Worst Christmas Decorating Mistakes

This is episode number 169 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad you could join us for another episode on the extra late night edition. of The Homeowner Show here in the studio. How you doing, Kev?

Man, I'm doing good. I guess it is late. It's been a long day for me. But yeah, it's— so I guess it is late. I mean, goodness. Uh, it is 10:30. So I guess it's late.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm, I'm fine. It's been a long day, but I'm good. It's weird outside.

Like, it's weird outside.

Warm.

Oh, yeah, it's been—

and then cool and dry, like 20 degrees, like at 11 o'clock this afternoon. Yeah, I don't know, man. It's weird.

So, but make up your mind, Texas.

Exactly. You doing all right?

I'm doing good, man. Like, what today is— I mean, when the show comes out, it's going to be December 7th.

Yes.

So it is for, you know, for argument's sake, it's December 7th, right? And tomorrow I will be on my 3rd Christmas party.

Oh, already?

I am about Santa Claus'd out.

Gee whiz, who, who is inviting you to all these parties? I'm a very popular man, apparently. I mean, because I've gotten invited to zero.

Who wouldn't want this at their Christmas party?

Well, I haven't thrown a Christmas party.

It brings all the holly and jolly that you could want without the spiked eggnog, which, why would you be there? But then you add— oh, you add that in.

Well, you need that.

Exponentially gets better. Well, yeah, not just plain eggnog. No plain eggnog.

Well, who— I mean, really, I— so Eric, you remember Eric?

I do.

Uh, Eric likes eggnog.

Uh-huh.

And I think he's weird.

You don't like eggnog?

No, I don't like eggnog.

Which once again proves my theory that Kevin is a picky eater.

Okay, so I like the one thing that comes out, like, you know, one month of the year.

Okay, fine. Kevin hates all holiday-themed foods. Change my mind.

I got nothing to say about that.

He doesn't like turkey.

Yeah.

He doesn't like pumpkin pie.

Uh-huh.

He doesn't like eggnog.

Uh-huh.

Telling you, he doesn't like baby Jesus.

Uh, but cranberry sauce is pretty good.

How can you like cranberry sauce but not like turkey? That's the only thing you eat cranberry sauce with.

That's the only thing that covers up the turkey. It's cranberry sauce.

You're the worst.

I don't know. I mean, surely there's other things I don't like.

You gotta be right. There's, there's, there ought to be at least somebody worse than you. But as far as I've seen up until now, The worst.

Yeah. I mean, there's other holiday foods that I do like.

I don't think so.

Yeah, I like stuffing.

That's—

I like, I like the dressing. I like, I like, uh—

What kind of dressing?

Uh, cornbread dressing is my favorite. Yeah, so I like that. Um, and I like ham. I know that's like, like weird, but I like ham.

I mean, it's off a pig. I mean, you're supposed to like it.

Yeah, pretty much the whole pig I like. I'm not gonna lie, if it's off the pig, I like it pretty much.

So the, the big 3, man, you're out.

Okay, I'm fine with that. I mean, you're not— you're— there's nothing about what you just said that made me go, oh, I suck. I'm kind of fine with all of it.

What?

So it is what it is, right?

Yeah, my wife just commented and said he probably eats stovetop.

No. Oh no, that's like— no, that's like eating Shake 'n Bake.

Oh, so now we're highfalutin, right?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, no, I mean, I'll eat a fried bird all day long.

Fried bird?

Yeah, the fried turkey.

I like that.

Okay. Yeah, that's good stuff. Okay. But like most of those 12, I mean, especially the dishwasher one.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna start chronicling all the things that you say that you don't like.

Okay, do it.

I need to like make a—

Do it.

Well, we're getting comments about eggnog now. Yeah, we are.

Here's— I'm gonna put this one up.

What is this? That's my favorite.

I actually drink almond milk eggnog.

Vegan nog?

What? I mean, surely that's—

Why do you do that?

I mean, Look, it can't be worse than the real stuff.

Yes, it can, 'cause the real stuff's good.

I don't know. Just give me some chocolate milk. I mean, why?

Why, are you 4?

Yes, maybe, sometimes. Have you had Promised Land chocolate milk?

I—

Oh, oh, it'll change your life.

I doubt it.

It will.

It's milk with chocolate.

It's milk from a Jersey cow. There's something special about it.

The Promised Land milk.

I mean, if it's as much as it costs, it better be that good.

Do you like strawberry milk?

No, not really.

Okay, I'm all right with that.

Yeah, I mean, I will say this. Promised Land, at one point— this is a long time ago— they put out a, uh, peaches and cream milk.

That sounds weird.

It was until you ate it with a Krispy Kreme donut and it tasted glorious. It was a weird mixture, but it went well together.

I gotta tell everybody, I'm not a big Krispy Kreme guy.

Oh, I don't, I don't, I'm— look, if it's not hot, I don't want to eat it. And even then, it's not my favorite. It's not anywhere close to Shipley.

Well, like, but my issue is, is like, everyone's like, oh, Krispy Kreme's the best. And I'm like, look, man, you can buy it in any gas station.

Yeah.

I'm like, how good can it be?

Well, any— it— once it's about a minute and a half old, it's not good.

Yeah.

It's not. The hot ones, they're They're pretty good.

So my, my roommate from college actually opened a boutique donut shop up in Austin.

Really?

Called Bougie's Donuts.

Ooh.

Yeah, and it's— they are, they're very bougie.

Okay.

So although as a man I don't really feel comfortable using that word.

But you said it twice just now.

I did. Well, it's the name of his place. I get—

I mean, you know, what are you gonna do? So bougie.

It lives up to the name.

Okay.

How about that? I mean, I said it without saying it.

Yeah, you did. It lives up to its name. That's right. That's good. Speaking of names, uh-huh, we should plug our plugs.

Oh yeah, let's do that.

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Also, we see you, Brandon. Yeah, I mean, I— he even put eyeballs on this.

Yeah, I know. I, I don't know, he's like He's like that guy on Twitter that just calls everybody Hitler. Yeah. Yeah.

No, you're right.

We can't be having that. No.

You know, especially, especially if you're just gonna be wrong. Okay.

Well, I don't know which part of— so like what was said is that Shipley's is overrated like Whataburger. I don't know which part of that— are you, are you taking issue with the whole statement?

Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know what's more untrue.

Uh huh.

I mean, more untrue that Waterburger is overrated or more untrue that Shipley is overrated. But you put them both together, and I feel like Brandon. Look, we're fine with you being here. We like you just fine.

Oh, Sarah. Yeah, Sarah. No, we see. We see you lighting it up, Sarah. Yeah. Oh, she has all the all the feels today.

Come on, bring it, bring it. She's like, stop talking about people that we don't want to talk about.

So, and okay, so like. Been friends with Sarah for a long time. She lives in Austin. She could actually go have a bougie donut.

Oh, well, she should.

I don't know if they're like— like, Austin's a big town. I don't know if it's on the same side of town. But if you haven't, let you know, go look it up.

Well, I mean, you've got a Saturday, right? Sure. Yeah, you got a Saturday. And so yeah, I mean, I—

but like, Shipley's is overrated like Whataburger compared to what? Because I swear to goodness, if you say In-N-Out Burger, that's—

Oh, that's okay. I don't even know. I don't even— you're right. What are you comparing it to?

Right?

I mean, we are legitimately comparing Shipley to Krispy Kreme, right?

Who hasn't sold out to convenience stores? No. However, I'm not saying I like Shipley's.

Oh, I do.

They're okay.

I mean, for chain restaurant donuts.

Their kolaches are crap.

Well, I do disagree with you there too.

They're terrible.

No, they're not bad. What do you like better? Kolache Factory?

No.

Okay, what do you like better?

Anybody that uses something other than a hot dog.

Okay.

Hot dogs are gross.

I don't disagree.

I don't want them in my kolache. Use something better. Okay, wrap it in a croissant. I mean, it's just—

Where are you getting it from?

Where am I getting from? Yeah, there's actually, there's actually one, Gladstone 45, that does that. And then you can also get them with— what's that smoked sausage?

Little Smokies?

No, those are gross too. Those are worse than hot dogs.

That's all like Chapel Hill brats.

Chapel Hill.

Oh, Chapel Hill.

Yes.

Okay.

You put like a half piece of grilled Chapel Hill in a kolache with some cheese.

Where is this place? You don't know.

I just told you. Gladstone and 45.

Gladstone. Oh, okay. Is it in a convenience store?

This is in Conroe, y'all.

Is it in a convenience store?

Sarah's trying to tell us about something in Louisiana.

Can you send us one, please? Like, we're in Houston. We're closer than you are, obviously.

Yeah.

But anyway, we're really far off not getting— I mean, we're 13 minutes, almost 14 minutes into this thing.

We're talking about donuts.

Yeah.

Not that it's not a worthy conversation or that I can have one, but it's probably why I want to talk about it. That's right. But let's get into it.

Let's do it.

So I don't think I can number these, but these are just the the, the top worst Christmas decorating mistakes that you can make.

Don't, don't do this. Okay?

She's spamming us with the Southern Maid now.

I know. We see you. We see you. You said it twice, Sarah.

Okay, so they— there is— so I'll tell you this, Sarah. I, I don't know if it's the same company, but there is a Southern Maid Donuts on 99 Over in the east side of Spring. Really? Yes.

Um, let's go. So, I mean, not now because I think this is our problem, y'all. It's, uh, 10:40 now, and, uh, that's PM, and we're a little feisty.

A little feisty. Yeah, because we don't have any donuts.

We don't have any donuts.

I'm gonna take a sip of my not bourbon.

Yeah, that's what that is. All right, so here's the worst. Okay, the worst mistakes, right, you can make for your Christmas to holiday decorations, which, you know, hopefully you've all gotten started on that now. Yeah, I will. I mean, if you're not already started on that, why, why start?

I mean, it's December 6th. Put something out. I mean, get the tree.

Yeah, well, yeah, get the— and I don't know, I mean, that's probably a debate, right? Like, when do you get your Christmas tree? I mean, we, we don't do live Christmas trees, so we put it up when we get home from Thanksgiving.

But okay. I think a lot of people have that rule. It's like the day after Thanksgiving, rather than wasting your time on Black Friday, right? You decorate for Christmas, right? Okay.

Yeah. I mean, that's good.

I think that's an— I think that's a normal tradition.

Yeah, I'm good with it. So, all right. So, so the— we'll just go with the first one we got here.

Right?

Right. There's this, this felt need to absolutely cover every surface that you have, right, with a holiday decoration. Christmas, Christmas stuff everywhere.

Which I think our friend Mary Ann is like this.

Okay, we love—

I forget what episode she's from, but Mary Ann, look, we love you.

Yeah, you—

it's true. But she does.

I've seen a video. Yes, more than one of you in your house. And when we say every surface, y'all, we're talking about the ceilings, the walls, And every place you can step has things, lights. It's amazing.

Yeah, no, she does an incredible job.

I don't know how you do it. I really don't.

I can't do it.

No, I don't know how you have the time or the wherewithal to put all that up every year. Where do you store it? Where do you store it? I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

I don't have an attic.

I mean, like, well, I do, but I mean, I don't have— well, I mean, technically I could probably put it all up there, but I'd have to haul it all down, haul it back up.

I mean, it's just a—

that's a lot of stuff. Ron, I feel for you.

Simple can be beautiful.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

In fact, we actually, at my house, um, we were taking stuff down this year, and I was like, hey babe, where's the rest of it?

All your anti-eggnog signs?

Yeah, well, we put those in a special place, but, uh, I was like, where's all the rest of it? And she said, don't you remember? I purged last year. And I was like, really? I did not remember that. And we did not take nearly as much stuff down as I thought we should. And our house looks wonderful.

Perfect.

It looks perfect. So there you go. You don't have to put as much stuff up there. But it looks great.

Put up what you enjoy.

Yeah, but don't feel like you've got to cover every single surface.

I mean, don't redecorate the whole house.

No. I mean, some of your house was great before you put something, you know, and let me tell— okay, I don't—

the parts that weren't great, go ahead and cover those up.

Yeah, exactly. Except I— let me say this real quick. One thing you shouldn't cover your house up with is an Elf on a Shelf.

I've never done that. Never been interested.

We haven't either.

Don't really even know what it is.

I, I know what it is. Yes.

Somewhere on a shelf. Well, people like to post about it on Facebook.

Um, other than that, look, I would redecorate my house like Marianne's all day long to not have to do Elf on a Shelf. So I think I need to do one of those like marked safe from Elf on the Shelf.

I need to do one of those.

So yeah, so okay, here's a good one. Uh, Sarah, thank you for the the positive comments here about rotating it. So if you have things you don't want to get rid of, just rotate, take some out some years, rotate some, some back in some years, and you've got it all.

Take it out of the rotation for a couple years, pull it back out, it'll look brand new.

That's what we do.

Where'd this come from?

That's what we do with our kids' toys. They think they got brand new toys every 6 or 8 months. You just forgot about them.

Yeah.

That's what we do.

Yeah, you're much nicer. I just throw them away. Quit playing with it, it's out of here.

That's right, see you later.

Not dealing with that.

Read the next one.

All right, missing out on opportunities to turn decorating into traditions. I think, I think this is a big one.

Huge.

Yeah, because I mean, I think especially like as, as dads, yep, like, you know, like we're told to like put up the lights, we're told, you know, certain decorating things for Christmas are expected of us.

Sure.

At least in our— I think in our families.

Oh, definitely.

May not be true in other families, but—

But in ours.

Yeah. Like, do, do these things. And I think a lot of times we get in this mindset of, I just need to get it done and get it out of the way.

Right.

Rather than taking the time to involve the kiddos, make sure that we're spending time together as a family with wife and kids and, and just, you know, turning it into something that's actually memorable so that they'll wanna do it with their families later on.

Yeah, because here's, here's the reality of it. You get to do this about 2, maybe 3 days a year, or you're decorating, and your kids— trust me, your kids want to do this, right? They're excited about it. They're looking forward to it. They want to put the ornaments on the tree. I'll tell you this. So we were decorating the tree, and, um, my wife looks at me and she goes, I just gotta I just gotta walk away and be okay with it. I just gotta— I just gotta be okay with it. I'm like, what? She goes, this right here, this right here. And I was like, oh. She goes, yeah, our daughter decided to put all of her ornaments in this one spot right

here. I said, yes, but it makes her happy.

Yeah.

And you know what? She's 9.

Who cares?

Who cares? She had a lot of fun. She's proud of it.

Let her be proud of it. Yeah.

Right?

You should tell your wife. I mean, like, what, you think Santa's gonna give you less because the tree wasn't decorated?

Well, just so we know, that's not true because we keep finding presents that we forgot we bought back in September or August.

She's like, we got to take some of these back.

I'm like, we don't have the receipt anymore, so we can't take it back.

Missed the 30-day window, babe.

That's right. Sorry. Did you see that Amazon is, um, since like a month ago They were doing, uh, returns through like January 30th.

From?

From Amazon. So like, all the way back to January? No, from like, no, the beginning of November all the way through like the end of January.

Oh, they'll do returns. Okay.

Yeah. That's kind of cool. I know. Yep. Now you know.

I do.

All right. The next one is, uh, you forgot to grab some decor from your yard. Yeah, I mean, like, there's stuff out there like pine cones.

Pine cones are good.

And like fur.

Fur?

Yeah, we don't have fur here. Not like animal fur. Check out that squirrel! Hey babe, check out that squirrel over there! Pick that thing up, man! Put that on the mantle! We don't have a surface covered. Not that—

okay, like a A tree! Let's make a Christmas quilt.

Oh, it'll be a Festivus. For the rest of us.

Not for him.

Not for him.

But for the rest of us that are still alive.

Oh my gosh.

No, like, that would be— that would be an interesting tradition to get going.

It would.

It's time for the Christmas squirreling.

Oh my goodness. That's also probably a food that I would not enjoy. Just saying. Just saying.

I gotta tell you something funny. The other night we were, we were actually out hanging up Christmas lights and my wife was helping me with something. Yeah, we were carrying something down the walkway and I just saw something fly over and I was like, oh, I was like, look, babe, it's a bat. And she's like, what?

Oh.

And I was like, no, the bat, it's flying around. And it dive-bombed her like twice.

What? And she—

whatever we were doing, she just dropped it and she goes, nope, nope, nope. Walked inside. I'm like, babe, it's fine.

Well, no, it's not.

It's not gonna do anything to you.

Well, that's yet to be seen. We'll see. I do want to go back for a minute because Sarah put another piece of information here that was really good. She said that she, uh, paid attention this year and the kids had definite ideas of what was important to them and what they should have out as to what they were decorating. So they each had different things that they thought were tradition as important, right? So they made sure to decorate and do those things because the, the kids found it important.

Well, and like, you know, going back to that, I mean, you really only have like 10 Christmases. where your kids are gonna have any memory of what you did as a family. And then, you know, after, you know, and that really gets them to be like maybe 15. Sure. And then after that, like, they're probably going to do the teenager thing and act like they don't want to participate, but they can get really offended with some of those things aren't done.

Yes.

You know, it's like, we always do this. Exactly. Yeah.

But that, and that's really the thing they're looking forward to. And honestly, I'll just tell you this. I've worked with teenagers for a lot of years now, right? Um, the moments they, they seem disengaged doesn't mean that they are. So just because they seem disengaged in the, the traditions that you're doing, I promise you that if you don't do them, it will, it will be affecting to them.

Oh yeah.

So start those traditions early, and then whenever they become, you know, 16, 17, they'll they'll enjoy that.

Yeah. You know, I think we covered decor from the yard. I mean, there's, there's things out there, you can get them and decorate them if you're crafty enough.

Or the street.

But you know, or if you're a trapper.

A trapper keeper.

All right, next one. You always default to red and green.

I mean, there's really other colors in the rainbow. Sure. But, but let's be honest. Like, what's the other one? White?

White? You can— I think, I think you could. I see a lot of people decorate with blue. And typically it's blue and white.

Yeah, so that's like, yeah, definitely for like, um, that snow color, like the snowflakes, they'll do blue and white. And plus, like, I think blue and white looks really good on like snowmen. You know, I love decorating with snowmen.

I think purple is kind of a good Christmas color.

Okay.

Yeah, it's kind of a Jesus-y—

well, that's for sure—

color.

I'm okay with that.

It's in the Bible, right?

Well, yeah. A lot of times.

Okay.

Yeah, there were certain people that, you know, that was their thing. Purple. Do you remember her name?

Lydia?

Oh, it was! Haha! We have a winner! Ding ding ding!

All that education for naught.

There you go. There you go. Uh, oh, I like this. Uh, vintage Christmases are in. Lots of pink and blue for the past few years. Pink and blue? Pink and blue. Isn't that the color of the dress?

I think that's what, like, well, I think eventually, like, the plastic Santa kind of fades into a pink.

That's why it's vintage.

Yeah. He was once red.

It's vintage just because— that's good. That's good. It's all the UV light it was getting.

That's right.

That's right. All right. Now the next one here—

Mother Nature hates Santa. Yeah.

Yeah, she really does. All right. Well, okay, so we covered that one. All right. The next one is that you own 10 lawn inflatables. Yeah.

I mean, it's just lazy Christmasing.

That's because you don't have 20? Well, what's the— I'm curious.

Well, I think it's just too many.

Oh, 10's too many.

10's too many.

Okay, so you need like one, maybe two.

But like, for me, I don't like them at all.

Yeah, I think it really— I agree with you.

So I'm not saying you shouldn't have one. I'm just saying I don't particularly enjoy them.

Okay. So we were actually given one that was a snow globe once. It was massive. It was pretty cool.

Yeah, I've seen those. Those are actually pretty cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it worked for about 3 hours. And then it didn't work anymore. So it was, it was a better idea than it was executed. But I'll say this. So there was a place when we lived in Arkansas, in Sherwood, Arkansas, and people that are from that area, they know exactly what— as soon as I say it, um, I think you can see it from about 95 miles away from the air. Um, this guy had over— I mean, he— regular-sized lot. I mean, this is not any type— this is residential, regular size, you know, I don't know, like 8,000 square foot lot, right?

Right.

He had over 100 inflatables in his yard. Oh my gosh. He had in his garage a, um, a Christmas village that probably had 300 pieces, like just like the big pieces. I'm not talking about little figurines. He had stuff hanging from the, from the trees. He had nutcrackers everywhere. I mean, this guy, any and every night from Thanksgiving until Christmas, sat in his driveway in a Santa suit and, and handed out candy canes. And people would line up in their cars to come by this place to see how gaudy it was. You can get out and like walk around, but you couldn't really walk anywhere because there was everywhere.

Yeah.

And, uh, and like I asked the guy, I'm like, do you have like a generator running this stuff? And he was like, no, by this time I've, I've pretty much converted everything over to LED. But yeah, I used to break, you know, bust some breakers here and there and had to run a couple of generators and But oh, those LED lights, man, they're fantastic. Yeah, this guy, man, I'm telling you, man, it was, it was insane. I've got a picture somewhere, but you can't see anything. It's just a light. Good for him.

It's crazy. I'll never do it.

But well, no, it was insane. It was nuts. But 10 lawn inflatables is too many.

Plus, I'm not going to give kids candy canes unless I want them to hate me.

Um, candy canes are the worst.

I mean, like, I enjoy the look of them.

Uh-huh.

Just not a peppermint guy.

I— look, I— this is something food-wise you and I definitely agree on. So I do not like peppermint all that much.

Well, they were like, you know, if I've got an upset tummy, it's, it's like, I don't mind like the—

Mm, yeah, okay.

Like a, like a little tiny, like the little round ones.

Oh, that you can chew? That are like, uh—

No, not like the chalky ones, just the ones you suck on.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like, I don't It's, for me, it's just awkward to like even eat a candy cane.

Yeah. Yeah. Which indie— I mean, the only—

Doesn't matter because either way it's going to turn into a stabby stick.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Unless you're gonna impale someone with it. I don't really know. Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

And I guess if you're at a Christmas party, you get kidnapped, it's a good way to like impale your assailant.

Yeah. So, well, by the way, um, our friend Sarah, she says she has 7 lawn inflatable dinosaurs.

So she's, she's under the threshold.

I was gonna say, you're good. Yeah, you're good. You're absolutely good. So no, no issues there whatsoever.

So apparently I'm getting one.

Yeah, I was gonna say she's giving you one too. Congratulations.

If it's a snow globe, I'll take it.

Yeah, those, those— I'm telling you what, those snow globes, whenever they work, they're, they're pretty stinking.

Although I think it would be funny if you had like an inflatable Jesus.

Oh. Like that, like the Buddy Jesus. You remember Buddy Jesus? Yeah, yeah, Buddy Jesus.

All right, next one. You keep your Christmas cards in a box. Oh, so, and I've actually seen people do this, and my mom actually does this. She uses old Christmas cards as decorations for Christmas.

Yes. And they're beautiful. They are.

And you like, you know, she pulls them out and, you know, looks at who sent her one last year and who didn't send her one this year, and then she makes a list and You know, but, you know, it, but they can be beautiful decorations.

Oh yeah. I mean, and we had like a, like a, a, what is it? A doorframe that we would put 'em around at our house growing up. Yeah. And they're, I mean, it's something to remember.

You staple 'em to the wall? What do you do?

No, like, I, I don't know. Tape, I guess. I don't know. Double, probably like, you know, curl the tape up in a little circle and—

Oh, okay. See what you're saying.

I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's much more—

I don't know, much less destructive than a staple.

Yeah, yeah.

Or like a pushpin.

No, I think that's what it was. But yeah, don't, don't keep them in a box. Come on. Yeah, if you're gonna save them, yeah, show them off.

Absolutely.

Okay.

I wish I had saved a lot more Christmas cards. I, you know, I'm not good at that kind of stuff.

Well, and now they're not to say that I don't like you. I'm just not I don't like you enough to keep them.

Wait, it has nothing to do with that.

Well, you're not a hoarder, uh, but I'll say this. Now I like Christmas cards so much better because a lot of times they're doing like these Shutterfly— yes, you know, pictures.

Yes.

And those are great because you get to see, you know, the family through the years and, you know, figure out how long it takes Aunt Susie to get gray.

You know, you can set up a timeline.

Yeah, exactly. And now you know.

Whoo, you was fat that year. Thanksgiving didn't work well for you. And then you fixed it.

And then you fixed it. Congratulations.

Way to be.

That's right.

All right. What's next?

All right, number 8. We're not numbering these.

We're not numbering these.

Number something else.

Yep.

You don't measure your ceiling before you go tree shopping.

It's an important step.

I mean, look, most ceilings are about 8 feet tall. Most of them, right? So if you— now, if you got a vaulted ceiling, whatever, right?

Sure.

But you go into Hobby Lobby or wherever it is you buy your Christmas tree, that's for your artificial ones. You can figure out how tall it is, right? But if you go to this Christmas tree farm and you're thinking, oh, that one's beautiful, that's the most beautiful one I've ever seen, and you Griswold that thing onto your Your car, you travel home with it, you put that thing inside, and then you got this little thing going on, right?

The bend over.

The bend over.

Yeah.

And you're like, I can't even put the star up there. It's so—

right, that's one of my favorite Office episodes when they buy the tree that's too tall and they're in there with the paper cutter trying to—

Yeah, it's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah, just measure. Yeah, I mean, I mean, if you've got a standard ceiling, it's probably 8 feet. But if you've got a vaulted ceiling, then measure it. Yeah.

Are you, are you artificial? Or you guys go for the real deal?

Artificial. Yeah. But here's the reason though. My wife's allergic to that stuff. So she can't— we literally would not be able to be in the same room with a Christmas tree. Okay, if we brought a real one in. So it's just an allergy problem for us. So no, we're artificial. But so this actually, I'll come back and ask you the question too.

But artificial, I mean, I don't want to—

that was easy.

That was easy.

So I'm, I'm, I love the tree that we have. A friend of ours gave it to us. It's, it's 10 feet tall. So it's a, it's, it's beautiful. All the— it's kind of, you have to put all the branches in and fluff all every single branch, you know, individually. That's a good trick. and there's no light. It's not pre-lit.

Okay.

It'd be hard to pre-light one you have to put all the branches in, so we have to string it. We have like, I don't know, 2,500, you know, lights on that thing.

Yeah.

There's a bunch. Um, I'm kind of over it.

Kind of over it.

You want a smaller tree? No, I don't want a smaller tree because I love the size of the tree.

Right.

I just want a nice artificial beautiful big tree.

Mm-hmm.

Balsam Hill is where I'm gonna get it from.

Okay.

balsamhill.com. Beautiful trees. They are not cheap.

Hmm.

But they got some on sale right now.

Okay.

Probably not gonna buy one right now, but they're beautiful.

You—

if you want probably the most beautiful Christmas artificial Christmas tree you've ever seen, Balsam Hill.

Like ballparking, what are we looking at?

Uh, like any, any, you know, anywhere from $800 to $1,200. Probably.

That's up there.

They're up there.

Yeah. I mean, ours is pre-lit.

Yeah.

Which is one of the reasons I love it.

Sure.

I take it out of the box. I put it— I mean, it's got 3 levels and it's just good to go.

Does it— is it got the kind of like the limbs fall down?

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah. We kind of have to like, you know, fluff them, make them look like—

Yeah. We have one of those and we love it.

Yeah. Sarah has the same one I do.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah. I mean, we love it. It's just it's not that big. It's one of the like 6.5-foot ones, and it's a like a, like a skinny one. Not super skinny, but it's not like the, the normal size one. And I mean, it was fine for what we needed it for at the time, but man, we got this big one. It's awesome.

Yeah, I mean, really, that is a big tree. But I mean, like, our issue would be like, I think our downstairs ceilings are like 7.5 feet.

Yeah.

And then, but like our upstairs ceiling, I mean, like, it's like 20 feet.

So.

Sure.

Yeah. We got that big vaulted ceiling in our, in our living room. So.

Hmm. Yeah.

All right.

We gotta, we gotta get through these.

Yep. Here we go.

All right. Don't forget about the smell.

Yeah.

You know, one, bathe. But 2, well, there are Christmas smells.

Yeah.

That help usher in the season.

Yeah.

And for— that's different smells for different people.

Yeah. I mean, look, here's the thing. Y'all all know, if you don't, you should. Craig and I are big Disney fans. If you don't know this about Disney, Disney pipes in smells everywhere.

Yep.

Everywhere. Like their lobbies of their hotels, they pipe in smells. Their attractions, they pipe in smells. Their gift shops, they pipe in smells. Main Street, they pipe smells in, right? Like there's smells that they put into everything.

They're all different smells. We should also say.

They are.

Yeah.

Yeah. They're all different. And it's, uh, it's one of those things that they do it for mood, right? It sets a mood, it sets a tone for what— where you're at, right? And it's the same thing, like light some candles, go get to— go to Bath and Body Works and get one of those little plug-in-the-wall things. I mean, do something.

I mean, what I'm trying to think of, like, what's a— I mean, I guess cinnamon is kind of a— yeah, Christmasy smell.

Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think, I think anything like spice you know, whatever that spice smell is. Not like pumpkin spice, but like, because nobody likes that. Um, at least nobody in this room. But, but like, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, like, it's maybe cinnamon spice, I don't know.

But like the, uh, cider, like, yes, like, well, like, or mulled wine.

Yeah.

Um, those, those kinds of smells. Yeah. And like, you know, but like also if you just make those things, you get the benefit of the drink Sure. As well as the scent.

That's right. And well, I think even an evergreen smell might be interesting.

Yeah.

You know, fire smell.

I mean, not in your house. It would like, you know, apparently ignite an allergic reaction potentially.

Yeah, yeah. That's why you pipe in the smell.

I don't know, is it the smell or is it the actual thing?

No, it's the actual thing.

Like, what is it on the thing though? Is it like the pollen?

I don't know. What? I wouldn't think it's giving off that much pollen.

I just mean, I've always wondered. I mean, because like You know, for me, it's like, okay, how do allergies work? I mean, like, because in order to make the smell, in order— for me, it's like, okay, so I would use the actual thing to make the smell.

Okay.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. Uh-huh.

So I'm like, what is it that's actually, like, causing—

Yeah. That's, that's why Bath and Body Works came into existence.

Okay.

So you didn't have to use the actual thing.

Artificial scents.

Artificial scents. Got it. Alright. The next one's, don't What is it? You don't think about swapping out family photos, right? So change out the family photos.

Get a, get a Christmasy one in there.

Absolutely.

I mean, look, you can green screen some snow in.

Yeah, it's not that difficult, right? I mean, look, most people at some point take a picture, whether it's a pajama picture, you know, Christmas Eve or whatever it is, right? Take a picture the year before and put it into the frame. Or just, you know, one of the things we do is we've got a, like a little thing that hangs on the wall. We just put paper clips on it. And like, you know, paper clips, not paper clips, clothespins, clothespins. That's what they are.

And like, like the wooden ones.

Yeah, like the wooden clothespins. Okay, just hang up pictures that way. Okay, so, and I would even think like, like, if you've got one of those, one of those picture things, it's a digital, digital picture frame.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Put some of those on there.

I don't see as many of those as I used to.

No, they've gotten actually a lot better. Because like now they make them where like anybody can upload to them. So like my, my mother-in-law has one and we upload pictures to it from time to time. And she's like, she's at home and all of a sudden she's like, oh, there's a new picture of our grandkids.

Well, yeah, I know like a lot of smart TVs do this now where you can connect them to like your Amazon photo collection or whatever, however it— your Google Drive, you know, however it works. Um, but they also have like, like Samsung has like the Frame.

Have you seen that? Yes, that's a cool TV.

You can actually make it to where it's like a picture that's just there whenever it's like in rest mode.

Yeah, that's super cool. That's a really cool TV. Yeah, I mean, it looks like a picture frame. It's way overpriced, but it's a cool TV. Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah.

All right, so we're gonna have a couple bonus ones, but this is really kind of the real last one. Okay, um, don't forget to prep for next year as you take everything down. Okay, have a plan.

Okay.

for as you're taking things down that's going to make it easier for you to get everything back out next year.

Yep.

This takes a little bit of forethought, maybe a little bit of an investment in like some storage things that make it, you know, particularly like the Christmas lights.

Oh, like having those little spools that you wrap them up in, like for me, whenever I'm, you know, don't have the pre-lit, like that makes it so much easier.

Yeah.

I mean, they're never tangled, you know. And they even make like little— we've got little cylinder— I can't say that— cylinder— cylindrical, um, bags that those things go in and you just carry them. Yeah, put like 4 of them in a, in a bag and carry them up.

Nice.

Yeah, we have some of the, some of the reels that you wrap the lights around because we have a ton of lights that we put on the fence. Yes.

Um, which I was fighting with those tonight before we got started.

Yep. So way it goes.

But anyway, so here's, here's some, here's some bonus.

Okay. I haven't, I haven't seen these.

Yeah, they haven't been pre-approved or screened, so they're probably inappropriate. So number 1. Okay. If you're going to have a manger scene in your yard.

Yes.

Secure the baby Jesus. Let me just tell you guys, I can't tell you the number of baby Jesuses I've stolen in my day.

I believe that to be true.

If you don't secure the baby Jesus, you're asking for trouble.

Yeah.

So, and then you end up with like a mishmash of different plastic wise men and camels, and it just gets—

Did you— okay, so did you replace the baby Jesus with like a Yoda or anything?

Sometimes. Okay. I think one time I did it with like a Tasmanian devil.

Nice. So yes, baby Taz.

And it wasn't out of irreverence to Jesus. Well, no, it was their fault for not securing it down.

It was their fault.

Yes.

Yeah.

So number 2 on the bonus. If you're going to have reindeer in the yard, yes, you should just expect that when you wake up in the morning, one's going to be on top of the other. They're going to They're gonna be in compromising situations. There's baby deers every day. Yes.

I mean, there's, there's baby deers being made. Yep.

Yeah. In every—

It's funny 'cause, uh, Sarah just said secure the reindeer because they, they frolic in the middle of the night.

'Cause if they don't steal the baby Jesus, they'll make the reindeer do inappropriate things in front of him.

Yes. And nobody needs that.

It's just a baby. You don't need to see that. It's just a baby Jesus.

He did.

He did. How more innocent can you get? Right?

Well, not innocent anymore. I've seen too much. I've seen too much.

Seen a lot of thievery and deer fornicating.

Oh, man, I'm with you on that. Those— I mean, solid, solid bonuses right there.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, look, if— I mean, it's the same thing with these, with these blowups. Like, nobody's gonna steal those, right? Because nobody wants them to begin with, right? So they're not going to steal the blowups, but these other things, that's important. I will tell you, my brother, um, they just did a, a, uh, Charlie Brown Peanuts scene in their, in their yard. So they got like all the Peanuts characters out there. It looks really good.

Nice.

Yeah, it's kind of unique.

There are a few neighborhoods around here that do like themed streets.

Yeah, so they've got one, I mean, uh, there's the candy cane one. Right? They— that like every house has a candy cane, like a big wrapped candy cane. And then there's like the, the Grinch. You've seen that one, right?

Oh yeah, yeah.

We're like— you go through and it's all the, you know, the Whoville.

Yep.

And, uh, that one's really cool. You, you turn a radio station and you hear the Grinch music and stuff, you know, the Whoville stuff, the whole story actually. And then a lot of times there's people out like giving out like hot cocoa and stuff. Maybe post-COVID that doesn't happen as much.

Yeah, I mean, like, for some of these places, I mean, like, it— there's like a waiting line to get in the neighborhood. And if you live there—

Oh, you would hate that. I would hate it.

Well, I mean, you either can just like buy into it and enjoy it and, you know, make a dollar a hot cocoa, or—

Well, like, some of these neighborhoods, don't they like tell you whenever you move into this neighborhood, like—

The ones that do it.

Just so you know, you're expected. It's not, it's not just like Beware, you may have a lot of traffic. It's like, beware, you're not welcome.

Yeah.

If you don't— like, they give you— like, the decorations get passed on.

Yes.

From like when it's part of the sale of the house.

You can also see it where like the one guy is, he's just, he's just done and he's like, what's the bare minimum I have to do?

Yeah.

And he's right. He's got like the one thing on the yard that's on theme.

Right.

So yeah. And he's like, I'm doing it.

I'm doing it.

Yeah.

But those, those are really cool. Yeah, I, I, I love it whenever neighborhoods kind of get together. Like, we, we've even done, uh, been around some that like put the, uh, they line the curb with the— what do they call it? The little bags with lights in them? Little paper sacks?

I would go with bags with lights in them.

Bags with lights in them. They look cool.

I think it's a technical term.

Well, I don't know what they call them. I remember seeing in Arkansas.

Not really up on my Christmas Decor vernacular.

Well, I'm apparently not either whenever it's 11:11 at night.

So I told you, I'm— I got my 3rd Christmas party tomorrow.

I'm—

I think I'm— I think I'm good.

You're good. You're done. So, well, that's not enough because we're having another one at your house in a couple of weeks that you just found out about tonight.

No. So like, I have— well, so there's— I've got the one tomorrow. I've got one on the 12th here. And then whatever one you're throwing here.

On the 13th.

Yeah.

I'm bringing p— I'm bringing people over to your house.

Bring it.

So we're having a Christmas party at your house on my behalf. You're welcome.

I'll have fake reindeer in the yard.

Oh my goodness. If you don't now, we're gonna have, we're gonna have issues. I'm gonna be frustrated. So, all right, man. Uh, anything else? Did we miss any of them?

Not unless you want to hear about the weird dinosaur thing I found out today.

Oh, I definitely want to hear about it.

You want to hear it?

Yeah.

Okay. So I was listening, I was listening to an interview with the guy. So you remember Jurassic Park?

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So the main character, like the paleontologist.

Uh-huh.

I heard an interview.

Jeff Goldblum, right?

No. Um, Jeff Goldblum was the, uh, mathematician.

Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I know who you're talking about. Um, continue.

Anyway, the guy who was the consultant for the movie, whose character that was based off of, right? So he's famous paleontologist. And he has, he has put out several books now about dinosaurs. And he's saying like, look, they all had feathers.

What?

And were like multicolored, like parrots.

No.

Yes. He said they have now found them. Like you can find the plumage. They found it like the feather indentation on their skin.

And he's—

and he was like, what? And the guy interviewing was like, are you talking about like T-Rex? He goes, oh yeah, T-Rex had feathers.

What?

And I'm like, shut your mouth. He had like a picture of him and it looks— it's just like, it's a giant turkey.

He probably also thinks that Pluto isn't a planet.

Well, yeah.

So I mean, we can't trust this guy.

But like, not just like, but like the predators, man. Like, And like, and this guy was like, okay, hang on. Like every dinosaur I've ever heard about from when I was a kid, and obviously this guy's around our age, they're like, they're either army green or like some, you know, weird gray. Gray. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, nope, they're like purple and red and blue and white and they all have feathers. And yep.

I, I, I'm speechless. It's— that's hard to do.

But go buy it. Go buy a newer dinosaur book for your kid. Okay, and see what it has.

So what about like The Land Before Time, man? Crap, it's just all wrong.

Yep, all lies. But Petrie, I'm telling you, man, like a better working definition is science is the history of being wrong. That's all it is.

That's good. That's good. Man, I— well, thanks a lot for that.

Yep.

You just ruined it. You just ruined everything.

Maybe I made it better for somebody. I don't know. Maybe they were just like, I don't like dinosaurs because they're ugly and gray and they look like they're from Cuba.

I mean, Sarah says her childhood is a lie. I'm telling you, my adulthood is a lie. My whole life is a lie. I can't even tell my kids. I can't look my kids straight in the face and say that's a dinosaur.

They still had teeth. Well, apparently— Here's the other creepy thing that he said.

Okay.

Is it was— this was on a hunting show I was listening to. And he was, he was asking him, he's like, okay, so I get, I get dropped here off the coast. I go up to a high peak in a day. How many T-Rex do I see? And he goes, well, think about it like this. If you were to go to Africa, you know, in certain parts of Africa, how many hyena would you see?

Uh-uh. There are— because, because those things are everywhere.

Exactly. Uh, and I was like, that's crazy.

That's nuts. Like, I feel that way, like the velociraptors are everywhere. I feel like those things like multiply like rabbits or something.

Okay, so we're on a weird dinosaur tangent here at the end of a Christmas show, which is fine. People put up dinosaur decorations for Christmas. It's fine. It's— yeah, it's fine.

Yeah. Yeah.

So the velociraptors, uh huh. They talked about this for a long because obviously that was a big part of that movie.

Yeah.

He said they're about twenty inches tall.

Twenty.

Did you say twenty? I did. And they had feathers.

This is like a little, and he was like a little turkey.

He was like, why? Why were they? And he goes, well, because Spielberg said they weren't scary enough. They needed them bigger because like in the movie, they're like 7 feet tall.

Yeah, they're, they're, they're bigger than a human. Yep. They're barely bigger than my dog.

It's all, it's all a lie.

What?

It's all about the show.

Look, I'll tell you this. I didn't like Jurassic World.

Well, even think about like the most recent Jurassic Park movie.

Yeah, Jurassic World.

Who was the famous velociraptor in there? It was— do you remember?

No.

Blue. Because he was, uh, he was blue.

He was blue.

Yep. And they were kind of getting that in there.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Well, I did not like that one. Jurassic World. What?

Okay, because there's been 2 of them.

Well, there was like, there was Jurassic Park, and then there was Jurassic—

there was 3 Jurassic Parks.

Yeah, the last one was Jurassic World, wasn't it?

Jurassic World was the 4th one. Oh, and then there was a 5th one.

Oh my God, I, I've got— y'all, I've got work to do.

Did you not like— you didn't like the Chris Pratt one? Is that the one you didn't like?

No, it was Jurassic World. I don't remember the— was— yeah, no, that had Chris. Yo, that's the one I didn't like.

You didn't like that one?

No, it was very cheesy. Very cheesy.

I got news for you, they're all cheesy.

No. Okay, the, the first one had incredible music.

You only liked the first one because it had Newman in it.

Well, that's true.

And Samuel L. Jackson.

Oh my gosh.

Who both died.

Hey, I will tell you this.

Spoiler alert.

Have you played the— what? Why did you have to tell everybody? Come on, man.

I already told them they had feathers. I'm ruining everyone right now. You did.

Have you—

you played, um, were you with us when we played the Jurassic Park board game?

Board game?

No, you told me about it.

Oh my gosh, you, you would really like it. It's fun. It's legitimately a very, very good board game.

And I've gotten conflicting reports.

Well, who have told you?

I'm not naming names. Come on, this isn't the '50s.

Whatever. You just said that dinosaurs have feathers. I think you're willing to say anything. Google it.

Google it.

And I don't know if I will. Here's what I know. We need to end this. Thank you guys for, uh, listening to tonight's show. It's actually today's show. It's whatever day you want to listen to it. December 7th apparently is the day. Uh, but thanks for downloading the episode. We hope you enjoyed it. It's been a little bit crazy, uh, but we'll be back next week for more. Until then, we'll see you next time. See ya!