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Art of Spousing is for marriages that what to move from being mundane to becoming masterpiece relationships. Hosts James and Lisa Duvall share truths and lessons learned from their 30 years of marriage and over a decade of teaching, coaching, and speaking on marriage.
Lisa:
Merry ChrisTmas and welcome to the season four finale of the artist's housing podcast. We are so glad you're listening.
James: Yes, thank you so much. And we hope your Christmas is already incredible. And that this show will add just a bit of holiday cheer and joy. .
Lisa: It's hard to believe that we're the end of another season of the podcast. It's been a blessing to be able to do this podcast for four seasons, and we look forward to season five, which will air in just a few weeks from
James: today is going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a fun episode.
Seeing this episode is airing on Christmas day. We wanted to bring back some of our guests from season four to share some of their Christmas traditions.
Lisa: Yeah, we had this great idea when we did the recordings with them that we would get from them their favorite holiday tradition and we knew we're going to put this together so we could bless people with some maybe some new ideas or just fun ideas. traditions are such an important part of healthy family culture And the reality is they don't have to be grandiose ideas to make them special. Sometimes it's the smallest simple things that really are the most treasured memories. I know that's true for us growing up and it's true for our family.
James, growing up, did your family have any Christmas traditions that really stood out to you?
James: Yeah, we had a lot. But one things that I've just been thinking about, recently this Christmas season is, every Christmas day after we got up and opened all the gifts, my grandparents lived across the street from us.
And so all the aunts and uncles, all our cousins would go over to my, Papaw and Mimi's house, and we would spend the day together. And it was really one of the few times of the year that the whole family got together and one of the things that was really cool about that, I remember, is my grandfather always had these crazy, like, battery operated toys, you know, that would make noise or light up and so forth.
And he had this one that, uh, when I was really young kid kind of scared me, but then I started looking forward to it. It was this monkey with cymbals, and you turned it on. It would clang the cymbals and make all these monkey noises. And then, one of the cool things is my grandparents were very musical.
my grandfather would get out his violin, and my grandmother would play the piano, and they would sing, sing Christmas songs and so forth. So, it was, it was really a great memory growing up as a kid. How about you? Anything come to your mind
Lisa: well, I just want to say it's so cool that you have this legacy of your grandma and grandpa They're on in heaven now. And you're still remembering what special. So those, those, those things are not grandiose, but they actually made a huge difference. Yeah, you're gonna are you prepared for my Christmas? You don't even know what I'm going to say. So
James: gonna say. No, what's your, what's
Lisa: So I know everyone's gonna get upset, but just know I have have to.
my very favorite way. tradition as a kid. I was a latchkey kid. My mom would wrap all my presents and put them under there. And I had a sharp edge knife and I would open all my presents. And literally, I knew how to slide them out without tearing the edges. I'd open them, like slice the tape on the side, and then put the tape right back where the existing tape was.
Slide the package back, and then literally Every christmas and every single present what I was getting before I opened it.
James: I don't think that's a family
Lisa: a family tradition.
James: that's like part of your shenanigans. That's your personal
Lisa: it's a mark
James: really built into your family.
Lisa: Well, i'm about to give another one so that's why that's why I said I had two So there we go, but that really was special for me every year.
I know it's so twisted But another tradition that's a little bit more christmasy as a Family tradition is my grandma, would use a special box each year and wrap someone, one of the grandkids presents in that. And so it was like, it really all almost didn't matter what you got for Christmas. You just wanted that box that she saved every year so it was, it was always special when you got the box.
So are you interested to know what the box was made of?
James: Yeah, tell me.
Lisa: This is a really redneck. Country
James: this a cigar box or
Lisa: No, it wasn't. That's a little too fancy for us. You don't understand rednecks. what it was is a moon pie box. You know what, you remember those moon pies? So
James: actually a moon
Lisa: it was a moon pie box that she saved. And, but back then, boxes were actually a little, like moon pie boxes were a little firmer than they are right now.
So, nonetheless, that's what it was. We were like, I wonder if we can get the moon pie
James: just want the moon pie.
Lisa: Oh, yeah. So anyway, a lot of Christmas traditions start before Christmas Day.
I know for many, one of the main Christmas traditions is decorating the tree, which is what I do by myself because I'm so OCD about it. But nonetheless, I'm
James: usually watching college
Lisa: That's
James: but we're together.
Lisa: We are and and I put it up. I like to put it up earlier than I did this year, but it's the week before thanksgiving the saturday before Our friends greg and julie gorman share a cool thing.
They do with their family about decorating the tree. Let's listen to it
Guest 2: we'll marry Christmas from the Gormans!
Guest 1: Yeah, our favorite Christmas tradition is decorating the Christmas tree together. So we always, it's the day after Thanksgiving, we put up our tree, and we begin to decorate. Now here's what's fun though. We put on all kinds of things. Fun, crazy Christmas music. We put on our little hats and we dance around.
We put things, you know, reindeer ears and things like that on the reindeer. But all of that to say, what's the most fun is we have a tradition of the three Christmas keys and we use it to tell the Christmas story. So we begin with the lowest key with being the shepherds and then, The wise men and then Christ in the center of the tree.
But the powerful thing is, is as our kids have grown up, many of them have moved way across the, the country. And so we zoom them in and then we have someone stand in to represent and put that Christmas key up there. And that's how we stay connected.
Guest 2: It's good stuff.
James: You know gift giving is a huge tradition for many families at Christmas and Lisa one of our traditions that we've carried over from my family and now is a big part of our Christmas gift giving is how we address each Christmas gift, right?
Lisa: That's right. So we've kind of reduced it to going. It's really a riddle That's on the to and from tag the way it works is you have to come up with a creative name for the recipient of your gift and a Creative name for yourself as the giver of the gift. So for example, I may say to the OG Ohio State fan
James: would be me.
Lisa: That's right
from previous owner of daddy poodles
James: Right, which would be Parker.
Lisa: right.
Because one of his stuffed animals, when he was young, he loved his dad and he called this little dog, daddy poodles. So we would know that internally it's a riddle. to our New York artist, Alex, from Florida, blonde beach lover.
James: would be our youngest daughter,
Lisa: That's right. So it just makes it fun. And, and actually when we just sent our gifts up to New York, Alex said, one of the boxes is missing a riddle.
And I'm like, ah, it's coming.
so our kids love this now, and our two older kids have a significant other in their lives, and they've been able to pass on this tradition to them as
James: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. But at the same time, it actually can be very challenging for me because I tend to play Santa Claus on Christmas morning. I pass out all the gifts on Christmas Day.
Lisa: And I actually think one of the biggest traditions of all about this riddle tag thing is the kids love watching you struggle because you have to figure out all the
James: Yeah, that's true.
Lisa: and there was a season where I was writing them all because our kids were young
James: you get
Lisa: and I get tired and lose track of like I can't think of anything more creative and it would be very confusing
James: Yeah, it's, it's always a little So we asked our lifelong friends, Dave and Bethany Cush, about their Christmas tradition, and this is what they had to say about their gift giving.
Guest 2: Merry Christmas from the Cushes. We thought we'd take a minute and share one of our holiday traditions and it goes way back to our very first Christmas together that actually started out as a disaster.
Guest 1: So the question I would ask for you is, should all the gifts be in a box in wrapping paper or should they be in a stocking?
I had no idea that the most important gifts that my wife was expecting needed to be in the stocking. Hers was empty the first couple of days.
Guest 2: It was, it was horrible.
Guest 1: And her, stocking to me was full because she put a lot of thoughtfulness
Guest 2: where all the best gifts go and
Guest 1: up doing a 7 Eleven run, first thing Christmas morning. Thank goodness they were open. But she didn't appreciate all the 7 Eleven gifts that were in the
Guest 2: but I do, I do have to say it has become a family tradition and all of the very best gifts are in our stockings. All of our kids still get stockings.
No matter where they are, Ben got them when he was deployed in the military. They always get a stocking because that's where the best gifts are.
Guest 1: they know that there's a lot of thoughtfulness in it. So, if you're wrestling over these huge, dynamic, expensive gifts, think more like on the small, intentional in the stocking. And those seem to go a lot further. Trust me.
Guest 2: You're doing great, babe.
Lisa: part of a christmas celebration.
It's always the last thing that we open we would We'd probably be in the camp of Dave Kush. Our stockings usually have essentials like toothpaste, hair products, makeup, and things like that. Similar gifts that don't really feel like
James: good gifts.
Lisa: But you know what? I will let you know.
I kind of, since we have adult kids, I want to let you know I actually put some Bethany Kush gifts and stockings this year.
James: Oh,
Lisa: Yeah, so the budget may reflect that. Merry Christmas!
James: know, last week we introduced you to Terry and Carol Moss of One Flesh Ministries. Great interview. If you haven't had a chance to listen to it, but we asked them to share one of their traditions.
Guest 2: Merry Christmas from the Mosses. One of the things that we really love to do on Christmas is have hot chocolate and Cinnabons. The first thing on Christmas morning with the children when they're there. Now they're older, but with that, we still do that hot chocolate and Cinnabon. Then we will just give appreciation for the, for the season, appreciation for our savior.
And then, Just kind of share that moment.
Guest 1: Yeah, so we don't rush down to open the gifts first. And we'll do that, we'll have our Cinnabons, and we'll have our hot chocolate, and we'll sit around and we'll talk.
And later then we'll open gifts. Yes, but one of my traditions that I'm phasing out of, but I absolutely love, is for the kids to all spend the night on Christmas Eve. And we all get up together. But you know, now they're getting, they're older and they have their own families and they're setting their own tradition.
Yeah, but that, that warms my heart just even speaking about that.
James: Oh, sugar.
Lisa: It's not really a food.
James: It's not.
Lisa: Do you want to suck down some granular sugar right now?
No, I'm
James: made of sugar though, so if it's not a food, okay, actually, we recently started a new food tradition about five years ago, right?
Lisa: love
James: And, instead of cooking the traditional turkey or ham
Lisa: Like we just had at Thanksgiving.
James: which I'm not a big fan of anyways
Lisa: it's certainly not twice in one month's time.
Right,
James: So what I do is I started cooking a standing rib roast, which is always exciting.
I always wait for it to go on sale and get the rib roast. And each year I actually try to cook it a different way. So the first couple of years I did rib roast, I did it in the oven. And then the last couple years I actually sovi it. So fancy, right? Mm-Hmm, . And this year I'm actually, doing it on the smoker.
So, it's gonna be exciting to see how that turns out. Later on today. I also make a gorgonzola sauce, which the kids love. You can actually almost drink the stuff, right?
Lisa: Well, if you don't have it on there, which one year you chose not to make it, and it was Yeah, there
James: Yeah, I almost had a rebellion in the house and the fun thing about the rib roast, it's actually been the cause of some fun memories with the kids.
one year we were actually made up in Ohio with my parents and I forgot to get ground pepper. So we actually had to ground all the pepper by hand. It was like an hour long of So, I made some fun memories with the kids. Lisa, what about you? What's your Christmas food or food tradition?
Lisa: Well, every fall when it comes around this time, sometimes I do it at the beginning of Thanksgiving or I'll wait till after, but I make Pumpkin bread. And this is sweet pumpkin bread. It's my, one of my favorite things to do that helped me kind of set the mood for Christmas and get me in Christmas spirit.
A great friend of mine, I was just thinking about this. Michelle Bennett gave me this recipe back in Kansas when we were newly married and she was really a significant person in my life that helped me know how to be a mom. And so it kind of connects that pumpkin bread is more than it just tastes great.
It's a memory for me of her. we live far apart and our lives have kind of, just seasons of friendship has changed but it makes me always think of her and it's her handwriting on the recipe card.
James: So it's kind of, that's the cool thing about traditions.
It brings back
Lisa: Yeah, yeah. And the fun thing is, is she taught me this, I bake it in coffee cans and so it comes out round and has Little rigid.
So it feels a little rustic looking when you, gift it. Yeah. the truth is every family dynamic and celebration of Christmas is different. So we all have different Christmas traditions, all meaning something special to us that may not mean anything to someone else. But what we've learned over our 30 years of marriage is that traditions and celebrations have to adapt and change as seasons of life change.
We were reminded of this when we were talking to Cole and Carissa Robinson and their Christmas tradition.
Guest 2: Merry Christmas from the Robinsons, my favorite time of the year and we have some pretty great traditions at our house because they pretty much all involve food. so I grew up eating monkey bread, and if you know what that is, it's basically a massive cinnamon roll. my mom taught me how to make it and, uh, for the past couple of years, we've been making it every, like, Christmas Eve morning.
So, in our house, a little bit different because Christmas as pastors is like the Super Bowl, so, we have to kind of find some intentional time. so we do Christmas morning, with Karissa's family or my family typically, but that Christmas Eve day is just for us. And, we make monkey bread in the morning, kind of take it slow.
Nyla will beg to open one or three presents, and we'll typically let her.
Guest 1: let Yep, so morning monkey bread. That's our tradition.
Lisa: One of the things we've learned is that when your job responsibilities or now that our kids are out of the house and may not be with us on Christmas Day,
had to learn to embrace the new normal. we can be frustrated or sad that things aren't the way they used to be or like Cole and Carissa have done, they've been made Christmas Eve their special day to celebrate together. Yeah,
James: Lisa, you always have done such a great job of adjusting to the needs of our family each Christmas.
So last year, you initiated a new normal for us, actually, in gift giving.
Lisa: Yeah. knowing that our kids are working hard to make it as independent adults, we wanted to lift the burden of them having to spend money of buying each of us a gift. So that would be what is be four, five, six gifts. That they would buy if they just bought one gift and that all adds up as young adults.
And so we actually started our new tradition of seeing a secret Santa on the Elfster app that actually just tosses the names in and mix them up. So we'll be revealing who we, Like, it's trying to be a secret, but with our New York people, it kind of is getting a little mixed up, but still, it's a lot of fun, and it reduced the cost, so they loaded all the gifts they want, so you can choose one gift or a couple of gifts if you want to give them multiple, it's just made it interesting to focus on one person, and that is why, James, that the stockings went up in budget this year.
Okay,
James: that's good to know. I guess I need to go shopping.
Lisa: For my stocking.
James: I don't know if anything will be open Christmas Day though, so. So we asked some of our good friends who will actually introduce to you in season 5 Tony and Deb Luffman about their Christmas traditions.
Listen to what they said
Guest 1: So one thing that we love to do, there's two things actually I'm going to share quickly. One is we always try to adopt a family at Christmas. So as a family we adopt a family and try to get everything on their wish list and get it to them. But one thing that is just the most fun is Everyone comes to our house, and I mean everyone, all 17, 18 of them, when they're all in town, spend the night at our house on Christmas Eve.
We all wake up together on Christmas morning. We have coffee, cinnamon rolls, the kids open presents, and it's just, it's one of the most amazing things. We don't know how it got started, and we don't know how long it will last, but it's so much fun to have fun. air mattresses and kids and people everywhere and
Guest 2: on the couch. Um, and
Guest 1: two, just reminding each other what Christmas is really about before we actually start the festivities. So, the Leffman House is a happening house on
Guest 2: christmas
Guest 1: morning.
Lisa: you know, there's some incredible things that come along with being empty nesters, but I know we look forward to when our kids have families of their own and everyone comes home for Christmas. By the way. Not sure if you caught it, James, but cinnamon rolls are a thing at Christmas.
James: every single one of seems like everybody's talking about someone rolls.
Lisa: yet we don't have them.
James: I know we need to consider that next year. we have been talking about Christmas traditions, but really more than the day this season is the time to reflect on the year past and also dream about the year that come. I love what our friends, Travis and Adele Graham from the noble marriage had to say about their holiday traditions.
USB: Hey, Merry Christmas from the noble marriage. This is Travis and I would love to give you a holiday tip for this year. One of the things we've done in our family is to create gratitude to be able to get with your family, write down something that you're grateful for about the family, maybe something you're grateful for about the year and then share that with your family.
A great way to honor them during this time. My tip would be at after Christmas, Merry Christmas. Oh, okay. Merry Christmas. I'm Adele from the noble marriage. And I would say my favorite tradition is we like to take a vision retreat. Right after christmas for the next year and that's where travis and I go and we just ask the lord What does he have laid out for us that year that he wants us to know?
And um, it's a time of prayer and connection for us while also planning out what's really important for us for the next year
Lisa: I love talking about and hearing about the traditions of Christmas. If you're newly married, we want to encourage you to establish traditions for your family. If you have young kids, help them understand the meaning of Christmas, the traditions you build together.
I think that's so important. Yeah.
James: Maybe you're just entering the empty nesting years or you are a new grandparent.
What new traditions can you start this new season? We would love to hear your Christmas traditions. So would you take a moment sometime this week and shoot us an email at helloatartispousing. com or you can message us on Instagram at artispousing and share one of your traditions with us so we can learn from you.
Lisa: Yeah. You know what I just thought of that would be fantastic? Is if any couples, would snap a selfie of them and post it for Christmas and tag Art of Spousing. We would love to repost your photo of you and your spouse together.
I think that'd be very
James: That would be so
Lisa: and if you're a dating couple listening, you know what, we have dating couples who listen to this podcast in advance.
James: advance.
All the help you can get.
Lisa: That's wisdom right there. We'd also love for you to sign up for our email list with every episode We send out an email with a direct link to the show and some news about what's happening with artist spousing You can sign up with the link in our show notes or in our instagram bio
James: Yeah, jump onto the email list because as we're working on content for Season 5, we want to hear from you, how the podcast can best serve you.
So we'll be sending out a quick survey to our email list to gather some feedback.
Lisa: We want to wish you a Merry Christmas.
James: a happy new
Lisa: And we'll see you next time. Until then, bye bye.