A Gift From JJHo!

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

It's the Judge John Hodgman holiday party

in the members-only mailbag.

Members only, members only, members only, membo mailbag.

Yeah, that's right.

It's our members-only mailbag that we send out to members only,

members of Maximum Fund.

That is, thank you for supporting us.

And by the way, if you're listening to this and you're not a member, it's like, what's going on?

Is this

some kind of holiday miracle?

It's a holiday molecule, everybody, because we're releasing our annual holiday office party/slash listener potluck to you, even the non-members, as a special piece of non-coal in your stocking.

Maybe, maybe you'll be encouraged.

to become a member once the Max Fun Drive comes around this spring, because after all, members get so much, including a monthly annual members-only mailbag where me and Jesse and Jennifer Marmor all looking so dapper for the holidays, get together and we just read your letters and we have it's a much more low-key experience, wouldn't you say?

Like the kids say, Jesse, low-key?

I mean, that's not what they, that's not how they use the phrase low-key, but they do say low-key.

Yes,

low-key, low-key, the god of mischief.

That's what they're talking about, right?

In very famous

Norse mythology.

Okay.

It's all right for us to just turn to dust.

Oh, hang on.

Hang on.

My cheese puffs are ready.

Jesse, talk to them for a minute while I get the cheese puffs off.

Explain what we're going to do today.

Wait a minute.

Just to be clear, I'm getting the cheese puffs out, not off.

Sorry about that.

This is the kind of fun stuff we get up to in the members-only mailbag.

But all right, talk to them.

Indeed.

And I'm glad that John's cheese puffs went off at exactly the same time as the cheese puffs here in our office that Daniel Spear had to go run and grab out of the oven.

We are going to be answering your holiday questions.

We will also be trying some of your favorite holiday recipes, including some real gnarly ones.

That's, Jen, I would say my favorite part of the holiday party is putting into my mouth weird things that

Americans eat as a matter of tradition.

Yes,

it's something.

It's something.

Jennifer, by the way, I am grateful to you for sharing this holiday with us because not only did you prep these foods for Daniel and myself and leave them in the office this morning, not only are you appearing on our video channels with what I can only presume is an electrified holiday light headband.

Yep.

Not only are you,

is your video feed featuring a Christmas Snoopy,

and as we have covered on this program in the past, you prefer Snoopy to Charlie Brown.

But

you're on antibiotics because you have strep throat.

Oh, big time.

Thank you for, thank you for joining us from home.

You're not in the studio today.

No, no, no, no.

I asked my doctor, I was like, I should probably not be in studio with

another person, right?

I'm a podcast producer, not to brag.

And he was like, Yeah, probably don't do that.

He said, just prepare food for them.

I wore a mask, washed my hands a million times.

A low-key god of stories, brag.

Loki brag.

Yeah, he wasn't impressed.

He's a doctor.

Well, I don't know anything you said.

I picked it up because

I just came back from my little kitchen.

But I hope that everyone is happy and more or less and healthy, more or less, and at home, if possible, and medicated, if needed, for the holidays.

And as Jesse may have explained, come holiday time for the past few years, we sample some of the holiday favorite treats and snacks and bevies that listeners send in.

It's sort of a listener potluck.

And this year we debut, now that we're on YouTube and everything, a brand new feature.

You're going to be excited about this, perhaps.

It's the potluck cam.

Woo, woo, woo, woo.

Wah, wah, wah.

Clacks on, clacks on.

The potluck cam is on.

These are the cheese puffs that just came out.

We're going to explain these in one second, but watch this incredible reveal.

If I move this sample tray away, you will see our traditional beverage

preset and ready to go.

This whole thing started when

many years ago, so long ago that their names are lost to time because I forgot to search my email yet again for the person who first talked about this tradition of mixing

orange soda and eggnog

in a delightfully, unpredictably good combo,

which has come to be known as the Fanta Claus.

I heard.

Oh, I love that.

That's a nice name.

I don't even remember who said that one.

So, listen, if you remember, or if you're not, and you're the one who sent me in this recipe, and you're, and/or you're the one who named it the Fanta Clause, will you remind me?

I'm going to pour myself some.

As you can tell, I'm a little parched.

This year, I decided not to go with Fanta, but with some fancy.

It's a fancy Fanta Claus.

Yeah.

Pardon my voice.

Maybe I'm a little under the weather.

Judge John Hodgman only consumes the finest of orange sodas, Italian import orange soda

and big glass bottle eggnog.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I really upscaled it this year.

This year I went with Costco eggnog.

I saw there was some fancy eggnog at the Costco.

Got myself two jugs.

I don't remember whether this is a half and half situation or what the proportions are, but I'm doing about half and half.

I say measure with your heart.

Yeah, my heart is measuring 98% occluded arteries.

I hope everyone's pouring themselves some nice, healthy eggnog and orange soda together in a Moxie Nerf food glass, like this very one.

And then

I'll put these cheese puffs back in.

What's the story on these cheese puffs, Jesse?

Well, these are the first food for our holiday party.

They come to us from Amy in Seattle.

She says, this is my Grandma Gin's recipe.

John, you thought you were the only one who longed for the loving embrace of Grandma Gin.

Every night during the holiday season, I'm whispering to myself, singing to myself, over the river and through the woods to Grandma Gin's house, I go.

My grandpa was a college professor at a time when faculty wives had a lot of hostess duties.

When Vincent Price came to speak on campus,

she served these and he asked for the recipe.

I only recently found out he was a foodie who wrote his own cookbook.

Indeed, he wrote a number of cookbooks with his wife.

He was a foodie and an edophile to boot.

And there's a lot of video of Vincent Price making food on the internet, which I'm not saying that you should go over there now.

Wait till this is over.

but then get over there and you'll enjoy it.

He also introduced Dennis Hopper to art collecting.

He has his own museum.

Vincent Price has his own museum here in Los Angeles from his extraordinary world-renowned art collection.

What a guy.

Here's what goes into these cheese pots.

12 ounces of sharp cheddar cheese, not pre-graded.

The pre-graded is always going to be an issue because it's dusted with that stuff that makes it not sticky.

Anti-caking agent.

Yeah.

Asbestos, usually.

I dude.

Hey, that's Daniel Spear, our video editor, popping in, popping in from the peanut gallery.

Hey, Daniel, look at how sharp Daniel looks, too.

Everyone's one.

I know.

Daniel always looks sharp.

Sometimes he looks ridiculous.

Hey.

He looks like a little helper elf.

I look like a Target employee.

One, you look great.

That sure looks great on you, Daniel.

Thank you.

One cup of margarine.

It says, don't get fancy and try to use butter, cheap margarine, like Blue Bonnet or something works great.

I used Lando Lakes margarine myself.

One teaspoon of salt, two cups of flour, and a dash of Tabasco.

This is a very classic cheese ball, it seems like.

Now,

I made one this morning just to try it.

And I can already tell you they're spectacular.

But you may have noticed I added a little

paprika on top for a little color.

That's nice.

And I added a little flaky salt on before I baked them

because I wanted to try that too.

So, may I eat it on camera and on microphone now?

Please do.

Yeah.

That's delightful.

This is great.

Grandma Jin.

I love this.

No notes.

No notes, Grandma Jin.

I taste a little note, just the slightest hint of strep throat.

They're really good.

This is great.

I don't know how

it gains the relatively light texture.

I mean, it's not light, but considering that there's no leavening agent in this, I don't know why it doesn't just taste like a hockey puck.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't get it myself.

It's kind of a holiday miracle.

I will say that my addition of paprika was unneeded.

The salt, though, I do think was a good idea.

I'm going to have this one without the paprika now.

I'm definitely eating all three that Daniel brought me.

There's a whole tray.

Great.

I'm not eating lunch today.

It's just cheeseballs from here on out.

I was going to cut the recipe in half because I knew that it was going to make too much.

But then I don't use margarine in my daily life.

It's butter only for me.

And the smallest amount of margarine that I could get was a pound.

And I was like, well, may as well use half of this so I can get rid of some of this.

And maybe now you'll make another batch.

Oh, yeah.

Use up all that marge yeah yeah my kids are about to get real lucky courtesy of aunt jennifer margarine only comes in large packages that's why they call it large marge amy in seattle hope to see you at our show graham a gin better than i could imagine and i don't know what the margarine does to this but it really tastes good don't add the paprika and everybody listening You can make up a whole, a whole double batch of this.

Use up a pound of large marge.

And you can stick it in the freezer, and it'll be ready to go.

And you can make it whenever you want.

It takes only 14 minutes.

Now, Amy said she liked to cook it a little bit longer than Grandma Gin.

I put mine in for 14 minutes, and I think that's a good idea for 400.

Anyway,

this is going to be part of my repertoire this holiday.

Sarah in Westboro, Massachusetts says, My sister Katie brought a single roll of Neco wafers and a small box of junior mints to decorate five gingerbread houses.

She believes this is a sufficient amount of candy to decorate.

I think she should have gotten way more candy.

Well, the problem is,

once you automatically throw the necko wafers away, you only have a small box of junior mints.

I'm just pooping on necko wafers for fun because everyone hates them.

But the fact is I like them.

And really?

Yeah, I like necko wafers.

Especially like the black ones.

But that's because I'm from New England and I'm partial to things that are medium good,

but we love them anyway because they're regional.

Looking at you, Dunkin' Donuts.

Things that have a sort of element of punishment to them.

That too.

Speaking of which, you may notice.

Sorry, everyone.

I'm wearing my Krampus sweater.

Judge Hodgman is wearing a Krampus sweater.

My Krampus holiday sweater.

We're all decked out for the holidays.

If you're at home and you're not taking the opportunity to take a look at the video, you're missing out on some gorgeous outfits.

At Judge John Hodgman Pod

when this goes up on video.

And you know what?

I hope that you are wearing something comfortable that you enjoy, but also makes you feel a little bit festive.

Okay.

A single role of, I do like Neco

Wafers, the New England Confectionery Company is what Neco stands for, even.

Oh.

And they went out of business.

And somehow, Neco Wafers are are still around.

Neko is forever.

I think someone bought them and started making them again, even though no one asked.

And you can get them.

But

I guess a junior mint is a pretty classic candy, Jesse Thorne.

What's your favorite non-bar candy?

Right now, I'm a big.

I couldn't choose between my babies.

My babies are giant chewy nerds and nerds gummy clusters.

Oh, interesting.

I mean, I love

a

Haribo star mix.

Sure.

I love those Haribo raspberries and blackberries that taste weirdly bitter and have an odd texture.

I love those.

But

right now, I'm all about those nerd variants.

And both of you, there's a lot more nerd gummy clusters than there are giant chewy nerds out there in the world, but I want them both to know that I love them.

As anyone who's ever sailed a single sea on the Jonathan Colton Cruise knows, there are many flavors of nerds.

See you this spring.

Yeah, I would say that this is not a sufficient amount of candy to decorate even one gingerbread house.

You got to put a lot of candy on there.

There's a lot of like eaves and

window panes to highlight.

Yeah.

Wouldn't you agree?

And also, I mean, Necko wafers will go a long way, but

a single small box of junior mints,

I'm going to tell you what, that's only suitable for one decoration on a gingerbread house.

A junior mint

should only be used to be put on the roof of a gingerbread house to represent reindeer poop.

What kind of weird gingerbread house doesn't have any gumdrops?

Yeah.

Like, gumdrops are gross.

I'll stipulate to that, but they're an important part of gingerbread houses, aren't they?

About all they're good for.

Yeah.

And like

the starlight mints or candy canes even.

Hello, mini candy canes.

Full-size candy canes?

Why not?

Earth to Katie.

Earth to Katie.

It's Christmas time.

Yeah.

Put it together.

Katie did not do a good.

I'm sorry, Katie.

I know you really wanted to be right, but everything's wrong in Westboro.

Can I tell you what happened in my family with gingerbread house making this year?

Please.

So, my mother-in-law is visiting, and she brought a gingerbread house making kit

that featured five small gingerbread houses.

And there are five members of my immediate family, my wife and myself, and our three children.

Right.

So, the idea was that there was one small gingerbread house for each person in the family.

For everyone.

For me to make a gingerbread house is a terrifying nightmare.

Yeah.

I've never done it.

Because I'm bad at making things,

bad at making things look nice, and I need it to be perfect.

So I dealt with my own stuff putting together mine.

Right.

But when I sat down to

make mine, the kids had already made theirs.

And my 11-year-old Scarlett

was just, just, my, my 13-year-old Grace made one that was surprisingly impressive.

Grace is not like a drawer or anything.

I wouldn't have thought of her as being someone that makes nice things or follows rules, but she had made

a sort of restrained follow-the-directions version.

My youngest child, Frankie, had like broken theirs into pieces.

and then put them back together sort of postmodern style.

But it was really really like, it looked like a building.

It just looked like a building that was, you know, a corporate headquarters built in 1994.

I love it.

Yeah.

And then

my 11-year-old Scarlett, I sat down at the table and looked at hers.

And it was like,

if you just

imagine like a pile of

like a pile of

like construction

elements at a construction site.

Right.

Like a scrapyard or a.

Yeah.

But like careful, like clearly intentionally assembled.

So it was just like a stack,

like a haphazard stack, but with icing holding everything together and candy all on top of it.

Held on with icing.

Like everything seemed to have been done on purpose, but there was no area to go in if you were imagining yourself as a tiny gingerbread man.

Right.

There's no way to go.

Whoever lives in a gingerbread house.

It was just a huge stack.

And so I said to her, she's came down to sit down at dinner.

Yeah.

And I said, tell me about your,

tell me about your gingerbread house here.

And she goes, it's the ultimate vacation home.

She goes, bring a tent, go fishing, go swimming.

You're going to have a great time.

Wow.

That's incredible.

Bring a tent.

Bring a sleeping bag.

Go fishing, go swimming.

You're going to have a great time.

I love it.

I was going to explain something because I was looking at short-term rentals for when I come to visit Los Angeles to do our show, our sold-out show at Dynasty Typewriter.

And I noticed on Airbnb this

janky gingerbread house is for rent.

The ultimate vacation destination that says, I didn't realize that that was your daughter.

I'm going to stay there.

Does it say to bring your tent?

Yes.

It's important to bring a tent.

Yeah.

$900 a night.

So we have a letter here from Brandon in Chicago.

And by the way, you know, these members-only mailbags, you don't have to write in with a dispute.

You can just write in with

a question or

an admonishment, even.

We'll hear it.

All you need to do is be a member and send in your letter, including the famous members-only passphrase.

If you heard that bleeped out, that's because you're not a member yet.

Remember us, come max one drive time.

But Brandon sends in a question, and this is the question:

What are a couple of the J Squad's current favorite family traditions?

The J squad being me, Judge John Hodgman, your bailiff, Jesse Thorne, Jennifer Marmer.

Obviously, we have January Spear over there, and J.J.

McKeon, our

audio editor, as well as

Jaddy Lopez,

our social media person.

And of course, our friends Joel Mann and Gene Gray and Johnny Belmonte, also honorary members of the J Squad.

But it's just the three of us here right now and Daniel.

Holiday, family traditions?

You got anything you look forward to this time of year?

Jennifer?

Strep, though, obviously, is one of your faves.

Hop.

Hopes.

During, which I know how you feel about Thanksgiving, Judge Hodgman, but

I like it because I like to celebrate it because we go down to my aunt's house in San Diego and it's my immediate family and then my aunt, uncle, and cousins and, you know, now our husbands and kids, et cetera.

And we just go down there on Thanksgiving morning and we all,

which more on that later, but we all yap and cook.

And it's nothing specific, but I just like doing that, like just hanging out in the kitchen with my mom and aunt and one of my sisters.

The other sister tends to go off and hang out with our cousins and

do other things.

But,

you know, we just cook and talk to each other.

And I love that.

We also have this on my, in Shane's family,

they play a dominoes game called Spinners

every Christmas.

And it's the only time it seems to come out.

And I love it.

I love it so much.

It's like a tradition that I really look forward to.

Spinners, you say.

Oh, yeah.

Look at this.

Oh, it's a special kind.

There are special kinds of dominoes in it or something.

Oh, what fun.

Yeah.

I'm also a Thanksgiving lover.

I love Thanksgiving.

And my mother's birthday is at the end of November.

Talk up this garbage holiday.

I'll check my next course.

In general, I really enjoy celebrating Thanksgiving.

And we've been sharing it with my mother for the last, I don't know, five five or 10 years.

And this year was her 80th birthday.

So we were really excited to have Thanksgiving with her.

She's a great eater.

She's also a great cook, but I usually do the cooking.

And, you know, she and my wife hang out with the kids.

And

that's just how I like it.

I would rather just be in the kitchen.

cooking by myself with no one talking to me to celebrate this holiday of family.

At Christmas, you know, my wife grew up in a family that had all kinds of Christmas traditions because there was a thousand cousins nearby.

Her grandparents had an annual Christmas party that I used to go to that would have only immediate family.

And that party of only immediate family, I mean, only like cousin level,

would be like, I can't remember, like 60 people or something like that.

Whoa.

And they would have spaghetti and crab.

This is in San Francisco Bay Area, Marin County.

So there would be dungeoness crab.

The grown-ups would sit on, you know, at tables and crack crabs, and the kids would eat spaghetti.

And that was always a really nice time, although it was overwhelming because they all knew my name.

Every single one of them knew who I was.

Sure.

And there were 7,000 of them that I could never hope to remember.

These days, Christmas at my house is actually relatively quiet

because of the levels of neurodivergence in my family require that we lower the stakes on holidays as much as possible because of

certain members of my family who otherwise might not go to sleep

might might have a continuous freak out for 12 straight hours

so my kids actually like know what they're getting for Christmas before Christmas happens among other things

but one nice thing that I always look forward to is here in Southern California, there's a suburb called Altadena next to Pasadena, home of Jordan Morris of Jordan Jesse Go.

Yeah.

Home of my former neighbor who bought a house there and didn't have to live in a fourplex anymore.

She says, Altadena, where millennials can thrive.

Continue.

Altadena is great.

I really like Altadena.

But among other things in Altadena, there is a neighborhood that is famous for extravagant Christmas decorations.

There's a few streets where

very nearly every house, I mean, I would say 70% of the houses go truly full bore on Christmas decorations.

And they call it Candy Cane Lane.

And we head out there, take a slow drive down Candy Cane Lane one of the evenings before Christmas.

And it's always a really nice time.

The kids look forward to it.

They're excited.

And it's, you know, we just get everybody cozy in the car in the evening and head out there.

That's always really nice to see.

I'm sorry that I'm such a

Thanksgiving Grinch.

And I apologize to those who really enjoy Thanksgiving.

I'll say this.

I think the idea of reducing expectations and stress around the holidays is a very valuable thing to do.

And that doesn't necessarily mean skipping the holiday.

but just finding ways to sort of

moderate your anxiety around it.

And one way that we were able to do that this year for Thanksgiving was to actually throw ourselves into it.

And we hosted, including us, 16 people.

And we rented, a company came and dropped off an extra table and extra chairs and

also

plateware.

Obviously, I love my maiden plateware, but.

We don't have 16 entree bowls, you know, so we rented

plates and napkins and tableware.

And it was a really lovely time.

And it's something, well, the call in DBT is to practice willingness.

And instead of resisting it, sometimes it's less stressful to simply say, yeah, I'm going to throw myself into this Thanksgiving.

And everyone had a great time.

And now it's over.

And hooray.

I don't have to think about it again for another year.

And we're about to disappear into the woods of Maine, which is probably my favorite holiday tradition.

And one thing that we started last winter, and I hope we'll get a chance to do it again, is we're going to go handlepin bowling at at Ellsworth Candlepin Bowling, the wonderful bowling alley that is owned by a 21-year-old woman who is the only one who's allowed to work there because the

pin setting machines are so out of date that she can't get insurance for any other employees to work on them because they might get mauled.

I don't know.

Oh my God.

If you have a chance to go see autumn at Candlepin Bowling of Ellsworth, Maine, maybe you'll see me there too.

I'll tell you this.

A wonderful Christmas tradition in my father's house growing up

was my dad realizing it was Christmas Eve and he hadn't gotten anyone any presents,

waiting for my younger siblings to go to sleep and then asking me if I wanted to go with him to Torres Arras to buy stuff.

Oh, that's so good.

That's so good.

Just it would be like nine o'clock at night on Christmas Eve and he'd be like, oh boy, oh, Jesse, you want to go

do Santa Claus stuff?

santa claus stuff yeah santa brings presents so do dads so you gotta do some santa claus stuff we're gonna acquire some presents i think that happened two or three times let's take a quick break we'll be back with more in just a second on the judge john hodgman podcast holiday spectacular coming up ham rollies

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of MaximumFun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Quince.

Jesse, the reviews are in.

My new super soft hoodie from Quince that I got at the beginning of the summer is indeed super soft.

People cannot stop touching me and going, that is a soft sweatshirt.

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John, you know what I got from Quince?

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Oh, it's like a it's like a mid-gray.

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It's a stink-rejecting technology, John.

It says, get thee behind me, stink.

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The Judge John Hodgman podcast, also brought to you this week by Made In.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman Holiday Party.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We have another holiday traditional food on the menu.

Now, this is one that we received several variations of, or of which we received several variations, let's say.

But this one was special because in this submission, this food was called ham rollies.

Ham

Rollies.

Now, I think that we've done

a cream cheese mixture wrapped up in cold cuts before.

Indeed,

it was a staple at my grandmother in Philadelphia's house during the holidays to have

cream cheese rolled up in a cold cut that is

pretty regional to the Pennsylvania area, something called Lebanon bologna from Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Like a smoked, it's not even like a bologna, but it's like more like a smoked salami.

It's delicious.

But this is ham rollies.

And who sent this one in, Jesse?

Someone named Sarah, I believe, right?

Yes, they are from Sarah in North Andover, Maine.

Massachusetts.

This is what's in them.

Massachusetts.

Thinly sliced ham.

They say, she says, you really need to go to the deli counter.

Don't get packaged ham.

Cream cheese, lemon juice, pressed or finely minced garlic, horseradish, and either one small onion finely sliced and a handful of parsley finely chopped.

or a big handful of green onions finely chopped, plus salt to taste and pepper to taste.

Sarah says, My family makes them for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We always make fun of the family member who uses pre-packed ham instead of going to the deli counter to get the thinly sliced ham.

Don't use that thick ham.

No thick ham.

And there's a reason for it, I think, because if you look here at the potluck cam, you'll see

that this thinly sliced ham is so thinly sliced that it's almost translucent.

And if you look carefully, and is this appetizing?

No.

But if you look carefully,

you can see the green poking through the red of the ham.

And that's what makes this Christmas style.

Oh.

I think, I mean, I'm not sure.

Yeah, that seems right.

Now, I have not yet.

Basically, what you do is you mix up the cream cheese and the horseradish and the lemon juice, all the ingredients minus the ham.

You mix them all up, and

then you spread that on a slice of ham and then you roll up the ham and then you cut it, which is what I'm going to do now.

I'm cutting from the center so I get that the deep core of the roly.

Oh, that was clever.

These edge pieces I don't want because they're very

messy looking.

You can sort of see, I'm trying to get the focus to work.

You can see that

it has a rolled up interior.

Jennifer was nice enough to put these on some cocktail skewers.

I should have done that, but I forgot to.

You're talking about toothpicks?

Yeah, some toothpicks with little bits of, you know, little frills.

Yeah.

I picked red because Christmas.

There you go.

Red and green frilly cocktail skewers would go great with this.

I'm going to pop mine in my mouth with my fingies.

I'm ready for mine, too.

And I don't eat pork products, but Sarah recommended if you have leftover of the cream cheese mixture to put it on crackers.

So that's what I did.

Daniel, while we're eating these hamarillies, what's a spear holiday tradition?

Let's see.

The food is always what comes to mind.

My mom bakes pecan and pumpkin pies and cookies.

And I usually help with the cookies part, but that's the desserts always come to mind.

Every year we go to, we alternate.

on Christmas Eve for my mom's side of the family going to my cousin Julian's place in Riverside or going to my family's place in San Diego.

So we do every other year.

When we were kids, it was really nice going to my cousin Julian's house because I didn't have any video game consoles, but he had an N64.

And so I knew, like, yes, I get to hang with my cousin who is close to my age, probably the only family member that's within a year of my age.

And we get to play Mario Kart and NFL Blitz.

So, yeah.

That sounds delightful.

Here in Los Angeles,

here in Los Angeles, you you see around the holidays thanksgiving but especially christmas

really intense runs on places that sell uh the masa for tamales

do you have a tamale day

no well the when we get tamales my mom doesn't actually make them usually there's a lady at church that everybody buys from So that's usually the mood for us because my mom's already baking so many things.

There was such a lady at my church when I was a child.

Shout out to St.

John the Evangelist.

Shout out to Maria.

There you you go.

Maria made a volume of tamales that truly cannot be imagined.

That's what you do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just, there was just a crew.

She was leading the crew, and just

tamales were being pushed out.

So this ham roll is a pretty intense experience.

So I do think that the horseradish, garlic, and lemon

brighten the cream cheese a lot.

And that really

adds a lot to the flavor experience.

It's very horseradish-forward.

The ham,

because it's so thinly sliced,

is a nice complement to the dish rather than the driving force of the dish,

which is nice.

I'm imagining it with

fat slabs of ham from some

pre-packaged grocery store nonsense.

I'm imagining making fun of you for even thinking of using that pre-packaged ham.

And that stuff is,

I don't love that stuff in general.

It's a little like weird and slimy to me.

And I also don't like the taste anyway.

But

in this case, it doesn't overwhelm anything.

And I would say the part that is intense, I expected the seasoning to maybe be intense because of the horseradish and garlic and so forth.

The part that's intense is that you're basically just eating a handful of cream cheese.

Yeah.

It's like eating a stick of butter or something.

I neglected, I must confess, to salt and pepper it.

And I think that it my rollies suffer as a result.

They are.

It needs a little, not so much salt because the ham is pretty salty, but definitely a little black pepper to bring out the flavors a little bit.

I enjoy it.

I think that the ham I got, which was from the deli, sliced from the deli, is not the greatest.

And I, you know, it's the only ham they had that wasn't boarshead

because I don't want to get any of that boarshead listeria that cropped up.

Oh, yeah.

But I'm sure that boar's head will work out that kink in the future.

Don't kink shame.

But Listeria is not one of my kinks.

No.

We can't kink shame those kinks in the supply chain.

No, but I will say that

a thin ham is important here, but

I would like a little bit of a stronger ham flavor because it is just very cream cheesy.

You know, someone sent me a box of father's brand country ham, which probably wouldn't work.

But

look, John, I don't want to say what you're getting for Christmas,

but in a way, it's too bad that this holiday holiday party didn't occur after your Christmas gift arrived.

Because someone I know, and I'm not going to say who it is, is receiving quite the gift box from Father's Country Hams of Bentonville, Arkansas, Kentucky.

Where are they based?

I think it's Kentucky.

Kentucky.

Because I remember it says at the top, Kentucky, but they sent a very reassuring note saying, there's a reason none of this is frozen or refrigerated

because it's cured within an inch of its

former life.

And I know someone who received a big gift box of ham, and that person is me, because guess what?

It arrived in a very timely fashion.

I thought about using the father's ham for this, but I did not want to be made fun of by Sarah and her family because the ham in that package was sliced rather thickly.

Yeah, they have a prosciutto style slice that I think would work perfect for this, but I did not include any of that in your gift box.

Prosciut would be very interesting in this situation.

And I would also say some Lebanon bologna from Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

If only, if only I knew where I could get some in the area.

I also put some of the cream cheese mixture on

one of these cheese puffs.

I'm excited to try it.

Oh, that sounds nice.

And I got to say, the idea of this cream cheese mixture as a spread sounds great to me.

Yeah.

I think Jennifer is getting the best of this because she can control and manage the volume of cream cheese that she's consuming.

And in fact,

you know what?

Lebanon bologna is a, is a beef bologna.

So even Jennifer Marma could enjoy it.

Next year in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Hey, we have a dispute here.

Jesse Thorne from Johnny in Portland, Oregon, where we'll be visiting soon at Revolution Hall.

Get your tickets, maximumfund.org slash events.

Johnny says, I prefer to eat holiday meals.

early in the afternoon like I did growing up, Oregon style.

I'm guessing Oregon style.

This leaves the rest of the day for cleanup, a nap, and a turkey sandwich.

I'm married into a family that eats around 7 p.m.

I love them dearly, but this is ridiculous.

I'm curious to hear what time of day the J squad prefers to eat their holiday meals.

Well, I mean, look, we were just talking about Thanksgiving.

It's

a holiday that we all endure.

What time is a good time for Thanksgiving dinner, Jennifer Marmor?

This is is a real hot button issue in my home.

Here we go.

Because my family is a 7 p.m.

family, especially because we abandoned going down to my aunts in San Diego the day before because of traffic.

We're like, we're not doing that anymore.

We're leaving first thing Thursday morning.

We'll get there.

We'll get all of our stuff in.

We'll cook.

We'll eat at dinner time, what we believe is dinner time.

And it didn't occur to me that this, I knew of families that did this earlier.

Um, that wasn't us.

And it didn't occur to me that this was a problem until

probably until

we went down with

our first kid before we had two kids.

And my husband was like, you guys eat too late.

This is insane.

Whoa.

And

it was like,

you know, his family is much more of the like afternoon,

you do the other stuff and then you have leftovers for dinner.

And, you know,

um

And so yeah, it in last year.

I remember being like oh, maybe we could do five May we could all eat at five Maybe that'll be better.

It just really possibly compromise we couldn't do it.

We can't do it.

My aunt's not a morning person.

We get all we all get down there at you know by 11 and there's just too much to do.

We can't get it on the table before seven.

Evening with an evening with the Marmors and the Rubens.

Jesse, what do you think?

Well, first of all, my family traditions are mutable because, you know, I grew up as a child of divorce.

So I alternated years between my parents.

Right.

And, you know, my mother has no other children.

And

so when I was with my mother, I would typically celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and,

you know, Christmas maybe with just my mom or sometimes with with friends as well with my dad

Thanksgiving later on we ended up going often to our neighbor Gina's house a lot

shout out to Gina

but

we didn't you know and we didn't typically have like a special fancy Christmas dinner usually

so

I don't come from a strong tradition but I will say that physically speaking, I would like to eat dinner at dinner time.

The idea of eating an in-between meal is something I have nothing but contempt for.

I feel the same way about brunch.

By the time I get to brunch, I'm so freaking hungry

because I've had to stand in line or whatever.

While being hungry, it makes me completely bonkers.

And being hungry is like my number one for sure migraine trigger as well.

So, like, if the meal is at two

or something, that just means I'm going to eat breakfast and lunch before Thanksgiving because I'm not going to make it until two

without eating.

Just everyone just getting hungrier and hungrier and matter and matter.

And so, I don't need to eat it.

at seven.

Like if somebody wants to eat it at 5.30 or whatever, that's fine.

But

I eat dinner at dinner time, like, and lunch at lunchtime because I need the predictability to keep my blood sugar stable.

It is strange that these holiday meals,

Thanksgiving and Christmas, if you celebrate,

do often fall into this weird twilight between lunch and dinner.

It is called dinner.

Well, I mean, dinner is usually, I mean, there are many different definitions of dinner and regionalism surrounding the name.

But, you know, by dinner, I mean evening meal.

That's what we called it when I was growing up.

And when I was growing up, it was traditional to have Thanksgiving in my Aunt Linda's house.

And we would eat it when there was still

when it was still light out.

So that had to have been three o'clock in the afternoon.

And I do remember naps and everything else.

And I always found that to be weird once I became an adult.

And particularly once I started making

big portions of the meal that was being served, I angled very hard for dinner time, dinner, because it just gave me more time to do my thing.

And then, you know, we did this Thanksgiving.

And I said to my wife, who's a whole human being in her own right, I'm like, let's do it at four.

Let's try for four.

And we did it.

And the best part about it was

it was not 10 p.m.

when everyone was finally leaving.

By the time we we were ready to take a little rest, we had a little evening left to ourselves.

And the only relative who hung around at that point was Grandma Jin.

And it was delightful to visit with her.

For those of you who celebrate.

Hey, we have another letter.

Yeah, this one is from Steve in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He says, My wife, brother-in-law, and I tried the eggnog with orange soda.

It was horrible, and my wife was disgusted.

I must have done something wrong.

Is the recipe just to mix eggnog and orange soda?

We tried looking for online recipes.

That was all we could find.

What did I do wrong?

You all sound like you enjoyed it so much.

We did.

Let me just say I just had a sip of mine and I enjoy it enough.

Look, it is what it is.

It is a distinct flavor profile.

It's surprising.

And what it reminds me of is a creamsicle.

It's like a spiced creamsicle.

It's like a holiday creamsicle.

Yeah.

And if, you know, creamsicle being that ice cream novelty that was often on offer in our high school cafeteria.

Yeah.

Wow.

What a sweet high school cafeteria you had.

You got access to creamsicles.

Well, I mean, they fell off a truck.

Hey, you kids want to buy some cream sickles?

You can get them real cheap over here.

Sometimes we'd get creamsicles.

Sometimes for dessert, we'd be offered Casiatone keyboards.

That's just whatever the Fisherman Springs.

In any case, that is a flavor profile that is not for everyone.

I mean, it has a little bit of that orange juice and toothpaste combo that is so notoriously disgusting.

So if it's not for you, I don't think you're doing it wrong, Steve,

but it just may not be for you.

That said.

If you are looking for an elevated eggnog and orange soda-based cocktail beyond even the elevation of of using San Pellegrino aranchiata mandarin orange soda and fancy organic eggnog.

You could do a lot worse, and indeed you could barely do better than to go to Julio's Bar.

Julio's Bar

is actually a YouTube channel where the Judge John Hodgman listener Julio,

an Italian human being living in Japan, maintains a presence and he does a great video about the orange soda and eggnog concoction, which we will link to in the show notes.

And if you're watching on YouTube, you can navigate to it after you finish watching our thing.

After, for sure.

After.

Smash that like and subscribe.

And smash that like and subscribe over there at Julio's Bar.

It looks great.

I would imagine that as a person living in Japan, Julio probably had to do a little extra work to get things together there.

I mean, I've been to Japan.

I believe they have orange soda.

There's a lot of Fantas in Japan, I remember.

Right.

But I don't know that they have eggnog, do they?

Well, here's what Julio has to say in the notes on his video.

Today I mix my version of the orange soda and eggnog drink that has become quite notorious in the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

For my version, I used VAV,

V-O-V.

I don't know what that is.

VAV appears to be an egg liqueur, an Italian egg liqueur made with Pellegrino Marsala, egg yolks, Madagascar vanilla, milk, and sugar.

So that's pretty close to an eggnog.

It's like an Italian eggnog kind of thing.

Yeah.

It's pretty close to the that's pretty close to eggnog, and maybe it's exactly close to eggnog.

I don't know.

So vauve is the eggnog in this particular concoction.

He uses freshly squeezed orange juice, Angostura bitters.

That's a nice addition.

Yeah.

Soda to give it the lightness of the Fanta carbonation, and dry gin.

He puts a little grandma gin in there too.

And he also says, I then discuss a bit why I like John Hodgman and the stuff he does.

Thank you, Julio, at Julio's bar.

Go check him out, please.

I'm hitting that.

subscribe button and the like button, and I'm sharing it with all of you now because that's how you help YouTubers that you like, maybe like Judge John Hodgman, find their audience.

What fun.

Thank you, Julia.

That's cool.

We're going to take a quick break, but before we do, let's hear a holiday tradition from our editor, A.J.

McKeon.

Hey, it's A.J.

McKeon, editor for the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

My favorite holiday tradition is going to the movies.

We'd have a big early meal and then check what movie was playing at a convenient time and go see it no matter what it was.

I'm Emily Fleming.

I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Matt Lieb.

We are real comedy writers.

Real friends.

And real cheapskates.

On every episode of our podcast, Free with Ads, we ask, why pay for expensive streaming services when you can get free movies from apps with weird names?

Each week, we review the freest movies the internet has to offer.

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And holy sh, what did I just watch?

Classics like Teen Witch.

Tune in every week as we take a deep dive into the internet's bargain bin.

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Find it at maximumfun.org.

Welcome back to the Judge Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

It's our annual holiday celebration, our holiday party.

We're trying some tasty foods.

This is only for members of Maximum Fun, except that

this year we are also gifting it to you for the holidays.

So, thank you to the members of Maximum Fun.

If you're not a member, maximumfund.org slash join, you can become one and get in on our membo mail bags.

John, what is our next recipe?

Jesse, it's called frog eye salad.

Frog eye, not frog guy,

frog eye salad.

Anika from Norfolk, Nebraska sent it in.

And this is a salad in the tradition of so many Midwestern salads, which is to say, there is not a single leaf of green anything in it.

Is this just something that's going on across the Midwest?

They're just putting, combining things with whipped cream as a binder?

Sometimes sour cream or mayo.

Yeah.

We had a salad like this

last year, I believe it was, called Kenny's Five Cup Salad, also known as Moon Poop, because

it was basically multicolored mini marshmallows in cool whip, among other ingredients.

And it looked like something that a

1950s moon man invader would poop.

And this one is called frog eye salad because it kind of resembles little frog eyes,

just in case that's what you wanted to eat.

But don't worry, it has no frog eyes in it.

It is made, Anika says, primarily from a chine de pepe pasta.

That means peppercorn pasta.

And it's little, little tiny pasta.

It's not as small as pastina.

but it's not as big as orzo.

Somewhere right there in between.

And it includes mandarin origins, pineapple, whipped cream.

And

it's now here on the Potluck cam.

And for those of you who are watching on the video, you are about to see frog-eyed salad revealed.

Wow.

These pasta are about the size of couscous.

That's how I

describe them.

It is couscous, but there is a difference between nachine de pepe and couscous that I found in terms of the flour that's used.

And if you get closer, it looks like

a fidget toy you might get at

a physical therapist, occupational therapist.

Yeah, like, you know, like, you know, if you're in the toy store with your kids and you're in the slime department, sometimes they also have this kind of like mushy, plasticky little clump of orbs.

And that's what this looks like.

It has no green.

It definitely looks less like a food and more like an object for sensory sensory play yeah phloem for the for the millennials phloem yeah this is what it looks like on the main camera has a phloemish quality i did not add marshmallows because aunt anika says that she never does although her grandmother's recipe definitely does call for it i'm gonna take a bite without marshmallows and then i do have some marshmallows jennifer was kind enough to bring some i'll do a little mix in and try a second bite with marshmallows.

Can I ask you, Jennifer, as our resident Midwesterner by marriage,

is this kind of thing something that is served alongside like the green beans or whatever?

Like, I think so.

I think it is.

Wow.

Even though it's very sweet.

I'm a Midwesterner by marriage, but the flavor of Midwestern that I married into doesn't do these salads.

But they are known.

Like when I talk to Shane about it, like he's like, oh yeah, I've seen that before.

And there was one party that I went to weirdly in Los Angeles that was all mayo-based salads, not one non-mayo-based salad.

And it was just all all together.

Was it a mayo-based salad theme party?

No, it was a baby shower.

Wow.

For those who wish to know, there is no mayonnaise in this salad.

None.

If there were, I would probably like it.

And I'm reserving my judgment yet.

I haven't tried it yet.

As we have discussed on this show in past editions, until this program,

I had never

eaten one of these salads.

I had eaten like potato salad that was mayo-based, but I had never eaten one of these like things with canned mandarin orange slices in them

or marshmallow fluff or anything, whipped cream, those kinds of things.

I had never eaten a casserole other than

like uh

other than like a macaroni and cheese dish or you know you'd never had a hot dish lasagna right other than one time that that one the appetizer was hot dish at a at a public radio event i went to in minnesota

required required by law so this is all like the purest cultural tourism to me i've eaten much more mongolian food than i have as a roll

These are salads that are very sweet.

That is why it is reasonable to ask, are they actually served as an accompaniment?

But the sweet tooth in the Midwest, I guess, is very strong.

The salad has half a cup of granulated sugar in it.

Again, one 20-ounce can of crushed pineapple.

It has sugar in addition to the whipped cream that is the primary.

Yeah, the primary binder is two to three and a half cups, I guess, to taste of frozen non-dairy whipped topping.

And then there's an egg and there are two 11-ounce cans of mandarin orange segments.

I went to the store to get mandarin oranges, and I was like, I should probably check the sell-by date for these mandarin oranges because I bet not a lot of people are getting mandarin oranges at this bodega in Brooklyn.

And indeed, the sell-by date was yesterday.

It was a miracle.

That's still good.

Oh, no, of course it was still good.

It was just like, it was like it was waiting for me.

There you go.

Shall we all go in together?

Here we go.

It's a little like Moon Poop.

Mm-hmm.

I remember being very surprised that I liked moon poop.

Yeah, it's very confusing.

It's pretty sweet, but it's not.

Yeah, given that it's whipped cream with added sugar.

Plus mandarin oranges and syrup,

crushed pineapple and syrup,

it should be sending me into a diabetic shock right now.

But it's something is mellowed out in the overnight refrigeration.

And I think the tartness of the pineapple kind of, even though it's in its like sugary,

you know, preservation, I feel like that tart kind of pulls some of the sweetness out of it.

I'm going to try with the mini marshmallows.

I've mixed some mini marshmallows in.

So this bite will feature, looks like three mini marshmallows.

Sounds fair for a bite.

There's a huge textural difference because it really.

de-emphasizes the little tiny pastas slipping against each other, which is the main textural component of the dish.

These a little pasta sliding around in your mouth.

You don't love the idea of imagining slippery frog eyes slippering around in your mouth?

Slippery frogs.

Honestly, that's the best part of this dish.

This isn't disgusting because there's nothing objectionable in it to me.

Like,

I'm not going to be like, uh, gross

canned mandarin orange slices.

This is like a little candy, you know.

It's fine.

But this is not good to me.

Like, considering that this is just directly inhaling calories with no nutritive value at all, other than, I guess, probably prevent scurvy.

Like, I got to say,

it's totally not disgusting, but

if I'm going to eat a dessert, I'd rather just have some ice cream.

It's not a dessert, though.

It's a salad.

Yeah.

It's a side dish.

If I'm going to eat a side dish, there's about a 20 million I'd rather have.

Now, minus the marshmallows, I could see how you could be tricked into thinking that this was a traditional pasta salad.

I maybe have not, should have not skipped the marshmallows to get the full effect.

I don't want to moon poop on anybody's family traditions here,

but this is

it's not visually appealing, nor does it sound delicious when described as frog eye salad.

And given all of that, though,

I find it to be inoffensive and something that if I grew up eating, I would probably really want to have some.

Yeah.

And would have nostalgia is a toxic impulse because sometimes it makes you eat frog eye salad.

But if I grew up eating this, this would be a very specific flavor and texture that I might bond to.

And, you know, good for your aunt for bringing you that incredibly rare pasta.

I would just say that when I made my pasta, I definitely made it.

I undercooked it by a full minute below the recommendeds because I knew that it was going to absorb some moisture overnight so that it didn't turn soggy.

You don't want soggy frog eyes.

Jesse?

Obviously, the best part of this by a wide margin is that it's called frog eye salad.

Okay.

Otherwise, I think inoffensive is the best characterization.

It's only offensive in the sense that it's obviously a dessert and not a side dish.

But you know what I want to say is that

of all of our submissions, we started out this thing a few years ago with eggnog and orange soda.

And we put out a call specifically for the weirdest or the strangest.

Your tomato soup jellied salads, for example.

Your little wieners braised in mustard and grape jelly.

And other really sort of, I won't say out there because normal is relative, but you know,

strange flavor combinations that your family loves.

And I will say this, of all of our submissions that we've, that we've enjoyed, this is the one that is the weirdest.

So thank you, Anika, for doing the homework and providing the weird.

And I hope I pronounced your name correctly.

And thank you, Grandma Jin.

I'm now up to six cheese balls.

Those are magnificent.

They're great.

Everything has been wonderful, as are all of the listeners.

But Jesse, I think we have a letter here from Joel in Los Angeles.

Indeed.

I sometimes put both applesauce and sour cream on my lot because at the same time, my wife says it's weird and should not be done.

Am I violating a cultural taboo or can I tell my wife to stop complaining?

I don't think there's anything in the Torah that prohibits that, if that's what you're asking.

Hebrew Bible, there's nothing in Deuteronomy.

No.

Some weird stuff in there.

Leviticus has some weird rules, but

I, yeah, I love a latke, but, you know, it's not part of my religious cultural heritage.

So I don't know if crossing the streams is allowed in this way.

Jennifer Marmer, do you want to weigh in?

Yeah, I can weigh in.

And I will say, I did not know that that was was something that was weird.

My family does latkes every Hanukkah, and applesauce and sour cream are served as toppings.

I tend to just do applesauce because that's what I like, but lots of people in my family do both.

Mixed together?

You do like a plop of sour cream and then a plop of applesauce on top.

Like a black and white cookie.

Except they're not half and half that way.

They're just

on top of the other one.

One on top of the other?

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Half and half.

That's too much.

I'm sorry.

Who's got the time?

So, Joel, I'm with you.

I don't know what your wife is talking about.

Then I started to question everything

that I know about, you know, my life and my growing up.

And then.

Lo and behold, in my Instagram feed, I saw a video from Food 52 about, it was actually about how to dispose of the

the cooking oil after you're done frying latkes but as a like little b-roll footage with that um instructional video the the chef justin sullivan putting assembling a bite of a latka and he took a latka put some sour cream on top of it put some applesauce on top of that took a bite

wow a little dollop a little dollop Yeah, I'm not even, I'm a Gentile.

I know what you're supposed to do with that oil.

You're supposed to see how long it lasts in the lamps.

I hear the record is eight nights.

That's right.

The record.

Got the recording.

And on the subject of latkas and toppings, I just want to shout out one submission from Eric in West Warwick, Rhode Island, biggest little state of the union.

He says, when we lived in Los Angeles, our family used to eat latkes with chili.

Which sounds, I mean, that sounded so delicious, I didn't bother to make it.

Like there was no, there was not like, hmm, how strange.

Like, that sounds great.

It's like you put chili on a baked potato.

Why wouldn't you put one on a latka, right, Jesse?

Yeah, honestly, as

culturally absurd as it may be,

I do think it sounds really tasty.

Yeah.

Although he does say we live in New England now, specifically West Warwick, Rhode Island.

And Eric says, I just can't bring myself to combine latkes and clam chowder

for a Hanukkah.

Well, there's one strong reason not to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Both dairy and shellfish.

And he spells his name with a capital H.

But if you are not someone

keeping kosher,

you know what?

When I go to Maine, I'm going to get some clam chowder and I'm going to get some frozen latka from Trader Joe's.

And

I'm going to top my clam chowder with a latka and tell you how it is.

Cool.

I mean, I'm sure that it is sacrilegious in many ways, including culinarily.

I mean, I have a feeling that my head's gonna melt like one of those Nazis when they open the Ark of the Covenant.

But for you all, I'm willing to try it because I do like a clam chatter.

Hey, before we end today's wonderful

members-only J-Squad office party and listener potluck, we've had a wonderful time, but I do want to acknowledge a letter we received from Brad in Fort Lee, New Jersey, who says, says, Brad says, My holiday dispute is with myself.

It's about whether I have permission to enjoy the holidays this year when our national politics have taken such a dark turn.

So much suffering is potentially just around the corner for so many of our neighbors.

I suspect I'm not the only JJL listener wrestling with these feelings this holiday season.

How can we embrace joy?

And I think it's a really, you know, understandable and thoughtful question to ask.

And indeed, I would simply say that

denying yourself joy does not increase joy in the world.

In fact, I would say denying yourself joy decreases the net amount of joy in the world.

Indeed, you need to cultivate a certain amount of joy, if only to

be able to persist and go forward and help others.

You do yourself no favors by not acknowledging joy when you feel it.

And I would also add that there is great joy

that comes in helping others.

And Jesse, I know that you wanted to say a few words about that as well.

Yeah, I mean,

we obviously,

when we were on tour, we really felt

the feelings in our audience about our national politics.

And it's something that I've been feeling a lot lately in my own community here in Los Angeles.

And I had an experience the other day that really

galvanized things for me, which is, I have a friend who is undocumented.

She came to the United States when she was four years old, I believe it is,

from Guatemala with her mom and her siblings.

She had a sibling who was deported as an adult about 10, 12 years ago and was killed in Guatemala after having been deported.

And

the other day, she told my wife that she and her mom were going to Las Vegas.

And my wife said, oh, that's great.

And she said,

our friend said, yeah, I've always wanted to go

and

I wanted to go now in case I get deported.

And

I feel very lucky that I live

in a community of immigrants.

And I feel very lucky that I grew up in a community of immigrants, including my own stepmother, who was a war refugee and came to the United States undocumented.

Or more properly, came to the United States and overstayed a tourist visa and was undocumented.

I just think that is just

a central part of my experience about what is great about being an American is that I grew up in these communities and live in these communities.

And so, and I think some listeners might know, but my wife and I used to work at a deportation defense law firm back when we lived in San Francisco.

And

our colleagues at that deportation defense law firm recommended to us some years ago a nonprofit that we've been supporting for years

in various ways called Al Otro Lado, which means the other side in Spanish.

And they provide direct services on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to migrants.

So that means things like helping people who have been

separated from their families find their families, because often when people are separated from their spouses or their children, they are not told where their spouses or children are.

It means things like accompanying migrants who are seeking asylum to the border

to the points of entry.

Simply having an attorney or someone with training and who speaks good English walk someone to the point of entry.

It means things like providing humanitarian aid and legal aid to people who are in open-air detention facilities near the border.

It means providing aid to people who are deported and find themselves left in Tijuana without

any

food, money, or means of getting anywhere safe.

They do really incredible work.

They're really good, hardworking people, and their work is very close to the ground, really directly affects people's lives.

And so my wife and I had a conversation, and we sort of talked about

our income and our savings and stuff.

And so we want to come to you who are listening to this.

And I thank you, John, for already having participated in this, but

to come to you who are listening to this to try and join us in supporting Alo Trolado, our goal between now and

our last stop of the Judge John Hodgman tour in Los Angeles is to raise $25,000 for Alotrolado.

And

every dollar that is raised,

Teresa, my wife, and I will match one-to-one

up to that amount.

I would really love for Alotrolado to get a check for $50,000 or more

to support the work that they do.

Obviously, you know, we're not the most famousest celebrity endorsers on earth, but

I felt like this was a time when

there are things about our world that are dark and scary and that the thing that we can do is do something about it.

I have found it immensely comforting to feel like we are taking direct action

to help people in our community

and in neighboring communities in

Southern California, in South Texas, in Northern Mexico, and the people who have come from all around the world to those places.

So, yeah, you can go to alotrolado.org/slash let's do something.

It's al otrolado, a-l-o-t-r-o-l-a-d-o dot org slash let's do something.

And look, you don't have to give $10,000.

If you got $10 or $5,

that will make a huge impact.

And, you know, I said, can we make a page with a thermometer?

Yeah, we can make a page with a thermometer.

And,

you know, I think

one of the pieces of good news that I can offer is that as cruel and unjust as our immigration system is

for migrants,

migrants who have legal representation

and have legal assistance actually have a pretty good shot.

The reason is that our government is so incompetent that they always mess up a thousand things.

So if you have a competent attorney, which most people do not, and there's no right to an attorney,

a government-provided attorney but if you have a competent attorney often things go well and these are very very competent people so

my hope is that you know we can affect some lives because

you know nobody is nobody is coming to our country to take advantage of anyone people people who are coming to the United States are moving through the world because they need to do so to eat and be safe and protect their families.

And we're really, really lucky that we live somewhere that can accommodate that

because it means that we get to enjoy living with the bravest, most remarkable people in the world.

So, yeah, otralotto.org/slash let's do something.

We'll put the link in the show notes.

And

yeah, you can do it now and get get it in for your

uh for your taxes, you know, they're a non-profit and everything, and um,

and feel like you did something.

You may have heard my clicky keyboard while you were speaking.

I was not playing SimCity, uh, I actually

was listening to everything you said, and I was typing in allotrolotto.org, and I made a donation.

It was just that easy, and it was just that quick.

And they said, Do you want to honor someone?

And I said, Absolutely not,

Certainly not my friend, Jesse and Teresa Thorne.

No.

No.

The point is that

everything that Jesse says is absolutely true.

We can and

continue to be and will be

a welcoming, great, diverse country.

And I think that it's imperative to help.

and not give up hope.

And I think that it's equally imperative to have a great time

because we face a political movement that is animated largely by wanting you to feel bad.

And they're going to make a lot of people feel bad, some much worse than others.

But I think that

being joyful and spreading joy

and spreading kindness and spreading resources where you can.

It's contagious and it's an act of moral protest.

So joy to the world.

I mentioned John, my stepmother, Bernie,

who she grew up in Belfast in Northern Ireland

throughout her life in an active war.

Right.

And

she grew up in

very real poverty.

Her father died when she was very young.

She had a large family that was supported only by her mother.

They did not have indoor plumbing.

And this is in the 70s in Europe.

And

she, you know,

she moved to France when she was 16 by herself, moved to the United States when she was 18 or 19,

a true refugee from war.

And

she moved to the United States.

Her closest friends in the United States,

she learned Spanish in addition to her French because her closest friends were Salvadoran because they were, you know, in the mid-1980s in San Francisco.

They were the other refugees of war that were most present.

You know, they were the folks who got it.

And I lived with that through my whole life, right?

I mean, like through my whole childhood, I lived with the consequences of living with somebody that experienced a

life situation that was so dire that they had to leave their home.

And

one of the things,

I learned a lot of things from it.

I also worked with refugees in Laos as well.

And one of the things that I learned from it was

you still got to have a good time.

The joy of your life

has to be what you hold on to in those situations, whether it's your relationships with family and friends or just a good joke, like

that is

what keeps you moving because there's a lot of suffering in the human experience, and there could be a lot of joy too.

So, um,

yeah.

So, I, I thank my, I thank my stepmother and, and my, my father and his vet buddies, and

uh,

you know, uh, Vorison and Bunton, and all of the folks that I worked with at the Jai Foundation and my dad's foundation when I was in college and just graduated from college,

all the folks in Laos who welcomed me into their homes like

that

life can be really hard, but it doesn't mean you can't have a good time.

You're here.

Yeah,

there's a reason that we have these celebrations during this time of year, right?

Because in certain hemispheres, it's the longest night of the year.

And this is the time of year when we kindle a light against that darkness and remember that light will come again.

Joy is sustaining and it is animating.

Devoting yourself to suffering can be paralyzing.

Don't let it happen.

Be contagious with joy.

Live it up.

So that is alotrolalo.org slash let's do something.

And that's all the time we have for this month's membo mailbag.

Keep sending us your letters at maximumfund.org slash jjho.

Remember to use the secret members only passphrase.

Yeah, if you're not a member, all you heard was a beep just now, a long beep.

Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

Our social media manager is Natty Lopez.

Our podcast is edited by A.J.

McKeon.

Our video producer is Daniel Speer.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmor.

We'll answer more of your questions next month right here.

in the Judge John Hodgman members only

membo mailbag.

Most of all, thank you to you for being a member or if you are getting this as a holiday gift or considering becoming a member, we are so grateful to you.

You are the reason that this show exists.

And we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

And no matter what winter holiday you are celebrating to

get you through the dark, long nights of winter, happy holidays to you.

We're so grateful for you and we love you.

I'll see you soon, Grandma Jen.

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