Candletime: Transcript
"Light a candle, drink something, and you're done."
Magda Pecsenye Zarin: So it's funny that we're talking about this today because it's so sun-shiny out here today that it seems like early early fall or late summer, even though I think it's like 38 degrees or something outside.
Doug French: Yeah, it's deceptively gorgeous out. You step outside and you're like, “Oh, right. That's why all the leaves that are still on my ground look like frosted flakes.”
Magda: Mike went on a new trail with a friend a couple weeks ago for a walk, and he brought me there today, and it's really really close to the house and yet it's like super, it's just like a trail in the middle of this woods that I didn't even realize was there, and it was kind of cool. Okay, so, yeah, so Thursday is American Thanksgiving. Canadians already had their Thanksgiving in October.
Doug: It's a bonus episode!
Magda: Yeah, it's a bonus episode that I requested that we do because I've been doing work about the last six, eight weeks of the year, the calendar year, for years. Like for 15, 20 years, I've been doing work on this with other people. And I think a lot of it is because I tend to manage my feelings about events and times of the year that I have conflicted feelings about by creating rituals to help me manage that.
Doug: Which is on brand for us because being in your 50s means you're conflicted about mostly everything.
Magda: Yeah, exactly.
Doug: In my experience, anyway.
Magda: Right. So I realized, like, I've just basically been creating rituals for people, whether it's a daily check in kind of support group thing. And I've run a number of different support groups on different topics. Some of them have been very specific to Christmas. Some of them have been just the end of the year and then going into the beginning of the next year. I'm running one this year that's just a daily check-in about doing wellness practices to keep yourself from sliding under because of seasonal affective disorder. But I've done ones that were very specific to Christmas. I think there's something about Christmas. It's like hitting your funny bone. You know, like some people really love Christmas. I'm a person who loves Christmas, but it also can just cause a lot of stress and a lot of tension and a lot of feeling inadequate, a lot of feeling guilty, a lot of feeling like you're not measuring up, a lot of resentment, just a lot of different feelings, whether or not you actually were raised celebrating Christmas. Like, I know a lot of people who were raised with no religious anything, who didn't even secularly celebrate Christmas, who are still just kicked in the ass by it every year. I know a lot of people who are Jewish who just feel overwhelmed by the fact that they can't escape Christmas in the culture. I just feel like it's worth treating yourself especially well and carefully at the end of the year because you don't want to spend the last six weeks of the year just being totally derailed.
Doug: Well I get that and I can empathize especially with the Jewish viewpoint just because after we split up and the kids were young and I knew … on years I knew I wasn't gonna have the kids for Christmas, a couple times I just stayed in Manhattan and did the Jewish on Christmas Eve thing. You know, got some Chinese food and saw a movie.
Magda: Yeah, I think that's Christmas Day, but–
Doug: Yeah, well, that's, we had a song, you know. Some friends of mine we'd go out and we'd sing that song “Jewish on Christmas Eve.” We, you know, we traipsed along Mott Street singing that song. But it's a vibe when you realize that the Christmas that you were raised with when the family was always together and your mom was in the corner taking strict notes about who to write thank-you notes to.
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: And that's just gradually unraveled now to the point where the immediate family is all over the country. And it was monumental for the five of us to be under the same roof for the first time in six years when my mom had her birthday in July. So my idea of what Christmas is has evolved radically for a bunch of reasons and I think that helps me understand what you've been doing with Candletime all these years.
Magda: Oh yeah, Candletime. Let's talk about Candletime.
Doug: Let's talk about Candletime.
Magda: Let's talk about Candletime. I feel like if Candletime is the only thing that's actually a lasting legacy of mine, it will be okay. In 2009, I just was like, “man, I wish there was some holiday where you just lit a candle every night so you could feel kind of cozy and sparkly, but it wasn't Christmas,” right? Because, you know, there's that phase after Halloween when everybody just wants to be doing something cozy, and especially when the time changes and it gets darker earlier. And I noticed that Christmas was starting to push back into Halloween and that just kind of makes a lot of people cranky. Like, I don't care if individual people start in on Christmas, right? Like if you put your Christmas tree up on Halloween, like that's your, you know, manage your own mental health. But the idea that the culture was pushing back into it was kind of daunting to me. So I said, all right, I'm starting a holiday. It is called Candletime, one word, and it is a secular, non-religious, intergalactic holiday that is for everyone. And to observe it, when it's dark at the end of the day you light a candle or multiple candles, and they can be live candles or electric candles, and then you just sit there and enjoy the sparkliness with the beverage of your choice. And you can leave them lit for as long as you want to. You can let them burn down. You can just light them for five minutes or whatever. You can observe one night of Candletime. You can observe all the nights of Candletime, as many as you want. There is no way to be a bad Candletime observer. You always win at Candletime. And it runs November 1st through, in the U.S., the night before Thanksgiving, and everywhere else, the end of November. And that's it. That's my holiday. And people love it.
Doug: Okay, so you're saying that Candletime is going to end next week? Because I thought it ran a little longer, especially given the fact that, you know, the days keep getting shorter until right around Christmas anyway. And so the therapeutic aspect would be in place.
Magda: In theory, Candletime ends when you release the hounds on Christmas stuff, right? But there's no governing body of Candletime. I guess *I* would be the governing body of Candletime. And I say do whatever you want to do. Like, release the hounds. If you want to start Candletime early, if you want to start Candletime late, if you want to run Candletime through all of December, if you want to run Candletime through July, that is fantastic. Candletime is for the people. And it is supposed to make you feel good. And like, there's joy in the darkness.
Doug: As long as you’re drinking!
Magda: So as long as you're drinking water, it's the best.
Doug: I know, I know. “The beverage of your choice,” though. I know what that implies. It’s like…
Magda: Well, people celebrate it a lot with their kids, and their kids aren't drinking booze, right? Their kids are drinking juice or hot cocoa or water or whatever it is.
Doug: Which is interesting, because I always thought of it as more of a meditative exercise. It's something you need just for your own peace.
Magda: People over the years have said to me that this is a way they help their kids calm down at the end of the day because their kids are happy to sit there drinking hot cocoa or whatever and just enjoying the candles, instead of just telling them “stop running around.” You know, people also send me pictures that their kids draw of Candletime, which is adorable. It's adorable that their kids are so into Candletime. People send me messages in September like, “hey, my kids are nuts. So we started Candletime early.” Fantastic. I think that's wonderful. I think it's absolutely wonderful.
Doug: So maybe we should kind of dial it back a bit and talk about what the inspiration was in 2009 and maybe figure out which of those symptoms might be manifesting now in people who haven't heard of Candletime and maybe figure out why they could start where the first voyagers of Candletime began in 2009.
Magda: Okay, well, so first I want to say that the website for Candletime is Candletime.org. Somebody is on Candletime.com trying to sell candles.
Doug: And this is a 501(c)3? <laughs>
Magda: No, it's just, it's a holiday. It's out there, right? Nobody owns it, just like nobody owned Christmas before Coca-Cola created Santa Claus. You don't have to buy anything. You don't have to spend any money. You don't have to have any special thoughts about it, like nothing, right?
People get really upset and then they feel guilty or sheepish about being upset. So they try to just squash it down and then that just makes them feel even worse. Like, there's a reason that your muscles hurt every day in December and January. And part of it is that you're dehydrated and it's too cold outside. And part of it is that you have been clenching your muscles all day and while you sleep, because you’re stressed out about the commercialization of everything. And that everything has to be bigger and brighter and faster and sparklier. And you feel like you're supposed to be making magic because if you were a good feminist you would know that you didn't have to make magic, and there's no such thing as making magic, but at the same time, you look at your kids and your kids really want magic, and it's just a big mindfuck
So here's what I have been doing the last few years: I bought electric candles. They look like pillar candles, and they artificially flicker also, which I find hilarious. And they're on a timer, so when I first start using them I just put them on the timer and I switch them to come on like around five o'clock, and they stay on for five hours or six hours, something like that, and then shut themselves off. And then after that they will come on at the same time every night. So I don't even have to turn on my candles! They just come on by themselves and Candletime just happens to me. And that is even more delightful.
Doug: Interesting. Like you're observing the Sabbath.
Magda: Well, you know, I mean, religious people, I mean, like, I think everybody knows that I'm a practicing Christian. So, Christmas is kind of a minor holiday for Christians. It's just gotten to be huge because of the commercialization of it and the secular part of it. But then churches kind of responded by amping up their observation of it, which is kind of weird and, like, wrong. But there is this idea that if you believe that we need Jesus, Jesus is born again every year at Christmas, whether or not we do anything. Jesus comes whether or not we deserve him, whether or not we have made ourselves ready. The concept is that you don't have to do anything and Christ is born every year. And I would say if you have candles on timers, you don't have to do anything and Candletime still happens.
Doug: Which makes sense because, you know, as long as I've known you, you've always been more of an Easter person anyway.
Magda: Well, I mean, Easter's the real deal, right? Like, Good Friday's number one, and then Easter's number two, arguably, right? Like, I think some people would say Easter's number one and Good Friday's number two.
Doug: Who are you arguing with?
Magda: Well, church people, right? And then I would say Pentecost is number three. I'm not sure Christmas even makes my top five of Christian religious observances.
Doug: Christmas is the number one stressor, though, because of the consumerism and the expectations.
Magda: For me, religious Christmas is not a stressor. A few years ago, I told my mother I'm no longer going to church on Christmas Eve because, you know, that had been our big thing. When I was a little kid, we were always in the Christmas pageant. It was Christmas Eve, and we had this big ritual where we would order pizza, and then go to the Christmas pageant. We would be in the pageant, and my grandparents would meet us there, and then they would come back to our house, and we’d open presents and we would have our Norwegian Christmas rice. Because my mom's family is Norwegian and they–all the Europeans–celebrate on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. And then my grandparents would go home and we would go to sleep and we would wake up the next day and go to my grandparents’ house for Christmas Day.
Doug: I remember.
Magda: So for years and years and years, we would go to church on Christmas Eve.Then I don't know, it was maybe 15 years ago. I went to my mom's church on Christmas Eve and it was like these kids who didn't know how to behave in a church. And I had gone out of my way to teach our children how to behave in a church, in a school, on the bus, in a restaurant, all this kind of stuff. Just, you know, appropriate behavior. And I mean, these weren't kids who had different relationships with rules, right? Like, these weren't kids who were neurodiverse or anything like that. These were just kids who had never been in a church before, and their parents did not care about teaching them how to behave and were just kind of like, “hey, run up there and grab the baby Jesus out of the manger and run around.” And it just-
Doug: They were just Toledo punks.
Magda: I was just like, “We have defaulted on the social compact in spades.” And, oh, and the other thing is you never get a real sermon on Christmas Eve. I am the kind of person who goes to church because I like to have something to think about. Like, the number one reason for going to church is to be together with other people who have the same beliefs that I do and just, fellowship, right? But the number two reason is to be given a sermon that makes me think. And Christmas Eve sermons, oh, they never make you think. They're just super feel-good. And it's like, I can feel good on my own time, right?
Doug: Right. I only went for the Silent Night with the candles at the end.
Magda: Yeah, exactly. Okay, so a candlelight service I will go to. And so my mom was like, well, all right. And after that, I started staying home on Christmas Eve. And it was fantastic.
Doug: Is it a coincidence that that's right when we were divorcing?
Magda: Yeah, I think it was. I think part of it was I just couldn't handle the chaos in the middle of all this other chaos.
Doug: You were just telling a lot of truth. I think we both were. We were just like, you know what, I've lived enough charades in my life. It's time to get a little realer with what I want and be an adult because adults say what they want. Yeah. And confront what you've been avoiding. I get it.
Magda: So then I sort of created this ritual that I would do on Christmas Eve when everybody else was at church and it involved just sitting around and listening to music and drinking B&B with my sister. So, like, I really do believe that a ritual will help people through a lot of different situations. And Candletime's a ritual, right? Candletime is just, it's a very, very, very simple ritual. And I think the simple ones are the best. And it's been helpful for a lot of people.
Doug: Well, who are those people? People who bought your book and have taken part in the resources you provided? I mean, what kind of stress are they feeling? Especially since you and I have talked about this, how women in particular feel stressed out to be the source of all the enchantment and spectacularity that this season is supposed to provide. And I guess many of the women have dudes like me in their lives who are like, you know, "I don't really care about it as much" or "That was never something that men did when I was a boy," which is true in my case.
Magda: So my book and Candletime, I think, have different audiences. I wrote a book called Get Christmased, because I think that Christmas happens to people.
Doug: It's enforced on people.
Magda: Exactly. So, get Christmased. And so what the book did was really help people pull apart their own relationship with Christmas in general and also the things that had always happened at Christmas and the things that they felt the need to replicate or change at Christmas and just be very conscious and intentional about that. Candletime is really appealing to anybody who's just not ready for Christmas yet but who does want to do something sparkly. I think people who observe Candletime just have a lot of fun with it. Like, they enjoy it. It just feels comforting. It's nice. It's fun.It's something that doesn't really require much of you. You don't have to plan a menu. You don't have to have other people at your house. You don't have to travel anywhere. You don't have to buy any gifts. And I think it's a touch point for people.
Also, another thing that I have talked about a lot over the years and that the book goes into in pretty solid detail is the fact that kids get extremely amped up by the culture, by school, by daycare, by other kids, by other parents, all this kind of stuff, about Christmas. And it's incredibly damaging to kids if their family isn't Christmas observers, right? But even kids who have a great, happy, magical Christmas, it's so hard to wait. Kids don't have a good sense of time. For a kid to say "no, all this stuff is happening on December 25th" and it's like November 18th, it might as well be years from now and on Mars for little kids. So you're just getting them ramped up the whole time and of course they're not going to be able to be stable when they're being amped up every day and every night for, you know, six to eight weeks.
Doug: What do you think the last time our kids were amped up about Christmas was?
Magda: Um, Robert has never really liked it that much, I think. But do you remember when he was like two or one and a half or something and, almost two, and he saw Santa Claus on TV and he said "that man isn't real" or "that man not real"?
Doug: Yes.
Magda: Oh, like, well, okay. And Thomas believed in Santa Claus until he was really, really old. But I don't know if they felt magic. I don't know. And I think that's another thing that we feel this pressure to replicate magic if we felt like our childhood Christmases were magical, but we also feel pressure to create magic if our childhood Christmases were not magical. I also think we're just like poking around in the dark because we know what we think is magical and we know what the culture tells us is magical, but that might not necessarily be what's magical to our kids. A couple years ago, I was in the middle of doing a support group and part of the support group was “ask your kids what actually feels magical to them.” And I was like, "Oh, maybe I should do the same thing with my kids and actually ask them."
Doug: Oh, that's where my head is. I'm curious about that. Just because I remember, at their age, I was still excited about Christmas. I think part of that was because we all live near each other.
Magda: Do you remember when it stopped being magical for you? Because I think that's another area that people haven't paid attention to. And I didn't even really pay attention to until a couple of years ago. There's a point at which you stop thinking it's magical and nobody helps you through that. And you think you are the only person in the world, whether you're 14 or 20 or 30, who just is suddenly disillusioned with it.
Doug: Well, “magical” is a big lift. I mean, you know, magical probably left in my early teens, you know, but looking forward to the ritual of being under one roof and exchanging gifts. I loved giving gifts. I loved writing cryptic notes on the cards, you know, and that happened in my 20s. We would still go to my parents' house and my sister lived close, my brother lived close, and we still had that moment every year to look forward to and I do think about how the kids will never have that and part of it's because the divorce part of it's also just because of the culture in terms of how kids are raised now and how they perceive things a bit more knowingly than we do. You know we go on Facebook and you still see people, parents of adult children observing these family traditions and rites. There's, either there's a joy when the family gets together or when the family has taken a jolt like someone has died. And they need to do something completely different because observing those traditions is too painful to think about how someone isn't here to observe them with you anymore. You know, it's not the easiest thing to get us together anymore.
Magda: What I would say to you is figure out how much tradition you want to have. And if there are traditions you can have that don't involve being all in the same place all the time, like what if you guys had a Zoom call on Christmas Eve at the same time? Or what if you sent each other white elephant gifts and all decided to open them at the same time? Or what? Like there are a lot of traditions that you can create that don't involve being in the same room at the same time.
And if you are somebody who really likes traditions, and I know that you, Doug French, are a person who really likes traditions, like I would say more so than a lot of people.
Doug: Yeah, for sure.
Magda: Traditions, right? Like, and I mean, you've been great at creating traditions. Like when you created French Friday, I was like, "What the hell is this? This is kind of like diabolical genius." And I mean, okay, so French Friday, his last name is French. He used to take the children when they were little, our two boys, out for French fries every Friday.
Doug: Another school week was over and we had French Friday every Friday.
Magda: And I think you guys tried every French fry joint in the county.
Doug: When we moved here. Yeah, we had a place in Manhattan. It was right by P.S. 11. You know, when we would, that's where we went and they expected us. They knew we were coming. And, weirdly enough, that's the place, it's the Grey Dog Cafe on 18th Street, which is mirrored on Zingerman's here in Ann Arbor. The whole point, I remember we wandered in there and I'm like, why is that Michigan block letter M up there? And it turns out it was founded by Michigan grads who wanted to replicate like with a big sandwich board and everything.
Magda: Oh, that's adorable!
Doug: Yeah, yeah. So when we got here, of course, we sampled French fries hither and yon, every place that served French fries. We had to find a spot. And Ashley's had the best French fries as far as I'm concerned, because they were shoestring and they came with like dipping sauces. And the boys didn't like them and so you know we had to go and find…
Magda: But isn't that part of being a parent? Being a parent is just a process of constantly just sucking it up, right? Like you can't have the fries you think are the best because you have to have the fries your kids think are the best.
Doug: I gotta have the friggin, you know, bistro fries. Or worse, the crinkle cuts. I mean come on now, that's just… That's just showing off for no reason.
Magda: Yeah, I think I mean, so yeah, I would say just create new traditions. I'm in a new place in a new family that has their own stuff going. And so I'm creating new traditional Christmas rituals for us this year. You know, who knows what's gonna stick, right? Like I'm gonna do what I want to do this year, but who knows what's going to stick from year to year. And for me now, that's the part of it that's exciting. Once I started realizing that other people were really struggling with it, and I wasn't struggling with it, I started deliberately not struggling with it, if that makes sense. Which is not to say that I haven't had struggles about holidays, but the holiday hasn't been the source of the struggle, necessarily.
Doug: Oh, the source of your struggle has always been your own head. Anything you impose on an external rite is how you're processing in your own mind. Well, me too. I mean, this does not make you unique. It just makes your process unique.
Magda: Yeah, yeah, it's true. You know, it's interesting to me that this is such a flashpoint for people. you know this book like people have been really happy about the book I don't even remember when I wrote the book 2012 something like that? And what I have heard from people is that it's been particularly helpful to people who have not always had like a really set Christmas that they grew up observing or who had a set Christmas that has been blown apart right because people have died people aren't with them there was one person who held it together who's not around anymore who decided not to do it anymore like that's another thing that i think is very being in your 50s is suddenly you have to be the keeper of everything. Just like, if you want tradition, you're probably going to have to put some tradition around it. A lot of people just suddenly are the ones who have to be the keepers of all of it because the older generation is dying or sick or can't do it anymore or just taps out. You know, like there are a lot of women who are like I have been cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 30 years at somebody else's time now or I have been filling stockings for 30 years and it's somebody else's time now or 50 years or something, right? And some of it is that it's transition. Some of it is that it feels stuck. I think there are a lot of expectations that people have that they are stuck with or feel like they're stuck with or feel like they’re stuck with. Or what I think is even worse is when you think you're like when you gaslight yourself, right? Like you think that you have to stick with something. And then you realize that you don't have to stick with it. But then you feel guilty for thinking that you had to stick with it. There's a lot of layers, right?
Doug: I mean, it's very well now we're getting into leaving a marriage. There's overlap. So yeah, what stuff am I willing to put up with anymore?
Magda: Right, so what I've heard from a lot of people about the book is that it has been very useful for them when they're kind of in a transition or interfaith families who maybe are kind of half in on Christmas but not really completely that kind of stuff and I've also heard that it's been useful for people who observe other holidays that aren't Christian holidays or even like secular Christian holidays. Helping them figure out how to think about the holidays that they're observing. So I pulled out the book and have been in the process of revising it.
Doug: What do you think needs updating? This is curious because you did write this, you say, at least 10 years ago. So what's different now?
Magda: I'm specifically including a section about what to do if you or your kids are having gender transitions, that kind of stuff. And that wasn't really as much on people's radars 10 years ago. But it's like a legit thing now.
Doug: Doesn't that fall under a larger umbrella of just discussion topics that make people uncomfortable or people are no ignorant about or upset about>
Magda: I'm gonna say no because I think it's personal in a way that some other things are not necessarily personal right and there are all kinds of topics that people can argue about and be ignorant about and be hurtful to other people about right like food is a big one thanksgiving is a big one if anybody has food allergies or sensitivities or is eating vegan or you know something like that right? People can get really hurtful about the way other people choose to eat, but that's not the same thing as transitioning, right? They're very separate. So anyway, the point is, it always was a workbook, but I've turned it into more of a workbook, right? That's leading you through questions about stuff, and it's just gonna be more overtly useful for other holidays that are not just Christmas.
Doug: Well, this is what I was getting at, the whole idea of how our culture has evolved since you wrote the book before. There's a lot more to talk about. In fact, and also I think just in part of the culture now, you can't mention Thanksgiving now without some hacky joke about your drunk uncle talking about, you know, Republican politics. That's become a staple now. That's almost to be expected.
Magda: Yeah. So basically, I mean, I wrote this book before the Trump era, right? So of course, it deserves a revamp in the wake of this extremely polarized society that we are now in because of the Trump administration.
Doug: Now that the culture is ramping up, the consumerism is ramping up, the urgency to buy shit now, it's funny how even like Home Depot has these ads saying the things you need for the holidays. I don't need shit for the holidays. You know, you need to have these matching candy canes for your walk. No, I fucking don't. And I think that's what Candletime is meant to kind of center you around. It's like the simple act of relaxing and recognizing that buying shit you don't need runs counter to what we're told to do because two thirds of our GDP is consumer spending. But fuck that, you know.
Magda: If this is going to be like the traditional sign-off of, so where do we find you, right? What should people do to find out more? Well, go to Candletime.org, but I basically told you the whole thing.
Doug: You know, Magda, now that we are concluding our interview, where should we go to find more information about CandleTime.org?
Magda: But I mean, you don't even have to look at it. I told you how to observe it. Light a candle, drink something, right? Now you're done. That's fine. It's fine. You can start it whenever you want to.
Doug: I love that. That's like one-third of a tweet.
Magda: And you know what, if you don't do it, if you totally forget about it, just pretend you did, right? Oh boy.
Doug: I've recalibrated my expectations for the end of year holidays many times, especially since we split up. But I think in general, one of the things, like you say, inventing new traditions, like ”Christmas happens when we're all together.” You know what? Are we all together? Let's have Christmas. There might not be a tree in the house, but if you've been a free-range holiday celebrator for as long as I have, It's catch as catch can, you know?
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: Do what you can, when you can … whatever the Roosevelt quote.
Magda: When you can, whatever you can, as many times as you can…
Doug: Yes. Celebrate Christmas. “Do what you can with what you've got, wherever you are.”
Magda: You know, I think it's very indicative of the two of us that your quote that runs your life is, Roosevelt, do with what you can with what you are. And the one that runs my life is, “known knowns, unknown knowns, known unknowns.”
Doug: No, you're gonna come back with Rumsfeld?
Magda: Hey, you know, it's a great way of expressing it.
Doug: Yeah, I still want to go out to Sagamore Hill out in Long Island one of these days, just because when you learn that his when his wife and his daughter died on the same day, on Valentine's Day, and he just fucked off to a dude ranch.
Magda: He became a genocidal crackpot after that. It's not hard to understand why, so.
Doug: Well, welcome again to “Magda punches holes in your hero worship.” And you know, I have my daddest dad cap that ever dadded. The Frisco Rough Riders, their logo is a caricature of Teddy Roosevelt on their cap. And I only wear that on special occasions. If there's a drop of rain coming, or if it's above 40 degrees, that hat does not get used. Anyway, being around people on Thanksgiving, I think is part of the vibe or should be.
Magda: Oh, man, the year I spent Thanksgiving totally alone was one of my best Thanksgivings ever. But I was intentionally totally alone. Like I planned that thing for weeks. And I deliberately didn't tell anyone I was going to be alone. Everybody just thought I was going someplace else. And nobody knew until like halfway through the day when they figured out that I wasn't where they thought I was gonna be. Oh yeah!
Doug: Where were you? What year was this?
This was, I don't know, but I was in the apartment up on 211th and um… I had the whole day planned out. Oh boy. It was fantastic. I went to Dunkin Donuts and got a cup of coffee and donuts for breakfast. I just watched TV all day like I watched the dog show unimpinged by anybody else's anything. I stripped the Thanksgiving meal down to the parts I like. I roasted a turkey breast so it smelled like turkey but I wouldn't have too much turkey to deal with. I had mashed potatoes. I had stuffing. I had green bean casserole and I had cranberry sauce and that was it. No extraneous vegetables and I made myself a pumpkin pie and I just drank wine all day and like, oh god, it was fantastic. Then I watched a Soul Train marathon at night. It was fantastic.
Doug: Oh my god, now you got me.
Magda: And it was like, you know, original episodes from like 1982 or something.
Doug: Still doesn't matter. Soul Train, you cannot go wrong.
Magda: It was really good. Oh god, that was the best year.
Doug: Well, this has been my problem throughout because I love to have Thanksgiving whenever, but turkeys only are available like three seconds a year, so.
Magda: It's not true, Aldi has turkeys for like six months, frozen turkeys. Butterballs.
Doug: Really?
Magda: Yeah.
Doug: All right, then I'm gonna bop on over. You know, you're gonna turn me into an Aldi person sooner or later.
Magda: I know, I know. I did it to Mike, and I'm doing it to you.
Doug: This is your gift.
Magda: It is. It's something else, isn't it?
Doug: Well, I hope you got something out of this bonus episode of the When the Flames Go Up podcast with Magda Pecsenye Zarin and me, Doug French. Our guest has been Nobody. Our guest has been the hope of an unimpinged Thanksgiving.
Magda: Exactly.
Doug: When the Flames Go Up is a production of Halfway Noodles LLC and is available on all the usual platforms and at whentheflamesgoup.substack.com. Please subscribe there for emails twice a week. We post a new episode every Wednesday and our Friday Flames newsletter slash blog comes out on Friday. If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, please send us a review. So we're technically off this week, but kind of not. Anyway, we will see you a week from Wednesday with our next episode. Until then, have a very unimpinged Thanksgiving and we'll see you then. Bye bye.