In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 125: BONUS - 1980s & 1990s Christmas Memories(12-20-2023)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 125

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Happy Holidays!
Episode 125 of the podcast is going to have your fill of warm, fuzzy memories.
We will take a look back at what the holiday season was like in the 1980s and 1990s from Thanksgiving all the way through the day after Christmas.
Looking through the Sears Wish Book, daydreaming of the toys seen in the commercials for Toys r Us on TV, watching the Charlie Brown Christmas with only the lights of the tree on in the living room. All of the nostalgia is here this week.
Plus where applicable I will toss in stories of my own childhood and a little holiday music. Perhaps you have similar stories? Otherwise, you can sit back and laugh at mine.
Merry Christmas, I hope that you get to spend as much time as possible with those who matter most.
See you in 2024!
For more great content become a subscriber on Patreon or Buzzsprout!

Music In This Episode:
Christmas Village - Aaron Kenny
Holly Dazed - RKVC
Home For the Holidays - Chris Haugen
and of course as always...
James River - DJ Williams

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Listen to Episode 124 here 

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Speaker 00:

Ho, ho, ho, and hello, world. Welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 125. This episode is all kinds of things wrapped into one. It's the final episode of 2023. It's a special bonus episode. And it's a celebration of the holidays. I'm just calling it Christmas Memories. It's going to be a celebration of Christmases in the 80s and 90s. Things from my family specifically, but then overall memories of Christmases in general. So that those of you that are not in my family can enjoy this episode as well. This sort of Christmas Memories episode is something that I've wanted to do probably since the beginning of the podcast. I tried my best to collect memories of my own life. And then, like I said, generalities. For those of you that grew up children of the 80s and 90s, this episode is sure to give you all those warm, fuzzy memories from the past. And it's coming out a few days before Christmas, so there's still time to get into the spirit if you're not. So this episode was a fun one to research and put together. But when trying to figure out how to actually go through everything that I jotted down for notes, I had to try to organize it as best I can. For a minute, I thought this show was going to be like how Christmas mornings were at my house growing up. Just total chaos. Wrapping paper, bows, boxes everywhere. But no, we're going to try to do this as close to chronological order as possible. If you could see my notes for this episode, you would know that's not going to be an easy task. But anyway, back in the day, the Christmas season began on Thanksgiving at the end of the Macy's Day parade. And that was when Santa Claus would come down to kind of close out the parade. And even though you still had the full Thanksgiving day and the meal, it was kind of the unofficial kickoff of the holiday season. Although let's be real. Kids of the 80s, 90s, kids in general, when it comes to Christmas, when it comes to whatever holiday you celebrate in December, children already know what they want for gifts long before Thanksgiving. I remember as a kid when I was six, seven, eight years old, when I still believed in Santa, anything I saw on TV or anything I saw in the Sears wishbook, I would get a lot of responses from family saying, Saying the typical, oh, if you're good, maybe Santa will bring that for you for Christmas. The Sears Wishbook, their Christmas catalog, was such a huge part of the Christmas season for me in the 80s. The Sears Wishbook first came out in 1933, and it was in circulation up until 2011. For those of you that might not know what the Wishbook was, or younger listeners, it was basically... Amazon.com stuffed into a book. With four siblings, we fought over that book all the time. Granted, we as kids only went through the toy section, whereas they had sections for parents, gifts, clothes, housewares, accessories, sporting goods. I didn't care about any of that. I just wanted toys. I believe we kids used to circle things we wanted and put our names next to them, or at least an initial. But in the time before internet and smartphones, you could get hours and days worth of entertainment for your kids out of the Sears wishbook. God, it was over 800 pages in the 80s into the early 90s. To really date my age, I could say it was like a phone book. I think they still make phone books. If you didn't have a wishbook to go through, no worries because TV was filled with holiday ads. Granted, there were a lot of them that were just happy holidays from whichever specific company, Budweiser, McDonald's. But back in the 80s and 90s, there were no shortage of commercials advertising the best toys for Christmas or bikes or rollerblades. And I don't know how it was for you who are around my age growing up. But with five of us kids, my mother and stepfather couldn't keep us away from the TV. At least not all of us. So if you're trying to keep the kids away, like, oh God, I don't want them to see this new expensive toy. With five kids, we were bound to see all that stuff. Toys R Us, KB Toys, Sears, Kmart, JCPenney, Jordan Marsh, other... toy stores like Child World. Do you remember Child World? We on Cape Cod had tons of toys for a little while, but they saturated TV with those ads, hoping that kids would see them and bug their parents. But it wasn't all toy ads. Like I said, there were some advertisements that were just happy holidays. Some really famous commercials came around in the 80s for the Christmas time. The Hershey Kisses that were The Bells. I think they either remade that one recently or they still show the original old one. The Bells play We Wish You a Merry Christmas. And there was that really famous, beloved Budweiser commercial with the Clydesdales and the sleigh and the snow going through town. In researching it, it says 1987 it came out. I thought it was older. But that one I know is still shown every now and then. And there were other really famous ones from that time. The McDonald's one where Ronald is ice skating and all the kids go skating with him. But one little boy can't skate and he gets left behind and he's sad. But at the end Ronald comes over and picks him up and they spin around and such. Or the Oreo commercial where it used to be the song Who's That Kid With The Oreo Cookie but it's a little boy waiting for Santa and he falls asleep and then Santa shows up and eats the Oreos and leaves. I'm not doing a good job of describing these old commercials. If you saw them, you'd remember. If you're of that age, younger Gen X like me or older millennials, go on YouTube and just type in 1980s holiday commercials and just enjoy yourself. So you've gone through the wish book. Thanksgiving's over. The TV is now saturated with holiday commercials and ads for toys you want. In those days before internet shopping, before Amazon, before eBay, you had to go to the store and get your gifts, which holiday shopping is fun, but it's one of the only times where every other person has the same idea as you. On Cape Cod, Hyannis is the business hub, kind of the center of Cape Cod. And in the 80s and 90s, the Cape Cod Mall was where most people would go to do their holiday shopping. Maybe you'd go walk around Main Street. Maybe you'd go across the street to the Kmart Plaza. But walking through the Cape Cod Mall during the holidays with all the decorations, especially in the years before the mall was expanded... where it had the very classic 1980s indoor mall look. Again, it's hard to describe if you didn't go through that time. Those of you that are my age, if I say 1980s mall, you know what I mean. Woolworth, Jordan Marsh, Casual Corner, Orange Julius, Filene's, KB Toy Store, Tom McCann Shoes. Back then in the 80s and 90s, Before they had gift cards, you would get gift certificates for people. And those of you that remember, you could get a gift certificate to somewhere like Tape World or Record Town or Sam Goody or any other mall store. But when you paid with your gift certificate, you would get actual change, actual money back. There were plenty of times that I used my gift certificate and bought like a pack of gum and got all the change back to go to some other store. Did any of you out there ever do that? Spend like two cents of a gift certificate and get the change back? And did the store clerk ever care, give you dirty looks? I'm sure that type of thing is the reason why gift cards became so popular, where no matter what you spend on it, you have to use the card, even if there's five cents left on it. I still have a marathon sports gift card from last Christmas that might have $1.50 left on it. And it's like, do I go to the store and buy a new pair of running shoes and put the gift card with $1.50 towards them? How embarrassing is that? At what age did you all out there start buying gifts for others, family, friends? I was trying to think back of the first year that I bought gifts for others. I'm assuming it was when I was in high school and actually had a job. And I don't remember if my stepfather ever gave money to us kids to buy stuff for our mother. It's interesting how that tide shifts as you get older, where it goes from, oh, I can't wait to see everything that people get me, and then you get more excited to get stuff for others and it's less about what you get. Like this year, I haven't really thought much about what I might get for Christmas, but I finished up all my shopping a few days ago. at least from when I'm recording this podcast, and I can't wait to see others' faces when they get what I give them. I'm sure if you had told 10-year-old me, someday you'll care more about what you give others than what you get, I'd have laughed and opened my Transformers. This next thing that I'm going to talk about, a lot of you might not know what it is, and that's an Advent calendar. If you're Catholic... If you're a practicing Catholic, you know what Advent is. I went to religious studies all the way through ninth grade. I was the only one of my siblings to get confirmed. But we had the Advent calendar. It began from November 27th through Christmas Eve to prepare for the birth of Jesus. And each day you would open up a little door and there'd be chocolate inside. That was the main thing I cared about was eating the chocolate. They must still do Advent calendars. I just haven't been a practicing Catholic in 25 years. But that was always exciting. Free chocolate every day for almost a month. Come on. But then the excitement for the Christmas season would really start to ramp up when you would get your tree. That was such a fun family tradition to pile all of us kids in our blue station wagon. We went to the same place every year. just over the High Bank Bridge in Dennis on Cape Cod. It used to be called just The Tree Farm, but it was run by a family, and I can't remember their last name. But we as kids, we'd spill out of the back of the station wagon. Yes, that's right, back then we would sit in the way back, where if we had pushed on the door hard enough, I'm sure we would have all fallen out and gotten killed on the road. Times were different back then. But we'd all get out of the station wagon. My mother and stepfather would, in oh-so-kind words, tell us to behave. Because we knew if we ran around and knocked over all the trees or something, we'd be in trouble getting home. We couldn't care less about the tree that got picked out. We just loved the smell of it and then getting to hang our ornaments on it. So the parents do all the work, picking out the tree, paying for the tree, watering it, putting it in the stand. And then the kids get to hang all the ornaments. My mom and stepdad would put all the lights around it. One special kid would get picked to put the angel on top every year. Boy, there were fights right there immediately. How come they're special and get to put the angel on top this year again? And then there were fights over the ornaments. We all had to have our ornaments divided up. Don't you touch my ornaments and hang them on the tree. That's mine. We'd pick our own section of the tree sometimes to decorate. My section looks better than yours. There'd be the same ornaments pretty much every year. The different colored balls with the hooks on them, different colors on them. There'd be some made by us kids from school. Candy canes. Did you all do tinsel on the tree? I think with five kids, they didn't want to have any more mess than was necessary because I don't remember much in the way of tinsel. Because with all of us, you might as well just take the tinsel and throw it on the floor. I'm sure they still do this now, but back in the 80s and 90s especially, there would be special ornaments you could get from different companies. McDonald's and Burger King would have their own special ones. Hallmark always had special ornaments that were collector's items. Back when they had the Hallmark stores that were standalones. I know we had one in the mall and there was one in Dennis that I used to go to because they were still around when Beanie Babies started. Do any of you out there who grew up in the 80s or before, do you still have any ornaments from those days? I know my specific ones are packed away. So you decorate the tree and while the tree's being decorated, Depending on the year, you would either play a record or a tape, get the Christmas music going. You could maybe play the radio. Gosh, I don't remember in the 80s and 90s if any stations on Cape Cod specifically played all holiday music. And you had back then, and you still have now every year, the old standard Christmas songs. In fact, I think just last week or the week before that, Brenda Lee's Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree went to number one. And that song came out 65 years ago. There were some classic Christmas songs that came out in the 80s. Now granted, last week on the podcast, ChatGPT said they hated Last Christmas by Wham! and Do They Know It's Christmas by Band-Aid. But that's AI's opinion. I always liked the It's Christmas, Baby Please Come Home version by U2. or Winter Wonderland by The Erythmics, or I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus by John Mellencamp. Ironically, one of my favorite Christmas songs is Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney, and that was on a lot of people's most annoying lists when I was researching it for last week's show. Some reviews said it sounded like a five-year-old got their first keyboard and were just playing it to annoy everyone. I read that, I'm like, no, I like that song. As far as Christmas music goes, one thing that was imprinted on my childhood was the Avon Christmas album from 1985. I know my mom liked Avon. The Avon lady would show up. I don't know if it was once a month, but every year my mom would play that Avon album. That's where they had the 12 Days of Christmas with John Denver and the Muppets. That's where I first heard Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano or Nat King Cole's The First Noel. When I was putting together my memories of growing up Christmas time in the 80s and 90s, the Avon album was one of the first things I remembered. I had to look it up and just play all those songs. And I was immediately transformed back 9, 10 years old. hanging all of my ornaments and getting excited because school vacation was coming up. Now, my family didn't do this, but maybe those of you growing up in the 70s, 80s, did you all go and get family portraits at Christmastime at Sears? If you Google that phrase, 80s professional portraits, Sears, Christmas, That's where you find all these horror show photos of the families all in the same exact sweater, looking slightly to the left instead of right at the camera. I'm not going to judge because when I was little, I have many Sears professional photos. I'll be going over that whole story, that whole process in a future episode of the podcast. But yes, professional portraits done at Sears were a huge part of my childhood. Okay, so the tree's all decorated. Now slowly but surely, presents start to gravitate towards under the tree. With your name on them, you look, maybe you shake them a little to figure out what they are. I became a professional at knowing when it was close and being already disappointed. In those days when you have children that believe in Santa, you've got to hide the presents, wrap them and get them done, but you can't put them under the tree and say from Santa. It's like, wait, he's supposed to come Christmas Eve, not two weeks early. When I was probably six years old, my sister Kate was four, I believe. We were up early because kids get up really early when they're young, and then God help you trying to get them up for school when they're in their teens. But we were wandering around, and we happened to go into my mom and stepdad's room. They're out cold asleep. I don't know if the closet door was open or if it was our spidey senses as kids kicking in, but before my mother and stepfather could wake up Kate and I had opened all of our presents that were in there and ruined Christmas for them, but not for us. As far as we knew, it was just bonus gifts for us. Do any of you out there have that experience, either as parents or as kids, where the presents are opened way before Christmas? I was just wondering what you do as a parent if you've already spent your allotted budget on gifts and they've been opened. I mean, you can't really go and buy a whole new Christmas, can you? Or do you ruin it for the kids and say, those were supposed to be for Christmas and you opened them, now you get nothing more? The closer you get to Christmas, the more likely the chances are that you get to see some of the most beloved Christmas specials that were ever made. The Charlie Brown Christmas, or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty the Snowman. Those all came out in the 1960s, but were a huge part of my childhood and I'm sure a part of everyone's childhood still growing up. Garfield Christmas came out was brand new in 1987. I can't tell you kids that didn't grow up then the excitement that you'd get when that CBS special presentation logo intro would come on.

Unknown:

Music

Speaker 00:

Yeah, that's the one. I bet all of you 80s and 90s kids just had major flashbacks when I played that. Those were all appointment viewing. All those shows. Get curled up on the couch, shut the lights off, and just lose yourself in that magic of Christmas that there was when you were a kid. There's still a degree of that magic and that wonder this time of year, but you know when you get older that you kind of have to manufacture it. So it's like, Christmas, the holidays, it's only as magical as you make them to be. That's not some kind of motivational speech or anything. That's just the reality I have discovered in my own life, at least. Another annual tradition for me and my family, and it might be for you depending on where you live, if you're Cape Cod, if you're southeastern New England, a trip to Edaville Railroad was usually in the cards. For me in the 1980s, A trip over the Cape Cod Canal to the town of Carver where Edaville was felt like traveling to the other side of the country. A fun fact is my very first memory of going to Edaville Railroad is from 1985. And I can pinpoint the exact date. It was November 24th, 1985, a Sunday. And how do I know that? Because I can remember on the radio on the way up there, the New England Patriots were playing the New York Jets. And I remember the Patriots lost to the Jets 16-13 in overtime. Now that didn't ruin my time. I'm sure my aunt, my uncle, my father, they may have been less thrilled. But Edaville was a blast. Back in episode 96, I did a full segment about Edaville Railroad and its history. But it had a Santa's village and a train that would bring you around this huge cranberry bog. And that would be decorated with lights and different displays. But if you want to know more about that, you can go check out that episode of the podcast. It's getting closer to Christmas. You've run out of TV specials to watch. Now it's time for some great Christmas movies. There are some legendary ones that came out in the 80s and 90s, like Home Alone, Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Scrooged. Then there are others that are Christmas movies disguised as other movies, like Gremlins, which is very Christmassy, but kind of a, I guess, family-friendly horror movie. Or Die Hard, which has become more and more known as a Christmas movie as the years have gone on. Or Rocky IV, because nothing says the Christmas spirit like Rocky avenging the death of Apollo Creed. One interesting movie that I wanted to bring up and discuss a little was A Nightmare Before Christmas. Besides the fact that it's a crossover between Halloween and Christmas, I was doing some research, because it's a great movie. Jack Skellington, created by Tim Burton, music by Danny Elfman. It's legendary. It's now 30 years old, by the way. But an interesting talking point that I saw all over the internet is how the Christmas season starts earlier and earlier every year, which is kind of why I started this podcast off saying that it used to begin at the end of the Macy's Day parade on Thanksgiving. But some people were saying, and see if you agree or disagree, that because A Nightmare Before Christmas came out the week of Halloween in 1993, that it got kids into the Christmas spirit early and And then every year you watch that movie at Halloween and suddenly you're in the Christmas spirit again. I hadn't thought of that because I do notice that the holiday season starts earlier every year. You barely got time to put the Halloween candy at half off when they've got Christmas decorations surrounding it. It's just an interesting idea that a classic like A Nightmare Before Christmas may have inadvertently or intentionally been started the holiday season, the Christmas season earlier. So there's not much time left till Christmas. Do you get to go to visit Santa at your local mall? And when was the last time you went? When was the last year that you believed in Santa Claus? The older I get, I can't remember what that line of demarcation was where I suddenly realized Santa was in the house, that he was my parents. It's fun and magical to believe that someone shows up, comes down through your chimney, leaves all the presents, flies around the world in his sleigh with the reindeer. But there's also a part where you see that it's the same number of presents every year, and you realize that it's your parents, your mother, your father, stepfather, stepmother, whoever, that they love you so much that they put in all that effort. So it's like on one hand, I was a little disappointed there wasn't a Santa, but it made me appreciate those actual people in my life. It's Christmas Eve now. The stockings are hung by the chimney with care. We kids all had special stockings with our names on them in this puffy paint that my mother did. I still have mine, but like I said, it's packed away. When I was younger, it was impossible to get to sleep. You wanted to catch Santa if he was showing up. Then the older I got, as I became a teenager, I would sleep a little bit later. Because once I knew there wasn't a Santa, I knew no matter what time I got up, all my presents would still be there. And it was chaos. Five kids, all within about six and a half years in age of each other. You would collect your presents from under the tree and pick out a section of the living room to sit and unwrap them. I was never disappointed on Christmas throughout my childhood. I may not have been as thrilled to get clothes, but I was always happy. And my family, we weren't rich growing up. So it made me appreciate what I got. It makes me appreciate what I have all through life, knowing where I came from. But me growing up, I was kind of lucky because I would have two Christmases. My parents divorced when I was four years old. So from that point on, Christmas was kind of a two-headed monster. It would start at my house and end up at my Nana's house. Christmas Eves were always fun. I remember many of them at my Nina and Grandpa's house. They'd let you open one present, like early Christmas. Those evenings were always filled with Christmas music, appetizers, lots of loud people. When you were growing up, how was Christmas morning? Was it organized? Was it chaos? The funny thing is, for as chaotic as it was at my house with five kids starting off early in the morning on Christmas, at my Nana's, it was very structured and very organized. I bought a camcorder for myself in the summer of 1994. I did a whole bonus episode, episode 70, about my camcorder years and wanting to be a filmmaker. But one bonus, one thing that I treasure more than almost anything else I did with that camcorder was filming Christmas 1994, 95, and 96. Because for all of the funny skits I made or music videos I made, the memories of those Christmases... especially as I lose family members, those get more and more precious. It's funny, though. The Christmas of 1994 on my camcorder, you can see the difference. It starts off with me filming at home and the chaos, and then we get to my Nana's house, and it's very structured. Typically, we would designate someone to be the person to pass out presents, usually my Uncle Bob or Aunt Susan or Uncle Eric. And you'd each open your presents one at a time so everyone could watch and oh wow, look at that. And I honestly don't know which I prefer, chaos or organization. Side note, I hope you've enjoyed me kind of splicing in a little bit of Christmas music under the talking here. Because this is a holiday episode, I wanted to make it as unique as possible. So I figured almost a half hour in, I wanted to see if you were enjoying the music. It's all stuff you can get off the YouTube audio library. Free stuff, no royalties. That's the best. This is where we really dive into stories from my life. Christmas dinner at my Nana's is something I'll always remember. I can still hear her voice in my head as I would ask her, Nana, what's on the menu? Usually it was ham, maybe stuffed pork, which that was always good. She made these amazing hash brown potatoes, cheesy with onions. It got to a point where she had to have two gigantic pans worth, at least, because we'd all just raid that stuff. And of course, because she grew up in the 40s and 50s, she'd have green bean casserole, which, whatever, yams... With the marshmallows melted on them. And we didn't just have rolls. We had nice rolls or nice warm rolls. My Nana would hype up the rolls like they were better than the main course. That's another reason why I'm glad I videotaped those holidays. Because at that age, at that time, I didn't appreciate just what was happening there. But I can go back and visit those times and appreciate it more now as I'm older. And of course, we had dessert with Cool Whip. It was always Cool Whip. Small slice of pumpkin pie with five pounds of Cool Whip on it. My Nana would always say, don't worry, I've got another one in there. Take as much as you want. What were your dinners as far as Christmas went? Did you have traditional ones? As I'm older, my mother will make usually Italian stuff based on things that my Nina would make. There were always these other small traditions. My Nana had this ceramic Christmas tree that I think was way more common than I thought from the 70s, where it was lit in the center and there were these little plastic lights that would go in the holes around the tree. Some were lights, some were birds. Year after year, more and more of the lights would be missing. I bet that ceramic tree would be worth something today. And we always had snacks, cheese and crackers before dinner was ready. I think my Nina and grandpa were the ones that had the Royal Dansk butter cookies, which those are still around, but they come in that round blue tin with the pictures on top of what cookies are inside. And then as years went on and my Nana got older, my Nina and grandpa got older, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day migrated away from their houses. Christmas Eve ended up being a tradition at my Aunt Kelly and Uncle Keith's house. And it still is. And it would be the same fun stuff. Everybody sitting around in their big living room. Stories and snacks and music. Christmas Day migrated to my Uncle Eric and Aunt Emma's house. And again, that was filled with food and family. Great Hawaiian music. My Uncle Eric got me into Hawaiian music because he would just play it. He wouldn't say, hey, do you want to hear a song? He'd be like, I want to hear this. Play it. And I'd be like, oh, what's that? And those songs are imprinted on me now. And we'd get done eating. Usually when it was at my Nana's house, go out for a walk. Family walks. Boy, that's something I didn't know that I would miss when I was older. My Nana lived probably... half mile, less than a half mile from a cranberry bog. So we'd usually walk down there and walk around it. Unless it was really snowy and cold, then it was forget it. But we're wrapping up Christmas Day, wrapping up this bonus episode of the podcast here. I couldn't end it without one of the kings of all Christmas stories. So on my father's side of the family, we're very Swedish. Sederlund is a Swedish last name. My family on that side, specifically my uncle Eric, annually would make something called Swedish Glogg, which is a special drink for Christmas time. It was port wine, cinnamon sticks, and grain alcohol boiled on the stove to kind of reduce out any water. This stuff was so potent, it made jet fuel look like ice water. Typically, we'd all do a shot together. Merry Christmas, suck down this insanity. One year, it might have been 2008, I had more than one shot. We'll just say that. When I got out to my car to leave, A, nobody stopped me. But B, when I put my key into my driver's side door, I couldn't figure out why the key didn't work. And I'm turning it and turning it. in the days before electric door openers. I said, maybe it's frozen. So I just turned the key harder and harder. Well, like an idiot who had had too much Swedish glog, I was turning the key the wrong way. Oh, but the key eventually did move because I turned it until the key broke off into the door lock. That should have been the sign to stop me and take my keys or my broken key. But the family had all gone back inside, so I fished out the end of that key and then used my spare to open the car and drive home. Wicked smart. That Glog was no joke. Just hearing grain alcohol, you know it's not good. And then you'd wake up the next day, Christmas hangover, either literally or figuratively from all the stuff you did the day before. If you're a kid, you're still on vacation. so you could sleep in and then enjoy all your presents and compare them with your friends. And maybe head off and go shopping if you got any gift cards, gift certificates, or if you had to return stuff. That was another big thing. Keep the receipts in case you hate the present that you got. Those are a lot of good memories. I hope you all enjoyed this trip down memory lane for yourselves if you grew up in the 80s and 90s. or just some laughs at listening to my family's chaos during the Christmas season. I hope whatever you celebrate, wherever you are, whoever you're with, I hope it's the best time of year it can be. That'll wrap up episode 125, Christmas Memories. As I said, this is the last episode of the year. Next week, I'm going to skip, mainly because this felt like a nice way to end the year. and we'll come back fresh in 2024. You've still got a few days for holiday shopping. I've got nine books. Any of them make great holiday gifts. If you live on Cape Cod or most of southeastern New England, you can go to most bookstores and find these books there. Of course, you could try Amazon and get the expedited shipping. Maybe you'll get them for Christmas. If you enjoyed this episode, if you enjoy my work, Go and become a subscriber on Patreon or on Buzzsprout. Patreon subscribers get access to bonus content, subscriber-only podcast episodes. A special Christmas gift that I'm giving to them is the audiobook version of the very first short story I ever wrote called Eight Hours. It's a little over an hour in length. I've also created a free trial version audiobook of my Searching for the Lady of the Dunes book, the introduction and the first couple of chapters. I'm putting that on theladyofthedunes.com. I'm also making a video version, which will probably just be my audio, maybe some images. I don't know. I'm working on new and different ways to market my work, my podcast, books, and also new avenues, like audiobooks. You can follow me all over social media, Instagram and threads. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. There's always full length episodes of the podcast up there, as well as specific segments from each episode. I want to make sure that I wish my Uncle Bob a happy birthday. It will have happened before the next episode of the podcast. So I want to be out ahead of it and make sure I wish him happy birthday. He was a big part of a lot of these Christmas memories that I shared in this episode. I have been lucky to have some great uncles that I have kind of borrowed from as far as being an uncle myself to my nieces and nephews, specifically my Uncle Bob and Uncle Eric. Thank you to all of you who have been tuning into the podcast, not just this year, but over the entire three-plus years that I've been doing this, 125 episodes in. It's a lot of work. It's like a cycle that never ends. But it's all good stuff. I enjoy doing this. The editing, not as much, but sharing the episodes and seeing what people like. So if you like it, share it, spread the word. Subscribe if you can, but you don't have to. Sharing the podcast means just as much. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of my family and friends. And to all of you listening, whether I know you in real life, chat with you online, or I've never met you and have no idea who you are, I hope that your holiday season was and is the best it could possibly be. So that wraps up 2023. It was a great year, and I'm hoping for even more in 2024. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. You already knew that. Happy holidays, and I will see you all in 2024.

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