January 9, 2025 • 21 mins
Our hearts are with everyone in LA who have suffered from the devastation of these fires.
In this episode I talk about the incredible magic of Christmas Tree Lane (a 140 year old lighting ceremony in Altadena) which has very sadly been in the path of the Eaton fire.
Here is a link to donate to the people of Altadena who have lost their home in and around Christmas Tree Lane.
https://www.directrelief.org/emergency/california-wildfires/
This episode/chat invites you to reminisce about enchanting Christmas decorations that turn ordinary streets into magical wonderlands. From the charmingly named Candy Cane Lane to a neighbor's delightful inflatable kangaroo, we revel in the magic that these festive displays bring to our lives. Your friend chats about festive food including Tilly’s Gingerbread Trifle- and with delightful ingredients like peaches, jelly, and custard, this unexpected trifle flavor adds a sweet twist to festive traditions. She also discusses a trending skin care product, an afternoon at a women’s soccer game and also chats about re-discovering the backyard trampoline for fitness. So, grab a cozy seat, perhaps a cup of hot cocoa, and enjoy a journey through lights, laughter, and the true essence of holiday cheer.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jacquie Joy (00:01):
Welcome to the Day-to-Day Podcast, calm
Conversations with a Friend,spoken by Jacquie Joy, and you
are listening to Episode 8.
You decide to check yourmessages.
(00:23):
One new voicemail it's from oneof your friends.
You decide it's time to sitdown, make yourself comfortable
(00:46):
and have a listen.
Hey, thank you so much for yourmessage and for all of your
wonderful photos and storiesabout the christmas house and
street displays in la.
I would love to visit theseplaces like with such cute names
(01:10):
Candy Cane Lane, christmas TreeLane I love it and Sleepy
Hollow.
The places sound so magical.
Well, they look so magical, andI loved seeing all the trees
covered with fairy lights.
(01:30):
I sort of wish that the fairylights on the trees in these
public spaces were left on allyear round rather than being
removed two weeks afterChristmas.
There's a restaurant we go tosemi-regularly and we sit
(01:53):
outdoors and they have thisbeautiful big tree and it is
decorated all year round withfairy lights and it's magical
and it really adds such a greatvibe to the outdoor dining
experience there.
(02:14):
I'll send through a pickey andyou can see that it's one of
those old big fig trees whicharound here, a lot of them are
heritage listed, so I expect.
This restaurant was told thatand had to work out a way to
(02:34):
make it work in the restaurant.
Actually, I've just looked itup online and yes, it's a
Mortton Bay fig tree, 60 yearsold, and apparently it's draped
in 7.5 kilometres worth of fairylights.
So that's been a great way tocelebrate, I suppose, the
(03:01):
historic nature of the tree inthat community and also make it
look wonderful.
But I digress on my fairy lightchat.
We were talking about treescovered with fairy lights on
your Christmas walks.
I mean, there were so manyother incredible decorations and
(03:25):
of course, one of thosestandouts, as you highlighted,
was the polar express train insomeone's yard on display.
I mean that was really quitesomething and I wonder how they
constructed that.
It certainly didn't look likean inflatable.
(03:48):
It's good that you are learningthe magic of the Christmas
inflatables and thank you somuch for taking all of those
pickies for me.
Of all those amazing hugestructures, the what is my
(04:08):
favorite, I mean the gigantic,ginormous Santa was absolutely
mind-blowing house, but it wastwice as high as it and it did
(04:30):
look very similar to that onethat you sent me on the link,
which was 33 feet or 10 metershigh here.
Um, tall and and interestingfact that's about two-thirds as
high as a Hollywood sign.
I really also loved the pickiesof all of the other inflatables
(04:54):
that you sent my way thereindeer, the candy canes, the
snowman, christmas trees and theChristmas arch.
The Christmas arch reminded meof our friends who are our
neighbor's house and they have aChristmas arch and under it or
(05:21):
just behind it is a hugeinflatable kangaroo, so I'll
send you a pic of that.
And the other feature of theirhouse is a large joy sign on
there, which I love.
In fact, I've noticed the joysign on houses is a real feature
(05:43):
of Christmas decorations herethis year.
Obviously, my surname is veryfestive.
There doesn't seem to be asmany Christmas lights around
here this year, but Brisbanestill does have maps available
online of where you can visithouses and streets with the best
(06:07):
displays.
So they are around, but just alittle less in our neighborhood
this year anyway.
Definitely my bucket list isone day when we catch up again
in person.
Hopefully it's around christmastime and we can do a tour of
all of the Christmas decorationsand wonderful displays in your
(06:31):
local streets.
We can have a few bubbles andjust enjoy all the colourful,
bright lights, inflatables andcelebrations and music that
comes with this time of year,and celebrations and music that
comes with this time of year.
And also, what comes with thistime of year is Christmas baking
(06:56):
, and I visited Tilly thismorning and arrived just in time
to smell her deliciousChristmas cake come out of the
oven.
It was amazing.
She had added gingerbread to itand she sort of had a bit of a
gingerbread theme going, becauseshe opened her fridge and
showed me a lovely gingerbreadtrifle, which is something I've
(07:22):
never seen before as a trifleflavour.
I did ask her for theingredients so I could share
with you too.
The first layer was peaches,jelly and custard.
Second layer was butter cakesprinkled with ginger beer,
(07:44):
which is rather different.
Third layer was caramel,cinnamon whipped cream and she
included gingerbread or gingernut biscuits broken up into this
layer and then the top wassprinkled with toasted flaked
(08:08):
almonds.
It was just a bit different andinterested to hear what you
think about that.
So you will have to let me knowwhat you are baking for
Christmas time.
We are making a roast pork withsage, I think, and cranberry
(08:28):
stuffing.
We've had it once before.
We ran it through a testbecause it takes around three
and a half hours to make, so wejust wanted to make sure that
the pork was going to be fullycooked and that it tasted just
right for Christmas day.
(08:49):
We were also asked to make asalad, so we made a shredded
chicken and sweet potato saladwith cranberry dressing.
I'm just thinking I may havementioned this one to you before
, because we did make it aboutthree weeks ago to take to a
(09:10):
friend's house.
It was absolutely.
I'm not a big salad fan, to behonest, but this is amazing.
The dressing.
It has a fairly large amount ofchicken in it as well, and love
sweet potato.
I loved everything in it.
In fact, let me know if Ihaven't passed that recipe on to
(09:33):
you.
It's definitely worth lookingat and, even more amazing for us
, it's allergy friendly.
Yay.
So I just got a Christmas cardfrom one of my good friends from
school and it's a physical cardand I thought well, I mean, do
(09:54):
you write out physical cardsstill?
So this was really special.
It's got a gingerbread treestamp on it and a little rubber
duck stamp, which makes me thinkthat stamps are also a real
thing of the past, as well asphysical cards mailing letters.
(10:19):
Maybe people don't get the timeto do this anymore, or is it
too expensive?
So I opened the envelope to bepresented with another envelope
which had the card in it.
She'd made the effort to alsoput a Christmas sticker on the
(10:40):
back of the envelope to seal it,and then she's written a
gorgeous little Christmas card.
The texture of it feels likeit's like linen, beautiful paper
, and it was just saying hey,I'm sitting in a cafe we have
(11:01):
something here called theshingle in which is a really
traditional and high tea type ofcoffee cake restaurant chain.
It's been here for many, manyyears.
The decor is extremelytraditional and old-school dark
timber, polished.
(11:21):
People go there just as anexperience, and obviously my
friend was just sitting writing,thinking of her life and her
friends and how she was gratefuland rather than texting us, she
decided to take the effort, buya card, sit down and write on
(11:43):
it, so, so that was lovely.
Needless to say, you'll bereceiving my Christmas greetings
via voicemail.
As I would have had to be very,very organized to send you a
physical card Around Christmastime especially, I would look at
(12:04):
sending a card to the US fourto six weeks before I would
expect it to arrive.
I would actually still probablysend it earlier, because the
basic mail service between USand Australia seems to have
gotten rather slow, especiallysince COVID.
(12:27):
Yeah, we've been still going toa few sports games here and
there.
The footy has finished now andit's all cricket, as I was
speaking about in my lastmessage.
Soccer and football seem tohave come back into season here.
(12:50):
Male football or soccer is notreally popular here.
Male football or soccer is notreally popular here.
However, the women's soccer hasbecome super popular since a
female team, who are called theMatildas, did really well a year
(13:12):
or two ago this game.
They were versing Brazil and Iwas surprised at the audience oh
, how loud they were, howconstant they were and the
active participation in regardsto the audience following the
(13:34):
ball and the emotion and themany ups and downs of the game.
In soccer they don't score manypoints, so it can be a little
well, let's say, boring if youare not into it, boring if you
(14:00):
are not into it, but this wasfar from boring and I just
realized I said that points arescored in soccer, but it is
actually called goals.
Here is some audio I took fromthe game and you can hear the
crowd's reaction to the goalbeing scored and the drums start
(14:36):
up as well.
It's funny.
Australian crowds don't dealwell with players falling over
and pretending to be hurt, soafter the Brazil goalie fell
over a few times, the crowd haddefinitely had enough, and
(14:56):
here's some of the audio of that, with the crowd encouraging her
to leave the field.
It was certainly a verydifferent experience compared to
(15:16):
the usual football games andoccasional cricket games that we
attend.
It was definitely a littlesimilar to the EPL style English
soccer vibe style Englishsoccer vibe, but maybe even with
(15:41):
a little bit more spirit.
I was very surprised, so it wasa fun day.
It sounds like walking aroundyour amazing neighborhood at the
moment is your go-to fitnessmove.
I've switched my daily programup a bit and have added in some
trampoline work.
You might have seen the pictureof our trampoline in some of
(16:03):
the backyard photos.
It's rather large.
It is a big square, four meterby four meter size trampoline
which is 13 by 13 feet, and weput a basketball net inside
there as well.
So I've just been spending timein there about 10 minutes a day
(16:27):
throwing hoops, jumping around.
I can feel my thighs gettingstronger and it doesn't even
feel like exercise.
So that's been super fun andbeneficial.
I was noticing the other daycarrying boxes up and downstairs
and I did it with ease and didit rather quickly, so very happy
(16:51):
about that.
The other thing worthmentioning is I've also
increased my low back stretchesthe really easy ones where you
just lay on your back and bringyour leg across your body and
I'm feeling so much well lessdoes that make sense?
I'm feeling much less.
(17:12):
I'm feeling a lot less bloatedlike big time, so that's been a
great hack for me as well.
I don't know if you do them.
I don't think you have bloatingissues, however, so that's been
super helpful for me.
(17:34):
It was super interesting to hearabout the snail cream from
Korea.
Very fascinating and seems likea popular trend at the moment
and is getting great reviews.
I did read a little bit moreabout it and I have followed the
(17:56):
trend and have bought some andwill let you know when it
arrives.
I'm not keen to use it on myface as such because, as you
said, it sounds really gooey.
I don't know what the textureof it is going to be like.
However, I thought I would trysome on a body part that is not
(18:23):
my face first up and see how itfeels.
It does have over 70,000 verypositive reviews on Amazon and
apparently gives the glass skinlook.
So we shall see.
It does sound intriguing andwhen I'm using it I will not
(18:47):
think about what it's actuallymade from.
So thanks for that tip.
It sounds like or like myselfyou have a good little skin
routine going.
I mean, when you find theproducts that suit you, you tend
to not change, but it'soccasionally interesting just to
try something new and see ifyou're missing out on something.
(19:12):
And see if you're missing outon something, even if it does
sound a bit gross.
Anyway, time to sign off.
I'm going to take the dog for avery quick walk before getting
back into some work.
I hope you enjoy your specialdinner out tonight and enjoy the
(19:32):
rest of your week, lookingforward to chatting soon and
take care as always.
And bye for now, thank you.
Welcome to the Day-to-Day Podcast, calm
Conversations with a Friend,spoken by Jacquie Joy, and you
are listening to Episode 8.
You decide to check yourmessages.
(00:23):
One new voicemail it's from oneof your friends.
You decide it's time to sitdown, make yourself comfortable
(00:46):
and have a listen.
Hey, thank you so much for yourmessage and for all of your
wonderful photos and storiesabout the christmas house and
street displays in la.
I would love to visit theseplaces like with such cute names
(01:10):
Candy Cane Lane, christmas TreeLane I love it and Sleepy
Hollow.
The places sound so magical.
Well, they look so magical, andI loved seeing all the trees
covered with fairy lights.
(01:30):
I sort of wish that the fairylights on the trees in these
public spaces were left on allyear round rather than being
removed two weeks afterChristmas.
There's a restaurant we go tosemi-regularly and we sit
(01:53):
outdoors and they have thisbeautiful big tree and it is
decorated all year round withfairy lights and it's magical
and it really adds such a greatvibe to the outdoor dining
experience there.
(02:14):
I'll send through a pickey andyou can see that it's one of
those old big fig trees whicharound here, a lot of them are
heritage listed, so I expect.
This restaurant was told thatand had to work out a way to
(02:34):
make it work in the restaurant.
Actually, I've just looked itup online and yes, it's a
Mortton Bay fig tree, 60 yearsold, and apparently it's draped
in 7.5 kilometres worth of fairylights.
So that's been a great way tocelebrate, I suppose, the
(03:01):
historic nature of the tree inthat community and also make it
look wonderful.
But I digress on my fairy lightchat.
We were talking about treescovered with fairy lights on
your Christmas walks.
I mean, there were so manyother incredible decorations and
(03:25):
of course, one of thosestandouts, as you highlighted,
was the polar express train insomeone's yard on display.
I mean that was really quitesomething and I wonder how they
constructed that.
It certainly didn't look likean inflatable.
(03:48):
It's good that you are learningthe magic of the Christmas
inflatables and thank you somuch for taking all of those
pickies for me.
Of all those amazing hugestructures, the what is my
(04:08):
favorite, I mean the gigantic,ginormous Santa was absolutely
mind-blowing house, but it wastwice as high as it and it did
(04:30):
look very similar to that onethat you sent me on the link,
which was 33 feet or 10 metershigh here.
Um, tall and and interestingfact that's about two-thirds as
high as a Hollywood sign.
I really also loved the pickiesof all of the other inflatables
(04:54):
that you sent my way thereindeer, the candy canes, the
snowman, christmas trees and theChristmas arch.
The Christmas arch reminded meof our friends who are our
neighbor's house and they have aChristmas arch and under it or
(05:21):
just behind it is a hugeinflatable kangaroo, so I'll
send you a pic of that.
And the other feature of theirhouse is a large joy sign on
there, which I love.
In fact, I've noticed the joysign on houses is a real feature
(05:43):
of Christmas decorations herethis year.
Obviously, my surname is veryfestive.
There doesn't seem to be asmany Christmas lights around
here this year, but Brisbanestill does have maps available
online of where you can visithouses and streets with the best
(06:07):
displays.
So they are around, but just alittle less in our neighborhood
this year anyway.
Definitely my bucket list isone day when we catch up again
in person.
Hopefully it's around christmastime and we can do a tour of
all of the Christmas decorationsand wonderful displays in your
(06:31):
local streets.
We can have a few bubbles andjust enjoy all the colourful,
bright lights, inflatables andcelebrations and music that
comes with this time of year,and celebrations and music that
comes with this time of year.
And also, what comes with thistime of year is Christmas baking
(06:56):
, and I visited Tilly thismorning and arrived just in time
to smell her deliciousChristmas cake come out of the
oven.
It was amazing.
She had added gingerbread to itand she sort of had a bit of a
gingerbread theme going, becauseshe opened her fridge and
showed me a lovely gingerbreadtrifle, which is something I've
(07:22):
never seen before as a trifleflavour.
I did ask her for theingredients so I could share
with you too.
The first layer was peaches,jelly and custard.
Second layer was butter cakesprinkled with ginger beer,
(07:44):
which is rather different.
Third layer was caramel,cinnamon whipped cream and she
included gingerbread or gingernut biscuits broken up into this
layer and then the top wassprinkled with toasted flaked
(08:08):
almonds.
It was just a bit different andinterested to hear what you
think about that.
So you will have to let me knowwhat you are baking for
Christmas time.
We are making a roast pork withsage, I think, and cranberry
(08:28):
stuffing.
We've had it once before.
We ran it through a testbecause it takes around three
and a half hours to make, so wejust wanted to make sure that
the pork was going to be fullycooked and that it tasted just
right for Christmas day.
(08:49):
We were also asked to make asalad, so we made a shredded
chicken and sweet potato saladwith cranberry dressing.
I'm just thinking I may havementioned this one to you before
, because we did make it aboutthree weeks ago to take to a
(09:10):
friend's house.
It was absolutely.
I'm not a big salad fan, to behonest, but this is amazing.
The dressing.
It has a fairly large amount ofchicken in it as well, and love
sweet potato.
I loved everything in it.
In fact, let me know if Ihaven't passed that recipe on to
(09:33):
you.
It's definitely worth lookingat and, even more amazing for us
, it's allergy friendly.
Yay.
So I just got a Christmas cardfrom one of my good friends from
school and it's a physical cardand I thought well, I mean, do
(09:54):
you write out physical cardsstill?
So this was really special.
It's got a gingerbread treestamp on it and a little rubber
duck stamp, which makes me thinkthat stamps are also a real
thing of the past, as well asphysical cards mailing letters.
(10:19):
Maybe people don't get the timeto do this anymore, or is it
too expensive?
So I opened the envelope to bepresented with another envelope
which had the card in it.
She'd made the effort to alsoput a Christmas sticker on the
(10:40):
back of the envelope to seal it,and then she's written a
gorgeous little Christmas card.
The texture of it feels likeit's like linen, beautiful paper
, and it was just saying hey,I'm sitting in a cafe we have
(11:01):
something here called theshingle in which is a really
traditional and high tea type ofcoffee cake restaurant chain.
It's been here for many, manyyears.
The decor is extremelytraditional and old-school dark
timber, polished.
(11:21):
People go there just as anexperience, and obviously my
friend was just sitting writing,thinking of her life and her
friends and how she was gratefuland rather than texting us, she
decided to take the effort, buya card, sit down and write on
(11:43):
it, so, so that was lovely.
Needless to say, you'll bereceiving my Christmas greetings
via voicemail.
As I would have had to be very,very organized to send you a
physical card Around Christmastime especially, I would look at
(12:04):
sending a card to the US fourto six weeks before I would
expect it to arrive.
I would actually still probablysend it earlier, because the
basic mail service between USand Australia seems to have
gotten rather slow, especiallysince COVID.
(12:27):
Yeah, we've been still going toa few sports games here and
there.
The footy has finished now andit's all cricket, as I was
speaking about in my lastmessage.
Soccer and football seem tohave come back into season here.
(12:50):
Male football or soccer is notreally popular here.
Male football or soccer is notreally popular here.
However, the women's soccer hasbecome super popular since a
female team, who are called theMatildas, did really well a year
(13:12):
or two ago this game.
They were versing Brazil and Iwas surprised at the audience oh
, how loud they were, howconstant they were and the
active participation in regardsto the audience following the
(13:34):
ball and the emotion and themany ups and downs of the game.
In soccer they don't score manypoints, so it can be a little
well, let's say, boring if youare not into it, boring if you
(14:00):
are not into it, but this wasfar from boring and I just
realized I said that points arescored in soccer, but it is
actually called goals.
Here is some audio I took fromthe game and you can hear the
crowd's reaction to the goalbeing scored and the drums start
(14:36):
up as well.
It's funny.
Australian crowds don't dealwell with players falling over
and pretending to be hurt, soafter the Brazil goalie fell
over a few times, the crowd haddefinitely had enough, and
(14:56):
here's some of the audio of that, with the crowd encouraging her
to leave the field.
It was certainly a verydifferent experience compared to
(15:16):
the usual football games andoccasional cricket games that we
attend.
It was definitely a littlesimilar to the EPL style English
soccer vibe style Englishsoccer vibe, but maybe even with
(15:41):
a little bit more spirit.
I was very surprised, so it wasa fun day.
It sounds like walking aroundyour amazing neighborhood at the
moment is your go-to fitnessmove.
I've switched my daily programup a bit and have added in some
trampoline work.
You might have seen the pictureof our trampoline in some of
(16:03):
the backyard photos.
It's rather large.
It is a big square, four meterby four meter size trampoline
which is 13 by 13 feet, and weput a basketball net inside
there as well.
So I've just been spending timein there about 10 minutes a day
(16:27):
throwing hoops, jumping around.
I can feel my thighs gettingstronger and it doesn't even
feel like exercise.
So that's been super fun andbeneficial.
I was noticing the other daycarrying boxes up and downstairs
and I did it with ease and didit rather quickly, so very happy
(16:51):
about that.
The other thing worthmentioning is I've also
increased my low back stretchesthe really easy ones where you
just lay on your back and bringyour leg across your body and
I'm feeling so much well lessdoes that make sense?
I'm feeling much less.
(17:12):
I'm feeling a lot less bloatedlike big time, so that's been a
great hack for me as well.
I don't know if you do them.
I don't think you have bloatingissues, however, so that's been
super helpful for me.
(17:34):
It was super interesting to hearabout the snail cream from
Korea.
Very fascinating and seems likea popular trend at the moment
and is getting great reviews.
I did read a little bit moreabout it and I have followed the
(17:56):
trend and have bought some andwill let you know when it
arrives.
I'm not keen to use it on myface as such because, as you
said, it sounds really gooey.
I don't know what the textureof it is going to be like.
However, I thought I would trysome on a body part that is not
(18:23):
my face first up and see how itfeels.
It does have over 70,000 verypositive reviews on Amazon and
apparently gives the glass skinlook.
So we shall see.
It does sound intriguing andwhen I'm using it I will not
(18:47):
think about what it's actuallymade from.
So thanks for that tip.
It sounds like or like myselfyou have a good little skin
routine going.
I mean, when you find theproducts that suit you, you tend
to not change, but it'soccasionally interesting just to
try something new and see ifyou're missing out on something.
(19:12):
And see if you're missing outon something, even if it does
sound a bit gross.
Anyway, time to sign off.
I'm going to take the dog for avery quick walk before getting
back into some work.
I hope you enjoy your specialdinner out tonight and enjoy the
(19:32):
rest of your week, lookingforward to chatting soon and
take care as always.
And bye for now, thank you.
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