Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig Ferguson - Home For Christmas

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Craig is home for Christmas and like a lot of people out there in the world, he's looking forward to some downtime with family and friends as he checks in with the fans for a round of Tweets & Emails one more time before Santa arrives. Have a question for Craig? Drop him an email at [e-mail], send him a message on social media, or drop a comment below.  _______________________________________________ Craig is also on the road. Dates and tickets can be found here https://www.thecraigfergusonshow.com/tour _________________________________________________ FIND CRAIG: Website - https://www.thecraigfergusonshow.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/craigyferg TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@craigy_ferg X - https://www.x.com/craigyferg Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thecraigfergusonshow ABOUT THE JOY PODCAST: Storied late-night talk host Craig Ferguson brings his interview talents and singular world view to a discussion of the modern state of JOY, sitting down with notable guests from the worlds of entertainment, science, government, and more. How's our Joy doing? Bridled? On life support? Where do we find joy in a world that seems by any rational measure to be collapsing around us?

This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come and see my brand new comedy hour. Well, actually, it's about an hour and a half, and I don't have an opener because these guys cost money. But what I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway, come and see me live on the Pants on Fire Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout 2025 and beyond.

For a full list of dates, go to the Craigfergersonshow.com. See you on the road, my dears. Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Joy Podcast. My name is Craig Ferguson. I am your host of the Joy Podcast today. Now, if you are listening to me talking and you are not looking at a screen, then you may hear the occasional... That's the sound of Santa is on his way.

If you are actually watching with a video assist, i.e. on the face tubes or wherever. then you'll know that I'm wearing my Christmas sweater. My Christmas sweater with the little jangly bells on it. It makes me look like a giant elf or something creepy. But it's Christmas time. And if I'm wearing my sweater, it means that I'm home. For the last few months, as you know, my friends who are regular on the Joy of the podcast, of your regular listeners slash watchers

slash whatever George purse I call you joyd purse then you'll know I've been away so much I've been in all sorts of different places I was in California and I was in the south I was working very busy on a job

which as is the way often in show business I'm not allowed to tell you about until that job was announced but I was on the road and I was in hotels and motels and occasionally in my truck sleeping in my truck well I wasn't sleeping in my truck

but well actually I did sleep in my truck a couple of times it was in Miami one time at lunch I had a rather nice lunch and I slept in my truck anyway look that's not the point of today's talk or podcast what I'm doing today is I'm letting you know I'm home for Christmas

I'm home for Christmas because I got my I got my snake mug and I got my Christmas sweater that was me swooshing because I've had already far too much of Christmas fair already and I'm, you know, we're hardly into it. Now, I celebrate Christmas because it's my family's tradition and my wife makes me and I have children, but my children are grown now.

I do remember, and Christmas is pannis, it all began back in the day, back in the day, back in the day. Well, not way back in the day, not to when baby Jesus was born in manger on Christmas Day in Bethlehem and there were angels and stuff. Oh, no. I'm talking about back of the day when I was a kid, when we had Christmas as a guy, I loved Christmas when I was a kid. It was the most exciting time of the year and the business of, but it was also, it was a bit weird because my father, my father works in the post office. anyone who works in delivery if you're an Amazon driver or if you work for FedEx

or if you even work in what we still call the post office my dad worked in the post office then that time of year from the beginning of December all the way up until Christmas Eve really used to call it the pressure pressure and my father used to work the pressure

it was like you know a 12-hour back-to-back shifts he would like you get a lot of overtime and we weren't a wealthy family so you know getting that overtime it's very important. And he was working

all the time, and when he wasn't working, he would be in the house sleeping. And we had to be very careful as we were little kids walking around to not make noise because my father would be sleeping because of the pressure, or he wouldn't be

in the house then we could make a load of noise, but then my mother would be frazzled because of the pressure. The pressure of Christmas was a lot for my family and I think a lot for the fire and The families of mail carriers across these great United States, I salute you because you're dealing with the pressure and it's hard. It's hard dealing with the pressure.

But anyway, look, here's the thing. I think that I still think about that even now. Like, I am now, I know this is hard to believe. I am 63 years old. I know you're thinking, Craig, what? You clearly moisturise all the time and drink your own kids' blood or whatever that biohacking guy does. No, I don't. I don't do that.

I, um, have you seen that biohacking guy? I'm like, eh, I don't know, man. I mean, a fair play. You should try something new. Actually, I don't know much about it. I just see him every now and again. I'm like, oh, what are you doing now, biohacking guy? And I think, you know, the world is ironic.

You know, I'd be careful crossing the road if I was the biohacking guy. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, hopefully that wouldn't happen. hopefully that one happened so what I'm saying is I think that in the run up to Christmas even at this advanced age which I am I still feel a little nervous and I get a little nervous because and it's the pressure stuff I learned as a kid I've heard it described as a baby elephant belief you like beliefs that you get when you're little the they just stay with you forever even though you can break free of it. I mean, look, I'm not I don't have to worry about waking out my dad. If I woke up my dad, be a miracle

that he's been dead since 2006, but the the idea of being nervous around something that you don't really need to be nervous about anymore, I think it gets an early call baby elephant beliefs because apparently when baby elephants

are being trained, they tie the baby elephant's leg to a little stump or something. Look, I'm not don't even know if this is true. It's just an analogy. Don't get mad at me about the elephant stuff. I believe in the elephants should be treated humanely and with kindness and saved and they're beautiful animals. I'm not trying to make this about elephants. When I say humanely, by the way, probably that's not what I mean. What I mean is elephantly, because humanely would be pertaining to humans and we shouldn't tree elephants like humans. We should treat elephants like

elephants. I give them a big area where they get an elephant around and do all their stuff. Anyway, the baby elephant, the idea, I believe, the analogy is when training a baby elephant is little, you tie its leg to a stump, and when it tries, feels the pressure on its leg, it knows it can't get

away. And even when the elephant grows up turns it to a mighty elephant, they're going to easily pull away. If you pull a little leg, little wire leg string or rope on its back leg, the one that used to be tight to trunk, it'll feel that tug and think,

oh, well, I can't move. And then it stuck where it is. That's a baby elephant belief. Now, look, I'm not, clearly, an elephant trainer or a psychiatrist or a philosopher, even although I've been on television quite a lot.

Because I do have news for you. Just because you've been on television a lot doesn't make you a psychiatrist or a doctor or a philosopher. I mean, I used to think it did, but it doesn't. It just makes you someone who's been doing television a lot.

That's a job, I'm not going to guess. I like television. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. So it's a baby elephant belief for me that I get nervous in the run up to Christmas. So I'm trying to beat that by cheering myself up. And cheering myself up by wearing my excellent Christmas sweater, which has if you can't see this

it has beautiful tassels and it's like a stripper elf or something you know I've got like that and stripy bits and red things and it's very festive and a coli. Actually I think

I should just come clean and say I'm not wearing a sweater at all. This is all AI. I am just AI in my I'm not even here. I just said, Hey, Hey, Siri,

can you put out an episode of my podcast, the Joy podcast where I'm Christmasy and that's where this is? Now, that's not where this is. But I think that can't be far away. I was talking to a computery guy as part of the job that I cannot tell you about, but I was talking to a computer guy about months ago. And he asked me,

he said in many episodes that old late 90 you showed you doing and I said 2050 my good man which I think that's what it was certainly over 2,000 so about 2,000 hours of television broadcast television and I would say a good hundred of those 2,000 hours were pretty good anyway the what he said was he said there will come a point in a.m. And maybe it's soon where you'll be able to just say to the eye give me a new episode of the late late show of Craig Ferguson and it will use the imagery of me and the way I talked and all that and I'll just do a new episode. That was like, oh, well, looks, that can be true. But as I think about it, that's kind of what I did. You know, you just, you go out and see what happens. It's kind of what we're doing right now. I was going to do a tweets and emails episode of the podcast because, you know, I don't have a guest. I don't want to bring in one of my family here. You don't want them coming in for Christmas. Well, of course you do. It's wonderful.

help me but the the the uh my family are here for Christmas and I don't have any guess so I'm talking to you myself

and I thought well I do have tweets and emails segment of the or episode of the show and then why I don't why even bother I'll just talk about Christmas

I'll just do that we'll see where it goes and I thought I wonder if I could do that do that do you think hey it's gonna be able to do that and if it can what if it says

something horrible I'm I responsible or is the AI responsible? Because if the AI is responsible then I can send it whenever I said anything or whenever anybody said anything, you mark my words, this is what's going to happen.

When people get called out for shit in the future they'll just say, ah, it was AI. I don't know if anyone else is going to do it, but I'm going to do. I'll just go, nah, that. My feeling is that I can't be held responsible for what I

say that's it really that's all i'd have to say about that but the sorry i'm swooshing i'm swishing up it probably sounds very unpleasant or maybe it sounds pleasant i don't know if you would feel like that kind of sound by the way i is there a name i'm sure that you i mean look you're the internet you're the you're the face tube people you know everything so let me ask you I'm asking you a question. Is there a name? And I'm sure there is, because I think I've heard about the fork. They are the sound of a plastic bottle when it crackles

or the sound of a you know, when you get a case for your eye pose and makes that little noise. I hate those sounds. I hate them. And see when I'm on an airplane and I'm sitting next to someone and the airplanes change of pressure, maybe it's coming

into land and they've got their water bottle and it starts cracking. It tries me mad. I mean, I don't say anything now I'm Scottish. I just pass it progressively sigh a little bit and look out the window. But there's a name for that, isn't it, that kind of noise that drives you

mad? I can't remember what it is. Anyway, your mission face tubers is to send me the name of that. Because I'm going to take this is my big an incident. I'm going to take the week off next week.

I'm going to not even do a podcast next week. Even as I say that, I, you know what, I probably will. Because I think being in the house, I've been away for a long time. Not away, but, you know, I've been on the road and I've been working and I haven't been domestic really for a while. So my guess is that in about a week's time, I'm going to really want to talk to you again because I'll just be you. and me talking like right now and that is uh that's quite nice because then i can just chat and and they're about all right here's my big announcement if i do a podcast next week yeah it's 50 50 i mean i'll do it i'll go buy and do the podcast again it's not like i'm going to

stop right now but i i will do the podcast but it's 50-50 whether i do it next week but i will definitely not be wearing this sweater next week if you can see the sweater sweater is a beautiful sweater. It has a mock elf belt. I don't know you can tell like that. The, if you can see it, if you can't see it, you just, you now know it as a mock elf belt. Every Christmas, I don't know. I mean, it's a time of year for joy and, you know what, I like it now. I like it. I used to not like it when I was in my early 20s. I think, but what changes it? does it get older I didn't like it in my

20s and 30s coincidentally I didn't like it when I was drinking that's probably so to do with it and then when I got sober it was just cool like a you know what actually it was around about Christmas I had my worst

drinking story or my scariest drinking story which I told a lot of times I'm not going to tell it now but I mean you can find it online Craig Furnison drunk Christmas story or something, I suppose, but the, I'm sure it's there, because all of that late stuff is up there. By the way, I don't put that up. I don't have any access to any of that stuff, but somebody does. And, you know, okay. The, uh, you know, good, in fact. I, I, well,

I don't know if I can legally say good. I don't own it. So look, it's nothing to do with me. If it goes up, it goes down, it goes down. I, it's nothing. I'm not involved. Uh, I wasn't there. It was AI. actually I never did that show that was only how I in your mind in your mind in your mind or maybe maybe it's in my mind

anyway what I'm saying is I didn't like Christmas for a long time and then when my when my first kid was born when my little was born I started to like it again

because you know it's great when you're when you have well I was lucky because you know the kids were healthy and we had enough cash to get on presents and stuff because I always think it must be tough.

I know it's tough because, you know, when my parents really was four of us, my father worked in the post office and my mother was a teacher, you know, an elementary school teacher. So, you know,

we weren't rolling in cash and there were four kids and they had to buy presents and, you know, I was probably the worst. I was a fat, really wee boy and I always wanted the toy de jure. That used to be a thing, didn't it? Like there was a big toy,

would come out every Christmas and you had to get it. I think that's the plot line of Jingle All the Way with Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzenegger one of the great forgotten Christmas movies, which I might make my children watch this Christmas period.

It takes time for us to watch Jingle All the Way with Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I always had a problem saying Arnold Schwarzenegger. but anyway he is a problem saying it too so it's okay you know when I started in the late night I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger was the

governor of California and I remember at the time people would say to me journalists it was always journalists would say do you do you think people will be able to understand your accent or can you have an accent in late night can you can be on television

with it? They probably wouldn't even be allowed to ask that question now but back God, it was horrendous. They were like, oh, you'll never, there was a guy remembering, I was 42 when I started doing late night, and there was a guy some executive

from NBC at the time, I can't remember the guy's name, but he said, you'll never, like, he's too old. He's too old to start at late night. And I was like, at 42? What do you do? Stand up and talk. And sit down and talk. And anyway,

oh yeah, so they said, will you be able to to connect with the audience because you have an accent, you can't, you have it. And I said, look, the governor of California can't even pronounce the name of the state, which he's the governor of,

and everybody's fine with that. And Swarstaker was actually a bit of a lighthouse for me in many ways, because after a while, Arnie's accent isn't really an accent. It's just the way he talks, isn't it? It's like you're going, oh, he's California.

But that's just the way he talks. so it just becomes his voice and I think that's probably happened to me in America as well I mean I still get people saying oh Shrek farty

dolly to me but it's usually my family because that's a Scottish human talk it's not how we talk a little bit it's a little bit of how we talk anyway Christmas is coming and then New Year's

and that's the big holiday in Scotland not so much Christmas although Christmas is a big deal with children and stuff like but the big holiday in Scotland this time of year it's called it's New Year's it's December 31st into the 1st of January

but it's not called New Year's it's called Hogmane Hogmane and there are many I suspect pagan traditions around Hogmane for example there's something called first footing where the first person to knock on your doorbell after the chimes of midnight at the start of the new year

that's your first foot right that's that so you go out first footing and you go around the neighborhood you knock a doorbell after midnight sometimes people have been drinking because there's lay in night and it's scott and it's hogmanet which is a big drinky thing so you go out of night and you wait until after midnight

You have to go outside and wait. Then you knock on someone's door and they open the door and you bring them a gift of probably black bun, which is a type of bun. Or shortbread is very popular, delicious shortbread. Or whiskey is popular in all areas of that. Iskiba, the water of life. So that happens

And your first foot at your house It's good luck if they are tall, dark and handsome They don't specify gender They don't specify ethnicity Only tall, dark and handsome That's what you want So tall, dark and handsome That's preferable

For a For a first footer at your house That's good luck There's also There's things like my mum mother used to clean the house before the new year. She'd like clean it all down and wash windows and go nuts and once a year. Actually, this is a Christmas thing. I've just remembered this. I thought it was New Year's, but it was Christmas. Once a year, my mother used to make

Hungarian goulash. Now, full disclosure. There's no Hungarians in my family that I know of. We're not connected to Hungary in any way. And certainly there's no reason why my mother should know how to make Hungarian goulash. But apparently she did. And every year, every festive period she would make Hungarian goulash. And it was a, you know, he was Hungarian goulash with rice. And for us, or certainly for me, it was an extremely exotic dish that I would kind of look forward to. And then, fast forward until about 2009.

that is the first time I ever went to Hungary went to the great city of Budapest which is combined of course the city of Buddha and the city of Pest, Budapest. And I went to Budapest which is in Hungary and I thought nobody would go down a treat right now

some Hungarian goulash just like Mama used to make just like your Scottish mother used to make so I went out to an authentic Hungarian restaurant, of which there are many in Budapest, which I'm sure that will come as no surprise to you. We went to a Hungarian

and I owned it the Hungarian goulash. And I have to say, it was nothing like my mother's. And I realised now that my mother's Hungarian goulash was mids. It was minced beef

with, I think, some kind of sweet barbecue sauce in it or something. and the rice was rice so I think to my mother it was Hungary and Gulash but it wasn't really I think to any Hungarians who may have come to visit they would have been like the hell is this

but that's kind of the way of it you know when you live in Scotland in the 1960s and 70s as I did as a child there wasn't a lot I didn't have a lot of information about other places you know so it could be Hungarian Gulash My father, when I was very little, used to make something that he called Chinese egg. It was a signature dish that he would make if, you know, if for some reason my mother was incapacitated in any way

or it was one of the very rare occasions when my father had to look after us because my mother wasn't doing it for whatever reason that may have come up. My father would cook Chinese egg. Now, my father, full disclosure, and my family, have, to my knowledge, I think the first person of my family to visit China was Milo, my son, so he wasn't around then obviously. And

my father didn't have any connection to China. I'd never been there. I didn't know anything about it. We make Chinese egg. And I look at the ingredients of Chinese egg and I think I think my father may have just said that to sell it to us as children. So we'd go Chinese egg, oh, this is

amazing. Because really the ingredients of Chinese egg are a boiled egg in a cup not unlike this but not a snake cup obviously more of a just like a tea mug or a coffee mug a boiled egg in there and then here's the ingredient that made the Chinese egg

he would cut a slice of toast with a pair of scissors into squares like tiny little squares and then mash up the egg and the little bit of toast in there. No, I'm talking we're very young. I'm not talking about, I'm talking about like when I was five or something or whatever age I was.

But that was Chinese egg. And I realized that in China they probably don't do that so much. Maybe they do. The I just got a text. Sorry.

Happy Chinese egg day. it's so anyway there's no nothing to do with it now fast forward again years later I was looking after Liam my youngest boy when he was very little he was about

five I guess five or six and his mother was off doing something and I thought let me come a tiny second I thought I like uncomfortable somehow with that whole concept so I made him ham pancakes and pancakes just so as you know are

pancake butter in a pan you make a pancake and then ham you get the ham and you throw it in the pancake it's not a big deal but little kids will fall for anything I realize

and if you give it a name then it becomes exciting like when I was trying to get the kids to eat apples or fruit or just shit the kids fight you on for some reason anything that is good for them

I would say I would cut it up and I would cut an apple into the shape of fries and then I would say it's kid fries and they eat it they eat it they eat it up so

there's a little where I'm going on my actually oh yeah I guess it's anyway it's the Christmas episode I thought I would just like to wish you all Merry Christmas don't like your baby elephant beliefs to get you down you know

it'll be all right and the other thing is if you have children remember they're gullible I think that's the take away from this so the whole you know

Hungarian goulash of it all you know might be the way to do it I will be here for Christmas at home and then I'll be

I think at home for Humanae, which you now know is Scottish New Year. You probably knew that anyway. It's not like that. It's a secret or anything. And I and I think

that's it. I wish you all the goodwill of the season and try and have a good time. It's sometimes a little tricky for people this time of year. And even although it's things are cool.

around here but I know what you mean like there's something rises up you know what I mean so fight against it put on your best Christmas sweater you know I'll put on a happy face and walk the fuck through it and it'll be the 26th of December before you know it which is my way of saying Merry Christmas my darlings

Have a lovely time and I'll see you Santa You know,