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Speaker 2[inaudible] on
Speaker 1dancer on Prancer. Like I am literally going to start calling out Santas reindeers as a countdown . Right. And then we're gonna make our way to Rudolph in three, two. I'm just kitty . Okay. And just like that, it's Christmas. It feels like I blinked in the year passed by in an amazing, good, fantastic blur of memories and wild adventures, all for which I am so thankful. If you can hear the excitement in my voice y'all. I'm basically like an elf in the North pole basically. Either that or mrs clause. I mean take your pick. Heck , I'm probably Rudolph. You know what I'm saying? Or frosty the snowman. I mean we can go, I'm buddy the elf. We can go on. I'm Kevin McEllister , y'all name any Christmas movie and I am just about it because Christmas is undoubtedly my favorite time of year beyond the time with family and lots of delicious food and sentimental gift giving . It is a time to reflect in express appreciation for things that money cannot buy. And these are some of my favorite things like health and love and support and for this and so much more. I am so thankful when I think of Christmases past, I remember only the best moments, experiences that made me appreciate the true reason of Christmas and feel fortunate to live the life I am today. I want to try something, I want to get personal and I want to share holiday memories that shaped who I am. And I believe that these memories and stories shape who I am as a person but also as a business owner. So this is my invite to you to think back to Christmas memories that really shaped who you are and how you function as a business owner, a dreamer hustler. And the thing I didn't expect was that this podcast has connected me to so many amazing new friends like yourself listening right now. And I realized that sharing stories in an audio format makes me want to pour out my guts. Like we are old BFFs from summer camp like it was speaking on audio has made me feel so connected to you. And when I started this podcast a couple months ago, what I thought the podcast was going to do was going to give me an opportunity to share more business strategy and like more standing in my purpose and empowering other people and more ways to connect. And it has like that's totally what this podcast has done. But what the podcast is actually done has created deep and real conversations with people online and it's helped me make new friends and it found me like this podcast found me. And in the process of finding me, it's given me new ways to support people to pursue their dreams and passions. It's like a Christmas miracle up in here. You know what I'm saying? It's like deck the halls and follow a lie y'all like let's talk about how we look back at memories in Christmas that shaped who we are and express gratitude for them. So I'm not going to ask you to do something that I'm not willing to do myself. So I am going to share a few of my favorite Christmas memories to give you insight into who I am. And hopefully that explains a little bit more why I am so passionate about empowering others to pursue things they're passionate about and empowering others to truly take time to express gratitude for the things that matter the most. I want to go back to the 1980s like late 1980s and my twin sister broke her arm while playing in a city park and the city gave my parents money to avoid legal issues so my parents wouldn't Sue the city. And so my parents get this settlement from the city. It's like a few hundred bucks. And with that money, my parents bought us new bikes with big red bows. And I am telling you, I have never owned anything so beautiful in my life. Money was really hard for us growing up. I've said it a thousand times before, but I don't know if people really understand the depth and the difficulty of what it meant for my parents to pay their bills. So we never ever owned anything new. So the fact that the timing of my sister's broken arm, I mean, sorry Bianca for you breaking your arm, but goodness gracious. It's like, wow , we got bikes. That's amazing. Hey, break your other arm. Maybe we'll get some roller skates with . We're at it probably around the same time, like late eighties but two years later I guess my father worked at [inaudible] to two jobs to make ends meet and there were times that my parents realized how extraordinarily tough it was. And there were times where the holidays were where my dad would work, like three jobs. So he worked for Los Angeles County hospital in shipping and receiving. And then he took a holiday job working at a store, like an athletic store called big five. And then sometimes on the weekends he would pick random like gardening jobs. Like my dad would climb a tree with a chainsaw and trim trees. Like my father has never done anything like this, but he would look at a tree and put like a belt around him and then he would scale the tree and like he would be those guys that you see traveling and like those trucks with like lawn mowers and blowers in the back. And my dad would hop out climate tree with no experience. Nowhere with all and no knowledge and just say, Hmm , I can do this. So there was reasons why he had to work so hard because money was really tough. And two days before Christmas, our doorbell rang and my family found an anonymous donation of wrapped gifts and bags of groceries to make Christmas dinner. And I just remember feeling really excited and hopeful. You know, we didn't have a , we didn't have a Christmas tree and we didn't really have like Christmas decorations. And I think I remember there was like an episode of like punky Brewster where punky told her friend that Santa visits them through the dryer. And I'm like, Oh yeah, obviously. Well, if Santa is visiting punky Brewster through like the dryer, that's clearly where Santa is visiting us from. So that made a lot of sense for us. And I'm like, Oh, Santa didn't visit us through the Dreyer . Santa must have been really busy. Dropped off Christmas gifts in the hood a few days early. Okay. We made the most fantastic Christmas dinner that year and we opened up really amazing gifts the following year. Uh , times were still tough and bills had to be paid before gifts were purchased and our church gathered gifts to donate to children in Mexico. And my father was in charge of distribution, so he regularly took a group of people down to Mexico and I really feel that it was the best way my parents calibrated our current state because no matter how hard times were for us, we can go and drive through slums in Mexico and realize that we literally had everything we needed. So my father collected gifts and he packed our semi working Volkswagen van and he packed it into like the roof and it had new toys and we drove to Tijuana, Mexico to give gifts to orphan children. And mobs of children swarmed our van and they stuck their sticky hands through the windows for gifts. And we felt like the luckiest people alive. We didn't need Christmas gifts that year because the Christmas gifts came in the form of gratitude to have a really great family and to be alive around early nineties. My brother was born. I remember, this is probably the first time I remember really thinking. I'm like maybe this is the first foray I had as a child photographer. There was my brother and I stuffed him in to a stocking and I would hang him into like what , what ? Like where are my parents? Like I hung my brother and my baby brother in a stocking and I took pictures like of him like around like stuffed animals and still to this day, every Christmas like my brother is now 27 years old and he's still at Christmas does not forgive me for the trauma that he experienced around like the mid nineties my family moved and we had gone from a really rough and tumble area to a bar to a home in like middle class suburb of Los Angeles, a town called LA Marotta . LA Marotta is actually the city that's on the border between Los Angeles County and orange County, but we still were in LA County and the house was empty but it was a miracle because I don't know if you guys have them where you live. I know that we don't really have them now anymore, but it was this tiny magazine called the penny saver and it was like a local newspaper, tiny newspaper that people would list things for sale. Oh my gosh. I think of the penny saver as like an old school Craig's list, but really localized. Right. And so my mom would get this tiny newspaper called penny saver and she would just scour the sections for homes for sale. And she found this home in this random city called LA Marotta and it had five bedrooms and my parents had five children and we were currently living in a two bedroom house in the hood. And one night she piles me and my sister in the car and she doesn't tell my dad that we're going to go to this city called LA Marotta and she leaves my younger siblings with my dad and I will never forget, it's just past sunset. So the streets are a little bit dark and we pass by this house with a tiny green lawn in the front and the front door is illuminated with a hanging light. And we just think that this house is the coolest house. So my mom writes a letter to the owner and says, we can't afford your home. This is, this is what we can pay. And it was a very short letter, but she explains that she has five children and that she could see her raising us in this house and he responds with a phone call and says, I'm so sorry that I, we can possibly take that price for this house. And my mom says she , she understands and that she was embarrassed and sorry to bother him. Well that night he has dream that he sells his house to my mom and my dad. And so he calls her and says, I have this really crazy dream and I don't know if you believe in God, but I feel like God is telling me to sell this house to you. You guys, I can't even make this up. My mom is sitting there on the phone crying. My dad thinks that this is like a joke and this gentleman takes my parents very, very, very low offer on this house. And we move in about two months before Christmas. So that year we're sitting in an empty house because we went from like a two bedroom house to a five bedroom house. We have no money for furniture like we are . Our dining room table was a poker table, like one of those fold-out tables you get from like target and it had, it was plastic and he sat on plastic chairs and we had a plastic tablecloth and we were sitting in this house and I remember that my parents, they must have , my mom must've taken a part time gig doing anything and she gave me a sunflower bedspread and she gave me a tiny bottle of our Mani awkward ego and I'm pretty sure I'm actually 99% sure she got at the swap meet. But let me just tell you, sitting in that empty house with a brand new bedspread and a travel size bottle of awkward NGO , I literally felt like queen of England. I don't even know why I just totally did, but that year I was like, I'm watching a miracle happen in front of us. No . In 1996 1987 1988 well actually it was 1987 now that I remember it clearly, this was my first year with JD and the very first Christmas gift he bought me was a Teddy bear at ticket to Disney land and a new boys to men CD. Okay. I don't know if you guys listened to RNB , but this is like, this is like the RMB boy band of 1988 okay. Like don't even get me singing. Don't even get me singing mama . Uh Oh man. You're guys. I'm going to start singing. I need to stop. Thank God sweet baby. Jesus is not letting me remember like boys to men songs right now because we'll sit here and I'll just, Sarah made you like, next thing you know you're just like, I want to make a baby. That's what [inaudible] boys demanded . Okay, so I bought J D a pair of white jeans, a new pager and M and. M's , which is still to this day his favorite candy. Okay. You guys, you have to cut me some Slack. This is the nineties okay. Like I invited him a pager and number one, Oh wait , where are we? I should just come out and point when I think back to like, where did I get that money for like a pager and like jeans, I got him Levi's , FYI. Okay. And don't even ask me why I got them white jeans. What kind of girl is getting her made white jeans, you know, it's like what is this Miami vice? Anyway , um, what I think back to that time I was 17 years old and I think how did we get that money? And JD and I were working during that time, like we were taking, I remember being a call sales rep for farmer's insurance and I was just saving all of my money to buy gifts. And I just think back to it and I was like, thinking back to that, that's like the first onset of us being hustlers. So there you go. The year 2000 was a pivotal time because it was our very first Christmas with a bald mom and cancer brought our family even tighter during the holiday season. But nothing much has changed. I mean, we had thankfully grown together as a family, but you know, money was still hard. My dad was a pastor of a church in East Los Angeles. My mom was very sick and she was getting regular treatments like three, four times a week at a hospital called st Jude in Fullerton, California. And unbeknownst to us, st Jude hospital chose our family to be recipients of their adoptive family charity and what they did. Each floor of st Jude would choose a family and all of the nurses and doctors would buy a gift for that family. And that year in the year 2000 we received so many gifts, so many well wishes from the amazing doctors and nurses at st Jude. Their support that year, it was a really hard year for us, but their support that year really renewed our hope that more mom would make it through. And since that year I have just made the commitment to find other ways to give back to people who have so generously given to us. In 2002 I was working as a manager at Nordstrom, at South coast Plaza in orange County. And I was working on Christmas Eve and on that day as I'm cleaning clothes and using a steamer to get out wrinkles for other people who are doing late night shopping, I swore to myself in that back storage room that I was never going to be forced to work on a holiday ever again. Which fast forward to 2005 2005 it was my first Christmas as a wife. Okay. So I got married that year and here I am trying to be a domestic goddess and I bought every Christmas decoration available at a discount store near my house. Now this discount stores at the time was called pick and save. I think now it's called like big lots. It's literally like we're old products go to die. And I walked into that discount store and I bought basically everything like Joanna Gaines. I was not, I brought everything home in these large white bags and I decorated and JD said he walked in and he was shocked. JD said, our living room looked like Las Vegas and the North pole got into a fight. And then I was like, but doesn't it look amazing? He was like, I'm going to have to wear sunglasses to decorate this tree. It was legitimately like the Latino version of like the Oswald's gone back. That's what I'm just going to say, but that was the year y'all. That was the year that my life changed because Christmas morning I opened my very first camera from my husband and that camera changed my life. It was the first time that somebody looked across from me and said, why don't you just try to do something that would make you wildly happy even if it doesn't really make sense and lucky for us, that camera changed our life because I became a photographer. I started my own business and things completely changed from there. The following year, 2006 I was finally brave enough to make Christmas tamales with my inlaws for the first time. So I have to go back and explain that JD and I dated nine, nine and a half years before we got married. And his family has this tradition where they bring all the family over and they make the malaise or AKA tamales for people who, who don't have the sound. Okay. So we're making the mullahs and it's like an assembly line. And because I'm a vegetarian, my mother-in-law was so kind and she says, Jasmine, I'm not going to have you make the tamales with the meat. We're going to put you in charge of the vegetarian tamales. And I was like, Oh great. And so vegetarian tamales could be cheese and Chile , right? So if you're not familiar with what at the is, it's like corn. It's like Masa. So like thick corn, I don't want to say paste , but it's like, think of it like a very coarse corn, like dough for lack of better words. And then you stuff meat on the inside and then you wrap it in a corn husk and then you steam it and it's basically net Drennan brochure for Hispanics. Okay. So I get the Masa and I placed cheese and chili . And so I do probably hundreds of these and I'm like living my best life. And so you make them about a few days before Christmas because it takes a while to steam them all and then you eat them on Christmas Eve. So I made the Christmas vegetarian tamales that year, Christmas Eve where everyone's passing the man out. Everyone's talking about how delicious that Lucy also [inaudible] these tamales are. And by the time people start eating the vegetarian ones, people are sweating, people are drying tears from their eyes. And I'm just like, I don't know what's wrong with everybody. And finally my mother-in-law has the decency to say, Jasmine, what did you do to these tamales? I was like, I don't know. I just added chili . She's like, how much chili? You're only supposed to put like one little ship, like one [inaudible] and I literally probably poured like a half a pound of jalapenos and I mean I just thinking about this literally makes my stomach turn. I probably made people completely and totally sick with the world's spiciest Somalis . But listen, I like it spicy. Like I literally, I was like, these are amazing. While everybody else is sitting there on Christmas Eve crying their eyes out, well you want to know what? It's time to make your life spicy people. I still continue to make tamales but the family refuses to let me make the vegetarian ones now. Sorry, haters. Sorry. In 2008 JD and I decided to do something a little bit different a couple of days before Christmas we rented a van and we piled it up with goods that we knew children needed in Mexico and they kind of felt like I had a full life , a full circle moment because during childhood this is what my family would do to really keep us calibrated. And then life took off for us and the business took off for us and we got really busy and I thought the greatest sacrifice that we could give, yeah is gifts and we will. But that would be of time and effort. So Janie and I packed up, I'll never forget it was a Dodge caravan, I don't even know if they make those anymore. And we rented it and we literally filled it up to the brim with toothpaste, toothbrushes, coloring books, soccer balls. It was the coolest adventure for us to be walking around with four to five grocery baskets through the store. We filled up the car and then we organized the car to be strategic about how we would distribute the gifts because we wanted to make sure kids just didn't get toys, but they got like hygiene products as well. So we take like the two hour drive to Tijuana, Mexico. So for people who are not familiar with Newport beach, we are about two hours from the border and they want to , Mexico is just beyond the border and it's a really, really, really rough a border town. People are living in like shanties and slums and cardboard boxes mixed with cinderblocks and tarps covering. And we didn't know where we would go. These small little towns are called colonias and we drove past the border and we just said a prayer because it's probably not the safest place to be, but we knew that if our intentions are right and we just spoke to the locals and we really , um , put out why we were there, things would change. So we're driving these three , these colonias and for some reason we couldn't find any kids like, right. Like we're calling out. And yet at the same time, you don't want to be like, Hey, you know, little kid come here to my van as if that doesn't sound creepy. So , um , we were there and J D decided just to stop the car and pull out a soccer ball and he starts just pulling out like soccer balls and a couple of balls and he's just put them out in the street and all of a sudden a kid peaks around from the corner and he asked JD in Spanish like, what are you doing? What are these bells and JD? It said, Oh, we're here because we want to tell you that God loves you and Merry Christmas and like we hope that you have a really great day. This kid runs back and returns with probably 20 or 30 kids and he's yelling in Spanish, come here, they're giving away gifts. Come here, they're giving me gifts and it's literally like a siren went off. And of course like any good parent would do. These parents come out and they're asking us like, what are you doing? Why are these kids here? And JD is , they're speaking in Spanish like we want to give you like toothpaste and toothbrushes and hair shampoo. I mean you guys, it was amazing. I'm sitting in the back sweating bullets because I'm so nervous. I'm like, Oh , we have our system and our system doesn't work. And Judy's like give it all to me. We literally have hundreds of families and kids surrounding this Dodge caravan. We give away crayons and coloring books. And it was one of those moments where it was like sheer and utter panic and elation and joy. And once we emptied out the van, like we literally had to open the van and say, you guys, we have nothing more. We have nothing more. The kids were playing and families were saying thank you. We leave the Colonia and how we celebrate our with 97 cent dot goes from a [inaudible] that really had had a foundational shift in how we approach Christmas. And we try to do that as often as possible. And at the point of this recording, I am so excited to really pack up a car and go down and do the same thing. That was 2008 so then by 2009 and 2010 we're still working through Christmas. We're still trying to find ways to give. And this is the year 2010 that my mom, that my mother in law started buying as matching pajamas. Christmas, she buys everybody in the family matching pajamas. So JD has four sisters. They have significant others and we're all imagining pajamas and y'all. JD refused to wear the matching pajamas. He is on a kick where he will not wear the matching pajamas. I am basically married to the Grinch. I am married to the Grinch. The , Oh, I should also tell you that JD doesn't like when I listen to Christmas carols he says that there's a limit to it. If I want to listen to more than an hour of Christmas carols, I really need to peel it on back. You guys, can you I can't. I really can't. I'm like you like you are trying to Rob my Christmas joy. You are making baby Jesus cry. That's what you're doing JD. Every year since then his mother buys him pajamas and she keeps him the option of whether or not he's going to wear it because obviously JD is her favorite. It's a family. It's a known family fact. JD is her prize possession. Her only son. She has like little heart emojis over her eyes and I'm just like, we need to get it together. I often pull my husband off to the side. I said, let me just tell you something. If you want to do your mama right this year, you got to wear the match in pajamas. Nope and Nope. My callused frozen heart, abominable snowman have a partner refuses to wear them. So what I would love the internet to do, like let's bully him. Like what do we need to bully him? Do we send me a DM on Instagram at Jasmine star? And I want to show him proof that there's like gonna be a whole hoard of people who are like, JD , check your heart, warm up your heart to baby Jesus in Santa and where are those matching pajamas? Okay, 2012 so that's like my inlaws right? They're very sweet and kind and soften . Very traditional. And then there's my family and we always say that we put the fun in dysfunctional. That Christmas, my dad refused to wear a shirt while he cooked Christmas breakfast because we do Christmas Eve with Judy's family and we do Christmas morning with my family. And my dad loves to cook and he loves to be in his space and in his zone of genius and he doesn't wear a shirt and they know that this is not the first time. I tell you my dad didn't wear a shirt a bit ago. I recorded like a Thanksgiving episode and he talked about the first time that JD came over for Thanksgiving and my dad didn't wear a shirt at the Thanksgiving table. I don't know what it is about my father, AKA a Mexican Tarzan and his refusal of wearing clothes during the holidays. And I was like, dad, your chest hair is going to get in the Turkey gravy at Thanksgiving and why? Why dad? Are you making the molars ? And she like Isla is on Christmas morning without a shirt again, like what is up my , my dad will not so casually respond. Amen. Leave me alone. Okay. I love cooking. I love being without a shirt. You don't like it, don't need it. And I'm like, Oh , okay dad. And you just kind of have to like, you know, I wish that my mother-in-law would give my dad pajamas. You know what I'm saying? Um , so if Sylvia dilatory is listening to this right now, can you please give [inaudible] pajamas? There you go. Yes Lord and amen. Okay, we're kind of working our way through present day. If this episode is annoying you, I'm totally sorry, but I'm literally sharing these Christmas memories because I want to be connected to you and I want you to know that there's a reason why I'm so weird. Okay. Speaking of weird in 2014 this, by this time JD and I, goodness gracious, we met when we were 16 years old and we just been together for so long and we remember I told you the first gift that it gave him a , I got pagers and jeans and he's buying me a ticket to Disneyland . Like we're basically living like the fancy life when we ain't fancy. So by 2014 our business had really taken off. I can actually proudly say it was very successful. We had found our cadence, we'd found our rhythm and that was the first year that maybe on a subconscious level, JD and I didn't have to give gifts that like proved that we were successful or that we could afford nice things, which was ironic, right? Like for years we just spent so much and so hard to buy these really special gifts for each other. When by 2014 that was the first year I realized like honestly I don't like expensive gifts or fancy gifts. Like don't get me wrong, I love a good purse. You know what I'm saying? Like I love me a good piece of jewelry. I'm not going to turn it away, but it's not something that I actually really needed or even wanted. I opened a gift from JD and in that moment I realized that this man understood me on such a deep and profound level. When I opened this box, I saw thick socks. I saw a Chanel blanket, I saw a book, I saw dog treats and I saw a handwritten letter and that was the first year that I realized this is it. This right here. Socks , blanket, a book, a gift for my dog and a note for my husband. Hot dang. We done made it son. We know made it. That gift right there. I was like, okay, maybe you're not the Christmas Grinch. And I try decorating Garlin around our door, but it doesn't look like Pinterest. J D's like this looks really sad. It looks like a half baked idea. And I was like, hold on, let me add some lights and let me add some tree decorations to the scarlin y'all. I was a sorry thing and the Garlin around our door, maybe y'all maybe was like six feet maybe we need, and I had, I don't know, 80 feet of Garland. So I start putting Garlin around our TV on our staircase, on our kitchen table, on our kitchen counter. And JD said, no Jasmine, I'm sorry. This is ridiculous you guys. Okay. Which brings us to today. I kind of feel like I've been rambling. I kinda , I've been like the friend at a dinner party at Christmas who won't stop. That's how I feel. Can't stop and we won't stop. Okay. Cause I feel like this is a Christmas version of Miley Cyrus and you want to know what? I'm just rolling with it. This will probably be the last time I ever do this walk down Christmas lane was Jasmine star. Cause I feel like I might've even bored myself. Well you want to know what I hope you're listening to this episode with them like hot cocoa or better yet spiked eggnog because you know, alcohol will make my stories way more fun. Um, but we are now in 2019 and I don't know what's in store, but I do know one thing, I am happy, I honestly don't want a single gift this year because I have everything that truly matters. I have a healthy family, I have a hopeful future. I have a really amazing husband, even though he doesn't like my Crispin's spirit. I have fabulous friends. I have a really great old cantankerous dog and have you literally, for all the people who send DMS or leave comments or send emails, I want to say thank you because you guys made me realize that I have everything I want and more. I look forward to spending the next few days embracing the chaos and the joy and the love of the holidays as well as indulging on the Malays . I'll make them spicy. Uh , I wish you the most spectacular of Christmases, and I hope that you are surrounded by love.
Speaker 2[inaudible] .