WWUTT 1840 Q&A Merry Christmas

Christmas Questions and Podcast Updates

What was the star that led the Magi to the baby Jesus? And does it matter if we know what it was? What ethnicities were the Magi? And did the Magi find Jesus first or was it the shepherds? The answers when we understand the text.

Merry Christmas from your friends at When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the word. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. Hey, once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Welcome back, Becky. Yay, it's good to be back. How do you feel? Not dead. I feel better.

You were coughing for weeks. Oh, it was awful. I had it too, but I mean, I kicked it in two days or something. Yeah, it hit me hard. Of course, it was the two days I didn't have to go to work. So I spent my days off sick.

Yeah, yay. Yeah, the kids weren't too keen on that either. We wanna play with daddy. Well. Daddy's sick.

Yeah, it hit me hard. I was laid up for a while. Well, the cold weather is hitting everybody hard right now. Yes, it is. Have you seen that cold weather map?

Uh-uh, no, I don't want to. I don't want to, I don't want to. I know it canceled a lot of flights.

Yeah, well, 2 ,500 was the last I saw. I'm sure it's been more than that since, but yeah. And there were, well, if you live down in Florida, looks like everybody's doing okay down there. The way the map just kind of dips through, like the Midwest and down into the Southern, Central part of the United States.

But no, if you're out on the outskirts, Southwest or Southeast outskirts. You're doing pretty good, huh? Still looks pretty comfortable out there, yeah.

Well, I know Florida got hit really hard with that hurricane, so maybe this is their break. You guys got the hurricane. We'll give you a nice December. Ah, nice December to wrap it up.

Well, this is the Christmas edition of When We Understand the Text. Yes. I would say you can email your questions,.

But it's too late. We got them all right here. We do for this one, this episode. I mean, you can, you know, still email.

This week and the next week and the week after. We've got these episodes figured out. But if you want to start getting questions to us now for when we come back in to the Q &A season beginning January 13, oh, that's Friday the 13th.

Oh, neat. I'm just now noticing that. Anyway, not that it matters, but we're superstitious enough about that day. It still makes you go, oh, look, Friday the 13th. Anytime you see it, pop up on the calendar.

So you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. I've got some Christmas-related questions I'm gonna answer here. Next week is our year in review. Yes. Now, that episode, I think last year we stretched it out into two episodes.

Yes, we did. If we ever try to do it in one, it takes us an hour and a half. Yeah, it takes a while. So here's my commitment. We're gonna spend 60 seconds on each story. Oh, wow. And that's it. All right, talk fast and don't breathe.

So 40 of the biggest events that happened in the year. I think I could talk that fast.

Do you think I could talk that fast? Maybe I can, but I'm not sure I can think that fast. I don't know, we'll find out.

I'll have my little stopwatch here. Because I figure with the time in and the time out talking about each one, that'll round out to about an hour. So we're gonna keep it down, try to keep each item at about 60 seconds.

So we go through 40 of the biggest events that have happened, affecting mostly Christianity. But there's other things that'll come in there as well. That's next week's episode. And then on January the 6th, we're counting down the 10 most popular what videos for 2022.

And giving you commentary. You get to hear all the stories of things that went into those episodes and weird comments we got after those episodes. Speaking of which, the comments are online now on our YouTube videos.

Yeah. If you go to youtube .com slash WWUTT, subscribe to the channel, we've opened the comments up. So you can now leave comments on our videos. And add some positive ones. Whoops, accidentally started that video.

Hang on. I brought that up because on the most recent video that I did, which was, does Isaiah 9 .6 really mean Jesus is the everlasting father? Because the modalists will use Isaiah 9 .6 to say, see Jesus can be father or he can be son.

And that's not what that means. You have to go watch the video. But under the questions, this person said, I'm about 20 videos away from watching every single WUTT video. Wow. I've been watching them all day and taking notes.

Oh, wow. That's cool. That's awesome. So at 20 videos left, he had, what would that be? About 35 more minutes. Yeah, wow. Well, depending on how much time he's writing stuff down, like pausing. You should mention the EXT.

Yeah, and then you gotta go to the other channel. Watch all of those. I think all of the videos on the main channel still would take you less time to watch 350 videos than it would take you to watch the 30 videos on the other channel.

Yeah, that's true. Because those are all longer. Yeah, that's probably right.

Some of the episodes of the podcast are posting there. Oh, neat. It's just audio, but it's on YouTube as well. Really cool. Yeah. All right. You can use that app. Let's get to some scripture here and then we'll get to some Christmas-related questions.

The Birth of Jesus and the Fulfillment of Prophecy

Yes, let's. Matthew 2, beginning in verse 18. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.

And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the one who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

And she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Now, all this took place in order that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled, saying, behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us.

And Joseph got up from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. Now, that's the passage I'm gonna be teaching on this Sunday.

Even though we don't have Sunday school, but I'm still gonna have a lesson on Sunday that you can tune in and hear. Yeah.

So be sure to catch it. Kind of take the place of your Sunday school program.

Yeah, it's an older sermon that I preached a few years back, but I figured I'll keep something in there, even though we don't have a Sunday school class. This Sunday and the next week, there'll still be something there on Sunday.

That's what I was saying. Yeah. But trying to. But you were also kind of froggy there, so.

Yeah, you know, I'm also kind of foggy too. Foggy and froggy.

I'm getting there. I'm getting there. If people can't speak fog or frog, then I was translating on your behalf. Thank you. Tomorrow is the second part of the, my top 10 favorite praise and worship songs for the year.

Oh, awesome. Remember I did part one back in November and I never got around to part two. Oh, yeah. Well, part two's tomorrow. Nice. All you gotta do is subscribe to the podcast. Yeah. And as soon as those episodes drop, they'll update on your phone.

Look for them in the morning. Unless something that, you know, has happened and I delay getting an episode done, like I sometimes do. You know. It happens. Even this episode almost didn't happen, but our friend Sonia.

Yeah. Was so pushy. Y 'all go record. We love Sonia. She's the best. And we want to say a special word about Sonia too, having just lost her dad. Yes. And his funeral is gonna be this next coming week.

Yes. We love our friend dearly. And thank you, Sonia, for all that you do for us. We are praying for you and for your family. All right, before getting to these questions, how many times have I said that now?

Have I put something in front of these questions several times already? Probably. A couple of poll questions. First poll question I put on my Twitter or the, when we understand the text Twitter. I'm still off Twitter.

Yes, you are. You're still banned. Elon's not restored me yet. This was the question I asked. Which candy is the worst? Black licorice or candy corn? And I gave one other option. Other. Other, okay. In case you think there actually is a candy worse than those two.

Black licorice, 68 .6%. Wow. Candy corn, 21 .7%. That leaves other 9 .7%. Your children like both. Yeah, that totals right. That's right. I know, my kids like both. Is it Aria that likes the black licorice or Mariah?

Both. Both, okay, they both.

But they appreciate the real licorice, not the more candy. Yeah, that's even more gross. I mean, the more authentic it is, the more disgusting it is. I kind of, I can tolerate a little bit.

I kept getting told, like, you gotta have the real black licorice. Oh, that was even worse.

That was terrible. I thought it was better. I can't stand the taste of licorice, like in the tea, like there's licorice tea and stuff like that. Oh yeah, no. And just, I can't do it. It tastes like NyQuil.

That's it, yeah, it's okay, I get it. But no, the real licorice was pretty good, actually. I liked it. Then you like NyQuil.

No. I gag on that stuff. I remember my dad, when I was a kid, I was like, I had never had NyQuil or DayQuil before, and I was like, what is that? I knew cough medicine that tasted really gross. Yeah. You know, when I was a kid, there wasn't like Kool-Aid flavored cough syrup.

Molasses that just, ugh.

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Yes.

And it lasted forever. But everywhere it touched was numb for like a day.

And I don't think it actually cured your cough. It just made you where, I do not want to bring that back up again. So I'm gonna do everything possible, and it just willed in your mind, I am not gonna cough, not gonna do it.

Mind over matter. I especially don't want to make any kind of sounds that's gonna make my mom give me that again. That stuff was disgusting. That was so bad. I don't even know what it was. Anyway. I don't remember either.

Yeah. But go ahead, NyQuil DayQuil. Well, okay, so I'm still on this story. So my dad had the NyQuil and the DayQuil in there, and I remembering my own children's cough syrup. So of course the question I have is, what do they taste like?

And you have DayQuil that's orange, and you have, well, kind of, no, it's red. I think it's orange now. It used to be red. Yeah. DayQuil used to be red. Right. So you had red and you had green. And I asked my dad, I said, so what do they taste like?

And he goes, well, they taste like red and green. That sounds like your dad. It's like if colors could have flavors, that's what they are. They just liquefied some green and put it in a bottle. That's what it tastes like.

There you go, folks. Anyway, there were 979 votes on that poll. Almost had a thousand folks on that poll. That's awesome. Pastor Tom did one though that had 3 ,549 votes. Hey, do I need to give you some of that cough syrup?

Nope. I'll get it. It's coming. You better hold that back. So here was Pastor Tom's question that he asked on his poll, 3 ,500 votes. Is your church open or closed on Christmas Day? I was about to post this same poll and I noticed that he had already done it.

Yeah. Nice. Closed Christmas Day, 12%. 12 of churches out there. That's too many. Are not gonna be having any services on Christmas Day.

Because even Christmas Day is on Sunday. Yeah, it's Sunday. It's like, you don't have any.

Go to church. Anyway. Cancel your Christmas Eve service if it means that you're not gonna have church on Sunday. Right. I remember we had a service several years ago. Was this, what was the last time Christmas was on Sunday?

Would that have been 2015? I don't remember. That would have been seven years ago. Maybe it would have been 16, 2016 was when it was. So we did the Christmas Eve service Saturday and then we also had a Christmas morning service.

But Christmas morning was, we just had one service at that time. Here at First Baptist Church in Lindale, we have two. So we don't have a Christmas Eve service this year but we have two morning services.

And I'm playing piano for that one. Yay. So one out of every eight churches canceling services on Christmas Day. That's too many. Is what it looks like. Thank you for that poll, Tom. Yeah. All right, now here we get into some questions.

Dear Gabe and babe. Oh, by the way, before we get to these questions. I love it. Again? Again. Again.

I did actually. You're gonna have everybody on the edge of their seats.

Do they answer questions on Friday anymore? I don't even know. Becky hadn't been here.

Gabe's just doing whatever he wants. Everything went awry after I left, huh? You're the one that keeps me straight.

And then you haven't been here. Anyway, I went into the archives cause I have every question that we've answered going back to 2018. Oh, wow. Of course, every episode is still there. You can go back and listen to all the episodes, but I have the documents that I have all the questions in them.

I've saved all of that going all the way back to 2018. So I was just curious, what other Christmas questions have we answered? So I pulled three out of the archives. Okay. So if we got time here at the very end, I'll get to some of those archive questions too.

But you know what? We first should get to these. Yeah, how about that? So this is from Brian. Dear Gabe and babe, I'm reading Dawn of Redeeming Grace by Sinclair Ferguson with my babe this Advent. Aw.

And Sinclair seemed to have implied the Bethlehem star could be a natural phenomenon that led the Magi on their journey and only through the scriptures, they knew the child was to be born in Bethlehem, Matthew 2, five and six, which led me to watching the what video about the star.

Let me go ahead and play that video and then we'll get back to the rest of Brian's question here. All right. In Matthew 2, we read about wise men known as Magi following a star from Persia to Judea in search of the Christ child.

The Magi were King makers who studied many ancient writings. 600 years earlier, the Jews had been exiled into Babylon and then Persia. So these Magi had the Hebrew prophecies foretelling the birth of the King.

Moses said a star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. And Daniel, a prophet revered by the Persians wrote about when this would happen. The Magi came to Jerusalem and said, where is he who has been born King of the Jews?

For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him. Since the prophecies were Hebrew, they assumed any Jew would know where to go. But Israel was so far from God, King Herod had to consult his own wise men to know what the Magi were talking about.

The Magi followed the star until it came to rest over the place where the child was. And they found Jesus in Bethlehem, just as the scripture said. The Magi worshiped him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Much speculation has been made about the star of Bethlehem searching history for some kind of astral phenomena. The most popular theory is that the star was a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in August of 3 BC and again in June a year later.

But that's not a very bright idea. According to Matthew, the star was always ahead of them and it moved, stopping over the house where Jesus was. Clearly there's no natural explanation. The Magi were led by something supernatural and so are we to worship Christ the Lord when we understand the text.

Becky popped a cough drop during that video. I did. You didn't wanna try any of my cough syrup? Bill, no. So Brian referenced the verse in Matthew 2 where it says that the star stood over the place where the child was.

And he says that may not necessarily mean over the house, but in the direction of Bethlehem which the Magi would have had the confirmed knowledge from the scriptures that it was in Bethlehem according to Micah 5 .2.

The above was just me thinking out loud regarding the nature of the star. But my main question as raised by my wife is this. Why does it matter? Does knowing if the star was supernatural or natural affect our salvation?

Or is there a purpose in learning about these small tertiary issues? I feel I'm biased because I like theology and reading on these things. Just wanted to see if there is value in knowing some of these trivia facts.

Well, yeah, if you've got a Trivial Pursuit Bible edition, you need to know this stuff so you can win the game. That's a hard game. Becky won't play it with me. I won't. She won't play any trivia games.

I won't. I told you that when we got married. I said, absolutely not. Matthew 2, verse eight. Herod sent the Magi to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the child. And when you have found him, report to me so that I too may come and worship him.

Now, after hearing the king, they went their way and behold the star, which they had seen in the east was going on before them until it came and stood over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

And after coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and fell to the ground and worshiped him. How would they have known exactly where to go? Right. The star showed them exactly the place.

Yep. Yeah, I don't think that that's saying that the star just stood over Bethlehem. I think it's saying the star was over the place where the child was. Right. They knew exactly which house to go into.

And I do think you're right, Brian, that they knew Bethlehem. They knew to go to Bethlehem or they knew that the king would come out of Bethlehem. They didn't know to go to Bethlehem because Micah 5 .2 says that the king is gonna come out of Bethlehem.

That that's gonna be the place. It doesn't necessarily mean that that's where he is. Right. Especially considering at the time that they arrived, the baby had already been born. Yeah. So it's logical, let's go to the palace in Jerusalem.

Right. If a king has been born, where's he gonna be? Right. He'll be in the palace in Jerusalem. Yeah. Bethlehem might've been the place of his origin, but that doesn't immediately mean that's where the child would have been.

So when they went to Herod and no one in Jerusalem had anything that they were, well, they went into Jerusalem first, but when no one there knew what they were talking about, that gets them an audience before King Herod and Herod's wise men say, oh yeah, hey, there is a prophecy about that.

Right. Bethlehem is where. Come after the fact. Yeah, hey, I guess we should have been paying attention to that all this time. So then they went on to Bethlehem. They may have known that by the scriptures, but it's just logical.

Hey, we're looking for a king. He would be in the palace. Yeah, he would be in the palace in Jerusalem. So then when they went on from that place, they followed the star and oh look, the star was actually leading us exactly to the house where the child was.

Hence why I believe it would have been something supernatural. If you're talking about something high up in the heavens, like some sort of astral event, then it's way up there and how does it signify even the town where the wise men would be going?

Yeah. I mean, the star is way too high to know whether it's over Jerusalem or over Bethlehem, which were only four miles apart. So I don't see why an astral phenomenon would have guided them exactly to the place where the child was.

Whether you're talking about the town or you're talking about the house that he was in. Plus when we go through the annals of history, you don't see multiple civilizations talking about this bright star in the sky that appeared at the time that Jesus was born.

So this was a low astral event. It wasn't something way up in the heavens. It was something that probably would have been on the level of the clouds or something like that. Guiding the wise men on their way.

Okay, so like it, I just, I don't know. I'm trying to think.

John MacArthur says it could have been an angel. No. That's possible. That's possible, yeah. Who knows, but I figure it would be something supernatural. This was a supernatural event.

It wasn't a natural phenomenon. Definitely, I agree with that.

Especially when you consider all those other proposals. They're just not bright. Like comets and conjunctions and yeah. You know, planets appearing.

Yeah, because I mean, everything's so far away that to light the way to that spot would be.

Right, and see the thing about comets is a comet during that time was considered an omen. Yeah, that's true. Like it's a bad thing. Yeah, right. That's very true. It's like, oh, something bad's gonna happen.

There's a comet in the sky. So the wise men or the magi would not have assumed a comet was gonna be leading them to the king.

Yeah, they probably would have headed the other direction.

Yeah, go the other way. Well, it's not that way. But good question, Brian. Okay, this next one's from Abby in Pineville. It sounds like a good Christmas town. I like it. Pineville, Louisiana. Dear Gabe and Becky, in keeping with the theme of your top 10 favorite Christmas what videos?

Because I did that compilation of all the Christmas what videos, or 10 of them anyway in one video. Yeah, okay. Yeah, which I just watched, she says. I have 10 favorite Christmas questions for you. Number one, what is your favorite Christmas tree ornament?

Do you want me to read through all these or should we just answer them as we go? We can answer as we go. Okay, so number one, favorite Christmas tree ornament. I don't know. I don't know either.

I didn't even look at them this year. The kids decorated with everything. I like all the ones with my baby's pictures on. Yeah, I like those too. And then I have my own from when I was born.

Which the kids were getting me to open. I didn't even know we had that. Do we put that on there every year?

Sometimes I don't, just because I want to keep it good. Has the year of your birth on there? Yep, that was from when I was a baby. Yeah. And so, I mean, just, I don't know. There's a lot of them. We don't have like the usual, every one of it matches and stuff like that.

We have a compilation of everything. It's a hodgepodge. It is a hodgepodge. And the things that the kids made and things that people have gifted us.

I mean, it's a good tasteful assortment. It's not like, you know, gas station Christmas ornaments. Oh, look, a Darth Vader, you know, and you stick that on your Christmas tree. We have a few fun ones.

If you want to do that, that's fine. We just don't have, yeah, like a junk drawer on our Christmas tree. It's actually tasteful. It looks like it all fits. It's our own personality up on the tree. I can't think of a favorite one though.

We've never had a good topper. No. I think every year we're trying to figure out what should I put on the top?

Well, that's because I don't want to spend 50 bucks to get one that I like. It's an issue. Yeah.

I could hang Bubba up there this year. There we go. Yeah. He's adorable. Sit him up there on the top. Okay, number two, what is your favorite Christmas album to listen to? That one's tough. For me, it's Michael W. Smith, Christmas.

That was 1989, I think was when that album came out. Still my favorite.

I like to listen to Bing, Bing Crosby. I just. Yeah, White Christmas. Any of those from White Christmas.

You listen to that a lot. Yeah, I do. Number three, what is your favorite Christmas carol? Like, and she has in parentheses, like Christmas or classic hymn. Your favorite Christmas carol, classic hymn.

Do I have to know the words to it or can I just like it a lot? Well, why is it your favorite if you don't know the words to it? I don't know.

I just really like it. Which one is that? I could listen to it all day. We Three Kings. That's a good one. I like that one. Um, yeah, for me it would be, I like that one too. Oh, come all ye faithful, hark the herald angels sing.

Yeah. Of course I love Silent Night. Yeah, I'm gonna stick either one of those two. Oh, I really like, I think that this one's underappreciated. While shepherds watch their flocks by night. Oh yeah, that one's good.

It's basically the whole story of everything that happens with the shepherds and the angel. And it's to a very, very simple tune. I think there's several versions of it, but the one that's, while shepherds watch their flocks by night, all seated on the ground.

That tune, that particular. I like that one. Also, I heard the bells on Christmas day. I've heard some people say they really don't like that song. I like that one. I do, I like that one. And even though there's some Scrooges out there that don't like it, I still like Oh Holy Night as well.

Number three, what is your favorite Christmas carol? Oh, that was, I just did that one. Number four, what is your favorite Christmas food?

Oh, are we talking goody or are we talking like food. Food? Cause there's a difference. Whatever you want to eat. Well, I'm just asking, is another one of those desserts in our question?

It just says, what's your favorite Christmas food? Okay. What do you want to eat at Christmas? Yes.

No, I love sweet potatoes. I love mashed potatoes and gravy. I love turkey, but you like to have ham.

You're just talking about stuff you can eat all the time. No, no, no, no. I'm going to eat whatever a person gifts me. And we've had a lot of good snacks gifted to us. Oh yeah. Here in the office over the last couple of weeks.

You've brought a few of them home. Anything good? Yeah, I just said to some of the ladies a little bit ago, I'm more likely to develop a cavity at Christmas than at Halloween. That's true. You bring a lot of good and not just good sweet stuff, but it's like the sticky sweet stuff.

It's got like the good gooeyness to it.

I like the, I can't think of it, the pecans. Bonbons?

No, the pecans. Pecans, oh, like the little cookie with the chocolate and the pecan on the top.

Is that what you're thinking of? No, I'm talking just pecans. Just pecans. The cinnamon and sugar. Oh, you mean pecans. No. Pecans. No, pecans, yeah.

The candied pecans. Yes. Yes. I like those. Okay, those are good. I still think that's an anytime thing. I can get those at the mall. They got the little pecan thing over there at the mall.

I'm only in the mood for that stuff around Christmas time, Christmas and Thanksgiving.

All right. Yeah, any of the, you know, the Christmas goodie bags. Pies, cookies. Yeah, pie is good. You have not done a pumpkin pie yet this year. I've been sick. I haven't had my For like a month.

I want my pumpkin pie. All right. I haven't had my Becky pumpkin pie yet. No, you haven't. Have I said what I like? Let me pick from this stuff over here.

You've been critiquing what I like. I've got some stuff in here already. I like the shortbread cookies too, those are good. Shortbread cookies are good. Gingerbread cookie. I'm a big fan of gingerbread.

I can only have so much gingerbread, but I love it. Now I like Absolutely love it.

I like ginger snaps. I mean, if it's hard, I'll still eat it. I'll probably want to dip it in my eggnog or my milk or something like that. Yeah. But oh, nothing beats a good soft gingerbread cookie. Yeah.

Oh yes. A soft, warm gingerbread cookie. I've only had one of those in my life. Digging into this bag here because I bet I'll come up with some other ideas.

Fudge. Oh, fudge. Yeah, you and fudge. Yeah. That is definitely a thing. But that I get all year round. Because around here, they make it. That's what I'm saying.

You can't pull that now because you've been listing all the other stuff that you can eat the rest of the year. But I don't eat the rest of the stuff the rest of the year. You eat fudge the rest of the year.

I do eat fudge, that's what I'm saying. That's the only thing that I've said though. All right. That's a hard question. I think that's the toughest. Chex Mix, toughiest? Toughiest. Toughiest question.

Toughiest question. I like the Chex Mix, doing the holiday. They add the spice to it usually in the holiday. It's not every other time in the year. It's just salty the rest of the year. But you got that Christmas flavor to it when they make it in December, whoever they are.

They in quotes. They. What was the other thing I was just thinking of? Oh, the Muddy Buddies. Oh yeah, that we can't have right now.

Why? Because Bubba has peanut butter. Oh yeah, right.

Somehow our 15 month old developed an allergy to peanut butter. Yeah, sad. You're the one that's allergic to foods. I'm not allergic. I am allergic to foods. So he got it from you. It stinks. Bonus question, Abby says.

What is your least favorite Christmas food? Oh.

Well, I can't say that I've ever tried the fruit. What is that? Fruit cake? Yeah. You've never had a fruit cake?

No. There are fruit cakes that are really bad.

I have had a bad fruit cake. I know, I've been too apprehensive about tasting it. So I've never had it, never ventured.

When I was a kid, my mom made these fruit cake cookies and they were awesome. And so I'd always hear these jokes. Everybody always makes the jokes about the fruit cake every year.

Your mom is an awesome cook anyway. She is. She's amazing.

I grew up with two good cooks. You did. My mom and dad were both incredible cooks. And so it really spoiled me. I didn't make anything. Yup. And I had to learn. I had to learn myself. Yeah, so she made these fruit cake cookies.

And so I'd always hear the jokes about how terrible fruit cake is. And I'm just going, what's wrong with fruit cake? Yeah. It's good stuff. And then finally, yeah, I had a bad fruit cake and I'm going, oh yeah, gross.

Okay, now I get it. And it's either just like, you can either use it as a doorstop. You know, it's that kind of fruit cake. Where it's just this brick of hard dough and weird candy things you would never eat on your own, by themselves.

So it's better to just have it as a doorstop. It's kind of gag after a serious doorstop. No, it's a serious, it's just a terrible fruit cake. So it's either that or it's way too spongy. Like way too light and soft.

And then it still has like these imitation gummy bear things in them, that's. Weird. Yeah, there's a certain kind of fruit you buy for it that you put in the fruit cake. Okay. And it just, yeah, you wouldn't eat it by itself.

Yeah. But it works in my mom's fruit cake cookies. Those are good. There's a fruit cake at the store right now. It's like from one of our local bakery, you know, I won't say which one it is. But anyway, and it's 50 bucks.

Yeah. $50.

That's because it's well known. Yeah. It's supposedly on a movie or something. I don't trust it enough.

I don't trust the reputation of fruit cake enough to wanna spend 50 bucks and believe that that fruit cake is gonna taste like a $50 fruit cake. Right. What is your, here's question number five. So that was a bonus question, that didn't even count.

We're answering that one anyway. You okay there? I'm good. I'm pulling out the cough syrup. I'm gonna do it. I'm good, I'm gonna pull out another cough drop stand there. What is your favorite part of the Christmas story?

I don't, it's, what part of the story am I not supposed to like?