Holiday Special: Gray Hair Dave Reminisces About Christmas Past

Join Gray Hair Dave in this heartfelt Christmas special as he reflects on cherished holiday traditions and the importance of family during this festive season. With a warm and nostalgic tone, Dave shares memories of selecting Christmas trees with his family, highlighting the joy and excitement these experiences brought him. He discusses the evolution of traditions as families grow and change, emphasizing how new generations create their own unique celebrations. Throughout the episode, Dave encourages listeners to think about their own holiday traditions and the significance of joy, faith, and togetherness. As he wraps up, he reminds everyone to cherish the moments spent with loved ones and to spread kindness during this special time of year.
Gray Hair Dave invites listeners to a heartfelt Christmas special, reflecting on cherished holiday memories and the importance of family traditions during this festive season. As he shares his personal experiences, listeners are taken on a nostalgic journey through the joys of selecting Christmas trees, complete with hay rides and warm cider, emphasizing the simple pleasures that make the holidays special. Dave's storytelling captures the essence of family gatherings, the joy of decorating the tree, and the warmth of togetherness, even as he acknowledges the changes life brings, such as growing up and starting new traditions with his own family.
Throughout the episode, Dave discusses the significance of working on holidays, highlighting the camaraderie among those who share in this experience. He expresses his appreciation for being able to give others the chance to spend time with their loved ones while fostering a unique bond with his fellow workers. This theme of connection runs through the episode, as he encourages listeners to reflect on their own holiday traditions and to create new ones that honor their loved ones. By the end, he leaves listeners with a warm message about the spirit of Christmas, urging everyone to cherish the moments spent with family, friends, and even co-workers during this special time of year.
Takeaways:
- Gray Hair Dave reminisces about cherished family Christmas traditions and the joy they bring.
- He emphasizes the importance of working during the holidays to support others' family time.
- The podcast reflects on how family traditions evolve as children grow and families change.
- Dave encourages listeners to build their own holiday traditions and cherish those memories.
- He discusses the significance of being with family, friends, and co-workers during the holiday season.
- Listeners are invited to share their own holiday traditions and experiences with him.
Links referenced in this episode:
00:00 - None
00:12 - A Surprise Return
02:07 - Memories of Christmas Traditions
04:35 - Reflecting on Family Traditions
07:34 - Building New Traditions
08:41 - Holiday Traditions and Celebrations
10:46 - The Importance of Podcasting
Oh, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.
Gray Hair Dave
Merry Christmas, folks.
Gray Hair Dave
Oh, Merry Christmas.
Gray Hair Dave
I said I wasn't coming back until the first of the year, but I had the day off today.
Gray Hair Dave
Today is for me, it's jets.
Gray Hair Dave
December 24, 2024.
Gray Hair Dave
And I was up early today and got a bunch of things done.
Gray Hair Dave
And I thought about family and traditions and all the things that, that I used to do with my family and her friends when I was younger.
Gray Hair Dave
And I want to talk about it for a couple of minutes.
Gray Hair Dave
Thought you might enjoy that.
Gray Hair Dave
I do have to work tomorrow.
Gray Hair Dave
I'll be.
Gray Hair Dave
Oh, Gray hair day at work tomorrow.
Gray Hair Dave
And I like to work on the holidays for two reasons.
Gray Hair Dave
One, it.
Gray Hair Dave
Hopefully it gives somebody with family or kids the ability to take the day off and be with them.
Gray Hair Dave
And you know, the people that do work on the holidays, they, they have a special little bond that they have together because they had to work the holidays, whether it's Christmas or New Year's or Fourth of July, whatever it is.
Gray Hair Dave
And you know, you kind of, you got, you don't commiserate together, you celebrate together.
Gray Hair Dave
And I enjoy that.
Gray Hair Dave
It's kind of nice.
Gray Hair Dave
Now, sometimes we get lucky and get fed on Christmas Day.
Gray Hair Dave
Certain departments will go ahead and put out a spread for us.
Gray Hair Dave
I don't know if that's going to happen for me this tomorrow or not, but we'll find out, you know, but I remember when I was young.
Gray Hair Dave
I'm sure you all do, too.
Gray Hair Dave
And if you're still young, I'm sure you're building those memories now.
Gray Hair Dave
And it was, it was exciting to go get the Christmas tree.
Gray Hair Dave
Do you all remember going to get the Christmas tree?
Gray Hair Dave
Whether that was at a.
Gray Hair Dave
A Christmas tree lot or a Christmas tree farm?
Gray Hair Dave
I know that for the longest time we went to a Christmas tree lot.
Gray Hair Dave
I mean, I'm sorry, Christmas tree farm.
Gray Hair Dave
And one of the cool thing was you got to go ride a hay ride out to where you might find your, you know, your Christmas tree.
Gray Hair Dave
And then you'd find it, you'd cut it down and you load it into the back of that, of that trailer again with hay all over it.
Gray Hair Dave
And you'd take it back up and get ready to pay for it.
Gray Hair Dave
And you'd go inside for some hot cider and freshly made donuts.
Gray Hair Dave
I remember those days.
Gray Hair Dave
Those are fond days.
Gray Hair Dave
I realized that some of those days were done without my older brothers because they had moved out of the house or they were in college or, you know, they're married a lot because I was so much younger than them that mom and dad and I still did those things.
Gray Hair Dave
But it was fun when Paul and Tim were around to do them, too.
Gray Hair Dave
And then, you know, we get home, we'd put it in the stand and let it sit for a little bit, get the decorations out, string the lights, and it'd be a fun evening with the family.
Gray Hair Dave
Even though.
Gray Hair Dave
Even though my dad was not big on putting decorations on the tree, he was involved.
Gray Hair Dave
But mom enjoyed it.
Gray Hair Dave
I enjoyed it.
Gray Hair Dave
I think Paul and Tim enjoyed it too.
Gray Hair Dave
It was a lot of fun.
Gray Hair Dave
And we did have usually some Christmas music playing in the background.
Gray Hair Dave
And it's nice, you know, as years went on, we stopped going to the Christmas tree farm and we started going to a lot, you know, just Christmas tree lot.
Gray Hair Dave
And I remember one time, my friends and I, we got together with my girlfriend and.
Gray Hair Dave
And we decided that we were going to go out and get my mom and dad a tree this year.
Gray Hair Dave
And it was so much fun because we got it all set up for them.
Gray Hair Dave
And when they got home, they got.
Gray Hair Dave
They saw.
Gray Hair Dave
They were so excited.
Gray Hair Dave
It was so much fun for us.
Gray Hair Dave
My friend Bill was with me.
Gray Hair Dave
My girlfriend at the time was there, and I believe Matt was there, But I'm not positive about that, but I'm pretty positive.
Gray Hair Dave
And we had fun going and doing that.
Gray Hair Dave
Things like that bring back great memories, and they give you such good memories.
Gray Hair Dave
I personally think my parents were great and.
Gray Hair Dave
And they showed it.
Gray Hair Dave
They, you know, they.
Gray Hair Dave
They gave it back.
Gray Hair Dave
Now, I'm saying all this because eventually they.
Gray Hair Dave
They moved out of the house we lived in most of my life, and they moved into a.
Gray Hair Dave
A smaller house and they had.
Gray Hair Dave
I believe we gave.
Gray Hair Dave
We.
Gray Hair Dave
They had a tree for a while, for a few years.
Gray Hair Dave
And then as they got sick, we really didn't do it as much.
Gray Hair Dave
I think we went to a artificial tree, maybe not.
Gray Hair Dave
I don't really remember the end there because I had moved away, too.
Gray Hair Dave
I'd gotten married and moved away, too.
Gray Hair Dave
And then you have your new traditions because you have your own new family now.
Gray Hair Dave
You know, my brothers had kids, so it was more about the kids, because it should be.
Gray Hair Dave
Christmas is about kids.
Gray Hair Dave
It's also about, you know, Christ's birthday and it's also about family.
Gray Hair Dave
And these are my opinions, folks.
Gray Hair Dave
Don't take this as gospel, but I was also thinking about God today and that which made me go and do this.
Gray Hair Dave
I think he's.
Gray Hair Dave
He was the one who decided I was going to go and record this today because he thought I had something to say to you, and I do, but you are building, you know, the traditions of your family.
Gray Hair Dave
And I watch my brothers and their kids and their traditions are going on.
Gray Hair Dave
They're starting new traditions for the.
Gray Hair Dave
My brother's kids have, are starting their new traditions or they're doing, they're doing things their way because their kids are, you know, they've all got kids and they're getting older and, and they enjoy themselves.
Gray Hair Dave
But, you know, so all of a sudden, mom and dad turn into the ones that go to the kids houses for Christmas to watch the kids open their presents and have dinner and all those fun things and, and it's less work for my, you know, for mom and dad because basically the cleanups are not as bad because you're not at your own house.
Gray Hair Dave
Right.
Gray Hair Dave
Well, it's not nice, but it is true.
Gray Hair Dave
So the traditions change.
Gray Hair Dave
And I think back about the traditions that we had and I wonder.
Gray Hair Dave
I know, number one and I, we, we tried to have kids and we didn't.
Gray Hair Dave
We weren't able to.
Gray Hair Dave
That's another podcast.
Gray Hair Dave
But it's, you know, we had, we started building our own little traditions and so did number two and I.
Gray Hair Dave
And it was fun and it was enjoyable and it lasted for, for a long time.
Gray Hair Dave
It did that good feeling, the feeling of joy and excitement and happiness, which is what the season is all about, isn't it?
Gray Hair Dave
Feeling joy, happiness, faith, being with family, being with friends.
Gray Hair Dave
Yeah.
Gray Hair Dave
Even being with your co workers, if that's where you got to be.
Gray Hair Dave
Because people take vacations and that's their tradition, and I'm part of the hospitality industry, and that's what we do, you know, that's what we do.
Gray Hair Dave
We're here so they can be on vacation and be at Disney World.
Gray Hair Dave
Do they think about us not being at home?
Gray Hair Dave
I don't know.
Gray Hair Dave
Maybe.
Gray Hair Dave
Maybe they do, maybe they don't.
Gray Hair Dave
But I, you know, I just wanted to talk to you about it today.
Gray Hair Dave
I'm curious about what your, your holiday traditions are.
Gray Hair Dave
There are people all over the country, all over the world who listen to this podcast, and I'm curious what your traditions are.
Gray Hair Dave
How do you do things at Christmas and New Year's?
Gray Hair Dave
Do you celebrate, you know, is it, do you celebrate Hanukkah this time of year?
Gray Hair Dave
Because I think it's that time.
Gray Hair Dave
It's that time of year, you know, Kwanzaa, there's a lot of, A lot of faiths out there that are celebrating this time of year.
Gray Hair Dave
This is an important time of year.
Gray Hair Dave
So that's what I had to say.
Gray Hair Dave
For today, don't forget to leave me a message on either.
Gray Hair Dave
You can leave me a voicemail, go to my website.
Gray Hair Dave
The number 5 minutes with gray hairedave.com, bottom right hand corner of any pages.
Gray Hair Dave
This little microphone, It's a little purple microphone.
Gray Hair Dave
Click on that.
Gray Hair Dave
You have to leave me your email, your name and email address.
Gray Hair Dave
And remember, I don't give out email addresses.
Gray Hair Dave
I keep them.
Gray Hair Dave
Or you can go to the Contact Me page.
Gray Hair Dave
Let me know what you think or what you're doing for the holidays or what traditions you have, and I'll be happy to talk about them next time we get together.
Gray Hair Dave
Also, folks, again, don't forget to tell your friends about me.
Gray Hair Dave
My name's Gray Hair Davis.
Gray Hair Dave
This is, you know, Gray Haired.
Gray Hair Dave
Five Minutes of Gray Hair Dave is just one of my podcasts.
Gray Hair Dave
The other one is Boomer Podcasters, where I teach and train people how to podcast.
Gray Hair Dave
And that's coming back in January, too.
Gray Hair Dave
I just took a small little break because it's been a little busy and everybody's busy and don't have.
Gray Hair Dave
They don't have as much time to listen.
Gray Hair Dave
So I appreciate those of you that are out there and doing this, and I'm happy you're there.
Gray Hair Dave
I'm happy both of you are there.
Gray Hair Dave
So you can look at either one of my websites.
Gray Hair Dave
It's five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.
Gray Hair Dave
That's the number.
Gray Hair Dave
Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.
Gray Hair Dave
Or you can go over to boomerpodcasters.com don't you check that out, see what you think.
Gray Hair Dave
Folks, if you know somebody who doesn't know what a podcast is, doesn't know how to find one, what genres are out there, if they might be interested or not.
Gray Hair Dave
Show them where they're at, show them how to find it, show them how to follow, subscribe, all those fun things.
Gray Hair Dave
I pray for you all to have a wonderful, happy new year and a fantastic Christmas season, Hanukkah season, Kwanzaa season, and I look forward to talking to you again in the new year.
Gray Hair Dave
So don't forget, smile at somebody today, folks.
Gray Hair Dave
You will make their day.
Gray Hair Dave
So on behalf of Gray Hair Dave here in Gray Hair Productions, please, please, have a safe holiday.
Gray Hair Dave
If you go out on New Year's Eve, don't be afraid to call an Uber if you have a couple of drinks, okay?
Gray Hair Dave
Because I want to keep you safe.
Gray Hair Dave
I want you coming back and listening.
Gray Hair Dave
All right?
Gray Hair Dave
So Merry Christmas from Gray Hair Dave.
Gray Hair Dave
Bye.