change.
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His face changed and his expression.
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And then he says, Okay, you want to make fun of me, you can, but I'm a nice guy.
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I like me.
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My wife likes me.
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My family like all these things.
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And you saw Steve Martin's character melt when he realized, boy, I went over the top.
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As they as they watched John Candy absorbed the punishment.
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Yes, and it was.
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And didn't he seem very vulnerable?
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Absolutely.
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A sad puppy face at one point in time was just uh just heartbreaking to watch uh to watch Steve Martin unleash on him.
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And this is the beauty in in this kind of writing, you know, for for writing.
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I I I'm a creative writer on top of writing articles and stories and stuff.
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And one of the things is foreshadowing, that you want to set some things into your story, whether it's a movie or a book or whatever.
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You want to set some things in there that at the end you can connect all the dots.
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When I first watched it, I had no idea what was coming at the end.
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I just thought this guy was a pain in the neck, and it was funny to watch these two guys together.
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But that was really an impactful scene, I thought.
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And what did Steve Martin do?
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Did he leave?
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No.
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He he felt horrible, and there was that like that agreement between them without a word that okay, we'll just move on from this.
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Uh, and they they go to bed.
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Well, here's where the the classic uh lines out of that movie come that at time at the time, I'm sure I can imagine writing that scene and saying it depends on how it's gonna come out when they're both sleeping and they're cuddling each other, they're nuzzling each other.
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And I remember one of my kids watching and go, Dad, why are they nuzzling each other?
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I said, because the whole thing they're trying to tell you that they're exhausted, they fell asleep, and this is what they do at home.
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You cuddle up with your wife, she's warm, you cuddle up and you're nuzzling.
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They weren't nuzzling each other.
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They thought they were there with their watches holding hands and and spooning, so to speak.
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But then when he wakes up, Dell, why are you why are you kissing my ear?
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Why are you holding my hand?
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Where's your other hand?
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Between two pillows.
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That was hysterical because you could visualize that.
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But this the immediate after effect of that I thought was very guy-oriented.
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Okay, so for ladies that are listening, might not understand.
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You I know a lot of you think that you know, guy world is weird.
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We we react to each other and to things very differently than women react to each other.
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We will be best friends, and uh, you know, uh Barry would come in here and then he fell off his motorcycle and skinned his whole face up and it broke the motorcycle, and we walk in and go, boy, you're a horrific motorcycle rider, and you look great.
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Now's the time for a family picture, right?
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And everybody will laugh at that.
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Women would never do such a thing.
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And and here's here's these guys, uh, you know, what do they do?
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They jump up and they want to push off the whole thing that they were touching each other into prevent.
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How about that football team?
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How about them Jets?
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How about the Giants or whatever it was?
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As a way to go past that.
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Culturally, I think there was something there.
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Um Jack, what'd you think of that scene?
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Was that funny for you?
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Or just them jumping out of the bed and and giving getting the uh the shivers of the shakes as they say, oh what am I doing?
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Realizing that they weren't with their spouses.
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Yes.
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You know, and it just the whole thing really played on on again.
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You have a conflict, right?
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What's your rising con?
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Well, this rising conflict went from they they they he couldn't get a cab to the airplane got diverted.
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They had to stay in his crappy hotel.
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Then, well, we have to uh we have to take a train.
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There's no airplane, so we're gonna take uh we're taking a train, and Gus, the owner of the hotel, his son's gonna give him a drive, and this guy pulls up in a pickup and he gets out and he's spitting and honking and he's spitting his hand, he's oh, it's terrible.
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And then his wife gets out to get the uh to get the bag, and he's like, She's a strong one.
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Her first baby came out sideways.
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She didn't scream or nothing.
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You know, and as I'm watching it, like how can you make each scene as bad as possible?
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Of course, they can't ride in the front of the cab at a pickup, they're in the back, and it's freezing.
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And it takes forever to get to the train, right?
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Well, the people train, that's over that's not in which doll, that's somewhere else.
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So long long essence of of this movie is that when they finally do uh go through all of these horrific things, and you see at the end they're back in Chicago and they've made up for whatever they're gonna make up, and and uh Steve Martin's characters finally gonna get home, and he anticipates that John Candy's family gonna go home to his family, and he leaves.
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And as he's riding on that train, you see him re-recapping in his mind all of these crazy things, let alone had a car burned up.
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Do you think this Barry, do you think this car is safe for the road?
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Oh, I sure do, I sure do.
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Here it is.
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It doesn't look like much, but you know, it's a great roadworthy.
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It's roadworthy and the radio works, nothing else, but the radio works, right?
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Hysterical.
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But when these when he finally leaves and he's recounting in his mind all of these funny things that were happening, then he's thinking about all the little things Dell said along the way about his family, and I didn't have the revelation, but I saw he did, and he went back to that train station, and there's Dell sitting alone in that train station.
15:42
And we find out that the the uh the Dana Mall, the rising thing, the whole thing that was crazy about their relationship is when he says his wife had been dead for eight years, that he had no home, and now you saw the Steve Martin character really understand why the guy the way he was, and then how he treated him poorly, and he ends up bringing him home, right?
16:05
And he brings him to his house, and that was like Jack, like you said, that was heartwarming that he had a place to go, and uh here comes the wife, and you know, the family, and you know, the it was just beautiful for the holiday.
16:17
Mage very thankful uh of different things.
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Uh here's a question though.
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My wife used to ask me all the time, every time we watched that movie, and we saw the wife throughout this thing, and I can't remember her name, the actress.
16:28
Um, but at the very end, she's standing there and she's got the silk blouse on and she's dressed beautifully, and they got the light softening her and this and that, and she's standing there, and and Kathleen would say to me, 'Do you think she's beautiful?
16:40
I don't I don't I don't get her as a beautiful woman.' She's just, you know, and I looked at her and I said, Yeah, I think she's gorgeous.
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Now, not in the classic way you would think of gorgeous, but not an unattractive woman.
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But I think for me personally, watching this movie, going through it, I was softened up for her character in that she was the wife who was missing her husband, trying to hold the family together, and in that way, their connection made her even more beautiful.
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What do you think, Barry?
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Was she attractive?
17:13
Uh yeah, I agree with you.
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And I think what why you get that feeling is because of all the moments you talked about the foreshadowing before, all the moments that led up to that before, back in the hotel room when the you know, Steve Martin unloads on John Candy's character.
17:30
Um, that was a humanizing moment right there afterwards.
17:33
Um, when now, towards the end, going back, getting John Candy, bringing him back home, all of thinking about all that stuff, and then all of a sudden now seeing the wife, um it it puts you into the mindset that family, number one, holiday time, uh, you want to be kind to one another.
17:56
Uh, and there she is coming down, just kind of like making you feel that yes, you're home.
18:04
Right.
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Uh Jack?
18:06
Yeah, you know, uh for me it was all of his his yearning to be with her, to be home, and to be home for the holidays with her, is what made her beautiful.
18:16
Yeah, absolutely.
18:17
And and I thought, and like I said in the beginning, I think the Steve Martin character um had the biggest arc and change in who he was as a person.
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You know, Del Griffiths was who he was the whole time.
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And he was he was suffering with his grief, and you know, he was trying to get through it.
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But he was who he was.
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It was the uh, you know, the Steve Martin character that really had to see himself for how he treated people.
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And at the end, I think seeing his wife and having her see him was he was thankful after hearing Dell's story that he had his wife and children and family.
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That gave him perspective.
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They gave him a great deal of perspective of what's important, what's real, and what really matters is uh, you know, the wife, the family, and now the friendship.
19:04
Right.
19:04
Right, and the friendship, and they came out of it with with a friendship, and you know, you always wondered, would there be uh a number two?
19:10
Well, obviously we can't, John Candy's not here anymore.
19:12
And but the reality was does making a sequel of a great movie like that, does that help or hinder the story franchise?
19:21
When you look at the movie, it's a wonderful life.
19:23
I mean, could you imagine a sequel to that?
19:25
There can't be a sequel to that.
19:27
That movie was perfection from beginning to end.
19:30
Uh to make a sequel of it would be to cheapen the original, I I think.
19:34
I I I there's a lot of them out there.
19:36
Maybe you can make a sequel, but it really honestly, the sequel takes away from the original if the original was perfect.
19:42
There's a lot of a lot of I mean, how how could you make an elf too?
19:46
Without cheapening elf one.
19:48
Especially now since the main characters are significantly older.
19:52
Uh they're gonna look different.
19:54
They it's gonna have a different feel.
19:56
One of the main characters is no longer with us, uh, the father.
20:01
You know, you can't, you gotta watch what you do with some of these, and sometimes Hollywood will bypass that for a buck.
20:08
Right.
20:09
Now, I find it interesting in the making of these movies.
20:12
You're right.
20:12
How do you take like a classic?
20:14
But at the time, they didn't write a movie for sequels.
20:18
That became the blockbuster era.
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So when you had a Star Wars, uh, well, that was so big, we have to make a second one.
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And they built that into their to their process.
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There's going to be the next one.
20:30
One of the ones I I found that was successful was actually Back to the Future.
20:35
So Back to the Future Part One.
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I think it told a great, interesting story.
20:39
It was fun, it was different.
20:41
But they came up with Back to the Future Part 2 because the story allowed itself to go there.
20:47
You have a time machine, and things change.
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So what happened?
20:50
What changed?
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We can go back and see.
20:53
Even part three.
20:54
When I watch part three, it's entertaining, but don't we see the exact same story repeat itself over and over just in different time frames?
21:02
Barry?
21:03
Right.
21:03
Yeah, no, I agree.
21:05
It depends on the movie too.
21:07
You know, how close is a sequel to the original?
21:11
Um, I I think back, you know, classic Smokey and the Bandit.
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Bert Reynolds, Sally Field.
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Uh, great movie by itself.
21:19
As a uh Did you need a sequel to it?
21:21
No, but came out with the sequel.
21:24
I thought the sequel was all right.
21:26
Um, like I said, it just depends on the movies, the actors, and how far you're going back with it, too.
21:34
You know, what when did the original movie come out and how far in advance are we now that now a sequel's coming out?
21:41
I I have to say something.
21:43
I'm a fan of the old Smoky and the Bandit from when I was a kid.
21:47
And uh the sequel to it just tarnished the original.
21:52
Uh Burt Reynolds barely wanted anything to do with the sequel, and then when number three came out, he wanted nothing to do with the franchise whatsoever.
22:00
And of course, uh his his counterpart, uh Jerry Reed was cashing in.
22:07
Uh I'm really surprised that Jackie Gleason kept going with it because he didn't need to, but I guess, well, you know what?
22:13
Maybe he was enjoying the character, and or he was also cashing in.
22:18
But the third one was just absolutely horrific.
22:21
It had funny moments in it, but it was just terrible.
22:25
Yeah, I punched out after three.
22:27
Uh I agree with you on three.
22:28
Yep.
22:29
Now, and here's what I think.
22:30
One of the things that could make a sequel possible for a movie is if the writer has a bigger story to tell, and the first story, the first movie that you see, the first screenplay, the first book tells a particular part of the overall story.
22:47
And then there's the rest of it.
22:49
I'm I'm planning on it already.
22:50
So I'm foreshadowing for part two and foreshadowing of part three in my characters and the build-up.
22:56
So when I look at a lot of these things, they didn't expect them to be gigantic, super big hits, but they made so much money.
23:02
They said we got to come up with a next one.
23:04
Right?
23:04
We got to come up with a next one.
23:06
And uh, what are we how are we gonna get a script that that covers, you know, this so uh I think a lot of times when they see these things, if they plan that in advance, you might get a better script that can lend itself to that.
23:17
If they don't beat the original formula to death.
23:21
Yeah.
23:22
If they come up with a fresh idea, yes.
23:24
Uh we're speaking about holiday movies.
23:27
Uh one that encompasses all, but has a definite ending, and there can't be a sequel to it, is my personal favorite, my family's personal favorite was a Christmas Carol.
23:38
A Christmas Carol.
23:39
The old original black and white, of course, they colorized it, which is fine.
23:44
But uh the old Christmas Carol.
23:47
I mean, you can't beat Ebenezer Scrooge.
23:49
I mean, you you're you're talking about the ultimate in sadness and the ultimate in happiness.
23:55
Watching a human being turn around, and especially when it encompasses God.
24:01
It encompasses belief in him and belief in the day.
24:07
And uh the joy of the season and the giving from someone who gave nothing, including his love to the ending, and there can't be a sequel to that.
24:21
Right.
24:22
I mean, you could see what happened to Scrooge after this.
24:24
Well, it wouldn't be very interesting.
24:26
You know, what was interesting was his arc from being a guy who do nothing to a guy who had faith again in Soft Family.
24:33
And of course, the only one who did make a sequel and could have pull it off was Saturday Night Live.
24:38
Scrooge was played by Danny DeVito, and we watched him go slowly into bankruptcy and lose everything he ever had.
24:45
That's pretty funny.
24:46
Um did you ever see this movie talking about Scrooge?
24:49
One of our favorite movies here in our house was the Bill Murray Scrooge Scrooged ED.
24:55
And it was it was the same time-honored story, uh, the same elements, but it was told from a different point of view, and it was modernized.
25:03
And normally you wouldn't get away with that.
25:05
But in that movie, it told the tale of a guy who is cold to Christmas and cold to his family and friends, and why, but then as he changes, and I I think it's like I said, it's one of our favorites here, and I couldn't believe when I was watching it.
25:21
Um, who was it uh from the New York Dolls?
25:24
Uh David Johansson was the cab driver.
25:28
A lot of people don't understand who that guy is that's the cab driver.
25:32
They find him entertaining as the cab driver.
25:35
But to realize he was a major punk rock uh CBGB downtown New York, uh New York dolls rock and roll guy, and here he is in this movie, you know.
25:45
It's the bone.
25:46
Give him a ball, right?
25:47
The dog scene.
25:48
It was hysterical.
25:49
I love that movie.
25:50
But that's one where they told a different story with the same characters, not the same one.
25:55
But I agree with you.
25:56
And I like the black and white version of that original Scrooge myself.
26:00
Barry, you ever watch that?
26:01
Do you like it?
26:02
Yes, I I do like it, and I agree totally with what Jack said.
26:05
Yeah, you can you can't take a classic and just especially with a definitive end like that and and come up with a sequel.
26:15
Like you said, though, with Scrooge, you can maybe show it from a different perspective, different view, which they have tried with a bunch of movies recently, but yeah, you don't mess with the classics.
26:26
Excellent.
26:27
So what what is one of your favorite movies?
26:29
I have a few.
26:30
Uh so one's not a movie, one's a cartoon, Charlie Brown Christmas.
26:37
That's one of my favorites.
26:38
Uh and then Elf, of course.
26:41
Uh that's that's probably my second favorite.
26:43
And then Miracle on 34th Street.
26:45
Those are probably my top three for the holiday season.
26:49
We had a hierarchy at our house.
26:51
Uh basically we went out and looked at Christmas Lights on Christmas Eve, got home as soon as we can.
26:56
My wife would bake cookies while we sat and watched movies.
26:59
Uh some of them were uh we could change it up, but some of them were an absolute tradition on Christmas Eve, which was Charlie Brown Christmas to start off the evening while everybody was getting ready.
27:10
We knew, you know, everybody's running around, getting pajamas on, getting blankets out, you know, turning the tree on while that was playing.
27:19
But then, of course, when the children were younger, uh it was always Rudolph and Rudolph played every year.
27:25
And after a while, of course, they got a little older and they lost a lot of interest in Rudolph, more interest in in the Peanuts characters, uh, more interest in Elf.
27:34
We watched Elf until we were, oh, good lord.
27:36
We watched Elf so many times.
27:38
And you know, Rudolph was the big one.
27:40
It was it was it was the king of the Christmas movies, and right before it was time for bed, it was a Christmas carol.
27:46
A Christmas Carol.
27:47
It was always a Christmas carol, or always the 1930, whatever, 32, 33, uh, with Alistair Sim.
27:54
Yep.
27:55
And he was Scrooge.
27:56
Yeah, and that was uh that was that that was our hierarchy for Christmas Eve.
28:01
The other movies, It's a Wonderful Life, Thinks Tush is this.
28:05
Well, it could be it could be put into position anywhere along the line.
28:08
I mean, you know, the kids could watch it by themselves.
28:12
Me, I just was after those big movies, and uh and that was my thing.
28:16
Well, you when you mentioned Rudolph, uh the rank and bass um slop stop motion movie that they made.
28:24
Very interesting.
28:25
When I was a kid, and there was only three TV networks uh and channel 13, right?
28:29
So you you had ABC, MBC, and CBS, and they you would see it would be like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, December 7th at 8 p.m.
28:37
Well, that was something where all my cousins and I would get together, you know, if you weren't there, bring us together.
28:42
Right?
28:42
You didn't get to see it again.
28:44
It wasn't on video, it wasn't you know, streaming.
28:46
Tried to tell that to my kids that we got with my cousins over my grandmother's house, and it was just like, all right, parents silence.
28:54
Yes, silence, Rudolph is about to begin, and if we miss a second of it, we will have to wait till next year to watch it once again.
29:03
Right.
29:03
I tried to impress that upon my kids, and they were just like, well, why didn't you just grab the tape or the DVD where we didn't have any of that?
29:12
Well, it's funny that you say that because as time went by, we had VCR tapes, and I went and I bought all the Christmas movies in VCR so we could watch them when we wanted to watch them.
29:22
Then we put them into CDs, and now it's all streaming, right?
29:25
And I got all them in streaming.
29:26
But when I think of Rudolph going to my cousin's house or them all coming here, and it was they got to be 10 or 11, 12 of us, and all the moms would sit in the other room and have their coffee and whatever, and we would watch Rudolph.
29:36
It was amazing that story.
29:38
You would watch it, and I remember the who who was it, the uh the snowman, right?
29:42
And he came up and he's talking to Rudolph, and but I can't believe it.
29:46
She set up cute, she said up cute, and fly around, and that was the whole thing was magic, and Yukon Cornelius was a uh was a childhood hero.
29:56
Him and Yukon Cornelius was was the man.
29:58
Look at the bumble.
29:59
Bumble.
30:00
Bounce, right?
30:02
I want to be a dentist.
30:03
Let's uh be the independent together.
30:06
You know, uh it was it was a great tradition uh of that movie.
30:11
Another one around that same time that we would watch again, Barry, a cartoon was um Frosty the Snowman.
30:17
Uh the kids were Rusty the Snowman.
30:20
Um what a short story, it's very short.
30:23
When you realize now it's a half an hour movie, which meant it was only 22 minutes of story uh, you know, to fit in the TV format with uh advertising.
30:32
But that was a great fun story that you know, the adventure uh involved there.
30:38
All of those things.
30:39
Well, listen, uh we're going on on.
30:41
We got more to talk about with the holiday and movies in a minute.
30:44
We'll be right back.
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31:55
Well, I challenge you to find a broader array of great voices, a deeper bench of experience or a more dedicated collection of passionate patriots than here on America Outloud.
32:12
Now is our time.
32:14
My fellow Americans, America Outloud.news, Liberty, and Justice for all.
32:22
All right, everybody, welcome back to the human equation.
32:25
I have the panel with me here.
32:27
We have Barry Evans and Jack Edwards of the panel, and we're talking uh holiday movies, Thanksgiving, you know, everybody's full of turkey right now.
32:37
You're sitting back and relaxing.
32:39
So what you know, we got more movies to talk about, but we were talking at the break here.
32:44
Is that are there any traditions that you have for Thanksgiving?
32:48
And uh Jack was talking about going to your grandmother's jack.
32:52
What was that like?
32:53
Yeah, you know, uh when I was uh when I was young, uh we would pack up and head for my grandmother's house.
32:59
And uh the family's been around in this area for many, many hundreds of years, and the family was huge, and everyone that would come into the house was either an aunt or an uncle.
33:11
I don't know if anybody else grew up in that manner where the the adults were aunts, they were uncles and what have you.
33:17
And the the house was uh a smaller ranch home, and the people would come, and some people would come and they say, Oh no, we're not gonna eat, we're gonna go over to Beverly's house, or we're gonna go over to this house or that house to eat because they knew how many people were there to eat.
33:32
My aunt and my grandmother lived together, and they would make two turkeys and a ham.
33:39
And any kind of bread that was uh made on this planet was represented, uh, as well as a vegetable, anything you could possibly want, and the desserts were out of this world.
33:50
They were kept in another room on two tables, two large tables, uh pies, cakes, cookies, how many people would come for dinner?
34:01
Uh traditionally, about sitting down to dinner was uh well over 25 or 26 people.
34:10
Wow.
34:11
And the tables would go from the from the eating kitchen through the dining area, out into the living room, make an L and go up all the way to the hallway where the kids would sit at the end tables, you know, the card tables and the crappy chairs and the you know, and uh yeah, and the people would cycle through, literally aunts, uncles, what have you, cycle through the house.
34:34
Uh I'd have to get take a guess and just say at least 60 people.
34:38
And there's family names around here that I could mention to these fellows that are sitting at the table that they would readily recognize.
34:44
Uh uh families that numbered in the hundreds.
34:47
And I'd have to say at my grandmother's house, they were all cousins, aunts, uncles, what have you, and they would come.
34:53
Uh it had to be 60 people.
34:56
But uh at least 25 of us would sit down to eat at one time.
35:00
And the saying of Grace was basically yelling of Grace to get around the uh to get around into the living room so everybody could hear Gray, she died 30 years.
35:09
Yeah.
35:11
But it's uh it's a tradition that I uh I sorely sorely miss.
35:16
That kind of togetherness is uh kind of unheard of in these days around here.
35:21
Yeah.
35:22
Well, uh I gotta tell you that that sounds it sounds like a Christmas movie.
35:26
Sounds like a Hallmark movie when you're talking about there.
35:28
And it was.
35:29
Uh sounds beautiful.
35:30
But you know what?
35:30
I think a lot of people say that.
35:33
They say, well, we don't do those kind of things anymore.
35:35
The cousins don't get together.
35:36
They say, when the parents pass away, you know, you lose your holidays and this now.
35:41
But don't we replace them and have our own holidays?
35:44
I know here at my house, my wife and I, we we didn't come from gigantic families.
35:49
Uh I'm one of two.
35:50
She was one of two.
35:52
Uh we had cousins, extended family we would get together with, but I remember her saying to me when we were starting raising our kids in this and that.
35:59
She said, you know what?
36:00
Let's come up with some traditions.
36:02
Some big traditions that we do every year so that these kids have something to look forward to, that it becomes something that will keep them coming back when they get older and and that kind of thing.
36:13
So one of the first things we started was uh Thanksgiving was always like a personal family thing.
36:19
In-laws, you know, close, in-laws, no cousins or nothing like that.
36:23
But when it came to Christmas, Christmas Eve, we had uh we started calling it, and I feel bad for anybody who's listening that was part of this with Miss Fitz Christmas.
36:31
And really what it was is for people who didn't have any other place to go.
36:34
They didn't have big family in the area, or their family had moved to Florida, or you know, their family was gone.
36:40
So, well, come to our house.
36:41
We'll have an open house, Christmas Eve.
36:43
Come on, we'll just cook food and we'll sit around.
36:46
Well, that that turned into I had two young cousins whose mom and dad moved to Florida.
36:52
They retired and moved to Florida, and these two young cousins were like, they were still here, they didn't want to leave.
36:56
They had girlfriends in a sense, so why don't you fellas want you come to Christmas Eve?
37:00
So they came, brought their girlfriends.
37:02
Over time, they came and brought their kids.
37:05
And before you know it, that became like their kids were like, we have to go to Uncle Joe's for Christmas Eve.
37:11
It became a tradition.
37:13
And it evolved over the years.
37:16
We did a couple of specific things.
37:19
Um everybody would get together and there'd be hors d'oeuvres and cocktails, right?
37:23
That was always the thing.
37:24
It wasn't a drinking party per se.
37:26
But there were cocktails and food flowed very easily.
37:31
Um we always had tons and tons of food to eat.
37:34
Uh so everybody had a good time.
37:36
Then we started adding stuff to it, like the fire department would come around when the kids were little and bring the fire truck.
37:43
Well, my cousin knew the fireman and said, Hey, listen, we're having this party.
37:47
There's gonna be like 20 kids, 25 children.
37:50
Could you stop by?
37:51
And we would throw them 50 bucks, and here would the truck would show up, Santa Claus, all the firemen with the lights and everything, and we'd all go out.
37:58
And the kids are running around outside with the firemen and Santa Claus, all the neighborhood kids came out.
38:03
It was it was uh we'd all take pictures, it was wonderful.
38:06
When we came back in the house, then everybody would eat the big dinner, you know, and then we would end up.
38:12
What are we gonna do now?
38:13
Well, I played the guitar.
38:14
So then at that point, when when my wife was getting things ready for dessert and coffee and all that other stuff, and we we developed a game, a crazy game, everyone would sit in one room, I'd break out the guitar, and me and all the kids would sing Christmas carols.
38:30
So I had like 10 of them that we would all sing, and it would take a half an hour, 20 minutes, and it was funny.
38:34
I could bits with everybody, and everybody enjoyed that.
38:38
And then it was time for um some dessert.
38:41
And then we did, I don't even know what you call this game, but everybody brought a $10 gift.
38:47
Each person, every kid, everybody had to bring a $10 gift, and we put them all in a big pile, and we had these numbers, and you know your first person that goes, picks any prize they want.
38:58
The next person can either steal from the first person if they got something good or pick another prize until everybody got to go, even the little ones.
39:06
And over the years we found that that was a highlight of uh of the party because the kids kids loved it so, but then you started to find out, you know, what do these kids like?
39:16
Well, somebody always brought a good bottle of booze because then people would fight over that.
39:20
They would keep stealing it from each other.
39:22
And for the kids, whatever was the hot toy of the year, and everybody would do that.
39:27
Uh and how did we end that all out?
39:30
Because now it got to be, you know, the end of the day.
39:32
Everybody's tired.
39:33
What are we gonna do?
39:34
We uh we sung uh a song, the 12 days of Christmas, and we would make up these sheets, and everybody had a part.
39:42
And you would go around, and the little cousins would be, you know, four turtles, and it was five golden And you always tried to pick the people who would be the funniest to do five golden rings, and and we would go around do that, and on the 12th day, and everybody would scream it all out, yeah, and then we're all done.
39:59
Everybody would pick up.
40:00
All their stuff, go upstairs, do all the goodbyes, and all the families would head home for their Christmas Eve.
40:05
And there would always be a couple of people that would hang over.
40:08
As my boys got older, and my daughter got older, some of their friends would stay later, and we'd have cigars around the fire outside, you know, as we're cleaning up the house and this and that.
40:16
It became a wonderful tradition over the years of something to do for the holiday.
40:23
And I we did it for 25 years.
40:26
These kids went from being little kids to being parents to having kids to having grandbabies.
40:31
And they all came.
40:32
And after a while, I gotta tell you, after 25 years, it was hectic.
40:37
It was crazy, and it was like the point, okay.
40:41
Are we gonna do this again this year?
40:43
You know, it's really wonderful, but are we gonna do it again?
40:45
Maybe, maybe we'll go to Miami for Christmas, whatever fun to do.
40:49
And uh in the last couple of years, we said, you know, let's take a break.
40:52
Let's take a break and not do it this year.
40:54
Well, we had no idea how much we thought it was a tradition for our kids, and our kids loved it.
40:59
They still came for Christmas Eve.
41:01
But all these other people, these friends and cousins and extended people who came every year for Christmas Eve.
41:07
Like, oh, you're not doing Christmas Eve.
41:09
I don't know what I'm gonna do for Christmas Eve.
41:11
I don't know what so we said the next year, you know what?
41:13
We skipped the year, and that wasn't fun.
41:16
Let's do it again.
41:17
So we did it for a couple more years, and then we said, okay, now you know, we gave it a second run, and now we're tired.
41:23
We're gonna move on to doing something else.
41:25
But that's how you do these traditions, and that's what we wanted to have.
41:29
And I remember my kids in college saying, I'm coming home for Christmas Eve.
41:32
That's the greatest night of the year, you know, and that's that was the purpose of creating the tradition is that everyone would get back together.
41:40
Yeah, so uh some true traditions in our family.
41:44
Um Thanksgiving, uh we would either go to my grandparents' house, we would alternate it.
41:51
Um every other year it was being moved around, or I had an aunt and uncle with two cousins that lived up in Newington, Connecticut.
42:00
Uh so we one year would be a road trip, you know.
42:05
Uh, and we would always get together, we would leave uh on Thanksgiving Eve day that afternoon, and wherever we were going, my my grandparents lived down in in central Jersey.
42:19
Um, so me being from North Jersey, we would travel down there.
42:23
My cousins and aunt and uncle would come the night before, stay over our house, and we would all just go together if we were going up to Connecticut that way.
42:31
But once we all got together, um, Thanksgiving Eve was always fun.
42:35
Uh lots of games.
42:37
Um just just being around, not seeing each other really.
42:40
My cousins being in Connecticut and aunt and uncle, uh, so just hanging out, catching up with them, and then of course, Thanksgiving Day, um, yeah, watching movies, football, what have you, whatever was going on, um, and then of course, eating.
42:55
Uh, and then uh then just relaxing and enjoying each other's company.
42:59
Yep.
42:59
And it's something they what do they say?
43:01
Your cousins are really your first friends.
43:03
And that was true in our house.
43:04
My cousin, we had some, my mother had 13 brothers and sisters.
43:07
Wow.
43:08
So that when all these people had kids and they all moved to the shore, you know.
43:12
My house, we had an above-ground pool, and my other cousins didn't.
43:16
So my house was the place every day.
43:19
My aunts would come with all the kids, and I'll never forget.
43:22
We were out there, you know, with my mother would be making lunch with my aunts, and we'd be swimming all day and going crazy.
43:26
My father got home at 5 30 from a long hard day at work, and I remember my mother starting to clap her hands.
43:31
Okay, it's four o'clock, everybody, pack it up, get out of here.
43:34
We gotta get you gotta get going today.
43:36
See you tomorrow.
43:37
And that would be our our routine.
43:38
But when you think of those holidays, those were the kind of things that uh were really awesome.
43:43
You know, uh, one of the big traditions for Thanksgiving here for me anyway.
43:48
Um, my kids they they they like the the parade, the Thanksgiving Day parade, but you know, it's a three-hour long parade.
43:56
So for them to sit and watch, they would watch it at nine o'clock in the morning when it starts, and we'd all be around the watching it.
44:01
What?
44:02
And they they get in there till maybe 9 30, 9 45, and then they wanted to go off and do their thing, and my wife would go start the cooking and this and that.
44:10
I loved the parade.
44:12
I loved watching it.
44:14
I loved watching the singers, the dancers, the bands, everybody.
44:17
I just found it to be so special that there it was in Herald Square or whatever.
44:22
So that on my bucket list, my bucket list was to go to the Thanksgiving Day parade.
44:29
Now, believe me, it's a nutty thing to do because you can't imagine the crowds.
44:34
So the first time we tried to go, I said, you know what I want to do?
44:38
I want to go up the night before.
44:41
I want to go up and watch them blowing up the balloons, and we should all go.
44:45
My wife says, Listen, that's I'm not I'm not you take the kids and go.
44:49
I'm I'm busy getting ready for the holiday.
44:51
So I was planning on taking my my kids and going up there.
44:55
At the last minute, mom couldn't resist, and she says, Okay, I'll go too.
44:58
So we drove up to the city.
45:00
We got into the city.
45:01
Now, when you watch it on the news at the 11 o'clock news, you see the cameraman and the reporter and a couple of people standing around the Snoopy Balloon or the big balloon, and it looks like it looks so idyllic.
45:13
It looks so we got there at 7 o'clock at night.
45:16
It was so so mobbed you could not walk.
45:22
People with strollers, people literally, you're you're you're front to back with a million people trying to look at the balloon as you go by.
45:29
It was so horrible.
45:30
My poor daughter Marisa, she was seven, right?
45:34
She couldn't, she couldn't see, she was getting but I put her on my shoulders, and then her legs went numb, and next thing you know, we're all my my son was annoyed, my wife was in it, we're all mad at each other, and we couldn't stand a crowd, and I just saw an opening.
45:46
Let's go.
45:47
And we all moved out of the let's go.
45:49
You know, and then we're like, everybody's upset, we're just going home.
45:51
Well, it was about a 10-block walk to the parking area where we parked the car.
45:58
And we're all walking, and we're all annoyed now.
46:00
We're all so hungry because now it's we didn't eat dinner because we, you know, we got there, and my wife's like, Well, look at this place, we go in here and eat.
46:07
We look at it, I said, Look at the menu.
46:08
200 for this.
46:09
I'm not doing it back.
46:10
Right next to the parking garage.
46:13
And I'll never forget this, and I I don't know where it is, but I know the name of it.
46:16
Um, Giordano's Giordano's restaurant.
46:20
It was a it was a hole in the wall uh on the side street.
46:24
It was just, it had like 10 tables in it, and there was a family sitting there eating dinner.
46:30
And I looked at it, I looked at the prices.
46:31
Chicken palm dinner was 14.99.
46:33
That's not bad.
46:35
So now we're all now.
46:36
Remember, we're all everybody's tense and we're annoyed, and I went in, I said, Let me check.
46:40
There's a guy sitting there with his family say, excuse me.
46:42
How's the food here?
46:43
We're gonna eat.
46:44
He goes, Listen, this is a gem.
46:45
This is a neighborhood restaurant.
46:47
Nobody comes here but the locals, it's great.
46:49
So I said, All right, come on in, we're all gonna eat because everybody's complaining there.
46:52
Well, the food was great.
46:53
Ice cold.
46:54
Next thing you know, everybody's laughing.
46:56
We're oh, this is great.
46:58
Do you want to go back?
46:59
No, nobody, we're not gonna see no more balloons.
47:01
Let's go home.
47:02
But it turned out to be a wonderful evening, so much so that a couple of years goes by, and we're like, we really did want to see that.
47:11
Um so my wife did the right thing, and she booked us a hotel on the parade route at the W Hotel.
47:19
That's a big hotel near Fox uh Studios, and it's right on the parade route.
47:24
And we went there the day before, and we we were there early in the day, right?
47:28
Because we had a hotel room.
47:29
Well, we got to walk up to all the balloons.
47:31
We got to watch them without these massive crowds, and we're like, this is great.
47:36
In the morning, I'll come down at 6 o'clock with my my son, we'll stand on the barrier, we'll get a nice place because it's 20, 30 people deep, right?
47:44
You see it from TV.
47:45
There's no room to move, but if you're up on the barricade, you can see the parade.
47:48
And I said, that'll be wonderful.
47:50
The other thing about having a hotel was that when you're standing there all day, and you got to get in line, you've got to get on in barricades at 6-6 30, the latest, or you're not seeing you're one of the 20 people back.
48:00
Is if you need a bathroom, you can go into your hotel.
48:03
You can get a cup of hot chocolate.
48:05
Because if you don't have a hotel, you ain't going in the bathroom, and then you're standing there for hours with kids, right?
48:10
So we got this this hotel, and the night before we saw the thing, we had a wonderful dinner.
48:15
The next day, I wake up, Jack and I, my youngest at the time.
48:19
We get dressed up, we're going downstairs to the parade route.
48:22
Now, right at our hotel was a side street, and the barricades went up the main street and then down the side street.
48:28
We found a nice place right in the corner of the uh the side street thing where we man, we could see everything.
48:34
This is gonna be great.
48:35
And we're hanging out about eight o'clock.
48:37
Mom and Marisa come down, and we're this is gonna be the greatest thing.
48:41
Now the crowds are starting to come in.
48:43
Well, about 8 15, the police come and they close the barricade on the side street, and all the people file in, and now we're 20 people back.
48:54
Like we just I said, are you kidding me?
48:57
This is horrible.
48:58
We spent all this money for the hotel.
49:00
Well, standing in the street is a cop directing traffic.
49:04
And he's standing there, and I'm looking at him and I'm waving at him.
49:08
He goes, Hey, what's up, what's up?
49:10
I said, uh, I held up my badge because I'm a cop, right?
49:12
So I held up my badge.
49:13
He goes, Come here, come here.
49:14
So I come out of the barricade, I go in the middle of the street.
49:17
He goes, What's up?
49:18
I said, Listen, uh, we can blah blah here's the story.
49:20
And now we can't see nothing.
49:21
He goes, Oh, well, you see across the street over there.
49:24
Well, there was an entire block that was blocked off, and where it could normally hold 6,000 people, there was about 80 people.
49:34
They were sitting on stoops, they had the whole place to themselves.
49:37
He goes, Why don't you go in there?
49:38
That's the NYPD family area.
49:41
Nice.
49:41
I said, What?
49:42
He goes, Yeah, go right in there.
49:44
Take your family.
49:44
I'm like, Kathy, come here.
49:46
Come on, kids, let's go.
49:47
We're in the middle of the street, we go.
49:49
And this guy, look, this loot, he was a lieutenant.
49:51
He looks over to the Sarge, Sarge, Sarge, let the lieutenant from Jersey in over there.
49:55
I go in, it was all cops and their families, and there was
50:00
So much space.
50:01
I felt terrible.
50:02
I felt guilty because there was enough space there for 6,000 people, and there was maybe 120 of us.
50:07
They had hot chocolate, they had bathrooms.
50:09
And here comes the parade, and we're standing right, like there's the balloons.
50:13
It's like hitting you in the face as the ropes are going by.
50:16
It was the most magical, wonderful thing.
50:18
So much so that my cousins, I knew my other cousins were coming to the parade.
50:21
I called them.
50:22
I said, Where are you?
50:23
And they're like, we're trying to find a place.
50:24
I said, go up 53rd Street.
50:27
And tell me when you get to the parade route.
50:29
And I went to the sergeant.
50:30
Sarge, I got some cousins go, yeah, no problem, Lieutenant.
50:32
My cousins come.
50:33
Come on in.
50:33
They're like, how did you get this?
50:35
I'm like, I know some people.
50:38
NYPD was excellent.
50:40
It was absolutely amazing.
50:41
And we had such a wonderful time that it was, it was great.
50:45
Um magical bucket list, so much so that I'll tell you right now.
50:50
I would never go back and try and do it again.
50:53
The weather was about 55 degrees, sunshine.
50:57
It was as perfect as it could be.
51:00
The only downside of the whole thing.
51:02
The only downside, the parade was great.
51:04
My cousins were getting everybody, they all leave.
51:05
We go back to our hotel.
51:06
Well, it's an old hotel.
51:08
It's a luxurious hotel, but it's old.
51:10
Two elevators up and down, like the 20 stories.
51:14
So you gotta wait like 40 minutes to get an elevator to go to your room to pack your stuff, to wait 40 minutes to get back down with your stuff so you can leave.
51:24
And then you know the traffic.
51:25
Oh my god.
51:26
It was it was crazy, but that was the only really downside to it.
51:30
But what a magical thing to actually see that parade at that closeness.
51:36
And those cops, the NYPD cops, they could not have been nicer.
51:40
The families, all of them, hey, you're from Jersey.
51:41
Hey, what's going on?
51:42
Hey, we're so glad you're in here.
51:44
And I'm like, do you do this every year?
51:46
He goes, Yeah, usually it's a different spot every year.
51:48
He says, but here's my number.
51:50
Call me next year.
51:50
I'll tell you where we're at.
51:51
You come again.
51:52
And I'm like, well, that would be great, but I'm not taking a chance.
51:55
Then it would be as magical as this one.
51:58
But it closed that bucket list.
51:59
And that was that was really a wonderful tradition on things.
52:04
Um anything to add with these things, fellas?
52:06
Well, you know, my uh my tradition to the surprise of everyone is of course the turkey derby at our local track here.
52:13
Uh I race on Fridays.
52:15
So that's been a tradition of mine for almost 30 years.
52:19
So you race in this.
52:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
52:22
Yeah, with third uh it happens on Fridays, the day after Thanksgiving every year.
52:28
And uh and and Saturdays also.
52:31
And uh I run on Fridays.
52:33
What kind of car do you drive?
52:35
Uh this year I'm not driving.
52:37
Last year was a what they call a factory stock.
52:41
Um this year I'm just gonna sit and relax and uh go into pits and hang out with my friends, and then Saturday I go back with my son.
52:49
It's been a tradition for him for about 20 years.
52:52
Wow.
52:53
That sounds actually more.
52:56
Actually, longer than that.
52:57
Him, he and I go on Saturdays and freeze.
53:00
Yeah, that's that's something.
53:00
You you you've been a racer for a long time.
53:02
I remember when was it my Jack or Joe or Al?
53:05
I don't remember which one of the boys, but you were racing, and you're like, hey, come on down, I'll take you in the pits.
53:10
And he took us down into the pit.
53:11
And man, you talk about uh, you know, holy you're in the racing pits with all the cars with mechanics.
53:17
It was a jack.
53:18
Yeah, that was oh, that was crazy.
53:20
What a cool thing.
53:21
Um, Barry, any traditions you like to do or things you like to follow up with?
53:26
So my children have been asking for a while now to get to New York City for New Year's Eve.
53:34
Uh it's on their bucket list.
53:36
I spent one year years ago in my 20s.
53:40
Uh you don't need a travel agent, you need a priest.
53:43
Right.
53:44
And it was horrendous.
53:46
Absolutely horrendous.
53:48
That's the only word I can use to describe it.
53:51
Um I was waiting for them to get a little older.
53:53
Uh, it's not gonna be this year, but um I would say within the next year.
53:59
Probably by next year we're gonna do that.
54:01
You're gonna line up at 12 in the afternoon and stand there all day, no bathrooms.
54:05
No, I'm gonna look to get a hotel.
54:07
Yeah, that's the thing that that's the thing to do.
54:09
And they tell you you got to book it.
54:10
Got a year or two in advance.
54:12
Exactly.
54:12
So I'm looking at doing that now.
54:14
Yeah, that I can I could sit in a window and watch the festivities and watch it on TV and then watch the ball drop right in front of me.
54:20
It's it is magic.
54:21
I mean, the city is kind of a of a mess these days, and who knows how what it's gonna be like.
54:26
But for those years, the Giuliani years, that city was magic.
54:30
You could go there for anything, it was beautiful.
54:32
Uh you know, going for dinner at Christmas was always nice.
54:35
Absolutely.
54:35
It was really cool.
54:37
Uh, so that's good.
54:38
So uh we're almost out of time here.
54:40
You know, the time goes so quick when we're talking about this, and I'm sure a lot of you at home, you have your traditions, your Thanksgiving traditions, Christmas holiday traditions.
54:49
I think what the message you're getting from all of us here as we re recount our memories, it's all about family and friends and being connected.
54:57
It's not so much where you are, it's it's what you're doing uh and who you're doing it with, and that's that's one of the most beautiful things.
55:04
And that's why I love the tradition of the movies, because it was something we could all uh jump in on.
55:10
And you had to remind me about the uh gift giving swap.
55:14
Uh yeah, the last time we did that at my uh at my sister-in-law's house with my in-law's family.
55:19
And of course, uh, to this day I'm stuck with a vegetable chopper, and we haven't done the uh present swap since.
55:26
Well, it's a funny thing now.
55:28
You mentioned that.
55:28
So you remind me of these things.
55:30
My my wife's aunt decided to make Christmas candles for people as gifts.
55:36
And she was very talented.
55:37
It wasn't like, you know, me making a candle, it was her making a candle.
55:40
She made beautiful candles and she gave them out.
55:43
Well, we went to some pre-Christmas thing at her house and she gave out these candles.
55:47
Well, we get home, and of course, my wife says, you know, that's such a great thing.
55:50
Maybe we should do that for Christmas Eve.
55:52
Maybe we should make some candles, let the kids mail, you know.
55:56
Okay, so my my wife and my kids are making beautiful candles that they were gonna give out to everybody as a keepsake for the night.
56:03
My candle looked like a bastard alley cat.
56:06
It was it was droopy, it was melty, it was sloppy, it was it it looked mix of colors.
56:13
I thought mixing colors with crayons would make it really festive, and it just looked like somebody threw up and it hardened.
56:20
So I put it in one of those cookie tins, a round cookie tin, right?
56:24
I put it in there, and I remember Kathleen looking at it going, what the heck is that?
56:29
I said, That's my candle.
56:30
She goes, Who are you gonna give that to?
56:31
Who's gonna want that?
56:32
No offense.
56:33
And I had, you know, you're right, you're not offending me.
56:35
It looks horrible.
56:36
But there was the two little wicks sticking out of it in his cook.
56:39
I said, you know what I'm gonna do?
56:41
I'm gonna wrap this up, and we're gonna make this the booby prize.
56:45
And whoever gets it, you have to keep it.
56:48
You can't swap it.
56:49
Whoever gets the booby prize must keep it for one year, and they must display it in their home, do something to it, and bring it back next year.
56:57
Well, that became a 20-year tradition.
57:00
Wow.
57:00
So the first year I explained that there's a special prize in there, and I forget who got it.
57:05
My cousin got it, he opens it up and he goes, What the heck is this?
57:07
I said, That's your special prize with a note in there.
57:10
You must display this in your home in a prominent location for the whole year and bring it back next year.
57:15
Well, the next year I kind of forgot about it.
57:18
And we show up and he walks in, he's got all his presents, and he goes, Hey, I got the booby prize in here.
57:22
I'm like, Oh, I forgot about it.
57:24
He goes, and you gotta see what I did to it.
57:26
Well, we put it out amongst the pro and somebody else got it, and we opened it up, and he put some crazy G.I.
57:31
Joes or something on it, and my next cousin got it.
57:34
So listen, you have your traditions out there, everybody.
57:37
We have ours here.
57:38
I hope you have plenty of turkey, and remember all the things we should be thankful for because no matter what's going on in your life, there's always things to be thankful for and grateful for.
57:48
And I know me and the panel, I speak for them.
57:50
We're all glad you're out there.
57:52
So enjoy your holiday, and we'll see you soon.