Gruel and Unusual Punishment

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Gruel and Unusual Punishment.

Aubrey files suit against her husband, Chris.

When Aubrey was growing up, it was a tradition on Christmas morning to eat cream of wheat for breakfast.

Aubrey's mother would hide an almond in the batch, and it was said that whoever ended up with the almond in their bowl had good luck for the next year.

Aubrey wants to continue this Christmas tradition with her young family and Chris, but Chris is opposed.

He says the tradition puts too much pressure on the almond recipient to do something special.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Well, only one can decide.

Please rise.

As Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Hi, I'm Peanut Butter.

This is Jelly.

We just tried out for a new candy bar, but Jelly didn't make it.

Jelly, I won't go without you.

but peanut butter you must you must go on and become a star i'll never forget you jelly never i'll make them name the candy bar after you bail off jesse thorne please swear them in aubrey and chris please rise and raise your right hands do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god or whatever we do i do do you swear to abide by judge john hodgman's ruling despite the fact that were he to eat one of those New new Orleans cakes, he would probably just swallow the baby Jesus.

I do.

I do.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

I didn't know that was supposed to be a baby Jesus.

It's not just in New Orleans.

Many Catholic traditions involve eating a cake with the baby Jesus.

He's talking about the king cake.

The king cake.

I thought, well, I guess that baby is our king, King Jesus.

Yeah.

Oh, well.

I have a friend who's Guatemalan who is shocked that I don't eat a baby Jesus cake.

I have always considered a baby Jesus cake, aka king cake, Cake, to be merely a choking hazard,

disguised as a cake, and that's what we're talking about today.

But before we go into your choking hazard, Aubrey and Chris, can either of you name the piece of popular culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Not just reference, I quoted it directly.

I changed no words.

Chris, why don't you guess first?

I have no idea, so I'm just going to go with my pre-prepared guess, which is The Joy of Cooking by Mark Bittman.

He didn't write The Joy of Cooking.

Yeah, that's wow.

Oh, how to read.

How to cook everything.

No, you already said Joy of Cooking.

Joy of Cooking by Mark Bittman.

The French chef by Jay Kenji Lopez Alt.

Yeah, let's.

Louisiana Cookery by Padma Lakshmi.

Yeah.

First of all, shout out to Irma S.

Rombauer and Marion Rombauer-Becker for writing The Joy of Cooking, Irma S.

in particular.

And then, as far as how to cook everything goes, you know what?

Maybe you should try to do some things well rather than everything okay

if you're going to write a cookbook.

Now we just lost Mark Pittman.

Okay, as a listener, sorry about that, Mark.

Aubrey, who do you, what is your guess?

I also have no idea, but it sounded like a strange TV commercial from the 70s.

I'm going to go with that.

Wow.

That's as specific as I can get.

That is, hang on.

Let me write down the joy of cooking by Mark Pittman first.

John, can you write down my guess?

Oh, yeah, sure.

It's Gordon Ramsey's Ramsey in 10

by Jacques Pepin.

Oh, sure.

Right.

Of course.

All right.

I've written down that guess.

Jennifer Marmor, do you have a guess, a cookbook guess?

Yeah, Barefoot Contessa at Home by Reed Drummond, the Pioneer Woman.

Yeah, of course, right.

All right.

Those are all good guesses.

And then we have some kind of weird television ad from the 70s.

Does that represent your guess correctly, Aubrey?

Perfect.

All right.

Well, I'm here to tell you that one guess is right.

And it's none of the cookbook ones.

I'm not going to give it to you because you couldn't name the reference.

Dang it.

But you.

Did I get the decade correct?

You got the decade correct.

Wow.

This was an ad.

This was an ad that I discovered this morning, and I was alive during this time.

But it is a for a candy bar or a snack bar.

I don't know what you would even call it.

It's not, well, it's peanut butter covered in chocolate.

It's like a Reese's peanut butter.

And the name of the candy bar was No Jelly.

I think the full name of the candy bar was peanut butter with no jelly, but No Jelly was the thing that you saw.

And they did a series of ads featuring

this couple who are dressed as like actors in the early 20th century who have been auditioning for this candy bar and jelly didn't make the cut.

So peanut butter went on to become a star.

Named the candy bar after jelly, No No Jelly.

Now I mention this because the No Jelly Bar was the third and ultimately least popular of this small candy company based in New Haven, Connecticut, called Peter Paul Candy Company.

And their top two, still to this day, although they've been absorbed by Cadbury and now Hershey's, are Almond Joy and Mounds.

Because sometimes you feel like a nut.

And sometimes Chris doesn't ever feel like having a nut in the screen of wheat.

So Aubrey, you seek justice, correct?

You have brought Chris to this court?

I have.

State the nature of your complaint, please.

So this has been a beloved Christmas tradition in my family for at least as long as I can remember.

The point of origin is contested amongst family members.

But it's always been a very sweet moment on Christmas morning when my mom, as you said, Jesse makes a big pot of cream of wheat, dishes it up into however many bowls as there are people,

and then serves them on a tray.

And we all pick our bowls and enjoy some delicious cream of wheat while we all sort of sift through and see who got the almond.

She has, when

family members have not been present, dished up an extra bowl to represent them.

And if none of us get the almond, we know it's in that extra bowl.

Oh.

So that's unusual.

That's interesting.

But it does suggest that there's, it's not random where this almond goes.

I mean, she does her best to not see which bowl the almond ends up on or in, and then she puts them all on a tray.

Usually, she places the tray in the middle, and we select.

Sometimes she's come around with the tray for us to select, but it is supposed to be random.

Interesting.

Well, this sounds very cute,

and yet you are here with a dispute.

What is Chris's problem?

Right.

Well, I don't want to speak for him, but generally speaking, when I've brought up this tradition and wanting to do it with our family, as we are now starting to think about what Christmas morning will look like for us and our kids,

he has not been in favor.

Chris, you don't like a big heaping bowl of cream of wheat on Christmas morning and the chance to choke on an almond for good luck?

No, not particularly, Your Honor.

Chris is all about malto meal.

Yeah, are you more of a farina guy?

Well, I'm actually more of a cinnamon roll guy.

That's the tradition in my family is to have cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.

Okay.

Now, I don't happen to have a sweet tooth, but it is when you're, if, if it's an A or B comparison, cinnamon rolls win over cream of wheat.

And I'm a cream of wheat lover.

I mean, I really do like cream of wheat.

But why does it, why can't it, why can't it be both, Chris?

Why do you have to put the kibosh on the choke cereal?

Well, so Aubrey's family is

just, you know, larger, kind of more

outgoing than mine.

So I've always kind of felt kind of on the outside of the almond tradition, just kind of, you know, experiencing it from the periphery.

While my family's relatively small, she has

a lot of cousins in the area that they all get together around Christmas, and it's usually a big celebration, a bigger deal.

And with my family, it's usually pretty small and

not a whole lot attached to it.

And the area in this case, you are in Orlando, Florida.

Is that correct?

Correct.

And is that where your family is, Aubrey?

We're in Florida.

Right.

Both born and bred in Florida.

Not Orlando specifically.

Right.

So, Chris, but your family isn't as nearby geographically as Aubrey's is?

It's about, our families are about the same distance apart.

You just see more, there are more of them and you see more of them.

There are more of them, right?

Right.

You're an outsider in your own family, is what you're saying.

I understand.

Hey, do you know what one of my favorite episodes of Judge John Hodgman is, besides this one?

What's that, John?

I can't remember the number.

Maybe Jennifer Marmor can look it up quickly, but it's the one where I talked about how there are no perfect cubes in nature.

And I was setting up for a reveal later on that in fact, nature does produce, well,

there are a number of perfect cubes in nature, one of which is

crystals.

Certain crystal formations are cubic, but nature also produces a very strange cubic form, which is wombat poop.

Wombats poop cubes.

That's a great t-shirt, by the way, because that represent was such an incredible experience how right after that episode came out, I would constantly be getting emails saying, but there you're wrong, sir.

Wombats poop cubes.

And I knew that someone was writing to me before they even finished the episode because I didn't reveal the wombats poop cubes until later in the episode.

And I could just write back to them and go, keep listening, pet ant.

And then they would be like, well, I'm sorry, I didn't realize at the end, you realized, right?

So I just want to get this out of the way quick because people are all writing letters.

The tradition, Aubrey, is called Ries allamand.

Mande.

Yes.

And it is Danish in origin.

And this is brought to our attention by listener Rob in Madison, Wisconsin, who was recently judged to be wearing underwear outside.

He called them sleep shorts, but they were minions' underwear.

Because he knows it, he practices it.

It's a Danish tradition, and it's normally not cream of wheat.

Traditionally, it is a rice pudding, Ries à la Mande.

I don't know why it's French.

in French language name in Denmark, but it is.

According to tradition, this hot rice pudding was eaten by the, I don't know how to pronounce this, but the Nisar, who are the Christmas goblins in Danish tradition.

Oh, heck yeah.

Yeah, and if you put out a bowl of rice pudding overnight and some of it is gone, that proves your house is full of goblins.

That's why so many people flee their homes on Christmas morning because a cat got into the rice pudding and they think their house is full of goblins.

So there's this long tradition of Danish people fleeing their homes on Christmas morning and setting them on fire.

Very tragic.

And then sometimes they put in

a whole almond, and the person who gets the almond gets a little toy or a piece of a marzipan pig is the other thing that I noticed here on Wikipedia.

Yes.

In preparation for this podcast, I did some digging within the family of why we started doing this.

And my mom found the book that she got the idea from, and it is by a Finnish author.

I believe there are variations of that tradition throughout Scandinavia.

And so she got it from that book and then adapted it.

But this is an old family tradition because you are Scandinavian.

Are you Danish?

No.

Oh, no.

No, they just, her mom just googled what to do with excess Marzipan pigs.

No, this is cultural appropriation at its finest.

But

I was not aware of those origins.

It's not a book that we continued reading, wherever she got this idea from.

Right.

It just sort of became an adaptation within our family that we did that got separate from that

tradition.

This would be called Santa Claus and His Elves by Maori Kunas.

Yes.

This is exhibit E in the evidence that you submitted, Aubrey, correct?

Yes.

And according to your mom, you can get a used copy at Abe's Books for $129.36.

She did manage to find that she does still have our family copy in another location.

She just wasn't able to access it at the time.

That's a gold mine right there.

A gold mine.

Yeah, you're sitting on quite a pile of Marzipan pigs.

Well, since we're in the evidence document, let's go through the evidence quickly.

Exhibit A, submitted by Aubrey, stock image of how delicious a bowl of cream of wheat can be.

And this does look like a delicious bowl of cream of wheat.

But exhibit B is, of course, not a stock image.

It's an actual photo of actual cream of wheat, and it doesn't look very good.

No, that's the only picture we could find of an actual bowl of cream or wheat on Christmas morning for my family.

I don't know why we've never taken a picture of the tray.

Yeah, I would think that this is a thing that you would memorialize because it's such a long-running tradition.

How many generations does it go back?

This is a point of contention, as I mentioned.

I do not remember a Christmas morning where we didn't do it.

Okay.

In my memory, it's something we've done my whole life.

My sister, who is eight and a half years older, seems to think that my mom just came up with the idea after she went to college and she was not involved in this tradition.

I don't think that's true.

I think her memory is wrong there.

Okay.

All right.

Your sister feels that it is a

tradition come lately.

Yes.

But for you, it is a meaningful, it is, you identify it with Christmas morning.

Absolutely.

Regardless of how long my family's been doing it, it is incredibly meaningful to me.

This is the difference, by the way, between older millennials and younger ones is older ones remember a world before there was cream of wheat with an almond in it.

The classic difference.

They only got that in school, you know, like third or fourth grade.

Right, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The almond didn't come into the cream of wheat until the computer lab got an Apple IIe.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

Exhibit C, Aubrey in 2019, after finding the almond, period, pure joy.

You do seem to be very happy.

in this photograph.

And all these photos, of course, will be available at the showpage at maximumfund.org, as well as on our Instagram account at judgejohnhodgman.

Describe how you're feeling in this photo and why this tradition is so meaningful to you, if not your dumb sister.

You don't get the almond every year, you know?

And so on the mornings when you get it, you feel just a little extra special.

You get a little spring in your step.

I'm clearly very tired in that picture, but I am very happy.

And did you have a good year in 2019?

I did.

We became parents that year.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Yeah.

Or 2020.

Sorry.

Christmas 2019.

So you get the luck the next year.

In 2020, we became parents.

You got lucky in 2020.

The rest rest of us not so lucky.

Yeah.

This almond.

That also doesn't help my case.

This almond brought you

a year of joy.

But that almond brought us, the rest of the globe, a year of mountains.

Yes.

I completely acknowledge that there is an element of suspension of disbelief with this tradition.

I obviously don't logically think the almond bestows good luck, but I think a big part of Christmas is, you know, choosing to believe in magic just for a little while and having special special moments with family.

And that's what this tradition is to me.

You believe in Christmas goblins, though, right?

Completely.

Okay, good.

Chris, look at this photo of Aubrey so happy to have gotten that almond.

Why do you want to smack that bowl down onto the ground out of her hand and crush it with the boot of your joylessness?

Well, I think that kind of brings me to the second part of my objection.

And part of it is just the idea that

being presented with the almond results in a year of good luck for that person.

And

for one part,

if this is something that we want to continue in our family, I don't really want to continue to perpetuate the idea of good luck and that there's a superstition that if you get this almond, then you will have a good year.

Oh.

And

also, it'll make that person, you know, it could possibly make them feel more

obligated to do something awesome that year or accomplish something.

Oh, put pressure on them.

Put pressure on them.

Okay, internal pressure.

Do you feel internal pressure to do something awesome if you get the almond?

Have you ever gotten the almond?

Have you ever participated in this at all?

I've participated since we've been together.

Yep.

How many times have you gotten the cream of wheat to begin with?

Every time?

Nine?

Yeah, that's a number of years.

Nine years?

Yeah, nine years.

And how many times have you gotten the almond?

Once.

And did you feel pressured to express your good luck with some kind of like win the lottery or cure cancer or something.

Well, to provide some context, the year that I received the almond, I actually asked her parents for permission to marry her.

Oh, so we were

dating and I, yeah, I very conservative parents.

Yeah, that's fine.

That morning

I asked their permission.

And then I went and got Aubrey up and we got up and enjoyed cream of wheat.

And so that morning, it was pretty obvious to me that her mom was kind of twirling the tray and arranging it in a way that the bowl with the almond in it that she knows was, you know, in my direction.

You're saying the game is, she rigged the game.

Yes, I think this is his main contention against the tradition.

Well, he also doesn't want your children to grow up with a sense of luck.

Well, he's one of these Christmas rationalists.

Judge Hodgman,

do you remember that deep thought, the Jack Handy deep thought about luck?

No.

I think it's children need encouragement.

So if a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess.

That way he'll develop a good lucky feeling.

What was the one where it's like

if you see someone jumping off a building, you should try to catch them.

It might be just a dummy.

If you fall off the Sears Tower, go real limp.

Then maybe someone will try and catch you.

Go real limp like a dummy.

Maybe someone will try and catch you because, hey, free.

Oh my gosh, let's get a Congressional Medal of Freedom for Jack Handy.

I agreed with that.

Just hanging out in Taos, New Mexico.

So, Chris, your mother-in-law, or at that point, future mother-in-law, rigged the game.

And you felt that you were being, this was not just a cute almond.

of joy.

This was an almond of some kind of pressure.

This was a message like

a fish wrapped in a newspaper or a horse head in your bed?

She didn't put a horsehead in your bed, did she?

I think a fish wrapped in a newspaper just means you bought a fish from a fishmonger, doesn't it?

It means you sleep with the fishes.

Oh, got it.

Yeah.

And hey, free fish.

What was the message do you think she was sending to you?

I didn't feel pressured.

I could tell it was more of an encouragement, kind of a, you know, we're excited that you're going to propose.

So, you know, I know you're going to have a good year next year.

So it was, I think it was, it wasn't pressuring or anything.

It was just more of an encouraging gesture.

It did concern me a little bit that Aubrey would be suspicious of me getting the almond, you know, when we had been talking about getting married.

And this was before you proposed.

Yeah.

Wow.

I was already suspicious, though.

So.

Wow.

Okay.

You were worried that he loved you?

Okay.

I can see how, okay.

Now, Chris, I'm coming around.

I got to say, you've played this game very well

because Aubrey, this is your mom interfering with the proposal.

She's not sending a message to Chris.

She's sending a message to you.

Coded inside information.

She's trading secrets.

Yeah, I did say that she certainly, she tries her hardest not to see where the almond ends up, but sometimes I think it's a little unavoidable.

Are you maintaining that your mom didn't rig this game?

She rigged the game.

I think she rigged the game that year.

Yeah.

Yes.

I think she rigged the game that year.

But I also, even if the game were rigged every year, I don't think that that ruins the magic of the tradition.

I think it's a sweet idea that

a mom who sort of knows what's coming up in her kids' lives or a parent who knows what's coming up in their kids' lives wants to throw a little magic their way.

I think that's sweet.

Like you said, it was encouragement.

So, yes, it was rigged.

But

I don't see why that has to go against the tradition.

Let's take a quick recess.

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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Chris, what are your family traditions around Christmas?

Cinnamon buns we talked about.

How do you test for goblins?

They just let the goblins run rampant.

It's not an issue.

Yeah, we've left Christmas cookies out, you know, for the elves or goblins, but haven't really had anything special like that.

One thing that is in the evidence is a picture of

these Christmas balls that my grandmother and aunt made every year.

And they kind of just, you know, something that occurred each year.

And they give it to the family.

It's a kind of display on the tree.

And

I was going to guess that because you're such a Christmas rationalist, that the center of the holiday for you would be you giving a long lecture about how Christmas is not actually a Christian holiday.

And in fact,

it's an ancient pagan holiday that was added a gloss of Christianity in order to foster conversions in the ancient world.

It's true.

Okay, but then you said, oh, but I got these Christmas balls, so I got to check out your Christmas balls for sure.

Exhibits.

I would like to note.

Yeah.

I would like to note that pictures of those Christmas balls were submitted as evidence on my side of the case.

Oh, okay.

Well, talk to me about these balls.

What are they?

Describe what they are and say what their meaning are to Chris's family.

And Chris, you just be silenced.

No, if he wants to explain what they are, they're meaningful to him, but I'll explain why I think they're an argument for my side of the case.

Okay, then let's put a hold on you for a second, Aubrey.

Chris, we've said Christmas balls a lot of times.

People are

already writing letters going, what are these Christmas balls?

I'm getting them already.

Explain what they are.

Explain what they're meaningful to you.

And then, Aubrey, you explain why Chris is wrong and it really should be meaningful to you or whatever you're going to say.

So they're, my aunt and grandmother make them.

My grandmother, before she passed away, would make them.

My mom now helps out.

My aunt does a counted cross-stitch, like a pattern for something that happened during the year.

Like in the evidence they submitted, the ball for 2020 featured a mask.

And it says thou shalt wear a mask.

Yep.

Right.

There have been Christmas balls that featured hurricanes that we survived.

So things that, you know, things that we remembered throughout the year.

These are like needle point.

Little designs.

This one says, thou shalt wear a mask, controversial point of view in Florida.

Yeah, then there's a fabric kind of folded around the design.

Right.

Yep.

And you wrap them around

like a styrofoam ball or something that you get at the craft store.

I've never actually seen that, but.

You've never seen the inside of a Christmas ball?

Yes, I can confirm that's how they're made.

Okay.

Got to get into one of these.

Got to tell you.

How many Christmas balls do you have here?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

There's a new one every year.

Yes.

I bet you right now, inside one of those Christmas balls, there's an almond.

You should crack them all open.

So what does this tradition mean to you, Chris?

I mean, it's just a kind of a memory of the things that we've gone through as a family.

Like on the balls, too, there's initials for family members that got married that year.

Right.

So the F and G or the H H and G on the ball, I think that you're seeing for 2019.

That's when Hunter and Gather got married.

Yeah, that was a big problem.

And so it's just kind of a time to think back on the previous year.

And, you know, every Christmas, my mom has a lot more of them.

We'll go through and look at them from the 90s or the, you know, 2000s and kind of reminisce on the past.

I'm going to give you a specific prompt that I should have given you at the beginning.

Not this open-ended, why is this tradition nice?

Because it's a nice tradition.

I get it.

Why is this tradition better?

than the almond and cream of wheat?

So much so that the almond and cream of wheat should be banned.

Well, I mean,

it's more subjective.

It's because it means something to me.

And, you know, the almond and the cream of wheat doesn't really mean anything to me.

This is something that I've grown up with and remember.

So this speaks to why I submitted these Christmas ornaments on my side of things.

Great time for you to talk.

You know how to do this.

Let's go.

So the reason why it was submitted on my end of things is because these Christmas ornaments are a great example of a beloved family tradition of Chris's that I wholeheartedly support.

These ornaments,

you know, objectively are not the most attractive or trendy of ornaments that are out there.

I genuinely love them though

because they mean something to him and his family.

And this is a tradition that goes way back potentially longer than the almond.

You hear that Chris?

Chris, your Christmas balls are not trendy.

They're not hip and stylish.

like all other Christmas ornaments.

Right.

Trendy was probably.

Like that pickle and that TARDIS that we have, that golden TARDIS and that shiny pickle, and then the handmade junk.

So you're saying you like the Christmas balls.

You're not trying to erase the Christmas balls.

I genuinely love them.

You send in these pictures of Christmas balls to prove that you're a good person.

Yeah.

It's a virtue signal.

I got you.

No, it's just to show we can support each other's traditions.

And because that tradition means something to him, it means something to me.

Well, and the other part of this tradition is that there's no mystical attachment of luck or superstition to it.

Wait a minute, Chris, are you really upset about this luck and superstition thing?

Is this true?

I believe that it's important to

understand that accomplishments are a result of hard work or of something that you've worked hard to do and accomplish, not because of luck or where you just happen to be in the right place at the right time.

I see.

Okay.

Christmas magic at its finest.

So

you have a family now.

How are you...

this is always hard for a young family in terms of sharing holidays with extended family, whatever the holiday might be.

Yes.

So where do you, let's just, we're talking about Christmas today.

Where do you do Christmas morning now that you have a little family?

And

when do you see the other people of your family?

Well, that's what we're trying to figure out.

We're trying to imagine future Christmases.

What is our Christmas morning when we do finally say, you know, we're gonna stay at our house for Christmas?

What is that gonna look like?

Talking about in 30 years when you finally say, I'm not going over to your house, mom.

Yeah, with family all within driving distance, it's hard to say who gets what holiday.

But generally speaking, we'll spend actual Christmas Day with Chris's family.

But we always will have a morning at our house, not on December 25th, where we pretend it's Christmas morning and that we exchange our gifts and have a bit of family time just at our house.

I should say that because we're teleconferencing,

you very thoughtfully went inside your closet to record this because it's better audio there.

Because it's closed behind you dampen the sound and it sounds better on mic.

And I just, when you say we do, we do a fake Paniwani Christmas morning together where we pretend that it's Christmas, I just imagine the two of you in that closet.

One of you's giving one the brush and the other one's giving the watch chain or whatever, and you're hiding it from your family because they don't want.

So Christmas Day, you normally go to Chris's family.

You don't alternate?

We generally do Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas morning with his family.

And then you go see your family, Aubrey, later in the day on Christmas?

No, not generally the same day.

Some other time around Christmas day.

Yes, from Chris.

I'm hearing yes from Chris.

It's never the same day.

It's never the same day.

And then when we do go to my family, we, again, we spend the night and then that morning pretend it's Christmas morning.

So we have multiple Christmas mornings.

It's all made up, you know.

It's all made up.

It's not, it's a made-up holiday.

No, I agree.

Even if you're not.

So why can't you have more than one if it's all made up?

Oh, okay, cool.

You're the one out here pitching Christmas magic.

I'm here saying it's just made up.

Even if you, even if you believe, if you're a person of faith and you believe in our Lord Jesus, who was born from a cake or whatever,

probably was not born from a cake on December 25th.

That date is arbitrary.

It's matched Saturnalia.

There we go.

Now I'm having Christmas Chris style.

Okay.

All right.

We're all on the same page about this holiday.

And so when you spend the night over at your mom's house with your extended family, that's when this cream of wheat gets trotted out the morning after the family.

Whatever morning we are celebrating Christmas with that family is when the cream of wheat happens.

Chris, would it be acceptable?

So are you trying to ban it from their house or you just don't want to have it in your house?

No, yeah, I'm just trying to keep it from

banning it from our house or from our

celebration.

You're concerned about cream of wheat creep.

It's going going to creep into your tradition.

Right.

Right.

Do you have any new tradition that you want to pitch that's just your family, Chris?

Yeah, well, I mean, one tradition we currently have is

I proposed to Aubrey on Christmas Eve,

the couple of days after I got the almond.

Right.

You proposed on Christmas Eve for good luck?

Go on.

Well, yeah.

He had to take some time to have the jeweler set the almond into the ring.

And the kind of the hook of the proposal was that I asked her to go out to a Christmas tree outside and help me decorate it.

And inside of the ornament box was a box with a ring in it.

Oh, so it was kind of a, you know.

It's very cute.

And we've kept the ornaments that we hung on the tree.

And those ornaments are also not trendy.

But we've kept them.

And on Christmas Christmas Eve every year, we hang them on our own tree.

You sent in an adorable photo of the two of you on this

bright and sunny Florida Christmas Eve

in front of some kind of bush.

It's definitely not a fir tree.

It doesn't look like a fir tree.

This is Maine.

What is that?

Well,

that was my grandparents' property in lower Alabama.

Oh, okay.

I'm not sure what kind of tree it was, but

I was told that it was a Christmas tree, but I don't know the specifics of what kind of tree it is.

Is it a tree in the ground?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's some kind of evergreen.

It's good enough.

It's great.

This is a wonderful photo.

I don't know.

It might just be like a ficus looking at this picture.

The two of you are so happy.

I mean, Aubrey, you are beaming.

Chris, you are actually smiling, which is incredible.

And you're not in a clothes closet, which is terrific.

And you have these ornaments that you put on the tree.

And you're right.

You're right, Chris.

They're not trendy ornaments.

You know what these ornaments are?

They're classic.

You've got your classic Christmas balls, red and green, plus some oblong dealies with some glitter on it.

They're classic.

Classic.

Evergreen Engagement.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, that's the

town was called Evergreen in Alabama.

And that's what's written on the zip on the Ziploc bag where you keep these ornaments.

It says Evergreen Engagement, 1224, 13.

So cute.

What does Christmas mean to you, both of you, answered separately?

In fact, one of you go in the other closet while the other one answers.

This is a test.

Christmas newlywed game.

To me, it is a time to be together with family, to have moments that you share and specifically traditions.

I love...

any and all traditions.

I'm all for all of them.

And together you can sort of suspend disbelief on certain things.

I think most of us grew up doing that as kids with other Christmas traditions that may or may not be true long term.

I want to reveal.

You're trying to say you're willing to introduce the concept of luck.

Yes.

Right.

And magic.

Christmas magic.

But you're being very pointed about it because Chris doesn't believe in magic.

I think we both agree.

Well, I don't want to speak for him.

We both love Christmas and being together as family.

We just are slightly different in how we approach what is meaningful about

it.

I was just asking for your point of view, not a secret argument to win this.

Chris,

what does this holiday mean to you?

And I mean, I feel like I'm pretty similar.

It's about being with family,

thinking about the past year, remembering family members that are no longer with us, you know, and having traditions that we're sentimental about.

So I, yeah.

But just no, no magic.

No lucky almonds.

No.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I think maybe it could be about setting goals for the next year or goals that you will practically work upon and you will earn, you will earn almonds through your own effort.

Right.

You know, there's no pressure attached to

the magic.

There's no

obligation to accomplish something big every year.

Just, you know, a time to get together with family and, you know, celebrate generosity.

No press.

All right, Aubrey, I see you raising your finger.

You may speak.

Judge, I maintain that he may have some fancy arguments against this tradition, but what it comes down to is he just doesn't like cream of wheat.

If we were to just boil it down, much like the making of Christmas cream of wheat.

There we go.

He just doesn't like cream of wheat and he would prefer to eat something tastier on Christmas morning.

And I'm not opposed to eating yummy things.

I just love the simplicity of the cream of wheat.

Practically Practically speaking, busy parents on Christmas morning, it's easy.

Get children's bellies full and you don't have to worry about making other fancier things.

So

I think if you were to be very honest, it would boil down to food for him.

Chris, how do you respond to that objection?

I mean, I think it's fair.

I'm not that crazy about cream of wheat.

Although the stock image that was in evidence is making me want to try it with, you know, a lot of butter and some sugar on top or something to try to make it a little more appetizing.

But

it's hard to get to make cream of wheat flashy, that's for sure.

Yeah.

All right.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my judgment.

I am going to go into the little TARDIS that is hanging from our Christmas tree because it's larger on the inside.

I will think this over.

I'll be back in a moment to make my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Aubrey, how do you feel about your chances?

Well,

I think it's a reasonable request to keep one of the traditions from my family, since we often celebrate traditions of his as well.

I also want to give him a little credit.

He's not quite as curmudgeon-ly as this argument makes him sound.

He doesn't hate everything as much as he hates the idea of luck.

Correct.

Chris, how are you feeling?

Yeah, I think I feel okay.

I tried to do my best to present my argument.

But I think I got my case across.

I think Aubrey has

a good argument, and she's definitely better at

persuasiveness and

this kind of thing than I am.

I don't know.

Yeah, I did my best.

I'm not going to,

yeah,

you know, it's because I worked hard at it, not because I was lucky or, you know, any kind of magic, but I, you know, tried to work hard at

presenting my argument.

You made your own luck, in other words.

Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no.

no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So, let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Judge Hodgman, we're coming to San Francisco Sketch Fest Saturday, January 22nd at the Sydney Goldstein Theater.

This is going to be something really special.

Wait a minute, you said we.

You're talking about you and me?

And Jennifer Marmor, I think.

Jennifer Marmor, too.

Yeah, unless she drops out at the last minute, leaves us hanging.

Don't drop out at the last minute.

We're going to have a great time.

We're going to do a live show, our first live show since all of this started.

It's going to be extraordinary.

We're going to wear our little outfits, bring our musical instruments.

It's going to be a blast.

When is it again?

That's January 22nd at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco.

You can get your your tickets at sfsketchfest.com.

If you don't live in the Bay Area, tell a pal who does.

It's going to be a great show.

It's going to be quite the extravaganza, I think.

Good time.

Vaccinations required.

Don't mess around.

Get your tickets.

Come to the show.

Get your tickets.

Get your boosters.

Get your vaxes.

Boost it up, baby.

We're going to have a good time.

We want to yuck it up with you at the San Francisco Sketch Fest, one of the best

sketch fests in the world.

One of the best fests.

I'd say top five fests, number one, sketch fest.

Number one.

And top 50 sketches.

Absolutely.

January 22, 2022.

It's on my calendar.

Put it on yours, please.

You're looking for holiday judgments specifically this week.

And hey, if you're in the Bay Area or you know someone in the Bay Area, we're looking for cases to hear at this live event.

So please let us know.

Write to me at hodgman at maximumfund.org if you have a case you would like to dispute live on stage with us uh or if you know someone who does hodgman at maximumfund.org or maximumfund.org slash jjho and make sure you let us know you're going to be at the san francisco event jesse i received in the mails a wonderful uh charm uh a little football with the words well one word yale on it and i got it from the put this on shop thank you for sending that to me so swiftly uh and it was not a

i received no extra personal attention it's just how it works there at the put this on shop you order a thing it gets in the mail, you get it.

And now I have something to give to a person in my life who attends Yale.

Oh,

yeah, that's perfect.

It's very nice.

Look, you want to save your holiday?

Go to putthisonshop.com.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah.

Don't

despair and take your life insurance policy down by the river and wait for an angel to save you.

Save yourself.

Go to putthisonshop.com.

What's going on over there?

One of my favorite things in the Put This On Shop is we have this giant container of Dutch advertising stick pins.

And now I just honestly believe that all jackets and heavy shirts should have a little Dutch advertising stick pin in them.

We will sell them to you five for $18.

So they are perfect stocking stuffer and they are so cool looking.

And we both, we have both sort of theme packs and

general variety packs.

So if you're interested more in like an automotive ones, you can get automotive ones or whatever.

But they're for all kinds of,

they're for all kinds of Dutch products.

I generally can't figure out what the product is by looking at the stick pin, but the design of these things is so wonderful.

And, you know, come on.

How can you be?

They're about three bucks a piece.

Put them in a stocking, have someone poke their finger.

It's a dream.

It's like getting an almond in your cream of weed, a little dangerous thing you didn't know would be there.

And it's delightful.

Lots of great stocking stuffers, not just Dark Crystal and Yo MTV wraps cards, although we do have both of those.

That's incredible.

And not just circa 1950s Dietsgen field notebooks.

No.

I really also love, we have these celluloid alphabet pins.

Yeah, those are, those are really cool looking.

Many different letters.

I think they're probably from the 30s or so.

And come on, eight bucks a piece.

Again, look in the stocking stuffer section or get something really fancy.

And, you know, move now because Bugs and Creatures stick pin packs sold out.

Yeah.

Circa 1987 Wackosaurs stickers sold out.

Yeah, you're never going to get any wackosaurs from me again.

Look, here's the thing.

I'm now a little mad because no one has got this Victorian silver tug of war metal.

I had put it in my cart when you started talking about it and I decided to let it go.

I decided to let it go so a Judge John Hodgman listener could go get this incredible Victorian silver tug of war metal.

It would be a perfect gift for the tug of warist in your life or anybody who enjoys a squid game, but no one's got it yet.

So go rush.

Go get it now.

I'm not next week, I'm buying it for sure.

This is your last chance.

Go to putthisonshop.com.

Use the code Vintage Justice for free shipping on almost everything.

I think you have to buy 10 bucks or something like that just because I can't, I'd lose money sending you a $3 pack of YoMTV wraps cards or whatever.

But Vintage Justice is the code for free shipping at putthisonshop.com.

There's so much cool stuff there.

So much cool stuff.

Putthisonshop.com.

Let's get back to the case.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

First of all, I just want to say to everybody who is listening, whenever you are listening, I hope you are happy and healthy, especially as we approach this winter solstice, the longest night of the year.

It is a time of reflection on the year that passed and contemplation of the year that is coming and a return of light.

That is what Christmas means to me.

I am a secular observer of Christmas.

You know how I feel about Thanksgiving.

Thumbs down.

Don't like it.

Don't need it.

Don't want it on every level.

But still, I have to go and do it.

And I just want to shout out to people who do not celebrate Christmas, either because they observe another holiday, secularly or religiously.

Jennifer Marmer, happy Hanukkah.

I know that you observe Hanukkah.

And Jesse, you're you're all about Saturnalia, as I recall, right?

All Saturnalia all the time, baby.

It's the best part of the season.

And people who just don't observe a holiday or specifically Christmas at all, just don't want to have anything to do with it because

it can be a pretty fraught time.

For all of the talk of Christmas magic that Aubrey has...

spread all over this podcast like some warm butter over the surface of a glop of cream of wheat that may or may not have an almond in it.

You know, Christmas is a place where you have to reckon with family, sometimes the family that's not so great, family you don't necessarily want to see.

And then there's this issue of like, where do I observe this holiday?

To what degree do I observe this holiday as a child of my parents, if I have a relationship with my parents?

And then to what degree do I define new traditions going forward as a, in this case, a parent or as just simply as a grown-up adult who wants to observe in their own way or not observe at all.

I mean, there are a lot of emotions that are caught up in this particular holiday, I think, and not all of them are positive.

So if you choose not to observe any holiday this winter, I am all for you.

Just to have a drink of eggnog, unless you are dairy intolerant.

Now I'm going to get letters about eggnog.

Never mind.

Do whatever you want to do.

Like what you like.

But this is one of the things that you're wrestling with and that I have had to wrestle with.

And I think all people who end up having children who observe holidays, they have to make this break between their child selves and their adult selves eventually.

And there are certain holidays as well as family vacations where these things come

these things come to a head.

And here is one of them.

You, Aubrey, would like to continue in your own home a Christmas tradition that you grew up with that your friend Chris, partner and whole human being in his own right, doesn't particularly like.

Now, Chris, you say it's because you are anti-superstition and begrudgingly admit to being anti-cream of wheat.

I can definitely get on board with one of those arguments.

But I am going to say that the argument that has moved me the most in either direction

is

that the game is rigged.

The game is rigged.

And this offends me not just as a matter of principle.

Because if you're going to play a game

where you put a choking device into a bowl of hot cereal and hope that your child gets lucky and doesn't have a food allergy or a nut allergy,

I'm opposed to the game being rigged very specifically one time.

And that was the year that Chris got the lucky almond before he proposed to you.

I think your mom seems terrific.

I loved her text about the Santa Claus book that she sent.

I think that this tradition is fun and lovely and wonderful.

And

almost no circumstances would I ever ban it.

And I certainly won't ever ban it from your household or your mom's household, I should say.

But

there is one circumstance in which I will ban it from your household.

And it is the circumstance that your mom crossed the line.

I'm sorry to say.

She forced that almond and gave you inside information.

You knew.

You knew what was going to happen when he got that almond.

You knew what was going to happen, didn't you, Aubrey?

Yeah, I did.

You did.

You did.

And I love your mom, but mom, that's not cool.

You have to.

Even if you are conservative to the point that it is expected that Chris would ask

your approval, mom and dad.

for Aubrey's hand in marriage.

Once that approval is given, at some point, you got to just let them have their lives.

Interfering with someone else's proposal, even in the most subtle, charming way, is NG.

This was Chris's surprise almond to give to Aubrey.

It all worked out fine.

I know that you meant well, mom.

I consider you my mom as well.

That's why I'm talking to you this way.

So here's the deal.

I do not think you should have this tradition in your home for two reasons.

One, Aubrey, I I think it's cute and adorable.

And I loved learning about Risa Lamonde and I loved learning about Christmas goblins of Denmark and Scandinavia, et cetera, et cetera.

I loved seeing the picture of you so happy to have gotten that almond on Christmas morning or fake Christmas morning, whichever one it was in 2019.

And I promise you, you will get that almond again because your mom will continue to do this.

I don't care what your older sister says.

It is a family tradition in your family.

And what's good about it is when you go to your family's home on the other day or whatever it is, that's part of the tradition of that household.

You will always have that.

And it frankly will be better

because there are more people there and it makes the game more interesting.

And Chris, I will even say that it is not about luck.

A true detective could figure out where that almond was simply by observing the surface tension of the cream of wheat.

It's going to be obvious.

I don't know if that's possible.

But you have to understand, this is the thing that rang true for me.

I don't know if I buy this anti-superstition thing, it doesn't feel compelling to me.

But I did feel really compelled when I learned that thing about how your mom forced the almond on Chris.

And for him, you have to understand that this almond is not a delightful almond, a delightful almond of joy, shall we say, but a bitter almond.

Do you know what smells like bitter almonds, Aubrey?

Cyanide.

Cyanide.

Unfortunately, and without meaning to,

your mom poisoned Chris's cereal.

She yucked your yum, Aubrey.

And now every time he finds that almond, he's like, ugh.

So what do you do when a tradition doesn't feel right for your household?

You create a new one.

And I believe that you can come up with something.

Chris, you don't like cream of wheat.

Find something to hide in something else that is delicious.

And even find, even though I don't think any detective could figure out where the almond is hidden by observation, other than human observation, because you know your mom, you know that your mother-in-law is rigging it now.

You can always observe her.

She'll give you the tell.

But you could even do a thing where you're hiding something inside of something else where an observant person could tell.

It's a game.

Who can figure out where it is?

Don't make it a gift of the goblins or whatever it is.

Find a way to bake an almond into a cinnamon roll.

Maybe not an almond.

It's gross.

The almond's gross.

What should they bake into the cinnamon roll?

Raisins.

No.

What are you doing to me?

How about a baby Jesus?

Sure, or just a gen, or just a baby god or whatever.

How about a, how about a dark crystal card?

It does sound recently restocked at putthisonshop.com.

I would say a baby, whether it's Jesus or not, a little baby.

I just don't want your child or children to choke to death is all.

Yeah, me neither.

I think you need to, it needs to be something where you can pull it apart and see what's inside.

Oh, I know, a hard-boiled egg.

No.

Yeah, Marzipan pig.

A Marzipan pig.

A Marzipan pig would probably melt, right?

Yeah, it wouldn't hold its shape.

If you had like an oversized Hershey's Kiss or something, even if it melted, you would see that chocolate in there.

That would work, I think, Jennifer Marmor, right?

Chocolate chip, you wouldn't be able to find, but they have a Hershey's Kissed or two, like a chocolate center in one of the cinnamon rolls.

Yeah, it just is very big, I'm concerned.

Like, there's no hiding that, I don't think.

No, well, I mean, and then, and then what's going to happen is everyone's going to fight.

Everyone's going to be mad because they want that chocolate cinnamon roll.

Whereas the fact that.

Ooh, I got to get that luck, they'll say.

Yeah, I know.

Well, no, that chocolate.

I mean, I guess the reason it works with an almond is that no one wants that almond anyway.

No one feels sad that they didn't get an almond.

So there's got to be something a little gross, like a, I don't know, like a fig.

Yeah, a fig.

There we go.

I was going back to raisin and I was thinking to myself, Claude, because you were very wise with that raisin.

I had an initial reaction of repulsion, which is natural with regard to raisins.

It's like, but that raisin's too small.

What's a big raisin?

A fig.

There we go.

Put a fig in it.

This is the sound of a gavel.

We love wheat.

It's so good to eat, and we have it every day.

We sing this song, it will make us strong, and it makes us shout.

Hooray!

Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Chris, how do you feel?

I feel good.

I think that this was a fair ruling.

I think that it's, I agree with being able to celebrate it at her mom's house and be a part of it, you know, is good.

And I feel seen and kind of understand, understood about,

you know, receiving the almond and kind of having my plan and proposal kind of

shown a little bit.

But yeah,

I think this sounds good.

Have you ever thought about instead of being at the periphery of the celebration, just sitting down with everybody else and trying to enjoy it?

He does his best to try to do that.

I'll give him that.

Aubrey, how do you feel?

You know, I think it's a good idea to just make sure we still maintain the tradition at my parents' house.

Feeling a little awkward because my mom is here babysitting our kid, and I'm going to have to leave this closet and tell her it's all her fault that I lost.

But don't, don't do it.

This is, it's not her.

You don't have to tell her all your business, Aubrey.

Let her listen to the podcast.

It's not your responsibility to take this burden.

It's mine.

She has a problem.

She can write me.

Okay, I'll give her your email.

Yeah, give her my email.

Absolutely.

I'd love to hear from her.

Well, Aubrey, Aubrey, Chris, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thanks so much for having us.

Oh, wait, before you guys leave the closet, Chris, Chris, Chris, here's the thing:

you're more reserved, I think, than Aubrey, right?

Wouldn't that be true?

Aubrey's family, if they're anything like Aubrey, it's like this outgoing family, and

you're worried that they're going to just absorb you and tear the flesh off your bones because you're a little bit more of an introvert, right?

Very accurate.

All right, so here's what

we're going to do, Chris.

Aubrey, take off your headphones for a second.

Okay.

Okay.

Can't you hear me?

I don't think so.

Okay.

When you go to Christmas this year

at her mom's house, mom and dad's house or whatever it is, bring a bag of almonds.

Put an almond in every bowl.

Tell her Judge John Hodgman says hello.

Sounds good.

I'll do it.

Okay.

Have fun.

Happy holidays.

Oh, headphones back on.

Yeah.

So, all right, Aubrey, put her headphones back on.

You don't know what we talked about, right?

Nope.

Okay.

All right.

Now, here's the deal.

If your mom listens to this podcast before Christmas, she cannot spoil this surprise.

Okay.

I will hold her in contempt of court.

Get out of here.

Happy holidays.

Another Judge John Hodgman case in the books.

In just a second, we'll have some swift justice.

First, our thanks to Twitter user at Brady Wiggins for naming this week's episode Gruel and Unusual Punishment.

If you want to name a future episode, follow us on Twitter for naming opportunities.

We are at Hodgman and at Jesse Thorne.

Did you see Dave Schumke's suggestion, John?

No, I missed it.

Our friend Dave Schumke from Stop Podcasting Yourself replied to the tweet like 36 hours later.

He wrote, did anyone suggest good cream wheat sislis?

Who's a reference to good King Wenceslas?

Winceslis.

Yeah.

Winceslis.

You know, he was a fine king.

I'm not even going to say he was a good king.

Fine.

Did his job as a king.

He's certainly jolly.

Yeah.

He looked down on that feast of Stephen.

That's basically what a king does, looks down on people.

And feasts.

That's true.

Listen to Stop Podcasting Yourself.

Dave's the greatest.

It's really, yeah, that's a great podcast.

While you're on Twitter, you can also hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets, hashtag jjho, and join the conversation over at the maximum fun subreddit.

That's maximumfun.reddit.com.

All three of us post there on that Reddit.

That's true.

We're always checking it out.

We're making a list and checking it twice.

Exactly.

Evidence and photos from the show posted on our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

Follow us there.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment, Justin says, when I'm spending the day at home doing chores with my dog, I always say, we mowed the grass or we trimmed the bushes.

My wife believes that a dog in a supervisory/slash moral support position should not be counted as part of the team.

Well, I'll tell you something.

My cat is always around when I am doing the dishes, and I do not include her in the team.

She is just begging for treats.

That's all she's doing, staring forlornly at the shelves, reminding me that she needs food to live and she only ate seven minutes ago and she needs some more.

But I don't know about a dog, Jesse.

What do you think?

Can a dog help mow the grass or trim the bushes?

First of all, a dog hates helping to mow the grass.

It's too loud.

Right.

Trim the bushes could probably offer some moral support.

Right.

But I'm going to say no.

I think the wife is right here.

I think

it's a cute dog, but

until that dog grows thumbs and can actually trim your beard,

he is just moral support for the team.

I agree.

Submit your cases to Judge John Hodgman at maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho or email hodgman at maximumfun.org.

No cases too small.

Remember that we're especially looking for cases in the Bay Area.

So if you're in the Bay Area, make sure to note that you are in the Bay Area.

If you might be able to come to our live show at San Francisco Sketch Fest.

You can also mention if you happen to have any recording equipment at home of any kind.

MaximumFun.org slash JJHO or email hodgman at maximumfun.org.

That's it.

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

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