PCPS Light: A Christmas in the Life

Unknown Speaker 0:00

You're looking light all over. You're looking good to me, you're looking best see light, and it's just one calorie, refreshing causes, one light,

Kristin Nilsen 0:28

Hi everybody. Welcome to a special holiday edition of PCPs. Light quick, refreshing episodes that are light on research, light on editing, light on any sort of preparation and possibly, light on substance.

Unknown Speaker 0:41

We'll see. We'll see. Never.

Kristin Nilsen 0:44

Today's episode is inspired by one of our most popular episodes of all time, called A Day in the Life in which we each took time to describe in detail what a day would have looked like for us in fifth grade. And the response that we got to that episode was so unexpected. We've talked about this before. We didn't know if anybody would care to hear about what things were like when we were kids. This was a personal episode. It was not about celebrities or pop culture, and so we were like, oh, nobody's gonna listen. Oh, my Yeah. Listened, and they let us know that they liked it. And so we're going to repeat that experience here today, and each describe one Christmas for you. We all celebrate Christmas. I mean the three of us, good Lutherans and good Catholics in the house here, but Episcopalian one Episcopalian in the house. But it will be a year of our choosing, so it won't all be the same year. This was Carolyn's idea, and I think it came to you because you had a very specific Christmas in mind, Carolyn, isn't that?

Carolyn Cochrane 1:47

Right? Yes, because there comes that very specific moment in every Gen X girl's life when that childhood Christmas list, it just kind of quietly dissolves and an entirely new one takes its place. And for me, this happened in late middle school and then into high school, when just gift giving changed, priorities changed. You know, one year I'm circling Easy Bake ovens and Barbie campers and tambourines, and then suddenly it's clothes and records and makeup and more clothes and anything from the junior section at bamburgers. Any of my Northeast Pennsylvania friends, you know what I'm talking about. And it was really that holy trinity of adolescent building. So while this is my memories of kind of my adolescent and teen Christmases, I didn't want toys. I wanted swagger. That is what I want under that

Kristin Nilsen 2:38

tree. Make me cool Christmas.

Carolyn Cochrane 2:40

That's right, I wanted to unwrap something exactly and say, This is exactly what I am wearing when I run into that cute boy from science class. And speaking of cute boys, you guys, this is when my motivation for going to church changed. Okay, Midnight Mass. This wasn't now like, oh, we have to go to church. I really want to play with my toys. This was, I'm going to see some of the cute boys that I know at midnight at church. And I'm going to look all cute, all dressed up

Kristin Nilsen 3:09

so sexy,

Carolyn Cochrane 3:10

yeah, seeing that magic of being awake. Yeah. And we always opened one present on Christmas Eve, and so I usually tried to find which one looks like the box that might have that shaker sweater, that frenzy sweater, or whatever, super sexy

Unknown Speaker 3:27

Fair Isle, so bulky

Carolyn Cochrane 3:31

and so, yeah, so this is the time where everything kind of shifts, okay. And you guys, this was the time now where I had some income, right? I had babysitting money. So now buying gifts was kind of different. I could, you know, I now, when I picked out presents for my sister or my parents, it was a little more meaningful. Now, granted, it wasn't a lot that I spent. Because, remember, we got paid, like, a quarter an hour, 50 cents, if we were lucky, for every once in a while, maybe, you know, 75 if you have the three boys that live next door and you were babysitting for like, eight hours, yeah, during Christmas time. So I felt kind of like Oprah right back then, because I'm going like, Oh, family gifts, check friends gifts, because, remember, we had to buy gifts for our friends. And then that was Spencer's Yes, right? Because that's where a lot of my money got spent. And then there was the boyfriend gift, because once he had the high school boyfriend, then it was okay. And I felt so grown up because I bought him a sweater. I bought my boyfriend his first Christmas a sweater from the lodge. And that was this really like preppy store at the cherry home all and I think a bottle of polonaren. Oh, my God,

Kristin Nilsen 4:42

You're freaking me out right now because I did the same exact thing. It was chaps.

Carolyn Cochrane 4:46

Oh, I was gonna say, Was it like Cochrane noir or chaps?

Kristin Nilsen 4:51

Yeah, yeah, a sweater and chaps. And just to interrupt you for a second, sorry, but I just thought of this today like I remembered it for the first time since 1980 Three, four, whatever it was. And I remember being at the mall, and I hadn't had this boyfriend for very long, and I was shopping with a friend, and she said, What are you getting for her? And I was like, uh, what? And I didn't realize that I should be getting him a gift. So I think I got the sweater at JC Penney, and then I got chaps somewhere else, and then I wanted to make sure that it was a good gift. So his friend worked at the Radio Shack, so we went to show him the gifts at the Radio Shack. Like, do you think murmur will like this? He said, Yes. And then what I found out later is that he quickly went to the back room to the landline phone to call her and say, she got you Christmas gifts. Oh, yeah, you have a gift for her emergency. It was an emergency. And then he quickly ran out and got me something. So he was a little annoyed. What did you get? I don't even remember. I have no idea. It clearly didn't make an impact, but the what I got for him made an impact. So when you say a sweater and then you got polo, it was either gonna be polo or chaps. Yeah, was it chaps? Ralph, Lauren, too. That's different. Okay, Polo

Unknown Speaker 6:02

was pricey,

Carolyn Cochrane 6:04

yeah, well, don't even you know Rolo well. And also this also came to mind was that I didn't want my parents to know what I got him, because I'm spending like four times as much on him as I am on anyone in my family. And so, you know, for my dad to say two things, you know, a sweater and Cologne, how much did that come to I think it was all like kind of, you know, under the radar. I just didn't want them to know, hide it under your bed, right? What I got him. But I actually do remember gifts that I got from my boyfriend then, who was, as we know, not. I'm not a fan to this the bad, but back then one, the one present he got me was an anklet.

Speaker 1 6:53

Oh, I loved anklets. But if you're getting him, that's not very intimately,

Carolyn Cochrane 7:00

and your ankles at first, I tried to put it on my wrist, and he's like, No, it goes on your ankle. And the way he said it, and just kind of what it meant. And I think some of my friends are blank, you know, what kind of girls wear anklets, you know? Yeah, and it made me feel a little bit uneasy. You were not an anklet kind of girl. Yes, I'm not give me a bracelet or a necklace, but not an anklet. And he would always wonder, then, where it was, like, during at school, where's your anklet? And we had to wear, like, knee high socks, so, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 7:30

it was just anklet over your knee high No, it wasn't

Carolyn Cochrane 7:33

supposed to be over. It was supposed to be kind of under, so that, you know if he's well, according to him, because then he's, like, he could put his

Carolyn Cochrane 7:47

sounds weird, okay, but that's truly like, so it was this like weird thing in gym, or not Gym, in lunch or something, you'd be like, are you wearing your anklet?

Kristin Nilsen 7:57

I'm getting some creepy vibes. Sorry.

Carolyn Cochrane 8:02

But he did really knock it out of the park. One year, he got me a sweater at Talbots, this wool sweater.

Speaker 1 8:11

Everybody. That's like, where middle aged women shop. Okay, back then.

Kristin Nilsen 8:15

Now, if you were a preppy,

Carolyn Cochrane 8:20

middle aged, I don't know, like 60 year old lady changed in the past, like couple of decades. Back then, it was where you went for all your preppy goods. And I loved this sweater, and my grandmother washed and dried it, and then was never the same. I mean, it could have fit on, like a little oversized sweater on an American Girl doll. It was horrible, and she felt terrible. And probably made her feel terrible, which now I feel terrible about, because I was crying, and I remember her trying to stretch it out, like, yeah, you know, getting it hot and then pulling it of course, it was never quite the same again, but, but yeah. And last tradition that never changed up until I got married to Andy. My sister and I made my mom wait till we were asleep to put the Christmas presents under the tree. Didn't matter how old we were, and my sister and I slept in the same bed together on Christmas Eve every year until I was probably 23 Yeah, that one never changed. That's really cute. So yeah, that's my adolescent, teen, little mash up of Christmas.

Kristin Nilsen 9:24

So interesting, because you're right, there's a transition there. Yeah, from childhood Christmas to adolescent Christmas. I'd never thought about that before. Yeah, there you go. What year did you choose?

Speaker 1 9:35

Michelle? Well, I kind of didn't really follow the rules, because for me, it was too hard to just pick one Christmas, childhood Christmas. My mom made every single one so extravagant and meaningful, and our Christmases were so rooted in tradition. So I thought I would just share a few of those traditions, as well as what I will forever associate Christmas with, because of her so. One of the first traditions I remember is getting to take a day off of school to go Christmas shopping and see Santa. Wow, every year, yeah, we'd get dressed up like as you did, to go to downtown Dallas back in the early 70s. And we'd go to the big standalone department stores like Neiman's or titches, Sanger and Harris. And I don't really remember the shopping part, like I don't remember what we'd buy, except for my mother's yearly bottle of Norell perfume, which I think she would go by, and then she'd give it to one of us. But what I do remember is always having a really fancy lunch at Neiman's and looking at all the window displays and the store decorations with all the like, mechanized figures, you know, like they were really good back then too. Can you imagine, too, I would love to see some now. They were probably so fun and retro. I bet they were so cute, but, but for some reason, the other thing that I remember so clearly is saggy tights, like for real. God, when I started to think about what I wanted to say, yeah, when I started to think about what I wanted to say about those days with play, like, Christmas, hooky, one of the first things I remembered was that feeling like that saggy tights,

Kristin Nilsen 11:12

because Apple, this was Crouch is down by your knees, yeah, and

Speaker 1 11:15

then, like, down around your ankles. And because this was, I was all these years, you know, this is probably from, like, age five to 11 I'm remembering. So I was always wearing like white tights with my like Jan Brady length dresses, or then long dresses. You know, did we ever have MIDI length dresses? No, I think we all went from Jan Brady up, where you pretty much see our butts, to then long dresses. But anyway, my mom would always be dressed up in pantyhose and a dress and heels, and I can picture her so clearly, she was just always so gorgeous and glam, and she loved getting dressed up to go downtown Dallas, especially. And then, starting in the year I was in kindergarten, we had a big Christmas party for our neighbors and friends and all their kids. And my mom did this until I was an adult with kids of my own. Like she threw a Christmas party every year, but we loved it, and so did all the people invited. Like it became quite the event, you know, that people looked forward to, or they would talk about, or they couldn't wait for the Christmas party the next year. And she always made an enormous pile of the best Swedish meatballs and a crock pot of cheese dip, which was basically just like Velveeta and Rotel and milk. And I would eat both of those things until it's just about sick. Let me tell you, I can still taste them so perfectly, and I can also still remember the smell of, like, five hour old, semi burned cheese dip, you know, like, by the end of the night, it had like a big skin on it, because it been on the crock pot all night. And I was always instructed to stir the cheese dip throughout the party, like your job, and she had this big wooden spoon, and like I had to go every time I passed that table, Michelle go stir that cheese dip. Anyway. It was just so festive and merry. And all the adults would just get wasted, and all the kids would play together. And our tree was, like, insanely gorgeous. We had ornaments from, like, my great grandparents and grandparents mixed in with, you know, like crap I'd made in Sunday school there. There were easily over 800 ornaments on that tree. I think maybe more like they went all the way back to the trunk on every branch, and my mom would drape single strands of icicles, like tense, you know, single strands of tensile on every single branch. I have. I have several, more than several of those ornaments on my tree. Now. My sister still has her entire box. We just haven't gone through them.

Carolyn Cochrane 13:42

Can I ask you a quick question about those single strands of tinsel? Because that's such a Gen X thing, and we have the same on our tree, and I remember, and I don't know if it was just Texas or if this would be everywhere, but you know, when it was stat, there was static electricity. And I walk by the tree and like, one of the pieces of tinsel, like jumps off of you, off the tree, and have the ear draped in. Remember thinking, like, this is so bizarre, and I would hold my finger like I was magic, because it would come out kind of danced,

Unknown Speaker 14:16

yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 14:19

yeah, the tree, you know what? I'll find some pictures of our tree from my childhood.

Kristin Nilsen 14:27

Yeah, I think about cats, right? So I

Speaker 1 14:28

have die, so I put like Tencel on my childhood Christmas tree in my office. It's just fly away. It's awful, yeah, they're single strands, okay? And it's horrible. I'm so mad I didn't get gonna be you can get it, yeah, okay.

Kristin Nilsen 14:43

Maybe just fell out of favor because of the cats. There was something about, like, their entire

Carolyn Cochrane 14:47

I do remember something about the cats, and I remember my mom making us pick up every strand that went on the floor and put it back on because it could really get tangled up in the vacuum.

Speaker 1 14:58

It did. I can remember this. Smell of the burning vacuum belt from the tensile also, my mom was super particular about the type we got. She there was a certain brand, and each strand was kind of heavy, so they hung perfectly straight. And when those brain when that, when she couldn't find it anymore, we stopped using it. But anyway, the biggest tradition and meaningful memory I associate with Christmas is going to midnight mass from birth until my own daughter was about three, and I was like, nope, Santa is not going to be up till 4am so we're going to the family service at five. And it probably took me a lot of courage to set that boundary with her. But anyway, when I was very little and we lived in Texas, would go to church at the church my grandparents were founders of and that my mom went to every Sunday of her growing up life. It was where she got married, it was where my sister and I were baptized, and that was St Andrew's Episcopal Church in Grand Prairie, Texas. My memories are a little bit hazy, because the last time I went to church there was in about 1977 probably. But what I still have such a clear memory of is the feeling of one Christmas being wrapped up in father holiday's cloak, after the mass, after midnight mass, the year after my grandfather died. Father holiday was the priest who had married my parents baptized me

Unknown Speaker 16:20

was Father, holiday. I was

Speaker 1 16:22

like, Yeah, is this? Like, Father, like, mother, Christmas, right? Yeah. No. His last name was holiday, yeah.

Carolyn Cochrane 16:31

I have the image of you like, I thought this was that kind of, again, like, Father, Christmas, or whatever cloak I saw you in, like a robe with a staffable church.

Speaker 1 16:45

It's very, you know, they wear the very amphibian cloaks and and, but my mom had known the like Verna and father holiday since she was a child, basically. And so I remember that Christmas because I was very sad. My mom was very sad. She was crying. And so then, of course, my sister and I were crying, and I just remember he, like, took his cloak and, like, wrapped Melanie and I in it, and I remember how that feels. And I must have been about I was older. My grandfather died when I was about nine, I think. But I just, I also just the smell of incense, like, anytime I smell incense, that'll just make me cry, like with nostalgia, and then, weirdly, this, the smell of just snuffed out candles always makes me think of Christmas Eve, because we would have so many candles lit around our house for a nice dinner. You know, before church, and I always begged to snuff them out with this big brass candle snuffer before we leave for midnight mass. I bet I would snuff out like, I bet we had, like, 20 candles left. My mom was just very everything was very like, the table was always set with beautiful china. And, you know, she always made a really big deal for something like that. So when I would snuff all the candles out before Church, the how the room was just permeated with that smell. And so that smell to this day, you know, if I blow out a candle and I smell it, I think a Christmas Eve, and that brass candle snuffer is one of the very few things I took of my mother's when she passed away last year, and it sits up right now. It's sitting next to a Johnny Mathis Christmas album, because I also took all her Johnny Matthews Christmas albums because they were on repeat, and honestly, it's not Christmas in my life without his voice. It's so fun for me to look at those albums spinning on my turntable now and think of all my childhood Christmases like embedded in those grooves. Does that make sense? Like that exact album was spinning, literally my Christmases, and now I play it anyway. I could go on and on about Santa mouse who ate cheese and drank wine, and yes, the one present that was always pajamas, so many other things. But I just wanted to say what I realized that was interesting about my Christmas memories this morning, as I was just jotting these down, especially now that my mother is gone, is that not one of them is about a wrapped gift. They're all about experiences and feelings, and that is truly a testament to my mother and the very best gift she gave me

Carolyn Cochrane 19:17

ever, Michelle, that was just the whole thing was so beautiful. And like, No, honestly, I loved the your description about the sense and the feelings like and how you the, you know, the snuffed out candles, all of that. And even for my me, thinking of like the tinsel getting caught on me. And I thought of that had you not, you know, brought up that memory. And it's those little pockets and snippets of time and that just kind of, I don't know, I feel really warm inside. I guess

Speaker 1 19:51

I did too after, after, just kind of sitting this morning very early, had my cup of tea, and I just started jotting down these memories. And, you. Really did just come down to that it was when I think of Christmas in my childhood. Yes, I could, you know, and like in those, those episodes from 2020 I can talk about Stretch Armstrong and my Debbie, you know, Debbie Gibb album, and all this kind of smart Debbie Gibbs. But, I mean, I can, yes, of course, I could list, but I, honest to goodness, can't really think of I have a really hard time coming up with gifts. I got Christmas was my favorite because of all these things I just said, but there's so many more even that I don't have time to talk about. But those were the first ones. They are

Kristin Nilsen 20:41

all these, they're all experiences, and they are literally all experiences provided by your mom, yeah, which really we as moms, I'm just gonna say it. Dads don't have the same pressure. Moms, not Christmas. Oh, yeah. And we feel a tremendous amount of pressure that we are making or breaking our Christmas memories for our kids. And as as we get older, and as our kids get older, you're like, why am I putting all this pressure on myself? You know, Is this really necessary? They'll make their own memories. But you've just proven here, no, it does matter.

Speaker 1 21:15

It does. And I really do have that responsibility. We do, and I really do. And I like how you said we make Christmas. And I don't know, a few weeks ago I was out hanging some stuff on the front porch, and our older daughter called, and I heard she wanted to talk to me, and so my husband walks around the house, and he's like, No, Mom's here. And I heard her say, what's she doing? And he said, she's making Christmas. She's making Christmas. And I love that, because it is so true. And I really do hope that my girls, who are now, you know, 30 and 24 but I hope that when they look back on Christmases, the first thing that comes to mind are the the the traditions we have, and some of mine, I took from my mom and passed on to them, but mostly they were things that we kind of came up with for our own family. But I really hope, and I and I believe they would that more than the gifts, they would also remember and love Christmas because of the feelings they had during this time of year and the things we did more than the gifts they got,

Kristin Nilsen 22:12

and it may be things that we didn't intend memory. I really want to ask Liam this, because you know what? What is Christmas to you? Because it might not be the thing that I thought I was providing, but I provided something else without knowing it. I'm sure you just don't know. You don't have a lot of control over that. And the other thing that I was thinking as you were talking about going downtown shopping just this week, I was having a little pity party for myself, because I miss that experience so much. Shopping is not fun for me right now. There is no event. There is no palatial department store to visit that's decorated with mechanical, I shouldn't say creatures with, you know, animatronic, yeah, I know there. And we too would dress up, and we would take the bus downtown, and we would had it just, just like you. It was such an event, and it was so beautiful, and it was such an experience in and of itself. There's no place for me to go that's like that right now. And that is, you know, we can chalk that up to Capital Stage, yeah, late stage capitalism is what my kid would say. There were everything got watered down and trashified and walmartified and and now we get gifts wherever we can, and it's just not, I don't know. Do people do retail therapy anymore? Do you go? I mean, there are some nice places to go shopping, but it's not like the big anchor stores that were your local anchor store

Carolyn Cochrane 23:39

and that were all kind of decked out for Christmas. I mean, I go to Macy's. Well, I haven't gone in a long time, primarily because, like, at Christmas, there's stuff everywhere. You can't even like walk. It's just things are thrown up. They don't even like Andy and I, when we were in Chicago last year, you go by, well, now it's Macy's. Was Marshall Fields. It used to be. You went for the Windows downtown. Yeah, nothing in the window. Some just have a piece of paper on them. No, I am not kidding, and don't get me started breaking about like, you know, they have the the walnut room. Is that? What it is there? Yes, yes. But the floor that the walnut room is on, it was the saddest thing ever. It probably had been like the furniture floor before. Whatever it was just so empty, and it's like that whole Christmas feeling and experience and this sensory aspect of it, yeah, you know, if it costs money, they're not going

Kristin Nilsen 24:33

to do it, and it's not their fault, because it's Jeff Bezos fault. So let's just put it that way. That is going to cost money, they're not going to do it, and Jeff Bezos has basically made it too hard for them to put any so that's just their little statement. If you don't, if you want to go to your if you want to have that shopping experience again, don't shop at Amazon. People just don't. Don't do it.

Speaker 1 24:52

We did have that experience recently in London, because, you know the big like Harrods and, oh my gosh, southridges and liberty and. Portnum and Mason, the windows were incredible. I loved and Selfridges had, they did it all Disney, but it was so cute. You guys all the little animatronic but it was like each window was from a different Disney movie. And what I loved more than anything is watching in front of us was a little girl and her mom, and she was, like, so excited to see and pointing, and it's almost like the mom took her there to see the windows. Now, go into any of those stores and you would lose your mind, because it was truly like being at the giant store on Main Street in Disney World. It was so packed and so crowded, but at the same time everybody was there, it was kind of a little bit festive, because everybody, especially at Fortnum and Mason, which is all food and tea and candy. And you go up, I mean, I went up to the candy counter and bought candy to share with my family.

Carolyn Cochrane 25:50

When my kids learn something, yeah, I'm just gonna stay, because you're saying these, yeah, I went to the candy counter, one place that we're out and no wonder they're crowded, because people still cherish and love that experience, and moms want to take their little girls, and people want to go to the candy counter. Come on America, get with it.

Kristin Nilsen 26:10

How is it that? I mean, the question is, how is it that London has preserved that form of shopping whereas we lost it? I mean, Amazon is worldwide, but maybe it's not as much a part of they haven't been brainwashed to the same degree that we have. I don't know.

Speaker 1 26:24

I don't know they also, I mean, those are just the standalone department stores. But did make me think, I don't think in Denver we have a standalone department store. I know we have Nordstrom and we have Macy's and we have whatever, but they're all part of a mall. Now, every other, almost not every other, but almost every other store I saw in London was something we have here, you know, I'd be like, Oh, look, there's, I mean, there is an H M on every corner, and, you know, there's all the different stores. Oh, that's true, but it's just, it's, it was very cool experience to see, you know, I had it on my list to go see those department stores, primarily because I wanted to see the windows. Yeah, I was disappointed in a couple of them, but a couple of them were like, Oh, you guys knocked it out of the park. Those were great.

Kristin Nilsen 27:07

So there is a, I know we've talked about this before when I was growing up, until, you know, I don't know, 20 years ago, there was a display at our local department store called Dayton's. You went to the eighth floor for the Christmas display. There was a different theme every year. I won't go into it too much, because we've gone into it in other episodes. In other episodes, but there is a local man who rescued all of the animatronic babies, and he has them in his home, and he has set them up in the windows of his home, on the porch around his home, and he now has open hours. It's in St Paul, and you can go to his house to see the displays from Dayton's from you. I love that, I know, so I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go see Yeah, definitely do it. Take pictures. I will okay. The year that I chose was 1975 and this is very significant. It's a hugely significant year because I had just moved from sunny California. As most of you know, I was in second grade and California when I lived there, it snowed exactly one time in my lifetime, and I put plastic bread bags over my shoes to go outside and make a snowman. I moved from sunny California to the land of winter. It was just like TV. It was like the Waltons or a Little House on the Prairie. It was magical. And not only that, not only was it there winter, but we moved into a two story Victorian house in California, we had a ranch house, just like everybody else. And as far as I know, I'm pretty sure I had only ever been inside ranch style houses. I've never seen a Victorian house, except on TV or, you know, that's what you saw in the movies. It was like something you saw, and it's a wonderful life. And that was my house. I remember my mom taking garland and wrapping, like evergreen garland around the banister these ornately carved banisters in our home. I don't remember any Christmas decorations before this house. I don't remember Christmas decorations from the ranch style house. This was Christmas. It was a Christmas house. But when we moved from California, we also moved away from all of our family. But we moved into a neighborhood where my parents had college friends, so my dad had gone to seminary in the neighborhood that we moved to, and those seminary people were right there in our neighborhood, and so we didn't have Christmas with family, but it was like the first friends giving, and that was different. These were chosen people, these were friends. These were all of my neighborhood friends. There was a lot more laughter. It was a lot cheekier because my parents were with their age mates, not that my family Christmas in California was dull. In fact, it was like the opposite of dull, because my family is full of performers, and Christmas usually involved a show by adults. I'm talking about adults, a show by adults, not children. There's. My dog involved in that? Yeah, possibly my grandpa would play the piano and people would take turns singing violet would tap dance or do a marionette show. This is, I'm not making this up. You guys, totally serious. Yes, you do exactly. Yeah, this is real. But this was different because, like I said, I was witnessing my parents with their age mates, with their friends, and for the first time, my presents from my grandparents were coming in the mail, and later I found out that they were sending my mom money, and that's why the gift tags were always written in my mom's handwriting. But we did get packages, and those were usually handmade things. So one grandma sent Afghans in colors that we had chosen. I'll show you. I chose love it and green. And can you see that? Yes, that's me with my grandma. My brother chose red, white and blue. Mine is pink and green and yellow. And my other grandma was a third grade teacher, and she was very crafty in the way that a third grade teacher would be, she wasn't like, artistic or anything. She was crafty for third graders. And in 1975 I got this ornament right here.

Unknown Speaker 31:09

Oh, it's so 1975

Kristin Nilsen 31:11

it's so 1975 it's

Unknown Speaker 31:13

decoupaged. Yeah, it's like little Holly. Hobbies, yeah, hobbies.

Kristin Nilsen 31:17

And these are images that she cut out from greeting cards that she had saved. She always saved greeting cards, and then she would cut out in third grade, sure, absolutely, she saved everything. And I'm sure she used these in her classroom too. They're very like, yeah, very Holly hobby ish. And then handwritten on the ornament, it says, from grandma and grandpa Kristen, 1975 although now, when I look at it, you guys, the writing on the ornament does look a lot like my mom's writing. And I'm sure that, I'm sure that the ornament came from my grandma. I'm sure my grandma made that, but my mom may have taken a red sharpie and written that on it, because she sort of has a habit of writing important things on important gifts in sharpie to commemorate an occasion. It's not always for the better. Like on Liam's first Christmas, she gifted us this porcelain ornament that's a baby booty, and then written on the inside of the booty in black Sharpie. Oh no, Liam's first Christmas. Oh no, I know as you don't have to write it. So it's possible my mom defaced my grandma's ornament with red sharpie, but it but you can see it, it's cute. It's matching, yeah, and because Minnesota is full of Swedes and Norwegians, we let our Swedish freak flag fly like we were super Swedes once we moved to Minnesota, every branch in my family is Swedish, except for one, and the record on our turntable that year was a collection of Swedish folk songs that have become ear worms that will never leave me for the rest of my life, never, and every year, my brother will text me with something about Yuli Yuli Yan. Yuli Yan, because we can't, we can't get it out of our head. That was a song that we used to dance to in this like faux made up folk dancing that we totally created, that it was like step hop hop, step hop hop, and we'd go around the coffee table. We thought we were Swedish folk dancing like little Swedish children. I actually went to a sing along at the American Swedish Institute last year, and we sang every song from that album that we had. And I cried every time a new song started, because it was, it was like hoosker do to the extreme. I and you can't find these songs on streaming. They're not I've tried, and you even though Spotify is from Sweden, I don't understand. And so every time she would say, next we're gonna sing you to you, lien, I'd be like, oh. But the most important event of that Christmas in 1975 was on Christmas Eve, and all the friends and neighbors are filling up our house and the doorbell rings.

Unknown Speaker 34:00

Was a father holiday,

Kristin Nilsen 34:03

sort of, sort of, it's Santa Claus. Santa Claus is at the door for real. The excitement was nutty, like you're

Unknown Speaker 34:17

like, six years old, right? Or

Kristin Nilsen 34:18

seven, seven years, my gosh, prime even had a list. He had a list that was like, I don't know, yeah, it was, it was a scroll that had all of our names on it. I was like, it's real because, look, it's got my name on, yeah, it's right here, written in red sharpie, my mom's handwriting. However, in the back of my mind, oh, no, as I'm getting nutty about Santa, I'm both, both of things, these things lived in my mind at the same time, which is, I can't believe Santa is in my house. And also, is that not Santa? I don't think be Santa. And truthfully, that kind of started my. Painful journey of contemplating the existence of Santa, like, Is he real? If that wasn't Santa? Who was it? Because all the dads were in the room, everyone was there, and of course, nobody was going to I didn't, I don't recall asking my mom necessarily, like, who was that mom, I did figure it out years later. I don't know if my mom told me, but it was, it was a neighbor. It was just, I guess, a neighbor who wasn't invited,

Speaker 2 35:29

but it was Santa, yeah, just put me on the list.

Kristin Nilsen 35:33

But it's really interesting to hold these two things simultaneously. I can't believe Santa's here. Is Santa real or not,

Unknown Speaker 35:42

yeah. So that's memorable for sure.

Carolyn Cochrane 35:45

Wow, yeah, it was one of those kind of growing Christmases. I mean, it's like, you're on this threshold, yeah.

Kristin Nilsen 35:52

Everything was different that Christmas. Everything was sort of like amped up to 11, because it was like out of a Christmas card. Now, my Christmas looked like a Christmas card, including the fact that Santa's at my door. That's a lot.

Unknown Speaker 36:06

It's a lot for sure. Okay, that's it.

Unknown Speaker 36:12

Okay, let's wrap that up.

Kristin Nilsen 36:14

So there you have it. Now I've been to Christmas at all of our houses, so we must be the closest of friends. I also think it's so helpful to look back on these things, because it helps you put the current season in perspective. And my takeaway is kind of that. I think it might be for children. I mean, duh. We know that so much of this is about childhood, but I think it's hard for us to let go of that. We keep wanting to make Christmas so special. But what does that mean when we're grown ups and we have grown up children, you know, What does Christmas look like? Then I think we need a transitional time, something to help us transition into adult Christmas. It's less extravagant, it's less stressful, it's more restful. Maybe we need new rituals that don't force our grown up children to do old traditions that really don't apply to them anymore.

Speaker 1 37:05

For sure. Yes, I'm a huge I'm hugely in favor of that. Like, yeah, it drives me crazy to know that there's so many parents, especially of grown children, that still like force their kids to do all the things. And, you know, I know I just spoke so highly of my mom and stuff, which was great, but that was the that I just sort of casually threw in. And then until my daughter was three, and I was like, I'm not going to minute my it was actually a very big deal when I and you guys at the time, I was like, 30 years old, and I was like, I was terrified to tell mine, but I did not want to go, you know, anymore, with a small child. And so, yes, I am a huge fan of let it go, let your grown kids do what like, make the memories for them, but then let them kind of guide what you want to do, and also make some new memories and traditions for yourself that fit your life now,

Kristin Nilsen 38:00

rituals like I'm thinking maybe, maybe we go out for drinks on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 1 38:04

Oh yeah, we do appetizers. We make appetizers, and we don't even do fancy clothes or anything. You know, now that my girls are grown and they come home with their partners, so all six of us are here together. We pretty much look like, you know, hair on top of the head and pajamas, having our Christmas drinks and our, you know, appetizers because but that's what works for us. I'm not, I'm not saying that if your family likes to get dressed up, that's amazing. It's but I would never expect that anymore. I don't expect that of my kids

Carolyn Cochrane 38:36

as as we grow. Yes, examples of that in our own stories about how Christmas does evolve as you get into these different stages of life, whether it's you know adolescence or young adulthood, or your fan you know your parents of young kids and your parents of adult kids. Let it be flexible and yeah, move or listen to your heart. I don't know,

Speaker 1 39:01

because a tradition or a memory felt good at one point in your life. As soon as it doesn't feel good anymore for you to do it, I love what you just said. It's time to evolve. It's time to let that one go. And yeah, and I love having those memories. It doesn't make them any less because I don't do any of those things. I would never make my mom's meatball recipe. My sister has the original recipe that she had framed. I tried to make it one time. There was a Christmas, oh, gosh, probably about 15 years ago that my mom was really ill at Christmas, and I was like, I'm making those meatballs. And she sat at my counter and just kind of guided me and Oh, my God, I was gonna lose my mind. There was, my mind, there was, like, 28 I mean, there wasn't 20 ingredients, but I was like, there's, there's no way. So I know I will never again eat those meatballs. But like, that's okay, that's, that's a little sad, but they, they stay back there where they need to be. I don't need to now drive myself crazy to do all the things that

Kristin Nilsen 39:59

I ended. Just like we discussed previously, we the moms who made Christmas, have to now let go of that job of making Christmas in order to let the new rituals evolve and emerge. You can let other people take the take the helm, take the road, take I don't know. Help me.

Speaker 1 40:15

Somebody help Yeah, and yeah, well, yeah, take the lead, basically, and what they want to do, yeah.

Kristin Nilsen 40:20

What does adult Christmas look like? What does grown up Christmas look like? And I really love being the parent of an adult child, and so I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what emerges. The holidays can be a lot of things. They can be joyous, they can be disappointing, and they can be very complicated, yeah, but I personally am leaning into restful year, yeah, let's hibernate and read and watch TV and drink tea, play games,

Unknown Speaker 40:47

podcasts, listen.

Speaker 1 40:51

Yeah, no, take walks and just be together and and I love that you don't have to make do you don't have to make eight kinds of cookies. People. It is okay. You can buy them.

Kristin Nilsen 41:05

Let someone else make the damn cookies for once. That's right. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we will see you next time.

Speaker 1 41:13

Happy holidays, everyone. And Merry Christmas, if you celebrate Christmas, it's in a few days. So Merry all the holidays, all the holidays. All the holidays.

Carolyn Cochrane 41:21

Merry, merry, everything.

Kristin Nilsen 41:23

Merry, everything. In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast, courtesy of the cast of Threes Company, two good times, two

Unknown Speaker 41:29

Happy Holidays.

Carolyn Cochrane 41:32

Two, Little House on the Prairie. Cheers, everyone, yeah.

Speaker 3 41:38

Cheers, that's right. Cheers, bye, bye.

Kristin Nilsen 41:41

The information, opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards, Nanu, Nanu, keep on trucking and may the Force be with you.