Mini-Ep 473: Holiday Traditions and Gift Giving
Doree and Elise answer listener questions about their holiday traditions and what they’re gift giving. Plus, they get advice for the caller worried about officiating a friend’s wedding, and hear a listener’s reflections on the meaning of happiness.
Mentioned in this Episode
Eucerin for eczema
Cerave for eczema
Aquafor
Home Alone
Love, Actually
Charlie Brown Christmas
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Elf
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Transcript
This episode transcript is AI generated.
Doree Shafrir (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise Hu (00:17):
And I'm Elise Hu, and we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Doree Shafrir (00:21):
And this is a mini episode where we hear from you, we share your comments and your thoughts, and we answer your questions to the best of our ability. But please remember, we are not experts. We're podcast hosts, and we always encourage you to seek support first and foremost from a medical and/or mental health professional as needed.
Elise Hu (00:39):
I have something serum adjacent to talk about. Great. I have a few things that I want to talk about because my friend Lucy, she comes back from Korea and she mules me K-Beauty products, especially now with the tariffs. They negotiated, the Trump administration negotiated down the original 25% tariff on Korea and Korean products that they had set, which AI wrote or something. I think Grock wrote it or something, but it's now down to 15%, but so still K-Beauty products are tariff. But irrespective of tariffs, my friend Lucy would bring back stuff that I might like, usually sunscreens and these crayon highlighters. Not highlighters for my face, but just actual highlighters for paper and books because they make great highlighters in Korea, totally unrelated. But she brought back recently. Everybody has the Lenege lip sleeping masks. They sell one unit of these every three seconds. The lip sleeping mask is like what really had Linege take off in the US.
(01:40)
But there's a new thing that doesn't get the gunk on your fingers that I guess it seems like similar to the Linege sleeping mask formulation. And it's called glaze craze. And it's in like a little tube with a donut top. It's very cute.
Doree Shafrir (01:58):
That is very cute. Ooh,
Elise Hu (02:00):
Okay. Yeah. It's a donut shaped top and it goes on really smooth on your lips and then you never have to put the sticky stuff on your fingers because it's an applicator. Mine is cinnamon sugar, but it's called glazed creams really crazy. Oh, it is a serum, technically a serum because it's called Glaze Cray's tinted lip serum. And I pulled it out fresh from Korea to use and put it in my purse and Isabel who is very into makeup. She doesn't really wear makeup. She's very into it. She watches makeup application. She was like, "Oh my God, is that the new Lines donut thing?" Oh my God. So she already knew what it was. She already knew. And I was like, oh, the
Doree Shafrir (02:47):
Donut- So funny.
Elise Hu (02:48):
Remember that night we were going to go to the milk makeup party? Which we did. We did go. The night that we did go to the movie. She was like, "Oh, be sure to get me the cooling water jelly thing."
Doree Shafrir (02:58):
Stop.
Elise Hu (02:59):
Yeah. She knew exactly what was their big product, the hot thing. And then we actually saw it in the claw machine because remember you had to go into the claw machine to actually get the cooling water jelly tint and Rob won us some. Very handy having a claw machine expert with us.
Doree Shafrir (03:18):
Who knew? Did you know Rob was a claw machine expert?
Elise Hu (03:21):
I actually, he's surprisingly good at carnival games and like- Interesting. Beer pong flip cup just crushes in them. And so I never want ... I mean, he's very low key about it. He's like stone cold. He just walks up on a ping pong table or whatever's being used at a- He's got a
Doree Shafrir (03:44):
Plan.
Elise Hu (03:45):
Yeah. And he's just quiet and then he just murders us all. So yeah, I was not surprised. I was not surprised he was able to procure the claw machine cooling water jelly tit. But the point is that Issa is up on the cool stuff. But the other thing I wanted to just shout out, this is not sponsored content. I just wanted to talk about some things I'm excited about.
Doree Shafrir (04:07):
Love it.
Elise Hu (04:07):
Before we get
Doree Shafrir (04:08):
Into
Elise Hu (04:09):
Audience questions. So is it OC? Oce? The Malibu company that's near
Doree Shafrir (04:14):
Us? Oh yes. I think it's OC.
Elise Hu (04:17):
OC. They have this giant gift set that a lot of folks, a lot of my mom friends have told me about that they're really excited about. Oh, interesting. It's the Andaria algae body wash and body oil and body butter. I'm mostly interested in body oil. I use a lot of body oils and hair oils during this time of year where it's cold and everything feels a little bit dry and you need to turn the humidifier on. So I'm really excited about the body oil part of this. But they're doing these gift sets and they're selling them for like 98 bucks. But I'll bet after the holidays there's going to be some around that maybe are at a lower price point. That is a good thing. Or you could just get them separately. Yeah. Could get them separately too. All right. I'm excited about those. Are you doing any sort of winterizing?
(05:07)
Do you have any winterizing things that you do just for this time of year or products that you add?
Doree Shafrir (05:15):
It's interesting because when we were in Boston over Thanksgiving, I was reminded of winterization of your products because when I lived in a colder climate, there's like two things that you have to keep in mind. One is that it's cold and there's wind and your skin gets capped and your lips get chopped and your hands are dry. But the other is that, especially when I lived in New York, like sometimes I lived in apartments where I couldn't control the heat and they were often very hot. And so something about the radiator heat my skin also didn't like. So you were either like really cold or really hot. And my son came home, my son has my skin and my son came home from Boston with like some eczema on his back that he hadn't had in a long time. So yeah, I was kind of reminded of winterization of skincare products.
Elise Hu (06:22):
Yeah. For eczema, are y'all okay with the various drugstore products for eczema? Issa gets it as well. Issa gets eczema every once in a while. Anytime we come back from Palm Springs, she gets it and then she gets that stuff around her lips, like where it looks like kind of a ring outside of her lips. I can't remember the condition, but we just use like Eucerin or CeraVe products that are supposed to be for eczema. And that usually is fine, but I don't know if you've gotten more hardcore.
Doree Shafrir (06:51):
So usually some Aquaphor will do the trail. Yeah. There have been a couple times where it's been like pretty bad and hasn't gone away with just Aquaphor. And then I will go to the doctor and get him like, there was like a steroid oil that I used on him for a while. I mean, you're not ... The thing with steroid creams and oils, like you're really not supposed to use them for that long. So I would like use them until it cleared up, which usually was like a couple of weeks and then stop. Got it. And some people have like actual bad reactions to steroid creams and stuff. Henry doesn't, they work on him. So yeah, but there's also like cortisone. If it's really itchy, you can put some cortisone on it. But yeah, I mean, I feel like my experience with eczema has like waxed and waned over the years.
(07:52)
Sometimes it flares up and sometimes it doesn't. But there's definitely a lot more products out there now. For
Elise Hu (07:59):
Sure. For sure. Mine's so environmental. It just like, if I'm in a city that happens to be super dry in desert, like Beijing is super dry and I kind of forget about it because it's like, "Ooh, Beijing." But it's basically in the desert and then there's all this environmental pollution as well. It's much better now, but it's so dry. And so anytime I went there and got back, I would have some flare ups. And then the desert here, like Palm Springs will go on vacation or do like a weekend in Palm Springs and then come back and everybody's itchy or ashy.
Doree Shafrir (08:28):
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Vegas.
Elise Hu (08:32):
Vegas
Doree Shafrir (08:32):
Is very dry.
Elise Hu (08:33):
I'm like scratching now, just thinking about it.
Doree Shafrir (08:36):
Yeah, just thinking about it.
Elise Hu (08:37):
I'm so itchy.
Doree Shafrir (08:38):
Yeah. Elise, we should tell people about what we did last week for our casual chat for our Patreon supporters. We did a live on camera, casual chat. We had some technical difficulties in the beginning, but we overcame them and- You
Elise Hu (08:57):
Sure did.
Doree Shafrir (08:57):
And managed to do it. We had a nice group of people there. The chat was bumping. People were asking us questions. It was super fun. And so we've decided that after the holidays, we are going to do our casual chats on video. We're not always going to do them live, but we will like with people there, but we will do them on video and we will post them on our Patreon. So if you're a Patreon supporter, that is like a nice, fun, extra bonus you get is us on video and we will do some more occasional live casual chats as well. So you can join us on our Patreon at patreon.com/forever35. Our once a year sale is still going on. It's 20% off until Friday night. So if you have been thinking about joining our Patreon, now is the time. This will not be on sale again until next year.
(09:52)
And then also, this is our last new mini app of the year. We are taking some time on holidays. Yeah, programming note. We're taking some time off for the holidays. So this is our last new Mini App of the year.
Elise Hu (10:05):
We will be back on Monday, of course, with another fresh episode. This is just the last mini app, last Wednesday episode of 2025 that we are freshly recording. We love y'all and it's been such a fun and fruitful year here on the show and stick with us into the new year.
Doree Shafrir (10:21):
All right. Before we take a break, please do call or text us at 781-591-0390. Email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. Our website is also Forever35podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mentioned on the show. Our Instagram is @Forever35Podcast. Our newsletter is now on our Patreon at patreon.com/forever35. You can join the Patreon as a free member and get the newsletter, which is fun. And you can shop our favorite products at shopmy.us/forever35. We have a shelf for our gift guide. We have a shelf for recommendations for tweens. There's all kinds of fun stuff on there. All right. And then after the break, we have some questions that people in our Patreon posted for us to get to in our casual chat, but we ran out of time because we had so many other things to talk about. So we're going to get to them in this episode. So there'll be a little holiday discussion after the break.
(11:17)
So we'll be right back. We'll be right back. All right. We are back. Elise, do you want to read this first question?
Elise Hu (11:31):
Sure. How do you go about purchasing gifts? I always want to be an advanced planner, but find myself running around like crazy in December, trying to pull it all together. I feel you, girl. I also run around like crazy in December. Actually, now I just do a lot of online shopping.
(11:51)
I know that that's questionable ethically, given all of the packaging and the climate footprint, but this year I actually feel like I kind of got ahead because I wanted to take advantage of Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday deals, which tend to be pretty good. Or I actually did a little searching to figure out the better Cyber Monday or Black Friday deals that were available out there. So for things like headphones, I had a daughter who wanted headphones for travel and devices, like gadgetry type things. I went ahead and ordered those. And then anything that was personalized, like I wanted to get any framed photos or anything monogrammed. I'm a Texan, so we get monogrammed things. I needed to have some lead time for that, so we did that. The other thing that I think has streamlined the process for us is I've asked each girl to just make a list, either on a Google Doc or make an Amazon wishlist, but just have a list and then that way we can share the list with your grandparents because Grandma Susan always just shops from the list and then that way she's getting what the girls want, the uncles and aunts and cousins and things too.
(13:05)
If they're going to mail anything over, and they don't have to, of course, then they can at least see what the kids are into right now. So the lists are really helpful, but if you're really trying to personalize for each person, for each person you're trying to buy for, and they don't have a list, you're right, it is hard to pull it all together. What do you do?
Doree Shafrir (13:23):
I also started doing an Amazon list or Target list for Henry's birthday. I don't like put it on the birthday invite, but when people reach out and ask, I say, I actually put together an Amazon list and usually they're like, "Oh my God, thank you. " Great.
Elise Hu (13:43):
Yes.
Doree Shafrir (13:44):
Yeah, this just makes it so much easier. So I think that's ... I appreciate that also as a parent buying stuff for other kids. It's always helpful when the parent can just be like, "You know what? This is exactly what they want. " Yeah. Yeah. So we have been getting Henry stuff from his Christmas and Hanukkah list that he put together that we asked him specifically. He also had specific things he wanted for Hanukkah and specific things he wanted for Christmas. And there didn't seem to be any sort of rhyme or reason as to which were ... It wasn't like all the less expensive gifts because I don't think he realized a concept of that. It was just like, "These I want for Hanukkah. These I want for Christmas." So I'll be doing that. And usually we're in a time of austerity, so I think Matt and I will either not get each other gifts or get each other something really small.
(14:47)
And then my niece and nephew always just want a gift card. Oh, that'd be easy. Yeah, super easy. And then I just have to ask my sister what her daughters want.
Elise Hu (15:02):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Doree Shafrir (15:04):
So no real hacks, but yeah. And I also feel like I do end up finding myself sort of running around trying to figure it all out.
Elise Hu (15:14):
Don't forget experiences. As you were talking about getting something for Matt or not getting something for Matt, like when I ask Rob what he wants for his birthday or Christmas, he's often like, "Well, I could use a new pack of boxers." It's just like, that's not like a sweet gift. That's a practical thing that you could go to. Yeah, go to Ross Dresserless.
Doree Shafrir (15:34):
Totally.
Elise Hu (15:35):
But the gifts that I feel like have stood out that I've gotten him in the past have been concert tickets or something like, "Oh, we're going to go to see a show at the bowl or we're going to go see Leon Bridges." And it's more experiential. So you could always think about like, oh, a gift card to a restaurant or something like that for your loved ones as well as you're thinking about gifts.
Doree Shafrir (15:57):
If they like experience gifts, because Matt does not like experience gifts, which I learned, Matt would not want those things. I like experience gifts. Depends on your recipient. Depends on your recipient. Exactly. Okay. Next question. What's your favorite holiday movie?
Elise Hu (16:15):
With the family, it's Home Alone, a classic. We still love Home Alone. Well, I just love it. It's so funny, those wet bandits. And then I found out, because I follow this Millennial Misery Instagram account, and I found out that one of the wet bandits is younger than I am now. Oh my God. He's younger in the movie than I am now. So yikes. So anyway, so Home Alone is mine for family. And then my favorite one just to watch overall is Die Hard. I will always contend that Die Hard is a Christmas movie and it's excellent. What about you, Dor?
Doree Shafrir (16:57):
So I feel like the message is not great and on rewatch, I'm kind of like, but I do still really enjoy Love Actually as a movie.
Elise Hu (17:10):
Even
Doree Shafrir (17:11):
Though I'm like, this is problematic. But Hugh Grant, so cute in it. Totally. But you're
Elise Hu (17:19):
Right. Should he have been entertaining that relationship?
Doree Shafrir (17:22):
There's a lot that once you go back and watch it with a 2025 lens, you're like, ooh.
Elise Hu (17:28):
There's so many trumps from that movie that have lasted though, like the
Doree Shafrir (17:32):
Guy holding the side of the- Perfect. Yeah. Yes. Now, I mean, there's also, it's a wonderful
Elise Hu (17:38):
Life. Yeah. I haven't shown my kids that. I don't know if they can get into it because it's black and white.
Doree Shafrir (17:44):
I know. It was like one of those movies that remember, it used to be shown on TV once every year and we would watch it on television because it was the whatever, Sunday night movie or whatever it was.
Elise Hu (17:57):
Yeah.
Doree Shafrir (17:58):
And Charlie Brown Christmas. Charlie Brown Christmas, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. I mean, there's a lot. There's a lot of good holidays. Yeah. Not a ton of Hanukkah movies, but there have been ... Oh my God, Elf?
Elise Hu (18:14):
Yes.
Doree Shafrir (18:15):
Elf is so good.
Elise Hu (18:17):
The girls haven't seen Elf yet. Maybe I'll make them watch it with us. Oh
Doree Shafrir (18:21):
My gosh. Movie
Elise Hu (18:21):
Are kind of movie night.
Doree Shafrir (18:23):
I feel like some of the holiday movies are good for being a holiday movie, but then some of them are actually good. And I think Elf is actually good. I think it's so funny. All right. We kind of addressed this in the casual chat, but not specifically this question, which is what are some of your favorite holiday traditions?
Elise Hu (18:45):
For this holiday, for the Christmas holiday, we always have hotpot on Christmas Eve or on Christmas night. It's like a Taiwanese American thing. So it's a whole to do to prep hotpot and all the vegetables and things that are on the sides and get all of that set up and it's really pretty and elaborate. And I like having my family here to help. So this year we're going to do all you can eat hot pot out at a restaurant in Torrance or something. So I'm excited about that. I feel like a lot of our traditions are not on purpose. It is now a tradition that I can't put anything in Ava's Christmas stocking because she always goes into her stocking. She sneaks into her stocking as it fills up over the month of December to see and sort of inventory every single thing that's in it so that by Christmas morning, nothing in her stocking is a surprise because this is what she just does and she's done it since she was four or five years old.
(19:44)
So now I can't put anything in her stocking. The other girls have things in their stockings and then I have to fill Ava's stocking at the last minute due to her sneakiness. And then we talked about this briefly on the Patreon. We do Candy Cane Lane here in LA. So since we've been in LA, we will go to a light thing, like a light display, a neighborhood light display. And the one close to us is called Candy Cane Lane, and it's really lovely. And yeah, I mean, most of our traditions are normal ones, just like getting up early and baking cookies and leaving food out for Santa and all that stuff. What about you?
Doree Shafrir (20:22):
Well, I usually like to make cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, but we're not going to be home this Christmas morning. So I won't be doing that this year. We always go to a holiday light show sometime during the season. I really like the one at Disconso, which is like a-
Elise Hu (20:41):
I've never been.
Doree Shafrir (20:42):
What? To Disconso at all?
Elise Hu (20:44):
I think I've been to the garden. I haven't been to the light show because they do like Disconso Gardens Christmas or something like that, right?
Doree Shafrir (20:51):
The light show's really cool.
Elise Hu (20:52):
Yeah.
Doree Shafrir (20:53):
Yeah. It's called Enchanted and it's a little more like artsy than your typical holiday light show. We did zoo lights a couple years and it was literally a zoo. It was so crowded and so chaotic and I was like, I cannot do this again with all due respect to the Los Angeles zoo. So we're going to do disconso with Henry's preschool friends, which I'm excited about. Oh, we're also doing something new this year that I haven't done before, which is there's this historic mansion in Beverly Hills called the Greystone Mansion and every year they decorate for the holidays and they open it up at very specific times for people to come and see. And I got us tickets to like go to the Greystone mansion. So I think that'll be fun. I like to just sort of like embrace
(21:52)
The various happenings. I was going to have us go to the ... The Tamo Shanter is like an old restaurant here in LA. It was Walt Disney's favorite restaurant and around Christmas. They do a whole Christmas thing with like carolers and super decorated, but we ended up having a conflict with the time I had booked and I don't think we're going to be able to go. No huge loss. The food is not good, but the vibe is supposed to be really cool. Very cool. We are going to take another short break and when we come back, we have some thoughts for the listener who was asked to officiate a wedding but was like nervous. Do you remember this?
Elise Hu (22:35):
Yep.
Doree Shafrir (22:36):
And then another listener wrote in with some thoughts on happiness. So we'll get to those as well. Okay. All right. We will be right back. All right. We are back and we have a voicemail.
Listener Voicemail (22:56):
Hello. I'm calling in with a somewhat what might be controversial. This is about the caller who was asked to officiate a wedding. I don't think that you should accept that. I think that you should maybe offer to read something or stand up there or have some sort of other role in the day, but I think that if you think you're going to have a shaky voice and be really nervous, it's going to make the lead up to the wedding really painful for you. You're not going to enjoy yourself that day and it might be really awkward and tough for the bride and groom. I think that public speaking takes a lot of practice. So if you don't think that you're going to be practicing a lot between now and then, I don't think you're going to just get up there and suddenly have confidence and be a great speaker and have charisma and have words blowing off your tongue.
(23:53)
I think if you really want to do it, I think you need to commit to practicing a lot and I think you need to learn how to write for the ear. And I think it's okay to read your speech as long as it sounds good for the ear. Something written that you're just sending to someone is very different than something that you're speaking aloud. So you need to read it aloud, time it out, use a stopwatch and make sure that it flows and that you can confidently deliver this. Because if not, I don't think it's that big of a deal to say, go with somebody who's really a natural up there. It doesn't have to be your best friend or your favorite person. I think the person officiating, if they happen to have those qualities as well, that's really magical, but they could also just have a special role in the ceremony or stand up there with you or something like that and just let someone who feels more comfortable that isn't going to like throw up before the ceremony take the lead.
(24:55)
And I think it's totally fine to be graceful about that and just do that. Okay. Hope that helps. And isn't that what you wanted to hear? Okay, bye.
Elise Hu (25:04):
I think it totally depends on how nervous this woman is, the original caller, right? Like this voicemail, which has a lot of useful advice, especially about preparation and writing for the ear, this voicemail supposes that the woman is going to be so nervous that she's going to be vomiting or on the verge of vomiting. And I don't know. I mean, I get nervous, but it doesn't seem like I'm that nervous.
Elise Hu (25:34):
So
Elise Hu (25:34):
It just depends. I don't know. It depends on the actual caller who was asked to officiate themselves, but it is a cool experience if you get to do it. So it was one of my favorite speaking assignments of all time, mainly for the reasons that I've said, which is you get to really shine the light on your friend and their love.
Doree Shafrir (25:51):
That's really cool. Okay. Our final email is from a listener who writes, "Hi, Doree and Elise. Loved your thoughts this morning about happiness, and it reminded me of this clip by Michelle Obama that spoke to me. As I get older, I find I don't often ask myself, am I happy?" Instead, when I write in my one line a day journal, thanks, Dori, I'll ask, "Did I have a sweet moment with my teen daughters today? Did my husband make me laugh? Did I perform an act of kindness, have a nice chat with a friend or stranger? Wear something both comfortable and cute. Did I complete some satisfying tasks at work or home once that didn't harm the world and maybe even helped it a bit?" Notice I didn't ask, was I successful or productive? I could go on, but you get the drift. Bottom line, I think I'm quote happy that I'm comfortable being content, angry, sad, worried, delighted, and many other states of being.
(26:53)
And then she links to a TikTok of Michelle Obama.
(26:58)
"We have a generation
Michelle Obama (26:59):
Of young people in their 20s who think that the goal is their personal happiness, period. And that is just not life. I mean, service is a better goal than happiness because life is full of bumps and bruises. I tell my girls the greatest gift that they can have developed for themselves is the ability to be self that, to be happy where you are with that is. To learn how to be like, "This is not exciting. I'm not winning. I'm not losing. I'm not achieving. It's not a party. I don't have friends around every day." It's like most of life is just the nothing in the middle. Yes. And I think this generation, they don't want that nothing in the middle. It's very tough. When things are just bland, y'all, most of life is just ordinary. You got to learn how to be happy alone. You got to be happy a little bored.
(28:01)
You got to be happy when things are hard. You got to learn how to be satisfied when you failed
Michelle Obama (28:06):
And
Michelle Obama (28:06):
Things don't go your way because all of that keeps you getting up. But I think there are a lot of young people who are searching for this impossible feeling of continuous happiness."
Doree Shafrir (28:19):
Okay. And then this listener ends. I'm grateful for you. I just joined the Patreon and have to figure out how to access the content. I guess because I'm 55, not 35. Ha ha. I did let this person know how to access the content. So thank you all so much for listening and have a great holiday if you celebrate whatever you celebrate. And we will talk to you again on Monday in our full length episode. And then we will be off and running some of our favorite episodes as reruns for the week and a half before New Year's, and then we'll be back with some fresh episodes in January. So thank you and we'll talk to you soon. Bye.