Christmas Starts on Christmas: Breaking the “One-Day Holiday” Habit

The Catholic Man Show

Christianity, Leisure, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 768 Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ever wake up with that “today is the day” feeling, like you are ready to conquer the world? The guys start there, take a hard left into Pinky and the Brain, and somehow end up pondering what it was like when Christ rose from the dead.

From there, it turns into a practical, tradition-packed episode on celebrating Christmas well. Not the Hallmark version, and not the American “Christmas ends on December 26” version either. The kind that actually follows the liturgical calendar, keeps Advent as Advent, and treats Christmas as a season, not a day.

Along the way, they review a Taiwanese whiskey from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, talk family customs that make the day feel grounded, and make a strong case for grandfathers and fathers to be the custodians of tradition. One of the best parts is a simple, doable challenge: take the 12 Days of Christmas seriously and mark the feast days with small, intentional practices your family will actually remember.

In this episode:

The “wake up and conquer the world” mood vs the day Christ resurrected
Advent vs Christmas, and why our culture gets it backwards
Why “Merry” used to mean more like blessed than happy
Midnight Mass, caroling, real Christmas trees, and reading Luke before presents
A great grandfather tradition: gather the family and speak from the heart
Gifts for kids: fewer and meaningful vs abundance as a sign of the Father’s generosity
The 12 Days of Christmas, and the feast days that stack up fast
St. John’s Blessing of Wine and why you should do it
A practical idea for the Holy Innocents: dads blessing their children out loud
Epiphany water and why you should plan ahead to get it blessed

Whiskey for the episode: Taiwanese whiskey (Scotch Malt Whisky Society pick), “Dunker’s Delight” style notes, 107 proof, with flavors like caramel and apple pie crust.

Challenge for the week: Pick two feast days during the 12 Days of Christmas and do something small but real. Bless your kids, bless wine, invite someone over, go to Mass, or start a tradition worth keeping.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever had a night where you know the next day you're going to just conquer the world?
0:18.5	Like it's going to be a big day and And you know, like, you have a big
0:21.2	project or a big meeting or a big speech that you're going to be giving and you've been
0:24.9	practicing and practicing it. And, like, you feel really confident about it. And you go to sleep
0:29.9	and you have this really great deep sleep. And morning comes and you kind of come to consciousness but you haven't even opened your
0:42.4	eyes quite yet but you just have kind of awoke from your slumber and just kind of like
0:48.7	knowing the day is there like kind of have a smile that comes on your face knowing like today is the day
0:56.8	have you ever had that before all the time and then in those moments i do only one thing okay
1:02.8	and that is i recite the opening scene from the classic cartoon pinky and the brain okay now what are we going to do today, Brain? The same thing we do every day, Pinky. Try to take over the world. Did not know that's where you're going to go with it. Do you think... You think I'm joking. You think I'm joking. No, I don't. I don't think you're joking at all. I literally do that sometimes. what do you think that our Lord felt like on the third day when he rose from
1:31.3	the dead and he's like in the tomb and he like some comes back to consciousness? I don't know.
1:36.6	Like his body is now animated again. Like what do you think that like what do you think he did?
1:42.5	He's probably like, you know, just, you know, he did he's probably like you know just you know
1:44.9	dad and he comes back and like has this big old smile and not today's Satan not today yeah I mean
1:50.6	like what do you think that was like that's what I that that super deep uh thoughts that I had an
1:57.2	adoration today like that was I'll bet he felt rested.
2:02.5	Because when you, like... Bet, when you wake up from the dead, you're like,
2:06.1	this feels better.
2:09.8	But I bet, like, I wonder what, you know,
2:11.8	because he's, you know, he's human, you know,
2:13.8	and...
2:14.6	Yeah.
2:15.2	I wonder, like, what his first thoughts were when he was in the tomb you know when you're the eternal word yeah i don't know if the if the phrase first thoughts yeah yeah totally really jive i think because i think you've he's like you know eternally in that moment right it wasn't like he got there. I mean, in I think he's like, you know, eternally in that moment. Right.
	...

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