Cory Kessenich 00:00:00  I’m excited to share some stories and maybe get the word out that all families have a little bit of craziness in them.

Katy Ripp 00:00:07  That burn my ass, Abe Lincoln Christmas will go down in history as the most entertaining one. We’ll just say that.

Cory Kessenich 00:00:14  Do you guys remember when dad tried to teach mom how to ride a bike? She certainly didn’t know how to stop a bike because dad put her on top of that hill.

Steph Moore 00:00:22  What is it about? Like wanting to get under your siblings skin? 

Katy Ripp 00:00:26I was laughing so hard because he was freaking out so bad. He was like 11 or 12, maybe. Lipping out. You ruined my dirt bike.

Steph Moore 00:00:34  I mean, they say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and it’s like you keep walking in trying to do the same thing where everybody starts drinking at noon, and then by 5:00, everybody’s mad at each other and somebody says something that pisses somebody else off, and then they’re mad all night. And I think once we figured out that, it’s like, hey, it doesn’t have to be that way this year.

Katy Ripp 00:00:53  I’m not bringing green bean casserole. I’m bringing the bullet for kids to bite. 

Hey there, fellow rebels, welcome to #ActuallyICan the podcast where we say a hearty hell yes to designing life on our own terms. I’m Katy Ripp, a lifestyle coach, business mentor, and serial entrepreneur here to guide you through the wild ride, defying what society expects of us and embracing our authenticity. On this show, we dive deep into taboo topics like death, money, spirituality, entrepreneurship, unapologetic self-care, and personal development, all while swearing and laughing along the way. Expect down and dirty conversations, plenty of humor, and a whole lot of exploration, leaving you feeling empowered to be your truest self. Whether you’re craving a good laugh, seeking unconventional self-care tips, or simply looking for some camaraderie, you’ve come to the right place. We only get this one short life, so buckle up and let’s design yours on our own terms. Ready to dive in? Let’s go. Welcome to #ActuallyICan, my name is Katy Ripp and I am here actually with my brother and sister who graciously agreed to be on this podcast.

Katy Ripp 00:02:13  It was a quick and down and dirty question like, hey, do you want to come on the podcast? With a immediate caveat of not really. I don’t want to go that deep, which is cool because we’re going to go into some holiday stuff and some shit. Our parents said. So my sister Steph lives in Colorado and is about an hour behind us right now. Is that right? Yeah, and she is four years older, so she is the first in the birth order, which we are all kind of obsessed with birth order because we are the birth order of the three. And my brother Cory lives here, not too far from me and is four years younger than me, which makes me the proverbial middle child. And he is definitely the youngest. So welcome Cory and Steph. If you’d like to say a couple of words about yourself and just introduce yourself.

Steph Moore 00:03:06  Yeah, sophomore I live in Colorado with my husband and two kids, and I also have a stepdaughter that lives in Illinois. Yeah, I was a little hesitant because sometimes this can get there’s some sensitive stuff, I suppose, that every family has.

Steph Moore 00:03:18  But then I also adore these two and knew that, like, if we could help some people, maybe laugh through the holidays, that would be worth it. Plus it’s fun. We’ve come full circle, probably in our relationships, so to be able to be here and then laugh about a lot of this stuff is, I mean, I think in a lot of ways I never saw that happening. I don’t be negative, but I never thought that we would get to a point that we could kind of laugh this stuff off. So it’s pretty awesome.

Katy Ripp 00:03:49  Yeah, I agreed for sure. And actually, we’ve been estranged back and forth over the years, but our sort of coming back together actually happened on the holiday, on Thanksgiving. So this is appropriate that we’re all back together. And if you followed me for a little while, you might have seen that we have a Castle three trip that we have started to take. That’s we just had our second annual one earlier this year. We’ve been on two cruises together and nobody has gotten shipped off the ship.

Steph Moore 00:04:16  Fallen off or been pushed back.

Katy Ripp 00:04:18  Fallen would be a stretch, but no one’s gotten pushed off. So it’s been amazing actually. So anyway, I really appreciate you guys being on here. So thanks, Steph.

Cory Kessenich 00:04:27  Cory yes, I am Cory. I am Katie and Steph’s little brother. I live in the Madison area with my two boys and my girlfriend. I’m recently divorced and my sisters mean the world to me. I’ve had a rough couple of years recently and their support has been great. We’ve had a lot of reconnection over these last couple of years, and I’m actually excited to talk a little bit about our family experience through the holidays. We have some interesting ones. We have a great, interesting family dynamic and like Steph said, making some people laugh will bring me a little bit of joy over the holidays here. So I’m excited to share some stories and maybe get the word out that all families have a little bit of craziness in them.

Katy Ripp 00:05:13  Yeah, I mean, just a little. Just a little.

Katy Ripp 00:05:15  Yeah. And I think both Steph and I have behind your back and to your face, Cory have just really expressed how proud we are. A few of the ways that you have dealt with some of this really challenging situations you’ve gone over the last couple of years. So we are both very, extremely proud of you and proud to be your sisters and just watch this from the outside. It’s been amazing.

Cory Kessenich 00:05:40  Oh, thanks.

Katy Ripp 00:05:41  Oh, Kitty. Okay, so we had originally thought, and we will likely do this because we are 70s 80s kids, so Steph Well, we’ll just be real honest about our ages here, right? So Steph was born in 74. I was born in 78, Cory was born in 83. So you can imagine what kind of lives we’ve had from then until now, right? Like the no seat belts, banana seat bikes, no helmet for Steph and I were mistaken as boys all the time because our mother was a hairdresser and she was like, you know how like, shoemaker’s children never have shoes? We never had the cool.

Katy Ripp 00:06:21  We never had the cool haircuts. Very often I will never forget. I think I.

Steph Moore 00:06:27  Tried, I think like we tried to have the cool haircuts, but it was like 40 something women haircuts while we were in fourth grade or 12 year.

Katy Ripp 00:06:37  Old boy haircuts.

Steph Moore 00:06:39  Yeah, whatever.

Cory Kessenich 00:06:40  Whatever was happening at Glen’s is what you guys got.

Katy Ripp 00:06:44  I will never forget riding our bikes one day. And this woman, you maybe don’t remember this, but we were on Old Sock Road and stuff, and I were was sitting like in the gravel, waiting for another biker to go by, and she goes, oh, you two are really cute boys. And Steph was like, we are not boys. But we had these like, bowl cuts. And then Cory got everything. You know, he had all the right haircuts and the gel and everything. Yeah.

Steph Moore 00:07:12  He still has good hair.

Katy Ripp 00:07:13  He still has really great hair. Yeah. He’s got the greatest hair.

Cory Kessenich 00:07:18  Well, shout out to Marisa Copia at Salon Lola.

Katy Ripp 00:07:21  Bella agreed. She’s the one that allowed me to go gray, too. Okay, so originally I had thought, let’s go through some of these 70s, 80s sayings that our parents said to us and our mother and dad were the royalty of these sayings. We’re going to go through some of that. But also we thought as we started talking here, even before we started recording, we thought, oh, we’ve got some real holiday stories. One of them, Steph, brought up and this one being, I think, the most hilarious one to Cory and I. It’s probably taken Steph quite a few more years to think that it’s funny. It was actually at the time, but Cory and I thought it was very funny at the time, so I have a very blurred memory of it because for sure I was drunk.

Steph Moore 00:08:09  I don’t remember a lot of it. I mean.

Katy Ripp 00:08:11  Also, it was a very long time ago, but also I was very drunk.

Steph Moore 00:08:15  It is the epitome of like the we have a lot of competitiveness in very like unique ways though, right? Like all of us are very competitive but in very different ways.

Steph Moore 00:08:25  And I just remember it being a very, very intense, competitive Trivial Pursuit game. That’s all I could like. It was very intense. Everybody was very really wanting to be right.

Cory Kessenich 00:08:36  Yeah. I’d like to set maybe set the scene a little bit. I can’t remember exactly what our ages were. I was around 20 or 21 years old, so that makes sense.

Katy Ripp 00:08:46  With Dale around. Yes. Dale.

Cory Kessenich 00:08:48  And so.

Katy Ripp 00:08:49  I would have been like 24 to.

Cory Kessenich 00:08:51  Luke was there, and this was maybe the second time I ever met Luke. It could be the first, but it was very early on. Okay.

Steph Moore 00:08:59  So this is it would have been 2004 then Christmas of 2004.

Cory Kessenich 00:09:02  Yeah, that sounds about right. Okay. And yes, it was a I think it was Christmas, maybe Christmas Eve. We had all gathered at mom’s house who had a beautiful dining area. We had a fantastic afternoon which included a lot of Carlo Rossi wine. Somebody brought a jug of wine, or maybe that was mom who bought a jug of that cheap Carlo Rossi red wine.

Cory Kessenich 00:09:26  And I’m pretty sure that you.

Katy Ripp 00:09:27  Two were not super picky about that.

Cory Kessenich 00:09:30  Yes, I’m pretty sure that you two had put a pretty good dent in that jug, and after our meal concluded, we had a great meal and we started playing Trivial Pursuit, as we were known to do around the holidays. You know, because.

Katy Ripp 00:09:45  We’re such a game night family.

Cory Kessenich 00:09:47  Right? Right. Well, we were such a game night family that the questions for Trivial Pursuit were at least 40 years old.

Katy Ripp 00:09:56  Oh, yeah, mom refused to get the new one, so it was like the original genius edition, right?

Steph Moore 00:10:02  Yes, we have played it so many times. Everybody knew the answers because they’d memorized them except Cary.

Cory Kessenich 00:10:08  So it was quite the scene. I think we all had teams. I think it was Katie and Dale, Luke and stuff, and then mom and I.

Katy Ripp 00:10:16  Which made Dale want to scratch his eyes out.

Cory Kessenich 00:10:19  Yes, yes. Yeah. So we were playing the game and somewhere along the way there was some compete.

Cory Kessenich 00:10:26  Enter the chat and Steph and Luke were, I think beating everybody because Luke’s like a trivia genius and he’s just a genius. Yes. And so somehow it came up that Steph said that she was very smart too.

Katy Ripp 00:10:45  Which by the way, Okay. Steph was teaching fifth grade at this time.

Steph Moore 00:10:49  I was smarter than a fifth grader.

Cory Kessenich 00:10:51  I’m pretty sure she mentioned that.

Katy Ripp 00:10:53  And I had just gotten out of basic training. And let’s see if this was 2004. I had already been back from Kuwait, which meant that I was smarter than an eighth grader because the Army is built on eighth grade education, so at least I was as smart as an eighth grader.

Cory Kessenich 00:11:08  Yeah, so noticing the situation, I don’t believe that I had been drinking too heavily that day. I probably was hungover from the night before, but I think at some point it came up. We got in this little tiff about Steph being smarter than everybody. Something along those lines. And I said, okay, since you are smarter than a fifth grader who shot Abraham Lincoln, just this wasn’t a board game question.

Cory Kessenich 00:11:34  This was just kind of a side bet, if you will. And at that moment, Stephanie’s newly minted fiancé started singing the jeopardy theme and.

Katy Ripp 00:11:49  Nothing like throwing.

Steph Moore 00:11:50  Gas on it.

Cory Kessenich 00:11:51  And I can see Dale smile just starting to walk off. It starts just.

Katy Ripp 00:11:55  Yeah. He’s like rubbing his hands together in his mind. Like as time.

Cory Kessenich 00:12:00  Goes on and, you know, poor stuff under pressure just completely blanks out. Well, Luke holds up his imaginary buzzer and goes, maybe John Wilkes Booth. It could be explained as a tirade. After that, Steph lost it. She got very angry. Mom was trying to keep the pace. Oh! Steph screamed across the table. You burn my ass like screaming it to me in my face and.

Steph Moore 00:12:33  Then just say kiss my.

Katy Ripp 00:12:34  No sense. I meant to say.

Steph Moore 00:12:37  Kiss my ass. I was under so much pressure with the jeopardy song and Yeah, my recall was not on point that.

Cory Kessenich 00:12:48  At that moment.

Katy Ripp 00:12:49  I have four years. I mean, because we are not super nice behind her back, we would be like, burned my ass.

Katy Ripp 00:12:59  Oh, you.

Steph Moore 00:12:59  Guys do it right to my face. Don’t think you do.

Katy Ripp 00:13:01  I know, but we didn’t do it for a while in front of you because you were still so mad.

Steph Moore 00:13:06  I know.

Cory Kessenich 00:13:08  Yeah, it was.

Katy Ripp 00:13:09  Super smart stuff.

Steph Moore 00:13:10  Yes. Well, in my own mind, I’m really smart.

Katy Ripp 00:13:14  Oh, it was a good.

Steph Moore 00:13:16  No, no. It was. I am glad that we can laugh about it at this point, because it was just a yes. It was like, it’s like I’m sure that most people have, like, there’s just this kind of tipping point, anticipate holidays. And when things are not, I think when things are not like in a good place and then you’re stressed out and you go to that like go to a holiday thing, then all of a sudden you’re I mean, it could have had something to do with the jug of wine, though.

Katy Ripp 00:13:41  Well, certainly. Maybe.

Steph Moore 00:13:44  Just maybe.

Katy Ripp 00:13:44  Certainly it played a part. We’ll just say that.

Katy Ripp 00:13:48  Yeah. Because we I can say we’ve had subsequent holidays without the jugs of wine that have not ended this way.

Steph Moore 00:13:54  That’s true.

Katy Ripp 00:13:54  Although we have spawned a bunch of very competitive children that are. You know, last year we did the Moneyball, right?

Steph Moore 00:14:02  Yes. Which I didn’t do it in Monopoly.

Katy Ripp 00:14:05  And Monopoly, but the Moneyball, where, again, we’re not really a game board family, but for some reason we decide that it’s a good idea to do games among now 14 competitive people. And so we tried to all stand around Steph’s Island with a moneyball, which, if you’re not familiar with the Moneyball, basically you roll up Saran Wrap with lottery tickets and cash, right? Yep. Then in the on the island, everybody’s standing around the island, and then one person has to roll dice while the other person is unrolling. And then when they shoot doubles, right, the ball passes. So you have to like try and roll, unroll as much as you can so you can get the lottery tickets and the money and whatever.

Katy Ripp 00:14:51  Well, the first two people ended up with like, all the things, right? Wasn’t it like it took forever to get the doubles?

Steph Moore 00:15:00  It took forever to get the doubles, and I didn’t do it in short enough. When you wrap it, you need to wrap it in small pieces of saran wrap like little pieces. And I did it like more as a roll because I thought it would be easier for the kids. And they just it.

Katy Ripp 00:15:14  Was, it.

Steph Moore 00:15:15  Was it was way too easy because then we had. Yeah, that was, you know, so then no good.

Katy Ripp 00:15:20  It didn’t get all the way around. And then we had to go and of course.

Steph Moore 00:15:24  Basically pay the kids off to start having the money.

Katy Ripp 00:15:27  We had to basically just saying everybody gets money. Fine. Shut up or. Do we have another holiday one.

Steph Moore 00:15:36  Well, the washing machine. But that was more of a like kind of like.

Katy Ripp 00:15:39  Also jugs of wine. This is in a different house. We were also maybe sitting around watching, playing Trivial Pursuit or just smoking cigarettes and drinking.

Katy Ripp 00:15:48  That could be. Yeah, I don’t know.

Steph Moore 00:15:49  And the I think we were playing a game, but we were all up on these stools. My mom had like a island stool island. Yep. Yeah. And we were on stools and we were all sitting there forever with our feet up on the stools, and one of us stood up and the washing machine had leaked. There was like an inch of water on the floor.

Katy Ripp 00:16:10  Yeah, we just were all oblivious to it. Like everywhere.

Steph Moore 00:16:15  Water was everywhere, and it was like nobody was in the mood to deal with it on Christmas Eve.

Katy Ripp 00:16:20  But yeah. Oh, and then the heat caught. You may not remember this stuff, but Cory, do you remember when the heat went out the year that Mom and dad got separated and the heat went out on Christmas Day at our house, our brand.

Steph Moore 00:16:33  New house, 30 below or something.

Katy Ripp 00:16:35  It was like 20 degrees in the house, like everything started to frost over. It was a really ugly time.

Steph Moore 00:16:41  Yeah, it was bad.

Katy Ripp 00:16:42  I was only 14 then. Yeah, it wasn’t good. There was no medication for that. Yeah, we’ve had our fair share. We’ve had our fair share. Let’s just say that like everybody has. Right. Well, I just turned 46, so I’ve had 45 Christmases and all of them with some sort of drama or situation, I think. No, not all of them. But like every year has some sort of something that goes along with it that at least makes it memorable.

Steph Moore 00:17:11  I think that everybody goes through like, I mean, there’s a reason, like, you see all the Instagram memes of like, take care of yourself in the holiday season. And I mean, it is holidays are stressful. It just I mean, they’re stressful and they’re, you know, it’s hard.

Katy Ripp 00:17:28  Yeah. I think in the end it’s just really hard to please everybody and you and I.

Steph Moore 00:17:31  Maybe that’s what it.

Katy Ripp 00:17:32  Is. You just can’t please everybody. It just doesn’t make sense to try anymore.

Katy Ripp 00:17:36  So I think that’s probably why we have such nice holidays now is like everybody’s kind of put up their boundaries and everybody really sort of respects what everybody else does. And we try to get together when we can. And if it doesn’t work out because the family issues, it just doesn’t work out well.

Steph Moore 00:17:50  And I think more boundaries, the more boundaries that you healthily put up, not boundaries because you’re angry or boundaries, but like real true boundaries where it’s like, yeah, I mean, that’s just not going to work for me or whatever. Like the more willing you are to kind of put the effort in, because you can put the effort into the boundary.

Katy Ripp 00:18:13  Yeah. And the things that really matter. Right. Like the things that really matter. I think as we get older too, we realize some of the things just don’t matter that much anymore. Like the gifts, like trading of gift cards, you know, it just doesn’t make sense for us anymore. I mean, the kids like to do it and the kids like to exchange gifts and stuff, and that’s fine.

Katy Ripp 00:18:32  but for us adults, it just doesn’t make sense. I’d rather, like, go for a hike together. Yeah. You know, I’d rather spend the money to get together. So anyway. Holidays or holidays? We don’t need to, like, dig into that anymore. But the burned my ass Abe Lincoln Christmas will go down in history for sure, as the most entertaining one. We’ll just say that.

Cory Kessenich 00:18:54  Yeah, it’s definitely up there. And I like to think of the holidays now as, you know, just the growth of everybody. I mean, there’s actual growth, right? Our kids are getting older. And some of those things, we aren’t putting as much pressure on ourselves on Christmas to create this great, memorable experience. And now I feel like I’m just letting it happen more so. And that takes some of the pressure off, which then opens up more space for us. Things like get togethers and just kind of going with the flow, rather than trying to create something that puts so much pressure on yourself.

Katy Ripp 00:19:33  Yeah. And really just like being who you are. And if you like to decorate and that’s your thing, then by all means do it. But do it for yourself. Like, do it because you love it. And if you don’t, that’s okay too. Just like, don’t apologize for it. You are who you are and it’s okay to be that way. And we also come from a divorced family, right? So like, our parents got divorced when I was 14, Cory was nine and Steph was in college. And so for quite a few years we had to share holidays. And Cory, I know you’re going through that now, and lots and lots and lots of people that are going to listen to this, you know, my tens of followers are going to listen to this and realize, like they’re also in that same boat, right? Like we have to. And it was really important for our mom for a while to have Christmas Day. And it was more of a like, did it matter to really have Christmas date to her? It did.

Katy Ripp 00:20:29  It did matter to her. So the rest of us sort of had to shift. And it’s gotten obviously, as we’ve gotten older, it’s gotten a lot better. But sometimes it’s hard to like let go of those exact things, right? Like the exact day or the exact thing that you have to have for that tradition or whatever it is. So I think really just being flexible and realizing that, yes, you can have the things you want, but also have to be respectful of other people. It’s just a lot of people to deal with.

Steph Moore 00:21:00  And I think it’s just it’s a sign of our like times. I mean, I get that like the day mattered, but it also mattered 50 years ago when everybody lived in a five square, you know, five mile radius of each other. And now it’s I mean, it’s hard to get together. I mean, I that’s I mean, one of the things that’s hardest about living far away is it’s hard to get home without planning it. Right? I mean, if I, when I was 5 or 6 hours away, I could just jump on the car and go.

Steph Moore 00:21:31  Now it’s, you know, it’s either a two day drive it or drive or it’s like, you got to plan a flight, you got to do all that. So and then kids just are so busy, you know. So yeah, I think just if I had any advice for people, it’s just like, be easy on yourself. Like, I know you want to try to do it all. I mean, there was one year when we lived in Nashville, we drove to in a matter of like six days, I think we drove from Nashville to Champagne to Madison and back to Nashville. And I mean, it’s 12 hours maybe from Madison to Nashville. I can’t remember exactly. But I mean, we had, you know, two little kids in the dog and the I mean, packing up Christmas presents and all that. And I remember getting home and not feeling rested, like not feeling like I had had a few days off or I had had, you know, and I’m like, okay, that was a little crazy.

Steph Moore 00:22:18  We’re not going to do that again. Because like, it just was it was just too much.

Katy Ripp 00:22:22  Yeah. We had that same situation when we lived in Bayfield. Right? We would come down and then we would go to four different Christmases. Right. Like Dale’s parents had Have their extended families that we went to, their extended families. Then we had Christmas Eve, then we had to go to moms, then we had to see dad, and we saw you guys and whatever. And all of a sudden I like got back to Bayfield and I was like, that was horrible. It wasn’t like that. The holiday was horrible. I was just like that. I got nothing out of it, really, except squeezing everybody else. And so we put a hard boundary down and I was like, listen, if you guys want to come for Christmas, you got to come here. And at one point or another you’re going to have to put the boundary down. You’re going to have to like lay something down.

Katy Ripp 00:23:01  And no, you’re going to disappoint some people. But if it makes sense to them and if it’s worth it for them to see you, they will come. Yeah. Period. So yeah. Okay. So here are some of the sayings that I found that our parents definitely said to us. And some of the possibly politically incorrect also things. So I’m sure that when I say these out loud you guys are going to well I love if you like remember a story about some of these because I certainly do. Okay. Don’t make me pull this car over. This one brings up a memory of seven of. You don’t want me to tell this story. I can put it.

Steph Moore 00:23:42  I don’t remember it. I mean, I don’t I don’t know where you’re going.

Katy Ripp 00:23:44  Well, it wasn’t necessarily that we pulled the car over it. I this was after we were coming home from Spooner, and Wendy and Shannon were with us, and they were dropping me off at Camp Gray, and the boat came on attached.

Katy Ripp 00:24:01  But you were in such trouble already. Do you remember, like. Yes, mom and Dad made you ride with dad on the way home and his boat came unhooked on the interstate?

Steph Moore 00:24:13  Yes. I was in a lot of trouble because I had chosen to attend a beach party in northern Wisconsin.

Katy Ripp 00:24:22  Beach, beach beach.

Steph Moore 00:24:24  Part, quote unquote, beach party and decided to get into some old Milwaukee, so quite.

Katy Ripp 00:24:29  A bit.

Steph Moore 00:24:31  Quite well, not actually, because it was like.

Katy Ripp 00:24:33  Well, yeah, you were probably where you’re like 15.

Steph Moore 00:24:36  Maybe 16. I think it was 16.

Katy Ripp 00:24:37  Oh. Were you driving. Yeah.

Steph Moore 00:24:39  Well I was driving, yeah. But I was going to be 16 I think. Yeah. Okay. But yes we met some, we had been driving around. My friends were with me. We took them up. We had been driving around and Spooner and that’s some of the local high school.

Katy Ripp 00:24:55  Boys, the local talent, the local.

Steph Moore 00:24:57  Talent. And by the way.

Katy Ripp 00:24:59  I’m still friends with on Facebook.

Steph Moore 00:25:00  Yeah. Oh, I am too. Yeah, yeah. Still friends. It was a progressively like I think I only had like three beers, but yeah, I probably weighed £80 and it was a like again a blur. But my mom and dad were really, really, really mad at me. And yeah, we got invited to this fun.

Katy Ripp 00:25:20  It wasn’t really because of the party. It was because of what you said to mom.

Steph Moore 00:25:25  Oh, I don’t remember what I said, mom, Don’t.

Katy Ripp 00:25:26  You remember sitting in the recliner and you’re like, shut up, mom.

Steph Moore 00:25:32  Oops, I.

Katy Ripp 00:25:33  Remember you, like rocking back and forth drunk.

Steph Moore 00:25:36  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:25:37  Wendy and Shannon. It was Wendy and Shannon, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re with you. My my mom looked at Steph, knowing full well what was wrong. She was like, what’s wrong with you? Steph looks at her and goes, shut up, mom. What? We didn’t say shut up in our house when we were kids.

Katy Ripp 00:25:57  Yeah, we couldn’t.

Steph Moore 00:25:58  Tell our parents to shut up. Apparently I.

Cory Kessenich 00:26:00  Have. No, no.

Steph Moore 00:26:02  Apparently I had some liquid courage that night.

Katy Ripp 00:26:04  Shut up. Mom. And she just about her head just about spun off her body. It was hilarious. So then you had to ride home with dad? I had, right? And then it wasn’t that he wanted to pull the car over. It was that the bolt came unleashed on the interstate drug along the interstate on the chains of the hit.

Steph Moore 00:26:24  Remember that? Like, I didn’t remember that happening, but yeah, that.

Katy Ripp 00:26:27  He was already so mad and then, you know. Yeah, mad. Steve is not a.

Cory Kessenich 00:26:32  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:26:34  Okay. So sibling sayings you’re adopted. We told Cory he was adopted all the time. Also we put Cory in a this is a few people’s favorite story. We put Cory we used Cory Stephanie put Cory in a vinyl suitcase.

Steph Moore 00:26:53  Or like nylon right. Because it was super. Yeah. It was like.

Katy Ripp 00:26:56  Yeah I don’t even remember what.

Cory Kessenich 00:26:57  It was. It was navy blue in nylon. I remember it was.

Katy Ripp 00:27:00  A nylon, but it was like a matching set. Our parents like the luggage that they use to travel with, and we put them on the top of the stairs, told them to get in it, and then we threw them like, slid him down a flight of stairs on it and then just left him at the bottom of the stairs. Well, you.

Cory Kessenich 00:27:16  Zip me in the suitcase. We should clarify that the suitcase was.

Katy Ripp 00:27:21  Oh yeah, we just didn’t throw you down the stairs. We did make sure you were protected inside the suitcase. Oh, is that not the. That’s not the angle you were going for.

Steph Moore 00:27:30  I mean, think of that now. And I’m like. Which, I mean, there’s a lot of times in my life at this point, at 50 years old, you finally say like, damn, there are a lot of times that like, I should not.

Steph Moore 00:27:41  I mean, when you look at what the protective gear and stuff that kids like, I remember riding down behind and we were in Cherrywood and we’re going down to the pond, and I was following a girl from my class and bikes, and we got going down this hill, and I like she put on her brakes and I didn’t know that. And so like, I hit the back of her tire. I mean, we were cruising down a hill and flew off the bike. Right. Had no helmet, no helmet, no. Look, I’m thinking to myself, like all I can see now, like if my kids were throwing each other down the stairs in suitcases and then like. And mind you, the basement, the floor at the bottom of the stairs was like it had linoleum, like it was concrete because it was the basement stairs, but it had like linoleum over it. But that was it. I mean, now I’m like.

Katy Ripp 00:28:25  And also we just left him there. Yeah. I mean, it was nice.

Cory Kessenich 00:28:30  I may have some closet phobia residue. And I do remember one time you two were watching me, and mom was must have been at the grocery store or something, but she came home to me.

Katy Ripp 00:28:40  She was at Claude’s.

Cory Kessenich 00:28:42  Yes. Yes. Or Kickapoo grocery. But, yeah, she came home to me at the bottom of the stairs, just begging for somebody to let me out. And she. You know what we were doing?

Katy Ripp 00:28:53  We were like, what the hell? Who knows what we were doing?

Steph Moore 00:28:58  I’m sorry. Cory.

Cory Kessenich 00:29:01  Oh. It’s okay. I mean, through great pressure, it comes growth, right? So I’m a pretty tolerant person now to a point, man.

Steph Moore 00:29:10  Holy cow.

Cory Kessenich 00:29:11  Oh my God. I actually this just popped into my brain when we were talking about riding bikes downhills. Do you guys remember. Was it mom when dad tried to teach mom how to ride a bike.

Steph Moore 00:29:22  Oh, shit.

Cory Kessenich 00:29:23  And on that yellow ten speed.

Steph Moore 00:29:25  Well, I think she knew how to ride a bike, but she didn’t know how to do, like, the gears or whatever.

Cory Kessenich 00:29:29  And she certainly didn’t know how to stop a bike because dad put her on top. She didn’t know how.

Katy Ripp 00:29:35  To stop it, and.

Cory Kessenich 00:29:36  She rode. So, yeah, there was that hill in our front yard and it was a fairly long hill. And then there was a rock wall right at the end of it, like two feet high. And I remember he put her on that bike and she went scooting down the hill and did not know how to stop the bike and went straight into the rock wall.

Katy Ripp 00:29:55  Oh, she was seething.

Cory Kessenich 00:29:57  Over the handlebars like OTB.

Katy Ripp 00:30:00  Yeah. She never got on a bike again.

Cory Kessenich 00:30:02  Never got out.

Steph Moore 00:30:03  Do you blame her?

Katy Ripp 00:30:05  Oh. Oh my God. Oh.

Cory Kessenich 00:30:07  And then when Katie tried to ride my dirt bike. Yeah. So it was after her mom and dad got.

Katy Ripp 00:30:12  Another one of those. I’m right. I love to be right. Everybody knows I love to be right, and I don’t need any help. So Cory got a brand new dirt bike.

Steph Moore 00:30:22  Oh I do, I remember hearing about it. I was in there but I don’t know. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:30:25  Brand new dirt bike before he even got the chance to get on it I was like, oh.

Steph Moore 00:30:31  I got this.

Katy Ripp 00:30:32  I got this, and dad’s like, it’s got a clutch. And I was like, I know how to fucking drive a clutch. I’m good.

Cory Kessenich 00:30:40  I’ve been on four wheelers all my life.

Katy Ripp 00:30:42  I’ve been on four wheelers all my life. He gets it out of the trailer. I, you know, kickstart the thing or whatever it is it’s running. I pop the clutch and go straight into a rock wall.

Cory Kessenich 00:30:54  Up a rock wall, go up the whole thing. Did a backflip.

Katy Ripp 00:30:59  Also, no helmet, no protective gear.

Cory Kessenich 00:31:02  You’re very lucky.

Katy Ripp 00:31:04  I think it’s so hard.

Steph Moore 00:31:06  Did Cory just lose his mind? Oh, yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:31:08  Lost his ever loving mind. I was laughing so hard because he was freaking out so bad. He was like 11 or 12, maybe flipping out.

Katy Ripp 00:31:18  You ruined my dirt bike. I mean, flipping out. And dad is also laughing because he’s like, well.

Steph Moore 00:31:26  I mean, it’s a dirt bike. It’s going to get rid of pretty hard, right?

Katy Ripp 00:31:28  Right. But he had just gotten it. I didn’t even let it out.

Cory Kessenich 00:31:32  He was pulling it off the trailer when I.

Katy Ripp 00:31:35  Got this, I got this. So I also have a dirt bike sense. But Dale really loves that story. He thinks it’s really funny. He was certainly not there. I was in high school, but I got it. I got this.

Cory Kessenich 00:31:49  You just you grab that throttle and just rip it. The tires started spinning when you pop that clutch and it went crawled up that rock wall of ten feet high.

Katy Ripp 00:31:58  I mean, I’m on so many levels. I’m glad I’m still alive.

Cory Kessenich 00:32:02  You’re lucky it didn’t fall back on top of you and, like, crush you.

Katy Ripp 00:32:06  Yeah. I mean, well, also, Stephanie, when we were little, were riding a four Wheeler on Sandy Wheeler or.

Katy Ripp 00:32:14  I’m sorry. I take that back. We were riding a three Wheeler on sand dunes. Flipped it. We were absolutely. I don’t know how much luckier we couldn’t have been that both of our legs didn’t burn off from the hot muffler that didn’t have, you know.

Steph Moore 00:32:29  That was right underneath there. And we slid down the side of a down.

Katy Ripp 00:32:32  The side of the sand dunes into a pond. And I think, Steph, you got maybe out of it. And then I remember we both remember dad running and he’s like, Mario, he’s got these short little legs.

Steph Moore 00:32:46  I’ve never seen anyone run so fast in my life though.

Katy Ripp 00:32:49  Holy crap. He really does love us. He took that thing off of us.

Cory Kessenich 00:32:55  He. I remember that thing.

Steph Moore 00:32:56  That was gone. That was gone within days of that. And we went to four wheelers after that because that was a bad. Yeah. And it was I just tried to turn around on the top of the sand dune, and it was just so dry that I think it like we tipped and then we just slid down the side of the sand.

Steph Moore 00:33:11  Yeah. It was scary in.

Katy Ripp 00:33:12  Burning hot sand. Yes. Yeah. And we were like, God, Cory must have been like two.

Cory Kessenich 00:33:18  I actually remember.

Katy Ripp 00:33:19  That. Oh, so maybe you were 3 or 4? Yeah. We were not old enough to be driving £1,000 three Wheeler with a exposed muffler.

Steph Moore 00:33:29  Well, I believe you would have been fine. Having not been standing.

Cory Kessenich 00:33:32  Watching the whole would have been fine.

Katy Ripp 00:33:34  Yes. Have we not been on the sand, dude?

Steph Moore 00:33:37  I know.

Katy Ripp 00:33:38  Oh, crazy. So anyway, if we’re making you feel better about your life.

Steph Moore 00:33:43  I mean, that’s the goal.

Katy Ripp 00:33:45  Yeah, that is the goal here. So we’re doing a good job so far, so I have. Again, originally we had thought let’s find some sayings and shit that our parents said that really would not be appropriate these days. One of the things that came up was ring around the Rosie, which people still use this as a nursery rhyme, but do we know what ring around the Rosie is from?

Steph Moore 00:34:08  So you talked about this in one of your podcast songs, I think.

Katy Ripp 00:34:13  Oh, possibly. I’m sure we did.

Steph Moore 00:34:15  And I remember that it is something very inappropriate.

Katy Ripp 00:34:19  Ring around the Rosie A pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes. We all fall down. And it may sound like a very sweet rhyme. Except it’s about the black plague. And Rosie refers to the rash. Posies were the herbs to ward off the disease. And ashes symbolized cremation.

Steph Moore 00:34:41  A beautiful thing to teach a four year old.

Cory Kessenich 00:34:44  And we all fall down as the death.

Katy Ripp 00:34:46  So, like, let’s turn this disease into a banger for the kids. Well, I.

Steph Moore 00:34:51  Mean, I remember jump roping, and this probably is what contributed to my obsession with crime. True crime is the jump rope Lizzie Borden gave her mother.

Katy Ripp 00:35:04  Yes, that’s also on here.

Steph Moore 00:35:05  I mean, like, I’m thinking about that. And I was like, I mean, I remember being at West Middleton jumping rope and like, singing that, thinking like. Yes, because.

Katy Ripp 00:35:13  It was like our mother’s favorite nursery rhyme was not a.

Steph Moore 00:35:18  Rhyme like 1955.

Katy Ripp 00:35:21  Yes. So if you’re not familiar with this, if you were born after 1985. Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.

Steph Moore 00:35:35  Then you have to count your jumps.

Katy Ripp 00:35:37  Yes, to hopefully get to 41, I guess. So this is the Lizzie Borden murders of 1892. This was like our mother’s favorite story. I don’t know why, but she was actually tried and acquitted for killing her parents with an axe. There’s a movie coming out. Is this right?

Steph Moore 00:35:56  Well, there’s a movie with Christina Ricci on, like, Netflix or something, and. Oh, yes, I mean, I it’s very it’s actually one of my bucket list items to go to the boarding house, but people are pretty sure it’s her. But, I mean, there’s possibilities out there too, that it wasn’t I don’t know, that’s a whole nother podcast, probably. But anyway, I’m just thinking to myself though, like the fact that girls at a Catholic school in like 1955 are jumping rope to that at Saint Bernard’s Catholic School is just intriguing, right? Like what I mean? And the pocket full of poses.

Steph Moore 00:36:27  I thought this.

Katy Ripp 00:36:28  Was a good idea. What was the other one that I saw that was?

Steph Moore 00:36:32  Well, the skin of Cat one is the one that gets me all the time.

Cory Kessenich 00:36:35  And on the same plane with skin. The cat is skin. The bunny rabbit. Yeah.

Steph Moore 00:36:40  Like, yes.

Katy Ripp 00:36:42  These are two very specific. They’re very different though. So there’s more than one way to skin a cat means there’s more than one way to do something. Yeah, but also, why are we skinning cats? Yeah. And also why is there more than one way?

Steph Moore 00:36:57  So let’s recap this all.

Katy Ripp 00:36:59  Let’s break it down.

Steph Moore 00:37:00  So let’s recap. We’ve got a serial or not a serial killer. Well, she has a serial killer, I guess she killed.

Katy Ripp 00:37:06  She kills more than one person. I think she’s a serial.

Steph Moore 00:37:08  So we’ve got a serial killer, the Black plague and mutilating animals? Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:37:14  We wonder why we have fucked up Christmas.

Cory Kessenich 00:37:18  Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:37:18  So more than one way to skin a cat.

Katy Ripp 00:37:21  The meaning of it is there’s multiple ways to achieve a goal. Okay, so I got it. Got it? What was the other one that I was looking up? Oh, so the, like, skin, the bunny rabbit. So this is the phrase that our parents used to give us when we were taking off our clothes to put our pajamas on. So, like, put your arms all the way up.

Steph Moore 00:37:42  Off so we.

Katy Ripp 00:37:43  Can take your shirt.

Cory Kessenich 00:37:44  Off. Time to skin the bunny rabbit bunny.

Steph Moore 00:37:47  No.

Katy Ripp 00:37:47  It’s just. What the.

Steph Moore 00:37:50  Yeah, it’s very messed up. I mean, I’m sure that there. Hopefully there’s other people that had that experience. I mean, Midwest people maybe, I don’t know.

Cory Kessenich 00:37:57  I mentioned that you did that to one of the like fin when he was very young. And Luke looked at you like, what are you telling our son?

Steph Moore 00:38:07  No, no, I think he knew that one. There was something that I used one time, and he looked at me and he was like, what are you even talking about? Yeah, I don’t remember which one.

Steph Moore 00:38:16  I don’t know if it was that one or not. I’ll have to ask him.

Katy Ripp 00:38:18  So. Miss Mary Mack was one of our mothers. Also one of her favorite nursery rhymes. So Miss Mary Mack. Mack Mack. I’ll just while she’s saying it, which I cannot sing it because I am tone deaf like she is. So Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack all dressed in black, black, black with silver buttons, buttons, buttons all down her back, back, back. So mom would do this, right? Do you remember she had the clapping thing, like, the big, you know, whatever.

Cory Kessenich 00:38:46  I remember her and Mimi Nelson doing it. Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:38:49  What were those things called? Like the things? Well, I know, but like. Yeah. So I don’t know what they were called, but like a patty cake where you’re clapping hands.

Steph Moore 00:38:58  We had the Big Mac one when we were like, oh.

Katy Ripp 00:39:00  Yeah, I can still do that. So Miss Mary Mack, the rhymes origins are debated, but it might have been about a morning outfit like hence.

Katy Ripp 00:39:10  Yeah. Hence all the all black for funerals. A Civil War cannon. Merrimack was a cannon in the Civil War. Like an iron black ironclad. And like, what’s the deal with her buttons? Like silver buttons all the down her back. Like, who was doing the buttoning like a straight jacket?

Steph Moore 00:39:29  Or like all those old, like, colonial dresses had, like, buttons all down the back, you know?

Katy Ripp 00:39:35  I guess. Okay. Oh, I see London, I see France.

Steph Moore 00:39:39  Oh, yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:39:40  Like how inappropriate.

Steph Moore 00:39:44  Like, yeah. That one’s just kind of classic.

Katy Ripp 00:39:46  Childhood mockery that like, really told the line of humiliation. Nothing says friendship like public shaming at recess.

Steph Moore 00:39:57  Oh, so I looked up, bite the bullet because I was like, I don’t know. I remember that one. I’m not sure that you guys heard that one as much as I. And I feel like that might have been grandpa that I heard maybe say that one more.

Cory Kessenich 00:40:08  Oh, I definitely heard myself.

Katy Ripp 00:40:10  Yeah. Just bite the bullet would be like, you know, get it up.

Steph Moore 00:40:14  Right. And it’s like during the Civil War and the Revolutionary Wars and stuff, they used to give soldiers bullets to bite on when they were cutting their legs off after they’d been shot. And I’m like, oh, wow. Oh, like, I guess I never really paid attention to what that one was. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:40:31  So do your ears hang low? Do you remember this one? Do your ears hang low? Do they?

Steph Moore 00:40:36  Oh, yeah.

Cory Kessenich 00:40:37  Yeah. We used to sing that. We used to sing that in school.

Katy Ripp 00:40:40  Yes. So some historians think this to accrued World War one soldiers song referencing anatomy. Oh, oh, Mary. Mary. Quite contrary. Yeah. You’re familiar with this one.

Steph Moore 00:40:53  I know, I mean, I don’t know any of these meanings.

Katy Ripp 00:40:56  Like you’ve heard that one, Mary Mary Berry. Yeah. Linked to the Mary, the first of England, who was also known as Bloody Mary.

Katy Ripp 00:41:05  And her reign of terror, with the garden referring to graveyards.

Steph Moore 00:41:10  Nice, Mary.

Katy Ripp 00:41:11  Mary. Quite contrary. How does your garden grow?

Cory Kessenich 00:41:16  Oh my.

Steph Moore 00:41:16  God. I mean, thank the Lord that we didn’t know what these all meant. All right. I mean, no, I’m like.

Katy Ripp 00:41:22  I know.

Steph Moore 00:41:23  One that I would we talked about this that I thought of was like, oh, I’m going to read you the riot act. And that’s like a old British thing that they used to like, read to crowds before. They would, like, massacre them. They weren’t.

Katy Ripp 00:41:37  Yeah. Like behead them, right.

Steph Moore 00:41:38  Yeah. I’m like, oh, like like, I don’t know. I mean, I guess ignorance.

Katy Ripp 00:41:45  London Bridge is falling down.

Steph Moore 00:41:47  Oh that one. I did know that. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:41:49  Some theories suggest this is about Viking raids and child sacrifice. Nice. Or rebuilding the bridge over and over again? Yeah, yeah. Oh. Rockabye baby. Like a possible nod to infant mortality.

Katy Ripp 00:42:05  Like, what the fuck? Why are we putting babies in trees? Bonnie lies over the ocean. Do you remember mom always singing this to our kids?

Steph Moore 00:42:12  Yeah, yeah.

Cory Kessenich 00:42:13  Yeah I.

Katy Ripp 00:42:14  Do. That’s about the Scottish uprising and the exile of Bonnie Prince Charlie. If you’ve been watching Outlander, you will know what we’re talking about.

Steph Moore 00:42:21  Oh, no, I don’t. I haven’t watched Outlander. Oh my God, quite like, isn’t that kind of, like, romantic and like.

Katy Ripp 00:42:29  no. Have you not.

Steph Moore 00:42:30  Got, like, a lifetime movie?

Katy Ripp 00:42:32  Oh my Outlander.

Steph Moore 00:42:33  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:42:34  Oh my God, no. It’s like somewhere between Braveheart and 50 Shades of Grey. 001 hundred, like in movie form. And Jamie Fraser is possibly the most beautiful man on earth.

Steph Moore 00:42:50  Oh, well. Goodness, I have to watch.

Katy Ripp 00:42:51  Have you never. You’ve never seen it, Oh, my God, you watch it right now.

Steph Moore 00:42:57  Okay.

Katy Ripp 00:42:58  Yeah. So that’s all I got for sayings, really.

Steph Moore 00:43:01  I mean, I know we want to keep it light, but do we want to talk anymore about, like, holidays and like the kind of what it took to, like, as funny as the emotional outbursts are, it’s funny to laugh about now.

Steph Moore 00:43:14  Like, you know it, that all roots from stress and like or for me trauma. You know like. Yeah it roots from like stressful holidays when I was a kid and things being stressful. So therefore like you’re kind of set up to fail in a sense. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:43:31  Well it’s really just like managing expectations at this point to me.

Steph Moore 00:43:35  Well, and I think to that it’s like everybody wants it’s kind of like the cycle of like you keep trying it because you want it to be better. You want it to be fun and you want it. And so you keep trying to do it and then it just kind of always ends the same. And really, until we all kind of checked our own egos and figured out that.

Katy Ripp 00:43:53  Well, ultimately we could do it differently.

Steph Moore 00:43:55  Well, right. There was just a different way to do it, like it wasn’t. You know, we realized that if we all just kind of let down our guards and just didn’t worry about, I don’t know, pleasing anybody.

Steph Moore 00:44:05  And then yeah, obviously take the entire element of alcohol out of it and it just the stress goes away because you’re not waiting for anybody to lose their shit, which.

Katy Ripp 00:44:14  We’ve all done. Right?

Steph Moore 00:44:16  And I mean, I can be very blatant. Like, I mean, I probably went in drinking hard at holidays because it was just I was uncomfortable, right? Like I didn’t know it was 100% so. But then it creates like it just it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy, you.

Katy Ripp 00:44:30  Know, for a fire that and I think in one way or another, we all came to that conclusion on our own, which also helps. Right? Like it wasn’t prescribed to us. It was. Well, I mean, in my own personal experience, I just stopped trying to fit into a like, quote unquote Instagram mold where, like, all these holidays look picture perfect or a Pinterest holiday, right? Like, I don’t like to cook. I mean, when I was cooking, you know, I was drinking all morning.

Katy Ripp 00:44:59  So by the time everything was burned at 4:00 and nobody got to eat. You know, not only were all of us drunk, but we were also starving and hungry because, you know, I wasn’t. I remember the last Christmas I hosted at my house. I loved the idea of having a, like, Christmas open house, and people could come and go. And it was like, amazing. Except that I was so nervous and so, like, I had so much anxiety around it that by the time anybody got there, I was half in the bag. Yeah. And then it just like my behavior was inappropriate or unwelcoming and then it would just like ramp everybody up. And by the end of it I’d go to bed or rather wake up the next morning with a huge shame over and be like, was this even fucking worth it? Yeah. And it got to a point that it wasn’t worth it. It just like was not worth it. And do I miss at all? Absolutely not.

Katy Ripp 00:45:51  I do not miss people like puking in the bathroom, pass out on the couch, or puking and rallying, which plenty of people did. you know, we’re talking about, like, adults here? Not like, you know, 18 year olds.

Steph Moore 00:46:03  Yeah, I don’t I mean, I don’t remember that Christmas being like that. Maybe we laughed before that.

Katy Ripp 00:46:07  Yeah. I mean, one of them was I think Cory probably remembers that one. It wasn’t. It was the okay. It was the last one. It was the.

Steph Moore 00:46:14  Last person I.

Katy Ripp 00:46:15  Had at my house.

Steph Moore 00:46:16  By then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Regardless though, I mean, I think that there’s probably a lot of people out there that there is a catch 22 with holidays and families and the stress of it. And I think everybody I think probably the biggest lesson that I’ve learned about people in general is that everybody does do the best with what they know and what they’ve got. Yeah, I used to hate that saying. So there’s another cliche cliche that actually, I mean, I didn’t hear that growing up.

Steph Moore 00:46:40  That was just something that I like. I just hated hearing that because I’m like, no, do better, do better. But it’s true. Like, you don’t know what you don’t know. And I didn’t know for a long time that like I was and I kind of I think the word triggered gets overused because I think that there’s yeah, there’s a place for it. But anyway, for lack of a better term, I didn’t realize that my stress for holidays would probably start like in the morning before I even left for the place that I was going, and I was like, I was excited to go, but I was excited about what I wanted it to be, not about the reality of what it was. And so I think that once I figured out in life for myself that like, there is a difference between what you want things to be, your expectations and then the way that they really are. And when you start being really honest about that with yourself and then how you contribute to that, then everything changes.

Steph Moore 00:47:27  Everything changes when it’s not, oh, my sister stresses me out, or my mom stresses me out, or my brother stresses me out. I mean, I get like the whole, well, you’re allowing them to stress you out. That’s true. There’s a gray area there because it takes time to really process, understand and then behave in a way that like it just takes time to learn how to not let people affect your feelings. And maybe they are going to affect your feelings, but then to also take a breath and not react but respond to it. So like there’s just like a whole I mean, I guess if you have, after what I’ve learned through all of this, if you have a stressful time at holidays, I would suggest like getting up in the morning before you go somewhere and like take a walk by yourself or go journal or do something where you’re like, okay, what are my expectations for the day? And then look back on the previous holidays and say, what are the what’s the reality? Probably of it, right? Like, what’s the reality of how this is maybe going to go down today and then set some boundaries for yourself.

Steph Moore 00:48:29  So like if you can’t necessarily like I mean there’s a boundary of course, where you can say, I’m not going, I’m not going to show up and.

Katy Ripp 00:48:35  Go for sure.

Steph Moore 00:48:36  But I mean, I don’t know if that’s necessarily always dealing with it either. Like maybe that. I mean, it’s like, and I do that too, or I’m just like, okay, well, if I’m not comfortable with a place, I’m just not going to go, well, that’s true, but why aren’t you comfortable? Are you comfortable? Uncomfortable because of maybe the way Somebody might, you know, because there’s families out there that I mean, we joke about, like the bullying type thing, but there are some families out there that there’s some genuine I’ve heard some stories. There is some genuine bullying going on. I mean, to the point where we’re like, I mean, it’s terrible. I’ve seen it happen, right? Visiting other families or whatever for holidays, and maybe that isn’t a place that you should be.

Steph Moore 00:49:17  So maybe you say no or set yourself up so you’re just not even around the person that’s doing it. Or if it starts to happen, have something ready to say or go on a walk or whatever it is. I don’t know, but I mean, I think that we can only control what we can control. So, yeah, you can control, you know, how you respond to someone at your or not respond at all.

Katy Ripp 00:49:39  Yeah, yeah. What you say too is like taking accountability for your place in it. Right? Which it took me years to get there. Not only holidays but lots of situations I was in was never my fault. Yeah.

Cory Kessenich 00:49:51  One thing that’s, you know, works for me, I think really well is just setting. I mean, in my case, I’ve always had multiple events to go to in a single day or over a couple days, and I really like putting a deadline or a say, hey, we just we’re leaving it this time. And oftentimes you’d be able to time that when you knew certain families would start to have problems that might be around that 3 or 4:00 magic hour, right, where the lack of food plus copious amounts of alcohol start to kick in.

Cory Kessenich 00:50:22  It’s like, oh, well, guys, we’re on to the next Christmas. And sometimes that next Christmas didn’t exist. Sometimes that next Christmas was just going home and getting back to your own place and your own space. That’s been really helpful for me. And luckily, as time has gone on, I’ve had to use that less and less because have evolved, I think, and.

Katy Ripp 00:50:45  Well, and you’ve evolved so that you just don’t feel like you have to apologize, right? Like I don’t have to make an excuse. I’m just leaving. This comes from also a place of like giving yourself permission to have a new tradition. Dale’s family comes from a very, like, deeply traditional family, and we do not write like I think we tried with tradition, and I think in our parents defence for years, they tried to create their own tradition because they didn’t come from great ones. But that was sort of a farce a little bit too, for a while. That’s not again, like they were doing the best they could with what they had, and I get that.

Katy Ripp 00:51:21  But giving yourself permission to have your own traditions, like we don’t go anywhere for Thanksgiving. We’ve come to Colorado a few times for Thanksgiving, but when we don’t do that, our tradition is to do nothing. Our tradition is like the four of us as a family kind of. Everybody gets to do what they want. We watch football together, we have appetizers, we don’t make a big meal. You know, it’s just two. Or we do pizzas on the grill or something very like nontraditional. I mean, all of us are so sick of ham and turkey, I could puke. I’ve had 40 years of ham and turkey and I’m done. but except Will’s like, I would eat Will’s stuff, but part of that is just giving yourself and your family permission to create a new tradition. You do not have to do the things that your parents did or the things that your grandparents did. We are in like, new generations. You get to do the things you want to do and just like stuff you said, like we stopped traveling for Christmas because we were going to 50 different places and everybody was exhausted and crabby and kind of like Christmas spirit.

Katy Ripp 00:52:21  Is that so? At one point or another, you have to, like, give yourself permission to be like, hey, we’re not coming. Like we’re going to do this ourselves. Or this year we’re traveling for the first time over the holidays. That’s tough for some people that have like specific traditions, and it’s actually Dales family that we’re going with. And so that has typically been the traditional we spend Christmas Eve together. We all exchange names. You know, everybody’s got a stocking and a we have ham and turkey and that kind of thing. And so for them to even consider doing something different. We’re traveling over Christmas, but they’re coming a little bit later. But even that chunk of time in between Christmas and New Year’s, that’s really been typically saved for other Christmases, extended family Christmases, right? Like going to the hall or whatever it is, and giving yourself and your families and your own family permission to do something different is, I think, so powerful and empowering that you also let other people do that, too.

Katy Ripp 00:53:25  When you start to open up the idea or inspire someone like, hey, we can do this differently. Like if they can do it that way, why can’t I do it that way? It just makes everything just a little bit more pleasant to have. Like maybe even like lowering. Maybe it’s not lowering the expectations, but having really like realistic expectations, just like you said, stuff like really knowing what’s actually going to happen versus like what’s going on inside your head and like what you want to happen or what you’ve been told should happen. That, to me, just makes this whole month so much easier. I mean.

Steph Moore 00:54:01  I think that that’s an especially as kids, you do all this thing, you get up in the morning, you open presents, you go to church, you go to my aunts, uncles or whatever. And it’s like you get set up every year to make it this big, exciting thing. And sometimes in our case, it would end with a very stressful argument or whatever.

Steph Moore 00:54:19  And so you get very confused as a kid because you’re like, the expectation is there. And I mean, that carried through to an adulthood for us because we were like, we kept doing the same thing, right? We kept doing the same, like, oh yeah, we get together and party all afternoon on Christmas. And I’m not saying that that’s wrong by any means. I know I couldn’t handle it because the stress.

Katy Ripp 00:54:41  Of, I mean, our family just was not equipped to handle it. Like we didn’t have the skills to do that.

Steph Moore 00:54:47  Unfortunately just ended, you know, just ended with everybody angry. And I mean, they say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and it’s like you keep walking in trying to do the same thing where everybody starts drinking at noon, and then by 5:00, everybody’s mad at each other and somebody says something that pisses somebody else off, and then they’re mad all night and whatever. And it’s like, you keep trying.

Steph Moore 00:55:08  It’s like, why do you keep trying to do it that way? I mean, we did for years, I mean, for decades. And yeah, I think once we figured out that it’s like, hey, it doesn’t have to be that way. Like, you don’t have to do it that way. If your family can go and and get together and do all of that and everybody has a blast, go for it. That’s awesome. More power to you. Our family could not, for whatever reason, we just were not well in individually.

Katy Ripp 00:55:31  We all took responsibility that we couldn’t do that anymore.

Steph Moore 00:55:34  Well that’s true, that’s true. You’re right. I mean.

Katy Ripp 00:55:36  We all took responsibilities, right? Separately and individually. That allowed us to take responsibility for our part in it, which has allowed us to me to come back together and be like, oh, these are the holidays that we’ve always really wanted, that we never really got. And it’s partly because none of us drink anymore, right? I mean, like, we don’t drink like we used to, right? Certainly I don’t drink at all, but like.

Katy Ripp 00:56:01  And I thought it was everybody else’s issue.

Steph Moore 00:56:04  Right. That’s that’s what I mean, is that just being accountable for like, what you know, am I and even if it’s not even saying it’s a drinking thing, like, yeah, even if it’s do you go in and get offended by something someone says to you and then carry that with you throughout the day? Right, because that’s on you for.

Katy Ripp 00:56:22  The year.

Steph Moore 00:56:23  Or you’re right. Right. But I mean, that is your like if that is the case, then be super honest with yourself and say, when I walk in and uncle Bob starts telling me that I’ve gained £40 and I, you know, whatever, because people do that, right? Like, I mean, I’ve heard it happen. If that happens, do I let that if I allow that to ruin the rest of my day, then, Maybe this year you don’t go. Maybe this year it is. Yeah. Something that you just can’t. Or maybe you try to find out when uncle Bob is going to be there, and just try to make sure that you’re only there for an overlap of ten minutes when he’s there.

Katy Ripp 00:56:57  And that’s exactly when you stepped out. That’s exactly what Cory said. It’s like, yeah, be very intentional about the times that you’re around. You have control over your time. So if you know that uncle Bob is coming, who’s Bob?

Steph Moore 00:57:10  But I don’t know.

Katy Ripp 00:57:12  If you know that uncle Bob is coming and he’s going to call you a fat ass. Maybe we don’t go when uncle Bob is there or right when I’m Uncle Bob walks in the door.

Steph Moore 00:57:22  Or we get really honest with ourselves and we say, yeah, I’m going to look at uncle Bob and just pretty much consider the source, and maybe he needs to take care of himself or whatever it is, I don’t know, whatever you need.

Katy Ripp 00:57:31  Whatever. Right. But yeah.

Steph Moore 00:57:33  Point being, point being.

Katy Ripp 00:57:34  Here’s the other thing is you have a choice. You have a choice on how you deal with it. If you decide you don’t want to go, that you’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t mean you’re avoiding anything it doesn’t like.

Katy Ripp 00:57:45  That’s just how you’re going to deal with it, and you’re going to take responsibility for dealing with it that way, that you’re maybe next year you’ve grown a little bit and you’ve done some work and and.

Steph Moore 00:57:53  You can handle an hour and you can.

Katy Ripp 00:57:55  Handle it and be like, fuck you, uncle Bob. You know, like have another drink or, you know, whatever.

Steph Moore 00:58:00  This.

Katy Ripp 00:58:00  Is, say, or whatever.

Steph Moore 00:58:02  There’s a space between reacting all the time to whatever somebody is doing, and then you have to learn how to manage it to get to a point where you respond, right. There’s space between reacting and then learning how to respond. Most of the time. The first step in that is just taking a breath and not doing anything. You just don’t do anything. You just don’t respond. And maybe again this year it’s not going to Christmas or not going to New Year’s or whatever day it is, which is a.

Katy Ripp 00:58:29  Really big deal for a lot of.

Steph Moore 00:58:31  People. It is.

Steph Moore 00:58:32  I mean, I did it like I still I mean, what’s funny and you kind of mentioned you kind of led into this before, but what’s interesting is that the more you learn yourself and the more that you open up the honesty around yourself and, putting up your boundaries. The more flexible you become. It’s just like I am a huge proponent of strict discipline in the sense of doing things that are hard. So this does not mean you have to work out for an hour and a half every single day. No, but if your standard is, I’ve got to move every day. Just do something. Whether it’s walk, yoga, just do something. The days that you don’t want to do it or the days you have to do it, you have to make that rule for yourself. And the more that you make that rule, and the more you practice that, the more you beat adversity and you beat your own mind and you do the hard things, the more freedom you have, because you are so much more confident and so much more capable of handling hard things when they come your way.

Steph Moore 00:59:35  And we don’t practice that enough. We don’t practice adversity. I mean, maybe because of, you know, like throwing our kid brother down the stairs in a suitcase and leaving in there. I mean, he’s he’s fine.

Katy Ripp 00:59:48  He’s got plenty of adversity. You should actually be thanking us, Cory.

Steph Moore 00:59:53  I mean, I’m not sure he’s going to go caving anytime soon, but actually, I saw I was gonna I was so tempted to send you, like, an Instagram video last night, but it had a snake and it was so funny. But I was like, oh my God, she won’t sleep all night if I send this to her. And it was super mad. It was this guy that was like and the thing was like, no good. Clearly like, my phone must have tracked that I was looking up cliches because the Instagram thing was this guy, no good deed goes unpunished. And he grabbed this water snake and taught like threw it out of the way from all the people. But then it landed on all these kayakers.

Steph Moore 01:00:28  It was so funny. It was so funny. I just like, oh, I can’t stutter that show.

Katy Ripp 01:00:34  No thank you. See how far we’ve come? Five years ago you would have sent me 20 different.

Steph Moore 01:00:39  I probably would have intentionally look them up to send them to you.

Katy Ripp 01:00:42  Yeah, your whole feed would have been what.

Steph Moore 01:00:44  Is it about? Like wanting to get under your sibling skin? What? Like what is that? These are the people that you’re like.

Katy Ripp 01:00:49  We’re pretty good about it now, but no.

Steph Moore 01:00:51  I know, but I mean, like, what is that like my I watch my kids, like, why do they always pick at each other ultimately when, you know, this is back from kind of my teaching days. But anytime you try to like make someone else feel uncomfortable or out of sorts or whatever is a like a on the spectrum of bullying, right? It’s really about gaining control over someone else’s emotions. Yeah. Just real.

Katy Ripp 01:01:13  And it also tends to be a mirror.

Steph Moore 01:01:15  Well, well, right. I mean like and it usually comes from immaturity. Like emotional immaturity. Yeah. And it comes from feeling very out of control in your own sense. Right. Because like the only reason we try to control someone else is because we don’t like, we’re afraid that we can’t handle what’s going to come out of this situation. Right? Which is again, why if you tackle adversity a little bit every day, when real adversity comes, it’s not this big surprise where you completely lose your shit and you don’t know how to handle anything. So, I mean, bullying is ultimately just a way to make someone else feel bad or uncomfortable, and then you have control over their emotions, right? Like you’re just trying to get over and it’s ultimately just a game. It’s a game that kids play. So when you see when you walk in and uncle Bob is that’s what I meant. Like considering the source when you walk in and uncle Bob has to say something about your appearance, I mean, let’s look at uncle Bob in his life and be like, do I really want to let that affect the way I feel?

Katy Ripp 01:02:17  Oh, that’s so true.

Katy Ripp 01:02:18  Like, considering.

Steph Moore 01:02:19  That Bob is probably four whiskeys deep and maybe not so healthy himself or whatever, I don’t. I mean, I don’t use that example because that just seems to be like, I know there’s a lot of people that and it’s probably because I’m in the wellness industry that like, that’s what people talk about to the holidays. is there. Like, I just hate going to whatever because every time I gain weight, my grandpa, you know, bring up that I’ve gained weight or whatever, and I. So that’s just what I hear a lot. I’m sure I’m just referring to that because it’s what I know. But yeah.

Katy Ripp 01:02:47  Well, I’m poor Bob. We don’t know who Bob is. If your name is Bob and you’re listening, we’re sorry if you’re an uncle, I.

Steph Moore 01:02:53  Know, Bob, I don’t know.

Cory Kessenich 01:02:54  And take care of yourself. You might be overweight.

Steph Moore 01:02:58  Sorry.

Katy Ripp 01:02:58  What’s your, you know, being divorced this year for the. Well, I mean, you’ve been separated for a couple of years, but being divorced, like, how is your Christmas going to look this year? What does that look like for you?

Cory Kessenich 01:03:10  Well, to be honest, we’re still working it out.

Cory Kessenich 01:03:13  And. Okay, it likely will be a split of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day usually. I think this year the boys will probably be with me on Christmas Eve until 10 a.m. on Christmas Day. So it gives us an opportunity to open presents and have a Christmas morning. And then they.

Katy Ripp 01:03:29  Will. Oh, so you you kind of get both then.

Cory Kessenich 01:03:32  Yeah. Okay. Christmas Eve is it’s nice. It’s a little less stressful because there’s less going on and there’s less pressure to do anything. I feel like on Christmas Eve, well.

Katy Ripp 01:03:42  Right, because our parents are gone, like they’re not here. So we don’t spend Christmas Eve together generally, and we generally go to sales moms. So Christmas Eve is really not spent to get you and I together anyway. And stuff’s gone. And now you don’t have a in-laws to go to. So it really is just you, right? And the boys and Julia. Yeah.

Cory Kessenich 01:04:03  Yeah. My girlfriend will join us on Christmas Eve, if that’s what it ends up being.

Cory Kessenich 01:04:08  If I end up with the boys on Christmas Day, we’re going to go to her house for a little while. And her brother and sister and her mom. But I will also put a deadline on that. Right? Just because I want the boys to also have some time at home, just kind of have a day off. We’re a very scheduled family. Both my boys are involved in sports and we’re always on the run, so that home time is valuable for us. Yeah, you know, I’ve noticed that there is a real coming together between those two. We talk a little bit. I mean, they fight like cats and dogs. They are about four and a half years apart, and the age gap does not prevent any type of adversity between the two or strife between the two. So but what I have noticed over these last couple of years, like Steph said through the divorce, is they really have become a team and they really do have more of those tender moments than I ever noticed before.

Cory Kessenich 01:05:05  Could be because my radar’s up more, or it could be because they just they’re the ones that are having to go between two households, and they are different households when they go.

Katy Ripp 01:05:16  Yes. And also, I think take some credit for this because you’ve also created a stable household.

Cory Kessenich 01:05:21  Yeah. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 01:05:23  Right. Like they.

Cory Kessenich 01:05:24  Have. And I think.

Katy Ripp 01:05:25  Safety in I that’s the other thing is well and maybe I’m going to put my like insert my foot into my mouth right now. But like I’ve heard along the lines, which this could be something that people just say that when your kids bicker or they’re shitty at home, it’s because you have a safe household and they can be that way at home. But when they go out in public, they’re actually, you know, like fine humans. And you hear that from teachers and shit all the time. I don’t know what that says about my own household. If my kids aren’t fighting, it might mean that they are very scared.

Cory Kessenich 01:06:01  I don’t think it’s that I really know.

Katy Ripp 01:06:04  But I think that there’s something really, actually kind of important in saying that, that when you provide a stable household, kids do have the freedom to push the boundaries and test the waters a little bit on what’s appropriate, what’s not appropriate, and that kind of thing. And the environment that you’ve created, Cory, is they will sort of come together because they have to I mean, I would imagine that your kids would never go to the other parents without the other one. Especially for a holiday. Right? Like, yeah.

Cory Kessenich 01:06:35  For a holiday. No, I mean, there certainly are situations. I mean, well, they.

Katy Ripp 01:06:39  Have to, right?

Cory Kessenich 01:06:40  But I know enough.

Katy Ripp 01:06:42  Dominic is very to me is very protective of Mason.

Cory Kessenich 01:06:46  He is. He’s the oldest. He’s protective. Yeah. I mean, we can just put a period at the end of that for sure.

Steph Moore 01:06:53  Yeah. And I think that that comes too with like the bigger age gap because I would say that I mean, Cory, you and I are eight and a half years apart, and I was pretty protective of you because I think what happens when there’s a great big age gap is that as the older one, you realize how little and fragile a baby or, you know, because you’re you remember when someone was a baby, right? And you just remember when they were so little.

Steph Moore 01:07:17  And then on top of it, I think to anytime you’re going through an emotional, you know, a divorce like kids, just the older one just naturally in the house because like for when mom and dad got divorced, Katie was really the oldest because I was away at college. I was gone, so she kind of had to take over that role in a sense.

Katy Ripp 01:07:37  Yeah, but I’m done now, so.

Steph Moore 01:07:40  Yeah, right. You’re on your own now.

Katy Ripp 01:07:42  Just so we’re clear.

Steph Moore 01:07:44  For you, don’t you? Anything by that? No.

Katy Ripp 01:07:48  And you are on your own. You hit 40, we got you a trip. You’re on your own.

Steph Moore 01:07:52  Yeah. You’re good. We’re turning you loose. I don’t know, I mean, I’ve heard a lot of. I mean, there’s a lot of different things that kids. It’s true, Katie, that they say that, like, they’ll let loose. But I’ve heard that more in regard to their own emotional. Like if they come home from school and they hold their shit together all day at school when they had a really bad day, and they come home and they’re just crabby and they’re angry and they’re like, I don’t know that that necessarily has to do with the relationship between siblings.

Steph Moore 01:08:19  I’ve heard it more and oh yeah, two, they keep it together at school because it’s like, you know, they have to, but then they get home and if they had a really bad day, they might just completely melt down and they might lose it. And they’re not trying to be an asshole. They just.

Katy Ripp 01:08:31  Yeah, well, and it manifests in lots of different ways, right? Like. Right. Right. As adults, you’d think that when we have bad days, we would like emotionally, intelligently process that. I think I come home and, you know, I’m a dick too. But yeah, I mean, just the way it manifests, I think it’s different for all kids, but that’s a different story to about. We expect these kids to keep their shit together for eight hours a day and not have room or space to feel. And then again, this is the same thing again. If we’re talking about holidays and stuff too, we expect these kids to also, when they’re little, leave toys behind that they just fucking opened so they can go to church and then go to Aunt Carol’s and then, you know, watch that whole shit show and up and then come back and it’s a shit show.

Katy Ripp 01:09:23  And then the toy is, you know, lost its shine already.

Steph Moore 01:09:28  You guys probably don’t remember this. We had Christmas at Aunt Mary’s one time, and I think I have a cousin that’s like a year older than me. But we were in the same grade and whatever. So anyway, she got a Barbie doll. We were probably glad, I don’t know, we were probably like seven, 6 or 7. Maybe she got a Barbie doll and I got something. Whatever. It was not a Barbie doll. Oh my god. Like, talk about lose. Like. I mean, yes, there is a lot of stress that comes with that. And I felt like looking back at it like I feel bad about it because whoever got me might. Because we always traded names, I think. And you ever got me, I was probably just terrible about it. But like, there is just so much. So it’s like even for kids, the stress, like it’s probably not as pre-holiday, right? It’s not like they wake up in the morning and they start thinking about it because kids just don’t have that attention span.

Steph Moore 01:10:18  But, I mean, they may come home and there might be like some stress from all of that. And it’s like, I’m not pointing that out to say that. Like, you have to try to manage that ahead of time. That’s not the case. Don’t start calling people and telling them like, we need to make sure we match up gifts and all that, because some of that is good for kids. It is good for kids to learn. And but your kid might throw a tantrum and you might have to like that might just be part of what they do. Maybe you take them into another room and you try to help calm them down. You give them some time, you give them whatever it is.

Katy Ripp 01:10:46  You make them bite a bullet by.

Steph Moore 01:10:49  Right or tell them, hey, there are more ways to skin a cat. Maybe you’ll get a different gift tomorrow.

Katy Ripp 01:10:56  This year, I’m not bringing green bean casserole. I’m bringing the bullet for kids to bite.

Steph Moore 01:11:03  Seriously…

Katy Ripp 01:11:05  Okay, I know everybody’s got, like, a day to get on to, but thanks for coming on.

Steph Moore 01:11:10  Yeah, I know

Cory Kessenich 01:11:11  Thanks for having us. It was exciting. All right. Bye.

Katy Ripp 01:11:16  And that’s a wrap on today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed diving deep into the world of living authentically with me. Before you go, don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram. Shoot me a message at Katy Ripp. I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode and connect with you further. And remember, if you want more details on today’s episode or just want to explore more about designing your life unapologetically, head on over to my website at Katy Ripp dot com. There you’ll find all the juicy details and resources you need to keep the inspiration flowing. Lastly, if you’d like to join me on the show, whether it’s to tell about your experience of designing your own life, to share your expertise, or if you’d like to participate in lifestyle coaching live on air, don’t hesitate to reach out. Your story could inspire countless others on their own path to living authentically. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep living boldly designing your life.

Katy Ripp 01:12:05  And remember #ActuallyICan.