26 Weeks / 182 days until Christmas! ("What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" Song Battle)

[00:00:02] This is a Bramble Jam Podcast. Live from the North Pole, it's time for Christmas Morning, the daily show where every day is Christmas. Here are your hosts, Bran and Scott. Wow. Hello, everybody. It's your good friend Bran, and it is another episode of Christmas Morning.

[00:00:39] A twofer for you this week. We're back. We're back, Scotty. Can you believe it? Another day. How about that party episode yesterday? It was great. And I have always said, if you're not doing daily episodes in June of Christmas Morning, what do you even do it?

[00:00:53] It was so great to have Shannon back. I'm glad she was able to join us. And I'm glad to be here with you. We're at the halfway to actually we're past the halfway to Christmas Mark. We're past it. We're past it.

[00:01:05] Spoiler alert from yesterday. If you didn't listen. Also, happy early fourth of July, since we're not going to be here next week. Scott, let's get out of the way. Fourth of July is coming right up. Well, you know my feelings on fourth of July.

[00:01:17] Aside from the fireworks and the heat and the heat and the being outside, but and the lack of Christmas, you get to eat yummy, you get to eat yummy food. I can do that on a Tuesday, you know? That's true. You can do that on a Tuesday.

[00:01:32] But it's American when you do it on the fourth of July. Yeah. Once we're past the fourth of July, though, then it's all Christmas. It's all Christmas. Yeah, that's right. And how about this? Premiering this weekend's the first Hallmark Christmas in July movie, and it's in June.

[00:01:45] So getting ahead of it in typical Hallmark fashion. So that's exciting. Hopefully I'll be able to watch that in my room on the cruise. That'd be great. I don't know how it's possible because we had so many emails yesterday,

[00:01:59] but it looks like the bag still has a little something in it. I held one back. Let's open up that mailbag. Letters. We get letters. We get stacks and stacks of letters. I have an email from Chris Butnansky. He says, Merry Christmas, everyone.

[00:02:16] I just wanted to give an update on the gender of my first child. We have found out. Drumroll, please. It's a girl. Hey, I can now share her name. Lucille Noel. Lucille is my mother's middle name.

[00:02:32] She was the one who always got me excited for Christmas as a kid and was the best parent anyone could have. Now, here's the update on our Christmas decorating plans. That's how this whole thing started, Brian. OK, I love normally we wait until November 1st.

[00:02:45] But with our busy schedule, I got approval from my wife to start on October 1st. So cheers to the October 1st countdown and let the decorating begin wishing you all a joyous season. Charge. How about that?

[00:03:02] Now, there is going to be a bit of an overlap in the Butnansky house with Halloween and Christmas, but it sounds like they're going to make it work. There you go. I like that. That's very nice. And I love a good update.

[00:03:13] And it's not the only update we're going to be getting today. Scotty, spoiler alert for the news segment. But we'll get there. OK, we'll get there when we get there. Speaking of getting there, when we get there, we've got some bad news first. There's no new reviews, everybody.

[00:03:29] Zero new reviews, which can only mean one thing. Play that clock. Yeah, that'll do it. As I promised, Brian, twice as long this time. And it's going to be twice as long next time if there are no reviews. And you know how compound interest works.

[00:03:53] I this is the worst idea we've ever had. This is going to come back to bite us. Exactly. It's going to be 20 minutes of a clock ticking sound. So please, I can't imagine why no one's listening to exactly. It's like there was 20 minutes of clock.

[00:04:06] We abuse our listeners. It's possible. Are you going to joke for us, Scotty? I do. Are you ready for it? I'm ready. What does Santa spend all his money on? He spends all of his money on can't candy canes. Oh, jingle bells. Oh, I got stupid.

[00:04:27] I like that one. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells. I'll skip to the countdown. One hundred and eighty two days until Christmas. One eighty two. One eighty two. And as we said, we're past the 25th, so we're past the halfway mark.

[00:04:50] We're on the downhill part of this journey. Exciting. But downhill being the good part in this case. Yeah, it's not like, no, it's downhill, but it's uphill. It's right. You'd get it. You get it if you get it. Yeah. Very exciting.

[00:05:01] How many of you already did the October 1st? But yeah, but we didn't say how many days it was until. Oh, how many days? How many days? It's only 97 days until October 1st. Wow. We crossed the 100 day mark on that one.

[00:05:15] To say a double single double digits this time. So we're well on our way. I'm so excited. I'm really starting to feel it now. That's exciting. I got to be honest with you. That hit that hit. It really does. Man, that's crazy. Let's get to the news.

[00:05:30] OK, so today is June 26, 2024. Here's the news. Scotty, you might remember a story from the holiday season. If you can go back this far to November when we were doing daily episodes, I know it all kind of. I don't remember what I had for dinner last night.

[00:05:56] I think you're going to remember this one. OK, this this happened in Miami, and there was a a woman who had all of her Christmas presents stolen from the back of her car. I do remember that. Yes, it was all recorded on her Tesla

[00:06:10] because, you know, the Tesla. Oh, I do remember this. Yeah. Yes, they have officially found the person who did it. Wow. A 53 year old man labeled as the Christmas Grinch by police was arrested in Miami on Thursday in connection with a theft that happened back in November.

[00:06:29] His name is Jesus Fernandez of Miami, and he has been arrested for stealing all of those gifts. And so it's not every day, Scotty, that you get an update to a story that you talked about in the daily Christmas episodes back in November,

[00:06:47] especially when I just I forgot. I had assumed either they had already caught him or they just hadn't. Is this like NCIS Christmas edition or something? What is it's June is my thing is, you know, they had a they had pretty good

[00:07:03] footage, obviously, from the Tesla of who this person was. I don't know what took him so long. Yeah, I don't know. So here's what here's what I recommend to the poor woman who had her stuff stolen. Put the tree up. Put the presents there.

[00:07:16] Well, I hope the presents are there. I don't know. We don't know that part of the story. But let's let's give this an extra happy ending is my suggestion. That's exactly right. The person who had the gift stolen says karma gets its own.

[00:07:30] Even if it's a few months later, karma will always follow you no matter where you go. Got to watch out on these streets. Well, that's pretty intense. It's better than the quote I would have given the police, which was about frickin time.

[00:07:44] No kidding. I don't like I don't know what took so long. But there you go. And the police, I believe, said the law will know and Santa Claus will know that's right here on the bad list. So there you go. I think Mr.

[00:07:58] Jesus Fernandez is officially on the naughty list and a moral of the story is if your stuff does get stolen for some reason, don't give up hope, because apparently even the police in Miami, who I assume have a lot going on,

[00:08:15] are still trying to find presents from November. So I don't know if that like is encouraging or not. Just do with it what you will. There you go. Yeah, I listen, Scotty. I knew when I saw this that I had to talk about it

[00:08:27] because literally we do so many episodes are the holiday season and we never get updates on stories. No, we never do. The fact that we got an update was it was pretty fun. So there you go. That's right. Cold case Miami. That's right.

[00:08:40] Let's take a quick break. We'll come back. We'll get to the TV listings, which are quite substantial this week and the battle here on Christmas morning. We're back, everybody. It's Christmas morning. I'm Brian Scott's here. Well, TV Scott. TV Scottie, thank you very much. TV Scottie.

[00:09:00] There's a lot going on this week, as I mentioned, of course, on Saturday. There's the first new Hallmark Christmas movie of the year. But there's also so much more going on. So TV Scottie, tell us what we can look for this week.

[00:09:12] Yeah, it's a little on the light side, though, Brian, because full disclosure, we're recording this a day early because I'm when you're listening to this. I'm on a boat. I'm on a boat. So we don't have all the TV listings, but the two new ones are there.

[00:09:24] So here are your Christmas TV specials for the next couple of days. Courtesy of mostly Christmas dot com Wednesday, 3 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, a Maple Valley Christmas, 5 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries. Every Christmas has a story that's from back in 2016, 6 30 p.m.

[00:09:39] on Paramount, two and a half men, Santa's Village of the Damned, 7 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, a homecoming for the holidays and 9 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, a Blue Ridge Mountain Christmas Thursday, 5 a.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, Matlock the Scrooge, 7 30 a.m.

[00:09:54] on USA and CIS Miami, the gifts that were stolen from the. No, no, that's not Home Depot and CIS Los Angeles tidings. We bring and they turn those around fast. Scott, yeah, they're amazing. 9 30 a.m. on Catchy, the Donna Reed show, A Very Merry Christmas,

[00:10:10] 11 a.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, Monk, Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa, 12 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, Monk, Mr. Monk meets his dad, 1 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, Monk, Mr. Monk and the man who shot Santa, 2 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, Monk, Mr. Monk and the miracle.

[00:10:24] That's a lot of monk. 2 p.m. on IFC, Who's the Boss? Christmas card. 2 30 p.m. on Comedy Central, Seinfeld, The Strike, 3 p.m. on Fee TV, Daniel Boone, The Christmas Story. Haven't seen that one before, Brad. No, I don't think so.

[00:10:37] 3 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, Karen Kingsbury's Maggie's Christmas Miracle. That's a mouthful. 5 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, The Christmas Secret. That's from back in 2014. 7 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, Mystery on Mistletoe Lane, 8 30 p.m. on TBS, The Big Bang Theory, The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis,

[00:10:54] 9 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, The Christmas Promise, 10 p.m. on Logo, The Facts of Life, The Christmas Show, and 11 p.m. on TV Land, King of Queens, Silent Night. Friday, 3 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, My Christmas Guide, 5 p.m.

[00:11:06] on Hallmark Mysteries, Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas, 7 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, Christmas in Montana, and 9 p.m. on Hallmark Mysteries, Miracle in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. And to wrap it up, here are the two new ones. Saturday, 8 p.m.

[00:11:19] on Hallmark, Falling Like Snowflakes, and Sunday, 6 p.m. on Hallmark, Falling Like Snowflakes. OK, so if you missed it the first time, you can definitely catch it on the flip side. So those are your Christmas TV specials for the next couple of days, courtesy of MostlyChristmas.com.

[00:11:34] My big takeaway there is if it wasn't for Hallmark, it would have been a very short TV. Let's say that would have been a very short week. That's that's true. It's time for the Christmas music battle. Let's get to last week's results.

[00:11:45] First, it was instrumental Christmas music week. And last place, It's Ya Boy, Bran, with The Little Drummer Boy by Soul Santas. Last place? I liked this. And during the week when Bran found this song, he texted me and said, You've got to check out the Soul Santas.

[00:12:04] And I did. And I got the album off Bandcamp. It's fantastic. It's a great album. It's a great album. Whatever, guys. Your loss. Your loss. And in second place, it is The Christmas Song by The Fundamental Sound. I like a good lo-fi song, Bran.

[00:12:23] And Drew Basic was the one who submitted this. He has been submitting this every single instrumental week for like six months. So I finally picked a Drew. You can stop the automatic resender that happens every every third Wednesday. It's also nice that it is a

[00:12:45] this is like this is like real. It's not just like lo-fi that somebody's like kind of made in a thing. And I've been like, it's whatever this is like people did this. And it sounds great. No, it got 33.8% of the vote.

[00:12:56] It was a really good song. And I do enjoy it. Thank you for submitting, Drew. All joking aside. The winner, though, is Scotty with Jingle Bells by the Dirty River Jazz Bands. It's good. It's good. I think when these things hit Bran, they just they just resonate

[00:13:14] with with all the morning people. There's something infectious about this kind of jazz. It is that horn. Good stuff. And it's good. It's good. Well, another successful instrumental Christmas battle, which means Scott, you are back in the lead. So congratulations. It's good going.

[00:13:30] I think I oh, I was tied for the league. Yes. And I could really use a win this week, everybody. So put on your listening ears. OK. And really try to find which one your old pal Brad sent in. We are battling today.

[00:13:43] What are you doing at New Year's Eve? Do you have a fun fact for us, Scotty? I do. I love it when we're back to a song so I can find a fact that's relevant to the song. Yes.

[00:13:53] The song was written in 1947 by Frank Loser in a documentary. Frank's daughter explained that the singer, Madly in Love, is making a possibly rash commitment far into the future. It always annoyed my father when this song was sung during the holidays. So that's kind of interesting.

[00:14:11] Wow. Yes, I've always you know, you listen to it at Christmas and so you assume that it's kind of like this couple that is talking about like, you know, in a couple of weeks from now, what are you doing?

[00:14:21] Yeah. Like, what are you doing next week for New Year's Eve? I always think of this as a Christmas song. That's funny. This is like a summer song. This is a Christmas. So Christmas in July song is July.

[00:14:32] And you're like, what are you doing a half year from now? Hey, what are you doing? New Year's Eve? Yeah. Maybe I'm crazy to suppose. All right. So listen to this song as we play these versions

[00:14:42] with through that lens, perhaps it might change the way that you listen to it. At first we have a version. What do you do on New Year's Eve by Queen B in the Honey Loves? Maybe it's much too early in the game. Just the same.

[00:15:06] What they showed you. I like it. I like it. And it's not the first time we've seen Queen B before. And I believe, Scotty, last time we saw Queen B, they won. So we'll see if this is a pop. You know, sometimes you get those artists.

[00:16:07] Yeah. Jose James to, you know, that constantly win. We'll see if this is a. Well, speaking of artists that constantly win. Yes. Next song. What do you do in New Year's Eve by Cynthia Lynn? Maybe it's much too early in the game.

[00:16:24] Oh, but I thought I'd ask you just the same. What do you do in New Year's Eve? Who's going to be the one to hold you tight? When it's exactly 12 o'clock that night. Welcoming in the new year's. New Year's Eve.

[00:17:15] And last but not least, Scotty, we have a version by the Gibbons. Maybe it's much too early in the game. Oh, but I ask you just the same. What are you doing? New Year's Eve. Arms will hold you good and tight. When it's exactly 12 o'clock at night.

[00:17:54] Welcoming in the new year. New Year's Eve. I have never heard an R&B style version of what do you do in New Year's Eve? I loved it. Yeah, that was good. That was good. That was really good. I think we got a good battle, though.

[00:18:15] We got, you know, three kind of different styles. We got this straight jazz. We got a nice ukulele. We got some R&B. A really good battle. You can vote right now. Link is in the description. And Scotty, hold on.

[00:18:28] We got listener submissions this week from Joe W., Brad Adams and Angela Moss. Thank you all for submitting. Absolutely. Scott, we're going to be off next week, which means no battle, which takes us to the July 9th episode. That's right. Enjoy your hot dogs.

[00:18:43] Hum a Christmas tune while you're eating your hot dog. OK, put mustard on it. But that takes us to July 9th, which is going to be the second Wednesday, which makes it already original Christmas music battle week.

[00:18:55] So I know we just got done scouring the band camp for an original Christmas song, but back at it again. Maybe you found one that we haven't played yet and you've already submitted. Submit it again. It might get picked this time. Scotty, anything else for the folks?

[00:19:10] Nope. Enjoy the last week off that is scheduled. At least Brandon and I will be back for the rest of the summer. None of this nonsense with vacations and families, you know, it's like we're not putting priority on Christmas. Crazy. I can't believe it. It's crazy.

[00:19:27] Thank you to everybody who's listening. Two episodes in one week. The fact that anybody would listen to us two times in one week in June is insane. So thank you for being insane. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks. Until then, Merry Christmas.

[00:19:50] 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. Ho ho ho.