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There’ll be presents for boasting

and strangers for roasting

including someone you might know

There’ll be grocery store stories

don’t fret — nothing gory

just classic December “oh no”s!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

With Scott and with Ellie,

and laughs from the belly

to wrap up your year!

It’s the best ep-isode — one filled with cheer!

Follow Ellie @elliekemper on Instagram and Scott @mescotteckert on Twitter. Stay up to date with Lemonada on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Scott Eckert, Ellie Kemper

Ellie Kemper  00:09

Welcome to Born To Love the show where we talk to the people we love about the things they love. I’m Ellie Kemper.

 

Scott Eckert  00:15

And I’m Scott Eckert, and today, the people that we love are each other, which is a host only episode. We’re gonna be talking about holiday traditions, Christmas, Hanukkah, mostly Christmas, let’s be honest, the holiday season. But before we get into it, Ellie, tell me, is there something you’ve been loving this week, not Christmas related?

 

Ellie Kemper  00:41

Scott, you really just threw me for a loop because I was planning on talking about something very Christmas related.

 

Scott Eckert  00:48

Normally, listeners, we surprise one another with our loves, but this time, we had a little bit of a meeting ahead of time, I got a sneak preview of your love. I didn’t realize that it’s intimately related to the holidays, and now I’m even more excited for it. Ellie, what do you love this week?

 

Ellie Kemper  01:06

What I love this week is the multi flavor popcorn tins. The reason I said it’s Christmas related is that I primarily see these tins coming out around the holidays, but I will say that I don’t know, and I and I am glad that they do somehow survive the non holiday season, but I’m not sure how, because I feel that these popcorn tins with, I’m talking about the classic triple combination of caramel, cheddar cheese and butter, Everybody knows what I’m talking about. They put the cardboard dividers in a Christmas tin, a holiday tin. Sometimes it’s just winter themed on the outside. You know, there’s decorative a woman, a little girl from 1904 you know, riding in a sleigh, going to get a peppermint ice cream. Those sorts of scenes from every town America the turn of the century. Those are the scenes usually being depicted on the outside. Maybe it’s a Clydesdale horse tromping through some snow. Maybe it’s a maybe it’s just popcorn being eaten by a fire. I don’t know these little men with carrot noses. Well, that’s another example. Perfect.

 

Scott Eckert  02:21

Yes.

 

Ellie Kemper  02:21

An old fashioned Santa Claus. You know, the ones Coca Cola usually uses to advertise for their.

 

Scott Eckert  02:27

Yes, a ruddy faced, fat man with a big smile.

 

Ellie Kemper  02:32

Yes, and holding a coke. But this isn’t about coke. I don’t know how we got there. They certainly haven’t been advertising, but I will say that that’s the yet, that’s the sort of tin I’m describing. And in it you can fill it with whatever popcorn flavors you choose. There’s cinnamon. Oh, that’s another popular one, the red cinnamon, not for me, but for some people, yes. But you can put, you can even put things like, like, Buffalo ranch popcorn. I mean, I’ve seen some really crazy flavors out there. You can fill it with chocolate chip popcorn. There are popcorn companies out there that will fill their tins with whatever flavors you want. But the one I love, as I mentioned, is the classic, the classic triple flavor combination of caramel, cheddar cheese and butter. And what I love about it is, of course, nostalgia. It brings me back to being eight years old and inhaling an entire tin of them alone in the dark.

 

Scott Eckert  03:31

Your family ordered tins by the gross.

 

Ellie Kemper  03:35

My family was all in the dining room eating the roast beast and baked potatoes, and I was I was off to the side in the dark of the basement, just inhaling my tin after tin of the beautifully, beautifully decorated Christmas popcorn.

 

Scott Eckert  03:54

But anyway, you needed a second or third recycling bin, because yours is just bursting with.

 

Ellie Kemper  04:00

Tins are going out. They’re all there’s the there, that’s the camper house. Why are there so many tins outside? Dad, oh, every year they order popcorn tins by the truckload. Sweet son. Daddy, well, they’d say the little red headed girl would put away five to 10 tins a night. Why is the dad so old? Okay, so anyway, it’s the very best part for me of the holiday season, one of the best parts. And I have, I’ve, I refrain from eating them until it becomes after, until it’s after Thanksgiving, and then I just no holds barred. I love it. It’s my dessert, it’s my midday snack. It’s sometimes got no it’s never breakfast, but sometimes it’s lunch. Breakfast is too much, but it’s delicious, and I have been loving it this week, and I’ll love it the rest of December and a little bit into January […]

 

Scott Eckert  05:00

I am so excited about this because your knowledge of the flavored popcorns is it is just it. It completely and totally dwarfs mine. When you said You warned me again, peek behind the curtain that you might want to talk about this. I knew that there was a holiday relation to the popcorn. I’m not an idiot, but to me, the flavored popcorn, it’s like a carnival thing. You get it at the you can go and get it at the pier then. Now I think that at movie theaters, they try to charge you more, like as if the popcorn at movie theaters wasn’t expensive enough. Now, they charge you more for flavored and of course, I’m familiar with the caramel, of course, I’m familiar with the with the cheddar cheese, but, but to realize that there’s a whole universe of Christmas, popcorns that are that have these exotic flavors, yeah, buffalo. Buffalo flavored popcorn in a Santa Tin? What?

 

Ellie Kemper  06:00

Well, it’s not, I want to be clear, it’s not buffalo flavored. It’s like buffalo ranch, like […]

 

Scott Eckert  06:07

What, there’s such contempt for the idea that there’d be buffalo flavored because, but buffalo Ranch is totally reasonable.

 

Ellie Kemper  06:18

I draw the line at Buffalo buffalo ranch. Come on in. Well, I mean, they’re both, yes, they’re both disgusting, but you and by the way, I’m sure I shouldn’t say that buffalo popcorn doesn’t exist. I’m sure there’s buffalo flavored popcorn somewhere. I mean, you know what, if there isn’t anything new under the sun […]

 

Scott Eckert  06:36

But also where? I mean, I don’t want to now that, now that we planted our flag, that we’re not going to endorse a particular popcorn brand. You got to be careful what we say. But where are you getting cinnamon flavored popcorn? Is it at the mall? Is there a popcorn website like, you get an email the day after Thanksgiving that’s like, click on the link and buy your two tons of flavored popcorn. How do you find it, Ellie?

 

Ellie Kemper  07:03

Well, okay, first of all, I’m sure you can buy cinnamon popcorn elsewhere, but I’m gonna name a very specific company now my go to free, ad free. Here we go, topsies popcorn. They’re based in Kansas City, and they they definitely have cinnamon popcorn, and it’s delicious.

 

Scott Eckert  07:24

Six I just searched topsies popcorn, and the first, like some hit was 6.5 gallon popcorn tins. That seems maybe I’m not great with measurements, but 6.5 gallons seems like an awful lot.

 

Ellie Kemper  07:41

Daddy, why are the tins so big? Don’t they have any other options in 6.5 gallons? Oh, yes, they do. They have 3.5 and even two gallons. But not for that little red headed girl,

 

Scott Eckert  07:54

that little red headed girl, no idea how many gallons she can hold.

 

Ellie Kemper  08:01

My stomach, my poor 6.5 gallon stomach, or 13 after all those.

 

Scott Eckert  08:07

I clicked on that 6.5 gallon link from Google, and it took me directly to a plaza lights tins. It looks like a trash can with that turn of the century illustration, just like you described, and it’s 1/3 caramel, 1/3 cheese and 1/3 cinnamon, wow. She knows her stuff, guys, if you ever doubted it, if you ever doubted it, Ellie Kemper knows your popcorn. No doubt about her.

 

Ellie Kemper  08:31

What is it now we’re up to I’m an expert on popcorn and running for 20 minutes at a time. Those are like my two areas of expertise. Scott, that’s what I’ve been loving this week, I’m excited to keep the Christmas Convo going. We are going to take a short ad break, but when we come back, we’re gonna be talking all about the holidays.

 

Scott Eckert  09:00

And we’re back.

 

Ellie Kemper  09:03

Yes, we are. Scott, this is what I I’m just gonna again. I’m just gonna go out ahead and say it what we refer to as the meat of the episode, the buffalo meat of the episode. Nice little introduction. Nice little talk about what I’m loving this week. Let’s get into it, Scott, let’s just go hard or go home. I would like to spend some time talking with you today about some of the sweetest, some of your favorite, some of the most delightful holiday traditions that you love. And this, these are, these are, you know, they can span any number of years. There are no limits. What do you love?

 

Scott Eckert  09:44

Well, I’ll start small, and we can get big. This is sort of a smorgasbord of holiday traditions. I’m not sure that this counts as a tradition, but I just realized, and this was I actually now, I guess, a couple weeks ago, that one of my favorite small bore things. Things about this season, and it’s risky for a podcaster to say this, I love Christmas carols on the radio. I will find whatever crappy FM station plays like whatever kind of whatever unpopular music during the other 11 months, and then switches to Carol’s during December, and I will listen to that every single time I get in the car, up until and even a few days after Christmas. And I like it so much. I stopped and I asked my wife, I said, you know what? I guess this isn’t a question. This is more of a statement. I said, I wish that there were seasonal musics throughout the year. I want. Wouldn’t it be great if there was just like, two weeks of Irish step dancing and rogues and and like, I don’t, I don’t know what you call it, shanty is not the right word, but, but for St Patrick’s Day and like, if there was just, like, the week leading up to fourth of July, there was just patriotic, like, marches and things, yes, it places me so comfortably in a in a time it’s like, oh, it’s the Christmas season now, and I’m gonna listen to, like, Frank Sinatra sing that old song. I don’t want to listen to it any other time of year. I don’t think that the music is all that remarkable, but it really hits a nerve for me every time around this year.

 

Ellie Kemper  11:29

I couldn’t agree more. It’s the first time I’ve heard of this idea to insert seasonal music into every season. I think that is a brilliant idea. First of all, it would keep me grounded, or it would keep me knowledgeable of what time of year it is, because sometimes I forget what time of year it is right, doesn’t everybody well.

 

Scott Eckert  11:50

As long time listeners know you recently moved to California, and here in SoCal there, there ain’t no seasons, guys, they’re all the same.

 

Ellie Kemper  11:57

They’re all the same. I have no I keep thinking, oh my gosh, I need to get ready for Christmas. And it is that time, but it’s very warm out, so it’s my brain is all over the place. I’m out of sorts. If I had, well, I do have, right now Christmas music grounding me, keeping me more to the Christmas season, the holiday season, if I I mean, are you kidding me, Valentine’s Day tunes? Are you kidding we already it’s like, we already have the songs, Scott, we just need to put them in their categories, and then we can play them to our hearts content. I think that’s a great idea, like.

 

Scott Eckert  12:31

Like I wish that, like every artist, musical artist, over the course of their career, would have to do a sell out Christmas album, right? They do. They do that, but they had to do that for other holidays as well, like, if what’s the, what’s the iconic Mariah Carey Halloween song, that’s Monster Mash is pretty much all we’ve got. We’ve got with the Ghostbusters song, I want, like 10 others over decades, and I want them to have the same status that, oh, what Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, what’s the most recent Christmas tune that sort of entered the Pantheon? Is it, what’s that Kelly Clarkson song?

 

Ellie Kemper  13:10

Oh, is she just covering a Christmas song?

 

Scott Eckert  13:14

No, she has a great and iconic Christmas song that I think is the closest to that.

 

Ellie Kemper  13:20

Did she wrote?

 

Scott Eckert  13:21

I mean, I don’t know. Does she write her songs, or does she just sing them? I don’t know.

 

Ellie Kemper  13:25

I don’t know. Oh, okay, well, now I’m just gonna take a second to look at you for Christmas. Is that what it’s called? Well, she has.

 

Scott Eckert  13:30

Christmas underneath the tree. Is that it? Well, the tree, that’s the sound of our lawyers saying, No, you can’t. You don’t have the rights to that.

 

Ellie Kemper  13:41

Rights to sing it so beautiful. Nobody has the right to sing it as you as beautifully as you just did, Scott nobody.

 

Scott Eckert  13:48

The crime isn’t.

 

Ellie Kemper  13:50

A copyright issue. Talent got unbelievable. But yes, I well, first of all, I just want to say, like, I’m sure if you went through the Taylor Swift discography, you would be able to select songs and organize them according to whatever season it is. I guarantee you you have to be a little creative with some but there’s enough there that I could apply it to any season of the year. I love that idea, Scott. I too, enjoy. And by the way, you should, as a podcast host, you should feel no shame. You’re in you’re embracing radio. You’re telling people, listen to the radio. I mean, what a great idea, but there’s nothing better than a soft rock station playing and especially Scott when they go, they’re like and starting at 12pm on Christmas Eve, we’ll be playing 24 hours of nuts. And I’m just like, Yes, I don’t know what it is, but it’s like, that’s where we’ll be for the next 24 hours just listening to familiar holiday tunes. And I love it, and that’s a great Christmas tradition, one of my favorites, too. To I got to go right into a holiday tradition I love, because it’s sort of a hot take.

 

Scott Eckert  15:06

Oh, hot take. All right, I can’t wait to hear it. What is it that you love about the holiday season, Ellie?

 

Ellie Kemper  15:13

Holiday travel.

 

Scott Eckert  15:16

What?

 

Ellie Kemper  15:18

Yeah.

 

Scott Eckert  15:18

That sound you heard was my jaw hitting the desk, yeah, holiday travel.

 

Ellie Kemper  15:23

It was silence, and then your jaw hitting the desk hard, because you can’t believe it. I love holiday travel. There are some caveats that I will insert, because I am when I refer, when I’m referring to holiday travel. Okay, everyone says, oh, you can’t fly on these days. You can’t fly the Oh, It’s the busiest. Oh, what a nightmare, the airport, all of it. Here’s the thing I am speaking of holiday travel when you’re purely traveling to go see friends, to go see family, to go meet a new romantic pursuit, where the stakes are not high, the stakes are low. If your plane gets delayed, it will be very inconvenient. It might cost you a hotel room, which I hope the airline ends up paying for. None of these are extreme circumstances. These are inconveniences, sometimes minor, sometimes major, but they’re not going to ruin the year. They’re going to be annoying. But what I love is that we’re all facing the same challenges, like we are all trying to get to the airport. We are all trying to get to our flight flights on time. We are all battling children of any age or size not doing what we want them to do. We’re all trying to stand in line to get coffee for some reason, like you’re gonna, like, be exhausted on the plane anyway. I don’t know why you need coffee from the airport. And we’re all in it together. And I just love it. It’s chaotic, it’s messy. The stakes are fairly low. It’s annoying, but we’re all in it together.

 

Scott Eckert  16:56

I Ellie, I I think that you just put your finger on something that I also love, and maybe it’s not holiday travel specifically, but sort of more generically, the idea of holiday solidarity that we are all going through it, right? There are a lot of people, and sometimes I’m one of them who hate the holidays, right? There’s a lot of stuff that we may not enjoy. I mean, of course, family can always be tricky, but, but, but I do appreciate, yes, what you’re saying is that we’re all in it together. There’s a 330 million Americans right around this time who are going through what you’re going through. And that is and that is rare. That doesn’t always happen, you know. And I remember this is a I can’t remember this is a Thanksgiving memory or a Christmas memory, but it’s a turkey dinner memory. I was at my in laws place for the holidays, and my mother in law was cooking a turkey, and I needed to go pick something up, like the day before, whatever. So I went to the grocery store. Blessed relief, right? Who doesn’t love a grocery store run during the holiday? Never in life is is a group of people more eager to go to the grocery store than the holidays? When you it’s all, yo, we need to all run out. I’ll grab that. But anyway.

 

Ellie Kemper  18:15

But that, sorry, just to interrupt. Then, you know, some in laws like, Oh, I’ll go to keep you company. You’re like, no.

 

Scott Eckert  18:20

Sometimes the best one, the best one is like, who get it’s like, whoever. It’s a little bit in my family, it’s a little bit dibs, right? Whoever’s got dibs is the first person said, I’ll go get it. But then usually one other person can come right, and it’s in my family. Now it’s like, is it gonna be my daughter? Is it gonna be my wife? Is it gonna be my sister? Is gonna be my mom? They all wanna get out. They all wanna come with me and that, that whatever, that’s another tricky thing to navigate. But anyway, in this instance, I remember being by myself, and I remember what I was picking up, but I definitely remember what the person in front of me was picking up. I’m gonna try to find this because I did think I posted it on Twitter many years ago, like 15 years ago, there was a guy in front of me, an older guy who looked as beleaguered as any man I’ve ever seen, and he had, like, four packs of butter. So it was what four times four? When it was 12. What is that? What’s four times four, Ellie?

 

Ellie Kemper  19:19

Well, I’m so […] I know what it is.

 

Scott Eckert  19:22

It’s 16. Just 16 sticks of butter anyway. So six, four times, four guys, 16. I knew that there was an extended bit this guy, this beleaguered man, is checking out, and the only thing that he has on the little like check out covera belt are 16 sticks of butter, a bottle of gin, a bottle of vodka, a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of rum and a bottle of expensive whiskey.

 

Ellie Kemper  19:53

Oh, my.

 

Scott Eckert  19:55

It was like so I’ve never seen one person buy so. Bunch booze. COVID was also buying butter, and I was like, Hey, man, I’m right there with you.

 

Ellie Kemper  20:06

Did you guys talk? I pray?

 

Scott Eckert  20:09

No, we didn’t speak.

 

Ellie Kemper  20:10

No, your eyes said all that needed to be said that, Scott, you just illustrated exactly what I’m talking the kind of solidarity I’m referring to. It’s like, it’s why people bond, or people all relate to whatever is your favorite Christmas movie, Christmas vacation, Home Alone. Polar Express, because we’re all facing the same adversity. It’s like we in united. We grow strong, and we are all in it together and like, and specifically, do you know, I always love traveling on an airplane alone or with children, because when you’re on the airplane, you’re just like, time is sort of suspended, and you’re just there, and it’s like, whatever, you can’t really do that much. I know this, a lot of people probably feel this way. It’s like so much is out of your control by that point, and it’s freeing, you know, in a very, in a very ironic way, it’s sort of freeing being so out of control.

 

Scott Eckert  21:07

What about a car trip are you a holiday car tripper? Because that’s also a thing, like trains, planes, not on the meals. One of the great, great holiday films, John Candy, Steve Martin. It’s an oldie, but a goodie. Just question that you did, essentially, does it hold up? I haven’t seen it in a while.

 

Ellie Kemper  21:24

Holds up? Great. I mean, it doesn’t. It’s clearly dated, but it’s like, just fantastic, but so, yeah.

 

Scott Eckert  21:29

Spoiler alert, the premise of that film, he’s, he’s got, he’s got to take a lot of different transportation methods to get home in time for Christmas. The two of them together, but, yeah, the airplane holiday travel is that’s a unique circumstance, but I find that that it’s also like all everybody piling into the car and going over not even a long trip. I remember when I was a kid, just like the whole family’s getting into the car and we’re driving across town to go to like, a holiday party with my with my dad’s work friend, and it was like this, this family that we only saw once a year. And then it was just like the adults upstairs, like having drinks and eggnog and cookies, and the kids, who are like basically strangers, warily eyeing each other in the basement.

 

Ellie Kemper  22:19

Why did the adults get all the cookies.

 

Scott Eckert  22:23

I’m sure we got cookies too.

 

Ellie Kemper  22:26

That’s exactly right. I mean, you’re right. There’s the one thing of like, okay, we’re going. Here we go. We’re going on a road trip, Providence to Ohio, a trip my friend takes every year. You guys are all in the car together. I haven’t done a long car trip like that. I don’t think I would like that as much because I’m not in it with everybody else. I’m just in it with my family. I’m talking about being in it with my fellow Americans. I guess I’m in it on the road. I can see the other families making and by the way, love that too, looking out the window to see other beleaguered families like there’s nothing. Misery loves company. And so that’s sort of what I’m describing here. It’s a it’s a hot take on a holiday tradition. But I heart. I love holiday travel. Okay, Scott, any other holiday traditions that call your name?

 

Scott Eckert  23:09

Well, I got a quick, I mean, this is not love it or loathe it. I just got a quick a couple of classic items. It’s funny that our topic is holiday, holiday traditions, and where we landed was Christmas tunes on the radio and holiday travel. So let’s give the people what they want. Okay, let’s get you’re right, Christmas stockings. What’s what? How do they do it in the in the Kemper household, do you guys have stockings?

 

Ellie Kemper  23:33

We stuff it with multi flavor popcorn. We call it a day. Yes, we have, we have stockings. We hang them up. We all get together on Christmas morning. There’s a bunch of cousins and stuff, and we all hang them up.

 

Scott Eckert  23:45

Wait, do you hang them up on Christmas morning or Christmas Eve? When do you hang because this is the thing decorating. My mother’s family, they would decorate like the day after Thanksgiving, so all the decorations up super early. My father’s family, I think I’m remembering this correctly, that Santa would bring the tree so there was nothing like No, no big decorations until Christmas morning. So those are, those are sort of two ends of the of the spectrum. And I grew up, they settled in the middle, which, like, you know, a couple, maybe two weeks before decorate. Well, where do you land on the spectrum […]

 

Ellie Kemper  24:20

We have been. So in my what’s is your immediate family, just the four of you? Is it the nuclear family? Yeah, I think so, yeah. My immediate family, my nuclear family, we have been. It changes every year, depending on the excitement from my boys. So if my boys are very eager to decorate, we decorate really early. If they haven’t shown so much of an interest this year. So we’re taking it slow. But the other thing is, I don’t know if this, anybody else says this, If we’re celebrating Christmas itself in a different city than where we live, so we don’t go all out at our home decorations. What about you? Do you? Do you go all out at home? I know that you guys celebrate Hanukkah, so I don’t know if you Dec. Rate for Christmas or no.

 

Scott Eckert  25:02

We added me, Ellie, you added me as a Christmas fraud? No, I grew up.

 

Ellie Kemper  25:06

I was like, when will when will I get this in? I grew up.

 

Scott Eckert  25:11

Secular, I grew up pretty secular, and we celebrated Christmas, but it was like a Santa oriented Christmas. And then my wife is Jewish, and we and we’re a Jewish family now, and my children celebrate Hanukkah and the High Holidays and all that, but, but I did insist we will continue to celebrate secular American Christmas, and it’s the best holiday of the year. Oh, we just we do we go all out big tree, wildly expensive tree. The trees are so expensive these days. Am I right? Guys, they’re so expensive.

 

Ellie Kemper  25:39

Are you getting a real tree?

 

Scott Eckert  25:40

Real tree every time, baby, every time.

 

Ellie Kemper  25:43

I started getting fake tree, fake trees. Because when we were in New York, it’s just so much easier, and there’s nothing spilling, and I don’t have to take the pine tree down the elevator and all the you know. And we haven’t gotten a tree here yet. We just haven’t gotten one. But I’m wondering if I’ll go if I’ll go real or if I’ll go fake. I don’t know. I mean, you do, there’s nothing like the smell of that fur, F I R.

 

Scott Eckert  26:04

F I R, baby. Yeah, no, that’s true, but, but if you’re, I mean, if you’re celebrating actual Christmas in another town, it makes sense, maybe, maybe don’t get a real tree. I was jealous. My sister just revealed to me the cost of her reusable, like, fake tree, and I was like, that’s significantly less than a single use real tree. And I had a crisis of faith, but I think I’m gonna stick with real.

 

Ellie Kemper  26:30

Oh, I’ll tell you another one. I mean, this is just so obvious. A favorite holiday tradition is the cookies. I mean, I am not a baker, and I make, no, I don’t pretend. Otherwise, it’s like, I don’t pretend to bake. I don’t, I’m not good at it, but I love eating. What other people bake? And so I, you know, it’s people. There’s something about certain cookies that only come out during the holiday. Like, I’m thinking about ginger snaps.

 

Scott Eckert  26:55

Ginger Snaps that was on the tip of my tongue.

 

Ellie Kemper  26:58

Yeah. I’m thinking about, Well, Scott, that’s about it. Ginger Snaps, frankly, sugar cookies. I’m not eating sugar cookies at other times of the year. And it’s just it activates whatever nerve is in your tongue that activates your brain to think, Christmas, Christmas. And then it brings you right back. It’s that first time.

 

Scott Eckert  27:15

I recently bought some I may have shared this with you. Off mic, I can’t remember. I went to the grocery store. A lot of these grocery store anecdotes, all happening Scott, where I spent a lot of my time. I went to the grocery store, and I was in a sad place, and I saw chessmen cookies. And every time the chessmen cookies, they call to me, because here’s the thing, they’re not that great. No, they’re not that great. They’re not the greatest cookies, but they have a very specific buttery flavor that that when I’m in a bad mood, I’m tempted by and normally I resist the temptation. But this day, a couple days ago, a week ago, something I resist. I failed to resist the temptation. I succumbed to it. I bought the ginger or not, the ginger, the chessmen cookies. And I was so excited, and I was gonna eat a couple of them in the car on my way back to the house, but then I opened them and discovered with disgust, that they were eggnog flavored chessmen.

 

Ellie Kemper  28:17

No, you, everybody’s taking it too far. It’s like, that’s terrible. No, that’s not. No, I’m sorry. That happens, Scott.

 

Scott Eckert  28:24

Peppermint cookies. I guess that’s another one. Eggnog, peppermint ginger snap.

 

Ellie Kemper  28:29

My mom makes a peppermint pie. That is a graham cracker crust with peppermint ice cream covered in hot fudge. And it’s like, When am I eating? I’m not gonna eat that in May. I’m only eating I mean, don’t make me laugh. It’s delicious. It counts as a pie. Easy. She’s listening.

 

Scott Eckert  28:50

Okay. Well, I gotta tell you the number one, my number one reaction to hearing about this pie is delicious, although I do question the classification as a pie. So, so if it were just, if it were cold fudge, then I think it would be plausibly a pie.

 

Ellie Kemper  29:08

It’s frozen. And you said it was hot fudge? Oh, I did. I don’t know what it is. I don’t need it that much.

 

Scott Eckert  29:14

Chocolate topping. Scott.

 

Ellie Kemper  29:17

I’m gonna close out our discussion of holiday traditions with another Hot take, and it’s more it’s sort of a word of caution, but I think it’s going to enrich a lot of people’s holidays, because this is a tradition, and it’s it’s like it or not, it’s here to stay. Your family members are going to get sick. Just accept it. Somebody’s going to get a cold, somebody’s going to get the flu, somebody’s going to get COVID. And catching me by surprise every year, every year, I think, why does James have an ear infection? Why does Matthew have croup? What, because it’s gonna.

 

Scott Eckert  29:48

Cough again. Oh, no. Lindsay’s got the flu. Lindsay needs to take a nap, yeah.

 

Ellie Kemper  29:57

It’s gonna happen. You guys. It’s a holiday. Tradition, love it or loathe it doesn’t matter. It germs don’t care. So just brace for it. And you know what? If I I hope it’s not too serious. I hope it can be dealt with at an urgent care near you. And so those sorts of things. Well, again, it’s solidarity. You go to urgent care and you’re like, there we go. Last time I was in urgent care, I got a big Hang in there, Mama. From my fellow mom, a fellow mom stuck in urgent care over the holidays. And I thought, you too, Mama. And it’s just nice.

 

Scott Eckert  30:27

Well, that’s the definitive Born to Love list of Christmas traditions. We’ve got holiday tunes on the radio, loving holiday travel and going to urgent care. So I’ve got a game. I’ve got a game for you, Ellie. It’s not love it or loathe it. I think that listeners may know it, but stick around after the ad break and Ellie and I are gonna play a holiday themed game.

 

Ellie Kemper  31:05

And we’re back. Okay, you guys, we’ve been talking a lot, a lot, a lot about Christmas and the holidays during this episode, Scott and I are gonna play a game called Love is really blind. Scott, you explain it. You explain things better than I do.

 

Scott Eckert  31:20

All right, here’s the deal, Ellie, I am going to get you to rank five items. But the thing is that I’m not gonna tell you what they all are ahead of time. You gotta rank them blind. That’s the game. Love is really blind, today, for our holiday themed episode, we’re gonna touch on something that we’ve avoided throughout this entire conversation, and that is gifts. So Ellie, I’m gonna give you five Christmas gifts I want I want you to or holiday gifts. I want you to imagine that you’ve received this as some sort of secret Santa. These are secret santa gifts.

 

Ellie Kemper  31:57

Yes.

 

Scott Eckert  31:57

And you’ve got to rank them one to five, all right, one at a time, and then at the end, I’m gonna get you whatever number one is. That’s the little twist. You didn’t know that. It’s a surprise. I’m gonna give you the real number one. Okay, here we go.

 

Ellie Kemper  32:14

I’m thrilled. Okay, I hope it’s a jaguar, okay.

 

Scott Eckert  32:19

first item, where does it fall? Ranked one to five, a family photo wall calendar. You know, you go to a website that makes photos, and you make a calendar. 12 month count hangs on the wall, family photos.

 

Ellie Kemper  32:33

What family member? There’s certain family members I want to look at, and certain ones I don’t want to look at. For all you don’t get to pick okay, but is it just the four of us, or is it my whole extended family.

 

Scott Eckert  32:45

Sits probably your extended family, some extended family is included because.

 

Ellie Kemper  32:50

I mean, that does determine, like, you know certain faces.

 

Scott Eckert  32:53

Where it ranks, yeah, it ranks a little more highly. We’re not gonna say which one ranks more highly.

 

Ellie Kemper  32:58

Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m gonna hurt some feelings here, probably, but as a gift, yes, I feel I would do a five, but you’re gonna give me a worse. So I’m gonna say, Well, Scott, I don’t like the calendars I like are calendars of Central Park, calendars of famous gardens, or calendars of like landscapes. So I don’t want to see my family up there, because I see them every day, so I’m going to put that at 405. But four. Love you so much. Komen family. I love you.

 

Scott Eckert  33:32

I’m frankly shocked by your hostility to the family wall calendar.

 

Ellie Kemper  33:37

Because I also feel like it’s sort of, it’s I’m feeling angry as I’m talking about this. It seems like, ah, not lazy, but i don’t know i I’m not, I’m not thrilled to receive it.

 

Scott Eckert  33:48

Here we go. I the second item for Secret Santa, a $35 Target gift card.

 

Ellie Kemper  33:55

Okay, now I’m gonna put that as number one. I really can’t imagine something.

 

Scott Eckert  34:01

Yeah, that is so funny. Okay, all right, next item. Next item, a novelty t shirt that says, Being a mom is my jam, and it’s like on a jam jar.

 

Ellie Kemper  34:17

Do I have to wear that? Where am I wearing the t shirt? I would love to wear that T shirt to bed, I would.

 

Scott Eckert  34:22

You can wear it wherever you like. It’s just a gift you receive for Christmas or for holiday, for holiday gift exchange

 

Ellie Kemper  34:29

I’m gonna do it’s gonna be three, okay it’s ahead of the family calendar, but behind the Target gift card.

 

Scott Eckert  34:37

Okay, next.

 

Ellie Kemper  34:38

I like it.  I like the shift.

 

Scott Eckert  34:41

A scented candle?

 

Ellie Kemper  34:43

Oh, well, guess where we’re going now, this is going to be so strange, because that is def I actually like scented candles. Some people might say, oh, woof, definite five. But I’m finding myself with the options of two or five right now, and I just pray that the next one you’re giving me is bad. Because I love a scented candle, I do.

 

Scott Eckert  35:02

Scented candle to me, too. All right, scented candle, it to me is, strikes me as another sort of default gift, and the kid doesn’t. The kid doesn’t know what to get. Mom, maybe scented candle is.

 

Ellie Kemper  35:15

Let me chime in, because it is not something you would get yourself. Who’s buying themselves scented candles. Nobody rely on others to give it to you, just like Target gift cards. You’re not gonna buy yourself a Target gift card.

 

Scott Eckert  35:28

And I’m a little bit disappointed, because I hoped you would ask me what scent the scented candle was, and I did prepare an answer.

 

Ellie Kemper  35:35

Yeah, is it poop scent? I should have asked, what scent is it?

 

Scott Eckert  35:42

Well, now it is, now scent. No, I the scent. The scent is rose water. Fine, because I don’t really know what that is.

 

Ellie Kemper  35:51

No, I don’t either, but I think it would. It reminds me of what like a boutique locker room might smell like. So I’m going to go like a rose water enter our rose water scented spa. So, yeah, I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I would never get that for myself.

 

Scott Eckert  36:05

All right, last one, and it’s ranked five, you’re locked in. Maybe it’s gonna be your favorite one. Maybe you say, Oh, I wish I had gotten that a sweater.

 

Ellie Kemper  36:14

Oh, I mean, I’m not happy. I would have put it as four, but it has to be five.

 

Scott Eckert  36:20

It definitely would have displaced the family calendar, knowing what you know now, family calendar would be way at the bottom.

 

Ellie Kemper  36:30

All these photos of my family all over. So I don’t need a calendar of it, because I and especially one that changes every month.

 

Scott Eckert  36:40

No, unfortunately, it’s October, and there’s pictures of my kids in their Halloween costumes from last year. And had to look.

 

Ellie Kemper  36:50

At this for what 30? Oh, no, 31 days. Oh, barf.

 

Scott Eckert  36:55

Oh, my God, Ellie, because I know we gone on long enough. So I’ll keep this very brief. We forgot my favorite holiday tradition, and I didn’t bring it up because it was gift related. I was going to save it. And then I then I totally forgot. It just occurred to me now, I came up with the single best, my favorite by far, holiday tradition three years ago. And here’s what it is, I’ll explain it very briefly. Christmas Eve dinner, you’re with everybody who’s going to be there. Christmas morning is there. You’re all together. You’re sitting around after dinner, and everybody has to go around the table and say, and it’s got to be late at night, okay? Meaning it needs to be after the scores have closed on Christmas Eve, everybody has to say what gift they most would like to get, and also what gift secretly, in the back of their in the back of their minds, their heart whispers, I’d be disappointed to get this.

 

Ellie Kemper  38:00

Wait, that’s a game you actually play.

 

Scott Eckert  38:02

Force this. I force my family to play this game, and it is fantastic, because there’s so much intensity, because you you hear what people really most want, and you better hope that they got that right? If my wife is like, all I really want is, like a pair of pants or whatever, whatever she wants, and it’s like, shit I didn’t get that, and it’s too late. It’s too late to get it. And then conversely, of course, as your mind’s jumped to if they say, the gift you got, your heart breaks.

 

Ellie Kemper  38:41

Scott, why you do this to yourselves is it’s beyond me. It almost sounds wicked, but I understand it’s also.

 

Scott Eckert  38:51

By wicked, you mean Delicious?

 

Ellie Kemper  38:53

Delicious, that’s the word I was gonna use. Scott, it’s wickedly delicious, like any good treat should be so.

 

Scott Eckert  39:01

So that’s we normally. This is the time in the show where we say, what are we looking forward to? And I’m telling you, I’m looking forward to playing that game on Christmas Eve. Ellie, is there anything you’re looking forward to this week?

 

Ellie Kemper  39:11

Scott, I mean, no brainer. What do you think I’m looking forward to this week? Who heads to the airport Sunday evening in a rush of adrenaline and cortisol and cortisone and frantic energy and secretly loving it the entire time. That’s me and my family. Sunday night flying all hell is gonna break loose. I can’t wait. We’re ticking off late. We’re landing late. Everyone’s gonna be grumpy. It’s gonna be a mess. People are gonna get sick. I can’t wait. I’m looking forward to the holiday travel, and I hope everybody else has, you know, something to look forward to this week in the realm of travel or staying home, or whatever.

 

Scott Eckert  39:56

Staying home or celebrating the holidays or not celebrating, you know. It’s a season to be grateful, and we’re grateful to all of you for listening to another episode of born to love if you want to find me, I am @meScottEckert on Twitter, you can also leave us a five star review. We’d appreciate it. And if you have any other thoughts or questions about the show, you can send us an email at borntolovefeedback@gmail.com.

 

CREDITS  40:21

And if you want to find me, I’m @EllieKemper on Instagram. There is more born to love with Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content where we flip the script and talk about something we don’t love. And this week, I am going to be griping about enormous SUVs, and specifically the one that I happen to be driving right now, it’s no fun. I don’t like it. That’s too big. Here are gripes, and not just our loves, but only if you subscribe in apple. PodcastsBorn to Love is a production of Lemonada Media our producers are Kegan Zema and Aria Bracci.  Our engineers are Ivan Kuraev and James Sparber. Our SVP of weekly production is Steve Nelson, and our cover art photography is by Tony Russo.  Executive Producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer, Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Ellie Kemper and Scott Eckert follow Born To Love. Wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership, we’ll be back next week with more Born To Love, but before we go, in the immortal words of Buddy the Elf, you stink. You smell like beef and cheese. You don’t smell like Santa.