Oh, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.

Merry Christmas, folks.

Oh, Merry Christmas.

I said I wasn't coming back until the first of the year, but I had the day off today.

Today is for me, it's jets.

December 24, 2024.

And I was up early today and got a bunch of things done.

And I thought about family and traditions and all the things that, that I used to do with my family and her friends when I was younger.

And I want to talk about it for a couple of minutes.

Thought you might enjoy that.

I do have to work tomorrow.

I'll be.

Oh, Gray hair day at work tomorrow.

And I like to work on the holidays for two reasons.

One, it.

Hopefully it gives somebody with family or kids the ability to take the day off and be with them.

And you know, the people that do work on the holidays, they, they have a special little bond that they have together because they had to work the holidays, whether it's Christmas or New Year's or Fourth of July, whatever it is.

And you know, you kind of, you got, you don't commiserate together, you celebrate together.

And I enjoy that.

It's kind of nice.

Now, sometimes we get lucky and get fed on Christmas Day.

Certain departments will go ahead and put out a spread for us.

I don't know if that's going to happen for me this tomorrow or not, but we'll find out, you know, but I remember when I was young.

I'm sure you all do, too.

And if you're still young, I'm sure you're building those memories now.

And it was, it was exciting to go get the Christmas tree.

Do you all remember going to get the Christmas tree?

Whether that was at a.

A Christmas tree lot or a Christmas tree farm?

I know that for the longest time we went to a Christmas tree lot.

I mean, I'm sorry, Christmas tree farm.

And one of the cool thing was you got to go ride a hay ride out to where you might find your, you know, your Christmas tree.

And then you'd find it, you'd cut it down and you load it into the back of that, of that trailer again with hay all over it.

And you'd take it back up and get ready to pay for it.

And you'd go inside for some hot cider and freshly made donuts.

I remember those days.

Those are fond days.

I realized that some of those days were done without my older brothers because they had moved out of the house or they were in college or, you know, they're married a lot because I was so much younger than them that mom and dad and I still did those things.

But it was fun when Paul and Tim were around to do them, too.

And then, you know, we get home, we'd put it in the stand and let it sit for a little bit, get the decorations out, string the lights, and it'd be a fun evening with the family.

Even though.

Even though my dad was not big on putting decorations on the tree, he was involved.

But mom enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it.

I think Paul and Tim enjoyed it too.

It was a lot of fun.

And we did have usually some Christmas music playing in the background.

And it's nice, you know, as years went on, we stopped going to the Christmas tree farm and we started going to a lot, you know, just Christmas tree lot.

And I remember one time, my friends and I, we got together with my girlfriend and.

And we decided that we were going to go out and get my mom and dad a tree this year.

And it was so much fun because we got it all set up for them.

And when they got home, they got.

They saw.

They were so excited.

It was so much fun for us.

My friend Bill was with me.

My girlfriend at the time was there, and I believe Matt was there, But I'm not positive about that, but I'm pretty positive.

And we had fun going and doing that.

Things like that bring back great memories, and they give you such good memories.

I personally think my parents were great and.

And they showed it.

They, you know, they.

They gave it back.

Now, I'm saying all this because eventually they.

They moved out of the house we lived in most of my life, and they moved into a.

A smaller house and they had.

I believe we gave.

We.

They had a tree for a while, for a few years.

And then as they got sick, we really didn't do it as much.

I think we went to a artificial tree, maybe not.

I don't really remember the end there because I had moved away, too.

I'd gotten married and moved away, too.

And then you have your new traditions because you have your own new family now.

You know, my brothers had kids, so it was more about the kids, because it should be.

Christmas is about kids.

It's also about, you know, Christ's birthday and it's also about family.

And these are my opinions, folks.

Don't take this as gospel, but I was also thinking about God today and that which made me go and do this.

I think he's.

He was the one who decided I was going to go and record this today because he thought I had something to say to you, and I do, but you are building, you know, the traditions of your family.

And I watch my brothers and their kids and their traditions are going on.

They're starting new traditions for the.

My brother's kids have, are starting their new traditions or they're doing, they're doing things their way because their kids are, you know, they've all got kids and they're getting older and, and they enjoy themselves.

But, you know, so all of a sudden, mom and dad turn into the ones that go to the kids houses for Christmas to watch the kids open their presents and have dinner and all those fun things and, and it's less work for my, you know, for mom and dad because basically the cleanups are not as bad because you're not at your own house.

Right.

Well, it's not nice, but it is true.

So the traditions change.

And I think back about the traditions that we had and I wonder.

I know, number one and I, we, we tried to have kids and we didn't.

We weren't able to.

That's another podcast.

But it's, you know, we had, we started building our own little traditions and so did number two and I.

And it was fun and it was enjoyable and it lasted for, for a long time.

It did that good feeling, the feeling of joy and excitement and happiness, which is what the season is all about, isn't it?

Feeling joy, happiness, faith, being with family, being with friends.

Yeah.

Even being with your co workers, if that's where you got to be.

Because people take vacations and that's their tradition, and I'm part of the hospitality industry, and that's what we do, you know, that's what we do.

We're here so they can be on vacation and be at Disney World.

Do they think about us not being at home?

I don't know.

Maybe.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

But I, you know, I just wanted to talk to you about it today.

I'm curious about what your, your holiday traditions are.

There are people all over the country, all over the world who listen to this podcast, and I'm curious what your traditions are.

How do you do things at Christmas and New Year's?

Do you celebrate, you know, is it, do you celebrate Hanukkah this time of year?

Because I think it's that time.

It's that time of year, you know, Kwanzaa, there's a lot of, A lot of faiths out there that are celebrating this time of year.

This is an important time of year.

So that's what I had to say.

For today, don't forget to leave me a message on either.

You can leave me a voicemail, go to my website.

The number 5 minutes with gray hairedave.com, bottom right hand corner of any pages.

This little microphone, It's a little purple microphone.

Click on that.

You have to leave me your email, your name and email address.

And remember, I don't give out email addresses.

I keep them.

Or you can go to the Contact Me page.

Let me know what you think or what you're doing for the holidays or what traditions you have, and I'll be happy to talk about them next time we get together.

Also, folks, again, don't forget to tell your friends about me.

My name's Gray Hair Davis.

This is, you know, Gray Haired.

Five Minutes of Gray Hair Dave is just one of my podcasts.

The other one is Boomer Podcasters, where I teach and train people how to podcast.

And that's coming back in January, too.

I just took a small little break because it's been a little busy and everybody's busy and don't have.

They don't have as much time to listen.

So I appreciate those of you that are out there and doing this, and I'm happy you're there.

I'm happy both of you are there.

So you can look at either one of my websites.

It's five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.

That's the number.

Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.

Or you can go over to boomerpodcasters.com don't you check that out, see what you think.

Folks, if you know somebody who doesn't know what a podcast is, doesn't know how to find one, what genres are out there, if they might be interested or not.

Show them where they're at, show them how to find it, show them how to follow, subscribe, all those fun things.

I pray for you all to have a wonderful, happy new year and a fantastic Christmas season, Hanukkah season, Kwanzaa season, and I look forward to talking to you again in the new year.

So don't forget, smile at somebody today, folks.

You will make their day.

So on behalf of Gray Hair Dave here in Gray Hair Productions, please, please, have a safe holiday.

If you go out on New Year's Eve, don't be afraid to call an Uber if you have a couple of drinks, okay?

Because I want to keep you safe.

I want you coming back and listening.

All right?

So Merry Christmas from Gray Hair Dave.

Bye.