27 weeks / 189 days until Christmas! (Instrumental Christmas 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. Hi, hi, hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Christmas Morning.

[00:00:38] It's your good friend Bran and I am here with my good friend Scotty. Scotty, Merry Christmas pal. Merry Christmas Brandon. Boy, am I in the Christmas spirit today. Are you? Because I am too. I've been listening to Christmas music.

[00:00:52] I've been thinking about how excited I am that we are almost halfway to Christmas. Almost there. I'm feeling it, Scotty. I know I watched Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Well, I've watched half of it now.

[00:01:04] If that doesn't put you in a Christmas spirit, I don't know what will. That weird, that weird movie. Yeah, it's a little hard to watch. I've been watching it in little chunks. Haven't been excited to finish the whole thing, but I've always wanted to have seen the movie.

[00:01:16] So I'm getting there. All right. You'll let us know your review of it in three months when you finish it. Yeah. I think it turns out okay at the end. We'll find out.

[00:01:25] You did a review of it, but I don't want to listen to it again until I have seen the movie in its entirety. I've already forgotten that I even did it. So that tells you everything you need to know. Okay. Hey, how about we open that mailbag up?

[00:01:36] Please. We get letters. We get letters. We get stacks and stacks of letters. I've got an email from Cece. Are you ready for this one? This is a good one. Okay, I'm ready. Hey, Bran and Scott. A couple of episodes ago, Scott mistakenly referenced Lynn Austin's Christmas tradition

[00:01:54] of her family playing carols on a set of recorders when in fact it was a set of kazoos. And Bran, I realized this after I said it that it was kazoo, not a recorder.

[00:02:05] I think we can cut me a little slack on this one because they're both terrible instruments, right? Yeah, I don't think any. I don't know. I think I might like a kazoo more than a recorder. I think. I don't know if I have to choose one.

[00:02:18] And I was going to go the other way. I'd say a recorder is more of an instrument than a kazoo. But hold on. Let me continue the email. This got me thinking. We definitely need someone to play Christmas tunes on a recorder next month at Bramblefest.

[00:02:31] And who better than me? I played clarinet in high school, so how hard can it be? I have a few short weeks, but a recorder and a songbook are on the way to my doorstep,

[00:02:39] and I can't wait to make your ears bleed in Yeah That Greenville next month. Thanks for the idea. Wow. That's exciting. I love this so much. I like that she heard a mistake and she's making it into a good thing, like an idea. I like that.

[00:02:55] And I also like that people are already putting out ideas for the Bramblefest live Christmas party episode. That's exciting. And so if more people that are coming to Bramblefest in Yeah That Greenville or just want to send

[00:03:08] in some stuff for Christmas in July, you can go ahead and do that. ChristmasMorningPodcast.gmail.com. Yeah. And I exchanged messages with Lynn Austin after my slip up last time and said, well, either way, I want to hear some kazoos. And I think her reply was, oh Lord.

[00:03:23] And she said that she sent you kazoos and that you should take care of it. And I said, well... Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen. But I do. I didn't think so. I let the kazoo party come to me.

[00:03:36] You know, if she wants to bring the kazoo and make it all happen, I'm not... I couldn't possibly put on a show like that. Yeah. If she wants to bring them, I am down for the jamboree. But if she doesn't, that's totally fine.

[00:03:51] We've got CeCe with the recorder here. So I'm excited either way. This is going to be one heck of a live episode. Looking forward to it. That's right. But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We've got a Christmas party next week.

[00:04:04] First, Scotty, the Halfway to Christmas Christmas party episode. And you still have a day or two to send in stuff before we can't take any more submissions. So, christianfortypodcasts.gmail.com if you want to send in something for that. How are you celebrating the halfway to Christmas?

[00:04:18] We would love to know. Scotty, I got bad news. Oh boy. We are officially out of reviews to read. Now, we did get one new review numerically last week, but no written review came with it.

[00:04:36] So I guess people can in theory leave just a star rating without leaving an actual review. So I think that maybe is what happened. We got a rating, but not a review. So okay. Well, I have an idea here.

[00:04:51] Maybe people are thinking, well, if I don't leave a review, the episode will be faster. Oh no. That's not the case at all. So we are going to listen to a few seconds of a clock ticking to fill the void. Here we go. This is boring, huh, Brian?

[00:05:06] This will show them, Scotty. This will show them. And every week that goes by we don't get a review, it's going to get longer. This is punitive. I hate this idea, but it's smart. You're good. This idea is horrible. You're good, Scotty.

[00:05:22] You got a joke for us though? I mean, we couldn't have run out of jokes, right? No, no. I've got one. This is similar to one that we've told before, but I checked. It's not the same, so it counts. Are you ready?

[00:05:35] What do you get when you deep fry Santa? Deep fry Santa. What's the Good King Winsless List joke? Oh, that was deep pan, crisp and even. Yeah, let's go with that. It's the same punchline. When you deep fry Santa, it's a crisp Kringle. Oh, there you go.

[00:05:56] That's good. No, no. It's really not that good, and it was very similar. It was much simbler. It was very similar to a crisp Kringle joke, but it's not the same. Oh, and a golden crisp and even, so it's all in there.

[00:06:16] Another reminder that I happily take listener submissions for Christmas jokes, but we are starting to run out. Almost every site I go to, every joke there we've done, so might have to move more into knock, knock jokes and one liners. Don't know.

[00:06:29] Maybe you need to write your own. Go on the road. Yeah, that's going to be better than what's available. What's going on with all these candy canes? They're all sticky and stuff. It's crazy out there, all these candy canes, and now they're coming all these flavors.

[00:06:44] I don't know. I think there is a type five that you could do, Scotty, that maybe would translate. I don't know. All right. Maybe somebody has something from Bramble Fest, but for now, let's do the countdown. 189 days until Christmas. 189. That's less than 190.

[00:07:07] Yeah, we made it under the 200 mark. Actually, that was last week, wasn't it? I'm living in the past. Stopped living in the past, Scott. Boy, are we getting there. And I don't want to spoil some stuff that we have for the party episode next week.

[00:07:20] OK, but we do have some Hobby Lobby related news, but I'm just going to leave it at that for now. But it's exciting. Stuff is coming. Stuff is coming. Christmas stuff is coming. And of course, it's only 104 days until October 1st. Wow. So we'll be under 100 next week.

[00:07:41] That's exciting. Yeah, that's exciting. 14 weeks until the stores are just brimming with Christmas stuff. And I'm looking forward to it. I've been going to Lowe's a lot this week. You know, I'm a home improvement enthusiast or stuff keeps breaking at my house. No Christmas there.

[00:07:56] I'm even looking at the top of the shelves, you know, because at some point they're going to start getting the stock in and not putting it out. I'm the guy that notices that. Nothing yet. Nothing at all. It's all gazebos and grills right now. Lame.

[00:08:07] I hate gazebo and grills. Yeah, me too. Get out of here with that nonsense. I got some news if you want it. Yeah, let's do it. Today is June 19th, 2024. Here's the news. Scott, sometimes we talk about stories that impact us all, such as Christmas movies that

[00:08:31] are being made that we'll all be able to see. You know, Christmas Day football games, etc. Today is very specific, maybe very local, but I'm always excited to see how various towns across this here United States celebrates Christmas in July.

[00:08:50] And I was intrigued to find out that the Utah Symphony Orchestra is going to be celebrating Christmas in July on July 6th with a special concert for Christmas in July, busting out some of those festive Christmas songs that you love to hear an orchestra play during

[00:09:11] the holiday season. You'll be able to hear them play it in July. And I thought that that was very nice. You hear a lot about little tiny Christmas and July celebrations. It's pretty cool that an entire symphony orchestra, Scotty, is going to be playing Christmas

[00:09:28] music for Christmas in July. I think that was really neat. And so head on over to the Deer Valley Music Festival dot org for more information if you are in the area and you would like to get a little Christmas spirits with some symphony orchestra.

[00:09:43] I'll tell you why I like this. And first, if I were in the area, I would absolutely go. This sounds great. The reason this appeals to me is at the end of the year in December, it's not hard to

[00:09:53] find symphonies playing Christmas music, but it's a busy time and I just never seem to make time for that kind of thing and say, oh, we already got plans. This I got nothing going on. I got absolutely nothing except stalking my local Hobby Lobby looking for Christmas decorations.

[00:10:10] So I would go to this in a hot minute in a Utah minute. I'm not I guess I'm pretty close in terms of states, but it's still pretty far. So unfortunately, not going to make it. Yeah. In my mind, you Colorado and Utah are the same place.

[00:10:26] Well, yeah, it's like North and South Carolina. Same place. It's really no no excuse. No, I thought it was very cool. But if I said go to Charlotte for the symphony, what would you say? Right. No, you're right. This happens every holiday season.

[00:10:37] I hear about these concerts that are happening and it's just like I just there's so much going on. I would love to do this. It would be right up my alley for a Christmas in July. Yeah, it would be so cool. So good on you, Utah Symphony.

[00:10:49] I hope others take the lead from this. That's right. Let's take a quick break, Scotty. And we'll come back. We'll get some TV listings. There's a slew of them starting to happen. So many TV listings today. And then we'll do the Christmas battle here on Christmas morning.

[00:11:09] We are back. Hello. Welcome back to Christmas morning TV. Scotty is here to fill us in on what's going on in the TV. And if you think that Christmas in July is right around the corner, you would be wrong because it's starting. Yeah, I know it's still June.

[00:11:25] It's starting. But what's also exciting is when is the 22nd? That's coming up, right? That's Saturday, Saturday. Yeah. A listener wrote in. We may have probably read it that QVC is starting their Christmas in July on Saturday. That's exciting stuff.

[00:11:40] I'm going to have to record that because I'll be heading to Alaska, but it'll be there when I get back. And that's exciting. It'll be there. And we have a lot of Christmas listings this week.

[00:11:48] Most of them are going to be on the various Hallmark networks, but I still want to read them all. So here are your Christmas TV specials for the next couple of days, courtesy of mostlychristmas.com.

[00:11:58] Wednesday 9am on Hallmark, Reba, Cookies for Santa, 10am on Pop, ER, A Miracle Happens Here, 1pm on WE, NCIS, Silent Night, 3.30pm on Antenna, Maud, Walter's Christmas Gift, 3.30pm on Catchy, that Catchy Network coming in strong, Bran, Mama's Family, Mama Gets

[00:12:15] Goosed, 5.30pm on CMT, The King of Queens, Silent Might, 6.30pm on Catchy, Good Times, The Traveling Christmas, and 6.30pm on FeeTV, Adam 12, Christmas, The Yellow Dump Truck. Thursday, 2am on Hallmark Family, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, FeeFee's First Christmas, 2am on Logo, The Nanny,

[00:12:37] The Christmas Show, 3.30am on CMT, The Golden Girls, Was the Nightmare Before Christmas, 7am on Start TV, Touched by an Angel, An Angel on the Roof, Touched by an Angel, Bran? Oh, down the road!

[00:12:53] Came back for the water cooler just for that one, that was nice of you. 12pm on Cozy, Bones, The Santa in the Slush, 2pm on TV Land, Gunsmoke, P.S. Merry Christmas, 7pm on Hallmark, Mysteries, Murder She Baked, A Plum Pudding Mystery, and 9pm on Hallmark,

[00:13:08] Mysteries, The Royal Nanny. Nope. 4am on Hallmark, Frasier, Perspectives on Christmas, 6.30am on Turner Classic Movies, It Happened on Fifth Avenue from 1947, 10am on USA, Chicago Fire Winterfest, 1pm on Hallmark Mysteries, Psych, Christmas Joy, 3pm on Hallmark Mysteries, Time for Us to Come

[00:13:27] Home for Christmas, 4.30pm on IFC, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, there's one you don't see too often in the middle of the year. Wow! 5.30pm on Hallmark Mysteries, Christmas on My Mind, 5pm on TV One, A Different World,

[00:13:40] For Whom the Jingle Bell Tolls, 7pm on Hallmark, The Santa Summit, 7pm on Hallmark Mysteries, To All a Good Night, 9pm on Hallmark Mysteries, Mystery on Mistletoe Lane, and 11pm on Hallmark Mysteries, A Godwink Christmas, Saturday, 1am on, these are all on Hallmark Mysteries, Bran. Yes.

[00:13:57] Okay, so here we go, Hallmark Mysteries, 1am, Love You, Like Christmas, 3am, Journey Back to Christmas, 5am, Christmas Wonderland, 7am, Perfect Christmas Present, 9am, Christmas in Montana, 11am, A Glenbrook Christmas, 1pm, The Christmas Promise, 3pm,

[00:14:15] Ms. Christmas Comes to Town, 5pm, boy, I'm having trouble with the times today. It is, you know, it's messing me up that I'm not reading the name of the network. I get a rhythm going.

[00:14:25] 5pm, Heaven Down Here, 7pm, Miracle in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 9pm, Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas, and 11pm, Long Lost Christmas, Sunday, still all on the Mysteries channel, 1am, Time for

[00:14:38] Me to Come Home for Christmas, 3am, Time for You to Come Home for Christmas, 5am, Once Upon a Christmas Miracle, 7am, A Christmas to Remember, 9am, Homegrown Christmas, 11am, Time for Them to

[00:14:49] Come Home for Christmas, 1pm, Time for Him to Come Home for Christmas, 3pm, Small Town Christmas, 5pm, A Veterans Christmas, and 9pm, A Season for Family. Finally, oh wait, not even finally, we have two more days, just a few though, still all on Hallmark Mysteries. Monday, 3pm, Project

[00:15:05] Christmas Wish, 5pm, A Little Christmas Charm, 7pm, Christmas Tree Lane, 9pm, Northern Lights of Christmas, and now it's finally Tuesday, 3pm, A World Record Christmas, 5pm, A Godwink Christmas, Second Chance First Love, 7pm, Christmas at Grand Valley, and 9pm, Hope at Christmas. Oh, I'm

[00:15:26] exhausted Brandon, and those are your Christmas TV specials for the next couple of days, courtesy of MostlyChristmas.com. Thank you TV Scotty, that was wonderful, so much, and I'm excited, Hallmark Movies, yes, no, Hallmark Mysteries, that's what it's called now. Yeah, one step closer to

[00:15:43] them being just the Hallmark Christmas Movie Channel, which it should be. It should be. Someday, we'll get there. Let's get to the Christmas Music Battle, let's do last week's first, it was Original Christmas Music Battle Weekend, and last place for the second week in a

[00:15:57] row is the Aquabats with Christmas is Awesome. Okay, I think I've proven that the listeners are not fans of Aquabats except for me and Jessica Trinidad, that's it. Can you believe it? Yeah,

[00:16:11] I guess I can believe it, I tried, I really gave it my all, I tried Aquabats, but last place, but 16 votes, it's not like it was horrible, but they certainly didn't win. Yeah, for the second

[00:16:22] week in a row, I come in second place, but only by a couple votes ahead of you, this is December 24th, 1993, The Guilty Parties. You know, maybe what happened is people were just overloaded with

[00:16:35] Scott. Yeah, that's fair, I'm offended, this song rules, but I get it. What a runaway win though, by the listeners. Yeah, that's right, All I Want For Christmas is a rock show by the Holiday Place

[00:16:47] got 52% of the votes. Submitted to us by listener Tia King, thank you Tia, really great track, I knew this was going to win, we said it while we were recording last week, this is gonna be

[00:16:59] the winner and it was. Yeah, it's a good bop, it's a good bop. Great song, great song. This week, Instrumental Christmas Music Song Week, which is always a ton of fun, do you have a random bit of

[00:17:10] trivia for us, Scotty? Here's some random bits of trivia for you. Silent Night has been covered so many times by so many artists that if you take the 2 minutes and 40 seconds of Bing Crosby's 1942

[00:17:21] version as a sort of average duration, you could play the songs non-stop for a week without repeating a version. Isn't that cool? Yes, I'm trying to understand what it means. Okay, so you

[00:17:33] take all 700 some odd recordings of it and play them back to back, it would go for a week is what it's saying. How about that? That's crazy, man, we should try that, see how it goes. Yeah, I don't

[00:17:45] think we're going to take your Christmas network and turn it into the Silent Night network because I think people are going to start to tune out after about 40 or 50 versions. Welcome to our 700 Silent Night radio network. Today is the instrumentals. My favorite. These are always

[00:18:04] so much fun to find and I think we got some great options today. Up first is Jingle Bells by the Dirty River Jazz Band. Oh, Brian, I want to be there on the streets of New Orleans listening

[00:19:20] to these guys play and I'll even put a fiver in their little bucket. That's what I would do. Is that a trombone you think that was kind of leading the charts? It sounded like it. Yeah,

[00:19:29] like that. That was real nice. Good stuff. Next, we got the Christmas song, The Chestnuts Roasting, of course, by the Fundamental Sound. Brian, it's no secret I love Christmas lo-fi music. It's my jam. That was really nice. That was really nice. Had a good sound to it.

[00:20:50] Last but not least, Little Drummer Boy by the Soul Santas. Brian, it's not quite surf guitar, but it's in that neighborhood. It's like surf guitar meets jazz almost. Yeah, really enjoy that one. The bass was doing some stuff. That was nice. Three great versions. I don't know who

[00:22:12] I would vote for. I like them all. Yeah, and they're all very different this week. It's not like last week where it was like Ska versus the rest of the world. I want to mention we got

[00:22:20] listener submissions from Drew Basic, Jack Unverfurth, Brad Adams, Lance Garman, and Joe W. Thank you all for submitting. Absolutely. We're going to be back next week with a double feature.

[00:22:30] But hold on. Go ahead. We're going to talk about next week's song. Oh, that's right. We do have a regular show next Wednesday. We do have a regular show next week. Probably won't have one the

[00:22:39] following week, but it's my pick. Okay. And I'm going to go with the most recent submission from Jessica Trinidad, What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? And I checked Bandcamp. There are a lot of

[00:22:52] versions. And here's what I learned. For the grammar challenged out there, if you search it without the apostrophe, you get a whole other set of results. So Bandcamp search is not smart enough.

[00:23:04] So search, what are you doing New Year's Eve? Y-E-A-R apostrophe S and then search it again. Y-E-A-R-S no apostrophe and make sure you get yourself the full, I don't know, slate of options

[00:23:18] for the song. Plenty out there. And I skimmed a couple of them. I was actually really impressed. So I'm looking forward to this battle. There's a ton of good versions out there that I've found

[00:23:27] over the years. And I imagine that there's plenty on Bandcamp to choose from. It's a very like coverable song. It's very fun. Very nice. I imagine we'll find some power vocals to some nice vocal performances. I sure think so. That's fine. We also have our Christmas party

[00:23:43] episodes. It'll be Christmas party on Tuesday, regular episode on Wednesday. Perfect way to celebrate halfway to Christmas, I think is with double episodes. So it's going to be a lot of fun next week. Hopefully you'll join us for both of them and Scotty until then Merry Christmas.

[00:24:08] 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.