The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast - Almost Famous for the Holidays

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Ben and Ashley share their favorite holiday traditions! But when Ashley asks Ben to settle a debate between some Christmas movie classics... Ben has an admission that will leave you speechless. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hi, my name is Enya Eumanzor. And I'm Drew Phillips. And we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD... Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness, psychobabble.

Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom is the podcast for you. Open your... free iHeartRadio app, search emergency intercom, and listen now. How serious is youth vaping? Irreversible lung damage serious. One in ten

kids vape serious, which warrants a serious conversation from a serious parental figure, like yourself. Not the seriously know-it-all sports dad or the seriously smart podcaster. It requires a serious conversation that is best had by you. No, seriously. The best

person to talk to your child about vaping is you. To start the conversation, at talk about vaping.org. Brought to you by the American Lung Association and the Ad Council. This is the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast with IHartRadio. We're here. It's the holidays

and we're so pumped to be celebrating with all of you. It's the almost famous podcast. We are celebrating the holidays from where, Ashley? The Bachelor Mansion. So Ben and I wanted to do a quick little holiday episode where we're going to do rapid fire questions for each other. This is something we've never done in all the six

years that we've done the show. And it's going to be really fun. I'm going to start it out, Ben. Are you ready? I'm ready. What's your favorite holiday movie? Your favorite Christmas movie? Santa Claus with Tim Allen.

The Santa Claus. The Santa Claus. It is absolutely fantastic. It gets me in the spirit. I have, I know I'm supposed to be answering these quickly. No, no, no. It doesn't be that rapid. I have been watching Home Alone to get our season started because that's Jessica's favorite.

And she is a holiday connoisseur of movies. And so we start with that. Then we'll watch the Santa Claus. And then it's kind of free game to just watch whatever we want to watch from there. Okay. So for us, I've always said it was like a tie between Elf and Home Alone. And now that I get older, it's Home Alone, certainly. Why is that?

It feels more nostalgic. I guess like I guess I get thrown more to the 90s than the 2000s. And like 90s Christmases are really childhood Christmases. And it's just like just the general 90s vibe in it. It's so, so comforting. I just find it to be. a little bit more comforting. Now, are you love actually or are you the holiday?

I haven't seen either. I'm going to throw this microphone into his forehead. Wait, what? Easton, grab a mic. You think this is outrageous, don't you? Producer Easton's on the line. You haven't seen either one? No. Wait, you just said that your wife is a holiday movie connoisseur. She watches a lot of them during like Thursday night football. You must watch both of them and you need to report back because Jared and I, this is like our yearly debate on which one's better.

He likes them. I both like them both, but I am definitely team the holiday. Wow. Your team of actually? I am. Oh my gosh. The holiday's weird. They switch houses for some reason.

It's so weird. It's like Airbnb. It's not that weird. We switch lives. Now that we have Easton on the mic here, because I do have a question for both of you, I was thinking about this the other night when we watched Home Alone.

Obviously, so many people love it. It's still a great movie. It's iconic in so many ways. But I'm also realizing that I'm not young anymore. I'm 34 years old. And so there's a generation behind me now that are becoming adults or are getting married and they're celebrating their holidays together and they're watching movies together. What movies are like 22 to 27 year olds watching for the holidays? Is it still elf? Is it still? Oh, it's still the same. They're all the same. So we've just failed at creating

other good movies for the last 20 years. I will say that is there a Christmas classic that's come out since the holiday in Love Actually. So Love Actually is 2004, Elf was 2003. The holiday was 2006. And I don't think there's been anything since then. That's become a real classic. I mean, are people watching the new Grinch, the animated Grinch? Oh, no.

So Jared and I are doing two ads for free forms 25 days at Christmas, which Jared is so, like he gets so hyped on 25 days of Christmas and so thrilled that we're doing this campaign again. He's doing it for the Grinch 2018 because he did the Jim Carrey one last year. So now we're watching that one. And I'm doing Home Alone, New York City. I'm doing Lost in New York City because last year I did Home Alone. I haven't seen it, but I heard it's great. Jess said it's great.

I'm again going to fucking, yes, beep that out. Throw this microphone at your head. You've never seen Home Alone Lost in New York. She's told me she's watching with me this week. I cannot wait to talk. her downstairs about your absolute buffoonery. No, it's wild. It actually is. So she is helping me to get more in the holiday spirit. Um, okay, so speaking of movies and all of these things and something I can relate to because it's something that really sounds like the only thing I've ever done for

the holidays. What is your favorite holiday traditions then? Okay. This is so weird because people have asked me this on Instagram and I've realized I don't have any. I know. Interesting. I know it's so sad. So when I was a kid, we had a traditional, like, day where it would be like, we would go to the candle at service of church on Christmas Eve. Then in the morning, we'd open presents. Then we, you know, get the batteries and the toys and, like, start playing with the things that you really were excited about. And then we would go to the same restaurant every Christmas night. Because my parents don't like do a traditional Christmas dinner. So just going to this one place was our tradition and now that I have like my own family we don't like we in and over the years we

even edited that a little bit but now that like I'm an adult we don't have anything that is absolutely predictable each year isn't that sad what about you my family was like very non-traditional in the sense so really for the last three years I'd say it was the only tradition I could speak to you guys go to vacation we go to vacation with my wife's family so all of us go together. We've celebrated Christmas now. This will be the third consecutive year. Now this year. You're going to Newport. Well, we're going to her, you know, grandmother's house and her aunt's house on the East Coast. But for like Christmas Day. Yeah. We're actually going to Nashville. My parents will come up. Her parents will obviously, they live there because, you know,

I have a new niece. And so the whole family is going to come into Nashville. The cool part about this is I'm an only child. So my parents are flexible. Very excited. about spending holidays wherever they need to spend it. But we don't have like a tradition necessarily. The only tradition in my life has been that my grandma gives me a new Christmas ornament every year. Oh, that's adorable. I love that.

Oh, I love that. So I have to say that that as for Dawson's first Christmas, the family's got together last year. And it's exactly how I'd want it every single year. But my dad is not retired and he typically works the day after Christmas. Interesting. So it really hinders the whole him coming to Rhode Island and my parents coming up there. Hi, my name is Enya Humanzor.

And I'm Drew Phillips. And we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD... Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness, psychobabble. Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom is the podcast for you.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Only a few more questions here, Ashley. I only have one more for you, really. Only one that you're just dying to ask me about Christmas? Yeah, well, I think it's going to be one that the listeners are really interested in. Okay, well, I have one more for you then. That's fine. Okay.

How do you two decide where you're going to spend your holidays? Well, typically, my family has been more traditional about Thanksgiving. Like, that's the holiday that's always at my parents' house. And we usually always have guests. This is the first one where we had nobody outside the immediate family. So typically, Jared and I'll just be like, okay, well, Thanksgiving is at my house and Christmas is in Rhode Island. So that's been, like, almost five or six years now. Okay.

Yeah, it's interesting. I think it's a big conversation. It was one of the very first, I want to say contentious conversations, but difficult conversations my wife and I had, where I was like, there isn't a great answer here. Like, there's not a clear solution, you know, for what we're going to do because it's weird when you get married. It's really the first time we're like, I will be not, I will be spending a holiday away from my family. Yeah, that first one was weird. It's very weird. We're getting used to it. So far it's been great because my, like I said, my parents are very flexible to say, hey, wherever you are, if we're invited, we'd love to be there as well. And Jess's parents are incredible in the fact that they're like, yeah, please come.

Like, we're all a good family together. Yeah, I'm a little, that's what an only child is nice. It's a little bit of a bit. There's a lot of benefits, actually. Okay. I need to know how old were you when you stopped believing in Santa and when did this dawn on you that he wasn't real. Well, I would argue he is.

Spoiler alert, guys. make sure that no kids are listening to this but a trigger warning at the front of the episode. Too late. Too late. You know, I had hesitancies early on. Like how early? Very early. And here's what happened. No, I think it's true. I wrote about it in the book, too, my book. When it comes to faith in Santa Claus, there is a massive issue when like people have the Santa Claus effect when it comes to like, a belief and a faith tradition, you know, and so all of a sudden, as an adult, you realize, oh, wait, Santa Claus isn't real. Maybe all this thing that I believed in my whole life isn't real also. So my parents were pretty, like, honest with me as soon as I asked. It was early, early, early. I again think that's an only child thing, too. Yeah. There was no, like, need for protection. Like, it still was fun. And we still laid, I remember laying out cookies as a kid. And there was still that, like, excitement for a few years. But then all of a sudden, you're like, wait, there's no way this

dude makes this work and that's when they were like yeah it's it's not a thing okay well do you want to know how long i believed i what's your guess teens teens okay so i was in fifth grade or fourth grade okay i was in fourth grade and um my parents had just gotten a gas log fireplace like within our house they finally bought the gas logs and i remember them saying that the gas logs for each of the gas fireplaces was five hundred dollars and five hundred dollars is a lot of money But then like when you're a kid, you think it's like thousands of dollars in your head. And on Christmas, as I'm starting not to believe in Santa, my sister and I go down on Christmas morning and the logs that they just bought were shattered on the floor.

They shattered them on the floor by like the fireplace. And so I looked at Lauren and I go, well, he's got to be real. They would never break those. So then I believed for like certainly another year. And then, like, maybe a little bit further. What age was this? It was fourth grade that that happened. Almost old enough to drive.

Well, I was going to have no doubt, like, that it was longer than it should have been. I think fourth grade is maybe average. What do you think? I'm looking at Hannah and what do you think is the average of not believing in Santa? I think that's about right. That's 10. Yeah, 10 years old. Yeah.

Ben, don't be, you're cynical. You're a cynical. little boy. I was very cynical. You're a cynical, skeptical, little boy. I just wish I had some more childhood left in me. I still do. And we're having a blast. Again, we're at the Bachelor Mansion. It's the holidays. We're celebrating together. My wife is downstairs. Jared is downstairs. Dawson is here. We have a whole group of people. But happy holidays. It's a great

time of the year to celebrate. It's a little brisk, may I say in LA? Feels very holiday time. Okay, final question for you before we head out of here. Are you, are you going out for New Year's or staying in? I'm assuming we're staying in, as we often do. Sometimes we'll go to dinner with friends beforehand, never stay out till midnight or anything like that. Jared wants to go to, he wants to go to Times Square one of these days. But he says he doesn't want to go to Times Square and just be a fan. He wants to work it. So if we can like put the dream out there, he wants to be in the crowd being like, and what's your New Year's wish? I hope he does. There's Zero doubt in my mind that my wife and I will be in bed by 10 o'clock and I will watch the ball drop the next day. Hey, until next time I've been Ben. I've been Ashley. See you.

I have the holidays. Follow the Ben and Ashley I, almost famous podcast on IHartRadio or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, my name is Enya Umanzor. And I'm Drew Phillips. And we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast. podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness psychobabble. Yes, yes.

Then Emergency Intercom is the podcast for you. Open your free IHeartRadio app. Search Emergency Intercom and listen now. How serious is youth vaping? Irreversible lung damage serious. One in ten kids vape serious which warrants a serious conversation

from a serious parental figure like yourself. Not the seriously no all sports dad or the seriously smart podcaster it requires a serious conversation that is best had by you no seriously the best person to talk to your child about vaping is you to start the conversation visit talk about vaping.org brought to you by the american lung association and the ad council this is an iHeart podcast