Welcome to the Tweed Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I mean, that's the pay girl. And you are tuned in to Tweed Trends.
It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. It's Christmas Eve, everyone. A happy Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas Eve. I don't know what you actually say.
What the greeting is. It's Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. But what do you say for Christmas Eve? Merry Christmas Eve, Happy Christmas Eve?
I don't know that it didn't hit me until I tried to say it just now that I don't know that I've ever wished anyone a happy or Merry Christmas Eve. But I said all that to say that I completely forgot that today was Christmas Eve and that I was supposed to do an episode. So I'm sitting here. It's 8 o'clock at night.
And that's when I realized that I was supposed to do an episode today. So before the day runs out and it's Christmas day, let's get started. With this being Christmas Eve, it got me to thinking about Christmas today, which then made me think about an actual situation that I heard about on the radio. I was listening to the Breakfast Club with DJ N.V.
Angeligee and Charlemagne the God. And there was a teacher. I want to say it was in New Jersey that basically told a class of elementary school kids. This was a low elementary first grade or something, seems like, that there was no Santa.
And he lost his job behind it. And it was so the discussion then became, why is it that people are so bent on keeping a secret that's a lie? Like, why won't people just tell their kids the truth? And the more I thought about it, I tried to think to myself, my daughter, she's six, and she believes in Santa Claus.
As a matter of fact, we were outside in the yard a few minutes ago sprinkling reindeer food in the front yard to make sure that one, the reindeer could find us. And when they found us, they would have a little something to snack on while Santa was doing his business. But it got me to thinking about what it is or why it is. And honestly, I like the fact that children have such vivid imaginations and that to believe in a person that they've never seen only in cartoons and stuff like that, I think that's amazing.
I think that it's awesome. And I mean, I get it that they say that you mess the kids up when you lie to them about things like this. And then how is it that you want them to believe in God when they believe in Santa for however long and then find out that he's a lie? And why wouldn't you think that children would do the same thing about God?
And I don't know. The jury for me is out on that one because I get it. I see where the people are coming from. It makes sense that that would be a bad thing.
But I also think that it sucks when you run across one of these little kids that's too grown for their own britches that are running around telling other little kids that Santa's not real. That's not the real Santa. Your mom and dad are the real Santa's. And I have friends whose kids say these types of things.
And my daughter has questioned it. And I basically asked her, I was like, well, what do you believe? And then I just kind of told her. I was like, well, because everybody doesn't believe the same thing about everything, when you run across one of these people that say something like that, don't argue with them.
Don't try to make them believe what you believe. You can just say, oh, OK, and keep it moving. Because what it boils down to is whether he's real or not, if it's what you believe in, kind of like religion, then don't let anyone sway you. You go ahead and you do you boo.
You believe in Santa. You enjoy getting the presents. And because honestly, I think parents need to back off the whole idea of wanting to get credit for everything. But that's a whole not the can of worms.
I don't want to open that right now. But yeah, that was just my little two cents. I'm going to step down off my soap box. And we can move on.
So as far as not so much Christmas Eve proper, in particular, but just the holidays in general, a lot of people deal with depression during this time of year, because it brings back memories of people and places and things that mean a whole lot to them. As a matter of fact, I was just on Facebook a little while ago and saw that one of my line sisters had to put down her dog today. And my heart hurt for her, because less than a year ago, I had to put my dog down as well. And it's Christmas time.
And I find myself missing my dog, because I would get him treats and stuff for Christmas. He would have his own little stocking. And maybe that I know there's something out there that they're like, oh, gosh, you're one of these people too, you bet, really? But I didn't think that I was going to become that person.
When I got my dog 16 years ago, I got him, because he was cute as all get out. But I got him because I wanted a dog. I never had a dog. I wanted him to know me back up.
I'd always had a dog, but I never had an indoor dog. And so now that I had my own place, it was like, oh, you know what? I'm going to get a dog. And that dog turned into one of my best friends.
And I didn't even realize it. But not just animals. Actually, family members, my dad passed not too long ago. And so we're doing something different this year for Christmas.
And it feels weird. It really does. I've tried to come to grips with the fact that Christmas is going to be different from here on out. And I've done this for years now, because my uncle, he passed a couple of years prior to my dad.
And we'd go to his house for Christmas. We would have Christmas dinner. He was a great cook. And everybody in the family just went and hang out at his house.
And we'd play games. And the whole was such an amazing and magical time. And I feel like I took it all for granted. I don't have any pictures of the times that we would have Christmas over at my uncle's house.
Very few pictures. And so I said all of that to say that while you're in the moment and you're doing your Christmas Eve traditions and preparing the roast beast, if you're a hoo, all of whatever your thing is for the holidays, take a moment. And I know you want to be in the moment. So you want to experience it for every moment in second that you can.
But also, if you can, here and there, take a few pictures. If not of an event or what's going on, but take pictures of each other or make it so that now everybody does a group picture together. Let's try to commemorate and remember these times, because the thing is, they got me even on this whole line of thinking is the fact that my daughter, she's six. And back when we were doing these Christmases over at my uncle's house, she was an infant.
By the time she had turned four, no, I think she was three that year when he passed. She doesn't remember any of that stuff. She doesn't have any recollection of what Christmas was like for us back then. And so all she'll have now are stories.
And where stories are good, pictures really tell a story. They can paint it so much better. And so I'm saying all of that to say, while you're making these memories, take some pictures of the memories. Just here and there, don't get so deep into your phone that you can't look up from your picture because you're your picture.
You can't look up from your phone because you're so busy trying to capture every picture of everything. But find a thing, take a picture, and then you can have it to share with others as time goes on. For this last second, I wanted to kind of touch on Christmas traditions for a hot little second, or better yet, Christmas Eve traditions. My family didn't really have a whole lot of traditions other than the fact that we would go to sleep on Christmas Eve, we'd wake up on Christmas morning, and there would be gifts under the tree, of course, wrapped up.
But then on the couch, for me, since I was the baby, there would be presents that were already out, like they weren't wrapped up or anything, they would just be laying on the couch. And those were the presents from the big guy, you know, Santa. And all the time I just thought that Santa didn't wrap gifts, he didn't have time for all that, he had to deliver gifts, right? And then as I got older, as I became an adult, the joke was that mom and dad and my brother and sister, they would put these gifts on the couch because they didn't want me to wake them up in the morning on Christmas day to then rush to eat breakfast and everything because we always ate breakfast first, and then opened our gifts.
So because they didn't want me to wake them up early in the morning, they would just simply put the gifts on the couch, I could get up, I could open those gifts and play with them until they all decided that they were ready to get up and get moving and do all that. So that was really the only tradition we had other than after we would eat, we would pack up the car and go visiting to my dad's family members, older people in his family, and then we would go to my uncle's house for the rest of the evening and literally into the next day. But now that I have a little one, it's kind of like, I wish prior to now we had created some traditions for ourselves, especially Christmas Eve traditions. Like there are people that do the pajamas alike, and I think that's really cute.
I just feel like it takes so much to go and find something cute that fits everyone, like dads included. There, like tonight, like I said, we did the reindeer food in the front yard, and the magical reindeer food was pretty awesome. Like I brought it and showed my daughter, I was like, hey, do you want to go put this out? And so we were sprinkling and then she goes to close up the pack and I'm like, hey, what are you doing?
She's like, let's save some for tomorrow night. And I'm like, well baby tonight, it's Christmas Eve now, tomorrow night is going to be on Christmas. The reindeer aren't coming twice and so then she kind of looked and was like, oh, so tomorrow is Christmas? And I'm thinking like, I thought we've been over this already.
Yes. But there are so many, so many different types of traditions that people have. I wouldn't mind putting the Christmas story as a tradition for us to watch every year, but I don't know. She's a little young, she might shoot her eye out if we actually let her see that movie.
But I don't know, Christmas is such a magical time. I'm sorry, I could talk about Christmas all day. But it's Christmas Eve and that's the big thing. So my, oh, we do have a Christmas Eve tradition.
I just thought about it. So my husband has two kids from prior to us getting married. And every Christmas Eve, he calls the kids up and he reads to them the story, the night before Christmas, the night before Christmas story. And that's really our only tradition right now.
So I am heading over to Twitter in a little bit and feel free to go there and let me know what you guys do for your traditions for Christmas. And I can start planning this year for next year. All right guys, well I did it. I finished this episode of TweetTrans before the strike of midnight and heading on into Christmas Day.
So let me just start by saying I hope you had an awesome Christmas Eve and that basically that you have a wonderful Christmas Day. I hope you get an opportunity to spend it with all of your family members and loved ones and friends that you are safe, that you don't drink too much, that you don't end up with a hangover after the fact that everything is just the right amount to make everything in your day, merry and bright. We've actually got a breakfast in the morning as well as we've been invited to dinner as well. So I'm pretty excited because I'm not gonna do any cooking.
Sounds like a winner to me, Merry Christmas to me. Thank you Santa. I really was a good girl this year. So like I was saying, anyway, thank you guys for hanging out, have a great Christmas and before you open any gifts, what I need you to do is they head on over to Twitter and follow me on Hey Event, that's at HEYEVETTE or just look for the hashtag TweakTrends.
While you're at it, look for the hashtag, Merry Christmas Eve or Happy Christmas Eve. I still gotta figure that one out. All right guys, I quit. It's time to go.
Have a great one. Love you. Bye.