Latest / The M&M Experience / Friday October 23 2026 | Christmas Comes Early - Holiday Memories

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Friday October 23 2026 | Christmas Comes Early - Holiday Memories · The M&M Experience

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to A Meeting of the Minds, crafted from decades
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: of talk show experience.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: An extension of the.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Magic they've created together on radio in the phenomenon called
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: M & M. Hot topics in the news and wisdom
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: from life. It's Mark Davis and Mike Gallagher. This is
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: M & M Extra.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: The calendar says Friday, the 23rd of October.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: And yes, we're a week and a half away in
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: the midterms and we're paying attention to none of that today.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: As the M & M Extra, Mike and Mark. I
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: am Mark.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: He is Mike.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: As the holiday extravaganza continues. And what are we talking about?
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: We're talking about Christmas. But first, I want to tell
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: you about Preborn. They're a title sponsor. You can stand
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• 0:57
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• 1:02
  Speaker 4: I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. You know what we
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: can't do? If we did this right on our Christmas
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  Speaker 4: show today, which we're going to do all things Christmas.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yep.
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  Speaker 4: If we did it right, we'd be playing a bunch
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: of Christmas carols. But the problem is YouTube, because we're
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: loving going live every day at YouTube, noon Eastern, 11 Central. Yep.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: We love that people can watch the YouTube version of Eminem,
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: but YouTube has all of these.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Great, Licensing and stuff.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: The music licensing stuff. Which I understand. Well, I get it.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, they're protecting the artist. There's nothing wrong with it.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: But the trouble is, we kind of innocently will play
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: a bit of music, and before you know it, we
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: get a strike against our account. Three strikes, we're out.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: You know, so, I mean, I've got people in my
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: life who've been banned for life from YouTube. Life. They
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: don't play around. So we appreciate the platform.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: We love YouTube. We don't want to do anything to
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: annoy them.
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  Speaker 4: Please don't be mad at us. Please don't be mad
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  Speaker 4: at us, YouTube. We love you. So we're not going
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: to have the actual Christmas carols today. But I thought
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: it would be kind of fun to just sort of
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: do a little stroll down memory lane. You've talked about
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: your childhood. You were a military brat. I was the
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: product of a couple of... Irish Catholic Blue Dog Democrats,
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: you know, and, you know, we've got so many great,
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: I just love, love Christmas. Like most, you know, cliched people,
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: it's my favorite time of the year. Didn't always, wasn't
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: always the case, but it is now. It continues to be.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: And I thought it would be kind of fun to
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: explore Davis family Christmas traditions and Gallagher family traditions. Christmas traditions.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: What do you think?
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  Speaker 2: What's the first Christmas you remember?
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  Speaker 4: I remember going to church with my mom and dad
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: as a little boy in Ohio. I remember winter. I
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: remember snow. We always went to midnight mass. I was
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: a Catholic as a little boy. I eventually became a
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Methodist after I married Denise. But I was a Catholic,
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: and midnight mass, you didn't dare go to church with
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: On Christmas Day, you didn't go in the afternoon. It
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: was Midnight Mass. And Mark, the magic of Midnight Mass,
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  Speaker 4: the candles, the Christmas carols, the lights, the nativity scene,
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: the baby Jesus, midnight on Christmas Eve. It was just,
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: it was magic. It was so special.
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  Speaker 3: This is crazy that you mentioned that because I completely
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: share that view with a different, for a different reason.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I grew up, mom and dad, we went to Bell's
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  Speaker 3: United Methodist Church in Camp Springs.
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  Speaker 2: Maryland, and we went most of the time.
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  Speaker 3: My parents gave me a really good appreciation of God
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  Speaker 3: every day. Were we like regular churchgoers? Not so very much.
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  Speaker 3: But the religious meaning of Christmas and the enormity of
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: the birth of Jesus, it was always infused completely in me.
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  Speaker 2: So here's the thing.
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  Speaker 3: So I have a relatively batting 500 Protestant-ish actual church-going history.
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  Speaker 2: And then in.
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  Speaker 3: My senior year of high school, I begin to date
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  Speaker 3: a Catholic girl. And she invites me to go with
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  Speaker 3: her family. to something I had never experienced before in
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  Speaker 3: my life. Didn't even really have, quite frankly, that much
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  Speaker 3: awareness of it at 17. And that was Midnight Mass
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  Speaker 3: at St. Philip's in Camp Springs, Maryland. And so I'm 17,
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  Speaker 3: and I've never, and I was absolutely bowled over. Because
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  Speaker 3: you just think, because all you do is anticipate Christmas.
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  Speaker 3: And when does Christmas begin? Midnight of, you know, when
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  Speaker 3: it passes from the 24th to the 25th.
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  Speaker 4: Sure.
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  Speaker 3: And from the priest, the pageantry, incense up and down
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  Speaker 3: the aisle, the songs. I mean, I was absolutely blown away.
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  Speaker 2: I loved it.
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  Speaker 4: Well, and you know, it's funny you mentioned the spiritual
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  Speaker 4: part of this, and it is important that we never
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  Speaker 4: forget Christ is in Christmas. We never forget the reason
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  Speaker 4: for the season. We got to remember that. And my
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: mom and dad, we had a tradition. It's kind of goofy.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: It's a little schmaltzy. Every good Catholic family, I think,
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: and maybe many just general Christian families, have a nativity
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  Speaker 4: scene to remind us of what the reason for the
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: season is. We always had a beautiful nativity scene, and
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: it was up on the mantle over the fireplace. But
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: the family, we never put the baby Jesus in the
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: manger until we got back from Christmas Eve midnight mass.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: And I get a little emotional just thinking about it
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  Speaker 4: because it was one of my happiest memories of my dad,
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: a pipe-smoking Bostonian with a twinkle in his eye, large guy,
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  Speaker 4: wonderful sense of humor, an incredible man. And when we
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: got back from Midnight Mass, we hid the baby Jesus
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  Speaker 4: behind the nativity scene. When we got back from Midnight Mass,
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  Speaker 4: and I know this is tacky and goofy, but this
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: was us.
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  Speaker 2: No, I'm hooked. This is great.
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  Speaker 4: So my dad would lift me up in his arms.
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  Speaker 4: I was a little boy, seven, eight, nine years old.
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  Speaker 4: He would hand me the baby Jesus in my little hand,
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  Speaker 4: and I would put the baby Jesus in the manger,
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  Speaker 4: and the three of us together would say, God bless us, everyone.
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  Speaker 4: And that was our family tradition. God bless us. Everyone.
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  Speaker 4: That's a true story. And so that's what you talk about. Memories, Mark,
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  Speaker 4: those are, that's the kind of thing that stands out
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  Speaker 4: to me. I remember that like it was yesterday.
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  Speaker 2: Of course.
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  Speaker 3: So if we're going to stay in childhood for a second, please,
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: we didn't even talk about this ahead of time with
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: what I'm about to talk about next. Shall we advise
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: anyone watching or listening with a young child in the car?
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: I'm about to go there. Do you know what I'm
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: talking about?
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: Are you going to go blue? Well, no, no. You're
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: going to start cussing? No. You're going to start cursing?
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: What do you mean?
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: In a Christmas discussion, what would a particularly young child
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: need to be protected from a discussion about?
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't want to— what if there's kids listening right now?
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: I guess— Well, we can do it. Well, we could
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: do it. We could do it. Hey, mom, dad, you
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: know where we're about to go. It has to do
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: with faith, I think, and belief and what you believe in.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah. Faith of a sword and belief of a
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  Speaker 2: sword and a particular figure.
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  Speaker 4: I don't mean faith. Belief.
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  Speaker 2: Belief.
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  Speaker 4: So let's take, we're going to come back in five minutes. Exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Because this is the show where we just dive into everything.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: And we're afraid of nothing. So we are ready, ready, ready, ready, ready.
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  Speaker 1: Five minutes.
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  Speaker 4: Five minutes.
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  Speaker 2: How old were you when you learned there were no Santa?
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  Speaker 4: I still believe there's Santa. Wait a minute, what? I
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: think I was probably 11 or 12, maybe 10. I
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  Speaker 4: don't remember the moment, and I don't really remember that
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  Speaker 4: aha revelation that he's not real.
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  Speaker 3: I don't either, and I don't remember being bitter about it,
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: because I think every kid, once you get to be
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: like 9, 10, 11, it's like, dude, what is one guy...
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  Speaker 3: You know, seven billion people or however many billion people
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: there were, you know, when I was seven in 1965,
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: you start to get a little skeptical. And eventually with
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: the reveal, it's like, OK, I'm wait a minute. I'm
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: still getting stuff right. And I'm half kidding about that.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: But it's not like it was bone crushing. Here's what went.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: So when Ethan, my son, who's 23, when when we
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: finally you're familiar with Elfin a shelf.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, sure.
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  Speaker 3: And we did Elf in a Shelf every year, and
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  Speaker 3: he got to the kind of the point where the
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: elf was real, and we wondered whether the elf was real.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: I think it broke Lisa and me up more to
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: have that conversation with him than it did him, because
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  Speaker 3: it was like, this is where... And listen, the spirit
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: of Santa, the spirit of giving, the spirit that Santa
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  Speaker 3: is alive, miracle on 34th Street, all of that, I
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: totally believe that. It doesn't make Christmas any less special.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like, wow. But when you're four and
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: you're five and you're six and you look up into
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: the sky on a cold night and you think about
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: those reindeer and you think about those hoofbeats on the roof, man,
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: there's nothing like it. There is nothing like it.
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  Speaker 4: And I do remember leaving, my mom made, the big
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: holiday tradition of cookies in our household were oatmeal cookies.
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: She made oatmeal and peanut butter cookies, but especially oatmeal cookies.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: And she would sprinkle red and green sprinkles on top
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: of the oatmeal cookies at Christmas, right? I would leave
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: a plate out for Santa every Christmas Eve when we
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: got back from mass and all that. And of course,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: Damned if the next morning they were all gone. They
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: were all, there were just crumbs left. And I was
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: so excited because I thought Santa got the cookies. Santa
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: got the cookies. But do you want to know what
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: my cynical, you know, jaded memory is?
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: You've got about 60 seconds left on the S word
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: before people safely come.
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  Speaker 4: Back with their kids. So go ahead. I kind of
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: feel like I was always in on it. In other words,
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: I kind of knew he wasn't real, but I pretended
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: that he was. I think I was a performer.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Cause you didn't, cause you didn't, cause the moment you
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: shrug and go, okay, I guess.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: That I didn't want to let them down. I didn't
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: want to let them down. I didn't want to let
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: mom and dad down. So, all right.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: I don't want to let this audience down with 30,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: with lightning, with 30 seconds.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: I never found any conflict between Santa and Jesus.
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  Speaker 4: None.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: There are, there are people that they were not.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, especially with the way the Santa conversation winds
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: up happening. So the notion that these are, because I
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: have been charmed and loved and, and taken and smitten
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: and awashed in both images my whole life.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: So, thank you.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Well, here's a message that Christians can walk and chew
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: gum at the same time. You can understand what Jesus
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: is all about and why we celebrate Christmas, and you
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: can appreciate Santa. And look, in the spirit of giving,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: please remember Food for the Poor. Mark and I have
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: traveled to Guatemala. We stood in a community. Again, one
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: of my happiest treasured photographs is a picture of you
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: cradling a little child with Lisa and Ethan. What a
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: great memory that is for all of us. We saw schools, kindergartens,
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: farming communities. Because Food for the Poor buys from local farms.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: They build self-sufficiency. They give people a way up. And
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: I know Mark.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: Like me, you've been touched deeply by food for the poor.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: You know what we did? And I had never done this. Really,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: we fed people. We literally fed people. There was a
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: feeding center, and it was moms and kids and sometimes
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: local police officers and stuff who didn't make enough money,
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: or they had to spend money on this. And so
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: for them to be able to get a lunch enabled
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: their families to have better. But to actually hand food
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: from your hands onto the plate of other people who
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: are needy. It was unbelievably transforming. And to the degree
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: to which this audience is going to help other people
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: do that and help that to continue in Guatemala and
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Haiti and other places in Latin America and the Caribbean,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: we are so grateful.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And listen, don't get started on us. They are so grateful.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Text FFTP, as in food for the poor, text FFTP
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: to 51555. And you'll get the donation link. You got
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: five bucks. Got 500 bucks? Anything in between? We are
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: enormously grateful. Text FFTP to 51555, and let's keep that
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: feeding going as we are called to do.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: And I'm called to get you out of pain. It
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: was my mission with my pal, Mark Davis, my podcast
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: partner and dear friend. Relief Factor has been a part
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: of my life for years, and now it's a part
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: of your life as well. Rather than just tell you
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: about Relief Factor like we love to do every day,
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: let's let our customers do it. Tommy wrote in, there
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: are times of the year when I can barely walk
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: on my right knee. And when I first started, I
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: took it for two days. Man, I was springing around
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: like a kid. You're throwing the tennis ball in the
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: backyard with the dog's And having a great time with
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Relief Factor's pain-free life. It's a great thing, isn't it, Mark?
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: It's a great feeling to be out of pain.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: You forget. It's funny.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: When something hurts long enough, it's sort of baked into
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: your life. You go, well, I guess this is just
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: the way it kind of is. I didn't want to
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: do shoulder surgery. It wasn't bad enough to merit that.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: But it was just kind of a nagging pain.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: And to be freed from that nagging pain, just from
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Relief Factor, to be able to do that is just
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: an incredible blessing in my life. And we want to
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: extend that blessing to others. Three-week starter pack, $ 17. 76. ReliefFactor.com.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: ReliefFactor.com or 1-800-4-RELIEF. My shoulder, Mike's back, your fill-in-the-blank, whatever
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: it is. ReliefFactor.com or 1-800-4-RELIEF.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: Let me tell you a safe Santa story since everybody's
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: back now.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: And we welcome you all back.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: It's all right.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Kids are welcome.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: My granddaughter, now she's 16 years old, which is kind
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: of hard to believe. And she was born in Keller, Texas.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: I remember her being like five. That's crazy.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Oh, I know. It's nuts that she's 16 and driving
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: and driving the family crazy because she's a teenager and
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: she is wonderful and special. But when she was a little,
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: little girl, when she was four or five, maybe six,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: I decided it would be special for her. Pop-Pops, as
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: I'm known, to dress up and to visit the household
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: as Santa Claus.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, my.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: Yep. Now, you know me. I am a thespian, so
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: I went all in. You were all in. I mean,
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: I did the makeup. I had rouge. I had a
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: red nose. I had the perfect wig, beard. I got
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: the padding. I mean, I was heavy then, but I
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: wasn't heavy enough to be Santa, so I got a padding.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: I did it all, okay? Went crazy. And I was
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: so excited. I got the sack of toys and I
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: had toys in there for her. And, you know, Trevor
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: set it all up and we were all ready to go. Mark,
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: it was like one of those horror movies. Oh, no, no, wait, wait, wait, no, no.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: When Freddy Krueger shows up. The story was going so well. Oh,
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: I walked into the living room and.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, oh, where's Lily?
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: Where's Lily? And do you know, she started screeching and screaming.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: Like I was a demon. I mean, it was... And
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: we couldn't get it off.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Where is the child? The child is mine.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: It was unbelievable. I mean, you know, one of the
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: most awful images at Christmastime is when the Grinch steals
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: the presents from under the kid's tree.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: I always thought how dark that was and how, you know...
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: How gutsy that is to do that. Well, that's what
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: I felt like. She was inconsolable. She only stopped screaming
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: when I left the damn house.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: That's incredible.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: It was a bust. It was a bust.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: But here's the interesting, because that echoes back, because haven't
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: we all, there may be one of you, I don't know,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: how many pictures are there? Did your mom and dad
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: ever take you to see Santa at a local store
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: or local mall when.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: You were a little bitty? Did that always go well?
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: I think it did for me, but I think there's
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: one of me, maybe not when I'm seven, because I'm
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: all in at that point, but maybe when I'm like,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: I was born in November, so maybe I'm 13 months
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: old and I'm just barely a year and I'm in
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Santa's lap and I'm just, because I don't know what
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: this big, frightening person is.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: Well, I've got a picture of me not on his
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: lap because I was a little too big. I was
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: 59 years old at Macy's. Let me tell you about
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Macy's in New York City. And, you know, I've got
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: to share my love of New York at Christmastime.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: Because I've got two traditions that I do every year
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: without fail now, and I'm going to do it for
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: the rest of my life. I will always, always go
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And I do it.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: I go broke. You do it, right. I get a hotel.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: The suite.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: It's on 6th Avenue. Well, it's not a suite. It's
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: just a room, but it's on the parade route. They
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: gouge you like a bank robber. I mean, it's the stupidest.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: I'm embarrassed to tell you how much I'm going to
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: pay for this room. Because you've got to get a
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: minimum of three nights stay. Because everybody wants to stay
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: in a hotel room. Of course. There's nothing like being
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: in a hotel room when it could be windy, cold, rainy, snow.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: But you're in the room getting room service and looking
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: down at those beautiful balloons and all that fun stuff.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Do the windows crack open?
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: They open open. You can open the window.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: They more than crack. You can open the window and
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: kind of sit there. So it's an older build. The
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: hotel I go to, it's... Anyway, that's my kicking off
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: Christmas tradition in New York. And then? And then I
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: never miss... The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Just the best. The Rockettes.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I did that for the first time. How old were
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: you when you did that for the first time? Oh,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: I've been doing this for 25, 30 years. A long time.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: It was probably five, six years ago. We went with
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Carmen and Bobby, my sister-in-law and her husband. And so
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: the first time I did it was like five years ago,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: done it once since. It's just the best. And it
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: is New York, and it's very secular in a way
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: because it's the Rockettes, but it is very religious toward
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: the end when they absolutely... The Living Nativity. Oh, it's tremendous.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: They do a Living Nativity. Mark, it's New York. How
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: do they get away with it? They should have a
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: citation and, you know... Oh, how's Mom Donnie going to
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: handle the Living Nativity?
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: How's Zoran Mom Donnie? If he hears about the Living Nativity,
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: he'll shut that thing down.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, shh.
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: And there was, they used to do, now they got
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: rid of this, so they're phasing part of it out.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: But at the end of the Living, and I wonder
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: if you remember this.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: They had a giant... message on a scrim and a
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: scrim is like a big curtain that goes in front
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: of the proscenium of a stage where you can see
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: through it but then when the lights hit it from
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: the front it completely goes solid And that there was
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: a message. Did they do one solitary life at the
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: end of your Radio City Music.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Hall Christmas spectacular?
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: Hold on.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Was it like a little poem?
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Yes. It was like an essay. He never traveled more
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: than how many miles?
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: We were captivated. 100%.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Yes. Then they got rid of that. They got rid
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: of that. They don't do that anymore. They do the
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Living Nativity with... is amazing. And by the living nativity,
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: let me explain for people so they know what it is.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Mary and Joseph, of course, the three wise men, all
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: that stuff, the shepherds, but all live animals, donkeys, camels.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: like an oxen, and they march them out onto that stage.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, buddy.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: And they're all there at the very end, and the
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: angel comes flying in from the wings, and she's hovering
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: over the living, and it's all about the birth of
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: Jesus Christ at Radio City Music Hall, smack dab in
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: the middle of blue, blue, blue New York City. I
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: almost don't... I almost don't want to talk about it.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: I'm afraid they're going to shut it down.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Well, here in Red State, Texas, and you obviously were
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: here for a long time, did you ever get over
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: to Prestonwood in Plano to do the gift of Christmas?
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: Mark, I'm so upset about this. Tom Tradup, he goes
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: to Prestonwood. In fact, Tom's in the choir, and he
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: has invited me every single year. Maybe this is my year.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: But I will say this. You understand the criticism it gets, right?
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: It gets a lot of criticism.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: That it's too lavish or costs too much or whatever.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: Way over the top. You got people flying through the
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: air and it's just ridiculously.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: But it's fantastic.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: I would love it.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: You will love it.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: And I'm going to tell you something. I mean, Radio
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: City Music Hall is New York. It's the Rockettes. It's
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: top drawer. I'm going to tell you, and I think
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: you may be skeptical, but go this year and tell
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: me if you think I'm right. I think it absolutely
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: rivals Broadway, New York, Radio City-style production values and quality.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: I swear it does. That's what everybody tells me.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: Prestonwood in Plano, Gift of Christmas. And I think the
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: tickets go on sale like October 1 or November 1
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: or something. I think November 1. And it's simply one
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: of the most... And the argument about does it cost
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: a ton of money, you bet it does. But for
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: the expenditure, how many people... come into that hall and
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: see that spectacle and have the joy of Christmas and
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: the miracle of Christ's birth fill them in that way,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: and maybe even in a life-changing way. I mean, I
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: go to Fellowship, headquartered in Grapevine. That's a pretty high-dollar
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: presentation they're doing, too. And it's thousands of people every
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: weekend brought to Jesus with Ed Young and those graphics
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: and that music ministry. Listen, if you want to go
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: to a humbler, more low key, you know, acoustic guitars
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: on a stool, knock yourself out. It's the same Jesus.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: It's the same God. It's the same Bible. But if
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: a church really wants to do it up and that
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: winds up attracting people to the message, in this case,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: the message of Christmas, it strikes me as money superbly spent.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: I agree. And speaking of money superbly spent, we are
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: proud to welcome MyPillow as a brand new M &
• 22:47
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• 22:50
  Speaker 4: to make today because yesterday we started the first ad.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: Poor Yasmin scrambling. She's got what we call B-roll when
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  Speaker 4: we play the MyPillow ad, and it still had the
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: old promo code. We have a brand-new promo code for MyPillow.
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  Speaker 4: Mike's got some very bold views about life. Well, guess what?
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  Speaker 4: Here's the big news, though, Mark. Besides MyPillow.com, promo code EXTRA, Also,
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  Speaker 2: Get out.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, my gosh.
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  Speaker 1: The whole wide.
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• 24:49
  Speaker 4: our christmas spectacular which maybe it's kind of half a
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: spectacular but it's good good conversation spectacular to me i
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: like these friday theme shows i loved it i love
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: every bit of it but let's talk about the birth
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: of baby the baby jesus the sanctity of life and
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: how important pre-born is to you and me and all
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: of us here at the m & m extra podcast.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: When we take a look at— this may be the easiest
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: low-hanging fruit metaphor— with Christmas, about the birth of Jesus, every
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: birth is a miracle. Every birth is a gift from God.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Every baby a gift from God. The pro-life movement is
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: about that. So at Preborn, what they've decided to do
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: is give free ultrasounds. If it occurs to a woman, well,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: maybe I'll go get an ultrasound, and she sees the
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: baby growing inside her and all of a sudden chooses life.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: We're going to finance ultrasounds for women, and your kindness
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: in this audience, your kindness and generosity is going to
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: help us give mothers a free ultrasound so that they
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: stand a much better, some say twice as much of
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: a chance of choosing life. $ 140, just to pick a number,
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: helps give five moms a free ultrasound and save babies.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: $ 280 helps save 10 babies.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Let's spread it out if that's easier for you. $ 28
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: a month.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: Can help save a baby a month for less than
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: a dollar a day. We certainly hope you folks think
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: that it's worth it.
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: And I want to end on a very personal note.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: I heard a story the other day about an executive
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: who sort of takes his team for granted. And part
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: of the dynamic is that the executive gets upset or
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: mad or demanding, impatient, And it dawned on me that
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: I get sometimes upset, impatient, things don't go right technically,
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: whatever can go wrong. This team that works with us
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: is so, they care so much about the product. And
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: they are working really, really hard. And Yasmin and Eric
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: and Tracy, and this week Alex has been filling in. Mark,
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: it is a blessing to be surrounded by people who
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: care about what they do, who care about each other.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: And Mark, you're blessed in Dallas with Rhonda and Matt
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: and all the good people. I've got these wonderful people here.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: But I hope, and I want to say it public,
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: I don't want to just say it to them one-on-one,
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: and I will, but I hope they know how much
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: we appreciate them because without them, we can't do M &
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: M Extra.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: 100%.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: As people consume this, if you're driving around on Apple
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: and Spotify, you're hearing us coming out of your speakers.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: If you're watching the YouTube live stream, you're seeing our mugs.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: there on your screen. But behind us, around us, attached
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: to us, Yasmin has to put these videos up. Eric,
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: and this week, Alex, as you say, has to make
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: sure everything is hooked up and the whole thing actually
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: kind of works. And Tracy, your producer, and all the
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: people who put these things together. I mean, we sit
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: here and do this, but it doesn't exist without them.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: And we love you guys and appreciate you every day.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: More than you know. Have a great weekend, everybody. Let's
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: do it again Monday for another episode of M &
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: M Extra.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Have a good one.