Welcome to a Very Outspoken Christmas. It's that time of year to crank Mariah Carey in the car and begin your Christmas shopping. Our names are Amy Kate and Sophie Torber. We're identical triplets and during the festive season, we have an identical opinion. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. In this special series, we're discussing all things Christmas with help from some influential Australians.
For you, Glenn Colco, you go, Glen Cuco. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that Jimney Day, He's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.
Thank you so much for joining us for our first episode of a Very Outspoken Christmas.
Gosh, this is.
Literally a career highlight for me getting to speak about Christmas because anyone that knows us knows that we are obsessed with Christmas. Our lives change for the better around mid November. We become nicer people all round. I feel we do. Throughout the years we have been known to drop a lot of money on Christmas decoration. I've got to say we still don't have about some hill Christmas tree.
We haven't gone to that extreme of spending one thousand dollars yet, but so I for you were sending them to me last night. Well, I was crunching the numbers, but I could only afford a very poor man's version of the tree.
It's not worth it. I got to go.
I've got to wait till it's on sale in the boxing day South so I might have one more year of a real Christmas tree. Which, you know what, last night, I was getting so excited because I was googling real Christmas trees because last year I feel that we got a little bit ripped off. I mean, I wasn't happy with my own Christmas tree choice. So I thought I'd better actually do the research, and there were some really cheap ones up in the hills that I might actually
look at. I feel like this year we've got to have another Christmas tree competition because us Torbert's we're all about competition. So we will get a listeners to vote on who has the best Christmas tree. Well, I'm just so relieved because finally I am not competing against my hideous red carpet. I will be moved into my new house which has neutral carpet, and I'm very excited.
Didn't they then Christmas tree lights so people have to drive all the way out to norwhere was a Saturday?
They invented him Russ because people forgot how to have a fun, old fashioned family Christmas and are satisfied with scorny, dead, overpriced trees that have no special.
We should probably get into why we have decided to do a Christmas podcast. It is obvious we are obsessed with Christmas, but we really have to give a shout out to our dad, who really started our pure love for Christmas. It's funny because people who meet our dad would have no idea that he becomes the biggest softy every Christmas.
You kind of think it was our Mum, wouldn't.
You, poor Mum, because dad is so over the top with Christmas. Sometimes she gets called the Grinch because she tries to reel it in a little bit. Can I just say Mum is no longer the Grinch because last year she bought a three hundred dollars Santa Clause, like this massive Santa Claus. We'll have to share a photo of it, and I feel like that lost her her Grinch status because that was the coolest Christmas buy I've seen in.
A couple of years.
Well, we should probably get back into Dad, because, as we said, Dad really sparked our love of Christmas. He was the one who get the precedence of having a real Christmas tree. Every year it would be one of our turns to go down to Safm with Dad and pick up a Christmas tree. And this is really showing our age because back then I remember the trees being
only twenty dollars. My favorite bit of the day of getting the Christmas tree was when Dad would come back with the tree and he'd proudly show the two of us who hadn't been able to come because they would drive this big van around so we couldn't all fit in there. Fad, it sounds like something like it was just enormous man. They'd drive a Torgo van and he'd
come home and proudly present us with this tree. And then he had this tiny like red holder for the tree and it stands stand sorry, and it would have a rubber band in it and it would like the tree would always fall down there every year, and he'd come in and he'd have his pants were like showing off his bum crack and he'd be swearing because this tree would not stay up, and it was hilarious. But
that was my favorite Christmas tradition. It would be working out how long would actually take for Dad to get the tree out. You'd hear every swear word known to mankind, and then you'd bring the big box down of Christmas decorations, and then all the lights would be completely tanged, and then that would take forever to do. So you're almost like half trying not to have an argument with everyone whilst also blaring Christmas music and trying to have a
great time. But I feel like that's what the holiday is all about. There's always a little bit of hostility in the air. Just on the topic of Dad and Christmas trees. I've got to say, I'm still absolutely crushed that they've gone out and got a fake Christmas tree. So when we all moved out eight years ago, Dad decided that he would no longer buy a real Christmas tree, and he got some fake tree from Mayer. And it's
not about some hill tree. It's a very It's one of those trees where it's like it hurts your fingers to put the decorations on like it's just and that's what you've got to have, because we still go over to Mum and Dad's on Christmas Morning to open our presents, and it just doesn't have the smell of a real Christmas tree. Do you know what one thing that we have to turn on on Christmas Morning is? Does anyone
else have those lights? And they play that horrible music, But it just reminds me of Christmas Morning as a child because it'd always be on and it would just be blaring in the ears, but you'd have to have it on. Talking about the smell of a Christmas tree, can I just give a little hot tip here? I went out and bought one of those I don't know if I'm pronouncing the brand right, but it's a choir the candles, and they have a candle that spells.
Exactly like a Christmas tree.
So if you've got a fake one, I would highly recommend getting one of those candles because it smells amazing.
I am against innocent trees being cut down in their prime and their corpses grotesquely dressed in like tinsel and twinkly lights.
When do you guys think it's appropriate to actually start celebrating Christmas. Oh, as early as possible, I think, especially in twenty twenty, I'm seeing a lot of people are celebrating early November, and I've got no issue with that. I think as soon as Halloween's over, Christmas is just starting. Look, I am all about celebrating Christmas early, but I think you've got to wait for the Christmas patgeant and then
you can start decorating. Would you guys think that there's a specific marker that signifies that Christmas has actually started. I really think it's when the jacaranda tree start blooming,
the beautiful purple flower. We live in an area while our parents live in an area where those are everywhere, So as soon as that starts happening, I'm like, oh my god, it's Christmas, isn't It's when Cole's are war Worth starts stocking Christmas stuff, so it's always they start with like little puddings, and then Maya will start having their decorations. Once Maya have the decoration set up, that's
when I feel like you can officially start celebrating. I personally think it's when the Christmas song start playing as well. It was out marrying on the Weekend, which is a shopping center here, and I felt so Christmas y. I was so happy hearing those songs playing. Yeah, we're talking about Christmas songs. What is everyone's favorite Christmas song? Because I'm gonna say, I mean, I feel like it's quite obvious. I think we all like all I want for Christmas
is you. I think that's top two. That's god level of Christmas song. I'm also a fan of Holy Jolly Christmas, which is a bit of a random one. It's because it reminds me of our dad because one year he played it on repeat for the whole Christmas just to see if my mum's brothers noticed.
No one noticed. That was surprising.
I also do like I'm a big fan of Hillary Duff's Christmas album, and also some of Taylor Swifts Christmas Wrong, Oh my Gosh, and Britney Spears is Christmas? What about Michael Boubla of course as well, when you're putting the tree out, that's some great white ground music. I think we should put together a bit of a Christmas playlist that we can for listeners to get into. It should be played when everyone's putting up their Christmas Treuth so
we should get onto that. What about Christmas food? Because I feel like food is one of the best things about Christmas. Do you guys have any traditional Christmas dishes that you like to cook? For me, it has to be a Nigella Lawson recipe. She has a Christmas book that we have been using for years. Apart from that, I also love to do a gingerbread house and I feel really sad if I haven't done one, like we've been known.
To do them on Christmas Eve.
I always love to be in control of the Christmas Day menu because since we moved out of home, we've nearly had Christmas at our house every year, like dinner, so I love cooking all the veggies, like that's when I really know it's getting close to Christmas. What else? I love doing cheesecakes and like lots of different desserts. Our Mum always cooks three particular chocolates and I loved
helping her make those when we were little. It's really the heavier the better on Christmas, even though like when it's hot, sticky, it's the last thing you feel like, but.
You know you've got to do it.
Oh, You've got to have cherries as well, I feel like when cherries are around, that is like Christmas time, do you know what I feel like? These it's all about recreating the Christmas that our grandma would put on.
What about Advent calendars.
Oh my gosh, I was eyeing some off at the shop yesterday because they're on sale, and I've last year I missed out on getting one. They literally like sold out everywhere. But we were really lucky because Mum would buy us one and our grandma would buy us one, and we were never allowed.
To have chocolate.
So even though it's that crap like cooking chocolate taste, it was so exciting to have two chocolates. You know what. I'm going to health kick this year. So Dale and I keep joking that I'm going to get an Advent calendar and open up the window and there's gonna be like a shot of magnesium or something like that. I mean, I've been seeing some like weird Advent calendars, like coffee ones, but I haven't seen that one yet. I saw a
friend's Advent calendar on the Iconic. It was so cool. Really, everyone's going out, you know, creating some really different ones this year that aren't just food based okay.
People tomorrow morning to dam Sata's coming down.
Oh my god, see here, I know him. Well.
I think we should go back and kind of reflect on our childhood and to why we love Christmas because I know about other people, but we believed in Santa for a very long time. You know, they say that the smart kids pick up on it, but I don't think so. I think it's the kids that are smart that want to keep it alive because what you get present, you get the magic of Christmas, you know, well, Joy, it's the kids with an imagination, that's right. Well, I
still remember Mum. It was kind of when we were cluing up on the fact that, you know, FC wasn't real, and she'd say, those who do not believe do not receive. So I think that helped us along the way. But the funniest thing is, as I said, I think we were around eleven or twelve when we stopped believing in Santa. And it was a really terrible moment. Our year five teacher he announced to the class that we would be replying to the little kids.
Let us to Santa.
Yeah, our buddies, let us to Santa, because as everyone knows, he's not real. Now, I think three hearts in that classroom broke. I just thought it mustn't be true, because this teacher was actually one of the best teachers we ever had, and I actually thought that he was so magical and cool that he.
Was Santa Claus.
Yeah, I know that he was trying to get us off the same if you've been Santa, Well the funny.
I mean, that's just delusion right there.
Well, I do remember once we'd because we used to leave gifts out for Santa. And I remember one year we found the gifts that we had left out, and Mum sort of told this story that she wanted to keep them because they were so beautiful. But we have gone to the efforts of trying to get Santa's autograph. So we told our childhood friends, look, this year, you get it, and we'll get it and then we'll compare it. But unfortunately they already knew Santa wasn't real, and so
they claim they claimed, do you know what. I used to have this photo that I took off the front page of the paper, and it was a photo of Santa at the pageant and I got the signature on it. So I used to have it up all year round, and do you know what, I'm so dumb because it looks so much or it is Dad's hand writing. It is literally says Merry Christmas, Amy from Santa. The other funny thing I can remember is the threats over Father
Christmas if you're being naughty. I remember our dad would pretend to ring Father Christmas up and tell him how naughty we will be. And as soon as he started dialing that numbers, you do whatever he'd ask you to do. I remember he once got through, so we tried to redial the previous number. Of course it didn't go to the North Pole. But I think it's really cool now because there's these amazing apps that parents can get on their phone and it's kind of automated, so it sounds
like you're talking to Santa. We actually said our grandparents a couple of years ago, and they couldn't believe it. So I'm really glad they have things like that because hopefully the spirit of Father Christmas stays around for a bit longer. Because of course kids have now got Google that they can just google is he real or not?
Do you know what is so funny though, because the thing for me is I think how the kids not pick up on it that they go into a store and there's one Santa in mind, there's one in David. Can I answer that because they're Santa's help, That's right. I was about to say that I would always think that the real Santa was the one in the pageant, and also the one who appeared at carols by candlelight. We've got to say, we're talking about the pageant, and
that's a very Adelaide thing. So I assume that everyone had the Christmas pageant, but it seems like we were born into the right state. So basically it's like the Thanksgiving Parade, except it's Christmas themed and there's these special floats that go around the city and at the end there is Santa Claus on a float and then he goes up to the Magic Cave in David Jones and all as well. So I feel like Adelaide listeners they
will definitely relate to this. You always wanted to be the girl that got to ride on Nipper and Nimble, which were the two horses. There were always two very pretty girls riding on the horses, and I desperately wanted to be one of those girls. So fun one of the girls in our class got to be on the horse because her dad worked at the bank which puts on the pageant. And I remember being at the pageant and we ran into her and Mum made us take a photo with it.
Even at that age, it was patronizing.
Yeah, I mean, do you know what other than the girls who rode on Nipper and Nimble, I love the puddings, there were just these people that were in this putting outfit and just their legs or the snowmen. But you know what, one ride that you did not want to be on. There was this big old bus and everyone is like always like forty degrees when the pageant's on it everyone's like crammed into it and they're like hanging out the windows waving just back onto the snowmen. I
remember there were people dressed up as snowmen. I saw one of the snowmen with the head of it off, smoking a cigarette and that just ruined things for me. Well, I'm actually really jealous because one of Riesa's friends has been in the pageant a couple of times and was saying that she was going to be in it again, and I fell a saying can.
I be in it too. What would you want to be.
I would want to be associated with father Christmas float. I think, oh, what is it like, not mother clause, but there's like a pageant.
Yeah, no, I wouldn't mind being that. That would be quite good.
What about the blue on a line. There was always a blue line at the pageant and you weren't allowed to cross that line. And I remember it feeling very serious that you would get, you know, a limb taken off if you're going to cross this line. Would you know what's crazy? So I was talking to some of Riesa's friends who were parents, and they said that it is now the norm that people go down and save a spot at the pageant at like four am.
That's insane.
I was like what, and they're like, yeah, that's just a thing. You can't get a spot if you don't do that. Yeah, that's taking it to another level. But I do really respect that at the first of this dinner, you get your family around and tell them.
All the ways they have disappointed you over the first year.
And is there a tree?
No, instead, there's a Paul requires an old decoration.
I find tinsel distracting.
Well, moving on to what actually goes onto the tree, and I feel like our grandma, which is our dad's mum, really inspired our love of decorations.
So she was very.
Particular about how she set up the decorations in her house. And one decoration that was really special to her was a little English soldier because she was from Chelsea and moved across to Australia when she met our grandfather in the war.
Just a little backstory for you. So it was really cute.
So when Grandma got older, she couldn't actually put the decorations up herself, so our grandpa would put the decorations up and she would tell him exactly where she wanted them. Well, this particular decoration had to be exactly within her eyeline, so when she was sitting on the couch she had to be able to see it, which I think is
very very clever. We've actually carried that on now because we got a lot of our grandparents' decorations when they sadly passed away, so we always make sure that little Soldier in our eyeline now. The funniest thing is when we all moved out from one another, we didn't care about who got certain bits of furniture, what we cared most about was who got what in the Christmas decorations box, because we have all of our grandparents' old stuff and
it's so sentimental to us. So we've actually decided that this particular soldier, he is going around to each person's house every year.
Do you know what I love? It was so funny what people placed value on.
Well, I am still cut that Amy took the very expensive candy shop. That really annoyed. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna have to put this up on our Instagram. I feel like I won out of this Christmas decoration exchange. For those who don't know. At Maya, they sell these amazing little villages and one of them we bought when we all were living together, was a candy shop and has gingerbread people in it. It's got people making lollies in a factory, and I picked that as my number one decorations.
There wasn't really any back and forth. It was just like I'm having this and no one and stuff everyone else.
Well, I would love people to.
Go to our Facebook group, which has outspoken the podcast, and I want you just tell us what your favorite Christmas decoration is and if you've had to steal any decorations from your family members. That's actually made me think perhaps I should steal the candy shop. Well that should be you know, passed around. No, these deals have already been hatched.
We're not redoing it.
I want to look them straight in the eye. I don't want to tell them what a cheap, lying, no good rotten for a flushing, low life, snake licking, dirt eating and bread over stuff, ignorant, blood sucking, dog kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat ass, bug eyed, stiff leg it's body, lip wear, a headed sack of monkey shit. He is he hey loya, holy shit.
Well, as you can reb we tell we are all very competitive about Christmas and decorations, and something that really set us off as kids was Christmas lights because we had to have the best house in the neighborhood.
Yeah.
Well, we were really lucky to live in a neighborhood that a lot of people put Christmas lights up. I mean, I suppose that's kind of bad when you are competitive because you feel like your house has to be the best. It pains me to say this, but our house was not the best. Colonel, like guards is the best on
the street. We grew up on the street called East Parkway, and our rivals were funnily enough, on West Parkway, so we always told our friends we hate West park Where we hate them, but secretly, deep down, being Christmas lovers, we did really enjoy their beautiful display.
Oh oh my gosh.
It was the most beautiful display and the most gorgeous house as well, which I think really helped because we have a real hang up on the fact that our house has a big brush fence and it really blocked our beautiful light display. I feel like we would have been up there with West Parkway if we didn't have.
That bloody fence.
Do you know how many times we asked our dad to just rip the fence down. Well, do you know what, when I was looking for a house, I kept saying, Terese, I'm being dead serious. We need to look at this house to see what the Christmas light display will look like. And I'm so pleased because the house we bought does not have a fence and it has a lot of opportunity for Christmas light. Well, we did actually take matters into our own hands. One year, when we were on
Uni holidays, Dad left to go to work. So we decided that we were going to cut down some of this tree that we said was obstruct the view of the Christmas lights. And the worst thing was we did it probably an hour before he was getting home, probably because we hadn't gotten up until like one pm in our UNI days, and then we're like, we've only got a small window of time. The worst thing was we saw him coming down the street and he used to drive this little green briner.
And we were like, oh shit.
So we quickly grabbed this branch and we dragged it down the side of our house, but we got sprung and Dad was so mad.
That's the thing.
While our dad is incredibly merry over Christmas time, he can also be a very scary individual. So he didn't want to be caught in the act of cutting down his beloved tree. You've got to say, I don't think Sophie and I were as on board about cutting down the tree. It was really led by Amy. I just remember you being up there and you're like, yeah, this is fine. I don't think Dad's even over it.
You No, he's not.
An thing is I had to saw it down by myself. There's been so many times where I've risked my life as well on the roof putting up Christmas lights.
Because Dad told us he was too old to do it. Well, there is one rule.
We would always put the Christmas lights up when we were old enough to, but we always left them up. Our poor dad had to take them down in February. Lights are one of our most favorite Christmas traditions. Another one is that we have to have a Christmas sleepover with our cousins a few days before Christmas. Otherwise it
just doesn't feel like it. So this tradition started when we were about thirteen and our cousins were around like five and seven, and at first it was a little bit of a drag, but it's turned into such a fun thing. So over the years we've done these obstacle courses for our cousins. We've also gone like stayed up till five am and gone and got baby chinos from McDonald's. It was because when we were at UNI, we never
got up early. We would stay up all night, and we knew that we would not get up early enough to have breakfast at McDonald so we actually just pulled an all nighter. We saw our cousins yesterday and we've already been planning to lock in a date for our Christmas sleep over, and there was talk of getting baby Chinos. So I think that's a really great Christmas tradition that we've been able to keep. Okay, we've already discussed we're going to be having it at your new house. We
just can't be there. We're all going to have a sleepover in the family room. Well that's okay. His parents' house is pretty close, so he can go sleep there. Well, I suppose another tradition we have with our cousins late night shopping. So in Adelaide, there's really only one night where the shop stays open all night and then all into that morning.
Oh how sad do we sound?
I know.
So that day we go with our cousins shopping and we always go around like eleven or twelve, and it's the day when our cousin normally buys a present for his girlfriend, which we always have to help him select. The funniest thing is when they try and buy something for their mum. And one of our cousins, Stewie, he is so meticulous with everything, like a decision has to be thought over and questioned, and it's like, just get the fucking hands, like it doesn't matter, you know what.
My favorite late night shopping memory is when I decided just out of nowhere to buy a basketball game.
So it's one of those those two shooter games, and.
We decided to put it together at like twelve o'clock and Sophie, you were trying to get to sleep, and we would just know I was trying to sleep too, because I had to work the next day. Well, I had a six am shift, and I didn't want to miss out in the shopping.
I stayed for a bit.
I wake up at four o'clock in the morning to this sound of balls hitting against a wall, and I it was like, what the fuck is going on? And then I came down in the morning and I was like, what is this doing in our family room?
It was massive. It was a little Christmas present from me to me.
It was just a typical Amy purchase. Amy buys a lot of stupid shit. Another tradition that we have had for the past nine years is holding a Christmas white party. And when we say party, it's not really a party gathering, a select gathering of people and everyone wears white clothing because I think it was like a big thing on Gossip Girl at the time or something like that. But we've held on to that tradition and the photos always
look really nice. Well, one of the traditions of the White Party is that we play Can of Worms at the end. Well, I don't know, people might not remember the show. There was a show called Can of Worms where controversial questions were asked, but we've taken it to.
A next level.
So we've got to the point where we actually have everyone write a question and it goes into a hat and then people have to randomly pull it out. The worst part is that we often have family members at this event, so we're all piss week and we always refuse to answer the questions. But questions are so crude. I remember when we first moved into our house at Brighton. It was really funny because we had this.
Big bowl of questions.
And no one threw them in the bin, and then, unbeknownst to us, our mum came over I think to help clean up when.
We were there, and she read through some of the questions. We were really embarrassing.
We were twenty four at the time with mum's like who wrote those questions? That were like some of our friends did, it wasn't us. My favorite bit was were like, did you read them all? She's like, I read too, and I had enough. The best thing, though, is the last couple of years one of our friends who is in his fifties, no you's he in his sixties.
Sixties.
Yeah, So one of my old work colleagues he comes along and he is like the host of Canniboy. He's a radio presenter, so he's got this incredible voice, so he hosts the night. It is so much fun. It is hilarious. I already want to start writing questions for it now because I feel like it's a bit old hat now, some of the questions that you've really got to go there. But it is awful when you have new guests there who don't really know what to expect. A few times I think people have been offended and
like we had some pretty good inclusions last year. Some of Dale's friends came and they were great at Can of Worms. So I feel like it's going to be a good year this year, So I'm looking forward to it.
Gretchen switch sides with Katie, but I'm always on your left.
Well that was when there were three of us, and now the tallest go in the middle.
The whole dance will be backwards.
I'm always on your left and right now you're getting on my last nerve switch. What about Christmas gifts for significant others because we're all living with our boyfriends now, do you guys think that there needs to be some kind of spending limit set or is it just sort of a free for all. Well, the first Christmas that Brandon and I spent together, I feel like it has
made it difficult because we've spent so much money. Brandon got me a beautiful necklace from Sarah and Sebastian, which was incredibly expensive, and then I bought him also an expensive present because I got win from UK that he was buying me something. So we tried to have a rule to just stick to one hundred dollars now, but you can't. Yeah, you can't totally. First year, No, it
is difficult. I mean, Reason and I have been having the same conversation because we've just bought a house and we've kind of you know, a poor now, so we're like, God, we might be making each other Christmas presents. Who knows what our financial situation will be like, but I do think it's important to have a discussion about what the budget is because it's really awkward if you get something
and then someone gets you something that's so much more expensive. No, and I could still be done a time delay and beds character ceilings and slip slowly into madness. What would I wear? Another one is the Christmas Day outfit. This is one that stumps me every year. Every year I regret what I've worn because last year I'm like, yep, I'll get a nice dress. I bought this really tight dress that I'm like, why am I wearing this? At
my uncle and Auntie's hair? And you can't even enjoy eating because you just feel like bloated, and you like, I think you've got to go with baggy clothes. I always get in trouble on Christmas Day because you guys always have a go at me because I'm not dressed up enough well, because you always want to.
Borrow something, you know, to real that do you know what?
I'm not organized though, like you know, you just sort of like go, oh, what can I borrow?
Well one Christmas Day.
I've had two Christmas Days where I've had to work as a journalist on the days, and I remember I just couldn't even be bothered to change. I just wore a Christmas jumper and it was one that I can't remember. It had like some kind of rude slogan. I remember getting a photo with Grandma and just thinking, oh, this is like quite a rude Christmas jumper. Something that I find so challenging every year is knowing when do you do your tan for Christmas and New Years?
That is so hard, first world problem, but it is a problem.
It is such a problem because you know they're a week apart from it or a few days apart from each other. You don't know which event is more important. We you've got, like your work Christmas party you've got, I mean, we have a white party, we've got and then also New Year's Eve comes around so quickly and you're just like, oh my gosh, when am I meant to do it?
Yeah, it's really difficult.
I mean you could be like me last Christmas and coat yourself in BONDI sands, rock up to Christmas Eve dinner looking green to the Grinch it was not a good look. Or turn up to the Audi with your pants inside out. A year ago now, I actually came across that photo, and it rocks me to my call that I actually was out in public like that.
These capitalist fat cats are in the profit margin.
I'm reducing your total number of times these guys.
Are coming coming. Santa is not a COMI personally, I love Christmas Eve, possibly more than I love Christmas Day.
It has a real feeling to it.
It's kind of more magical than Christmas Day because when Christmas Day rolls around, it already have that feeling that I'm gonna.
Be upset when it's over, despite it being magical.
I do remember so many Christmas Eves that were spent arguing because we'd always have Christmas Lunch a lot of the time at our house, and of course tensions would would rise over this. Well, I think Christmas is a really stressful time because there's so many people that you need to see, and there's all the juggling of which relatives you see, so there's always that pre Christmas argument about who's seeing who, and then it's about who's doing what.
So I suppose if you're having your relatives over, then you've got to pull your weight a little bit more. But we'd always the funniest thing was all the fights would be the same, like it would be over something silly, and then our dad would always have a way of making up with everybody. It would be as soon as Carl's by candlelight came on, he would get really into it and make everyone laugh. Our dad is known for sitting there and commentating the whole thing, taking the piss
out of everyone. I remember when High five used to perform and at one stage they were wearing like really ridiculous outfits. He ran in the kitchen made an outfit out of a garbage bag and that was like the highlight of everyone's night.
It was so funny. No one could be angry at each other after that.
Yeah, I suppose for us as kids, we had to go to bed really early on Christmas Eve, and because we had our light display outside. I still remember the lights were still on and they'd be like blaring.
Into your room.
And I still remember one Christmas where they turned on at like two am on Christmas morning and they stayed on for the whole night. So it was really hard to get any sleep because we were listening out for Santa. You just couldn't fall asleep at all. On Christmas Eve, it was. It was like hell on earth. He'd wake up at four and be like can we get up now? And be like no. Do you know what?
I remember?
Even when we were twenty Sadly, Sophie and I shared a bedroom until we were.
Like twenty four.
I remember one Christmas you were like, guess what I've got you?
And I guessed it was like a Cudashian bag or something. Oh my god, that's so really cute.
Okay, and I In a lead up to Christmas, we had a share TV and we would watch this show called The Role Family, and every night we would watch the same Christmas episode and I got in so much trouble because it was on a VHS and somehow I accidentally recorded over a section of that video.
I've never lived it down. I was so mad.
Anyone who is wanting to get into the Christmas spirit, please go and watch it.
It is the best show, you.
Know that my head? How can I forget and ever replaced? Because every time Catherine wrapped up the microwave and kissed my pants and forget who I was for half hour or so.
Well, moving on from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day and one of our family traditions was the fact that Dad would record us opening every single present. It was so annoying because you'd rush down the hall ready to see your presence and Dad would be like, with a cigarette, hold on, got to set up the camera and that'd be a further ten minute.
Well, there was some.
Bargaining over what time you were allowed to get up, so we have always been people that sleep in, but on Christmas Day we wanted to get up as early as possible to open our Christmas presents. So, as Sophie said, Dad would finally set up the camera and it would be on a tripod.
So I just love there was no editing involved. Do you see Daddy turn it on? Do you seem kind.
Of like wander around and then suddenly we would be allowed in the room, would burst in and I just
remember watching back one year. I don't know what TV show it was from, but every present we opened, we're like, wacky, Do I want to go and find the video and post it to our group because there is a hilarious scene where Mum is opening a Christmas present from Dad and she gets those happy pants but you know those really popular bright pants, and you can tell she absolutely hates them and she's like, I love them, Hugh, and it's.
Just absolutely classic.
I'm so glad we don't do that tradition anymore. I would hate to watch myself back opening here. I'm going to bring it back. I mean, we're a videography company. I think we should do it this year. We'll getting into what we would actually do. Generally, it would be dinner at our grandparents' house and lunch at a Nana and Pappa's house. Oh my gosh, I have such fond memories of these Christmases. Our grandma, as we said, really sparked our love of Christmas, and she would go all out.
It was actually amazing. She'd do this full on buffet, you know, serve yourself of salads and seafood. And one hilarious tradition she had was buying a tongue. That was the best because we would have so much fun blind folding our cousins and trying to force them to eat like gross things we found on the table. And one year we tried to feed our cousin tongue, but we actually just gave him chicken and he freed out. Well,
the whole reason why Grandma had the tongue was. It was a tradition when she was in England that she kind of wanted to bring here. So our grandma was really the only one who would eat the tongue, but one year our cousin brought her boyfriend who actually ate it as well, and we couldn't believe it. Our dad and uncle would also always have an oyster eating competition and it was foul. I think he ate something like fifty oysters one day.
Yeah.
I think they did that with mince pies as well. Yeah, but the apparently before we were born, that's when dad broke the record of eating the most number of oysters, and people have claimed that that's.
Why he's had triplets. Very potent, do you know what?
The other tradition was we'd always have a Christmas pudding and there'd always be coins in it. And I remember one of our aunties held Christmas Day at her house and she was quite well off, and I remember she put two dollar coins in the pudding and we couldn't believe it. Like I used to hate Christmas pudding, but I remember I had about four pieces just to get the money from it. But apparently some people don't do that,
so I was telling Dale about don't put money in it. Yeah, so I was telling Dale about how you get money in Christmas pudding and his family have never done that. Yeah, Brandon's family hadn't done it. He had to googled it to show them what was actually a thing? Is it like an English thing? Because I know Grandma used to do twenty cent pieces and I think Nana and Papa did.
It as well.
Let's do a poll on our instagram. If you're listening to this, go to our instagram which has Outspoken Underscore the Underscored podcast, and vote if you put coins in your Christmas pudding. Aside from the money in the pudding, there was also another really exciting tradition that Grandma would buy I'd say probably one hundred bond bonds, yeah, something crazy like that. She'd always be like, twelve little cousins,
can you go get the bond bonds? And they'd have to hold this huge pot of bond bonds and then like another bus and they weren't just crap bon bonds, they were like cool stuff in the bond boar. I love how they weren't put on the table like most people put the bon bon on the table in front of the person. This was just like a sport of bond bonds. They were the most expensive bond bonds and she would get them in the sales every year. Sorry, that just reminded me when I was saying the word
bond bond, because it sounded really weird. Some people call them crackers as well, so it's funny to hear what people actually call them. But one year Grandma decided that this, you know, fifty bond bonds wasn't enough. She bought a giant bond bond. So this was I mean, I don't want to be exaggerating, but it was almost like the size of a person, this bond bond, and it was it had little bon.
Bonds inside of it.
I think if one more person said the word bon bon, I will go nuts. We're moving on to lunch at our nana and Papa's house. Now, they were a little bit more low key than our grandparents. They always had their little fake tree that we would help them decorate, and I think what was so beautiful was our Papa would always try and come up with a seating plan that would suit everyone. So there were certain people that he thought would get on better than others and it
was just so cute. One thing I will also always remember is our papa would buy every single grandchild a book and you would then spend the holidays reading that book. And that was as well as obviously a present, but it was just a really nice idea. Oh That's how I got into Harry Potter, and I will always be grateful for that present. We're talking about the seeding plan before. One thing that's super awkward is when you get into your early twenties and you're still sitting on the kids table.
Like it's a real kick in the dick when you're on that table because you're like, I'm not quite considered an adult here, and it's kind of embarrassing.
For the next two months, your entire life, all your music, it is Christmas music. All the TV you watch is Christmas TV, your Home docor is Christmas Home DACA your lifestyle changes.
Now, to wrap up this episode, let's get into some Christmas recommendations. Now it's early November. What are you watching this time of year? Amy, Well, I've got to recommend YouTuber l Darby because she has already started putting up some amazing Christmas vlogs.
She started in October.
Yeah, she's been super early with the Christmas logs, which I'm loving, and I did really respect the fact that she put her Christmas decorations up on the first of November, which actually signified the first of the UK's lockdown, so she was trying to spread a bit of Christmas cheer, which was lovely. I've got to say, I just love the relationship between Lle and her sister.
They're so cute.
They were out at Costco getting hot chocolates. It almost made me wish I was having a white Christmas this year. It's funny because it's the first time I've actually got into her vlogs, and on the weekend I kept saying, okay.
Hey, sis, hey, sis hey boom.
I'm really getting into Saffron Barker's vlog She is another British YouTuber. She always does what I Eat in a Day videos and she usually does Christmas theme videos, which is so much fun to watch. She's already done an advent calendar one, but unfortunately it was just a bit of a cell for the body shop. Talking about food videos, I love when Anastasia kings North does her McDonald's Christmas videos, so they go through exactly what all the Christmas the items on the McDonald's menu are.
Do they have Christmas specific McDonald's items?
Why don't we get them here? They have Christmas Burgers, They've even got Christmas like Sundays and mcflurries. I feel really ripped off. I'm yet to start watching actual Christmas movies, but I think this weekend I'm going to kick off with Elf. I feel like that's a really good start a Christmas movie. I like to save my classic Christmas movies for like December.
What about you, guys.
I watched Elf last year a little bit too early, and I wish i'd saved it till December. I must say, I feel like Christmas with the Cranks is a good November movie because it's got elements of Christmas. But they hate it, so it's not you know, you don't have to be as Christmas y. I watched Holiday, which seems to be a very divisive Netflix new movie that they've brought out.
I have to agree with the critics. It was absolute garbage. Sure, it was watching it terrible.
I mean, the only redeeming feature was the main character, who everyone thinks is an asshole. He was in fact Australian, so it's good to see some Australians being in American movies at the moment. I do love Home Alone and I was never someone who grew up watching Homeland. Like we never watched it as kids. Oh my god. My ex boyfriend used to watch it on repeat at Christmas time.
It was so weird, Like I never watched it with him, but he literally would call me when he was living into State and be like, oh, yeah, I just watched Home Alone again.
So I don't know.
I've got funny mixed feelings about that.
It's a cute movie. I really like it.
I feel like you should add it to your Christmas movie list. Well, I think everyone should jump into our Facebook community and share their favorite YouTubers to follow up Christmas time and also their favorite movies. Can I just say, are there any Australian influencers who are actually doing vlogmas?
Because I can't think of any it's too lazy, I think.
So if there is anyone that you guys all follow that is doing vlogmass and is an Australian influencer, let us know because.
I want to follow them.
Well, I think we better wrap it up there because we could talk for the next two hours on this topic. Now, we thought it was important to start this series by talking about why we love Christmas so much and going through some of our Christmas traditions. But the rest of the series we've made up by a number of guests we're going to have on the show. Next week, we're going to be having Victoria Devine. We're so excited to
have her. She is, of course from she's on the money and she's going to be sharing some important Christmas budgeting tips as well as her own Christmas tradition. So we cannot wait to bring you that episode.
At the act of the
End, after think