All Episodes

December 31, 2025 13 mins

Ben and Ashley are saying goodbye to 2025 and sharing their New Year’s Eve traditions, hopes for 2026, and a final look back on the year!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast
with iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hey guys, welcome to the Almost Famous podcast. Today is
one of those episodes. Are Ben and I are just
doing a little chat. We want to talk to you
guys about the new Year. I hope you guys have
a very safe and happy New Year. And now Ben
and I will reveal how we are spending our New year. Ben,
I don't ever make plans for New Year's Eve. I

(00:28):
don't remember when I ever had a plan for New
Year's Eve. The best New Year's Eve I've ever had,
besides ones of like my childhood teen years, which is
like always fun with your friends and doing crazy things
like going into Times Square at eleven thirty pm and
getting let in by coops and seeing the Jonas brothers
and all that when I was nineteen. It's great new

(00:50):
Year's put it as an adult New Year's My favorite
ones I've probably just been with a few close friends
in sweats playing games. What about you?

Speaker 3 (00:59):
You know how I know I'm lame.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
You've never seen it back into Times Square at eleven
thirty pm.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Well, no, I've definitely never done that. I I'm lame
because in my twenties.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
Oh you fell asleep. You always fall asleep.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
I really tried hard. There was two New Year's distinctively
that I remember. I tried hard going into him, being
like I'm going to party, Like I'm getting out there
on the town. I'm gonna like kind of get dressed up.
We're gonna go to a nice dinner, and then we're
gonna go to the clubs or the bars or whatever.

(01:34):
We're gonna like, I'm gonna put down the money, We're
gonna buy a table. We're gonna like do it up right. Yeah,
those are two of the worst like night memories I
have in my life. It sucks. It's awful. Everything's so expensive,
it's packed. It's like butt to hump throughout the whole bar.

(01:55):
You can't get a drink, you can't get food. Everybody
is like either like mad that they're there or going
one thousand miles per hour forward. It's busy. And here's
the part that just drives me crazy. You the party
doesn't start till that ball drops. Really, this is how

(02:17):
much I've gone out on New Year's. It's like it
picks up. I guess that when the ball drops. If
you're not like getting like it'd be. I think both
those nights, you're coming in at like three o'clock in
the morning, which is just outrageous to me. And it's
been outrageous to me, not because I'm thirty six years old.
When I was twenty one years old, it was outrageous
to me that that was a thing in this world

(02:39):
where you would give up a whole next day of
your life for a three hours of more like whatever.
I don't even want to call it fun because it's
not fun to me. Uh So, here's what we're gonna do,
which what we've done. Jessica and I have both very
similar in this manner. We're going to go or cook

(03:00):
in or go out to a great dinner. We're gonna
have a drink, and we're gonna talk about the year.
And this is one of the traditions that we have.
We also on New Year's we have this thing that
I've talked about before where we share our top five
favorite meals from the year. Those can only be two
meals that have been cooked at home. The other three
have to be out like at a dinner. And they

(03:23):
are not based on the best food, but they're based
on not only good food, but the good vibe and
memory and feeling that we had around them. But we
don't share them with each other until we sit down
at dinner. You don't make it.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
You just remember the meals.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
No, we don't make them. We remember them and we
do our top five and she makes hers and I
make mine, and then we share them with each other.
And so sometimes the two of them align. Sometimes we
have crossovers. Sometimes we don't.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
How do you hide each other from the kitchen?

Speaker 3 (03:55):
No, we don't make them. These are like meals that
we had previously throughout the year. This could be a
dinner in New York City that we had in February
of this year. This could be the dinner but we
had before the night before Whennie was born. And we
write down, like, oh, this is one of my top
five meals from the year, and we just talk about
the meal. We don't remake it.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
You just talk about it.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Okay, we talk about it.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Something I could never do with Jared because he does
not care about food this much.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
I would love to do it now. I'm thinking about
it time.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
And it's fun because we've done it since two thousand
and eighteen, and so we have this list that goes
back since twenty eighteen of all of our best meals
from the year. Yeah, my parents do it. It's fun,
it's enjoyable, and it gives us these memories to look

(04:48):
back on, Like a lot of those meals were in
Italy when Jess's parents and my parents and Jess and
I went to Italy and that one year we can
look back and say, oh, my goodness, like remember that
dinner and remember that time, and maybe one day we
can go back to that restaurant when we're visiting, if
we're ever visiting that certain area. So that's what we
do on New Year's and then we go to bed.
We watch the ball drop on the East Coast and

(05:10):
we say, hey, happy New Year, I love you, good night.
And that is the best way to do New Year's.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
I like it, you know what I do that. This
will be my third year. This is our tradition. Dawson
and I. We get burger king and we sit and
we watch people do the what's the dip? You know
when people are crazy like you would be, they run
in the water the ocean.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Oh, the polar plunge.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
The polar plunge. Yeah, we get burger king and we
watch people do the polar plunge from the car.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Oh you don't New.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Year's Day, that's New Year's Day. No, I'm doing it.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
I could see Jared doing it.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I could see Jared doing it too, but this has
just been Dawson in my tradition thus far.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Okay, and then Jared.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Loves the jaw the ball drop. He just loves Ryan
Zeacress rocke Andy. Heves like that is his classic nostalgic thing.
So we will probably usually do like dinner out to
We'll go out to dinner but early, be home by nine,
nine thirty. And then last year we stayed up with

(06:18):
we had both boys up at midnight. Don't know how
that happened with Hayden and Dawson. I don't know how
that happened with Dawson, but there they were in bed
with us and it was kind of adorable and I
don't hate it. I don't know that we'll do that
again this year, but you know, if they happened to
be up, then they happen to be up, and that's
totally fine.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
I think there's special Like I don't want to say
New Year's is like terrible, because I think there's a
really special ways to do it, and I enjoy my
New Year's now because Jessica knows that if any of
her friends or any of my friends say, hey, we're
throwing a New Year's party, it's just a no, like
we're not.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Really. If it was a friend's house, I would totally
do it, but not like a New Year's Eve party,
but more like a New Year's Eve get together where
you can we're you don't have to wear a skin
by sparklay dress because the thing is it's too cold
for a sparklay dress.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
It just is Ashley, I'll be honest with you. This
time of the year is so wonderful for so many reasons.
There's celebrations, there's gatherings, there's work commitments where people get
together to party. All these things and they're wonderful things.
I don't want to not say they're wonderful. I am
an advocate for getting together with people and connecting with

(07:29):
people and sitting with people in person. I think they're fantastic. However,
there is a line where I become over socialized because
most of my life is being out with people at
events and conferences and gatherings. So that's my whole year.
All I want for a day off for me where
I know nobody's working and I'm not going to get

(07:49):
any emails and I'm not going to have to make
any phone calls. All I want at some point in
the year is for there to be no expectations for
me to have to be around anybody other than my family,
because it just doesn't happen very often. So for me,
New Year's is always that excuse where I'm like, everybody's
going to be hungover, everybody's going to be tired, everybody's

(08:10):
getting together. What does that mean for me? I don't
have to.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Do you get mad Sunday scaries like I do after
New Year's is over because you had the whole week off,
and really you and I will have days off for sure,
but like a whole straight week where there's no work
coming up because it's all kind of closed.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, it's a little different for me because I work
the weekends during the holidays because of Generous it's a
big time for us, and so I don't get it. Yeah,
my break is the break after like the first week
of January is when I can out take a break,
and yeah, I definitely will, but I look forward to it,
so that's how I utilize it. It's kind of those

(09:04):
it's like the It's one of those moments for me
where I'm like, I'm going to treat myself and I'm
going to do nothing because that just sounds good, and
I know it sounds good every year. Call me lame Ashley.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
No, it's not lame at all.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Like I wouldn't.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
I would absolutely do it too.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
It works.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
You guys should figure out how to have your favorite
meals during your little tradition too.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
I'd be good. Some of these are like Michelin Star restaurants.
I don't know how to do that. Besides that, i'd
be smart, though. It'd be fun. Spend the whole day
just cooking up cool, cool stuff. I am it will
be Funhi, it is a wonderful New Year's We wish
you the best in twenty twenty six. Make sure you
go out there and grab your three month gym memberships

(09:51):
that you'll use twice. Make sure that you make all
of your plans for healthy eating. I'm not a New
Year's resolution guy because I.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
Just don't keep on Nope, nope, nope.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
But here's something fun. Here's my only thing this is
what I do and I don't know yet. Every year
I pick a new word. This year's word was connection,
and twenty twenty six will be a different word, and
I'll kind of pray over it, think about it, look
back at some of my journaling and writing from the year,
and say, okay, what in twenty twenty six is one
word that when I wake up in the morning, I

(10:25):
say it. I don't know what it's going to be,
but that's what I do. And then every I try
to keep it, you know, on top of mind for
the whole year.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
I think mine, when you asked me last year, was
present or like enjoying the moment that you're living in. Yeah,
I have been more thoughtful about it, for sure.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Hey, you have been because you've had a big year.
Twenty twenty five has been a big year for you,
full of a lot of different balls tossing in the air.
Yet you are still saying.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
Ashley, thanks, I think so. I think that's a good job.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
I've told you when I think you're not clicking thanks, Ben,
you're crushing it.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah. So I don't know what am I going to
do this this year? Yeah, let me think about it.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
I'll get back to you in the New Year on
that and you do the same with me and your
word and all that. Hey, Ben, before we go, I
do want to say, remember the one New Year's where
we kind of spend it together the New Year's Eve
or we had to wake up at like four point
thirty in the morning on New Year's Day to be
in the Rose Bowl parade together.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
That was That was awesome.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
I got to send.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Her our producer pictures of that. That is so cute,
such a good memory. I just thought, you know, I
was like, oh my god, I'm on a float with
Ben Higgins. Ben Higgins is so cool and such a celebrity,
and I can't believe I've included with this guy.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, that's I mean, that was a wildly fun day.
It is a day I'll never forget because it was
so magical.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
Turn twenty sixty. It was turning twenty sixteen.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Right, probably twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
No, I don't know you were about to be the
twenty sixteen Bachelor.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
Oh it was pre bachelor. Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
Well, Ben, look at this, Oh send it. Do you
know what that means?

Speaker 2 (12:16):
That'll be ten years this New Year's Day it's been
ten years.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
My goosh, oh my god, Ashley.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Goodness, Ben, and that's so crazy. You've been friends for
ten years, for real, for real, Look good us.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Now we're still doing.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
It anyway, keep going on and on. You know we're
gonna bore the audience because they weren't there.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
We'll make sure to post this picture. Happy New Year
to everybody. Happy twenty twenty six and there are great
things ahead, believe it. Until next time, I've been Ben.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
I've been Ashley. See you, guys, Love you.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Follow the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast on
iHeartRadio or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts
Advertise With Us

Hosts And Creators

Ben Higgins

Ben Higgins

Ashley Iaconetti

Ashley Iaconetti

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

The Bobby Bones Show

The Bobby Bones Show

Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2026 iHeartMedia, Inc.