Dan Kennedy (8:23)

That was Renata Sanken. Renata is a librarian who lives outside of Boston, and she's also the co host of a podcast called the Worst Bestsellers, which is all about books, as you may have guessed. This year, Renata is taking a direct flight to spend the holidays with her family. And she'll pretty much be hoping the whole time that her parents don't listen to this episode of the Moth podcast. She also wanted us to tell you that she really does love her family very much. Our next story was just told a few nights ago at a Moth main stage here in New York City. Kate Tellers hosted the show at Cooper Union, and she opened the second half with this little gem. Here's Kate Teller's live at the Moth.

Kate Tellers (9:13)

A few years ago, I met this kind of quiet dude with curly hair in the bar in the basement of the building that I lived in in the West Village. And he was very sweet. He offered to cook me carbonara. But I had recently, the year before, broken up with a guy who everyone thought I was going to marry. He and I shared an apartment, we bought furniture together. And when he and I broke up, it's like the earth fell out from underneath me. And I didn't know who I was or where I was. I was a mess. I would sit on my roof in that apartment building in the West Village and drink wine and talk to my Chihuahua. It was a very, very dark time. But I really liked this curly haired dude. So I thought, you know, I'm going to do it, I'm going to hang out with him, but I'm just going to, like, go full throttle and let him know what he's up against. There's going to be no, like, sort of medium period here. So on our second date, I took him to a show. I surprised him at the show with my dear uncle, and I was like, okay, so here's my family. And then I took the two of them to a dance party in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel, where 15 of my friends were there very drunk and just sort of gyrating against him. And then we went to the half king on 10th, and he and my uncle and I ate a pounded wine and ate like mozzarella sticks and calamari, like so much fried food, until we fell into a cab and I fell asleep on him. That was date two. It was super fun. And he thought it was apparently fun because we kept hanging out and we had fun. We had fun and it was great and it was all going really well. And then Christmas came. And Christmas is my holiday. I am very passionate about Christmas. So I knew that if this guy and I were gonna work out, he was gonna have to get on board with Christmas. But he was raised Jewish, and he's not Jewish. He's not even Jewish. But he has no. He has no Christmas tradition. So I had to start him from the ground up. And I come about my Christmas obsession honestly. I come from a massive Catholic exuberant family. My mother's one of six, my father's one of seven. They were high school sweethearts that grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania. To this day, if you go to a Catholic church in Erie, Pennsylvania and open the door, the faces that will turn and look at you will be all of my cousins. It's that kind of thing. Okay? We're very, very serious about Catholicism. They're serious about Catholicism. I just took the Christmas part of it. So as we're driving from New York City to Erie, I'm briefing him on this and I'm like, okay, listen. So all of my brothers are named after apostles. You should google them, just so you know the names you're gonna be throwing out. But we also have some repeat names. There's Big Mike and there's Little Mike, there's Aunt Mary, there's other Aunt Mary and there's baby Mary, she's 25. Also, everyone married a woman named Pat. So we just number them one, two and so on. It's hard to keep track. You gotta keep up. There's a lot of caroling that happens. All caroling happens while screaming at the piano that has a banner over it that says sing we joyous altogether except for one song. Silent Night is sung to a creepily accurate, about quarter life size manger scene where someone in the room will put Jesus in the manger in the third verse. Sing quietly but with heart. We carol on Christmas Eve. We carol on Christmas day. In between Christmas morning, we wake up at 0800 hours, we exchange gifts and then we get to Aunt Barb's early because she makes a Velveeta Strata that is the food of the St. The saddest day of the year is December 26th because we're 364 days away from the Strata. So I need you to stay on track. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Anyway, Christmas Eve, we show up to my aunt area's Mary's one of my Aunt Mary's rec areas and everybody starts to hand out these carol books. These carol books were made by my cousin Carolyn when she was 12 years old. They have Snoopy stickers all over them and we hold them like they are hallowed text, like they've been coming out for decades now. And we each have like Snoopy and Woodstock and we turn them and they're all of these, you know, the lyrics to all of the holiday songs that we're gonna scream at the piano together. And he turns to me, he's never caroled before. And he was like, kate, these lyrics are really dark. And I was like, what? And he's like, to save us all from Satan's power. Like Herod the king in his raging, all children to slay. And I was like, well, it was nice knowing you. So we start singing and we're singing carols and he's like trying to follow along and of course no one can hear him because we're all just screaming the lyrics at this, at this, at this banner. And we get to, we get to we three kings. And I'm like singing like belting out, like sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in a stone cold too. I was like, he is not wrong. He's definitely not wrong. Those songs are dark. But counterpoint, they are also awesome. So he makes it through, he sings, he chugs along. Not a singer, not a Christian, not any of these things. Except for the person calling himself my boyfriend at the time. And we leave and he said, kate, as we're coming home from Christmas, he says, do you realize in the course of 48 hours I met as many new people? And I was like, oh yeah, that's because other cousin Chris couldn't come. Anyway, he comes back the next Christmas and the next Christmas and the next Christmas. And last week we're in our dining room with our two little kids and it's quiet. We're about to sit down for dinner and he says, oh wait, hold on. And he goes over to our stereo, which because we live in Brooklyn, is an iPad attached to the WNYC's app, attached to a Bluetooth speaker. And he turns on my current obsession, which is WNYC's 24 hour holiday station. I don't know if you guys are listening, but it is amazing. And he comes and he sits back at dinner and we have planted our two, four, and now eight feet together. And he accepts me. Christmas and all.

Dan Kennedy (15:29)

That was Kate Tellers. Kate is a storyteller, writer and a host on staff at the Moth. She's also the co host of a podcast called I'm Still Here, which is all about making art after having kids that premieres in January. So this year, Kate is the one hosting the holiday celebration here in NYC for her whole family. Her husband Jason just carried a giant tree home in the pouring rain. They're attempting to be exactly the same. They want to recreate the iconic ornaments, the decorations, Aunt Barb's strata, all the caroling, the whole nine yards. Kate's father is now singing with Pittsburgh's Bach Choir, and he's already sent a list of the carols that they'll be singing, and he has assigned soprano, alto, and tenor and bass assignments to all of them. There's sheet music. He has already cast the quartet who will be singing. Kate says that she's thankful as his firstborn, she made the cut to sing. That's it for this week on the Moth Podcast. We hope you've had a story worthy week and from all of us here at the Moth, Happy New Year.

Dan Kennedy (16:39)

Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock on and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and storyteller.

Dan Kennedy (16:46)

With the Moth Podcast production by Emily Couch, Ivan Kureyev, Vicki Merrick, and Paul Ruest. The Moth Podcast is presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.

Renata Sanken (17:00)

Org.