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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
Chris Bruno
Welcome back to the Restorative Man podcast. This is Chris Bruno and you guys, we are heading into the holiday seasons. And so I am super excited to be joined by my cohost, Jesse French. Jesse. Good to see you, man. Good to see you ⁓ hello. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Christmas. Yes. Happy Hanukkah. Happy new year. Happy. What is it? Is it even like Chinese New Year? It's not even Chinese Year. I don't
Jesse French
You Chris, hol up.
Chris Bruno
Okay, sorry, but ⁓ Things yeah, yeah, so Jesse one of the things I have a question for you about you mentioned this in another setting Just about an hour ago So I have to come back to it and that is that one of the things that you are anticipating this Christmas season Yeah, is to go cut your own Christmas tree
Jesse French
Tell the things, it's all.
Yes sir, yes sir.
Chris Bruno
Okay. So walk us through what that looks like in the Jesse French family.
Jesse French
Well, so I think this is maybe our fourth year that we've done it. And some of the backstories, there's a big forest fire kind in our backyard, the biggest one in Colorado, Camber Peak, that happened in 2021. Right after that fire was put out, they...
Chris Bruno
Wait, wait, so literally not in your backyard.
Jesse French
No metaphorically. Okay. backyard. Yes.
Chris Bruno
Metaphorically, I just I don't want I don't want listeners to freak out. Okay
Jesse French
I should have said this would like burned how many was it 230,000 acres.
Chris Bruno
It was a lot. So it was very large fire that was near.
Jesse French
Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Good clarification. Yes. And so after that, they opened up the area to where you could go, the national forest area that you could go and cut a tree for Christmas tree. they kind of, before the fire, was limited to some spaces after the fire, it got much larger. And so our family, that's a part of Colorado that we, that we love to go up and spend time in. And so for the last three, four years we've.
Gone. Usually it's like Thanksgiving weekend, kind of after Thanksgiving, drive up the canyon. It's pretty high, like elevation wise, like 10,000 feet. So there's snow there and we, you know, put on the snow boots, all the snow gear things and ⁓ trudge around the forest, which I know sounds just like a ball of fun and delight. ⁓ but you really do just kind of like walk around and
You're looking for a, as least homely of a Christmas tree as you can find. Right. So like the trees at the grocery stores, those are such, you know, perfectly beautiful things. You're maybe approximating a tree that'll be like 63 % of that capacity, right? Cause it's surviving in the harsh Colorado elements. So there's.
Chris Bruno
Doesn't look manicured. No, doesn't. Yeah, but it's you're trying to find one that looks as close to that as possible.
Jesse French
Decent. And of course, you know, you have a little bit of the advantage of, at least in our house, we put it in a corner. And so you can have kind of one bare spot on the tree and kind of try to hide it and put it against the wall. And, ⁓ so yeah, so we've done that for three or four years. Even before that, if I back up, this really was a tradition that why my wife's family was doing long before then at a different part of the state. And yeah, you, go, you get your tree.
Chris Bruno
You know
Jesse French
You then drag your tree back out, is just.
Chris Bruno
No, no, no,
Jesse French
Yeah. No, you, we've got, it's just like a handsaw variety. So I don't, you know, kind of a two foot blade and the diameter of the tree is only, it's not, it's not massive. You know, it's like four inches or so. Okay. But of course there's the debate over like which tree, right? And so all of the family can give some input over that. And depending on how cold it is, you know, the quality of the tree.
The standard for how good the tree has to be usually starts getting smaller as it gets colder, right? So you're just willing to depth some, some subpar ⁓ trees. And then, yeah. So then you cut it down, you drag it back out, which depending on where you've cut it, sometimes it's going uphill, which is again, just the light on a stick. Everyone's people's attitude never gets bad. They're out. always so pumped to be there.
Chris Bruno
Just.
No, always. They're just so excited. Yeah.
Jesse French
It's, it is just ripe with, ⁓ you can sense the sarcasm and I really do love it. Like I did say that an hour ago of this is one of the traditions that I anticipate doing.
Chris Bruno
So if that's the case, then what do you love about that?
Jesse French
⁓ there's something meaningful. I'm, you know, this about me, I'm very nostalgic. And so there's something that I have found more meaningful in the last four years as we've been able to go up, up to the canyon where we go often to actually say to go to that place and cut our tree from the place that like, sounds dramatic, but is maybe my favorite place.
in the state, that holds so much, so many memories of adventure and being outside. And so to, to have a tree from there that we can have in our house to look at, it gives off all the like warm fuzzy vibes for me of we didn't just sell out and get the King Super's tree or, you know, get a fake tree like those people. I never judged those people if you're one of those people. So
Chris Bruno
Because I am one of those people.
Jesse French
I've never judged you. No, never once.
Chris Bruno
And there's reasons, there's reasons on my end as well, but yeah. Okay. Yeah. What is the worst tree story?
Jesse French
Okay, so.
There's a running for two, there's multiple candidates. I'll go with, we took our kids when our kids were, we have three kids. I think the ages of our kids that winter were five, three, one, maybe six, four, two, could have been six, four, two, six, four, two, maybe is actually the accurate one. And so we went and this was one of those like cold, windy winter days. It was like half miserable to be outside. We.
You know, took too long picking the tree by about 20 minutes. kids understandably. And I'm aware too, we've talked in other podcast episodes around my kids like struggling. And so this might be another one of those stories. And I just, I want to say like, my kids are great. And when you're two years old and it's 12 degrees and the wind is blowing 40 miles an hour, you're not going to love your life. So we got our tree, kind of got back to the pickup. We're drinking our hot chocolate.
eating the lunch meal, as it were, being the nostalgic people that we are. My wife and I like, hey, let's get a picture with the kids at the tree. And we have a it is a legendary picture where my oldest at six is just like full on smile. She is so pumped, like just loving life. Her younger sister, who is four, just has the like total pouty lip that's sticking out like five inches, just has this sneer on her face is freezing. And then my son, who is two,
At that point, his cheeks are like bright cherry red because he's freezing and he has his head cocked back and it's just like mid-screen just fully voicing his displeasure around. So that's probably the most memorable one. And so we lovingly refer to that as the ruining Christmas picture because we, you know, took our frustration out on our kids and maybe have said like you were ruining Christmas, which. ⁓ yeah. So that's good parenting confession.
Chris Bruno
You know, a whole.
It deserves its own podcast conversation. Well, I've only gone only a handful of times. I think maybe even just once. I can't remember more than one time when we lived in Washington state and our kids were similar ages, really young. And for whatever reason, I think it was because of economics. We just could not actually afford to go buy a tree and cheaper to get the tag or whatever and go. So we did that. Went up.
Jesse French
It does.
Chris Bruno
to the mountains in Washington and we're traipsing along and everything was great. And I've got three kids as well. Similar ages as what you just described. Not now, this was, you know, decades ago, but like this is how old they were then. Traipsing along, I'm there leading the way. My wife is behind me. Son is behind her. Middle daughter is behind her. And I look back and there is no youngest daughter.
Jesse French
no. She's- no.
Chris Bruno
She's like, we don't know where she is. We're in the middle of the national force. She's gone. Yeah. She's really young, really young. We moved to Colorado when she was four. So she had to have been, it was either when she was, you know, three and a half or two and a half or whatever that winter kind of thing. So really young, you know, stuffed into one of those full body suits, snow suit kinds of things and barely can walk. And so we're making her walk and we turn around and she's gone. And I'm like starting to freak out. I so start.
Jesse French
And she's like two or three.
Chris Bruno
going back and it was deep, deep snow. I went back, looked around and looked around and I'm calling her name, I'm calling her name. And finally I hear a little whimper from like over on the edge of the, of where we had been. And the snow was so deep. created snow wells around the tree. Yeah. Yeah. all the trees, like five or six feet deep snow wells.
Jesse French
zero.
Chris Bruno
She must have gone up to one of the trees to, you know, look at it or investigate it or whatever and slip down the snow well. ⁓ and you know, and she was fine because it was just a little slip, you know, slippy slide down the whatever. didn't hurt herself.
Jesse French
But she was very stuck. She was going nowhere. ⁓
Chris Bruno
There's zero chance she was getting out of that without some adult assistance. It's a whole.
Jesse French
⁓ okay. she like, does that scarring for her? she like,
Chris Bruno
I don't know that she even remembers it. Okay, all's well. ends all is well. All is well. But that is our that is our Charlie Brown create, you know, Christmas tree story. And after that, we decided I decided like that was horrific. There's nothing nostalgic about that to me. And so that's off to the grocery store. We go for many, many years. then Jesse now after all these years, like I love the smell of pine. It's wonderful.
Jesse French
Well,
Chris Bruno
in the house and all that kind of stuff. So I do miss that, but you're killing the tree when you cut it down.
Jesse French
my gosh, don't, okay, we're not gonna have this fight in front of everyone.
Chris Bruno
No, no, no, Not
about killing the tree. It's not about hugging the tree. there's, yes, I love trees. But when you kill the tree, it starts dying even worse and it drops the needles.
Jesse French
Here's the thing though, my experience of this is since we've cut trees, I think the last four years, those have been remarkably unbrittle, unfrail, like very vibrant, the like needle dropping phenomenon.
Chris Bruno
Well, I will give you that because if you cut it, you know when it was cut versus if you buy it at a store, know when it was cut, how old it is and how dead it is. I have now transitioned fully to the fake tree because there are no needles. There is no watering. There is no whatever. And it's very predictable on what it's going to look like every year.
Jesse French
That is a great word, wonderfully predictable.
Chris Bruno
Yes, wonderfully predictable. that is with my values is predictability. So here we go. Yes.
Jesse French
Why? Yeah, so why did we feel like this is a good entry point for the conversation today?
Chris Bruno
With our Christmas tree cutting. ⁓ So this is the weekend before Thanksgiving when a lot of people are decorating. I know that this weekend we're decorating in our house and all that. So the curiosity I think I have with regard to that, when I brought it up is what are the things in your December that are like non-negotiables? It has to be, or it has to not be. ⁓
Jesse French
Yeah.
Chris Bruno
Yeah.
That make it, you know, a better holiday season for you. ⁓
Jesse French
Can we also in the spirit of banter, like push a little bit? like, yep. Great. Okay.
Chris Bruno
Yeah, always, always.
Jesse French
I mean, that's,
that seems like it's, it's assumed, but okay. Well, I'm to go with one. I'm just going to start off. And this is going to be really meaningful right off the start. And Mariah Carey's Christmas album is a non-negotiable in our family.
Chris Bruno
Okay, go for it.
Like a must have or a death? Absolutely. Must have.
Jesse French
absolutely.
All I want for Christmas is you for you is just a staple song at Ultimate Blessables. And sometimes all there's a good friend of mine who is in agreement with me that her Christmas album like beats Celine beats Michael Buble, whoever, whoever you want to stack up against that, right? Is the is the winner. So sometimes each Christmas will send videos of one of us singing that song. So that's one of ours. Right. Christmas underrated.
Chris Bruno
Underrated Mariah Carey. Okay. Yep. Great. So in like banter, I will push back on that and not specifically on Mariah Carey and you kind of know how I feel about this, but I've had to put it almost every year. And that is that all throughout the year, we have so many great new songs that are being put out into the world. There's like music and
of all varieties. I don't care what kind of music you like. There's all varieties of new albums that come out, new albums that come out, and they're all like unique and creative, they're felt lyrics, and they're like thoughtful and just beautiful musicians in so many different ways. And I love the overwhelming creativity until we come to December when every new album is the same song, different, just a little slightly different verse, this slightly different style.
I don't know why. I don't know why. Okay. That have some new Christmas music. I will. I hear you. I might sound like a total Scrooge there.
Jesse French
That is a very good point of like, why is there not creativity around? Like I feel like you are saying that can still be in the Christmas genre. You're not screwing that. like, there just be some new creation in that? I think that's about it.
Chris Bruno
Yes. And there is, okay, so I will give you space for the nostalgic one or two songs that could be meaningful to play. when you listen to Christmas music, it's, you know, Mariah Carey's version of all the Christmas songs. And then Michael Buble's version of all the Christmas songs and all the country singers versions of all the Christmas songs. And there's just...
Jesse French
And there's only so much sort of creative embellishment of how unique that could be for the 58th version of...
Chris Bruno
Exactly. So you said underrated from Mariah Carey. I'm going to say overrated for repetitive, kill me now Christmas music that has zero creativity. I am looking to the world. If you are a musician, please, please, please bless us with some new Christmas music. Okay.
Jesse French
In the show notes, I'm going to put Chris Bruno's address. You can mail cassette tapes, CDs, any Christmas. He does, he does. So don't listen to him. I'll put it in the. Yeah, please send them all. Send them all to Chris. You'd love. Oh, OK.
Chris Bruno
I don't want to kiss
So one of the things that is underrated for me in the Christmas season is peace and quiet. So I just like, come to the end of the year and I just want to be able to sit and look out the window and watch the sunrise, the sunset, the snowfall, whatever it is with a hot cup of coffee or cocoa or cider or something and just reflect on where is this year taking me? What have I learned this year? What has been a
glory this year, what has been a failure this year, and just have that. so, and I'm frustrated often because of the energy and the excitement and all of the hubbub just starts going crazy during Christmas and all that during the holiday seasons, Thanksgiving now, starting now, today, and then moving forward. And I just, feel like peace is underrated.
Jesse French
I will offer zero pushback on that. think. But I do think that dovetails into another interesting thing. Cause what you, you said in those moments of peace, you know, there can be some space to reflect right upon this past year. So what I want to put on the table is I am all for reflection around the past year, but I would say I'm wondering if December year end reflection is actually overrated.
Chris Bruno
No banter here.
Jesse French
Because of kind of what you're talking about, because of all of the flurry of activity, because of like the moments of peace that you do get, like, yes, soak all of that in. But even what if we remove some of that potential sense of obligation? Like, I have to have to do all my reflections in the month of December. And a friend of ours, Alan Briggs, he told me earlier this year, he's like, I do my year and reflecting in November. Like November is kind of this unique month before the craziness of December hits in.
that then allows you to start January, like having already done that. so that's, Alan's take on it, but I'm, I think I'm kind of a fan of.
Chris Bruno
I agree with you. So the realistic aspect of the end of the year and having time off work and all that kind of stuff just creates a little bit more space so that you can reflect. Yep. And I love that. I love moving it back. Now, actually, the kind of Christian liturgical calendar starts with Advent. the end of the year earlier or Advent. so Alan's not wrong. Like it starts, you know, in just before
We should be doing this kind of reflection before Advent actually begins. Yeah. Two-shot. Well done. I like that. Yep.
Jesse French
Yeah, Touche. That's good work. Good work.
Okay. All right. We kind of have this debate in our family.
When is the appropriate time to start opening presents on Christmas morning?
And obviously like family traditions, you know, different folks have different ways of doing it, but it's an interesting one of like, when is it fair game to commence opening presents?
Chris Bruno
What is, so what do you think?
Jesse French
The way that we run it is, which I think I like is we'll do kind of open stockings. Like our kids will come in open stockings all together, like real early. No, no, no, like fairly early.
Chris Bruno
that even mean in the French household.
Jesse French
I mean, it's probably like six or six 30. Fairly early. But then we'll eat breakfast. So we kind of do stockings first, then eat some breakfast. And then after breakfast, start presents. So it probably is like around nine ish maybe. Okay. Okay. When I was growing up as a true impatient little kid, like we didn't start.
presents until all of the breakfast was finished and this was with like our extended family and it felt like there'd be times where it'd be 10 30 in the morning and we were just getting the presents. I'm like, good night. Let's get with the flipping program.
Chris Bruno
Poop.
There is only one purpose to this day.
Jesse French
What's the Bruno philosophy there? ⁓
Chris Bruno
well, if we're talking first about growing up years, for me, it was there was one present that was allowed in the morning, Christmas morning, and then all the other presents had to wait until after dinner. ⁓ Which was, know, like a Christmas dinner, which was like three o'clock in the afternoon, four o'clock in the afternoon. And that included all of the extended older person family.
who had then come and descended and all those. I had to get dressed up and all that kind of stuff. And then, Jesse, it was one present at a time. And everyone had to watch you open the present and then you had to pass it around so that everybody could see. ⁓ So that informed how it was going to be in our.
Jesse French
They may eat so slow.
So now is it.
Chris Bruno
And now it is like, let's just go, let's game on. We're going to open presents and we're going to just enjoy that and let the, I don't like it when it's like a total frenzy of right. If the kids are, they don't even stop long enough to see what the present is after they open it before they're onto the next one. Like, I don't like that kind of frenzy, but I'm not going to try to keep kids from opening their presents. They've been waiting all year long. Why do you have to.
Jesse French
Just... on.
Chris Bruno
and wait another hour or two or five. ⁓ That's my philosophy. The thing is, is that our kids would often sleep in the living room around the Christmas tree. And there was a whole like process of them trying to prove that mom and dad were Santa Claus. Right. The presents. Right. It's like one or two presents that, you know, grandma and grandpa would send and we would put those under the tree beforehand. But
they would sleep around the Christmas tree and it was, it got to be so ridiculous. they would fall asleep and we would just like bring them down while they're sitting there asleep at like nine o'clock at night, not even two o'clock in the morning, nine o'clock at night. And then one time, the last time I did this, they were still convinced they were older. So they kind of knew, but they were still convinced. And I brought them, they were still awake. They were still chit chatting and talking and whatever.
Jesse French
Hmm.
Chris Bruno
And I slowly started to like just bring them down and one by one, kind of put them there. And my wife was, you know, getting them dessert or whatever it was. I just started to put them there and they'd been seeing the one present under the tree for a month. Right. And so when they went to sleep, they didn't even notice that the tree was full of other presents. And then we woke up in the morning and they're like, where did all these presents come from? How did you get past this? I'm like, I did it right in front of your actual open eyes people. So.
Jesse French
my gosh.
You should have just totally lived into the magician lore. That's how I do it.
Chris Bruno
I think it's important, Jesse, for us as we are thinking about, you know, who we are as dads, who we are as husbands, who we are as fathers, that there's something about the liturgy of the times and what you're talking about with your, you know, Christmas is already part of a greater liturgy of the seasons, right? It just comes and goes and we can anticipate it and there's something scripted about how it's gonna be. The scripts are sometimes Christmas carols, but.
But you know, there is a script and that's the more repetitive the script, the more like comfortable we are knowing what to anticipate, knowing what this is going to be about. And that grows a level of, I don't want to say comfortable in a wrong way, but it grows a level of connection and belonging and rhythm and togetherness. This is what we do. your Christmas tree hunting in the forest, right? That is what we do. And your kids have grown to anticipate.
for over, you know, almost a decade and a half now, our kids for Thanksgiving, we have always gone up and done a friends giving kind of a thing where we rent a house up in the mountains, somewhere in the mountains with two other families. And we go up and do that. the kid, our now adult children are like, that is more important to us than anything around the Christmas holiday. That liturgy, that rhythm around Thanksgiving is more important. So I think there's something about, can we pause long enough to reflect on how are we instilling the liturgies of the seasons?
in our own family liturgy around the rhythms and rituals that we invite our kids to that ground them in something.
Jesse French
I love that you use that phrase, like the grounding, like as you were describing kind of the familiarity, word that was coming to mind for me was in a healthy sense, like, there's a security to this. Like there is grounding, there's room and there's enough known around how this will happen. Not in a boring sense, but in a like, allows space for me to both anticipate it right. And to not be in the like the opposite of that, right? Is like.
Chris Bruno
this
Jesse French
the total kind of brand new or uncertain piece, which is like, that's a hard place to be in. so, yeah, Chris, what do you think can help us enter into some of that grounding? Like, you know, doesn't matter what, the tradition is, right. Or what the ritual or what the rhythm is, but like, how can we enter into some of those spaces? More able to receive that more present than just like, this is what we do, you know, kind of ho hum.
Chris Bruno
Yeah, I would say Jesse, the two things that come to my mind to that question is that let us be aware of the spaces where there is delight and let us be aware of the spaces where there is rest. And especially the spaces where those two things kind of combine. So, you know, there is something about maybe, you know, your description of the Christmas tree hunting and whatever, that there is some level of delight, maybe not for everybody that first time.
for you that you were describing, but there is something about the delight of doing this. There is something about the rest of, it's not like you're, I mean, it could be that you're going shopping at a Christmas tree farm or whatever. That could feel restful, but just there's something about, we already do this kind of thing often as a family. We go out to the forest. Your kids are not unfamiliar with that space. And there's a grounding that we're gonna do that with a purpose.
of finding the tree that has been part of the same forest that we have been walking in all year long that has been waiting to join our family as we have joined this tree's family for months and years. So like there's something about the grounding in that rest and that delight. There's something about, you know, the repetitive nature of it where it's not boring and you don't delight and boredom don't go together. So there has to be some.
Can you read the faces of the people around you to see what brings delight and exhale of rust?
Jesse French
Yeah. ⁓ That's helpful. And it feels like those two things of delight and rest are, least for me, those are not just intuitive, like easy things to step in to without some sort of awareness beforehand, right? Of like, there is the desire for this. Obviously. and if that comes together is unknown and that's maybe some of the little bit of the mystery, but to have some of that priming of, there is a desire for both of those.
And to be able to be aware to look for that so that when it does show up in the unique ways that it does, we might be ready.
Chris Bruno
And to be ready to then create those kinds of repetitive liturgies around it. And I don't necessarily mean it could mean, but I don't necessarily mean like a written actual prayerful liturgy. this is kind of how things go. We are going to do this and then the.
Jesse French
Mm-hmm.
and then this yep
Chris Bruno
There's a pattern to it.
Jesse French
Yeah, that's good. Which I think I should maybe Google this right now before I say something that's totally inaccurate. But I want to say, no, I was right. At least according to the Google, like you're talking about liturgy in broader sense than just a written down word, but like, you know, the word liturgy means like the work of the people, right? And so the participation of the people. so that sense of viewing liturgy through this paradigm of rhythm.
towards this paradigm of participation, right? Is kind of actually true to the word. Yeah. Absolutely.
Chris Bruno
And here's the thing is that my wife wants more traditions, like more liturgies, these things, and has attempted through the years to establish them and they have established. And I don't know all the reason why I've not gone down to do a little, you know, archeological dig into the reasons why that didn't happen. One of them, one of them is decorating the house together. And we did do that as a family.
Jesse French
Yeah.
Chris Bruno
like all the growing up years of my kids. I was the dad who got all the decorations out. And then as the tree was being decorated, like all the fragile Christmas tree ornaments and stuff like that, I was like handing out one to one, you one child, know, one child, another child. I don't know how many other dads do that, but yeah, it was not that much fun. And so like for me and the rest of the family, only two out of the five of us are decorating this weekend.
There may be some sadness around that, but for those that it means something too, they're doing that.
Jesse French
It's true, which I think it just lends to some good, healthy, healthy understanding of like, not all of, not all of them are going to be 10 out of 10 home runs.
Chris Bruno
Exactly. good. Here's what I'm aware of as we come to the end of this conversation. I sound like an absolute Christmas Scrooge.
I don't like Christmas songs. I don't like Christmas decorations.
Jesse French
That's not true. know, I think you just got to listen with a little bit of nuance. I've heard Christmas Scrooges before and you were just saying, I simply want some new Christmas music. And you also said the predictability is a good thing. And so that's, you didn't say I'm not putting up my Christmas tree. That's true. You're good.
Chris Bruno
Okay. That's All right, well, happy Thanksgiving, everybody. We hope you are well and that you celebrate well with your family and be mindful of watching the faces around you for delight and rust. And we'll catch you next time.
Jesse French
Sounds good.