What's the Tea with Ministry?
Welcome to What’s the Tea with Ministry!
Where we spill the tea on the Jesuit and Mercy mission at the University of Detroit Mercy! Bringing you mission-centered conversation through storytelling, reflection, and community connection all over a cup of tea.
What's the Tea with Ministry?
Advent Memories and Christmas Magic
Join us for a heartwarming episode of "What's the Tea with Ministry" as we welcome new community members Sammy Eckrich and Becky Vires. Sammy, with her vibrant passion for education and eco-theology, takes on the role of University Minister for Service and Justice, connecting faith with action. Meanwhile, Becky, fresh from her college journey, channels her enthusiasm for social justice as Associate University Minister, fostering a spirit of service and intentional community. Sharing a cozy cup of tea—a tradition inspired by Catherine McCauley—we get to know these inspiring individuals who enrich our university with their perspectives and dedication.
As the festive season approaches, we share treasured Advent and Christmas memories, reflecting on the spiritual depth of this special time. Advent becomes more than just a countdown to Christmas; it is a journey of stillness, anticipation, and the joy of incarnation. We reminisce about building a giant caterpillar snowman and the thrill of early Christmas mornings, savoring the magic of family togetherness. These stories are not just nostalgia—they're a reminder of the love and hope that the season brings, resonating with the themes of Mary’s journey and the quiet magic of winter.
The holiday fun continues with a lively discussion on unique Christmas traditions and a festive trivia game. Discover the quirky origins of the Christmas pickle and spider, the kiddie table conundrum, and the mystery of Santa's unwrapped gifts. Test your knowledge of Advent/Christmas trivia, from Gaudete Sunday to classic holiday films, and uncover surprising facts about beloved traditions. Through laughter and shared stories, we create a warm, inviting atmosphere that captures the joy and wonder of the season, offering inspiration for your own holiday celebrations.
Welcome to what's the Tea with Ministry, where we spill the tea on the Jesuit and Mercy mission at the University of Detroit. Mercy bringing you mission-centered conversation through storytelling, reflection and community connection, all over a cup of tea Hosted by University Ministry and typically our student co-host. But it's just me today. Anna Bryson, University Minister for Faith Formation, Kateri, will join us for our next episode in season four. Today we're going to be talking with Sammy Eckrich and Becky Byers. Originally from a small town in Iowa, Sammy pursued her passion for education and community engagement in Denver, Colorado, where she taught high school science and art for six years, focusing on supporting immigrant and low-income families. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biological Research with a minor in Philosophy from Loris College and later earned her Master's of Arts in Theology and Ministry from Boston College, specializing in theological education and eco-theology. Sammy worked with Boston College's Appalachian Volunteers, contributing to a formation-based service immersion program aimed at addressing rural poverty. Her interests also include interfaith relations and conflict transformation, rooted in the belief of the inherent dignity of every person. Sammy loves spending her free time painting, singing, exploring the natural world and playing with her two cats, Mouse and Woodchip. Becky Byers is a recent graduate of Creighton University, where she studied chemistry, art history, classics and theology. She's originally from the Chicago suburbs and currently is living in Detroit as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. At UDM, Becky serves as the Associate University Minister, organizing a weekly tutoring program, monthly service, immersion days and other programming that she is passionate about. In her free time, Becky likes to play Dungeons and Dragons, listen to indie folk music and stress bake cookies.
Speaker 1:So welcome, Becky and Sammy. I'm so excited to have you both on the podcast. We've been waiting all season to have you both on to share a little bit about yourselves and also just to have a good time. So today our theme, or our plan is to have a conversation around Christmas and Advent, but I really am taking this opportunity to just kind of introduce Becky and Sammy to our Detroit Mercy community. If you haven't met them yet. They are both wonderful and we're excited to have them share a bit more about themselves. And then we're going to talk all things Christmas and Advent.
Speaker 1:So I'm super excited, but before we get started with all of that, we will start with our typical tea segment. So before we came over here today, we walked over together from the university ministry office. I warmed up all of the water and got the tea ready in our office so that we could just walk on over with it, and so I had each of you pick out a tea that you'd like to drink while we record this episode this afternoon. And we do this because the Sisters of Mercy particularly Catherine McCauley on her deathbed shared with her fellow sisters that she wanted to make sure they sat down and had a comfortable cup of tea, and that was a way of them engaging in conversation, circles and community with one another, and so that is why our podcast is called what it's called, and that's why we're sitting here drinking tea, so I'm going to ask each of you to share with me what tea are you drinking today?
Speaker 2:I am drinking. It was like a sweet dream. It was like a sweet dream chamomile, lavender, something, something.
Speaker 3:Tea, something, something tea, wow, and Sammy, here I'm drinking lavender chamomile with probiotics today.
Speaker 1:Incredible. I chose for myself some sweet lemon tea that has immune defense in it, because, if you can't hear it in my voice, I'm overcoming a cold. So if I sound nasally, that is why it's not just any other reason. But we're all enjoying our cup of tea, so I'm glad we can sit here together, have this cup of tea and enjoy each other's company Cheers. Yeah, so we invited both of you here today to the podcast just to introduce you as new members of our community. Obviously, you've both been here for a few months now, but you're still newer in our you know you haven't completed a whole year being here, so you're still new to our community and some people may have not met you. So before we get into the Christmas spirit and the Advent joy, I'd love to have both of you just introduce yourselves. I know I read your bios, but anything you want to share about your work here or about yourself in general, not just your work. Who would like to go?
Speaker 3:first, yeah, I can start. Yeah, I'm the university minister for service and justice here at UDM, so what that means is, whenever there's a justice-related conference, I take students to attend those. We do service immersion days, service immersion trips, but really my goal is to help students connect to their faith and their values and put them in action. I think, for me, this idea of faith being something that's stagnant, that is just internal, is just not the best way to live it out. So I feel really called to do that myself, to put it in action and to invite others to think about what that means for them too.
Speaker 1:Great. And then Becky, for you. You're our Jesuit volunteer for the year, so you're only going to be with us for one year and you've been with us for now. How many months are we?
Speaker 2:going on Three yeah.
Speaker 1:That's incredible.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:So we've been here for three months. Tell me just a little bit about you, your work, and feel free to talk about JVC in general. Sure.
Speaker 2:So, if you're not familiar, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps is a one-year service program for typically people who have just graduated college, and I live in community with three other Jesuit volunteers. We live on a very small communal budget. We're built on pillars of intentional community, of simple living, of spirituality and of justice work, of social justice. So, yeah, I have three housemates. We live here in Detroit. We all work in either non-profit or ministry settings. It's been absolutely phenomenal to get to know these people and to get to know the whole JVC network, because there are so many former Jesuit volunteers and every one of them is the coolest person I've ever met. And it's also been a really great support system.
Speaker 2:Coming out of college, I just graduated in May. So leaving college, moving to a new city in a new state, doing new things and not being in college anymore, having that community has been really, really crucial and very exciting. Yeah, I'm on campus. I'm doing service and justice work with Sammy. I handle some of our weekly service. We have a tutoring program, service in the city. That happens every week and I manage that program. I help with service immersion days. And then I love liturgygy and I love liturgical music. So whenever I can get myself involved in liturgy or liturgical music. I've been finding ways to get involved in that as well.
Speaker 1:Becky frequently sings with the students at our 8 pm Sunday Mass. She has a gorgeous voice.
Speaker 1:Thank you, great. At our 8 pm sunday mass and she has a gorgeous voice. Thank you, um great. So thank you so much for being here, for introducing yourselves. Uh, let's transition now to talking a little bit about christmas and advent. Uh, this is our final podcast episode of season three and it's uh gonna set us up for this really great christmas and Advent season that we're entering into right now. So I thought it would be fun for us to just have a conversation about what Advent means to us, what Christmas means to us, and I thought I'd start with just the question of Advent, because that's coming a lot sooner. Yeah, what does the Advent season mean to you? Or what does it call up in you? When you hear that, who's feeling called first?
Speaker 2:I love Advent Mostly because I really, really love the incarnation and, like the child Jesus is a very common theme in a lot of my prayer life. So I really like Advent and I particularly really like Advent in times where it feels harder to talk about the joy of Christmas, because I think that's part of it. To me, it's like the incarnation event of Jesus's birth, but we're also preparing for and celebrating the fact that, like Jesus is still here, that we believe as Catholics, as Christians, that that God is present to us in like a real and personal and daily way of like talking about these preparations for Christ and Christ entering the world in this like chaotic and turbulent way of his birth and also in our lives, um, so I love that like preparation, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that, sammy. What about you? What is that's beautiful?
Speaker 3:um, I also love Advent and for me, I think, it's this idea of like it marks a season, not only in the year, but also in the internal seasons of quietness, of stillness, of darkness, of uncertainty, of uncertainty. And that is one thing that I love about being Catholic is it's not all like happy joy, goodness. It's like actually, sometimes we just literally don't know.
Speaker 2:We don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3:It's terrifying, or we just want to be still and I think spiritually for myself having an image of Advent where it's about stillness, it's about waiting, it's about not having the answer yet, it's about letting things like cultivate inside of you. I had a mentor share this with me once, this idea that in advent we are quiet like the soil. And as a biologist or someone coming from a biology background, I loved this image because when you think about like the frozen, hard ground of winter, like it's, it seems really quiet, but if you zoom in and look at the microbiology, it's like a chattering microbiome. Right, it's active, there are, there's like roots growing, there's seeds germinating, there's all these like microorganisms that are doing things, and so that image of like underneath the surface, things are happening. That is the image that I love about Advent.
Speaker 1:This is why I brought them on. They're both so good at offering really unique perspectives and reflections. I feel like I go to maybe the more not traditional, that's not the word I want to use, but just maybe the more common thoughts around Advent. For me, advent's all about Mary, like I love.
Speaker 4:Jesus, I'm so excited for Jesus.
Speaker 1:it's obviously we're preparing for Jesus and and celebration of his birth, but for me, it's all about Mary and I think it's. I think it comes from a deep devotion I have to Mary and and to thinking of what she was experiencing in Advent and being, and being pregnant and being young and and this crazy yes of like suddenly I find myself miraculously pregnant and I'm carrying God and like just all of that is so much for me and I think also it comes from and I've said this in so many different places, so it's probably coming. I may have said this on the podcast before um, but I have a deep like hope that someday, if, if, god willing, I have children and I'm pregnant, that I am pregnant for some part like some portion of Advent and Christmas, like that's my deep joy is like I I don't necessarily want to have a baby around Christmas but it's not that bad?
Speaker 1:yeah, no, I know.
Speaker 4:I'm a New.
Speaker 1:Year's baby.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but, um, the thought of, of experiencing, if, if that's what happens for me uh, pregnancy.
Speaker 1:At the same time, when I think of Mary experiencing her pregnancy with Jesus, it's just an image that I absolutely love about Advent, and I also I resonate with both of what you said of like, the quiet and the stillness, the being prepared, that like, even though it's a season of a lot of like preparation and uncertainty and joy, it's also a season when, like, things are maybe not always going so smoothly and the thought that, like Jesus is still ever present in all of it, and so I love that. I love both of your images, which is great. Let's talk a little bit about Christmas as a holiday. Earlier today, actually, even we were we were chatting at lunch about some of our favorite Christmas traditions or memories, and so I'm going to make you either repeat or come up with a new memory to share that you really enjoy about Christmas from your lifetime. It doesn't have to necessarily be just childhood, it could be in the last couple of years you too one memory that I have.
Speaker 3:It is the childhood memory um is is making a giant caterpillar snowman with my family. I don't know how old me and my siblings must have been probably elementary, like early middle school somewhere around there, and it must have been a winter with just a really heavy snowfall and that really sticky snow, you know the kind where it's just like perfect for snowmen. And so we just like couldn't stop ourselves. We just kept making giant snowballs and we would. It was like all three of us siblings.
Speaker 3:And then my mom was helping and she did not normally like play in the snow with us. So this was like a big deal. We needed like all the muscle that we could get to push these like enormous snowballs to make a giant caterpillar and then to get the head up onto the body so that there was like a head on top. Um, it took a lot of effort and so I think it was like this thing where we put so much effort into it and we were sweaty and we were tired, but there was this like amazing giant caterpillar for all of the neighborhood to see. That is my favorite christmas memory that's so cute a giant caterpillar I love the
Speaker 2:image. I'm gonna go back to what I was talking about earlier. I I, as a child, woke up at about four o'clock on Christmas, without fail. Um, my parents tried to institute, once I got a little bit older, that there was like a time that they couldn't be woken up before. It didn't work. Um, my brother had tried they, they tried my. My brother had bunk beds and I had my own room, but by the time I was a bit older, um, but I would go sleep up on the bunk bed, uh, during on Christmas Eve, so my parents could have the first floor, which, like as an adult, I realized, but at that point it was just sleepover in Jack's room for.
Speaker 2:Christmas and at about four o'clock, uh, I would wake Jack up and then make him go help me wake our parents up. Um, and even as an adult, I wake up at about 5 am on Christmas without fail. But now as an adult, my dad is also up pretty early in the morning on Christmas and always probably because he's not up till whatever hour helping hide and wrap presents. But so now I get to sit down and have a cup of coffee with my dad on Christmas morning, with just the tree lights on. We don't usually talk, we just sit there and have a cup of coffee and it is become like my favorite part of Christmas. That. And, um, my dad's family has a like tissue paper.
Speaker 4:Uh, fight, every year we do stockings, and then we have a tissue paper fight.
Speaker 2:That's fun. So I have memories of my, my grandmother, at like 90 years old, just sniping people from across the living room, which is great she got me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, your memory of sleeping in your brother's room is very similar to one of my favorite Christmas memories, which was when I don't remember how old I was, probably 10. We did have a rule instituted in our house that we were not allowed to wake my parents up before seven o'clock, but we used to call it 7-0-0 because we had digital clocks when we were kids and that's how we told time 7-0-0. So I just have, like all this, memories of my mom being like you may not come into our bedroom until 7.00. And I learned as an adult that they used to turn back the clock, so it was really 8 am, not 7 am.
Speaker 2:That is so funny, I know.
Speaker 1:Well, you know they got an extra hour of sleep. So whatever works for them, I don't know how I could institute that in my own family, but I must try, because an extra hour of sleep sounds really good. But there was one Christmas, and I think I was about 10, which makes my younger brother at the time seven and he just was so excited that year you know, seven is such a great age and I remember it was like probably 5am, 5.30 in the morning he like snuck into my room, so his room was at the far end of the hallway and then was my room and then my parents room and so I was in between my parents and both of my brothers and so he snuck into my room and he's like he woke me up. He goes Anna, I'm just too excited, can I?
Speaker 4:can.
Speaker 1:I just stay in your room with you and I I was like sure.
Speaker 1:And so he like crawled into my bed with me, um, and it's just one of my favorite memories Like, it's just like so cute and innocent. I don't remember what Santa was for me at that age, um, but to see his like joy and excitement, um, was really sweet. And then, um, I just remember when we finally when it was finally seven-0-0, we were able to go get my parents, and he was just like bouncing off the walls, excited, and so just like a sweet memory of like my little brother and I hanging out Christmas morning 5.30 am, being like when is it going to be 7? When can we go downstairs? And I don't know if this is true for either of your families. We had a two-story house and so all of our bedrooms were upstairs, and so we always had a tradition that we had to walk down the stairs in reverse birth order. So it was like Will was first, then me, then Patrick, and so we have a lot of family videos, so many amazing family videos of us walking down the stairs.
Speaker 3:You're like the Von Trapp family.
Speaker 1:It wasn't not quite so orderly, a bit more chaotic but, um, a lot of filming of us coming down the stairs and running into the living room and just so many good christmas joy memories that I have amazing. Um, I want to ask do you and your family have any interesting, unique family Christmas traditions? Yes, yes, immediately.
Speaker 2:Yes, my family loves traditions. Pretty much everything we do around a holiday we have done for probably 20 years at this point. For a lot of them, 15, 20 years. Christmas Eve is just my immediate family, just the four of us. We always went to the children's mass because my brother and I were singing. We got a little bit older we went to the adult mass at 6 pm instead of the 4 pm mass. Oh, I know, moving up in the world. We go out to eat at the same Italian restaurant that we've gone out to eat on Christmas Eve for my whole life, and then we change into our pajamas in the bathroom and we drive around and look at all of the Christmas lights. We have fun. We watch White Christmas. Every year around Christmas we have little elves we have so many Like. Every step of the holidays has a ritual associated with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that, yeah what about you. I have three thoughts, but also questions, because I'm curious, like how common they are.
Speaker 1:Okay, number one christmas pickle yes, yes, yes okay we didn't do it, but I know people who did.
Speaker 2:I even had a little one for my mini tree in college incredible.
Speaker 3:Okay, I hear it's a german thing. I was like I don't know how we ended up with like a glass pickle. It's a big deal, it's on the tree every year and my mom was always just like it's the Christmas pickle and we just accepted it, right? So that is one Second question Christmas spider Christmas spire, spider, spider, like an arachnid.
Speaker 4:What Didn't have Christmas spider I?
Speaker 3:think this is also a tradition I don't know if it's German or something else, but and my mom did not do this every year, but this was one of her like like she's a single mom for most of our childhood and was always looking for those like cheap, cheap entertaining things to make things special, and so she got a bunch of thin gold ribbon and she would string it all over the house and so when you wake up I don't remember if it was like the day before Christmas that the Christmas spider comes, or the day of but you wake up and the house is covered in like gold string and you have to navigate your way through the string to get upstairs, which was very fun. I don't remember what that Sean Connery movie is with, like the spy, where she has to bend herself around laser beams, but it felt like that. But it was the Christmas spider.
Speaker 4:The.
Speaker 3:Christmas spider and I have looked it up online. I know it's a thing okay it's a thing. It eventually became, just the tree got spiderified. It's a little bit easier, I think, just to put it on the tree. But that was one of those things I was like, wow, this is so random and fun and like none of my friends get the Christmas spider, that is one I kind of want to carry with me yeah, that's so fun.
Speaker 1:I've never heard of the Christmas spider.
Speaker 3:I have my third question. Yeah, is kitty table oh yeah, okay still right. That's the thing I so. I feel like I lived in this illusion and I don't know if this happened for you guys and your families where someday I was going to graduate from the kiddie table to the adult table. But here's the thing everyone gets older we all do age. There is no younger person to like. Take the kiddie table like it's always going to be me, yeah, and so I've just just accepted that in life, that kids table is better.
Speaker 1:I always sit at the kiddie table. Yeah, we had one. We've had them for some holidays and then other holidays. My family is a little interesting. We don't. My parents have moved a lot in my adult life and so they. We don't really have a tradition where we have extended family visit us during the holidays. It's usually just like the immediate family and we're not that big of a family. I mean, we're getting bigger. I've been, I got married and my siblings are dating people, so the table is getting a little bit bigger, but we usually just all fit at one. So the kiddie table hasn't existed for many years, but that's just because we don't even have a second table, it's just the one. But I think this and and this comes I wrote this as a lightning round question, if we get to the lightning round today but one of our Christmas traditions that I grew up with that I did not realize was controversial until later in life or not controversial, maybe a little bit of a little bit of a harsh word.
Speaker 1:I'm intrigued is that in my household Santa does not wrap. Really Santa's gifts are all unwrapped and they're just there and we had like set zones kind of in our living room growing up. We lived in a one. We moved a couple times when I was a kid but for the most part majority of my childhood was spent in one home and so we had like zones like will was always this one chair and patrick was always the couch and I was just kind of I was the one who got moved around a lot depending on what I was getting, but there was always like a zone and you could tell what.
Speaker 1:What was yours, because we were far enough apart in age and different genders and different desires and passions. But yeah, santa didn't wrap, so the first like hour of Christmas morning was always just like us playing with everything that Santa brought. And that is something that I definitely think I will take because that saves me a lot of time. Do you think that's why your parents did it? 1 million percent Okay, saves you time and then you don't have to worry about like Santa has different wrapping paper than other, than than mom and dad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we still occasionally got wrapped presents that said from santa, but not in our childhood usually mostly in my adult life.
Speaker 2:Now it's like this is from santa yep, my mom still does the from santa. My mom likes to pick a different person that every gift is from. She gets a lot of joy out of figuring out who's giving us particular gifts, so we always have one that's labeled from baby jesus. It's usually like some sort of devotional or, uh, bravery or something. Um, yeah, my brother gets gets presents from blackhawks players. I get presents from broadway stars.
Speaker 1:You know, oh my gosh, incredible. I thought it was gonna be like different Christmas figures.
Speaker 4:I was like oh, rudolph the reindeer one year it was everything was a different saint.
Speaker 2:She found like the patron saint of something associated with the gift and so everything was from a different saint. Incredible. I want to bring that energy to my life. My mom loves Christmas.
Speaker 1:I need that. That's amazing. One of the other questions I wanted to ask about when we think about Advent is so much about our faith is introduced to us when we're young, and so I would love to hear from both of you. About what do you remember about not necessarily Christmas, but specifically about Advent from your childhood, any particular memories or joys that come to mind when you think of advent as a child?
Speaker 2:yeah, I've got family ones and I've got school ones. I went all through catholic school, um, and we would have some sort of advent something in the classroom. We would either make paper chains that had different like things we were supposed to do for every day of advent on them, similar to like a little calendar that we had for lent that had different things to try different days, but they were typically less repentant and more share the holiday spirit if that makes sense, yeah um, and you would staple them into paper chains and we put them on the tree.
Speaker 2:We always had Advent candles in my house and it's always a thing to light the Advent candle on Sunday after Mass and then we burn them during the week a lot of the time. So by the end of the year or the end of the season they've got that pretty staggering height difference which is always really cool. Those are the big ones. And advent music from from church. My, my grandparents are both church musicians so like advent hymns and um like christmas concerts during advent are like heavily associated in my brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it. What about you, sammy?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think honestly, I appreciate advent more in my adulthood. But I mean, we did do a couple things. Now that I think about it. We had like an Advent calendar. That was really just a nativity and you add on each week like someone new. Um, we we had a different nativity where baby Jesus was hidden, and so that was like a big deal. It's like who gets to hide baby Jesus this year and then he doesn't appear until Christmas. So that was definitely like a fun little ritual. We did the Advent, the candles and those types of things. But I wonder sometimes if Advent is not always done in a way that's as meaningful for for kids.
Speaker 1:But I'm also projecting my own experience in that yeah, I was trying to think for myself with this question of, like what did I remember about advent from childhood? And I think it's a lot of the same, similar imagery of like we had an advent wreath. I have a very clear memory and I think we still have it.
Speaker 1:My mom is known for keeping, uh, what we call treasure boxes, so she has one for each of us, each of her kids um and so in someone's treasure box I don't know if it's mine, I don't know if it's patrick's or will's uh is an advent wreath made out of uh handprints, so it's all like cut out handprints and then, uh, the advent candles, I think, were added.
Speaker 1:Somehow those were not handprints, um, so I have a very clear memory of that sitting on like our table next to our actual advent wreath. Uh, at one point and I, yeah, loved, still do love nativity scenes was obsessed. We had like a, just a, a little wooden one that was very colorful when I was a child and that was like the children's one. And then we also had like I think my parents still have it like there's this china one that we have, that's like very ornate, um, and I just remember loving playing with all the little characters and and moving the the wise men closer and closer. That was probably my favorite memory is like us moving the wise men closer and often it would be like I had played with it the next day and then the wise men were like upside down in the nativity scene and my mom would have to move them back out farther away and it was always in our dining room.
Speaker 1:Not really sure why. We had like a little table in the dining room. That's where the nativity scene was. The the fancier one that we could break was on top of the piano or on top of the mantle somewhere I couldn't reach it as easily. But those are some of my favorite Advent memories that I can recall from childhood. At this point I think we can transition.
Speaker 1:I went ahead and found some really fun I think it's really fun Christmas trivia and I thought it'd be fun for us to just play a little trivia game a little different than our lightning round. I do have a lightning round written out, but I thought it'd be fun to just do some christmas trivia. Some of it's a little advent uh related. Some of it's a little more, um, like secular christmas related, uh, but I just thought they were kind of fun. Fun questions. I will admit I found these all online and then I also had chat gpt write a couple amazing um great. So I'm gonna start and I don't know how we want to do this. I've never done trivia, I've always done lightning rounds. So everyone gets to answer um buzzer. Yeah, we don't have a buzzer in this room. But uh, if you know the answer, I'll just say you. We don't have to yell it out, but I'll just say whoever wants to answer and knows it first, you guys can stare each other down.
Speaker 3:Are we in the same team or are we against each other right now?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know. There's no point. Is it us versus you, anna? I have all the answers. So it definitely can't be us versus no.
Speaker 2:I just mean like are we trying to beat you? Like, are you the machine that? We're trying to beat. We're working together as many as possible to get as many as you can, okay. Okay, becky's my teammate. Yeah, you guys are a team, not my competition.
Speaker 1:Great, okay, that's better, I like better yeah, yep, I'm the machine that you're trying to beat, so here we go. I have a great one to start. What are the names of the three wise men who visited baby Jesus?
Speaker 2:Casper, melchior and Balthazar what?
Speaker 1:correct.
Speaker 2:How did I know that you would know that it's the chalk blessing that you do on top of a door on epiphany and we always did that as a kid and we have that above.
Speaker 1:Uh, we did have.
Speaker 2:I actually think we took ours down but we put it back up, we put it back up.
Speaker 1:Great, we have that above our doorway. Um, if you've ever seen that before, if you're ever wondering what that is, I didn't learn that tradition until I came to detroit mercy, uh, great, sorry. Moving on in the song the 12 days of christmas what gift is given on the seventh day?
Speaker 2:I'm a little torn between two what are you, what are you talking between?
Speaker 3:uh, maids of milking and lords of weeping, I think it. I thought it was swans of swimming. Oh, no, actually yes, because alliteration.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's final answer.
Speaker 3:Swans are swimming, that is correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Good job. That's the yeah. What is the name of the reindeer who has a red nose? Rudolph. Can you name any of the other reindeer names?
Speaker 2:Dasher Dancer Prancer. Fixing Comet Cumin Donner Blitzen Right. Fixing comic. You mean Donner Blitzen Right, I think you got it, becky is prepared.
Speaker 1:At some point, right before we started recording, becky said I said we're going to do Christmas trivia and she said I have to know all the answers now. And I was like, okay, it's for fun.
Speaker 2:I have a feeling she's prepared for this moment her entire life. We're really competitive about trivia in my house.
Speaker 1:Well, here's your moment to shine. Really competitive about trivia in my house? Well, here, here's your moment to shine. In which country did the tradition of the christmas tree specifically originate? Germany, that is correct. What popular christmas beverage is also known as milk punch yeah, I didn't know that one either.
Speaker 2:Eggnog um.
Speaker 1:Does any? Do either of you remember the name of the grinch's dog in how the grinch stole christmas max, incredible um. What american city is famous for having the world's largest christmas tree? Is it? New york, I mean you're right, it's gotta be nyc.
Speaker 1:Yep, new york city, rockefeller center, christmas tree, everything's bigger there, yeah I was in new york city last year at christmas and they, they're doing something right. It is beautiful. Um, what does? What date does advent traditionally begin on the christian liturgical calendar? Sunday. It is a sunday, but it's a sunday closest to a particular date.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that it's the beginning of I mean, I know it's the end of november, in the start of december apparently it's whatever sunday is closest to the november 30th date, okay, which is the feast of saint andrew, typically the first sunday of advent.
Speaker 1:Fun facts that I learned didn't know that um, what is the name of the ballet often performed during the christmas season, and I'm not going to be able to pronounce who it is composed by, but the person is composed by the nutcracker. The nutcracker, that is correct. Can you say the name?
Speaker 2:oh, tchaikovsky, I can't say the first two don't know what tchaikovsky I can't say the first two Don't know what.
Speaker 1:Tchaikovsky's first name is Pyotr. Ilyich, but all credit to him In the classic Christmas movie it's a Wonderful Life. What is the name of George Bailey's guardian angel? Clarence.
Speaker 3:You said this was one of your traditions White Christmas, my parents watch.
Speaker 4:It's a Wonderful.
Speaker 2:Life, but it makes me cry, so I can't watch it.
Speaker 1:So it's a wonderful life, but it makes me cry so I can't watch it, oh, but they so many christmas movies make me cry, but maybe it's just because I'm emotional.
Speaker 3:Um, and what is the third sunday of advent called laudate, gaudete, gaudete, yeah, gaudete sunday laudate sunday is advent or is lent yeah
Speaker 1:is lent okay gaudete sunday is advent okay which I didn't know fun facts, didn't know there was a special. The pink ones always have a fun name the pink one, yeah I always call it the pink one. Yeah, yeah, rose sunday, yeah yeah, rose pink, so funny um what is the traditional christmas flower poinsettia? Poinsettia yes, that is correct. Um in the christmas carol jingle bells. What is the name of the horse pulling the sleigh? I? Did not know this is the name of the horse. I just thought it was part of the song.
Speaker 3:The horse lean and like oh wait, can we sing it?
Speaker 1:no, it's got to be public domain.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, you could sing it, it is one, one horse open? No, I don't know miss fanny brown was seated by my side, like miss misfortune no bobtail, oh bobtail is apparently the name of the heart of the horse what did I think that was? I think I always thought it was like a snowbank I think I don't know why I didn't assume that song was nonsensical, correct?
Speaker 1:so there's a reason none of us were able to know that. I didn't know that. I love when christmas trivia surprises me. Uh, in what country did the christmas tradition of hanging stockings originate?
Speaker 4:scandinavian yeah, I would say maybe england, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I mean it could be germany again. They seem very influential in this russia, nope close to scandinavian close I don't, I don't have that in scandinavian?
Speaker 1:I don't think it is, and that's. That's just me not knowing which the people I know who are from here are gonna be mad at me that I don't know this Portugal.
Speaker 4:No, that's nowhere near Scandinavia.
Speaker 3:It's got to be somewhere cold.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's cold. Is it like Iceland or Greenland or something?
Speaker 1:No, Do we give up? Yeah. I give up, it's the Netherlands.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, I mean, I would kind of count that as maybe not, I was like it's not Sweden, Norway, Denmark
Speaker 1:it's not that area, so that's why I was like I don't know if it counts anyway, things I don't know. Asking the audience is the Netherlands considered part of Scandinavia?
Speaker 2:my brother's going to make fun of me if he listens to this, for not knowing that you can make fun of all of us.
Speaker 1:And then come teach the university ministry team about the.
Speaker 4:Netherlands.
Speaker 1:What is the name of the villain in the Nightmare Before Christmas film Oogie?
Speaker 3:Boogie, boogie man.
Speaker 1:Oogie Boogie, mm-hmm. Okay yeah, boogie man, oogie Boogie. Which Christmas song includes the lyrics Sleep in Heavenly Peace, or Sleep in Heavenly Peace Silent?
Speaker 2:Night.
Speaker 1:That's true. What were the names of the two main characters in the popular Christmas story Frosty the Snowman?
Speaker 3:Oh man, frosty and Small Boy, small Boy number one, small Boy number one Second.
Speaker 2:It's a woman's name.
Speaker 1:Oh, if that helps, frosty, and I didn't know this either, sally the little girl oh I guess I don't remember this I haven't seen this in a minute. Yeah, I know me neither, but uh, apparently it's karen. Okay, which? Oh, this goes back to the reindeer names. Which reindeer name starts with a V? Vixen? No big microphones. No, you're good, this is back to. It's a Wonderful Life, I know, and I can't come up with it.
Speaker 1:In the 1946 classic film of it's a Wonderful Life. What is the name of George Bailey's wife of her life? What is the name of george bailey's wife? Mary? It is mary. Mary hatch is her full name. Don't know why. I know that in what year was the first a charlie brown christmas aired on television?
Speaker 2:I couldn't even name a decade 60s.
Speaker 1:It is in the 60s, apparently 1965, okay that was just a guess based on when cartoons were a. Thing when cartoons were a thing. Yeah, and then last one, according to the song, the 12 days of christmas. What gift is given on the 10th day?
Speaker 2:is that one you said lords of leaping earlier. Is that one lords of leaping?
Speaker 3:I want to say that's nine now 10 drum Ten drummers drumming Ten, no, no, is it another? Is it a bird? No, can I buy a bird? No, you cannot buy a bird.
Speaker 1:It is not one of the birds.
Speaker 4:It is one of the ones with people.
Speaker 3:It is a okay. Maids of milking, lords of leaping drummers, drumming pipers, piping, pipers, piping no, that one's.
Speaker 2:11. No pipers piping 10 maids of milking?
Speaker 1:nope, no, it is.
Speaker 3:It is lords of leaping oh, I was like so sure that was nine, incredible.
Speaker 1:So that is all of my christmas trivia. I think you guys did a fabulous job. You knew far more than I did, and we all learned things along the way.
Speaker 2:It's very educational yeah, yeah, but nothing about Scandinavia. Someone help?
Speaker 1:No, yeah, somebody help us with that. We clearly might need to go back to geography class.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:So fun. I have so enjoyed talking about Christmas memories and Advent and the joy and the stillness and the peace of the season that we're about to be entering into. I want to finish off our time. I kind of switched things around and I had us do the trivia and the lightning round first, but I want to end focusing back on our mission. We have two questions that we ask everyone who comes on our podcast, which are they're very simply and very vaguely written because we want you to interpret them how you best feel. The question speaks to you, and those are what is your favorite part of the mission here at the University of Detroit Mercy and what motivates you to live the mission? So, whoever wants to go first, we'll start with the first question of what is your favorite part of the mission and values that you've learned in the last three, four months that both of you have been here?
Speaker 3:Well, I've been a part of Jesuit institutions for a while and so the mercy critical concerns was something very new to me. I've been trying to get the phrase the five CCs to really take up, but I don't think it is yet. But what I love about the five CCs Stop trying to make fetch happen.
Speaker 3:Is that they're specific? I thought of it. Is that they're specific? It's like most schools you go to. Yes, of course, like on a vague sense, we want you to be a better person. We want you to be, you know, a person for others. You know we use that language, but this idea that there are these five concerns that are really specific, it kind of forces you to think okay, how am I responding to the issue of immigration? Do I know what nonviolence is? You know like these very specific questions are something that are totally unique. In my experience. You don't really see that often in a school, and I think that's pretty cool. It's something that we should celebrate. What about you, becky?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, I think something that's really um spoken to me being here is this idea of community engagement. Um, a lot of what I do is working with students who are in community engaged, learning classes or doing community engagement immersion days. Um, it's made me think a lot about what does it mean to be a part of a community as more than just like somebody who goes to school and works within these four walls, especially because I live really close to the university, I walk to work, this is my neighborhood, this is my community. Um, so what does it mean to try to build a culture at a university that is truly engaged and a part of a neighborhood, a community, a group of people?
Speaker 1:Love that. And then the second question is what motivates you to live that mission out?
Speaker 3:I feel very motivated by just being a part of a community that has said these things are important and relevant. And when you get to know people at UDM as a part of our community, you can see that all of the Jesuit apostolic preferences, all of the mercy critical concerns like these are relevant issues for our community. And so the more I'm getting to know people, the more I'm building these connections. I feel a sense of accountability to this community to care about these and to work towards them.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to figure out if just saying my faith is a cheesy answer or not.
Speaker 1:I've said it many times Okay, great. So the answer is no.
Speaker 2:I think for me a lot of this year has been these three months I've been in JVC. So far has been really rooted in this, this place from my faith of this like deep understanding of human dignity and being created in the image and likeness of God and what does it mean for us to all be the body of Christ together and how do we expansively look at what the body of Christ is in the world and that kind of theological tilt becomes actionable in what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Thank you both so much for coming on the podcast today, for sharing in the joy of entering into Advent and Christmas and sharing your reflections on childhood memories and stories and fun traditions. I'm excited to hopefully hear from some of our audience members I think I'm going to put something up on Instagram to share some of your favorite Advent or Christmas memories. Yeah, so just thank you both for being here. Thanks for having us. Thank you, anna, this Christmas memories.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so just thank you both for being here. Thanks for having us. Thank you, Anna. This was fun. This was so fun. I'm so glad you had fun.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe we'll have to have you back to talk about some more to do with your work and not just fun Christmas, advent, joy it's all related. It's all related. You're absolutely right. You've been listening to what's the tea with ministry. If you enjoyed listening to us today, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Also, be sure to follow us on social media at udm, underscore ministry, or check us out on the what's the tea with ministry podcast on the detroit mercy website.
Speaker 1:Thank you to our guests, sammy and Becky, for being in conversation with us today. Thank you also to all of those who made this podcast possible, especially the Communication Studies Department, our sound engineer, michael Jason, our music composer, dan Gregg, marketing and communications and the whole Detroit Mercy community. We look forward to sharing more of the mission with you next time, wishing you all a lovely holiday season, whatever holidays you may be celebrating, and if you're not celebrating any holidays in the next coming weeks, enjoy the holiday break that we have and the end of a semester, and we'll see you later. Bye, thank you.