Hey, everybody, Welcome to Magical Rewind.

We're doing a very special episode right now because we want to talk a little bit about Christmas.

Is this one of your favorite times of the year, Sabrina?

I love Christmas time.

I love it.

I love it.

Is it a little crazy with what you do?

You know?

What's so crazy is that every year I go, I think to myself, when I'm taking down my tree and Christmas is done and we're in the new year, I've got to decorate earlier next year.

I got to decorate earlier next year.

Well, guess what, it didn't happen again.

It just it's such a crazy part of the year for me, and I do not like how the last two years, because Thanksgiving is so late, it really trumps into the Christmas time.

So I love it.

I love when my house is decorated, my outside.

I love my Christmas lights outside.

I love coming home at night and seeing them.

Like everything, it's just good times and hot cocoa and more movies by the fire.

I just absolutely love the Christmas time.

What about you will, I'm getting better?

Okay.

I was not always a Christmas tan, obviously, I liked it when I was a kid.

And then, uh, you know, it was always a lot of travel and stuff like that.

So I just it seemed like the I mean, I always called.

It stress miss because it seems like you're always trying to just you know, I've got to buy this.

And I've got to do this.

And then Susan came into my life.

And she's a big is she she loves Christmas.

Okay, so she likes a very specific kind of tree and we decorate the same kind.

So since she's come into my life, I'm getting better every year.

I also, as the older I'm getting I feel like Christmas happens every weekend.

Like I put away the I feel like I put away the Christmas decorations and the next weekend I'm.

Pulling them out again.

Like it just happens really fast fast.

But this is also going to be the you know, the first Christmas with the grand kid, and we're actually celebrating you know, up in you know, up with the family.

So we're traveling a little bit.

We're going to get to see the grand kid with his first kind of his eyes wide open, and so that's going to be a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to that.

And then I love all the kind of the food.

I'm a big fan of the Christmas food, the cookies.

My Susan is a wonderful baker, so she spends days on days on days.

She loves making cookies.

So she makes bags and bags and bags of cookies for people, and we're giving them out all over the neighborhood and.

To friends and stuff like that.

So wow, it becomes kind of a cookie making factory around here.

And it is it becomes very pretty to have the tree up and you get the smell of Christmas.

And but it's also you know, I grew up on the East Coast where when it was Christmas it was cold, you would usually get snow if you get you know, so here where it's like, oh wow, it's seventy two degrees and it's Christmas.

It just it's not kind of safe.

But that's what you're used to.

Yes, And I mean, as a matter of fact, we were thinking at one point and I'm still it's kind of up in the air of whether or not we'll be spending Christmas here down in Orange County or if we're going to go up to Big Bear.

Okay, if we do go up to Big Bear, I'm hoping that there might be some snow.

Oh there should be, right, yeah, because I really haven't had I don't think ever a white Christmas, which is something that I've always dreamed of, you know.

And I've been on the road.

I've been on touring and stuff during Christmas time, been in New York, you know, Rockefeller Center, I've done.

That New York around Christmas is school.

It really is magical.

I've done that kind of stuff, but not like on Christmas Day, you know, So it would be nice to be in some snow.

I do think that we don't get that best kind of Christmas like the East or people that live in the areas of snow too.

Yeah.

What are some of your like straight up Christmas traditions that you have to do every year?

This one I was actually just someone just asked me about it.

And it's been a Christmas tradition for as long as I can remember.

As my family makes to Molly's Yeah.

You told me about that.

You were supposed to save me some last.

Year, I know, and we went through and we barely made any because we only really had like half of a day to do them.

And it's a long process, right, And now you know that has just been become so grueling.

And my dad usually he calls it like the tweener time, and it's in between Christmas and New Year's that we try to get together.

Then it started getting closer to November Thanksgiving because our schedules during the holidays have just gotten so packed.

To get together and do like a it takes ultimately two days because my wee prep and that like a half a day.

We put them all together for a day, and then the second part of that day that puts together is when they're cooking and the next day.

So it's a long process when you're doing a lot.

We used to do dozens and dozens like that was what like how Sue does cookies.

That's what we would come to Christmas parties with or you know, give to our friends is bags of tamali's and you can freeze them.

And now, okay, I don't know, stupid question.

I don't know a lot about them tomal is do are they?

Are they different?

Do you have like a chicken tamali your beef tomorrow veggietas.

We do chicken beef and veggiees.

What's your favorite?

I like, oh gosh, I I don't ever do the veggies because it just is it's nasa and like, I really like either the beef or the chicken, but it just depends on kind of mood I'm in.

If I'm wanting a chicken and green or beef and red sauce.

You know, it just kind of depends.

I've tried my hardest to master a sweet tamali, which is something my eight grandmother, I guess I unfortunately never met her, but she used to make these like cinnamon and raisin, and then she had one with like chocolate and banana of some sort.

I try and fail almost every year with them, kind of giving up on them.

But yeah, that's mainly ours.

Now.

The new mainstream tradition that I have started now this is three years, is elf on the shelf.

Oh okay, we just talked about this on Podmets World.

How people can go crazy with that.

I don't know why I trapped myself into doing it, because it is so stressful to like, because you know, make waiting until they go to bed and then getting or getting up early enough in the morning before they get out of.

Bed before elf doesn't move itself.

I know, it's wild and I just said that.

And then luckily, when I was at jingle Ball for iHeart, there was one of the giftings.

In the giftings, there was a thing and they just gave me like a They've got the And I had really no idea how great these packages are.

They have twenty four days of ELF and it's like a wow, it's a box with all the little things and the notes and this, and you just put it together and it's great.

Versus me scouring the internet looking for these top notch ideas of what to do for.

Myself, I saw one of the funniest ones that just said, I'm never letting my husband do elf on a shelf again.

What it was they had taken a mixer like so you know the mixers that spin.

And made it into it, put a barb on it.

He put you.

He put a barbie on it so it looks like she's full dancing, and then the elf is sitting there with dollar bills all over the place.

I know, I really want to do that.

You know why I begged.

I will not beg I put this incredibly ridiculous expensive mixer on my wedding registry right and I got it for a really great price because it got kept getting downsized in price and cut.

But Jordan's like, what is this with this mixed or You've never I've never seen you do you don't make you know?

And I'm like, I need this mixer.

And then I also got the extensions for the homemade pasta and all these extensions you can buy.

We've been married now to seven years and never once have I pulled it out.

Never once have I used it.

But I really want to do that elf and not do a Barbie, but do the elf like help and it'd be a cookie day.

I really want to just so I can look at Jordan's c C.

I used it, I used it, the mixer has been used.

Oh god, that's funny.

But then I'd have to actually make cookies and that just seems something.

Yes, who's got all the like the old school.

She does the way her mom did.

So she's got like the old It's like this big metal gun that you you turn the top and then you pop the cookies out for these old kind of journal Oh yeah, yeah yeah.

So she makes those and then she makes like the best cookies in the world.

So she picks every year.

She's like all right, I'm gonna do these three or four cookies and then she'll pay, and they'll change every year, like one or two of them the same, but then she'll add two new ones.

Oh, it's just it's wonderful.

I love it.

I'm such a cookie monster too, I'd be eating all of them.

She's the other one we do is every year when we decorate our tree, she pours a glass of wine, puts on the same exact music, and then cries with every ornament because it's like, oh, this is the one of our dog who's not with us anymore, and this is the one of my mind.

My grandmother gave me this.

So that's our joke.

Is it's like, well, there's a glass of wine and tears.

We are ready for Christmas.

I put Jordan and I put the elf on, and we've done this since we've been together, since our first Christmas.

We put elf on and we decorate our tree, and then he holds our dog and puts the star on like that of it.

Every year.

Is that gonna change now with the little ones?

Does one of the little ones get to go on his shoulders and put the star up?

No, because you can't pick which one of the kids.

It's gonna be no, it just remains the dog.

The dog is held and it's the same picture every year.

We'll just keep it that way.

So because we get high trees, we get like then eleven where we go go big.

We go big with them, especially now that we've got a higher ceiling, and so we love doing that.

But yeah, that's the thing.

I love that.

And you have I remember you told me you watch a Christmas story myself presence.

Yeah, every year in my little theater I watched, I watch put on the same movie and it's so funny.

I was at a convention last weekend and they had a whole Christmas story set up where it was the actual fire truck that that came to help the guy who put flick who has his finger on the art.

And then there's the all the kids that were in the classroom with Ralphie were all there signing autographs and it was their picture and then the line they had so it was like the guy who said, oh man, it's the fire department, Like that guy was there signing autographs.

So it was the Red Rider set up, and then Higbee's the store that they go to, like that whole thing was set up so it was it was a fun little thing.

So yeah, really got that always gets me in the Christmas mood.

But yes, that's not a single gift yet, not a single.

Okay this well, actually, now I guess become a tradition.

I don't mean to do it, same thing as my decorating.

I'm gonna start buying presents, However, I am a person that typically starts.

Actually, it might get something here and there.

If it just pops up in front of me somewhere, December nineteenth, December twentieth is when I start doing it.

I'm not kidding.

And if I can't get it on Amazon and delivered fast enough, it's just not a present that's going to get hit.

And I will tell you I save money on the holidays because I do that.

These people that go to Black Friday and they start buying them in September, in October, you still get to it.

You forget about everything that you bought so early on and you keep going because the Christmas spirit just drives through you throughout the entire time, and you end up spending I just talked to a girlfriend.

She ends up spending so much money.

I go how much do you think you spend?

And she said, I think last year I spent between five and six thousand on present.

I said.

Dollars.

I said, I didn't spend near that much, not even that much.

I unless it was unless it ever is like for Jordan, like two years I got him his trigger.

He really wanted a trigger, like if it's a big gift like that, or like a golf club set or something like that.

But on my kids, no, I'm not spending that much money.

There's no room to put that many toys.

They've got so many toys unless they're willing to donate all of their toys that they have.

Now, am I gonna spend that much money on Christ's?

And she goes, I go wow.

She goes, well, you know, I start in September, I start doing some things.

And I go, well, that's why.

She goes, Yeah, by the time I forget all the things, by the time I go out to start wrapping them, pull them out every year and go, holy cap I forgot I bought this.

Oh my god.

And I'm like, no, see last minute, is it's there or it's not?

You get it or you don't.

You guys, I love you I will still get you gifts throughout the year.

This is not the only time you're getting gifts, So this is it?

Like I'm not, I don't need to do a thousand gifts under the tree.

I agree.

Well, thank you everybody for joining us on this well magical night.

Frankly, and hopefully the new tradition you can start is going back and watching old episodes of Magical rewind and screaming at us about how we could possibly think that brink Or or Double Team disn't as good as it was when you watch it, when you're a.

Triumph, when you find out that the Johnny Tsunami is in fact.

A great man.

Yes exactly.

So thank you everybody.

Have a wonderful, safe holiday, and don't forget it's not just your family that you're gonna be with, but if you can also do something nice.

For a stranger, Hey, how's that bad thing?

Thanks everybody, and have a great holiday.