Your Hilarious (& Heartwarming) Holiday Stories!
December 22, 2022
Abby Wambach:
Joy to the world. Welcome back, kids. It’s holiday season. It’s holiday season. Welcome back to the show, We Can Do Hard Things.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow. Wow, babe.
Amanda Doyle:
Abby sounds like an eighties disc jockey.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s get ready to rumble.
Amanda Doyle:
Here we are with the top 40.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, man. I love the top 40.
Amanda Doyle:
Everyone. Set your tape recorders, pressing play and record at the same time so you could get your favorite tune.
Abby Wambach:
Do you remember Casey Kasem?
Glennon Doyle:
Of course we do.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you remember you’d have to wait to hear your favorite song. I used to wait and listen and listen for (singing). Okay. And then, you have to push play and record and you’d get that shit. Okay. We are here with you, our favorite people on this entire brutiful earth, the pod squad. What we’re doing today, we have gathered your beautiful, brutal, hilarious, embarrassing holiday stories.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, yes.
Glennon Doyle:
And we have lots of strategies to get through stuff, and that’s what we do here. We try to make life a little bit easier by talking about the hard. One of the things that we know that gets us through is absurdity. We’re going to be here together, we are going to laugh, we are going to cry, we are going to remember that life isn’t really all that serious. That’s our goal for today, is just laugh together and release.
Abby Wambach:
Fun times, joy to the world.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s tell our stories first.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t have any stories, so you go. Although, my husband just listened. He came home last night, got in bed and he’s like, “Really?” With the heart sticker. “Really?”
Glennon Doyle:
Wait. What?
Amanda Doyle:
The embarrassing story with the no underwear of Jordy picture.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh John listened to that one?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. Anyway. I don’t think I have any holidays, but I’ll jump in if you jog the old memory.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, okay. Mine is actually a little bit … It’s not funny. It’s sweet. I was thinking … Sister’s like, “Fuck you.” Listen, no one has more embarrassing stories than us. We’ve actually gotten messages that say, “How can Glennon have so many embarrassing stories?” To you, I want to say, “Well, yeah, exactly.”
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
The second Christmas after the divorce, first one was just really hard for everybody so we’re going to skip over that one. We’re going to go to the one after the first one which was the second Christmas with all of us together. We were gathering at our house which had used to be me and Craig’s house because that’s how we had to do it during that time.
Abby Wambach:
Awkward.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It was just as every family that divorces and then tries to do the things together afterwards, it is a minefield.
Abby Wambach:
It’s awkward at first big time.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s awkward, and then it’s worse than awkward. It’s painful, there’s all these weird moments where you have to do things differently and the kids are looking at you like, “What the hell are we doing? How are we doing this?” And then, you’re trying to make it seem normal. Anyway, second holiday, we’re opening presents and I open up the present from Craig to me, and the kids are all around and I open it up and it’s this thing that Craig has had made at the mall, and it’s this ornament and it’s six snow people. He had had Craig, Glennon, Abby, Chase, Amma and Tish written on each of the snowmen’s scarves.
Abby Wambach:
So sweet.
Glennon Doyle:
I opened it up and the kids were watching, and it was just the snow people of our family all on one ornament that he had put us all on. It was just, well, I think one of my top three holiday moments ever because it was just like, “Oh, this is how we’re going to do it.” He gave us that gift of here we are, the snow people family, little weird, but we are six now.
Abby Wambach:
There’s nothing like cutting a slice of the awkward with this beautiful ornament.
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Abby Wambach:
I was so touched by that because it was Craig saying, “You’re part of our family, Abby, and this is the way we’re going to do it.”
Glennon Doyle:
I know. It gave the kids permission to see us that way, and it gave us all permission to not see us as we’re this slice and that slice, but we’re this one big snow person family.
Abby Wambach:
I actually think that this was the moment that he made the holidays forevermore not awkward.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Maybe.
Abby Wambach:
It was this gift that he gave everybody that was like, “This is our family and this is how we roll.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Also, this is our family and I declare it publicly on an ornament on our tree forevermore.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
It wasn’t like this is our family and we’ll roll with that, I guess. It was like, “No.” Is there anything more official about a family than when you get the ornament with everyone’s name on it?
Glennon Doyle:
Right. It was pride. It was like, “No. We’re proud of our snow person family.” Who says you have to be two snow people and 2.5 kids? We are all these snow people and prove that we’re not because the mall says we are.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. You know he had to custom order that because they usually don’t come with three big snow people.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. No, no, no. To be clear, my snow person was a child.
Abby Wambach:
Fake kid.
Glennon Doyle:
It was Craig and Abby were the parents.
Amanda Doyle:
Also accurate.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Craig and Abby were the parents, and then I was a child snow person.
Abby Wambach:
This is a shout-out to all of the “stepparents,” or what we call myself, a bonus parent.
Amanda Doyle:
I think we call them snow people from now on.
Abby Wambach:
Snow people. Yeah. When we are decorating the tree, it is really hard when you pull out all of the kids’ first ornaments and their second ornaments and all of the family ornaments that have happened well before I came around. Here is now this moment that I am included in putting my claim and my stake in this family on the tree during the time of which could be really othering or outsidering.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know. There are a few moments like that when you guys start talking about the kids before I came around. It’s like a shot to the heart.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Here, I don’t know, I just think it’s such a beautiful thing that Craig was able to do for me because he brought me in in all these ways that I’m sure he never even thought of, but it’s so touching.
Glennon Doyle:
Craig Melton. Shout-out to Craig Melton. I’m sure he doesn’t listen to this. The last thing he needs is more of my voice in his ear bud. If you are a friend of Craig, tell him we say thank you.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly. I just thought of a Christmas ornament story of my own.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, Lord.
Abby Wambach:
You did.
Amanda Doyle:
Do you remember when you were talking about gifts of personalized Christmas ornaments?
Glennon Doyle:
I just had a flash of what you’re going to say. I cannot believe you’re going to tell the pod squad this.
Abby Wambach:
No. Shot to the heart because I probably wasn’t around even when you guys were little kids. I have so much FOMO. I’m sorry.
Glennon Doyle:
Sweetheart, you’re going to be glad you weren’t around for this one.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, really? Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
Abby, when my first husband and I split it was … We’ve gone over this. Please see infidelity episode. But the weird thing is I didn’t know anything was amiss. It was summertime. We had a 10 minute conversation about it.
Glennon Doyle:
About the infidelity?
Amanda Doyle:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
Set the stage a little more.
Amanda Doyle:
A 10 minute conversation about the marriage is over. Then, another 10 minute conversation. Then, I never see him again to his point.
Abby Wambach:
Got it.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s 15 years ago by now. I thought it was just the … I don’t know what the hell I thought it was. We didn’t know what it was. But anyway, it was done. I’m stuck with this house that’s very underwater. I’m trying to rent it out. I go to rent it out. I’m at the house trying to get it set up. I’m there and this package comes, but it’s for a name that is not the correct name. I’m like, “That’s weird,” but I can’t find an address. I just open it up, see if I can figure it out to send it back. Abby, it’s a baby’s first Christmas ornament with a note congratulating my husband on his new baby.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, my God. He was pregnant when he broke up with you.
Amanda Doyle:
It is unclear. I did go at that point when I was like, “What the hell’s going on?”, I looked online and there was a baby registry strongly correlated with a conception before we were divorced, but one cannot know. One cannot know. Seriously, one cannot know.
Glennon Doyle:
A Christmas immaculate conception, I’m sure.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
All I’m saying is that that was my first personalized ornament. Didn’t go quite as well as yours.
Abby Wambach:
Questions answered.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Sister opened a baby’s first Christmas ornament, and that is how she found out.
Abby Wambach:
Whoopsie-daisies.
Glennon Doyle:
We’ve been through it, sissy. We have been through it with the marriage situation.
Abby Wambach:
He really got really close of getting away with it.
Amanda Doyle:
No one gets away with anything.
Glennon Doyle:
And then, Aunt Bertha sends a Christmas ornament.
Amanda Doyle:
But that whole thing, I don’t know.
Glennon Doyle:
How do you feel about it now? Talk to us about, now you’re 15 Christmases later. By the way, I remember that day. I remember standing in my kitchen at the sink and you telling me this story and just the blood rushing from my body, my brain trying to put together the puzzle of what had happened. I don’t even remember how we got through that day. I don’t.
Amanda Doyle:
Not well.
Glennon Doyle:
Not well.
Amanda Doyle:
You know what? I just feel like, who knows? This is my theory about life. Who knows? I still don’t know what happened. I still have no idea what happened. I still have the ornament. I put it. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
What?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. It’s on my fucking tree.
Abby Wambach:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
What?
Abby Wambach:
Oh, my God,
Glennon Doyle:
You are such a badass. It’s on your tree?
Abby Wambach:
Why? Why do you still have that?
Amanda Doyle:
Because you know what? I feel like compartmentalizing our lives is dangerous. I just don’t feel like there’s any before or after, and there’s no he’s bad and I’m good. Even if I could know whether he was cheating on me and that’s why he left and that’s why this baby came, who knows what any of it means. It was real in my life, and it reminds me of my most brokenness and it’s up there with my baby’s beautiful faces and the things they made for me. I just feel like why do we push away those and pretend like that’s not all part of the same stew that is who we are.
Abby Wambach:
This is the most evolved thing I’ve ever heard.
Glennon Doyle:
That is so-
Abby Wambach:
So beautiful.
Glennon Doyle:
Beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
Wow.
Amanda Doyle:
The cracks are how the light gets in.
Glennon Doyle:
Who knows what’s a crack, honestly?
Amanda Doyle:
Who knows what’s a crack?
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know.
Amanda Doyle:
I try to be open with my kids about it, about, “What happened? What was that like?” Just because it’s a very windy path in this life and there’s no, “Well, that marriage was fucked up and this one’s great. Do you see the trajectory of life and how it took that hard walk to get to this beautiful light?” No.
Glennon Doyle:
And then the next step is off the cliff. Pride comes before the fall.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s beautiful and a big fucking mess all at once.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Including our tree.
Glennon Doyle:
We can’t decide what’s good. You know what we thought was good? That wedding day.
Amanda Doyle:
It was
Glennon Doyle:
But it’s that story about the sage, and that every time something wonderful happened, the sage would say, they would say, “It’s good news. You won the lottery,” and he would go, “Is that so?” “Bad news. All your money means that somebody stole it.” “Is that so.” “Good news.” “Is that so?” We don’t know what’s good, what’s bad, so we throw it all in the tree.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Sister, that is amazing. I never knew that about you. I learned something new about you today. I did not know you kept that shit on your tree.
Abby Wambach:
That’s amazing.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so badass.
Abby Wambach:
It gives me some hope.
Glennon Doyle:
Baby’s first Christmas. Do you want to tell a story?
Abby Wambach:
I do want to tell a quick story.
Glennon Doyle:
Yay.
Abby Wambach:
I do, because this has just got to be a big shout-out to my mama.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, mama Wam.
Abby Wambach:
Talk about the hope and the dream of a perfect holiday. My mom was really always, and still is, it is the most important thing to her to have family, organized parties and traditions. What I’m about to tell you is just a big apology to my mother because I wasn’t the easiest kid. Now being a parent, I understand more than I did as a child like most of us do. Here I was this one year, I think I must have been 10, maybe even younger. I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I was going to be testing the idea of whether Santa was real or not.
Glennon Doyle:
Get your kids out. If you haven’t gotten them out already with all the fucks, please get them out now because we’re going to have a Santa discussion.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Good call.
Glennon Doyle:
Talking about fucking Santa.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Mute. Mute or fast forward. My mom told us all we need to make a list.
Amanda Doyle:
Did she tell you to check it twice?
Abby Wambach:
I was like, “All right. Yeah. No problem. I’ll make a list.” She’s like, “Where’s your list?” I was like, “I’m not going to give it to you because if Santa’s real, then he will know what my list is.” She was like, “Okay. Got it.” But I really didn’t make a list because I knew she would find it.
Glennon Doyle:
Because she’s good.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. She’s legit.
Amanda Doyle:
You got it figured out by the time you come to your seventh kid.
Abby Wambach:
Fast forward to Christmas morning, sitting around, I’ve got six brothers and sisters. It’s just mayhem. There’s just presents everywhere. For whatever reason, this year I had already gotten over Barbie. I was a huge Barbie fan. I had a house, I had the Corvette.
Amanda Doyle:
I bet you were.
Abby Wambach:
I was switching Ken and Barbie’s heads back and forth. Of course, this non-binary thing was already there.
Glennon Doyle:
How do I make this work?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. This doesn’t look right for some reason.
Glennon Doyle:
Do I want to play with Barbie or do I want Barbie?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Do I want to play with Ken or do I want to be like Ken?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
All of these things. But anyways, this year I got over Barbie. First present shows up, I get to go because we go in order from youngest to oldest and then oldest to youngest so everybody get the right turn. I opened the present and I see the color pink, Barbie. I opened it halfway and I was like, “This is a Barbie,” and I threw it to the side. I was like, “I hate Barbie.” Unbeknownst to me at the time, my mom didn’t know what to get me. She was like, “Well, she likes Barbies. I’ll just get her all Barbie stuff.”
Glennon Doyle:
Every present was Barbie.
Abby Wambach:
Every single present was Barbie. Every single time I’d open the present halfway, I’d throw it aside and go, “I hate Barbie. Barbie? Ugh.” At this point, my mom’s having a total freak out because she knows-
Glennon Doyle:
That every present is Barbie.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. She gets Beth on board, my eldest sister Beth, she’s 11 years older. She’s like, “Go sit next to Abby and open up those presents and get her excited about that.”
Glennon Doyle:
Poor oldest sisters, man.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, my God.
Abby Wambach:
My old siblings, they’re just trying to make it good and fun for the youngest.
Glennon Doyle:
Are you okay?
Amanda Doyle:
Are you okay?
Abby Wambach:
Here I am having the worst Christmas ever, and this has set the tone for the rest of my life in terms of being a hard person to shop for.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, my God.
Abby Wambach:
My mom hates shopping for me because I was an asshole.
Glennon Doyle:
I’ve had to teach her. I kid you not. The first Christmas together, we got her presents, she would open them and be like, “Ugh.”
Abby Wambach:
I’d be like, “Thank you.”
Glennon Doyle:
I was like, “Honey, you act happy on Christmas.”
Abby Wambach:
Thank you so much. This is great.
Glennon Doyle:
You act excited. You lie. You do your face.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know.
Amanda Doyle:
Our family’s weird that way. No one else is like that. Our family throws a parade for every stocking stuffer. It’s not the typical.
Abby Wambach:
Is that right? I just don’t know if that’s right either. I think that there might be something in the middle. What is the best present you ever got me that I responded to the best?
Glennon Doyle:
The ice maker.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, that’s good. The ice maker last year. I really wanted that. I really did.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
What else?
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t ever remember anything except for what’s happening right now.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m just saying, Abby, that I don’t know that that taught your mom a lesson. I think it taught you a lesson. You are trying to be real slick and not write down your list for your mom or for Santa, and you got a bunch of shit you hated.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow. That’s what happens.
Amanda Doyle:
I bet you wrote a list next year.
Abby Wambach:
I probably did.
Glennon Doyle:
Expectations are resentments under construction. You did not share what you wanted, and when we don’t share what we want, we get Barbies.
Abby Wambach:
Fucking Barbies. Before we end the story, Mom, I’m very sorry. I’ve set my whole life up for tough times in the present getting business because of this, and I can’t help it. I can’t fake it. I can’t fake it. If somebody gives me something that I’m never going to use … The kids, they gave me some stuff last year.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, I know you showed how you felt.
Abby Wambach:
It wasn’t cool.
Glennon Doyle:
You showed how you felt, and this is what we love about you.
Abby Wambach:
I feel like it’s a waste of time. Anyways. Mom, I love you and I’m sorry.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s heat holiday stories from the pod squad. Very excited. I think first we are hearing from Tina.
Tina:
Hi. This is Tina. On Christmas day when I was a young girl, my stepfather, he baked a ham and he baked the entire thing in the oven with the lid on completely in the bag. The funniest thing is when he pulled it out, me who just happened to be standing there and I am a connoisseur of cooking even at a young age, I was like, “Oh, my God. What is on the ham?” He was like, “What do you mean?”, as he’s basting it. I said, “Listen, you have to stop. There is a bag on the ham.” The actual plastic that comes with the ham, he put the entire thing on and baked it and didn’t know.
Abby Wambach:
That’s the best. Okay. Pod squad, Glennon is confused so let me explain. Hams and turkeys, they come in that plastic, it’s in a sealed tight. Her stepdad put the ham in with the bag on and so the plastic melted.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, did it say on the thing take off the plastic?
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s not even a cooking thing. You just bought something from somewhere things.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like you have shoes, you got to take the plastic off the shoes before you wear them.
Glennon Doyle:
No. That’s not true. There’s bags of broccoli. You put the whole thing in the microwave, right?
Abby Wambach:
When you’re trying to steam a bag?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
He was steaming the ham.
Abby Wambach:
But he put plastic in. That’s going to melt.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m just going to tell you I will die on this mountain, I stand with Tina’s stepfather.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. We know.
Amanda Doyle:
The best part is he was basting it. He was like, “Let me just pour some nice juicy fluids on this plastic.”
Abby Wambach:
Honey, do you know what basting means?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. That’s the thing that people use, what lesbians used to use to get pregnant.
Abby Wambach:
A turkey baster. Yes. That’s right. That’s an old school model before IVF became a thing.
Glennon Doyle:
Lesbians invented it and then some people found out that it could be good for turkeys.
Amanda Doyle:
And then Tina’s stepdad appropriated it for the turkey.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Let’s hear from Anna.
Anna:
Hi, Glennon, Abby and sister. My name is Anna and I’m a mother of three young kids. It’s very common for me to refer to my husband as daddy. This was a few years ago. We were at my mom and dad’s house with all of my siblings and in-laws and nieces and nephews, and sitting around the table having white Russians. My parents have started a tradition of serving white Russians on Christmas day. I’m sitting next to my dad and I take a sip of my white Russian and I say as I’m looking at him, “Yum, daddy.” The room goes silent. Everybody looks at me, my face turns beet red, and then we all just erupt in laughter. So now, every Christmas when white Russians are served, there is a lot of teasing about yum daddy.
Abby Wambach:
Yum daddy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yum daddy.
Abby Wambach:
Yum daddy. So good.
Glennon Doyle:
Yum daddy.
Amanda Doyle:
No. Stop saying that, please.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Let’s hear from Dusty.
Abby Wambach:
I call Craig Daddy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, you do, and it’s really awkward.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s so weird.
Abby Wambach:
So good.
Dusty:
My name is Dusty. When I was 12, my mom was really excited to do things up for Christmas. It’s been a really hard year, so she wanted to do all the lights, think like Martha May Whovier from The Grinch. I ended up on the roof with her trying to spell Happy Holidays with our strands of lights, except that we ran out of lights. So instead our house said happy ho all season. This is easily my favorite holiday memory.
Abby Wambach:
That would’ve been my favorite house for sure.
Amanda Doyle:
Dusty, that’s amazing.
Glennon Doyle:
I want to see all the pod squad’s pictures of themselves at Christmas with #happyho underneath all the selfies.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Depending how you identify, you can either do #happyho or #yumdaddy.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Let’s hear from Taylor, hoes.
Taylor:
Hi, my name’s Taylor. A little bit of background. My parents divorced during COVID and we’re all older, so we’re in our twenties and late teens. I’m the youngest and we’re four kids. We’re newly navigating this split holiday, but doing it together situation. My mom and me and my sister right underneath of me have all been highly therapitized. We’re zen, we are healthy, as healthy as you can be, and really working on our stuff.
Taylor:
All of that said, my youngest sister is 17 and convinced the rest of us that it would be really funny to do the TikTok trend where all of the kids are sticking up their middle finger in the family photo, but it wasn’t funny. We did it. My mom looked at the picture, she actually laughed, but my dad just hysterically broke down crying which caused my brother to cry. All of the women are just standing there looking at them like, “It was a joke. It was supposed to be funny.” It turned into this huge thing, and none of us could stop laughing long enough to take anybody feeling seriously. We talk about it as the flipping the bird mageden and we don’t do holidays all together now. Now we have two separate holidays all because my 17-year-old sister wanted to follow a TikTok trend and convince the rest of us that it was a good idea.
Amanda Doyle:
Wow.
Abby Wambach:
I’m so surprised.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, my God.
Glennon Doyle:
We must unpack this. They all were flicking off, and that is the thing, that is the butterfly effect that set the emotions into play. The men started crying, and then they don’t do their holidays together anymore.
Abby Wambach:
Geez.
Glennon Doyle:
So all the people who are in therapy started laughing, and the men who weren’t in therapy cried and left.
Amanda Doyle:
Do you know what I think the lesson here is?
Glennon Doyle:
What?
Amanda Doyle:
Besides the no TikTok things at Christmas or Hanukkah, is to me that shows how whatever we’re thinking about, whatever is the main thing on our minds, we think everything is about.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
They saw the flicking off of the camera and they were like, “See, this family hates each other now. They hate this holiday, they hate us. It’s all ruined,” when really they were actually having a great time. But you can’t see past your own perception of what everything’s about.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Everything’s about everything. Yeah. I’ll be thinking about that one for a while.
Abby Wambach:
Let’s do the trend this year.
Glennon Doyle:
All right, Liz. Let’s hear from Liz.
Liz:
My name is Liz. Bless my husband’s heart, he wanted to propose to me in front of my entire family for Christmas. Him and my younger sister had it all planned out. He gets the ring, she knows what box it’s in. My sister knows what’s going to happen and I just have no idea. I’m sitting here with my 88-year-old great-grandmother and my grandparents and my eight-month-old son. My sister’s been pestering me this entire time to open this box. I’m trying to do the whole Christmas thing, trying to get the baby all settled. I am aggravated. Finally, I give in. I’m like, “Give me the damn package.” I get this package and I open it and I’m sitting there and I’m aggravated, “Get it open.” I look at my husband and I said, “What’s this?” He’s down on one knee, asked me if I’d marry him. My 88-year-old great-grandmother from across the room who’s been watching this entire time yells, “What’s going on, Linda?” My grandmother goes, “I’m not sure, girly.” My sister yells, “Shut the hell up. He just asked her to marry him.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, I love this family.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I want to hang out with Shirley and Linda.
Amanda Doyle:
What’s going on? I’m not sure, Linda.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, my God. It’s so good.
Amanda Doyle:
That is good.
Glennon Doyle:
This reminds yesterday I saw this tweet that said God, I love the holidays, the peace, the joy, the ornaments, the woman in front of me at Costco that just said, “I don’t care if we get your cousin a pile of shit, Larry.”
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Let’s hear from Katie.
Katie:
Hi, Glennon, Abby and sister. This is Katie. My wife Lindsay and I were traveling for Thanksgiving and we stopped at a gas station to fill up. While my wife is filling up the car, I said, “I’m going to go in and go to the bathroom.” I go into the gas station, convenience store area and there’s single stalls. I pull in the women’s door and it was locked and I had to go pee so badly so I was like, “I’m just going to go in the men’s.” I go in the men’s, I go to the bathroom and then I leave and I’m walking in the aisles of the convenience store trying to find snacks or something.
Katie:
I hear this woman pounding on the door and she’s yelling, “Get me out, get me out.” I look over towards the bathrooms and I see my wife is leaning against the women’s stall door, pinning it shut, bending over, laughing hysterically because she thinks I’m in the stall. This woman is pounding on the door yelling, “Get me out, get me out.” Lindsay is again just bent over laughing. She looks up and sees me and then her jaw drops and I lose it. So now I’m laughing hysterically, and she moves out of the way, this woman comes flying out of the bathroom and looks at my wife and is like, “What the hell is wrong with you?” Lindsay just looks at her and she’s like, “Happy Thanksgiving.” I fell over. At this point, I think I was on the floor of the convenience store laughing hysterically.
Amanda Doyle:
What the hell is wrong with you?
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, my gosh. That’s unlawful confinement.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, my God. That’s so good.
Glennon Doyle:
How much fun. I love couples that do that kind of stuff to each other.
Abby Wambach:
Same.
Glennon Doyle:
Play practical jokes and tricks.
Abby Wambach:
The other day, I was hiding for a solid five minutes.
Glennon Doyle:
Baby, that’s all you do.
Abby Wambach:
I set the camera up and I’m ready.
Amanda Doyle:
By the other day she means every day.
Glennon Doyle:
Always.
Abby Wambach:
She walks upstairs and then she takes a different route that she normally takes so she found me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. All right. Let’s hear from Taylor.
Taylor:
My name is Taylor and my partner and I do my favorite thing every Christmas, both of our dads passed away when we were 17 year olds. We have had a lot of other significant deaths in our family. Now for Christmas, we buy each other gifts in honor of those people. My husband calls it on behalf of and they’re behalf gifts, and they’re our favorite things to open around Christmas. Hopefully, that inspires you all to keep the memory of your loved ones with you and make that liminal space very present in your life. Thank you for all you all do. I love you all, and I’m just so thankful. Bye.
Abby Wambach:
That’s awesome.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s beautiful.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s very cool.
Glennon Doyle:
She’s saying they give gifts on behalf of someone who’s passed.
Abby Wambach:
So good.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s really beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
I’m going to start doing that. I’m going to do it.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s hear from Adrienne.
Adrienne:
This is Adrienne. I have a holiday story, which is I have always loved Christmas since I was a kid. I was the ring leader of loving Christmas. And then, I went to college, I got politicized, I learned about capitalism and I was like, “I’m not down for this capitalist holiday and all this stuff.” I told my family, “Look, no capitalists, okay?” I come home, wake up Christmas morning with my sisters, and we come downstairs and there’s no gifts, nothing, no stockings. There’s just nothing. Now, mind you I’m 24, 25. There’s no children in the house. Maybe there shouldn’t be anything, but the look on my face apparently betrayed my anti-capitalism to my entire family.
Adrienne:
My dad started laughing like the Grinch who stole Christmas and I was trying to play it cool. I’ll just have me a grown-up coffee. It’s fine, it’s fine. Meanwhile, inside I’m six years old and crying and devastated. Then, my parents go upstairs and they came down with these very elegant bags of adult gifts and they’re like, “We got you,” but mostly they’re just laughing in my face. Every year, every year I get to hear this story.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Adrienne’s parents for the win.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
All of our children are anti-capitalist until they need a plane ride home.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Until they need to test anti-capitalism with a little Christmas attitude.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s so good. That’s so good. Okay. Emma.
Emma:
Hi. My name is Emma. I do really love to cook, and my family and grandma and mom and I have always cooked together. One day I was like, “You know what? I’m going to do Friendsgiving. I’m going to cook this meal.” I texted the whole family group chat and said, “I really love our secret family recipe, the green bean casserole with the cream of mushroom, the green beans and the fried onions.”
Amanda Doyle:
Classic.
Emma:
I said, “Can you send me the secret family recipe?”, to which my entire family replies, “By secret family recipe, do you mean the green bean casserole recipe that’s on the can of fried onions that all of the United States of America makes every Thanksgiving?”
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Emma:
There’s my short and sweet story. I’m still made fun of to this day.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, after that story we have to mention Phoebe Buffet’s grandmother’s secret chocolate chip recipe that she was going to take to her crave, and the recipe was by Nestlé Toll House.
Abby Wambach:
Nestlé Toll House.
Glennon Doyle:
Love me some Phoebe. Okay, Jen.
Jen:
Hi. My name is Jen and this is a bittersweet holiday story. When I was 27, my mom was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. As we neared the holidays, we realized she wasn’t going to be here for Christmas, and also realized that all of our family’s traditional Czech recipes were in her mind, in her brain, and had never been written down, just passed down orally. So we decided stupidly to recreate Christmas in October with her so we could share the meal with her and write down all these recipes.
Jen:
The first misstep was the pork gravy. We’re supposed to broil the drippings at 500 degrees according to my mom’s brain, which wasn’t at peak capacity at that point. The first thing to happen is smoke billowing out of the oven. My four-year-old nephew knows what to do in a fire so he’s running through the house screaming, “Quick, quick, fire. We have to get out here, evacuate.” Just to alleviate some tension.
Jen:
And then, next was the potato dumpling. Then, when we scooped those little suckers out, they were pure rubber. We had screwed up something along the line and my mom was pissed and devastated. She took one of those little fuckers into the sink and it ricocheted around like a bouncy ball off the sides of the sink. We all just erupted into these silent laughing tears streaming down your face, can’t breathe, laughter. It was beautiful and amazing and we had a wonderful, albeit chewy and burnt meal, but it was a beautiful last memory with her. I think of that every year when I make those little dumplings and they turn out wrong and it just brings me joy.
Glennon Doyle:
I think that story is so beautiful.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. She said wonderful, albeit burnt and rubbery. I just feel like that so much could be said of life. It’s wonderful, albeit burnt and rubbery.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. They turn out wrong and it brings me joy. It’s like all the mess of it is the beauty of it. Thank you, Jen. Let’s hear it from Jackie.
Jackie:
Hi. My name is Jackie. I had just recently started dating this guy in my early twenties, and I was out at the bar with his family and talking with his mom on the side, and she told me that she was going to be asking her husband for Christmas for the Magic Bullet. I proceeded to tell her how I wanted a Magic Bullet as well. I thought it was really interesting that she was so open with me. This was our first Christmas together, but thought she was telling me about her sex toys that she was going to be asking from her husband. She’s telling me, “Yeah. The one that I want has all different speeds, different pulses.” I asked her if she is going to get the one with the massage glove, and she looks at me and she’s like, “I don’t know about the massage glove. I’m talking about a blender.”
Amanda Doyle:
Did she say that she was her mother-in-law?
Glennon Doyle:
She said she was just dating this guy. I’m recapping. Jackie was dating a guy. She went to a bar with his family and she was talking to his mom, and his mom said she wants a Magic Bullet. She said, “I also want a vibrator.”
Abby Wambach:
A Magic Bullet.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, my God. I can’t believe how cool this mom is. She’s talking to me about wanting a vibrator. But I think she was talking about one of those things that they have on QVC.
Abby Wambach:
A blender, like a Nutribullet, the thing you turn upside down. She thought she was talking about the freaking Silver Bullet.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, is that what it’s called?
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Silver Bullet.
Amanda Doyle:
Jackie was comparing notes to see if she was getting the best model. I asked her if she was going to get the one with the massage setting. She said, “I don’t know about the massage setting.”
Abby Wambach:
No. Massage gloves. The massage gloves. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Jackie thought she was about to have the coolest mother-in-law ever.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, God. That’s so good. Jackie, thank you for that. You’ve made my Christmas better. Krista.
Krista:
Hi, there. My name is Krista. About five or six Thanksgivings ago, we have two little kids, they were playing running around outside. We were running around outside and our dog was out there as well. Unbeknownst to us, she disappeared somewhere into our neighborhood for maybe 10 minutes tops, came back, all was well. We loaded the kids, the dog, all the food into the car and we are heading to my mom’s house for a lovely Thanksgiving dinner.
Krista:
We get down there, everything’s great until about 15 minutes before we sit down. All of a sudden, our dog throws up an entire honey baked spiral ham. How do I know it’s honey baked? Because the crackling edges were still attached to the ham. It was perfectly sliced. It was clear to anyone what it was. My mom looks at me for an explanation. I just shrugged. I have no idea. I looked at my husband for an explanation. He also has no clue. We eventually clean it up and move on with the family dinner. The problem is, to this day, we have no idea which of our neighbors had to order pizza for their Thanksgiving dinner because our dog ate their ham. I am still absolutely horrified. My dog on the other hand does not seem to care. She walks around the neighborhood like she owns it, like everything’s fine, like she just really wanted some ham. That’s it.
Abby Wambach:
A lot of people use their garages or outdoor area to keep things cold because you don’t have enough room in your refrigerator for the holiday food. Could you imagine having your ham or turkey or whatever outside, and then going out to-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s gone.
Abby Wambach:
You’ve preheated the oven, you’re going to bring it to room temp. The fucking ham is gone. It’s just gone. What do you do? Do you look around for it? Did this ham get up and run away?
Amanda Doyle:
You’d be yelling at everyone.
Glennon Doyle:
You know they were all blaming each other.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. And then I’d be like, “Wait. Did I buy the ham?” I didn’t buy the ham this year.
Abby Wambach:
It’s just gone.
Amanda Doyle:
Do you know what’s fascinating, is that the whole thing came up and it was still in its pre slice stage.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, because dogs, they just swallow a shithole. They do.
Abby Wambach:
The other thing that’s really interesting to me is that this dog ruined somebody’s holiday. I don’t know what I was going to say. I had a really good point.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
No. It was going to be good. Damn it all to hell.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s okay.
Amanda Doyle:
The pre sliced?
Abby Wambach:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
No? Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Dog.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. Let’s hear from Teresa.
Teresa:
Hi, this is Teresa. I have a heartwarming holiday story to share with the pod squad. I was getting divorced in 2014, and it was very hard for me because I loved my ex-husband’s family. He had a large extended family. They were all very good to me. I was feeling really lonely on Christmas Eve because that was always a big family extravaganza and that was always one of the highlights of the year for me. My family doesn’t live here and they’d left me on my own anyway through the whole divorce.
Teresa:
I was sitting at home kind of in a mope feeling really sad, and then there was a knock at the door and I opened the door and it was my soon to be ex-husband’s cousin who was bringing to me a butter dish Tupperware, that’s the fancy Polish Tupperware if you’re in Buffalo or anywhere in the Midwest, full of goulash from my ex-husband’s grandmother who knew that I was sitting at home alone missing everything and missing her goulash in particular, which is always a big holiday highlight. She handed it to me through the door as if it was some sort of transaction of sacred documents or something and said, “Grandma wanted you to have this, and merry Christmas.” I think it was the best gift I ever received, was that tub full of grandma’s goulash. Sometimes it’s the little things that are really the big thing. Thanks. Happy holiday.
Glennon Doyle:
You know what else is good? Grandmas, grandmas who just include women, whether they’re on the ends with their families or their outs with their families, the people who think of the person who might be lonely and just reach out something little. That would be a good thing for this holiday, just to think of somebody in your life who might be a little lonely this holiday and just reach out.
Abby Wambach:
I also remembered what I was going to say before.
Glennon Doyle:
What?
Abby Wambach:
If the family of this ham is listening, if one year a ham went missing, please call in and leave a voicemail. I need to hear it from your side.
Amanda Doyle:
Also, I just love the idea of that you can just maybe rise up above a little bit of that just because people are no longer going to be married, that that has to be whole cloth cutting off from them. Where it’s possible, I think little gestures like that. Again, the compartmentalizing that we talked about before. It’s just like there’s no world in which someone was a huge part of your life and your traditions and you loved them and you cared for them and you spent all of these important events with them. And then the next year, because of something totally separate from you, it’s like, “Well, that’s no longer a thing.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
We force ourselves to do emotional gymnastics instead of realizing that the truth of it is if you cared about them then, you care about them now. It may be in a little more complicated of a way, but we make it too tidy, and in making it too tidy, I think we hurt other people and we hurt ourselves. If you have love for people, you can show it.
Abby Wambach:
I also think in terms of divorces, isn’t the holidays supposed to be about trying to be of joy and love and inclusion, and it’s like when this divorce thing happens, there automatically becomes this weird exclusion.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. In and out.
Abby Wambach:
And this person’s now on the outside. I don’t believe in that. Marriage just happen, people happen. I love some of my in-laws that are no longer married to my brothers. I think that that’s really important that they know that I love them, and no matter what, my nieces and nephews are half theirs.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. That’s right. Well, I love this wild, huge family we’ve created, this pod squad. It has just been a great joy of my life this year, and it makes me feel comforted to know that no matter what the next year brings, we will be back here next year at the same time telling ridiculous stories together and reflecting on the year together and preparing to do the next year together. For that constancy, I am grateful and I just hope all of you find some tiny bursts and slices of joy inside all of the mess that the next week will inevitably bring.
Abby Wambach:
And peace.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Little flashes of peace. I love you sister and I love you Abby.
Abby Wambach:
And you will be the gift and the present, your presence will be our best present.
Glennon Doyle:
I hope so because I haven’t bought a lot.
Amanda Doyle:
I love you, Abby, I love you G Bird, I love you pod squad.
Abby Wambach:
I love you guys so much and I want to buy Sister all of the things.
Glennon Doyle:
I know. We do like to buy things for sister.
Amanda Doyle:
Please do. Please act on that impulse.
Glennon Doyle:
We love you. Enjoy your people. If you’re alone, enjoy yourself because you are the thing.
Abby Wambach:
If you’re with people, you are the thing too.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. We’ll see you next time. Love. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially, be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.