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Good morning moms, today is Monday, December 22nd,  and let me be the first to welcome you  to Christmas week. My name is Caroline Dettman, we are Modern Moms. It has been a busy week, but here's what you might have missed while you were planning teacher gifts,  finding crazy socks for crazy sock day, ensuring there are clean Christmas pajamas for pajama day, baking five different kinds of cookies. oh

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attending pageants, concerts,  plays, and other end of year celebrations for your children, and doing it all looking mighty fine if I may say so myself, you, girlfriend, are holding the entire season together, and for that,  I applaud you.  And we are almost at the finish line. While the corporate world gets to log out, slam their laptops shut,  set up a cutesy little out of office reminder,  moms,  the mom grind.

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never stops.  And if you're doing both, kudos to you.  But those of us who are CEO of our home,  we do not have PTO. But our CEO role has plenty of responsibilities nonetheless. So without further ado, here is our water cooler chat. This is what you might have missed while making the magic happen. Do you know who got the best teacher present this year? That is high school teacher Jacob Myers.

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Mr. Myers made a now viral Instagram video on December  5th. He  cheekily listed his best attributes and said, just once I wish someone would ask how my day was.  And none other than Chloe Kardashian  replied to the video and said, how's your day going?  And Jacob did not miss a step. He made a follow up video.

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explaining, you never get that many opportunities in my world, so I'm like, why not? What's the worst that could happen?  And he invited Chloe to his  holiday staff party. In the video, he says, all right, since my post blew up and your comment went a little viral,  my entire town knows about it, my students keep bugging me about it, and my family group chat has just been nonstop. So I figured, why not shoot my shot? Why not indeed, Jacob?

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but maybe take it a little bit further. I don't know if you guys follow Things I Bought and Liked on Instagram, m and if not, you totally should. She is an anonymous influencer  on Instagram.  She does not take any brand deals. She does not take any  gifted or paid collaborations. She simply purchases things with her own money  and then makes  graphics of her favorite things. She  has affiliate linking.  So she's making plenty of money doing it, just not.

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from the brands themselves,  but her real claim to fame is Giving Tuesday every year.  She must work in corporate giving somewhere because she has the unique talent of putting the pressures on  whoever is running the pages uh for these big brands. And she gets them to donate to clear teacher wish lists on Giving Tuesday.  And she gets insane amounts of commitments from these companies.  Jacob.

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I understand that you want to date with Khloe Kardashian,  but maybe, just maybe, you could tap into her for something a little bit different  than arm candy. I don't know, maybe I'm just being shallow and seeing her as  a blank checkbook for teachers, but  there's a lot of good that can be done  in addition to attending your holiday party.  And why your holiday party? Why not a dinner date? I don't know.

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He definitely wasn't expecting that response from anybody, let alone Khloe Kardashian, so I think he might have been just a little bit on the spot. And good for him for shooting his shot, whatever that shot might be.  And speaking of real world celebrity worlds colliding,  on Mythical Kitchen's Last Meals series, Home Alone actor Macaulay Culkin revealed  that his children still don't realize he is Kevin in Home Alone.

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He says they enjoy the film and they identify Kevin as Kevin McAllister,  but they don't see the resemblance in their own father. He said recently his son was asking questions about his early childhood,  so he went to go find a family photo of all of his siblings.  And when McCauley shows it to his children, his child goes, hey, that kid looks like Kevin. And he replied, he sure does, doesn't he?

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McCully goes on to explain that his kids are starting to put it together, but he's trying to keep up the illusion as long as possible, kind of like just to keep the magic of the season alive. And if you didn't know, McCully Culkin's wife is Brenda Song. She was on the Disney Channel classic sitcom, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.  And he said that he will actually put that on for his kids to watch. doesn't, Brenda does  not like it. She doesn't like to see herself  in that show. um But the kids will recognize

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her, but they won't recognize him as Kevin. He goes on to explain that before acting was just a gig, now it's something that I can stand next to and be proud of and show my kids. I don't run from it, I don't haim from it, and if anything, I embrace it. I like sharing that movie with people. It's really cool because it's 35 years old now, right? First, pump the brakes there, Macaulay Culkin. 35 years? We are not that old. That movie has to be older than us, right?

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And while we're on the topic of getting older,  Kylie Kelsey said on her podcast recently  that she is not going to be participating in any Botox or face fillers.  She says, I'm 33 years old and this is how my face looks.  I have four daughters and I want them to know that they were made exactly the way they were intended to be made  and that they should proceed as such.  When I raise my eyebrows because I'm interested in what my children are saying, I have lines in my forehead.

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It only furthers the expression.  think one of the prettiest things is crow's feet because typically it is from smiling.  They're smile lines. It is from feeling joy in your life.  I earned these suckers, she said. I think that is a beautiful sentiment and I wholeheartedly agree with her. Every line on your face is something that you have earned  and what a joy and a blessing it is to be able to age.  But  that being said,

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If wearing your age on your face  overtly is something that you  do not subscribe to and you'd like to participate  in receiving Botox and fillers, that is your God-given right to and I will never tell you otherwise. However, if you are one of my close personal friends and you  are participating a little bit too much,  I will also tell you that. I will tell you to  pump the brakes and maybe deflate a little bit.

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As women, especially aging women,  there is a really  fine line to walk in the public  space between  accepting yourself for who you are and conforming to the  general consensus of what you should look like. And it's an odd juxtaposition. The world will tell you  not to age, but then when you get Botox, they will tell you that you're being vain  and that

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you have plenty of other good qualities to focus on other than your forehead,  while at the same time trying to sell you a new anti-wrinkle cream. I think as long as you can sleep well at night with the decisions that you have made and that you are role modeling for your children, that's A-okay by me. And congratulations are in order to my  close personal friend, Pete Davidson.  No, Pete Davidson is not.

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really my close personal friend. I've definitely told this story on Instagram. I don't know if I've told it here.  When I was pregnant,  I  have very vivid dreams when I'm pregnant.  And when I was pregnant, I had  recurring dreams that Pete Davidson was indeed my close personal friend.  And this was years ago when he was in kind of a rough place in his personal life. uh

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And I offered him in my dream, of course,  to come live in our  guest room and kind of get his life back on track  in exchange for childcare.  So in my dream, Pete Davidson became our live in manny  and it was a recurring  dream  and it would grow and change  each time I had it.  And eventually, I don't know if you,

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watched the TV show This Is Us back when it was on the air,  but one of the characters was an actor and his main  role was on a sitcom called The Manny.  And in my  dream, eventually, it became known that Pete was  acting as a manny in my family  and we were offered a reality show called The Manny.  I followed Pete  as my  Manny.

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Every time I tell this story, am  acutely aware of how odd it is.  And even oddder is I was  recounting this on Instagram recently  and I had no fewer than four people DM me with their personal connection to Pete.  One of whom, uh her husband is Pete's quote, finance bro.  And he was going to put  my story on their agenda to  review for next quarter.  So I cannot wait.

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Until  my close personal friend Pete Davidson is aware of our close personal friendship  next quarter  Anyways circling back  Pete Davidson is officially a girl dad the former Saturday Night Live star and comedian  Alongside his model girlfriend Elsie Hewitt announced the arrival of their first child together Scotty Rose Hewitt Davidson born on December 12th  Elsie Hewitt announced

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her arrival in a very cute Instagram post with some  sweet personal photographs  to which Pete Davidson added at the end of the caption quote Wu Tang forever love Pete. Now Pete prepared for fatherhood as  many people prepare for parenting uh by purchasing a Honda Odyssey Touring.  So yes Pete Davidson is  one of us now he  is a girl dad with a minivan.

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However, this is not just any  minivan. This is a 2022 Honda Odyssey Touring  with the optional entertainment package, which includes a Sony portable VHS player wired into the factory rear entertainment screen. He's quoted as saying, it is very cozy and comfortable.  It's also a safe car to have a kid in. It might also be the ultimate dad car to have a kid in because it's also equipped with an onboard baby bottle warmer.

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Other performance upgrades include upgraded cold air intake, upgraded brakes, ditch lights, retractable awning with LEDs, onboard refrigerator and power station powered by solar panels with an additional roof storage box. According to Davidson, it is quote,  middle lane pimpin'. And if Pete Davidson's dream dad car is also your dream mom car,  you are in luck because eBay Motors is auctioning off a nearly identical Honda Odyssey Touring.

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proceeds from the auction will go to the nonprofit Answer the Call,  which supports families of fallen New York City first responders. As you will probably remember, Pete Davidson's father, Scott Davidson, was killed at the World Trade Center on 9-11 as a New York City firefighter. And as it is Christmas week, and moms are basically responsible for all of the Christmas magic creation, we can switch now  from the magic creating to some  rule setting.

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Just what every mom wants to be doing on Christmas is making rules, right? Listen, if your kids are anything like mine, Christmas morning can be  a  whole ass show and a half.  And that's generous. For me, some baseline rules are a non-negotiable for all of us to be able to enjoy the season.  If your kids naturally take turns and are slow paced and enjoy the day without you intervening and setting some ground rules, then

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Bravo to you, but that is not how it works in my house. So these are our Christmas morning non-negotiable rules. First of all, before Christmas, I make a Christmas morning basket. a few years ago, I got, it's called a battery daddy. It's just like a carrying case caddy that stores all of your batteries, regardless of size, if they are alkaline or if they're a button battery.

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stores them all together. So that is the first thing that goes into my Christmas morning basket is the battery daddy. However, I will circle around to this again later. I try to have batteries already installed on toys that need them. Second thing that is always in my Christmas morning basket is a pair of scissors. Everything is attached to the cardboard box that it comes in inexplicably. Who is disassembling

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the entire packaging to take something out in the store to steal it, I don't know. But there are 8,000 plastic clips holding a singular action figure to a piece of cardboard and it drives me bananas. So we need to have  a heavy duty kitchen shears scissors in our Christmas morning basket. Also needed in there, garbage bags, a paper bag for paper recycling, probably eight of them.

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There's a lot of Christmas wrapping paper and tissue involved,  gift bags, anything that can be immediately picked up and put it into some kind of refuse container should be. We also have a screwdriver that has both Phillips and regular heads on it.  That's definitely in the Christmas morning basket. I also have like  a small diameter uh screwdriver that I keep in there for like the small screws.  Definitely a must have in there. My second Christmas morning non-negotiable. oh

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Things that come pre-assembled. No, that's not it.  Things that come needing to be assembled  must be assembled  prior to Christmas morning. I don't care what it is,  a  bike,  a  Barbie dream house,  a Tony box, everything needs to be pre-examined, preferably by me, and assembled.  A few years ago, my kids got a play kitchen. oh

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and my husband thought it would be an easy job to put it together and he didn't do it until Christmas Eve, which was  smart, which was not a bad choice, but um he quickly discovered that it was more  intense of a job than he was expecting.  So he probably, I mean, he got it done, but he probably would have enjoyed giving himself a little bit more time to put it together. Toys that need like a wifi connection to set up. uh

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If you're my husband and you're listening to this around our kids, just skip forward a few seconds.  My girls are getting Tony boxes for Christmas this  year and  they require wifi to set up.  So I carefully  extracted them from the boxes,  charged them  and got them set up on our wifi and  set,  know,  synced the Tonys that they're getting to the Tony box so that everything is  ready to go Christmas morning when they open the box. It can literally be like plug and play. They can open it.

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play with it that instant. We don't have to  wait for it to charge,  crawl behind the couch to put the wireless information into the,  no,  none of that.  If you haven't done it yet, I had already wrapped the Tony boxes when I saw on Facebook that this was all necessary for them to use it out of the box.  I unwrapped the presents,  opened the box and did all of this and then rewrapped them. That's how important it is to me.

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that everything be ready to go on Christmas morning. My third non-negotiable,  I am really big on routines, like  total newsflash. I know you don't know that about me at all.  It's like  probably the headline on  any kind of write-up about me.  I like routines.  I also really big, big,  I also really like traditions  and we have foods that we eat on holidays. That is part of the tradition for us.  So.

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I needed to make sure that I had all the ingredients, I had the foods that we need to have on hand for our meals. And how on earth do I get my children to eat those meals on Christmas morning?  So glad you asked.  My non-negotiable number four, my kids have okay to wake clocks in their bedrooms  and  I do not change the time on those just because it's a holiday. At 6 a.m., my kids know that it is okay for them to come downstairs  and

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hang out, play quietly until everybody is awake and ready to start the day. That will be no different  on Christmas. However, there is a door to the playroom, which is where we have our Christmas tree,  and that'll just be closed on Christmas. So Christmas morning, they can come downstairs, but nothing will get opened until  everybody is awake. And when everybody's awake, they can do their stockings,  and then we'll have breakfast.  And after breakfast is when we get into non-negotiable number five.

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And that is a new one for us this year and I'm really hoping  that it works.  Send thoughts and prayers because it is  taking our time  on Christmas morning.  My kids are now two, four and six.  And this year we are implementing a  one child, one toy at a time opening policy. I haven't decided how we're gonna figure out who goes first yet because that's gonna be a whole other thing.

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The first kid is gonna get to pick a present with their name on it and open it  all the way while everybody else sits and watches them. If they wanna open the box or open the toy and play with it, that's cool too. I want everybody to see and  take part in the enjoyment of that toy before we move on. In years past, the actual present opening portion of Christmas, everyone was doing it at the same time. Paper was flying, people were  yelling.

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and it was over in like  20 minutes.  And we didn't have any shortage of presents either. It was just  rapid fire opening.  even  my dog, even my dog rips open the presents. We can't put presents out under our tree until Christmas Eve. And even then we have to close the door because my 15 year old dog with no teeth  will rip open the presents just as quickly  as my human children.

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So starting this year, round robin style, everybody gets a turn  and everybody gets the spotlight on them. Everyone's gonna watch them open the present.  We're gonna chat about the present, the person who gave them the present. It's going to be  a, I'm manifesting this right now, it is going to be a slower paced,  enjoyable holiday for everybody involved, myself included.  Do you think I'm gonna be able to pull it off  with kids two, four and six?

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I don't know. I'm hopeful.  And my last non-negotiable  is that the day after Christmas, we are having some of my extended family over to celebrate the holiday  and  they,  despite my best efforts, are all going to be bringing gifts for my kids.  And I love that for them. I love that for my kids  because not only are they getting  more toys, which is the only drawback for me,  but they are learning.

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how to be gracious hosts of their family in their home  and graciously accept presents from them. And part of that includes writing thank you notes. And again, they're two, four and six. They can't  write a full thank you note.  And like when I say that, I have flashbacks to my own childhood of like being able,  like being forced to write thank you notes with like  at least 10 sentences,  like formally addressed to the gift giver. m

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And that's not what I'm talking about here. On Amazon, I get these like little postcard looking thank you notes that already say,  dear blank,  thank you for the blank.  I loved it or something.  And the other side of it is a coloring page. And so my kids will color them a picture.  They'll fill in the blanks or have me help them. But it's a way for them to, you know, practice gratitude with people who are in their family.  And I think that's a really important.

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of the season and I think this is a  age-appropriate way for them to participate in that. And with all that being said, what is it  that you want most for Christmas? What do moms want for Christmas? And I'm not talking about  the PC answer of, I want my kids to be happy and get the things they want.  No, I want to know  what gift you would most like to receive.

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Last year, my husband got me gift cards for massages,  which was fantastic. And the year before that,  he got me  gift cards to go get my nails done and have lunch with some of my friends,  which was like the most thoughtful gift possible. uh But what do moms in general  really want for Christmas?  And if I had to venture a guess, I would say  more sleep. Moms want to be able to sleep through the night.

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They want a  restful  night of sleep, at least eight hours.  The sleep that we got in our  20s, when we thought we weren't getting good sleep, but now we would give anything to be able to repeat that. Moms really want  a robot vacuum that also mops the floor.  One that like actually does a good job and can differentiate between area rugs and hardwoods  and like.

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truly does a good job of vacuuming and mopping, isn't too loud, follows its little like  map in the app. It doesn't get like  stuck. My friend used to have one  and it would like drive too close. They lived in a split level and it would drive too close to like the top of the stairs  in their living room and it would say, help, I'm on a cliff. Like,  no, we want  a  highly functioning robot vacuum to take something off of our plates.

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We want the top of the line Skylight calendar max.  Maybe I'm just speaking from  my personal experience here. um Having a hard copy calendar on the wall or the refrigerator that requires us to manually update it,  that just adds to the mental load of motherhood and it  is not welcome here in our energy for 2026. We  want the Skylight calendar that automatically populates from

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Google and iCal so that everybody in the house can reference it at a glance without asking what time is soccer practice? What's for dinner?  It's all on the skylight calendar. Truly a mom brain outside the body. Moms want a new pair of pajamas, but not just any pajamas.  Pima cotton lake pajamas. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, I want to say do yourself a favor and get some to try them,  but I'm instead going to say do yourself a favor and

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Don't introduce yourself  to the  glorious perfection that is Pima Cotton Lake pajamas.  They are the  best things I have ever put on my body.  And to build off of that, we want some lake pajamas, a cozy robe, a fluffy blanket, and the time to watch the movie of our choice on the couch with nobody interrupting or touching us.  We love our children. We love our children so much so.

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that we need a slight break from them for Christmas. Moms want a fully thought out meal plan with corresponding shopping lists arranged in the order of the aisles in their favorite supermarket. Moms want an unlimited pure bar membership with the  time and childcare coverage to attend class. Moms want their mom card detailed with a full service gas station on the way to school.

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Oh, and this one is a real one.  Moms,  sports moms want,  I just got this myself recently and it is fantastic.  It is a GCI Outdoor Freestyle Rocking Chair. And it's like a pop-up camping chair that everybody  has at sports games and sports practices,  but  it has a cup holder.  Some of them have a little like flip out table on the side.

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Some of them have a little sunshade built in  and it  rocks.  Like it doesn't physically have a rocker on the bottom. It has like pneumatic shocks that make  it seem like a rocking chair and like it feels like a rocking chair.  But it's very comfortable. It's very relaxing.  And if I'm gonna be in my sports mom era, I want to simultaneously be comfortable while doing it.  And I don't think that's too much to ask.  Now, most of these gifting suggestions were very much tongue in cheek. m

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But what is very genuine is that I hope you and your family have a fantastic holiday. Enjoy your families, your children, your spouses. Enjoy the time that you have together. Don't forget to leave the show a five star rating wherever you are listening today. And with that, I am Caroline Dettman. We are Modern Moms and I will see you right back here next year. Bye.