The Art of Holiday Gift Giving and Merry Moments

Amidst the chaos of the holiday season, Charli navigates the humorous and relatable intricacies of Christmas traditions, gift exchanges, and family expectations. 
• Exploring the evolution of family Christmas traditions 
• Sharing humorous experiences from Christmas morning 
• Navigating workplace gift exchanges and creativity 
• Discussing the significance and implications of gift cards 
• Highlighting the whimsical fun of Elf on the Shelf 
• Encouraging reflections on personal holiday stories and experiences

Chapters

• 0:35 Christmas Traditions and Gift Giving
• 6:54 Gift Exchanges and Elf
• 12:00 Elf on the Shelf Mishaps
• 15:28 Christmas Morning and Gift Preparation
• 22:51 Holiday Wishes and Podcast Promotion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:35

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Gag is Hot. I am your girl, charli Shante. Thank you for joining me on another episode. Oh my God, can you believe that Christmas is in just a few days? Like this is crazy. Like time is really flying and it don't look like it's finna let up. It don't look like. It don't look like it's finna lit up. We don't look like it's stopping time, finna, go.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Like, before you know it, we're gonna be into a whole nother year. We're gonna be entering into 2025 and man, oh man, like 2024, like came in, didn't like nothing, and like it's like when you traveling and you going into a small town and like you speeding into the small town and then like you slow down because you're going through that small town and as soon as you get out that small town you start zing. That's kind of what. Like 2024 did it like came in fast. You know, slow down a little bit. Then it's like you, I'm finna, get out of here. So we are on our Christmas episode. We're on our Christmas episode and wow, okay, we finna talk about it. So come on in, get your drinks, get your snakes, get whatever it is that you're gonna get and let's jump right into this thing right here. I got my list right here, so you know, y'all know I'm gonna try to prop it up here a little bit and see, you know, if we can get through it like that or if I might have to pick it up. So the first thing we'll talk about is Christmas traditions.

Speaker 1: 2:08

Now, I wouldn't really say that we have a Christmas tradition, but in a lot of houses. Well, first of all I tried to put on my little Christmas necklace or whatever. But y'all see, it's all taught right. So the boy had like dress up Christmas Day or whatever, like Christmas decorations, and this used to light up and you see it is all twined together and whatever, whatever. And then he tried to give it back to me, said, yeah, this little necklace don't work. I'm like bro, I didn't. When I gave it to you it was brand new. How did it get like this? So I need to say I ain't going to be letting him borrow no more stuff of mine.

Speaker 1: 2:47

But anyway, the only Christmas kind of tradition that we got is we open a Christmas Eve gift. Now this year I'm being a little bit more lax because we just breaking tradition. We ain't opening up no Christmas Eve gift. Now, this year I'm being a little bit more lax because we just breaking tradition. We ain't opening up no Christmas Eve gift. How about, when these gifts come, you're going to open them like that's your tradition, because I really don't feel like wrapping nothing. But I have a bunch of bags but I can't put the bags out with stuff because the people going to look these people in my house nosy. They going to. So I'm just, um, I'm just withholding the gifts. I'm just like, nah, I ain't getting nothing this year, I'm just withholding the gifts in like a secret hiding spot because y'all nosy, like how about y'all just wait? You know Cause, cause, what? Just wait, like stop being nosy. So but that's like the only tradition we have.

Speaker 1: 3:38

I think we probably need to make a tradition. I don't know because, like, my kids are older, so I don't know. I don't know about no tradition. Can we start a tradition and not spending a lot of my money? Like can we make that a tradition? Like that would be cool. But we, we kind of really don't have any traditions that we do. But, like I say, it will be nice. Maybe, you know, one day when I get married, or you know, whatever, whatever, I can create a tradition with my spouse or what have you, but for right now I ain't got no tradition.

Speaker 1: 4:19

I know New Face was like hey, like on Christmas morning, can we get up at? Like, let's say that we're going to get up no later than seven o'clock, and I'm like, who came up with that idea? Because you're not a kid anymore. You don't really need to run in there under the tree and be like oh my God, there's gifts. Santa came, bruh.

Speaker 1: 4:41

You know I went to the store and bought this stuff. You know I ordered this stuff online, so why are we rushing to see what's under there? And I used to wrap the stuff like as soon as I got it, because I used to shop in like October, november. So as soon as I got the stuff and I put the tree up like it used to be boxes under the tree, but I ain't doing that because I've been ordering in the last couple of weeks, so I ain't doing that. How about I ain't even going to wrap it? How about I'm just going to put it under the tree in the package that it came in. I'm just going to write your name on it. I think we can do that. I feel like that's feasible. I mean nothing wrong with that, too big. You know, sin ain't real.

Speaker 1: 5:18

You know I'm Santa, so what I'm trying to fake you out for Like, yeah, like what, what, what, what, what am I fake you out for? I'm like I'm not getting up at no seven o'clock, like I'm not going to commit to getting up at 7am, knowing that I'm probably not finna. Go to sleep till like 3am, so I'm not even finna. Commit to tell you that I'm finna. Get up at 7 am Now. If you want to go out there and get up at 7 am, by all means go ahead and get up at 7 am. Huh, hug on me in the bed. Hug on me in the bed because ain't going to be nothing out there for me to unwrap. So I'm finna, get my. I'm going to be over here in this bed with my little jams on. Okay, I'm gonna be over here in this bed with my little gems on. Okay, like, how about you wake me up and come tell me what Santa left you? How about that? Because I'm gonna be surprised too, because I'm gonna be looking at like, how much did that cost? Like how about that? Okay, yeah, all right, wait on it. Just, I'll wake up and you come show me and I'm gonna roll back over. Ain't gonna be? No, I'm trying to get up and cook this fancy breakfast. No, it's some eggos in the freezer. Uh, I might cook a little lunch. I said I was gonna do a wing bar, so I'm gonna just make a whole bunch of wings and get some different sauces. Uh, cut up some carrots and some celery and they can go from there and they can have a wing bar for lunch while we watch football, basketball or whatever else is on TV. And my boys play on Christmas Day and they play on Netflix, so hopefully it don't crash and I get to see my boys play.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Now, moving right along, gift exchange parties like like, do y'all attend those? Like, do y'all do those at your workplace? Like we, we did it at my job and like I got some pretty cool stuff. I'm happy with everything that I got. I like going to parties because it allows other people to be kind of creative and you know, when it comes to getting getting people stuff and you know, do y'all do it more? So is just like a blind gift exchange, like secret Santa, or like, how do y'all do it? Cause I know there's like some games where people play that's like white elephant or something like that, where you kind of like pick a gift and then, like somebody can come and like snatch the gift from you or something like I don't know, I ain't never played it, but, um, the way like we did it this year is we, um, we picked somebody's name and then we um, we got a gift for them and then we had a like a little lunch thing and then we gave that person our gift. It was really cool, because I love the people that I work with. Like people I work with are top tier, like they real cool, so it was um fun.

Speaker 1: 8:08

So tell me, like, did you go to a work party? Did you have a work party? Um, like, what about your kids? Like, did your kids have a party at school that you had to supply like snacks for, because they had like a movie day or something like that for the last, for, like it's the Friday before Christmas, so y'all kids should be having like Christmas parties today. Are y'all even sending y'all kids to school?

Speaker 1: 8:34

I told New Face hey, do what you want to do, okay, and do what you want to do, Okay, do what you want to do, just don't bother me, I'm going to be home, I just just don't bother me, bucko. And then I also want to know so when you're doing gift exchanges and stuff like that, do you feel like gift cards are an easy way out? Now, I know we're all busy and I know that you know we're working, running kids around and things like that, but do you feel like gift cards are an easy way out? Do you feel like gift cards are thoughtless, baseless gifts, Like oh, you got me a gift card, like you didn't even really put any thought into my gift, like I want to know how y'all feel about that, because a lot of times you know we can get, we have the best intentions of getting somebody something.

Speaker 1: 9:34

Sometimes a lot of people are hard to shop for and so, like what I did, for example. And sometimes a lot of people are hard to shop for and so, like what I did, for example, my Secret Santa gift is I got the stuff that I know the person likes, and then I got them a gift card as well, because, although I know you like this stuff, here's also a gift card for you to treat yourself Right. I look at gift cards as a way to treat yourself. You know, just get like a plain gift card to like that person's favorite store, or just get like one of the little money cards and then do it like that. I don't think that gift cards are baseless gifts, because one you got something and something is better than nothing, and then when the person is getting it from your favorite store, they're acknowledging hey, I know that you really like this store, so I've gone ahead and got you a gift card to this store so you can treat yourself. However, if you just go get a random gift card like you in a store and you're like oh, let me get one of these, one of these baseless gift cards, like a little eat out or something, then that to me that's thoughtless. Like that's when I feel like gift cards are tacky. But I feel like gift cards are also a way to prevent you having to get a gift receipt or the person has to take time and spend time going to the store to return whatever it is that you got them, and I feel like it just cuts down on a lot of time and it's just a good way to treat yourself. I'm all about treat yourself. I'm the queen of treat yourself.

Speaker 1: 11:04

So tell me what y'all thoughts is. Do y'all like getting gift cards or how do you feel about gift cards? You think they're baseless? You think they're good? What do you do with them? Do you actually use them? Do you re-gift them like? I want to know what do y'all do with y'all gift cards? All right, so let's talk about something super duper fun elf on the shelf.

Speaker 1: 11:37

Now, this is my elf right here and my elf. Okay, please understand, my kids are older so I don't have to play this. If you don't do good, then I'm not going to sit out or I'm going to take away your stuff or I'm going to go bye-bye. We don't do that in our house. We have fun with our elf in this house. Now our elf been a little mia, like he look ghetto.

Speaker 1: 12:01

So this is our elf on the shelf, our elf on the shelf's name. Uh, what did I name him? D Montreal, aka Diddy walk him down. Right, diddy, walk him down. Came through the first day he was like, ooh, this cool up in here and y'all know, on the first day, diddy walk him down tried to holler at me. Gonna tell the kids, I hope I end up in your mama room cause she fine Little buddy is out of pocket.

Speaker 1: 12:39

And then what else he did one day? Then one day, you know, you know we lactose intolerant. So one day, diddy walk him down, had diarrhea and he boo-booed in. They sink diarrhea and he boo-booed in, they sink Diddy. A while man. And then, like, in between that, diddy got kidnapped. Y'all like how he get kidnapped, like, and he ain't want to play, no more. So he went away for a few days and then, matter of fact, diddy just got off vacation. Like a few days ago he was on vacation, he went scuba diving in the keys.

Speaker 1: 13:16

Um, you know, did he kind of do what he want to do? He pop in and out. You know, he, you, you see, he found his way in my room. So you know, I don't know what, what buddy finna do next. He ain't told me, he was just like, go to sleep and wake up and then you'll find out where I'll be tomorrow. And I'm like, hey, man, just keep it play or keep it chill. You know what I'm saying. I ain't got no bail money. I don't even know if, like, elves go to jail, or do they get sent back to the North Pole, or like what happens when the elf get in jail? I don't know. But, mr Diddy, welcome down. You better be on your best behavior, okay, because I ain't got time. You stay right there and it's all good. And you know, I don't know, I don't know. We're going to see. Diddy got a couple more days. We're going to see what he's going to do, see if he ends up on the naughty or nice list and see if he gets to stay in the house or if he's got to go back to the North Pole.

Speaker 1: 14:18

You know, you know, when Diddy pooped in a sink, you know, didi took the kid's toothbrush and tried to wipe his booty and clean up the boo-boo out the sink. It was tragic y'all. It was so terrible. He apologized and he asked for help to clean it up. But you know, you know how that go. I was like poor dude. I was like guess he learned not to eat that ice cream no more because Buddy was down bad. He was like I couldn't make it to the sink and I was like y'all go watch this on YouTube. Then, you know, I'll insert some pictures and show you what Didi did, you know?

Speaker 1: 14:52

And while we're talking about going to YouTube, how about y'all like this podcast. Like, wherever you're listening, make sure you're downloading this episode, you know, click the little notification button in the right hand screen so that anytime a new episode is dropped, y'all going to get that. Follow the socials. The gag is pod. Same for Instagram and for YouTube. I'm going to tell y'all again at the end, so no need to stop it, pause it and try to remember. Okay, what did she say? I'm going to tell y'all again. Don't even worry about it. I'm going to tell y'all again.

Speaker 1: 15:29

Now let's talk about Christmas morning. Christmas morning, we done already talked about if we're going to wrap these gifts or not. We done already talked about what time we finna wake up. Let's talk about this trash, because why do these kids feel like they have to just rip the paper off and just throw the paper everywhere, and then they just start playing with stuff? Like y'all, not finna, clean up this paper. That's my job. Y'all not, finna, clean up this paper. Like that's my job. Like y'all want me to clean up the paper. Like now I done bought the damn gifts and now y'all want me to go pick up y'all mess too, mm-mm, mm-mm.

Speaker 1: 16:08

So that reason, right there is why I switched from wrapping paper to bags and I'm cheap. The bags that we use in this year it's gonna be the same. It's the same bags that I had last year and it's gonna be the same bags that I'm using next year too. Because why I'm gonna keep buying bags for to put a gift in, for you to be done with it and then for you to go put it in the recycle? Ain't nothing wrong with this bag. We finna take this bag. We finna fold it up.

Speaker 1: 16:35

I bought a little um. It's like a bag keeper. You keep your um, your wrapping paper, your bags and whatever you know, your tissue paper and stuff like that. You keep all that in one spot. So I put it back in and I put it back in the closet because I mean, ain't nothing wrong with the bags and it comes in handy. Because then when I have other stuff throughout the year, hey look, I got a bag.

Speaker 1: 16:56

I get bags that are non-holiday specific. They may have like presents wrapped on it, but it's non-Christmassy, so I can use it throughout the year. So tell me, do y'all prefer wrapping paper? Do y'all use reusable totes? And then when you order from some places it come gift wrap already. So then you can say that one too, as long as it's not brand specific, you know. So I, that's how I do it.

Speaker 1: 17:21

So tell me, do y'all do the reusable bags Like? Do y'all like reusable bags like that? Like, tell me what you like, tell me, am I cheap for saving the bags and reusing them? You know, like what do we do? All right, so we're gonna talk about do we have what we need to use these toys?

Speaker 1: 17:46

Now I will say I have sent um my nephews some toys that require batteries and I didn't send any batteries with the toys. I'm gonna have to get on that, like certain kids like I give battery operated stuff to, and some people I'm just like you just gonna get something regular because your parents ain't gonna call me and cuss me out because you got toys that require batteries. We're not going to do that. So you got to make sure when you're giving out these toys and you're buying these toys, you got to make sure that you got everything you need to make these toys All right. If these toys need batteries, if these toys need string or something else to function like outside of the toilet, like with the exception of water, make sure that you gift in this stuff when you give the toys.

Speaker 1: 18:41

Cause me as a parent, don't give my child something that I got to go buy some extra stuff for. Like, if I give bubbles, I'm going to give the bubble machine, then I'm going to give you the refill for the bubbles, because I don't feel like it's your responsibility to have to buy extra stuff for the stuff that I done sent already. I don't think that that is fair. That's just me. Tell me, tell me how y'all do it Like, do y'all provide, like extra stuff, batteries and stuff like that when y'all buy gifts for kids? You know, like, like he got like new face, got a bow and arrow, but he ain't got no bag, so I had to go buy a little bag for him to shoot the target at.

Speaker 1: 19:23

Like, you got to send every thing. Don't send something that I got to buy a subscription for because you didn't bought this item. You should have paid for the subscription a minimum of a year. If you buy something that requires a subscription, like, like, why are you going to buy something and then leave me to have to get the subscription and get the other pieces for it? That ain't fair to me. Don't be buying stuff that I got to put together.

Speaker 1: 19:51

I never send stuff that you have to put together more. If it take tools to put together, I'm not going to send it. But if it's like something you just like snap together, then OK, cool, finish sending it. But if it's like something you just like snap together, then okay, cool. But as far as putting together like I got to get a wrench, a hammer and a screwdriver, I ain't, finna, send it. And don't send it to me. Like, don't give me nothing that I got to put together. No, don't give me no Ikea gifts. You got to put that stuff together. I don't, I'm not going to do it, I don't want it. Thank you for the thought, thank you for the gesture, but I'm not, finna, do it. I just no, I just can't. I can't see myself doing it. No, send stuff that's ready-made, like I can just take it. Oh my God, thank you so much. Like you got this for me. Don't, don't give me no stuff that I got to put together. I ain't got time for that, cause I'm gonna put it back in the bag, sit it over in the corner somewhere and then it's just gone. It's going to be the end of that.

Speaker 1: 20:59

So I'm thinking like I need a good Christmas story and I don't really have any good like Christmas stories that could be. You can't make this up. The only one that I can remember is my dog that I have now, mikey. When we first got him we got him for Christmas and we got him a couple of days before Christmas and, yeah, I think today is his gotcha anniversary and he was a puppy and we were in our old house and my boy took it upon himself to go piss all over, to piss all over the presents. It was crazy. It was crazy. I just and then this ain't even a you can't make this up, but I can't believe these kids did this.

Speaker 1: 21:52

Y'all know I bought a new christmas tree this year, put the whole thing up, strung the lights around it, strung the garland on it, told the kids to put the balls on the tree Christmas. In what A few days that tree ain't got no balls on it. And guess what? I really don't even care. It got garland and lights, whatever. Good enough for me. I don't need all the whatever. Y'all lucky, it's a tree up, okay, cause I wasn't going to put one up. So that's my. You can't make this up. It's a little corny, but I mean it is what it is. And then, uh, for the song lyric of the week. Y'all already y'all should already know this is a Christmas episode, so y'all should already know like what. The song lyric of the week is finna be. Song lyric of the week is Mariah Carey all I want for Christmas, because this Christmas song, which I can't believe, is here.

Speaker 1: 22:51

We have come to the end of the episode again. If you have not already, please go and follow us on Instagram at thegagispot. It is the same on YouTube as well, thegagispot. If you want to, you're more than welcome to follow my personal page, smartfit, underscore oki on Instagram as well. Make sure, wherever you are listening to this episode, you are downloading, and making sure you are clicking the button in the right-hand corner, it automatically download for you. Anytime a new episode is dropped, it'll automatically be there for you. Episodes release at 5 am on Fridays, and so you have something to listen to on your way home from, not your way home from work, well, well, if you work at night, you may be listening to this on your way home from work, but it drops at 5 am on Fridays for work, but it drops at 5 am on Fridays, so you may have something to listen to on your way to work, while you are stuck in traffic on your lunch break or if you are working out in the morning.

Speaker 1: 23:49

I want to say I hope that you all have an amazing holiday, an amazing Christmas, an amazing day. I hope that your kids get everything they dreamed of and everything that they wanted, and I hope everyone is happy and healthy and we're celebrating with our family and our loved ones. My name is Charlie Shantae. This is the gag is podcast and from my family to your family Merry Christmas. Bye, guys.