8 Weeks / 58 days until Christmas (Instrumental Song Battle)

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_01] This is a Bramble Jam Podcast

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_00] I'm from the North Pole, it's time for Christmas Morning, the daily show where every day is Christmas. Here are your hosts, Bran and...

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_01] Well, well, well, hello everybody and Merry Christmas. Happy final Wednesday of October to ya. Big deal here around the North Pole at the Christmas Morning Studios. I'm Brand and I'm here with my buddy Scott. Scott, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Bramble. What you got there? Kringle, baby. You got a little Kringle? Mm-hmm. A little Kringle to your jingle? Bourbon pecan. While you're talking about Kringle, let's just get this out of the way because this is a big deal.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_01] Kringle, the folks at the Racine Danish Kringle Company, who we are presented by this holiday season, knows that we're about to go daily and they are getting ahead of it with a special deal this week and this week only, which is $5 off the holiday stick sampler, which includes Santa Cineberry, Winter Wonderland, Gingerbread, and Merry Berry, and they come in stick form. Of course, Kringle typically, traditionally, round oval.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_01] The stick is, I got to be honest, I can down a whole stick myself easily.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_02] I can't because that would kill me.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_01] It might kill you, but it won't kill me, and this is a great deal, $5 off, and these are like the holiday Christmas flavors. So this is a great way to try the Christmas flavors that they have, or at least a few of them, see which ones you like, and then you can come back in November. We have some more discount codes for you, and you can stock up on the ones you really like. This is a great way to try a little of a lot, if that makes sense.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_02] These are all great, too. My wife loves the gingerbread. That's her absolute favorite, and I like the Merry Berry. I love a good Berry Danish. Very good.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01] If you want to try this, promo code CMSTICKS26, and that promo code will be in the description today as well to make it easy for you to check it out. And we're also making it easy for you to celebrate Christmas right now because we still have, believe it or not, even though we're about to go daily, we still have a chock-full mailbag, Scotty.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_02] It is chock-full. Yes. But I had to drain it all for the dailies because we're recording those later this week.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01] Yes. You mean we're flying to the North Pole every day next week?

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_02] Well, yeah, yeah. We're flying to the North Pole 5 a.m. every day, so I had to be ready for those. You had to be ready. Yes. So I only have one today, but this is a great reminder to send in your stuff. Yeah. We can't do the dailies without you, and we'd love to hear from you. We do one email a day during the dailies so that we keep the episode around 12 minutes or so. Ish. Ish. Yeah, we'll see. No promises. That's right. But let's open up the mailbag and see what we got today. Yeah, let's do that.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_03] Letters. We get letters. We get stacks and stacks of letters.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_02] Today's email is from Jorgen Leishman, and Jorgen says, Hey, my name is Jorgen, and I am an absolute Christmas crazy fanatic, all caps. You're in the right place, Jorgen. Yeah, that's right. My family thinks I'm crazy. Yeah, you're in good company here with me then. My room's already decorated, and it's like the, he likes the Christmas stuff that's pink. Oh, yeah. Like sweet treats. It's his favorite. He says, I'm from Utah, and here in Utah we have a place called Hobby Lobby. Oh, yeah, we're familiar with the Hobby Lobby. We know the Hobby Lobby.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_02] It's my favorite place ever. If things aren't on sale this week, they will be next week. I also hate Halloween, and the only reason I like Thanksgiving is because of the treats. I'm so excited for Christmas. I've only listened to a few of your episodes, but I am hooked. Well, Jorgen, welcome. It's great to have you.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_01] Jorgen, you found us just in time because you're about to get a daily dose of Christmas starting next Monday, November 2nd. So you found your people, Jorgen. It's great.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_02] I love this. It's a reminder that, you know, you think we've reached all the people we could possibly reach? Nope, not at all. We're still finding wonderful new listeners every day, and it's so exciting.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_01] Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm excited to hear from everybody throughout the holiday season. It's going to be so much fun. I can't believe we are almost already there, Scotty. It's unbelievable. We don't have any new reviews, and we won't be doing them during the holiday season, and so we will pick back up in the new year with reviews, and hopefully we have plenty to... Last year, Scotty, if you remember, I was good on reviews for a couple of months because so many people left reviews during the holiday seasons, and we hope that you do the same. So leave a review on Apple Podcasts. That'd be wonderful.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, we're at 317 now. Maybe when we start them back up in January, we'll be at 330? How about...

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_01] How about... 340? 317.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_02] I love it. I was going to say 350. I like your plan better. It's more achievable. You got a joke for us, Scotty? I do. They're about to get real bad, too, because I really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Good. But I think this one's decent.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_01] It's always good to get real bad just as we're going into our... To the prime. The prime time. Yeah, exactly. Right.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_02] All right. How does a snowman lose weight? I mean, it waits for summer? Yeah. He waits for the weather to get warmer. Waka, waka.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_01] There you go. All right. I guess. Yeah, why not? Oh, you think that looks bad?

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_02] Just wait. Hold on to your riches.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait. Let's do the countdown. 58 days until Christmas! I mean, that's feeling pretty good. And that means... I mean, if my math is correct, Scotty... Which is doubtful. Next week, as we're doing the dailies, we will cross the 50-day mark.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_02] We'll be in the 40s like great weather forecasts. Yeah. And 58 days is only eight weeks. And that sounds exactly right, because we have eight weeks of dailies. How about that? The math is math-ing.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01] The math is math-ing. It's always good. You know, we do this show all year, and sometimes we just hope for the best when it comes to the numbers and hope that no one checks us. But this time, I feel really good about this.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_02] I feel really good about it. I admit that I've screwed it up in the past, but...

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_01] In February, who's really...

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, I mean, you get it wrong by one or two days. Well, actually... Well, actually... Actually... Let's do the news. Let's do the news.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_01] Today is Wednesday, October 28th. Here's the news.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_02] Hello, Larry.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_01] Hello.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_02] Are you ready for the dailies? The what? The daily episodes. They start next week. No! Uh-oh.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_01] This is a timely news article for us because we have Halloween coming up this weekend. We have our Halloween evening episode coming out in just a couple of days where we get to hear about people's wonderful Halloween traditions. It's going to be great. It's the one time a year we allow ourselves to get a little spooky here on Christmas morning. But The Simpsons, and I know that you're a Simpsons fan, Scotty. I'm a huge Simpsons fan, yeah. The Simpsons do their Treehouse of Horror episode every year. They're at like 37 now. That's right.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_01] They have more than years you've been alive. I know. How about that? Pretty crazy. But this year, I believe it was the beginning of the episode, which aired this past Sunday, but you can see it now. They recreated This is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas using The Simpsons characters, using like stop motion, and it looks like Nightmare Before Christmas, but you know, like- Like it's clay? Yeah, kind of.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_01] But you know, Bard is Jack's skeleton, and Homer is the guy who like runs the town or whatever. It's very fun, and it's a nice little way, I think, to- It's like a- It's a nice segue, I guess, into the holiday season as we are in spooky season. You can watch The Simpsons episode. You can see the little Nightmare Before Christmas bit. Still get your spooky stuff while getting excited for the fact that we are about to transition into full ho-ho-ho mode.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_02] It's exciting. And before people get furious, Brand did say Jack Skellington. It sounded like skeleton, but I saw him hiccup as he was saying it. So cancel your angry emails. Is that true? Is it Skellington? Oh my God. I guess I was wrong. It is Skellington. Yeah, Jack Skellington. Really? Why? I don't know. Take it up with Tim Burton. I don't know. How about that? I guess that was wrong. That's all time I thought it was- Okay, so I- No, you're right.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_02] Send your angry emails to Brand then. I was trying to defend him, but whatever. I'm surprised that that's something that you know. I am nothing if not a barometer of pop culture. Yeah. Yeah, right. I only saw it two years ago. Okay, you saw it for the first time. I did, and it's fine. It's not my favorite. I understand why people absolutely go crazy for it. For the same reason I go crazy for a Christmas story or something. We all have our own tastes.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, What's This is a great Christmas track. Oh, What's This and This is Halloween. The music is wonderful. It's great.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_01] Anyway, there you go. A little Halloween Christmas story for you. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to our final Christmas TV Minute of the year and our final all-play Christmas music battle of the year here on Christmas Morning. Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. Very excited to be back with you today on our final weekly episode of Christmas Morning of 2026. We've done it, Scotty. We've been together every week.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_02] It actually surprises me that we're finally here, but we're going to get to that shortly.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, we'll get to it shortly. A lot to get to here. We've got our final Christmas TV Minute for the season because we don't do it during the dailies. Just turn on the TV. You'll find your stuff.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. If you can't find Christmas TV at Christmastime, I don't know what to tell you. Nothing I do is going to help you.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_01] Absolutely. And we're also, on the other side of this, we're going to get to find out who won this year's battle, which, a reminder, is tied currently 12-12-12. So very exciting stuff. Let's get to the Christmas TV Minute with TV, Scotty. Take it away, buddy.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_02] Is anybody sad? Is anybody wearing a black armband here because this is the last one brand?

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, no, I think people are mourning across the country.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_02] I don't think so. I think some people are like, whew, thank goodness. I was tired of that. Well, those people can get bent. So I got a few good ones here. Some real old ones. Okay. And if you want to find more, you can go to MostlyChristmas.com. But here is your Christmas TV Minute, courtesy of MostlyChristmas.com. Wednesday, 10 a.m. on Hallmark Mystery. Operation Christmas. Is it mystery or mysteries? 5.05 p.m. on Freeform. The Nightmare Before Christmas. There we go, Brick. And 6 p.m. on Hallmark Mystery or mysteries. I'm not sure. It's mystery. Mystery.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_02] Singular. Okay, good. Singular mystery. Christmas Wonderland.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_01] Not a mystery to be found on that network, by the way.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_02] Thursday, 12 a.m. on Hallmark Mystery. Christmas Festival of Ice. 6 a.m. on Hallmark Mysteries. See, I can't do it. The Christmas Heart. 8 a.m. on Hallmark Mystery. The Christmas Ornament. 8 p.m. on Up. Hudson and Rex. Heist for the holidays. No idea what that is. I'm sure Alonzo does. It is getting very angry right now.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01] No, no, no, no. This is a show that is still on, and it is a Canadian show that up airs now. I only know all of this because the guy who is a showrunner for Mistletoe Murders actually was the guy who started that show, and I heard about the whole origin and journey of that show when we talked to him. So anyway, but these are new episodes. These two are new episodes for that program.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_02] And 9 p.m. on Up is Hudson and Rex Heist for the holidays part two. There you go. Friday, 12 a.m. on Hallmark Mystery. North Pole. Open for Christmas. I like that one. 2 a.m. on Hallmark Mystery. The Christmas Dance. And 4 a.m. on Hallmark Mystery. The Christmas Spirit. Saturday, 12 a.m. on Hallmark Mystery. Silver Bells. Oh, yeah. 10 a.m. on Hallmark Mystery. Snow Bride. And 4 p.m. on Hallmark Mystery. It's Christmas Eve. That's a good day. It's Christmas Eve. It's Christmas Eve. And finally, Sunday, 6 a.m. on Hallmark Family. A Dog Named Christmas. Classic. 7 a.m. on MeTV Plus. Father Dowling Mysteries.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_02] The Christmas Mystery. 8 a.m. on Hallmark Family. Cancel Christmas. 9.50 a.m. on FX. Jingle All the Way. And 11.50 a.m. on FX. Jingle All the Way 2. You got a little.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_01] Well, you can skip that one. That's the one with Larry the Cable Guy. I made it like 10 minutes and I was like, woof.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_02] And 3 p.m. on Fee TV. Father Knows Best. Home for Christmas. That's from 1977. And finally, 4 p.m. on Hallmark Family. When Calls the Heart. The Christmas Wishing Tree. And that was your very bloated Christmas TV Minute. Thanks to Brand's explanation of Up. Sorry. Courtesy of MostlyChristmas.com. See you in the new year, everybody.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_01] See you in the new year. Go turn on your TV. I mean, FX clearly is beginning to play their Christmas Day. FX has great stuff. They did a back-to-back jingle all the way on November 1st. That's clearly a transitional marker right there, right? They're switching over to some Christmas stuff. Very good. All right. Let's get to the Christmas Music Battle results. This is big. The stakes are high. We are tied 12 to 12 to 12. Me, Scotty, listeners, all tied up. We have been battling all year long.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_01] And it all comes down to a battle of white Christmas. It's fitting. A fitting one. Yes. And I can say, I'm fine. But I came in last place. My version by Damon and Naomi. Only 9% of the vote. And you got to be honest with you. I saw this coming. Sometimes you just got to take a swing and see what happens. And that's what this was. Weird harmonies. Kind of a different melody of the song at certain parts. I don't hate it.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_01] That's why I brought it. But it's not for everybody.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_02] I'm not a big fan. But I think what you did here is you wanted to sit back and eat your popcorn and watch.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I want to eat my Kringle. I want to eat my Kringle stick. I want to eat my Kringle stick.

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_02] There is no popcorn Kringle.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, not yet. But I'll pass that along to the people. Give me some popcorn on top. Anyway. All right. That leaves two versions of it. And in second place. Or should I go straight to first place? Yeah.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_02] We can do second. I mean, why change what works?

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_01] Second place. I know. Fair enough. Second place. 43.5% White Christmas by Steph Morin. I got to be honest. I thought this was going to win. I thought so, too. I'm not a country guy. But I found this to be quite pleasant.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_02] I understand the appeal. And there are a lot of country songs or country artists that do Christmas music. And it works very well. This is a great example. Listen to that slide guitar. And it's just nice. Boom, boom, boom. It is nice. It is nice. Well, you know what that means, though, Brad? What does that mean, Scotty? Take it away. That means in first place by only four votes was White Christmas by Maul Worf.

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_02] Riding the acapella bump for 2026 was Scotty. Scotty is the winner of 2026.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_01] There you go. And it's good to get that win in there, Scotty, knowing that you're going to lose during the holiday season.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, absolutely. I'm not worried about that whatsoever. It's nice that one of us won for the first time in three years. Yeah, that's true. My buddy John Rice sent in and said, I hope you win. Oh, what the heck, John? And I said, really? He said, yeah, I'm tired of the listeners winning. John is a great guy and super supportive of my picks. So I just want to thank everybody. This has been so much fun this year.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_02] And I think this proves that the randomizer was a decent idea. I think we should keep it.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, a decent idea. I like the randomizer. It kept things interesting. I got to be honest with you, if I can share my thoughts on Maul Werf there. Oh, yeah. The reason why I was leaning towards Steph Moran's version is while Maul Werf is acapella and there is the acapella bump. A little doo-wop-ish too, yeah. It was very doo-wop. It was very basic. It wasn't like, you know how Pentatonix does it and it's like got a lot of dazzle to it for better or worse?

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I'm a little tired of the dazzle. This was a very, and maybe that's the point. Maybe people are tired of the dazzle and they just want some basic acapella. And I don't mean that in a mean way.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_02] I know what you mean.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_01] But that's kind of why I thought Steph had a chance because even though country isn't for everybody, that version of the song was, I think, still quite pleasant and well done. But I'm not upset, Scotty. I think you did a great job. You earned this.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_02] Thank you, Brandon. I really appreciate that. This was so much fun. From this point on, Brandon and I will be doing just a two-man battle. A two-man battle.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_01] A lot of great tracks, obviously. And we are making a little bit of a change. No original songs this holiday season. Saints be praised.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_02] I love it. I saw that and I was so thankful. Yes. And the other thing is, Brandon picks some really popular songs because this is the time of year you want to hear them. You know, you're... Yes. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, I think, is our first one next week. And it was like, yeah, you did this, Brandon. This was great.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_01] Even though I love original Christmas song week by and large because I like finding new stuff. Yeah. I like the idea of saving it for the new year. We'll have a lot to pick from of new stuff that's coming out this holiday season on Bankhead.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, my gosh. If I... We'd blow through eight months worth. If we did them during the day.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01] All right. But let's get to this week's battle. It is just a fun one. We're just battling a little instrumental track. This isn't going to anything. This is just for funsies.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_02] It is just for funsies. But there are great versions in here. And we're ending on instrumental, which just makes my heart sing, Brandon.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_01] Well, it shouldn't make your heart sing because it's instrumental. Well, my heart sings, though. It goes like this. That's instrumental. Okay. Well, there you go. That's still instrumental. There you go. All right. First, we have Joy to the World by Luke Brendley.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, Brandon, that was wonderful. It reminded me of an artist I really like named John Fahey, who does some classical style guitar.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_01] So good. I like the classical guitar. That was very nice. Luke Brendley. Well done. Up next, we got Carol of the Bells by Struggler.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_02] That one reminded me a lot of August Burns Red, which is what I used to do tinsel tunes with Dwayne. And by the way, we got an email like, did you guys have an argument? No, we didn't have an argument. We have different priorities right now. Dwayne is about to do his first Hawks Bay. He lives in an area, Brian, of New Zealand called Hawks Bay. He is the Hawks Bay Santa. And he's about to do his first gig next week. Wow. Very good. Just absolutely thrilled for him. So I heard this version and I thought, you know what? Dwayne's really going to like that. So that one's for you, buddy.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. You know what? Why I like August Burns Red? I feel like every metal band does a version of Carol of the Bells. Oh, you have to. But August Burns Red, all of their Christmas album is instrumental metal Christmas songs. And of course, they do Carol of the Bells, but they do so much. It's such a good album. So if you like that, if you dig it, check out August Burns Red.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_02] I don't like like heavy metal with vocals. You don't want the screaming. It's heavy. Hardcore bells. Stove all bells. Oh, gosh. Oh, man. You're taking me back, Bram. Really good stuff.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_01] Last but not least, this is Sleigh Ride by the Count Bassey Orchestra. Bassey Orchestra.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_02] A little big band there, Bram. I love Count Bassey. I feel like that should be not allowed.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_01] Count Bassey's too good for this.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_02] It is, but it's on Bandcamp. So what are you going to do? If it wasn't exhibition week, I don't know. Maybe we would have had to vote on it.

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_01] Yes. Well, there you go. Three great instrumental tracks. Can you vote? You know what? If people want to be interactive with us, we should let them. That's true. You can vote right now. Link is in the description.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_02] We got less submissions this week because everybody knew it was an exhibition week. But we got submissions from John Rice, Kim Gazerak, Michelle Byerly, Jeffrey Dale, and Jack Unverfurth. And I just wanted to stop for a second and thank all the people who every week... So many. Just keep sending us stuff in. It sounds trite, Bram, but it is heartwarming. I look at it and I say, wow, people actually care about this segment and they want their voice heard. I love it so much.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_02] We honestly could not do a three-way battle without you. And I just wanted to thank everybody. I thought about, Bram, going through every single one and calling out the listeners who just did it every week. If I do that, I'm going to miss somebody and then I'm going to feel like a real jerk. You all know who you are. So just wanted to thank you all.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_01] Shout out. And of course, this now turns to a one-on-one battle between me and Scotty.

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_02] And you're going down, Scotty. It's fine. I'm fine with that. The stakes could not be lower, Brandon.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_01] You can look forward to next week. We'll be battling It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. Blue Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Last Christmas, and an instrumental song. So lots to look forward to next week. But first, Scotty, we have to celebrate Halloween. And we'll be doing that all together in just a couple days with Halloween evening. Helga, I believe, will be joining us. So it's going to be a lot of fun. We got a lot of stuff?

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, we have a good amount. You still have about a day. If you want to get something in, we could still fit it in. But I think we got an hour of chat and Halloween, which is always so much fun.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_01] Absolutely. I can't wait for that. I can't wait to be back with you next Monday, November 2nd, as we kick off our 2026 holiday season daily episodes. Can't wait, Scotty. Can't wait. Very excited about it. Until then, Merry Christmas.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_02] You're about to hear some ads that help pay for our trip back and forth to the North Pole. Feel free to listen. Feel free to bail now. But either way, thanks for being here.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_03] Ho, ho, ho.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_04] Boom. Game. Knockify. лe done.

[00:25:20] Mo.