A (9:43)

And.

D (9:47)

We go up to bed. We get up the next morning, we wash our hands, as is the Jewish custom from waking up in the morning. We run downstairs, we eat the Hanukkah gelt, because that was what was in our stockings. And we had Christmas stockings. I remember this now. We had Christmas stockings. Our names were done in glitter. And we kept those stockings for, like, 10 years. We still have them somewhere, probably in a basement. Anyway, we go downstairs, we unwrap the presents. This is how long ago it was. Again, I can't put a finger on the ear. We got tape Walkman, and we were fucking thrilled. And the tape that I listened to until the tape wore out was the cast recording of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Donny Osmond. And I remember. And I was home last week, and I found a picture of me decorating the tree the day after wearing a coat that I didn't know if it was old or if we had got it as part of our Christmas gifts. But I'm listening to the Walkman, and it's weird because you're looking at a picture of a small Jew decorating a Christmas tree while listening to an Old Testament musical sung by a Mormon. Very strange. So. And I love this story because it's a teachable moment. And I think religion's lost a lot of traction in the last couple of decades because I think religion is very short on those teachable moments. I think God is heavy on them. You can write chicken soup books about them. But spirituality is special religion, much less so. Especially people like modern Orthodox Jews who don't know the definition of their own religion in many ways. They just know someone quantifiably more religious than them is crazy. And anyone less religious than them is Episcopalian. Like, it's a very. I'm at the right level. But So I go to school that day and so does my brother, because it's a Jewish school, it's a yeshiva, and it's not canceled for Christmas. And we're sitting at the kitchen table that night, my father gets home and the phone rings. And my father used to do this thing when we were in trouble because the phone was on one side of the kitchen. We were sitting on the other. He would pick up the phone, and if we were in trouble, he would look over his shoulder. If our name was mentioned on the phone, we would know, because he would go, oh. And then he would turn around and stare at us. So we're sitting at the table, and my little brother's sitting next to me. And apparently this is what my father tells us to leave the room. And this is what's happened. So the rabbi has called him the principal of the school, and he says, I need to talk to you about your son. My father goes, which one? And I thought it was me, but apparently I checked my parents. It was my younger brother, Ajay. And they said, AJ Has a lying problem. Which was true, by the way. AJ Has a lying problem. And my father said, what do you mean it's a lying problem? He said, well, today someone brought up Christmas in class, and the teacher explained to the children what Christmas was in a very appropriate way and said, well, of course, none of you had a Christmas tree. And AJ Went, oh, we had a Christmas tree. My father is a second generation member of the community. My grandfather, his father built the synagogue with his hands. And he goes, and I know that you being the son of Julian and you yourself named Eluzer, a devout Jew, would never have a Christmas tree. And he said. And my father says, well. And he said. And also they brought up Santa. And AJ Said, oh, we had Santa. He ate the cookies. He didn't really eat the cookies. Not really Santa Claus, but just to clear it up. But so my father explained the situation. He said. He explained Kate. And he explained that he thought it would be a good moment for his kids, which I thought was a real strong sign for my father, who had always been reluctant to do it. And the rabbi says, well, I understand all that, and I don't agree, because it's a very impressionable time for them, and they really need to learn, you know, learn something. And that could really. You're gonna give them Christmas and take it away, and you're gonna introduce a very, you know, exciting holiday and take it away. And I don't think that's. And I don't think it's a Jewish thing to do, and I don't think it's appropriate. And my father says, well, clearly you don't understand the meaning of Christmas. All right, guys, thanks so much for having me. I'm Alex Edelman.

A (14:18)

So you're astrologers. Well, what is he then? What Star sign. Is he Capricorn? Capricorn, eh? What are they like? He's the son of God, our Messiah, King of the Jews. That's Capricorn, is it? No, no, no, that's just him. Oh, I was going to say, otherwise there'd be a lot of them.

C (14:39)

We'll be right back. We'?

A (14:56)

It's Christmas Eve and I'm finishing work around 7. I don't usually work this late on Christmas Eve, but it pays time and a half and nobody else wants these hours and I really need the money. I'm hanging by the thinnest of financial and emotional threads and I just have to get through this one more semester. After five years of working full time and going to school full time and I'll get money any way I can. I feel like what I imagine a marathon runner feels when they're at about mile 20. What I'm told by marathon runners is that at about mile 20 you're so disoriented your body doesn't tell you that it's hungry or thirsty. Like you don't remember to do those things. You have to remind yourself somehow or you'll just collapse sort of. I'm slogging through and I have absolutely nothing left. Like that's where I'm at. That's where I'm at now. Of course, Christmas comes right after the finals, so I'm exhausted from that. I'm looking forward to one Christmas ritual that's really important to me and that is the drive home with my sister. We pack up the car with presents and treats and tune the radio to Christmas music only. And it's about a two hour drive north. My sister is two years younger than I. We were raised almost like twins because we were from a family of thousands and thousands of children and we're at the very, very tail end. We had to look out for each other and we always had to do everything together. We got the same haircut, we wore the same clothes, we slept in the same bed. We were really raised like inseparably at the same time. We don't really know it yet, but we are on very different trajectories of what we want to do with our lives. I've been so focused on school. That's just what I'm focused on is that's my way out to the next stage of my life and home is this little farm in a small country town in northern Wisconsin. It's really like a Thomas Kincaid painting. It's beautiful and you know, the snow falls in all the right spots and the lights are in the windows. And especially Christmas. It really is like a painting, but also like a painting. It's completely still. It's the same. It is always exactly the same. The furniture's in the same place. Everything looks the same. The conversations are the same. Like, why do you have to live so far from home? Why can't you get a job right here in Berlin? Where were you between the hours of 5 and 7 the other day? I had to talk to your roommate for 20 solid minutes because no one knew where you were. And other kinds of interrogations. That's the. The first line that when we walk in. And then it gets to the really interesting conversations. Like, space travel is impossible because there's no atmosphere in space. So the moon landing is a hoax, That's a government plot. And then the civil rights movement is a communist plot. Really, any kind of big sort of social change is a communist plot. Seat belts. Communist plot. So in this house, change is the devil. Now, this is a big deal for me because this Christmas, I have to tell my parents my plans for after I graduate in a few months, which are that I'm going to Australia to live with my Australian boyfriend that they do not know exists and who will forever after be known as the devil. Now, the thing about change is that you can't really stop change from happening, but you can stop yourself from believing that change is happening. And you can close yourself off to all the emotions that might somehow sneak out and lead right back to having to face some kind of change that you don't really want to believe is happening. There's only one really, truly reliable, surefire, safe and legal way to close off your emotions. And that is a power greater than self. It is a power that is candy. Candy is the greatest, safest, legal drug. It stops everything. There's plenty of it. It will always do what you expect it to do. And we were poor, so we got cheap ass candy in enormous volumes. And we made candy Rice Krispie treats with peanut butter and fudge. Every kind of fudge you can imagine. We'd have gummy bears, gummy worms, gumdrops, jelly worms, fruit jellies, Hershey kisses, Hershey bars, Hershey almonds. If I met a man named Hershey, I would have loved and kissed and married him because his name was Hershey. And of course, Skittles, because when you're really sad, you do need something that tastes like a rainbow. Now it's Christmas Eve, and my sister and I both know that I'm gonna be telling my parents this news. I'm already prepared for what that might be like. Because when you tell my mother particularly something she does not want to hear, there are three stages that you have to go through. The first stage is we have to get out the fainting couch so she can do the sort of Blanche dubois like, oh, what'll I do? I don't know. I'm beside myself. And she'll just faint and she'll need water and a fan. Then she'll have to say, well, how will I stand before our Lord Jesus and explain to him that my daughter is a harlot? And then the third stage will be some kind of warning shot of why this really, really is a bad idea. I'm just thinking of you. I'm just thinking about what is going to happen to you. And I love you. And that's all I'm really concerned about. So my sister and I usually prepare for this, and we back each other up. We're a tag team. So I'm figuring we'll talk about that in the car. And we hit the road and we're on the big interstate for about 30 minutes when the snow starts. Now, it's not really snow. It's more like God is hurling white frosted meteors at our windshield. And it's just hitting the windshield like bullets, just pinging. And we can only see about a foot in front of us. It's just like a darkness and. And snow and rain and ice coming at us. So we slow down to about five miles an hour. And when we pass under a street light, if we do, we see cars off the road. This car's crashed into that car on the other side. And my dad did teach us how to drive in a blizzard. I will say that because blizzards are not a reason for you not to get where you're going in Wisconsin. So this trip on the interstate that should take about 90 minutes takes about three and a half hours. Now, I know that in a rational world, we would turn around because we're really closer to Milwaukee than we are to home or find somewhere to hang out till the storm is over, you know, and just miss Christmas morning. But there is something stronger than the laws of physics, and that is my mother's will, the magnetic force that is you will be home on Christmas. We're already in trouble because we're late already, because we're. We weren't there on Christmas Eve. It isn't even an option. It's just we must go. So we keep on going into this Storm. And then we get to County Road X. This is where we get off the interstate onto sort of a back road that's one lane each way. And it's a flat stretch of road with just farms on either side and fields. This road about a half mile on, we realize is not really a road. It's actually a river that has been frozen. And now there's. It's. We should. We need skis or ice skates to navigate this stretch. And so sometimes we're just spinning our wheels. Sometimes we get a little traction. Sometimes I put my foot on the gas and we just turn around in circles. Now it looks like the surface of the moon because it's snowing so hard that anybody who's been here in the past half an hour, there's no sign of them. So I can't really tell. Are we headed for a ditch? Are we on the road? Are we in a field? I actually can't even tell if we are in a field somewhere. And so I'm concentrating on not dying. And my sister says, you never listened to me. I told you that you shouldn't work on Christmas Eve. And I say, well, this is not really the point right now, but I really, really need the money. And she says, well, I know you need the money. You'll save money to go to Australia and live with some guy that I don't even know, but you couldn't be bothered to save up money to go to Europe with me. And I say, well, that was over a year ago that you went to Europe, and we talked about it for a year before you went to Europe, and you're still upset about this. I mean, I thought we were past this. And she says, I just wanted one thing that we would do together that would be our special memory, that we would go to Europe together for the rest of our lives. We might never have a chance to do that. And you couldn't be bothered to do that. And so I had to go with strangers. And I feel so defensive. I start to feel so resentful. She said, that was so selfish. And I say, wait a minute. The reason I didn't go to Europe is because I had to go to summer school, or I would have had to go a full year longer in school. I've already gone far years. That's another year of my life. And thousands of dollars that I'm going to owe in money. I mean, how is that selfish? And she's crying and she says, why don't you want to stay with me? Why don't you want to hang out with me. And I don't know what to say. It's not about not wanting to hang out with her. I don't know why she's still so upset about this. And I feel so angry that she brought it up. And I'm so sad that she's inspired so much pain because of me. And I get it. For the first time, I get it that she feels like she's going to fall apart if I leave. And I feel like I'm going to fall apart if I don't. And now we've said everything there is to say. And at this point, whenever we've had this kind of a fight about this topic, one of us walks out. But now the storm that has been raging outside the car is raging inside the car. And where am I going? We're not. We can't get outside the car. We'll die. We're trapped in this tin can alone on this I hope road. And all you can hear for about an hour, there's just silence. The crunch of the tires, the slip, slip slapping of the windshield wipers, and the beautiful Christmas music about peace on earth playing on the radio. And then my sister makes a really brilliant move. She pulls this Whitman sampler of 100 chocolates that we bought for my mother out of the backseat and she rips the wrapping off of it and she opens it up and we just start scarfing down those chocolates. And then she gets out the M and M's and we eat the MM's, the plain ones, the almond ones, the peanut ones. I don't even know what else we ate. We ate almost all the chocolate. And we don't talk and we inch along and we get home at probably three in the morning. Now we've been driving for almost eight hours and my parents are sleeping. They're sleeping. So I said, were you worried about us at all? And my mother said, oh, no, no. I just said a rosary and prayed to the baby Jesus and I knew that you would be fine. Now, how about some rocky road before bed? So we go to bed. Now my sister and I sleep in the same bed that we grew up sleeping in because it's the only bed in there. And we wake up a couple hours later because it's Christmas morning and I feel like I went out and got really drunk on whiskey and gin, which are the worst hangovers I've ever had in my life, and then got into a body slamming contest with a wrestler or something. Every muscle in my body is just throbbing from the tension of driving for almost eight hours without stopping and the tension of not dying and the emotions of the night and the type 2 diabetes that's probably setting in. I'm just a wreck, and so is she. So we kind of bond over that, my sister and I, about how terrible we feel, try to have fun, and we try to get it back. Now when I go to tell my mother my news, there's first, the fainte couch. Oh, what'll I do? How will I. What'll I tell everyone in town? Because that's another concern was what will everybody say about her? That I'm doing something that's not conventional or that she thinks is a little freaky. And then comes the real lowdown, which is, how will I stand before our Lord Jesus? And now on Christmas to the baby Jesus, that you're gonna go live with some Australian dude, you're gonna go off and live with this dude. You're not gonna sit here and tell me that, how do I stand before our Lord Jesus and tell him my daughter is a harlot now? I'm kind of prepared for that because I'm training to be a therapist. So she now she brings in what she thinks is the big guns. She says, whoa, have you thought about this? Now you don't really know this dude. You don't really know him. He could be very dysfunctional. And I know she read that in a book somewhere about that, and she feels like that's the crowning jewel that she's got, you know, I'm just thinking about you, hon. I'm just thinking about what's gonna happen to you. And I could see my sister's getting ready to say something, and so I kind of hold my breath. And she says, it's okay, Mom. She'll just say the rosary and pray to the baby Jesus and everything will be okay. Now, how about some Rice Krispie treats with peanut butter and fudge? Because I had that fight with my sister in the car, I really felt very differently about my mother's reaction about my parents whole drama about change. I really understood it in a very different way than I ever did before, because to me, change was exciting and movement and adventure. And to them and my sister too, especially in this case, it was the unknown, which is a bad thing, because you don't know how things are going to turn out. And so to them, change is this very scary path, very dark. And I was able to have empathy, actually, for my parents, which I wouldn't have had if this hadn't happened between my sister and I. And I think about that night often. Every Christmas especially, I think about that. And I think about something I read that E.L. doctorow said about writing and about life, that there are times when it's like driving on a very treacherous road and all you can see is about a foot in front of you from your headlights of your car. And you have to go very, very slowly, but you can make the whole journey that. Sam. Snow is falling on the ground? Wind is blowing all around? But ever since you came to town? It's Christmas every day? You're the gift that keeps giving? You're the song that keeps me singing? Cause when I have you next to me? It's Christmas every day? It's Christmas in every way.

C (31:40)

This is Risk. This delightful ditty comes to us from Latchkey Kid. It's called Christmas Every Day. And we just heard from the lovely and wonderful Jude Trader Wolf. I had the pleasure of first having Jude as a student at our school, the Story Studio. She's a creative arts therapist. And then I later had the pleasure of helping her out a little bit with her solo show, an amazing show called Crazy Town. My first psychopath. We love Jude. Now, in just a bit, we're going to hear from the lovely Danielle Kramer, a writer, producer, the program director at the Nerd Melt, and a lovely person to work with. But before that, now that we're at the end of the year, isn't it high time we look back and celebrate the very best song of 2013? No other track of the past 12 months will be as beloved as this one once history shakes out. Let's hear it. It's the postman with the quick way. Oh, what? Trip to the post office is hardly ever quick? Driving there, finding parking, it's a hassle. So do what I do. Use stamps.com instead. Stamps.com is the quick and easy way to get postage on demand. Buy and print us.

A (33:13)

Post it for any letter or pattern using your own computer and printer.

D (33:17)

Plus a digital scam.

C (33:19)

Oh, you'll never waste time at the post office again. I use stamps.com and I'm obviously cool. Use the promo code risk for a no risk trial. The $110 bonus offer. That's the digital scale and $55 free pawn stick.

A (33:41)

Go to stamps.com before anything else, click the mic on the homepage and type in risk that stamps dot com. Enter risk.

B (34:10)

What I'm going to talk about tonight is how I used to be Grinch. I was the worst kind of Grinch. I was a 9 inch nail shirt wearing, combat boot, stomping, Marlboro red smoking teenage Grinch. And I got it. I was so awful, like most of my teenage years so awful that I can't even look at teenagers anymore these days because they just. Their awful clothes and terrible opinions and about music and I can't even hear it because it's just like, oh, that was me, like tenfold. It's so embarrassing. But the worst part about me being a terrible, terrible teenager was around Christmas time because my parents loved the holidays so much. And I feel so bad because I just wanted everyone to know how stupid I thought the holidays were. And they made sure that it was magic anyhow. You know, they just kept going with making the holiday so amazing for us. Every year in our house, we celebrate Christmas opening like Santa coming on Christmas Eve. We don't do the in the morning. Everything shows up overnight. Because in our place in Akron, Ohio, in our neighborhood, there was this Santa sleigh that would come down the street, street, and it was on Christmas Eve. And we would come out. Mom would be like, oh, do you hear the jingle bells outside? Oh my gosh, girls, I think Santa's here. And we would. We would go out and it was Santa, like, coming down the road in this, like, brightly lit sleigh, and it was escorted by a cop car. There weren't any reindeer, so that did away with some of the magic. But, like, the coolest part of it was that he had our very first present and it had our name on it. And it wasn't just any present, it was the present. And you sat in his lap and you open up the Barbie Corvette that you wanted, and mom would take pictures, and it really did feel like magic. And while mom had us out there, my dad would be. He was in the house and he was being like Santa's elves, putting all of the Christmas presents under the tree. And it was this ridiculous mountain of presents. My mom just went overboard. And he had to dig these out of the basement and the nooks and crannies and closets. And he's grumbling because it's so much work. And we're just going to tear into everything. It's going to be over in 20 minutes. And everything says from Santa, of course, so parents don't get any thanks. But it was worth it because they were making magic for us. I could see as I got older in the pictures, you know, the transformation into a Grinch happening. As I got older, you know, I got angrier in the pictures and I Remember one year, Santa had black eyebrows. And I was so pissed off that they can't even, like, have the effort into having a Santa with white eyebrows. I started making known how stupid I thought everything was. And, you know, it just pissed me off that my mom had every single knick knack and ornament and everything on the walls was replaced with like a Santa or a snowman or something. It reeked of cinnamon. And it pissed me off that we had to listen to terrible Christmas music over and over again. And you hear it everywhere you go. And then mom's still playing in the car and then she's to going playing it at home. And it's like weird, terrible, like Reba McEntire Christmas. And like, there is this like, Barry Manilow and this weird, like, thistle hair, the Christmas bear. Like, what the hell is a thistle hair Christmas bear? Like, it was just stuff that you like. They're not classics. And she played them over and over again. And, like, it pissed me off that it took so long to get everywhere because everyone's looking at the stupid Christmas lights. You know, driving so slow. I just. I didn't get it. I finally started enjoying Christmas when I got married. I got married early. We were young, we were in our 20s, and you're still kind of figuring everything out for yourself. And wouldn't you know the man that I married, he's this tattooed, punk rock, hail Satan loving boy, and he loves Christmas so much, like, almost more than my mother. I was like, oh, my God, are you kidding me? But we found, like, what we enjoyed together, you know, like, we really connected on movies and films. So we, oh, let's watch Home Alone, you know, like, oh, David Bowie does this great cover of, you know, we were like, like all the cool stuff about Christmas. We were. We were enjoying. We started moving away pretty early. We moved away an hour away, first up to Cleveland, and then we moved six hours away to Chicago. And now we're very far. We're in Los Angeles, so far away from little Akron, Ohio. And whenever you start to move away, you start to miss things. And, you know, you start to miss mom's fudge and grandma's sauerkraut balls. And I found myself for the holidays, I was craving those things. And I would call up my mom and I would ask for the recipes, and whenever we would come back, I would ask her for, you know, can you give me some of those ornaments that we used to put on the tree? And I would put those on my tree, and before you know it, everything in my house was replaced with a Santa or a snowman or something that reeked of cinnamon. And I was the one that was driving too slow, looking at Christmas lights. And I realized that it. You know, that feeling, that's all that my parents wanted me to feel. You know, it felt so good. And you just remember the good times, the memories that you had. And that's what they were giving me. And it felt really good. But I also felt so bad because I didn't let them give it to me. I had to find it on my own, you know? But I understand now. Being young and being a teenager, we didn't understand tradition because we didn't want for anything yet. We had all of the presents, and we had all of our family there. And it was like looking back in the pictures, you see everything's kind of the same. You have the same tree, you have the same ornaments. Everyone is there at the same time, and it's the same menu. And the only thing that you notice that starts to change is the people. And people start getting older and you start losing people. And that's when tradition and memory suddenly become very, very important. My grandpa, every Christmas morning, we would go over there and he would play Santa Claus. He would put on the Santa hat, He would hand out presents to all the kids. And he was so great at it. He just made. You could tell it made him so happy. And he teased all the kids, and we had a great time. And when I was 11, he passed away. When you have Christmas and you have the Santa hat, you just remember that grandpa isn't there to pass out the presents anymore. And that's when tradition can be really hard. But my dad, it was his father, he knew that that tradition was really important. It was hard, but he was brave and courageous. And he put on the Santa hat, and he passed out the presents that year. And we all cried our eyes out because it was really sad. You know, it's like. It's not a fun thing. But over the years, you know, the family grows, and Santa was Dad, and it became fun again. And we could all just look back and remember, you know, grandpa used to do this, too. And it was great to have that memory and that tradition. Last year, my dad passed away, and so again, we find ourselves with that Santa hat. And my sisters and I, we had to be brave and strong, and everyone cried their eyes out, but we put on the Santa hat and we passed out the presents. And, you know, it's really hard, but I'm so thankful that we still have that tradition and our family is going to continue to grow and we're going to have kids and those kids are going to be really grateful that we could keep that tradition up for them. Or they will be little shits and be little Grinches and they're not going to appreciate it. But that's fine as long as you know, it's like I was a Grinch and I was terrible and for as hard as I hated on Christmas, I came out in the end loving it that much more. So I have faith in the next generation. But yeah, I just wanted to say thank you to my mom and dad for all those really great memories and for for keeping up those traditions. And I am so thankful now for the holidays because it gives me so much to look forward to and coming home. So that's it. Thank you so much. Merry Christmas everybody.

A (43:23)

You weren't coming back. It's only but now it's golden. Christmas is coming down. I don't intend to spend Christmas without you. We had a fight right on it. You were in different fights.

B (43:47)

What about it?

A (43:49)

And all I know and Christmas is coming.

C (44:03)

That is all for this week, folks. This is the garlands behind me. Now don't forget, if you regret not getting someone a gift on time this year, there are those gift certificates@thestorystudio.org including those one on one sessions over Skype that people do with me. The coaching, storytelling, training. I love those sessions and the people who take those sessions love those sessions. So keep that in mind as something to do in the new year, either storytelling, coaching with me or in a group workshop. Look for us@thestorystudio.org and follow us. Join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook. We're riskshow on Twitter. I'm hekevinalison. We always welcome your story pitches to see if you'd like to share the stories from your own life with us at the submissions page@risk-show.com Finally. Happy Holidays everyone. Merry Christmas folks. Today's the day. Take a risk.

A (45:31)

Oh, a trip to the post office is hardly ever quick. Driving there, finding parking, it's a hassle. So do what I do. Use stamps.com instead.