12 Weeks / 86 days until Christmas (Instrumental Christmas Song Battle)

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_01] This is a Bramble Jam Podcast

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_02] I'm from the North Pole, it's time for Christmas Morning The daily show where every day is Christmas Here are your hosts, Bram and...

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_01] Well, well, well, hello everybody and Merry Christmas to you Welcome to another episode of Christmas Morning I am Bram and I am here per usual with my good buddy Scott

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_00] Merry Christmas Merry Christmas, Brandon, no time for chit-chat We have got to get into the mailbag It is so incredibly stuffed with good stuff

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_01] I'll allow it, let's open it up

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_00] Alright, let's do it

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_01] Letters, we get letters

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_02] We get stacks and stacks of letters

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_00] This is probably the most emails we've read in, I don't know, probably all year But I really wanted to get this thing cleaned out before the daily start So, first email from Stephen in Utah Stephen says, Utah has officially switched to Christmas music on 103.1 FM It's perfect because it's 60 degrees and rainy I love this Stephen, anybody out there If you've got your local stations switching over to Christmas Please email me and if possible, send me the link

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00] Because I would love to listen to other people's radio It's very weird, but I actually enjoy hearing the commercials Yeah For other places, for businesses I've never heard of You know, the Brandon Gray Tire Center or whatever

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_01] Sure, this is fresh This is 17 hours ago When did they send the email? Oh, it was last night or something, yeah Okay, yeah, so 17 hours ago Coast 103 posted on their social media It's official We flipped to Christmas 103 today Christmas music 24-7 starts now Before November, that's bold And then again, nice little graphic Yeah, and the people are responding There are nine thumbs up

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_00] Okay

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_01] There are six hearts There are seven angry faces Yeah And there are five laughing faces So, honestly, it seems like a 50-50 50-50 mix here

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_00] Hey, you can't please everybody I have an email from Lenora Gilbert Lenora says, I found this at Ikea today They are full on Christmas I love the candy cane striped topper And the tree-shaped pine ornament I also went to Ikea last week And they did have all their Christmas stuff out Wow You know how you walk through the store Then you get to the end In the warehouse-y part Where you pick your stuff Yes That's where it was It was, boom, right by the registers A little surprise I didn't expect to see it I saw a chocolate advent calendar I thought, oh, okay

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_00] Well, that's a nice little sprinkle Nope Whole thing Great cute stuff

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_01] Scotty, did you end up going to any of the stores Over the weekend? The Home Depot, Lowe's, or the Walmart?

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00] Yes, we will get to that in just a minute Oh, I'm sorry, okay I have an email from Sean From the Christmas Podcasts podcast Sean says, hey guys Yes I have an update about the eggnog At our local grocery store About a week or two after I sent you the picture Of the $6 carton of eggnog They started bringing out The full seasonal selection of eggnog At half the price for the same size carton Whoa Had my first glass tonight And he included a photo of the Southern Comfort eggnog Which I believe you buy And it doesn't have liquor in it I think you have to BYO liquor

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, the BYO liquor situation I will say that's fascinating So they're like We will put it out early It will cost you But then We will bring out the rest of it And you'll be able to get it at a normal price That's interesting And I appreciate that I'm fine with it Put it out early If you want to upcharge me Because of the convenience factor Of having eggnog In the middle of the summer

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_00] I get it It's a specialty product Exactly There's no competition In the middle of the summer I have an email from Ara Evans Ara says I just wanted to email you And let you know I'm still here And still listening We've heard from Ara quite a bit And it was a while And I noticed that When the email came in She said I know I've been quiet for a while And not writing in as often as I used to In May I was involved In a pretty significant head-on collision Where someone swerved into my lane And smashed right into me It broke one of my ribs Sprained my wrist And bruised me all over I've been so busy with recovering

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_00] And all my physical therapy appointments That I haven't had much time To do anything else But I still listen every week And you guys are helping me Through my hard time We finally went on vacation Which was nice After not doing anything Since the accident We went to San Diego And while we were there We ran into a year-round Christmas store I think it might be run By the same company That runs the year-round Christmas store In San Francisco It had the same look and feel I got a really cute Sand dollar Christmas ornament That says San Diego on it Just wanted to say thank you For all you and Bran do To run this podcast

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00] It's a bright spot In the middle of my week And it's kept me going And I'm sure it helps A lot of other Christmas lovers Through the hard times Well, Ara I'm so sorry to hear about this I'm glad you're okay It is good to hear from you Bran, this email came in After the August party episode Yeah And then I was supposed to include it In September And I didn't And when I was going through The email last night I said, oh my gosh, Ara I totally forgot So I wanted to include it today And send you our well wishes

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_01] I really like the sand dollar picture She included the little The painting on it It's very nice Really like that

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_00] Cute, yeah I have an email from Simon In sunny South Africa Simon says How's it, Christmas morning team? How's it? First, I finally found The other podcast Deck the Hallmark It's good But my heart remains With the Christmas morning podcast It's much more my vibe I understand Second, I was scrolling Instagram And stumbled upon two reels From stores in South Africa That got into the spirit early Even though it's not October yet Sheet Street specializes in Bedroom and home decor And Mr. Price Home Is similar Though a bit more upscale I thought I'd share these videos

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_00] With you to get your thoughts On this year's South African Christmas goodies And Bran, I captured some stills From the video So you could see it I love seeing stuff like this Because it's nothing like Anything I've seen before We don't typically see Santa Claus in flip-flops Holding a, you know Like an iced beverage And a ball That's cute

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01] That is You don't typically see Santa's feet That is true You don't think about that Very often I haven't seen them

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00] Then there's some Other cute stuff Like I like the cheese board That's shaped like a pine tree I might have to make One of those this year That's up my wheel In my wheelhouse Yeah So really cute Thank you, Simon Great to hear from you And I love the international stuff

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_01] Very cool Absolutely It's cool to see how things Are a little bit different Around the world Compared to the decor We see here in the States

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00] I have an email from Josh Fox Josh says Merry Christmas, Brandon Scott I stopped in at my local Menards And they just started putting out Christmas decorations Here are a few picks To get you even more In the holiday spirit And of course Who could forget The jingle I could

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_02] War and season Greetings to you all From Menards

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00] And Brian, if you listen To the full clip On YouTube Of that jingle I'm not exaggerating When I say it goes on For a minute With that instrumental Interlude in the middle Sure So I I just shorten that bad boy

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_01] That's where the guy Can talk in the commercials Oh yeah Right now Down at Menards You can get a bunch Of little Glidden paint On sale That's exactly right

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00] And Josh included Some photos Really cute stuff In here, Brandon It's the standard Home improvement store fair You know, you've got The little creatures Where you squeeze the paw Or the hand And they move around And play music Yeah Just really cute though And unlike anything I saw at Lowe's Which we'll get to In a minute Man, really teasing out The Lowe's I really am, yeah I have an email From Sheila Olegers Sheila says Hey Brandon Scott Here are a few pictures From my local Walmart In Baltimore, Maryland Not only are they

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_00] In full Halloween mode The shelves are also Stacked for Christmas It's never too early Right? And I had the same Experience, Brandon I went into Walmart The other day And there was the Halloween Front and center In the store But then I turned my head To the right And boom Christmas trees

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01] There you go That's pretty good Although I will say The Christmas trees That they got up there On the top shelf They're a little sad looking They haven't fluffed them yet

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_00] No No Making the Charlie Brown trees Look full And then The last one Is an email From Kristen Lowe And Kristen says Christmas at Lowe's Has exploded This is my Lowe's In Tappahonic, Virginia Kristen sent this in A couple weeks ago It looks like They had just started Putting the trees out Because none of them Are lit I went into mine Over the weekend Because I said That's it Like we're doing The family trip We're heading over there And then we'll have Some dinner They had all the trees up Everything was lit Everything was out

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_00] All of this Rudolph and Rankin-Bass stuff Really cute stuff Did you go over, Bran?

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_01] I haven't gone over yet I gotta be honest I kind of forgot about it This past weekend So maybe I'll go today Maybe I'll go today Pick the kids up from school And hop on over

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00] It was really great And you can still Turn around and see Halloween And there's like The Chris Mawine Corridor in there And I hit all the blue buttons That said try me Well you have to On both sides And they were kind of like You know Fighting It was really cool You have to Yeah So thanks everybody For all the emails I'm almost at the bottom Of the mailbag, Bran Which will be great Because the dailies start in I guess a month and a day

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_01] A month and a day That's exactly why I think so What day of the week is It's the 30th What day of the week Is November 1st though

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_00] No idea

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_01] November 1st is Sunday So a week and Two days A week and a week

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_00] A month and a week Yeah We have a new review Saints be praised How did this happen Okay

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_01] It's happened We're up to 316 This is from Abby J34 Who says Favorite part of my week This is by far The thing I look forward to The most each week I feel like I have finally Found my people You have This review is long overdue As I have been listening For a few years now But I appreciate All of the effort put in And the joy This podcast brings We have always done Christmas huge in my house And I am so happy

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_01] I can carry on the tradition My husband and I Have been entering The light contest In our town And keep growing Every year Very cool I can't wait for the Daily episodes Merry Christmas Merry Christmas to you Abby And best of luck As you begin your Preparations for this Year's light contest I believe in you

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_00] Abby Thank you for Sending in the review You say you've been Listening for a few years I don't think I've ever Heard from you Before If I have I apologize I don't recognize The name But I'd remember Abby I would love to hear From you And if you're If you're entering A light contest In your town I want to see These pictures Absolutely Christmas morning podcast At gmail.com Send them my way Please

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01] More people Listen to this podcast And never email Than actually email That's a fact Yep We'd love for more People to email So reach out to us Christmas morning podcast At gmail.com

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_00] Send yourself a little reminder Just say Hey Siri Or hey Google Remind me to do this Because it's very easy In the moment To think I'm gonna do that And then life happens And you completely forget I mean I've been listening To Yo Gabble Gabble For years I still haven't sent in a review And I keep always thinking Oh yeah I should do that Well did I? No I didn't It's fun I know It's fun I know And I love Gabble You got a joke for us? I do Are you ready? I guess Why did the Christmas cookie cry? Um Cause it was feeling

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_00] Spicy No Because his mom Was away for so long Waka waka A wafer Ah

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_01] Ha ha ha Alright That's terrible

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_00] I'll allow it I'll allow it Let's do the countdown Good lord Let's do the countdown

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_01] 86 days Until Christmas 86 days The good day as any To have your local radio station Switch over to Christmas music Like Coast 103 Yeah that's

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_00] That's true And 86 is a slang term For throwing something out Right And some of those people Commenting on the On the The social media there Wanted them to throw out The Christmas But not our people Not us I love it That's only 12 weeks from now And Brian I've got some huge Huge news Yeah It's only one day Until October 1st

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_01] That is big news

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_00] That is big news

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_01] You're not wrong about that

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_00] And the reason That we countdown To October 1st Is we consider it That unofficial start To the Christmas season For people like us Who love to go to Lowe's See the stuff Or Menards Or listen to the Sporadic little Christmas Songs on the radio Hey everybody We made it Congratulations So that's gonna be Our last countdown Until October 1st Unless you want me To say something next week Like we're here But we'll see

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_01] We're here We're here Ah Very good Let's see the news Today is September 30th 2026 Here's the news Scotty It's time to start Thinking about it I know I know It's time to talk about The holiday travel Hmm You hate it But it's happening Well not everybody hates it Not everybody But it's gonna be It's gonna be an interesting year

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_01] Because apparently Home is where my stuff is Brian Well right Exactly And home is where the people aren't It's true Apparently airfare for Thanksgiving And Christmas Is reaching a 10 year high Oh boy According to the travel site Hopper Now that's not great news Is it because of fuel prices? Yes The jet fuel prices Are remaining very high And a round trip For Thanksgiving Is averaging around $402 Up 31% Compared to last year So that's not great

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01] So you might be Thinking to yourself Well what the heck am I What can you tell me What can I do Well if you want to get Your best deal You're gonna want to book Your trip before Halloween Okay It recommends monitoring The prices You can throw on like A Google price alert thing And it'll let you know When the prices drop Below a certain thing And then you can book it Usually The next few weeks Before Halloween Is where you will get The lowest prices If you're thinking about Thanksgiving And Christmas You could also look

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01] Into breaking up The round trip So you could go One way On one airline One way Back on another airline To save money So look into all your options Because that's one way That you can save money Especially with prices Being a little bit higher Of course We all want to fly out Of the airport That is closest to us But sometimes It makes more sense To travel Out of a bigger airport Relatively nearby So look into that And of course

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_01] Be flexible Be flexible If you can do the thing On the If you're planning a trip You can do like The plus or minus A day Or whatever To see Whatever the price The cheapest prices are Maybe you leave A day earlier You come back A day later Or whatever If it's possible If it makes sense To save money That's one way That you can do it And of course If you're really Wanting to save money Call our pal Ernie Yeah Friend of the show He will help you Find the cheapest flights And travel For the holiday season

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_00] Great intro there Brian I've been conversing With Ernie And we're planning out What he's going to do During the dailies And he said He'd be up For giving us These kind of travel tips So if you like Stuff like this Really really helpful And we were talking To our friend Alonzo This week Brian And I was saying I wish that The US would subsidize Train travel The way that we do With airlines and stuff Because I would love To leave at 10pm The night before And just sleep And wake up in the morning And I'm in Greenville

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_00] That would be fantastic And you get to see

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_01] A little more of the country That way Just stop selling That's all I want Absolutely Absolutely So just You know Food for thought Start thinking about it I know it feels A little bit early But this is when You gotta start Thinking about These things Alright let's take a break We'll come back We will get to the Christmas TV Minute We will get to the Results from last week's battle And this week's battle Of instrumental Christmas Science Of instrumental Christmas songs All on the other side Of the break Here on Christmas Morning

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_01] Welcome back everybody It's great to be here today Talking all things Christmas Here on October Eve Can I say that?

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_00] It's October Eve October Eve Does that feel right? It all feels right And I went to mostlychristmas.com Last night Pulled the listings And I was like Well these are sparse But maybe it's just You know too early So then I checked it Right before we started recording Still very little So last week I think we came in At a minute four We're probably to come in At like 50 seconds On this one So here is Your Christmas TV Minute Courtesy of Mostlychristmas.com Wednesday 1pm On Antenna Maude

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_00] Walter's Christmas Gift Thursday 7.30am On Rewind Benson Mary and her Lambs 10am On Up The Waltons The Spirit 5pm On Rewind Wings All about Christmas Eve And 10pm On Hallmark Family Little House on the Prairie Blizzard Finally Friday 6pm On Hallmark Family Looks like Christmas That's from 2016 6pm On Hallmark Holiday Touchdown A Chief's Love Story 7.15pm On Freeform Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas That's one that Hasn't showed up yet Well Freeform

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01] Has started their 31 Days to Halloween Programming And that is a part of it So there you go

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_00] 8pm On Hallmark Family Sugar Plum Twist And finally 8pm On Hallmark Holiday Touchdown A Bill's Love Story There you go And that was Your Christmas TV Minute Courtesy of MostlyChristmas.com

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_01] If you want to get in Those holiday touch notes Before the new one Airs in a couple weeks Now's your chance Now's your chance I sure don't Alright let's get To last week's Battle of Santa's Got a Brand New Bag Interesting results here

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_00] Let's get to it Oh I was Blown away by these And I'm actually Really happy I'm not going to Spoil it I almost sent it To you last night Just to say Oh my goodness Yeah very interesting Stuff here

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_01] In last place With 19% of the vote It is the version By Gary Walker

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_00] Brought by Scotty It came in last place This one I thought Was one of the more True to the originals But I guess That's not what people Were looking for But I only lost To you by one vote It's not like I'm in a terrible spot

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_01] That's true That's right You did lose to me By one vote 20% of the vote 21% Version by Shiny Ribs

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_00] I think that's The second week In a row We had a Shiny Ribs tune Possibly Yeah Really cool Possibly 16 votes For that one

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01] That's true And that gets us To almost 60% of the vote By the version Another blowout

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_00] By Bear Ghost This was fantastic If you wanted Something different And that's what I was saying While we were Listening to it I didn't want The original This is it This was brought To us By listeners Drew Basic Jeffrey Dale And Tanya Fletcher That's good

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_01] A little like Kind of like Panic at the Disco Almost It's a really

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_00] Good version So the leaderboard Is now Scotty 12 Brand 11 And listeners 10 Wow Anyone could still win We've got Let's see Three Four Four more battles Right That's right Oh boy It's the fourth quarter Man It's wild

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_01] It is the fourth quarter We'll see what happens This week is Instrumental week Any song that you want to As long as it is an Instrumental version Up first We have Christmas Waltz By three different people Bruno Selesely It's three people I don't know what to tell you

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_00] Bruno Selesely Daveed Paladin And Nicola Barbon Wow How about that Oh

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_00] Brand that Upright bass in there Was so good

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_01] Pop it

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_00] I love an upright bass

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah That was real good Up next We got Wonderful Christmas Time By Lonesome Bones

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_00] That's like a Lo-fi slow version Of Wonderful Christmas Time Brand That song's not Everybody's cup of tea Either Maybe that'll do it for you

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_01] It's like a Lo-fi halftime That was cool Fascinating Last we have Angels We have heard on high By Kevin Manthi

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_00] Oh we got

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_00] Timu Manheim Steamroller Right there Brand that was wild More like Manthi Steamroller Manthi Steamroller There you go We got a lot Of submissions This week So many We got listener Submissions from Mike Trulock Lance Garman John Rice Jack Unverfurth Michelle Byerly Pondo Good to hear from you Pondo Jeffrey Dale Kim Gazarek Drew Basic And Mike Westfall From the Advent Calendar House Podcast Thank you all for submitting

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_01] Very good That gets us to Next week How are we gonna Kick off October Scotty I don't know

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_00] We've got We've got four songs That have not been Battled by everybody And one of them is Santa Claus is Coming to Town And I don't know It's just kind of Calling to me Is it calling to you? Well Santa Claus is coming He's at Lowe's I can tell you that That's true He sure is So let's do Santa Claus is Coming to Town Go to bandcamp.com Find a version Of Santa Claus is Coming to Town That you like And hopefully That we haven't done already Check Christmasmorningpodcast.com Slash songs And if you find one you like Email it to me At christmasmorningpodcast At gmail.com

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_01] Very good Very excited for that battle It's going to be a lot of fun The next time you hear from us It will be October Very excited about that Begin sending in your stuff For our Halloween Eve episodes Halloween evening episodes Plural maybe

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah I'm really excited for that I was just thinking about The Halloween spooky songs That we're going to play That's right That's right If we get enough We'll do two episodes There you go But that's a tough hill to climb

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_01] I will say by the way I was thinking about this Last week you said That we won't do another Christmas party episode But last year I think the last two years

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_00] Oh it's not on the 25th Is it? It's on the 31st Okay

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah so we Last year we did A Halloween evening episode On the 17th And the 30th And still did a Christmas Party episode on the 25th

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_00] You want to work my fingers To the bone Is what you're saying I don't care what way or another All right Well we could probably do A party episode as well If we have enough We'll do it If we don't We'll say it was intentional

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01] We also need stuff for daily though So

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_00] It's true It's tough out there But what's not tough Is finding some Christmas So now you can go to all your stores That's right Keep sending in the stuff That you find If you find a radio station I want to hear it Because I'm going to tune it in During my work day I'm going to listen to

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01] Coast 103

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_00] I'm going to check it out today That sounds great Absolutely All right

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_01] We're going to be back next week With some more Christmas fun Until then Merry Christmas

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_00] You're about to hear some ads That help pay for our trip Back and forth to the North Pole Feel free to listen Feel free to bail now But either way Thanks for being here

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_02] Ho ho ho