00:00:18.680I am filming this on the 25th of December, 2023.
00:00:24.240And as you get a little bit older in the years, a little long in the tooth, as they shall
00:00:29.280say, I guess we start really thinking about past Christmases and people who obviously aren't with
00:00:38.060us or life changes, or we start being a little bit more nostalgic, or heaven help me, I don't
00:00:44.760know how much more nostalgic I can be, about what once, it's going to be a long night, ladies and
00:00:52.480gentlemen, what once was. So I guess I want to talk about that a little bit. I want to talk
00:00:58.500about nostalgia. I want to talk about, and I apologize for everybody who doesn't celebrate
00:01:02.780Christmas. I get it. It's not your jam. Whether you're celebrating Hanukkah or you're celebrating
00:01:09.160Kwanzaa or you're celebrating an Eid, whatever your thing is, please use this as a philosophical
00:01:17.000application to that thing. Because as everybody understands who listens to me at all, I'm not
00:01:23.580religious. I attach no religion to this particular holiday. I realize it's Christian, but
00:01:27.760and culturally speaking it's inundated in all of our lives whether you want it to be or not
00:01:33.220here's the thing though the thing that I remember the most and and the funny part is you remember
00:01:41.300things from your own perspective in your own time so I think a lot of nostalgia especially for our
00:01:48.280younger years comes from the fact that we had no idea whatsoever about what was going on we had no
00:01:56.980idea what was going on in the world. We had no idea what was going on, like those weird family
00:02:02.160dynamics, who was fighting with who, who was being an ass, who was whatever. We have no idea. For the0.98
00:02:08.780most part, most of us didn't understand who was stressed about money or which marriage was on
00:02:14.640the rocks or as our older parents and grandparents, who they were missing and what they didn't speak
00:02:23.660about. We didn't know any of that. Because as kids, this was our tunnel vision, right? As kids,
00:02:30.560we just had a list. This is the present list. I would like all the things off said list. And
00:02:38.360that's it. And I know it sounds materialistic, and it is. But it was also something about,
00:02:46.940and I know not everybody gets everything off their list, not the point. The point is this.
00:02:51.320The point is this beautiful moments of family, of, you know, doing things traditionally every
00:03:02.720single year and you know what's coming and it makes you feel good and it makes you feel stable
00:03:07.680and it makes you feel grounded. And for little kids, it was just the thing you did. But for
00:03:12.340adults, what I'm beginning to understand about tradition, because you know how much I like to
00:03:16.880chuck it i'm beginning to understand that the tradition that we hold in our families
00:03:25.760is the thing that makes us feel safe it makes us feel grounded it makes us feel
00:03:34.000like we have some element of control over what's going on in this insane insane world um
00:03:41.920And that's why at Christmas, and that's why at holiday, we forget all the family dynamics.
00:03:48.000We chuck our boundaries to the wind. No matter what that person has done to you over the last
00:03:57.660300 and some odd days on Christmas, it doesn't matter. Come on in. Did you bring the spinach
00:04:04.120dip? Did you bring the this? You got that present. That's it. That's it. And
00:04:11.460And I remember moments in my life when I was a kid. Let me recap here. When I was a kid, I was very, very, very spoiled. And I don't mean spoiled in the sense I was rotten. I mean spoiled in the sense that my family, we show love through gifts.
00:04:31.780Listen, Grandma Ruby's Get My Purse is not made up.
00:17:07.840nothing that Christmas was that like just this beautiful sense of peace and I had that last
00:17:18.700year I remember having that last year with my family and not being able to articulate it I
00:17:23.880remember sitting around like last year was my grandma's last Christmas and I remember and it
00:17:28.440was perfect if she had to have a last Christmas and we all know I wish she didn't last Christmas
00:17:36.360was perfect because number one, she had this whole world of the internet who knew her and0.70
00:17:42.960loved her and sent her gifts. And she was just so emotionally touched by that. But I think she
00:17:50.720truly felt loved and calm and secure, just like we all did. Now we switched up Christmas a bit
00:17:59.500for my grandma because my grandma never, never, never, never could get up early in the morning.
00:18:03.920So as kids, it was torment. But she managed, right? But as we all got older, she'd just be like, you know, let me sleep in. So we kind of switched everything to Christmas Eve outside of the Santa stuff. Obviously, she's going to have to get up for that. But, you know, we would do some stuff on Christmas Eve.
00:18:22.960there was a peace and a giddiness and a, you know, you put White Christmas on TV and a love there
00:18:32.700that is so incredibly important and beautiful. But that beauty becomes much more bright
00:18:44.180and much more powerful if you've, let's say, you know, wiped off the lights and moved the brush
00:18:55.820and cleared the way to actually have that as amazing as it could be, you know? Today, my mom
00:19:04.840and I, like my whole family was here last night and Anna goes to her mom's and I'll follow soon
00:19:11.240thereafter. But I spend a little bit of time with my mom now and we went to the casino today. And
00:19:18.340why? Well, because her and my grandma used to do it back in the day when they were just by
00:19:22.780themselves later on Christmas day. And so my mom and I did that. And there was something, again,
00:19:29.580kind of funny because we were laughing that we were in a casino on Christmas, but
00:19:32.860um okay it's a day and it's kind of funny and the tradition the idea that we have that kind of
00:19:42.160relationship where you know you take a little bit of money out of the bank you spend time
00:19:47.840together you laugh you we lost money let's be honest um we we laugh we we connect with other
00:19:56.780people a little bit it was it was beautiful and you also start to recognize it doesn't matter where
00:20:02.460you are, right? Doesn't matter whose house you're at. Doesn't matter what food you're eating. It
00:20:08.340really, that is really like a distant second in that capacity. So I've been trapped a lot less
00:20:18.460by nostalgia. Don't get me wrong. I still want all the toys. If anybody has any vintage Smurfs,
00:20:22.400please hit me up from the eighties. But as for the dynamic, I don't need that anymore.
00:20:30.040I don't need that anymore. I need things that are real and authentic and beautiful. I need people to be able to be honest and put it on the table. And that is so incredibly powerful coming to that.
00:20:51.100and I can't believe I haven't had it for as long as I haven't had it you know and again I say it
00:21:01.620doesn't need to be blood it can be people that that you have cho you guys have chosen each other
00:21:07.220in fact I almost find that more powerful right blood you're bound together by obligation in some
00:21:14.200sense. Friends, you're not. You're not. That's a choice. And that's a commitment. And that's
00:21:25.160this beautiful thing that you've managed to build. And it's incredible to me. Absolutely incredible.
00:21:35.420So we're rolling into the new year. Do I have any New Year's resolutions? Don't be ridiculous.