Tosh Show - My Gingerbread House Bakers - Susan Halme and Melissa Redell

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Daniel gets into the Christmas spirit with Susan Halme and Melissa Redell, the mother and daughter team behind The Solvang Bakery, whose immaculate custom gingerbread houses bring holiday cheer to families across the country. Join our Patreon for exclusive content: http://patreon.com/toshshow

Hey guys, thanks for listening. Please like and subscribe, rate and review, all good stuff, positive. Miss you, Brody. What's the price range? What's the cheapest gingerbread house we can get to the most expensive? The kits start like 129 and the estate is $3,600. Posh show. Tosh Show from show

Welcome to Tosh show I'm your host Daniel Tosh Eddie Goslin is here Hello Daniel Tosh How are you? Good, how are you? Well, I'm excited Okay, I can feel it, I feel the energy.

I'm excited because we have a huge, huge announcement to make this week. I just recently found out that we edit this podcast. Huh. Okay? I was unaware. thought I came in here, sat down, talked to someone lovely, walked out, and then you guys put it

on the internet. Just goes right up. That's what I thought happened. Right. Well, it turns out, you guys have been cutting my words, piecing them together, you know, making me saying God knows what. So guess what? Well, no, no, no.

Guess what? I am suing you guys for $1 billion. Man, it's going to really put me in the hole. Well, let that be a lesson. Did you know about this, Eddie? Yeah, I did. And how long has it been going on? I think since the interview one.

Since day one, you've been cutting all of my seamless rants, my banter. Why? For what? What do you guys get out of that? Well, I ask. I go, well, where is all this footage? And they said, it's just eating up space on expensive hard drives. well I said well then we got to fix that we have to find a way to mine that for the gold the nuggets

that are in there okay now most podcasts I'm told are between like an hour and three hours long which is why I always said well let's make ours 30 to 45 minutes now in the history of our show only three episodes have ever gone longer than one hour and I would like to point out that all three of those were female guests. There you go. Okay, so that's not sexist. All I'm saying is that women talk way too long. That's a fact.

That's a fact. So, here's what we're doing. Okay? We're starting a Patreon page. That'll be nice. The fans will love this. What all is going to be on there? Extended interviews, outtakes.

Will there be, you know, ad reads? where I went completely off book and the company said you can definitely not air that, eventually. Once their chat clears, sure, I'll put that on there. All right. Will there be any, uh, BN? BN. Brief, brief nudity? Oh, yeah.

Possibly. Matter of fact, there is. This is for people that just can't get enough. They want to see how the sausage is made. And they're going to find out. Are we going to go back to episode one? Probably. Oh, my goodness.

Why wouldn't we? There is going to be so much gold. I mean, we leave a lot of meat on the bone. How much will it cost? $5. Now, what's included with $5? Well, you get ESPN. Oh, nice, thank you.

So you'll get the Manning cast. Thank you. I would like to point out that you cannot cancel it once you sign up. This is, we're given an opportunity for people to not only can they not cancel, but it gets passed on. to future generations. Generation. Uh-huh.

It's like having like floor seats to the Lakers. Oh, it's cool. I like this. Yeah. You'll be happy. You got to go to patreon.com slash toss show. You won't be disappointed. I say that jokingly because I know that my fans will always find something to be disappointed by that.

They'll be like, oh my goodness, this unedited footage feels edited. Well, that's the big news, Ed. We're doing a Patreon. patreon.com slash toss show. You got big news too, I heard. I got some news. Eddie, as a lot of people know, uh, in his family. Yeah.

And maybe, maybe slightly outside of his family. He tinkers, uh, in, in the music world, uh, around the holiday times. Always putting out funny Christmas songs. I think you can order them or download them or the, they're available someplace. They're on iTunes. They're on iTunes. There you go. Remember when you used to pay 99 cents for.

for a song. Oh my God. Yeah. Wow. Anyway. You know, I deliberately put out an album once where there was only like four tracks. I remember because I wanted them, but then they fought me. Like, we have to make it at least 10 tracks. And I'm like, why did? And I made like one track like 17 minutes. And it doesn't matter. This is not about the goodwill that I've done in the past, especially coming off the heels of me telling people to go to our Patreon page and spend $5. Right. But they may like it. Okay, we weren't talking about this.

We were talking about your Christmas song. So you have a new Christmas song coming out, or you're animating all of your old Christmas songs? Animating the old Christmas songs. There's also going to be a new Christmas song, and it's all going to be like a stop-motion animation called the Eddie G. Christmas Spectacular Variety Extravaganza. And then people just order it? Just go to my website.

Eddie Gosson. And then you can just see it? Yeah, you just watch it. Oh, so it's free? I think it's going to be around 23, 24 minutes. Maybe I'll put something where you can buy me a cup of coffee. Well, what if everybody did that? Then you'd have so much fucking coffee.

I'll use it for something else. Yeah, but the coffee's going to get cold. Well, you're right. I haven't thought about the entire infrastructure of the payments and everything. Okay, so this isn't a money play. Not a money play. Well, why don't we just put it on the Patreon page? We could put it on the Patreon page.

In addition to your website. Yeah. Oh, that's good that you're going to put that out. there. I actually want to put out a song. Okay. A funny song. I haven't written it. Okay. You know, but I want to do it in the style of Ed Sheeran, you know, but about just what my son goes through and gossip about all the parents here in Malibu. Yeah, you know, Ed Shearin sings those songs yeah i want to do like a song like ed sheer and just about the gossip of of my son's six years old and he had a play date with one of his friends and their parents were going to leave malibu and they said

they got they're going to sell everything in their house and i was like okay that's fine but i don't want to buy anything and they're like well what about some of this artwork and i was like yeah yeah that's just a a tight shot of your wife's nipple i don't i don't want to pay for that give it to me it's just a song i'm working on yeah i mean it's already got that ed sheer and feel and then we we decided to go to the playground but trancis was having the field worked on so we went to fire truck playground instead and fire truck playground is fun except for on the weekends when all the people from calabasasas are over there we hate them i don't know i'm just going to write a song you got to do it about my son it's like you're writing

there's one lady that i'm pretty sure bad stuff happens to her but everyone talks about it but no one will address it there's another verse of that one there's there's a few few women that are definitely in relationships that are starting to go south whatever i'm in the i'm in the are you uh is your house fully decorated eddie fully decorated good well As you know, I've been deep into Christmas mode for a month now. Yeah. But I couldn't be more excited about today's guests. Do you hear that?

Guests. Wait a second. Plural. Plural. Uh-oh. Dylan's about to shit his pants. Two microphones. Two microphones. Enjoy.

Today's guest might be the sweetest we've had. They build houses so beautiful you'll want to eat them, which at the current praise point seems a tad gosh. Please welcome the mother and daughter duo who run the world famous Solvang Bakery for over 40 years, Susan and Melissa. How long have you two been married? Your mother daughter.

Yes. And you work together. Yes. How long has that been a thing? She started the bakery in the 80s, and I was 12 years old and started working as dishwashing and waitressing. So now, after we had kids, we decided to move near our grandma, and then she could help raise our kids, and then we partnered with the bakery. Isn't that your dream to have the kids

come back? Absolutely dream. My parents couldn't have been happier pushing me away. Honest of goodness, just as far as I could go. They're like, okay, they're in Florida. They're like, California seems perfect for you. Now, me, my nightmare is to think of my kids away from me. I tell my wife every day, like, why are we sending them to school? Let's just let them hang out. Totally. Now, you worked in a bakery at 12 years old, which technically might be illegal. Not when it's your parents owning it.

Well, see, that's, I don't know. It's a gray area because my father worked in his father's bakery. They owned, yes. My grandfather owned a few bakeries in St. Louis, Missouri. And now my dad had to pound out, like, donuts at 4 a.m. Like, every day before school. And I'm always like, hey, you don't seem like the happiest of fathers. You probably missed a few key hours of sleep.

Yeah. Does your family come from a long line of bakers? No, my father was in the restaurant business. And so I vowed that I would never ever do that, and it didn't last too long. I haven't even started the interview yet. Okay, let's go. Do you believe in ghosts? Oh, no.

I don't. Neither one of you. No. I love what I'm hearing. Solving. How did you end up in Solvang? Actually, my husband's an attorney. We knew we wanted to live outside of Los Angeles somehow. And there was an ad in the law journal that somebody wanted an attorney in solving.

And so we came up that day in March, and he interviewed and said, yes, I'll be your partner if that sounds good. And there we've been ever since. And you love it? And we love it. I know nothing about Solving. And then recently I went there, like a week ago. Oh, really? Yeah, like I just took the family.

We had a birthday party for, I got my wife's cousin. She's a weird horse person. And I'm like, well, go to Al-Saw Ranch. And I'm like, this place is amazing. I ran to the Raven. But my one gripe on the Al-a-Saw, you get assigned a table for your stay. Now, I've never been on a cruise ship, but this is what I'm feeling like. Yeah, it's like dirty dancing.

What do you call that? Dude Ranch kind of thing, right? I'm not into that. All of a sudden I got, like, I got to be friends with the table next day. How are you guys doing today? That's weird. I only did two meals, but after that I was like, oh, I can't do this, guys. I need a new table.

I have to have a new table. I'm looking for a trade. Well, since we're local, we don't do, we go on the other side of the room, like for the one day. We're not staying there. We just go there for the dinner. I felt the town, everybody was so nice that I thought it wasn't really. Like, they were just overly, hello, how are you? Like, people just driving.

I mean, you can just drive your car past me. I'm walking. And yet still, they're, like, rolling windows down to say hello. Is that just something you guys do for tourists? No, no, it's a legitimate real town, small town. Everybody is so happy that they live there. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's a different place for sure. But you're not, it's a Danish town, and you're Finnish, is this what I'm learning? Yes. Okay. How does that work? Are you at odds with the community? No. Everybody's happy to have us there.

Do the Finnish and Danes get along historically? I think the Danes are the ones that founded the town, so they feel like it's their place, but they're nice that we're there, and we're Scandinavian. And I don't think we say much about being Finnish. You don't advertise it. You have to keep it quiet. Yes, you know.

My apologies. Oh, man, I'm starting a baking water. What do you think? Think of that, that they're dumb little pancakes. Oh, the abelskivers? Did you try them? I mean, sure. You have to try them.

Yes. But it is a pancake. Yeah. Yeah. Do you hate that your town is so touristy? I don't. No. It actually still works fine.

We have a great small community that we're all involved in, and we know how to avoid the traffic on the weekends if we don't want to become part of that. I mean, it's not that bad of traffic. kidding me? I mean, you got like one roundabout. What are you off to Shumash? You ever yanked the lovers? No, I do. You don't. You've never, you don't gamble all? How about you? You ever gamble? Yes. You do? Not regularly. Where do most of your tours come from? Lots of Los Angeles, Bay Area. We're kind of like a sweet spot between them. A lot of the tour buses will, wherever they come from, they go from us to Hearst Castle to San Francisco.

You ever been on one of those bus tours? I haven't. Not. No. I just, it terrifies me to think that's what I'm going to do on the final stretch. Oh my gosh, if you don't want to sit at a table next to somebody, do not get on a tour bus. I don't have a problem sitting at a table next to me. I don't want to do it multiple nights in a row. That's a tour bus. Now I'm judging wardrobes. I don't like it.

That's what I think I loved the most about Solvying. I say that, oh, it's so touristy, but I didn't know about it. And then I go up there, I'm like, this is delight. But I love my life of saying no to it. everything and not doing things. And then when I do something, I'm like, this is great. It's just neat that there's these places, you know, in California that are so drastically different from what most people think California is. But you're still, you're still California. Like, you're still California. You're cool. You've got necklaces on. Your shirt looks

good. Walk me through the history of the Slovene Bakery from your humble beginnings to building a gingerbread house empire. It started out in the middle of summer. when town was very busy, and my husband had a client who had to sell it immediately and leave. Why? He was getting a divorce and wanted out of town. Wanted to hide his assets? I don't know that part. All I know is...

You got a steal. I had four kids at home, and it was the middle of summer. It was July, and town was very busy. And I had never had a business, and I was baking my own bread, and, you know, I was a homemaker. definitely mom. And that was, I would just thrown into it. When did you start it? 1981. She was raising us on a little farm. They moved from L.A. four kids. And we had a totally different life. And then the bakery came as an option that one of my dad's clients was selling. And she thought it would be a fun hobby that turned into now our life. Talking about the other stuff

pastries that are in this bakery, because that's what I'm going to really, really, care about what do we got what's the what's the what's the run the game you do cakes we're a full line bakery cookies so we oh absolutely you can't leave solving it without your tub of cookies what kind of cookies Danish butter cookies Danish oh how dare you yeah we did bring you some oh even better yeah yeah do traditional cookies absolutely oh what does that mean you mean chocolate chip yes okay isn't that traditional that we do a lot of Danish Danish cookies, but we also do a lot of American, you know, style. Would you ever consider stop making the gingerbread houses and just focus on just the bakery?

Oh, no. It's both? It kind of pays for the whole everything all year. What about stopping the bakery part of it? We have thought about doing that. We've stopped baking bread. We've stopped baking. Wholesale.

Yeah. We don't do any of the things we used to do before the gingerbread business. Like sending things to restaurants and grocery stores. We don't do any of that. We don't do any wedding cakes during gingerbread season. I like that it's called gingerbread season. That makes me happy. Oh, yeah, it's a verb in our town now.

We're gingerbreading. Did you make a gingerbread house growing up before you had the bakery and go, oh, my goodness, I really have a knack for this? No, I didn't. I knew of them. I don't think we ever had a gingerbread house in our house. And I love making them now. I despise the kits.

oh yeah despise them You need to have one of our kids Yeah well okay I'd rather pay the extra money To have it to finish I'm more of like I want to see the beauty

I don't want to be a part of it I love baking But I can't stand icing Oh okay It's too much Oh the taste or the No just doing it Yeah oh

That's when I pass off the duties To the kids and my wife I'm like okay now you guys are in charge Yeah Also the kits that you buy from wherever They never adhere properly We discovered that a long time ago and started selling ours already assembled. So it has everything and you just decorate it instead of having to wait for the walls to dry.

Because who wants to do that? No, none of us. The kids want to just start decorating or eating the candy. You got any A-frames in there? Yes, it is an A-frame, actually. Okay. Well, no, just a straight A-frame? No, the kid is an A-frame.

I love an A-frame. It's the cutest of the cottages. Do you ever set up shop in like little mountain-sense? ski towns at all? No. I don't know my idea here. I just want you guys to have like a place in Tahoe that you just build out. How large of an operation are you running here? How many elves are in the workshop? Well, during Christmas time, we can get up to about 60 people helping. What do you call Christmas time? Just out of curiosity. When do you guys say, okay, now we're in the season? October 15th. October 15th's your start. Some people love to decorate the day after Halloween. We found out. Okay.

I don't, well, I don't care about decorating, but that's when I'm like, now we focus on Christmas kids. So we have to send some of the Christmas houses like end of October, and then November's the busiest, busiest, and then most people want them the day after Thanksgiving. And what do you tell these people that come to work for you so seasonally? They just know that this is a seasonal job that they can do every year? Right. We've been doing it so long now that they just say, put me on the list next year, they get their extra money. I mean, we're working pretty much 24 hours a day at that time. a year. Crazy. Do you just outsource at all at this point? Are you still hands on in there?

No, we're absolutely hands on. Yeah. So much work. Which is why we end up selling out because we're still so little that we can only do a certain amount. So that's why people start ordering in July. Would you want to get huge? Would you want like numbers to triple? I mean, we would need a whole different operation. Yeah. Like where houses and maybe it just we, we've got a lot of the same people for 40 years that we started with, so... Well, they can still be a part of it. Right. Well, quit being so selfish.

Yeah. Right out new people. I mean, yes, we've thought about expanding. Okay, let's talk about the price. That's always exciting to hear. I mean, because they're not cheap. No. Woo!

What's the price range? What's the cheapest gingerbread house we can get to the most expensive? The kits start, like, $129, and the estate is $36. The estate is 36. How big in dimensions is the estate? It's like... It's on a 24 by... Yeah. Is 24 the height or the width?

The width. Okay, two feet? 24 by 8. Yeah, it's like a full chain. Board, cakeboard. And they're still probably 15, 16 inches high. Yeah. Is that right?

Could you charge more and really upset people? We try to charge what we have to charge to kind of pay everybody and make it worth it. for us to, you know, be there 24 hours a day in November and December. Do people complain and say, like, I remember when your houses used to cost $380. No. We kind of went from not charging enough to like a whole other sphere of clients that we just thought, okay, if they're not going to pay, then we don't want to have a business because it's too much work for nothing.

Yeah. And so we kind of just got into this new realm where it's affordable to them. Yeah. Yeah. Listen. You know. Christmas makes me happy, so I got no issues. Why are the lights so much more expensive?

It's a really big process to do it. I mean, it's so... I mean, it really changes the value of the home. Yeah, it does. You live off grid. It's the top notch. Things are acceptable. Because then you look inside and there's like a fireplace and furniture and Santa and the whole thing.

How long does it take to complete a 1,700 gingerbread manner from start to finish? It's hard to say because we're not making one at a time. So we'll make like 100 doors and like thousands of windows and all the different pieces first. So we start that really early like in the summer. Then the baking part will bake all the pieces too and then we'll assemble those. So there's kind of a system so you don't really know exactly. But if you had to do one, it would probably take you a week. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

You've got an auto plant basically going to. Yes, it is. But by hand with them. Yes. You ever consider putting real glass in them? We have done that. Oh, no, not real. No, it wasn't real.

It was a sugar glass. But that ice and melt. No, I've got a nice real glass. You get a windows sponsor, you know? Yeah. There you go. Offset some money. It's nothing better than kids having a snack that had.

With some glass. Oh, gosh. Has anyone ever ordered the most expensive manner that you guys sell and ate it on the spot. ate it on the spot. No. That's what I got to do. Just to open it up and just start eating.

Has anyone really ate the whole house? Well, we don't really know. We just know. There's no follow-up in 40 years. You haven't talked to somebody? Well, no, some people say they let their kids eat it after the holiday and like get hot cocoa to dip it in because it's probably too hard.

But all the candy all around it is really good candy. So they kids like eat it. We didn't have that one client that, She ordered it at Thanksgiving because that's when all her grandchildren came, and she let them... Oh, she let them smash it. Just do whatever they wanted with the house. I said you're seriously paying this to smash. She bought the big manner.

How long will these things last? You said two months? Yep. Oh, yeah. That's not true. Eating after two months? It's up to you. Well, it's kind of like a centerpiece.

Really, truly, it's like a centerpiece. By the way, do you like gingerbread? Yes. To eat? Yes. I don't know where I'm mad on this. I like the chewy gingerbread, but you have to use kind of the harder gingerbread to make the house sturdy. Do you use jelly beans or gum drops for exterior illumination?

I don't know. That's what the question is. Well, we use gum drops and jelly beans. Oh, you do? Yeah. Gum drops? I'm not a fan. Are they new gum drops?

Are they still the old ones that are just wrap around your teeth? Oh, no, they're fresh. No, I meant the... No, they're the same gum drops. Right. Oh, no, they haven't reinvented them. The beauty is they don't bleathe. because we have to have candy that sits on snow, white snow, that won't bleed.

And there's very little on the market. We've been all around with all these candies that other people do when they're doing a kit. And they look really cute for a couple of days, but they don't last all season and to ship. How much does a gingerbread manor weigh? And what does it cost to ship? The manors with lights, we have to do overnight. So that's like $500 to ship on top of the... Oh, man.

Man, that's a good number. And $1,000 if you're getting the estate. But we'll send it to Florida. Where did we send one, the Bahamas once? And it's got to get on some private thing. You're basically buying a plane ticket for the house because it has to get there. No point in sending it if it's going to break. Well, it doesn't have to.

It's not a kidney. Yeah. No, I'm saying if they're spending this much for it, it's like you don't send it ground to be tossed around a few times. We require them to send it overnight. What percentage get damaged in shipping? I mean, like, 1%. Not, yeah, not even more. Maybe a little candy thing will fall off and, you know.

Right. But for like real damage, they'll send us a picture and we don't know what happened differently from the other one if it got thrown or... Okay, but if they send you a photo of a damage, how do you remedy it? We send them a new one. Right away? Yeah. So you can more.

It's because it's not... There's a little cushion. We save a few that we have. have to, you know, we know we're going to have to make for that reason. But it doesn't happen very often. Otherwise, we wouldn't be in business. Do you make custom gingerbread houses? Yes. Like, just if somebody can send you a photo of their house and you'll just do it? But now we do maybe one a year because it takes so long. We did this one of this home in Texas. And my sister and her husband had to drive it there because we were so scared to ship it.

Well, it was too big. Yeah. I mean, it was really to scale, the bricks, the whole thing. It was amazing, and that took, I don't know, it took you guys a month. And so we have to make 4,000 of these in two months. Is that the number around 4,000 a season? That's pretty much our max. I got a new market for you. Maybe, maybe we've already thought of it. But I feel like these people would spend the money because they care about architecture so much,

and they're probably easy to build in that mid-century modern Palm Springs. There's your market. Oh, yeah. You've done those. Well, we should make one as one of our line. as that style. Yep. That's what I'm thinking.

Yep. Oh, man, just workshopping over here. Yep. This is good stuff. This is good stuff. You do like air streams or trailers, any of that stuff? We have done, but it's... Airstreams would be tricky.

Yeah, it's hard to do that shape. It seems rounded. I did a trailer park one time. I get the bleeding. My stuff started to like melt into the water. You tried to make a trailer park, Eddie? I did. Oh, man.

Eagles logo on it. Oh, yeah. Do you do sports teams? Yeah. I think the NFL could shut you down. Oh, wow. Well, we'll take it back. We do a few logos for people.

It's not enough. I think they can come at you. Is there anything that you guys won't do or put on your gingerbread? Do you guys have a code of conduct over there? Yes. Does anybody try to sneak things by? Because I can get pretty creative with embroideries where people don't know what I'm writing and then when I get it that says something pretty horrible.

And my wife's like, ha, ha, that's funny. We'll have to do the Daniel Tosh line of gingerbread and then you can have your own brand. A little, you know, mature content, gingerbread. We don't even do Bachelorette party cakes. You won't? No, all the penis stuff is too much. We just, it's not, we don't want to be part of our kitchen. I can't imagine that day in the factory.

Yeah, I mean. When you're having to pump out a conveyor belt of gingerbread's penis. I think we did one and our men and women working together. We're like, we don't need this. No, good for you. Good for you, Bremen. You're a lot like Chick-fil-A. Will you sell gingerbread house to a gay married couple?

Of course. Oh, good to know. Wasn't that always, that was always a hot button issue. Oh, that was a wedding cake. Okay, so you won't do wedding cake. No, we do. Oh, you will. Good.

Good to know. I know. Do you guys smell of gingerbread at all times? Probably. Does the smell of it? It smells good. It does. But I meant anything that smells good after, you know, day in and day out.

You're like, enough already. Well, you can't smell it after a while. Really need to go away to come back. But anyone that walks in that isn't in there every day says, oh, my gosh, it smells so great. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, they don't have to live in it. That's so true.

Do you inspect every house before it gets delivered or no? They actually have to be because of the names and the people and the dogs and all of the personalization that we do. So before they go even get wrapped to be shipped, They have to look at the order and make sure that all the names and people are correct and line up. Does Kelly Rippa get free gingerbread houses for life? No, she's so nice and pays for all of them. We give her one for her family, but she's been so amazing promoting us. Tell me that story.

How did that happen? Somebody that was our client, just buying some of our Danish pastries, had a friend that was looking to give her a gift. And so he said, I bet Salvin Bakery could do a gingerbread house. And so we did one for her. My mom made her first one. And she loved it so much, she started giving to all her friends. And then the people she gave them to started giving to their friends.

And then it just kind of went like that. I was always a Kathy Lee fan. We like them both. Kelly's a ginger red saint to us. Regis. Oh, who didn't love Regis? Regis was just delightful. I miss Regis.

We got to meet them once. They were so nice. Regis? Well, they invited us on their show when they came to L.A. one year. Man, you guys have made the rounds. Oh, boy. Who were some celebrities that have purchased one of your gingerbread houses that you can mention? And was it an all-cash offer? Well, Kelly Rippa, as we've said. And then Neil Patrick Harris was one of her first recipients. And then he and David Perka, then they started giving gifts. So we can mention them because they've,

posted about us and then the Kardashians have been really nice about posting about us oh man all it takes is one post by them huh and things just skyrocket extraordinary yeah you won't get that type of bump from being on this show let me tell you right now although although in my head now I'm like now I'm gonna have to order one of these every year but the funny thing about what I want to do with it is I want to order one for my mother every year because my mother, she lives in a, they live in a small guest house on my sister's property and she's like, we don't have room for anything. That's always what she said. If I send her a photo of the grandkids, she's like, where am I going to put this? So I just love the, and then if I send her flowers, it's always, it's too many. I had to take

them in half and give half to your sister, Missy. And so now the idea of sending them a gingerbread house every day. And watching my mom saw it in half so that my sister can have half is just the greatest thing I could do. And they can't have a full gingerbread house. Honey, that's too much. Can we leave the price tags on them when we deliver them? Is that possible? We don't put price tags on them. Which was more fulfilling? Being a stay-at-home mother or a thriving business. I like being home with the children. Uh-huh. And I was perfectly happy doing that.

And then having a little side, something I could have, I was weaving and spinning and doing those kinds of things. That was good. And then I could really be more devoted. This way, we all went to work and it was all a little crazy. Yeah. I get overwhelmed when I have to do two things in one day. I'm just like, oh, it's a bad day.

Like my wife knows, like, uh-oh, it's Tuesday. That means I have to come here. That's a big one. And I don't know, you know, and I might have to drop a box off at the post office. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do. She's like, you'll get through it. Who is next in line to run the gingerbread empire?

Is there a game of succession going on in your family? Have you seen the not it game? No, I think we would love for somebody to want. want to do that in our kids, but they're all kind of doing other things, so. Yeah, but wait a while that stuff fails. We have one possible candidate in the new wedding. Our son's marrying a baker, and she's making her own cookies. I don't, she's not the bloodline, so that bothers me.

But she's really talented, and she could do it. Great. She could be. They just live out of state, so. Where do they live? In Tennessee. Tennessee's really having a moment since the pandemic. A lot of people live in there.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do you set up at your home for Christmas? A little bit, less than we used to. I start doing it in October now. You have a husband that loves Christmas so much. He decorates the tree and everything because. Yeah, our poor kids, though, after this started getting rolling,

it was like hard to be home decorating. You guys are little scroogees at home, weren't you? No, we love it. We can't wait for Christmas because we're at. Because you're working nonstop. Oh, oh. Yeah. We're closed on Christmas and we go to the Allisol for.

dinner, and they make us dinner, and it's amazing. How's your relationship with that candy shop there in Solvang? Great. Oh. You ever go in there? Sure. With all the barrels? Well, I was thinking of the chocolate shop.

Oh, you're thinking chocolate shop. I don't consider chocolate candy. Oh, really? No. It's chocolate. Eddie said it's a food group. It is. I love chocolate.

Okay. Candy I'm always, but anyway, they were a little strict with me in there in that candy shop. In the barrel shop? Yeah. My kids were grabbing something like, ugh. I'm like, okay. We're not. Talk a little trash about your arch nemesis, the Brick Holmes Bakery.

They're all great. Oh, they're good for you. Yes. That's how you have to be. You have to just be nice to all your competition. There's five bakeries and solving. Five? Uh-huh.

Yes. And we all have something different. Great. There's enough room for everybody, so. You don't ever start stuff? Things don't ever get heated? No. Okay.

No. You don't ever jump on your keyboard at night and write some sour reviews. Do you guys read your Yelp reviews? Sometimes. Okay. I don't trust that. I don't trust it either, but I still use Yelp. It's still a necessary evil.

Yeah. I need to look at photos. I need to see what things look like. If something ever's gone wrong in our business, I feel like people will tell us and then we're able to make it right instead of publicly, you know. Social media has ruined everything. Let's be clear. Let's be clear. We'll be right back.

Everybody's on the show gets gifts. Oh, man. Uh-oh. I just get. of things in my house. I just walk around the morning of, and I just start grabbing stuff, okay? Now, the first thing I'm giving you here is this. This is an orchid. Now, let me tell you. That's pretty. Well, it's not. There's one person in my life that I can't be mean to, my housekeeper. I just love her to death. And she always, like, whenever I travel a lot,

and when we come home, she always brings us an orchid, and they don't die. So anyway, I want you to have this. Thank you. Take that organ. Hold on, there's more stuff. There's also this vase. Oh, wow. Yeah, I don't like this face.

That was, I saw this vase in my vase cabin this morning. I was like, why is, we have never put flowers in this. So you're going to like that. Go ahead. Yeah. You can just set that on the floor. Okay. This is nice.

You're going to love this. You just give this to somebody. Don't worry about that. I didn't know how cool you were as, you know, an older lady, but a stack of frames. Now most of these frames still have like photos of my family in them But you don't have to you can keep those up if you'd like or like there's my son when he was little Oh that's my wife and her mom you'll love these They were just in a drawer

There's that's my wife's wedding Wait are you serious? Yeah she was well I guess it's my wedding too but I didn't really care That's a special picture Not if it was shoved in a drawer that never was going to get touched You're going to want these frames We love them. These are very special.

You can do stuff them with them. That's not one of course. We can't do stuff with them. Okay. Here's a puzzle. Everybody loves a puzzle. Astrology. I'm not going to do it.

I actually think I lied. I actually already did that puzzle. This is, what is this flavor? Oh, pumpkin, ginger, and clove. Oh, nice. Yeah, disgusting. Go ahead and you guys can, you'll have a place for that. This is a book that all women read, apparently.

But my wife got this far. into it and it's like I am out she she bailed on it have you read it you've already read it I read it a long time ago though did you like it I'm trying to remember that one oh she couldn't she couldn't finish it you'll love it yeah I'll love it again I'll love it again this nobody wants this cookbook but everybody has this cookbook I don't know I didn't like it so we don't know my gosh you had a good time cleaning this recipe though is from my my friend from Spain he's been on the show is Sergio and this is his paella oh yeah you're yeah I've already taken a photo but I don't need a whole

hard copy. You're right. Why would, I don't know why he, he spent 10 days writing. Beautiful. Handwriting. Right. I mean, I appreciate the penmanship, but whatever. Yes. You get this stuff. And we'll get rid of that. Sergio's Paella. What is it? Oh, this? This is funny. Oh, my gosh. My son had to dress up for school and my son's a bit of a, I guess the right word is a nerd. And he wanted to dress up as the library. Oh, how cute. So I ordered something on Amazon, but it didn't come in time. But I think I think you'll like it. You haven't even opened it yet.

No, it came late. Yeah. It came late from after the dress up day. It's a stack of books hair clip. That is so cute. Oh, my gosh. Well, he has really long hair. Anyway, sorry for opening it, but I wanted to make sure it was that.

It was. You won't want that? No, no, he doesn't want the costume's over. Yeah. Like, you're kidding. Here you go. Here's some popcorn. I don't ever, I just do microwave popcorn.

Do you guys ever be doing that? Well, you'll love that. That's so great. Every woman loves an ugly tote. Oh my gosh. My daughter-in-law just had a mob-wife-themed bachelorette party. Perfect. She would have loved it.

That would have been to my... Bag for her, right? All right. All right. All that was... All right, let's get all this stuff. Can we get all of this on the floor? Yeah.

Keep careful. That bag is... Seems like it's dripping. We actually brought you some presents as well. Okay. Okay. This is exciting. Yeah.

Since you love Christmas. I do. This is a little. a Malibu Christmas Beach gingerbread house. Hold on. Can we unwrap? I mean... I mean, it'll show better on the camera, probably unwrapped. Well, hold on, hold on. This part gets hard. Do I... You cut? Is that the better move? Well, if you don't want to save this bag, we can just rip it.

I don't trust that you're not going to knock over my trees. No, I got you. Way more durable than I was anticipating. Suzen. Let me have this one from you. She worked hard on this one for you. Okay. You've got your family here in your bathing suits and your little...

pig. Oh, look at this. And these are the yummy chocolates. We brought you some extra ones, though, so you don't have to take them off the house. You got your little Christmas tree, and then your dog. It would have been cute if you had,

like, a little bit of fire in the background. That's really cute. A traditional Malibu. My pig? Oh, like a potato made it. The grill. You got a grill. That's edible, you say.

No, not that part. Eat the grill. Of course. I'm teasing. Not the trees or the table. toys, but everything else. Is that glued onto this? With royal icing.

You use icing for glue for things that aren't edible to begin with? Yeah. It's our glue for everything. What is this tree base that's in? Chocolate fondant. So I can't eat the base. Yeah, if you want to. Because that looks decent.

You got my chickens. Oh, I have silky. Well, this one's kind of like a silky. We did our best. Well, I'm just, I'm just, okay. Somebody doesn't like criticism. Even if it's constructed. You even put a wreath on the back.

No one's going to see the back of it. They've got a back wreath. And people just start eating this, huh? This roof, what's on top of this? What makes it blue? Um, is it just... But it's just plain gingerbread? Yeah.

Yeah. Ah, it actually looks more edible blue. This is like the most, the prettiest thing I've ever had. But it'll last at your house on display if you want it to. I have to put everything so high because Carl, anything that's not like at the five and a half foot Mark, he's taken. You want to know one of the best stories of one of our new products was because the dogs were eating the gingerbread houses.

Okay. So we started making a dog house that they could eat if they wanted to, and so now everyone buys it just for the dog, and it has no chocolate, and it was approved by a vet. I'm actually told that milk chocolate's not bad for dogs. It's the dark chocolate that gets them. Well, they shouldn't have it on their house. No. But anyway, we've had some frantic calls from people that have spent a lot, and the dog

jumped up because it smells it's food and they ate their house and they have to quickly buy one before you ever put anything inside just to see if somebody like open it to look well we actually did one last year that was purposefully had um makeup inside for a campaign for Kim Kardashian and so she was sending it to all her influencers and there was makeup inside the house so then we were thinking because we had to think about how to do that and not have it in the mess of the icing and so we're thinking to do one, maybe like with candy or something inside instead. Is that everything? No, we have it. No, we have... What? Well,

we heard you have another place you like to spend Christmas. This one is so much nicer. Well, we weren't sure how much space you have. That's more traditional. Now, this one, now this is a... This has got Santa. I mean, it just couldn't be prettier.

This is beautiful. And you got one for everyone else here, too? We brought pastries for everyone. Pastry. Pastry. This is the best ever. Guys, look at this. Cinnamon rolls.

They are cinnamon. You know what I was upset about? We don't have a microwave in this office. I like a warmed-up cinnamon roll. Oh. I love it. This is so beautiful. You guys are the best.

Ah, you're the best. I wish you had nothing but more success. How long are you going to keep doing this? Susan, you're going to stay in that kitchen for another 20 years? Oh, that would be wonderful. Well, I could. Sure. I mean, I don't think there's any law preventing it.

Keep on doing it. That's right. Guys are the best. Thank you for being on the show. Oh, my gosh. Thanks for having us. I can't wait to come to Solvang. Is there a brick and mortar store that I can just knock on to say hi?

Yeah. Okay. And you're never in there, though? No. Once in a while. Yeah. Pasha. I want to thank Susan and Melissa for being on the show.

I mean, that was a delight. And those two gingerbread houses that they gave me, I mean, holy cow. Massive. Carl, you're going to take a bite out of one of those? That's easy, $1,500. Well, I felt guilty. I felt guilty them giving me two beautiful gingerbread houses. So I had ordered, Carl, I ordered one for grandma, my mother.

Nice. Yeah. You think she liked it? Everything I've heard Maybe, but maybe not. Let's see. Hello? Why are you laughing?

I'm watching your show. You just talked about how you were completely bald. That's tickling. Did you get the gingerbread house? Yes, we did. And Mike keeps telling us we should eat it, but we're not going to, but we're going to keep We'll keep it for a couple of months. It's beautiful.

It's something. It's incredible. And it's all food. I might eat the little chocolate things afterwards that are wrapped in that. But I don't, you know, I don't, I'm not a big, on gingerbread anyway, eating gingerbread. But, no, I wouldn't eat it, but I guess you can eat it all. Yeah, you can eat it all. Of course you can.

You know how much that thing cost? Too much. Probably 500 or so. All right. Yeah. Hey, but you should. That's it for Christmas. That's our nice, nice Christmas thing.

That's nice. Thank you. You don't want me to send you something else? No, I don't want you to send us anything else. What about edible, edible panties? Any interest? Oh, Daniel. You are so bad.

Did you watch, you watching some Hallmark Christmas movies right now? No, I've kind of quit watching them. They're kind of all the same. I haven't watched any this year. I watched one last night. Are they good? some were better than number the three uh wise men guys that they kind of found a new form of these three guys that they're i've seen them yeah i've seen them in the first two they wrote another

they wrote another one for them yeah it's pretty good all right good stuff well i'm glad you like your gingerbread house thank you very much i love you love your bye that's sweet there you she loved it she loved it anyway all right well i'm happy they're happy we got the toss show store dot com. Guess what, Carl? There's a new Carl shirt. You want to see it? I got one. Look at this bad boy. Do you like it, Carl? Huh? It's cool, right? It seems kind of vintagey. All right, whatever. We got my first farewell tour. All dates are on sale. We're going everywhere, buddy. Oh, it's going to be fun. Give them back to the people. 2026. Get some tickets. Come out to see us. Say hi. We can talk. Meet you.

you at lunch, whatever. We still got to find love for Amanda. Also, I really need somebody to take this to the next level, making a TV show, finding my new family member. All right. You got voicemail for me today, Ed? I do, here you go. Okay. Uh, good-day guys. Hamish here. I'm interested

in dating Panda. Look, I'm a long-distance guy. I'm here in Australia, so I'd love for her to come over and, uh, hanging out with me. Ah. I don't think it's going to work. It's a big flight. The flight is. awful the date line is horrible to cross the date line yeah like if she lives there then you're no

longer part of my family right yeah absolutely like i don't i don't care oh i have a family member in australia no i don't you don't even want to zoom once you once you pass a date line you're no longer family too many options all right what else we got hey daniel 35 years old 6 4 brown hair blue eyes saw your picture of amanda kissing a horse now if she'd marry me i've got a little business south of the border couple stables couple stages she'd be fully employed i mean fully employed okay all right well i you know i like that we got an international flavor here yeah first guy australia second guy is running a donkey show it sounds like in mexico it does sound like that he's going to want panda to shoot ping pong balls out of her hoo-ha yeah and i don't know what else

she has to do to a donkey i don't like they call it a show shouldn't call it a show anyway Well, it's a show Imagine it's something to see No, no, it's a show I mean, you don't bring your kids to it But it's a show I've never been to a donkey show I don't know how she would feel about being in one

I mean, I know that she loves animals And, you know, donkeys are close to horses Are they, are donkeys close to horses? Yeah, horse adjacent Yeah Well, if she was in a show, you'd support her, right? No, I'd go to the show, you know, I'd probably stand in the back Right, you don't want to make her nervous

No, you don't, yeah, I, yeah, I'm not a fan of this week's picks. I don't think they're going to work. But thanks for trying. But there's always next week. See ya.