Deck the Halls and Save $500: Our Holiday Treats for You!

Monique Ramsey (00:02):
Welcome everyone to the La Jolla Cosmetic Podcast. I'm your hostess, Monique Ramsey. And today I want to show some of our favorite things from our favorite people at the center. So we have a promotion going on right now. I'm going to share my screen so you can see this little promotion on our website. It's very cute with, our favorite seagulls are bringing gifts and it's a $500 savings getting you into the holiday spirit with the favorite things. And we have a cute little even raindrops on roses kind of thing, but we took our own take on it. So we have a $500 voucher. And you can see I go down here, each of our surgeon's favorite things in terms of in the OR. And so I have Dr. Hector Salazar with us today. I'm going to stop sharing, but I'll let you talk a little bit about your favorite holiday traditions to tie that in to our promotion. Let's get into the holiday spirit. And I wore my red pin, I put my middle name there because born on Christmas Day. So Monique Noël. And so welcome Dr. Salazar.

Dr. Salazar (01:13):
Thanks so much for inviting me, Monique. And this is this time of the year that we all love and that we enjoy and that we love to share with our patients. And it's a time of the year that actually patients like to have surgery done, so we get the best of both worlds.

Monique Ramsey (01:28):
Yeah, for sure. So tell me about holidays for you growing up and maybe some of your favorite traditions or things that you looked forward to as a kid.

Dr. Salazar (01:40):
Well, I would say always setting up our Christmas tree has been a nice tradition. I remember as I was growing up, I would say that we would set it up right after Thanksgiving. But let me tell you, nowadays with my family, we like to set up our Christmas tree and light it up quite early in November so we could enjoy it for a much longer time. I would say that that has been a tradition that we've agreed in our family, but I that's a new adaptation. That's a new thing. So Christmas tree is already up and set up pretty much at the beginning of November.

Monique Ramsey (02:14):
I love that. I love that. I've been seeing people on Reddit. There's a Christmas, of course, there's a Christmas decorating subreddit and all the people showing off their trees and their decorations and it really gets you in the holiday spirit and starts to, especially here in San Diego, it's not like we have snow to get our brain transitioned into the holiday time. So with the sunny weather, it's kind of nice to then have that cozy indoor feeling. Tell me about, is there any food that as a kid or as an adult that you kind of associate with the holidays?

Dr. Salazar (02:48):
I would say always turkey. Around this time it has been turkey. There's delicious ham as well. And now in our family we have this very unique thing that we like to do. As you imagine Christmas Eve, Christmas day, there's always gatherings and dinners and all the family getting together. And so lunchtime gets a little hectic, a little crazy. You end up having whatever you find. But now we have this small family tradition, and that's because my son actually has become a very hardcore caviar of fiato. So what we do is every year on Christmas Eve or Christmas day lunchtime, depends on what we are doing, but it's an every year thing that we open a small can of caviar and then we all enjoy that. And that I would say, I mean it doesn't have any strong roots, but it's a family tradition that we enjoy and we are all waiting for that day throughout the year to have a little caviar tasting there.

Monique Ramsey (03:48):
I love that.

Dr. Salazar (03:48):
That's good.

Monique Ramsey (03:49):
That's so fun. And I love when kids sort of have a sophisticated palette as they're growing up. Not everything has to be chicken nuggets and ketchup. Exactly, exactly. So I think it's wonderful. And in terms of, let's talk about if Santa comes to your house. When Santa comes to the home, would Santa leave wrapped presents or not wrapped presents? This can be a thing in families.

Dr. Salazar (04:18):
It happens. And I would say that as I grew up in my house, Santa would come in and drop the presents without wrapping them. And my wife actually lived the same situation. And so therefore I think it has to be, now it's a family tradition. I feel that Santa chooses us as a family that presents get there, you wake up, you look at the presents, they look magnificent right there in the Christmas tree. But no, there's no wrapping, there's no need to undo them. But I would say that I would still get as excited as if I would be opening them because that first image, and I would say that our son actually also enjoys them too a lot.

Monique Ramsey (05:00):
Now, were you the type of kid who would try to peek by opening very carefully with surgical precision to see what you might have gotten? Let's say if a gift was wrapped from a grandma or someone under the tree, I was that girl. I was that girl who would very carefully and which is so dumb, but some of us do this and then put it all back together. But it does sort of ruin the surprise.

Dr. Salazar (05:29):
Or shake it and break it, right? I mean, just make sure I wonder what's in there. I would say no, and I'm going to reveal part of my personality. I've always been so much into following the rules and that I think, I mean off the topic, not Christmas, but for our patients, they feel free that I'm always going to be following our safety rules because I always follow the rules. So if they would tell me not to touch them, not to shake them, not to peek or open them, I wouldn't do it. So I would just wait. And then the day of just go ahead and open them. I never forget a time when poor moms, they sometimes have to be hiding to wrap some of the presents and then hide them somewhere. And I remember that I kind of caught my mom, I think I was 10 or so, and I caught my mom wrapping a present for me for Christmas. And then she said, "oh," I said, "no, no, please stay away. Don't look over here." And then she put it in a different place where she would normally hide those presents. And I think she found it like 20 years later. I mean she was hiding it so well that she forgot about it and then came out when I was 30. I think.

Monique Ramsey (06:49):
That's awesome. It's, that's sort of a moment from, what is it, the Christmas,

Dr. Salazar (06:56):
Christmas... National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?

Monique Ramsey (06:59):
Christmas Vacation, where he is up there and he finds a Mother's Day gift from whenever.

Dr. Salazar (07:03):
Totally. Just like that. It was a Christmas present that was partially wrapped and then she put it wherever she could before I could see and then everybody forgot about it.

Monique Ramsey (07:13):
That's so fun. Well, I think what kicks off the holidays for you and your family? Is it the tree or Christmas carols in the car or?

Dr. Salazar (07:26):
Well, no, I would say it's pretty much the tree and that kicks off the spirit. And then I would say, yeah, there's plenty of Christmas carols all the time everywhere. And it's funny how it works because you truly enjoy them during the season. Then if you get the mouth of season, it's kind of like there's some sort of a, I don't know, a little allergic reaction maybe that I get it. It's like Christmas in July. It's like April. And then for a mistake, YouTube starts playing, the algorithm goes bad and then starts playing like a Christmas song.

Monique Ramsey (07:58):
Wait, what is that?

Dr. Salazar (07:59):
But no, during the time we love them and we enjoy them. And pretty much I would say it starts around beginning of November and then stays throughout Thanksgiving and then into New Year's. And one of the things is that we maintain, we keep that tree, that Christmas tree until January 6th, which is the epiphany.

Monique Ramsey (08:19):
Yeah, I do the same thing. I do the same thing.

Dr. Salazar (08:22):
And after that then is when we start taking it off and saying thank you for that Christmas tree and that year. But that's pretty much how we do it.

Monique Ramsey (08:31):
Is your tree sort of eclectic with lots of different things over the years or is it kind of a theme tree?

Dr. Salazar (08:37):
No, so it's eclectic with all these different things, but I would say it has been or has remained constant over the ornaments and everything for the last four or five years because it's pretty much, I would say when our son has become more aware of it and he loves all the ornaments. If we would make our tree look like a Nordstrom's tree, I don't think he would much appreciate that. And then that's why he likes all the little different toys and characters and different things that we put on our Christmas tree.

Monique Ramsey (09:08):
And the handmade ornaments that they make when they're in first grade and

Dr. Salazar (09:11):
Handmade ornaments. They last forever.

Monique Ramsey (09:13):
unwrapping each one to get up on the tree. And I have the same kind of tree, very eclectic, crazy. And my tradition was sort of to every time I would go on a trip, bring an ornament home. So then that's also kind of fun to kind of rethink, think back to those special trips or those special moments and especially to see the funny things that my kids made.

Dr. Salazar (09:38):
Yeah, exactly. That's very enjoyable.

Monique Ramsey (09:41):
Yeah. Well, anything else about the holidays that you want to impart to our listening audience?

Dr. Salazar (09:45):
Well, no. One of the things is it gives us time to reflect, gives a time to slow down, look back at what we've done throughout the year. And as a matter of fact, school stops pretty much everything slows down. And that's the reason why some patients actually think that it's a good moment for them to have surgery. And we tend to get very, very busy and our schedules get really packed. And it's something for the audience, our patients to know that if you're aiming to have some surgery during those days to start planning much ahead of time and talk to La Jolla Cosmetic, talk to our coordinators because it's a time that everybody wants to get something done and it can get a little hectic. And if you want to really want to choose your date that you have to plan.

Monique Ramsey (10:30):
And we talked about your favorite things for the holidays, but your favorite things on our special are, let me see here, breast augmentation. That's a favorite thing. I love that.

Dr. Salazar (10:43):
That's for sure.

Monique Ramsey (10:43):
The BellaButton Tummy Tuck, which we did an episode about.

Dr. Salazar (10:47):
We have one,

Monique Ramsey (10:48):
And we'll put that in the show notes and the T-Z Plasty neck lift. And I think we did a show about that as well or a live event.

Dr. Salazar (10:58):
And that goes so nicely together with the season with turkey, right? The turkey gobbler. And then you have the T-Z Plasty to get rid of that turkey gobbler.

Monique Ramsey (11:07):
Exactly, exactly. So we'll put in our show notes, the favorite things specials, and we'll put links to those previous episodes where we talked about those things specifically with you. And thank you again, Dr. Salazar, for joining us.

Dr. Salazar (11:23):
Thank you so much and happy holidays for everybody.

Monique Ramsey (11:25):
Happy holidays and Merry Merry.

Dr. Salazar (11:27):
There you go. Ho, ho, ho.

Monique Ramsey (11:29):
So I want to welcome April. April has worked with La Jolla cosmetic on and off for in very many roles and over the years and we have a fun meet the April episode. So welcome April, and we're going to talk about some of your holiday favorite things.

April (11:47):
Awesome. I love the holidays. It's the one time of the year where embrace cooking because that is not something that's in my wheelhouse. And my son's always been kind of the most, I don't know, we're all Jewish, but I would say that he definitely channeled the inner holiday spirit and would absolutely just fall in love with Okay, the holiday time is all about homemade latkes. And so for any of you listeners out there that actually make them from scratch and don't head over to D Z Akin's or don't head over to TJ's and pick up the box version. Yes, I do that occasionally too. But the process of making homemade latkes is a labor of love and a huge mass. And so it's one of the things I really love is just grating potato after potato after potato and mixing it with all the onions and garlic and grilling it up and getting burnt and oh, the house smells just amazing when it's latke time.

Monique Ramsey (12:55):
Oh, I love that. And would you be kind enough to share your recipe that we could put in our show notes?

April (13:00):
Absolutely. I can go dig up the recipe. Actually something from when my son was little, the preschool, he went to a Jewish preschool and they put together a cookbook and so it was somebody's recipe for potato latke.

Monique Ramsey (13:14):
Fun, fun,

April (13:15):
Just loved it.

Monique Ramsey (13:17):
That's neat. So what is sort of the thing that kind of kicks off the holidays for you? It's holidays. What happens?

April (13:25):
I know it's holidays when we go digging around through the garage to find the light up dreidels. So when the kids were growing up, we don't have a tree. It's something that I've always held fast to, didn't grow up with a tree and we're not introducing that. But what we did do for the kids is we would have the people have the light up Hello Kitty stuff. We would have light up little menorahs and little dreidels. We would hang throughout the house. And so every night during Hanukkah we would go turn out all the lights downstairs in our living room and you would just see menorahs and you would see light up dreidels. And so that's when I knew it was holiday time.

Monique Ramsey (14:06):
That sounds so special and so beautiful.

April (14:09):
Yes. And it would stretch all the way till Valentine's or even St. Patrick's Days because who likes to actually take down those lights?

Monique Ramsey (14:17):
Yeah, there you go. Depending on how high up they are too. I had to climb, I climbed up into my cabinet and got my Christmas mug just for this, but I haven't pulled all my stuff down yet. I need to do that. But it's kind of a big job, but it's so special when it's that time of year and you can kind of enjoy the fireplace. It's been chilly lately. Turn on the fire, have the lights on that it has. Now, do you have a funny or poignant memory from when you were a kid? Anything that happened during the holidays?

April (14:53):
I mean that was like vintage a million years ago. I can't quite recall all the way back there. But I will say that one of the memories that I've created from my kids is there's Hanukkah Gelt, which is the little chocolate coins that they look cute but don't taste great. So some years ago, I'm going to say probably 10 plus years ago, we switched out playing dreidels with actually candy that tastes good. So we would have Hershey kisses and we'd have all the mini Hershey chocolates and this and that. So I mean the initials on the dra all depending on what lands you get to take the whole entire kitten caboodle out of there. And so it's always been super fun to spin the dreidel and play the dreidel game and get to swoop out all that chocolate. And it certainly goes in the mouth and not into the bank account. So definitely lots of fun. And the kids' friends would come over and love to play dreidel and not only you spin the dreidel the right way, but kids are clever and they start learning how to spin the dreidel upside down to see who can spin it the longest.

Monique Ramsey (16:04):
Oh really?

April (16:05):
Yeah, it's been both ways. Little did you know a great miracle happened here today. We've taught all your listeners that they too can invest in a dreidel and spin it upside down and the magic will happen.

Monique Ramsey (16:18):
I love that. Now do you have any, I mean you're known for your sparkle in terms of in the office like queen of festive fun, and is there anything that you love to wear or a purse that you pull out only at a certain time of year or anything a holiday in your wardrobe? Ms. Queen of Sparkle,

April (16:38):
So I don't have something I pull out every year. A number of years ago for our ugly sweater contest, I created a do it yourself menorah using the tinsel that people use for their trees. And I basically had all nine. There's nine, there's one that's the shamash and the other, and I'd hold up my hands and at the top instead of candles were the little light up things, the LED lights. So I would light up and stand like this and I wore that out paddling, there was a Santa paddle and so there was all the Santas and there was the Jewish princess. So that was definitely very fun.

Monique Ramsey (17:17):
Very fun. I love that. And you have a dog,

April (17:19):
Right? Two now.

Monique Ramsey (17:20):
Oh, you have two. Okay, two. Now. Tell us about your dogs and how you get them in the spirit.

April (17:25):
Well, last year I decided that Bailey's my poodle terrier and we have another dog marshmallow who's a Bichon. And so I decided last year that Bailey needed to get in the spirit marshmallow got in the spirit too that they had a different outfit every single day for Hanukkah. And so it was always very exciting to take it off and put on her new little outfit. She had little Bow and then had a matching set for marshmallow with little bow ties. Marshmallow would tear his off. And Bailey always the princess and the one that's mommy's favorite would wear her little earpieces for a lot longer. And so I love it.

Monique Ramsey (18:01):
That's so fun. I think the pet dress up industry is huge. Whether you want to have your dog root for Michigan or if you want to have, it'd be a USC. But honestly I think it's so cute now I'm a cat person and cats yeah, they just won't do it.

April (18:24):
And so do you have new outfits for the

Monique Ramsey (18:26):
For the babies? No. No, I don't. So yeah, I have new kittens and I was kind of worried that they might try to come in here and scale the green screen because they're very curious and they're tiny. They're like three months old. So I have Noël and that's why I picked her from the adoption site because that's my middle name, that's her name. I'm like, okay, it's done. She's a little white fluffy one. And then I have Pierre, who's a little Siamese that I adopted. They had bonded at the foster. So I think I might not do my tree this year, which is killing me. But I'm so afraid not just of them breaking something less about that than more about them eating something that might cost thousands of dollars to get out of them at the vet, which, so I think I'll decorate in a modified way this year just to kind of, I have to take it down a notch. People know me, I go all out. It's everywhere. Everywhere. That's what happens when you're born on Christmas. You just get really into it.

April (19:28):
Yeah, you have that great headband that's about 12 inches tall that's out of this world. Spectacular.

Monique Ramsey (19:35):
It's so tall, but it wouldn't stick on the screen. No, I have to pull that out of storage. I thought about that today and I'm like, okay, but I can't wear the headphones if I have the thing on my head, but I don't even know where it is. I think it's in storage at the moment. And I have from last year's Spirit week that we did during the holidays, I have the life-size cutout of Will Ferrell as Elf in my storage for the center. So I'll be bringing it back this year. But I thought, how cute would it be to have Will Ferrell with me doing? But again, you can only do so much before the podcast.

April (20:12):
Well, I don't know, you can kind of rotate some of these exciting accessories that you have in decorations so they all get a lifespan.

Monique Ramsey (20:19):
There you go. I like that. I like that. Well thanks April. This was nice because I think having you bring that Hanukkah spirit and you and Ruth are kind of our two Jewish girls who help us. We've got to have a festive day. What did we call it last year? There was a

April (20:38):
Hanukkah miss. It was something right? Hanukkah, miss Hanukkah. It was the

Monique Ramsey (20:45):
ChrisKwansmukkah.

April (20:46):
Yeah, something like that. We all got celebrated in our special way,

Monique Ramsey (20:51):
So

April (20:52):
It's

Monique Ramsey (20:52):
Very sweet. So I'm looking forward to that again this year. That's really fun. Well thanks for joining and go find a person to tag and have them come in and then we'll get to hear more about people's holiday traditions.

April (21:04):
Alright, thanks for having me, and happy Hanukkahmas.

Monique Ramsey (21:08):
I love it. Thanks April.

April (21:10):
Thanks.

Monique Ramsey (21:11):
All right, so now I have the beautiful Amy and Amy has worked with the center since what year? Amy? Do you remember the late nineties? 2000 maybe. 2003. Okay, so 21 years. Okay. So in those 21 years you've done every role, every nook and cranny where we might find some little piece of equipment. She's our technical guru when things are broken, she fixes everything. She's like the elf in the toy shop. So Amy, tell us, we're talking about holiday traditions and holiday favorite things, favorite things about the holiday from when you were a kid from now as your kids are growing up. I know you have two daughters. They're darling and I can't believe they're so old. I just remember them as being little toddlers. So tell me a little bit about what is your holiday tradition maybe growing up. You grew up in Hawaii, right? So tell me about holidays in Hawaii.

Amy (22:21):
As a kid, they were very active. My family always went and saw all the decorations. They had special Christmas trees done up, and we went and did everything every year. It was a lot, but I appreciate it now looking back because I'm exhausted at the end of the holidays, so now I know how my parents felt. But probably our favorite activity that I keep going two things is our Christmas Eve party, which I kind of inherited. So now my brother and his family come over and my husband and his family come over and we have a big party and I make all the same food and cookies and

Monique Ramsey (23:08):
Do it up. You're doing it up right, right?

Amy (23:11):
Yeah, I'm doing it how I grew up doing it. I took over my mom's duties. But I think the funnest thing that we do is our Christmas light drive and my kids will drag me out of the house to do it. And sometimes we don't do it until Christmas day, the night of Christmas day, but we get hot cocoa and put Christmas music on in the car and we just go get lost in neighborhoods and we did Christmas lights. And the key is that if somebody really did it up, you have to go "ooh, ahh." And so we just crack each other up doing that. But that I think is the funnest thing that we do is just getting lost and looking at lights. And

Monique Ramsey (23:59):
People really do a beautiful job. I mean, I marvel at when I drive by and I'm in a condominium, so I have a patio and I do put lights on the patio, but it's 12 feet long. It's not very far, but I just love, we used to do that too, so my mom and dad and we'd all get in the van or something and go on a Christmas light drive my grandparents, we'd all jump in the car and go. And I think it's fun. And I love, is it KYXY? Who does, they start the Christmas carols and no commercials through the holiday season and you hear all the fun festive songs that you can play in the car?

Amy (24:39):
I think so. There's a few that do them.

Monique Ramsey (24:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Mean now every things on Spotify, and I just listen to that. But I love the fact that you could put on the radio and go on the drive and see all the lights.

Amy (24:51):
It's the oohs and ahs. We crack up doing it. And I think we're just kind of, I'm very goofy. And so my kids really, when I get goofy and that is my ultimate goofy is the oohs and ahs.

Monique Ramsey (25:08):
The oohs and ahs. Yeah. So now tell me, do you guys do, or did you do this growing up or do you do it now like Christmas pajamas? Because yeah, I remember as a kid, so this is because I'm old, it was like the lance nightgown, the Christmas edition, the flannel with the little lace or trim ruffle was always the thing. And now I've done the Christmas jammies and I think they're so fun.

Amy (25:35):
No, me too. Me too. Every year, every year. Except for now, it's not those classic flannels anymore. It's like the Victoria's Secret pajama sets. And I have to buy my own now. It's a Christmas Eve gift and I still will buy myself a pajama and put under the tree as well.

Monique Ramsey (25:53):
Oh, that's nice. Yeah, sometimes you just have to do it yourself. Right. But do you have a favorite ornament or piece of decor that you love to have? And what is it, and maybe why is it special?

Amy (26:09):
I have two, I have a recent edition that my mom gave me, and it was my first Christmas ornament from Portugal. And it's just a glass ball that says Baby's First Christmas. And it's from Portugal where I was born. And so that one's really special to me now. And aside from that, it's got to be my big stuffed snowman. We had one growing up that my great-grandfather, I think got it from a market. It was like a Coke, Coca-Cola sign display Santa Claus. And they got rid of it and my parents swooped it up. Well, my great-grandfather swooped it up and then my mom took it and she gave it to my brother and it was such a big ordeal. But she went and bought me my own snowman and I really like him.

Monique Ramsey (27:06):
How big is he?

Amy (27:07):
Four feet tall.

Monique Ramsey (27:09):
Oh, cute.

Amy (27:09):
And my cats have chewed off all of his pine cones, but he's still surviving.

Monique Ramsey (27:16):
Oh, that's sweet. I love that. And then do you guys ever do, let's say you were saying on Christmas Eve you have the big party and cook things. What are some of the holiday recipes that if you chose not to do it, that everybody would have a revolt?

Amy (27:34):
Little barbecue meatballs and the little weenies. We cook them in beer or wrap them in bacon and sprinkle brown sugar on them and bake them. And then recently I've gotten Pillsbury dough and made little pig in a blankets with them, but the meatballs and the weenies, they would just not be happy.

Monique Ramsey (27:57):
That sounds really good. Will you give us the recipe so we can put it in the show notes, because that sounds delicious with beer. I love it. I love it.

Amy (28:04):
Well, that's literally the recipe. We need some beer.

Monique Ramsey (28:08):
Well, it's fun too, to have things that are easy, but they're also really delicious. Or that you could and or bring to it to a Christmas party because one of my friends, Susie always brings the little meatballs and people go nuts. And she's like, "Monique, it's so easy, so easy. You get the meatballs, you get the barbecue sauce, you put them together in the crock pot and that's it." But they're really yummy. And that's kind of a holiday fun thing. It's not like you're going to have those in the middle of,

Amy (28:38):
I do cinnamon roll for Christmas morning. That's a big thing. They're really difficult to make dough. Let it rise, roll it out, let it rise.

Monique Ramsey (28:49):
Homemade. Yeah, that's big. Now have you guys ever done decorating either gingerbread cookies or houses or sugar cookies?

Amy (28:58):
I make a variety of cookies and it's a tradition, but it feels like a chore for everybody. But it's something that if we didn't do, they would miss it. But we do cut out cookies and frost them and we do gingerbread cookies. And one year I made sheets of gingerbread to do houses and we never made the houses. We ended up eating the sheets of gingerbread ourselves.

Monique Ramsey (29:22):
Well, gingerbreads yummy. I don't blame you on that one. Yeah, we used to do, I had this kid's cookbook, and in that cookbook, they're the best gingerbread cookies. And I found a copy of that cookbook on eBay last year and had it out for everybody. But this gingerbread recipe, it's so good, but it makes so much, then you're trying to figure out how to

Amy (29:48):
You put eyes and buttons and everything on each one.

Monique Ramsey (29:51):
I was trying to figure out how to cut it down, like all these five eighths of this, you're like, wait, I don't want to do math. But I guess cooking is math baking, but still they are so good that you're like, okay, fine. So I'll do some of it today. We'll roll those out. We'll put the rest of the,

Amy (30:10):
Send me the recipe.

Monique Ramsey (30:11):
Yeah, no, I will. And I'll put it in the show notes. It's so good. So good. But Dr. Riedler, anybody who was around last year and saw some of the pictures, we did a reel on Instagram of her baking. She's actually such a good surgeon. She's very, very good. But she's an amazing baker. And her cookie decorations were off the chart.

Amy (30:34):
They're like professional. She could sell cookies for a living.

Monique Ramsey (30:37):
She totally could. But the key was because sometimes you see these beautifully decorated cookies, but they taste terrible, but they look great. Her cookies, her gingerbread is so good. So I've got to try to get her to divulge the recipe and give it to us because my recipe good. Very good ones. But her recipes, I think even better. But it is a chore. It is a chore, but it's such a special part of the season, which I just love.

Amy (31:03):
There's a cookie we make called candy cane cookies where you have two different doughs and you have to roll them into lines and put them together and then you have to twist them just right. And there's such a pain to make in the dough cracks when you twist them. Oh god, my kids, I have to make them. But everybody knows that they can't come in the kitchen while I'm making them because I'm so frustrated with it that I'll yell at anybody who comes in, but they're so good.

Monique Ramsey (31:32):
Amy, you're a font of holiday knowledge is what you are. Well, I love this. Well, thank you for coming and sharing what makes your holiday special and your favorite holiday things with us.

Amy (31:44):
It's cool here that we have so many similar things. Everybody kind of has similar things.

Monique Ramsey (31:49):
Yeah, exactly. So go find somebody to tag and have them come sit with me for a few minutes. Will do. And we're bribing you guys, right, with a special gift card over to the coffee cart for a mochaccino with Monique. Yeah, brick and bell.

Amy (32:07):
That had nothing to do with me coming in here.

Monique Ramsey (32:09):
Oh good. Okay. Well that was my idea. I just thought there's a little incentive. I'm like, here, Brittney. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go out there right now. Okay, enjoy. Thanks. Thanks. Okay, bye bye. Alright, so now I get to welcome Kristen. She's one of our nurses. She's Dr. Riedler's head nurse. And we love it because she was here and then she went off to nursing school and tell us everybody about what you did and now you're back.

Kristen (32:38):
So I actually was in an LVN to BSN step up program for my registered nursing license. I just graduated. So now I'll be in RN BSN, and I'm really excited for my future.

Monique Ramsey (32:52):
That's so nice. I love that. Today we're talking about favorite things during the holidays. So if you want to think back to your childhood, what was one of your favorite things as a kid that you just knew the season was starting and you just look forward to?

Kristen (33:09):
Yeah, so my mom and I would actually go up to Julian and we'd stop at Dudley's Bakery and go into town. I love it. And kind of just hang out. And it's always cold up there. Sometimes it snows early, so it's just a fun day.

Monique Ramsey (33:23):
I love that, Dudley's is so good. So good. I haven't been there in years. And I remember taking my kids one time where they said, oh, there's snow up there. By the time we got up there, it's like black snow on the side of the road.

Kristen (33:36):
Yeah. It's scary.

Monique Ramsey (33:36):
It was kind of not really snowy anymore, but we tried. We tried.

Kristen (33:41):
It was icy.

Monique Ramsey (33:44):
And then as an adult, what is sort of one of your fun traditions that you've taken into adulthood?

Kristen (33:51):
So we actually live on the lake in Canyon Lake, California. So we have a yearly boat parade where everyone decorates their boat with lights and everything. And then we all kind of just cruise around the lake with our boats. And it's an all night thing. It's really fun.

Monique Ramsey (34:09):
How fun. I bet it's beautiful. Now, do people also jam Christmas music from their boat?

Kristen (34:14):
Oh, definitely. Yeah. People dress up as Santa and they wakesurf from their boat. It's really a fun time.

Monique Ramsey (34:21):
Oh, neat. And so this is during at night though, or during the day too?

Kristen (34:26):
Yeah, it actually goes from five to 10 at night, so

Monique Ramsey (34:30):
Oh, fun.

Kristen (34:31):
Yeah, it starts when it's light outside and then it starts getting dark and then everyone turns their lights on. So there's about, I'm going to say about a hundred boats that's in the parade. It's pretty big.

Monique Ramsey (34:42):
Wow. That's neat. And then do you guys like, well, yeah, you probably have dinner on the boat and holiday cheer, adult beverages on the boat. Do you have a certain food that it just wouldn't be Christmas without blank? What would that be?

Kristen (34:58):
Oh yeah, for sure. So we do a Christmas kind of friends thing, get together at our house, and we do the charcuterie boards. And especially, I like green bean casserole, so I always make a green bean casserole that's really good. And just the friends and family get together. Our family actually lives in San Diego, so my husband and I are from San Diego, but currently live in Canyon Lake, so we drive down to San Diego and hang out with the family. So yeah, it's kind of like an all weekend get together.

Monique Ramsey (35:32):
Oh, I like that. That sounds fun. That sounds really fun. Well, I know you have to go. We just kind of grabbed you in between things, but thanks for joining us. Yeah, no problem. And congratulations on your RN BSN. That's incredible. And I'm so glad you're back with us. I really missed you.

Kristen (35:49):
Oh my gosh. I missed everyone here so much.

Monique Ramsey (35:51):
So now you have to come back on the podcast where we can do a meet Kristen, because our old meet Kristen is years old and now you're in a whole different place professionally. So we'll do that again.

Kristen (36:02):
Awesome. Well, Merry Christmas everyone.

Monique Ramsey (36:04):
Thanks. Merry Christmas. Yeah, thanks. Have a good day. So everybody, I'm so excited to introduce one of my favorite team members because she's on my team with the media. She's our photographer, Amber. So welcome to the podcast, Amber.

Amber (36:19):
Hi. Thank you. Excited to be here.

Monique Ramsey (36:21):
Yeah. So Amber, tell us about some of your favorite things during the holidays. If we go back to when you were a kid, what was the thing that you really looked forward to or a food that you might've looked forward to?

Amber (36:34):
Okay. So my favorite holiday is Christmas because I come from a very big family. So getting everyone together was always a bit complicated, but Christmas was always the one holiday that no one ever missed. So I was super excited about that. And then I remember just me and my cousins, we couldn't wait for midnight to open our presents and play with the toys and all that. So we were 13 cousins. So imagine the chaos. Exactly.

Monique Ramsey (37:05):
Oh my gosh.

Amber (37:06):
And then everyone just running the entire house with their new toes and everything. And yeah, I really miss those moments. I mean, those are my happy memories, but now I can get to see my nieces and nephews live those experiences.

Monique Ramsey (37:23):
Right. So how many nieces and nephews do you have? Well, right now, like seven. Oh my gosh. Well, with 13 cousins. And how many brothers and sisters?

Amber (37:33):
I just have one brother.

Monique Ramsey (37:34):
Just one brother. Okay. Yeah. So you'd open presents at midnight?

Amber (37:38):
Yeah,

Monique Ramsey (37:39):
Oh, how fun.

Amber (37:40):
Yeah, that's like our tradition.

Monique Ramsey (37:42):
Well, if there there's 13 cousins, then there must have been 50 people there.

Amber (37:46):
Yeah, it was a big gathering. That's neat.

Monique Ramsey (37:50):
And did you have any It was a full house. Yeah, a full house. So would you guys always have the same thing to eat for that party?

Amber (37:58):
Yeah, it's always tamales. I can't wait. Right now I'm counting down the days for my tamales and then maybe some turkey, but it's usually only tamales with frijoles. Oh, yum. I love it. And would you guys make them yourself? Yeah, my mom. This year it's my turn to help.

Monique Ramsey (38:17):
Oh, it's your turn to help. Good. Okay. Well maybe you could give us the recipe or if your mom would share the recipe with our audience. I've heard a couple different recipes being thrown around or things that sound delicious. So I want to sort of pull them all together so that we can have them in the show notes for everybody. So tell me a little bit about, let's go into music. Do you have any certain music that, do you like to listen to Christmas carols or are you not Christmas pop music?

Amber (38:46):
Well, I just go to Christmas music in Spotify and just play that all night.

Monique Ramsey (38:52):
Yeah, I was getting in the mood for this, so when I was typing up my notes of questions for everybody, I'm like, wait a minute, I got to do this with holiday tunes. So I turned on Spotify, went to holiday, and I love it. You can kind of get traditional carols, you can get old fashioned, you can get pop like fun.

Amber (39:11):
Exactly. Spanish and English.

Monique Ramsey (39:13):
Yeah. Yeah, true. Now do you have a certain holiday movie that you love?

Amber (39:18):
I love The Grinch. I know it's a weird movie, but I just love it.

Monique Ramsey (39:22):
Yeah, it's a great movie. Now see, I grew up with the cartoon Grinch from 1960, whatever. I was born at the end of 67. So it was right around then when I was a little kid. And oh my gosh, when the TV guide would have the holiday listings of what day and what time, and you didn't want to miss it. If it's like Thursday at eight o'clock was Charlie Brown Christmas or The Grinch Who Stole Christmas or the Santas Coming to Town, whatever. I don't remember. With Burl Ives. And I mean now you can get everything. You could get it in July if you wanted to, you could watch it just open up. But back then, and it was like, "oh gosh, we have to be home that night because it's my only chance to see it until next year." And I love The Grinch too. And the music is so good.

Amber (40:12):
Yeah, it's so good. And the art, I love the Christmas vibes in that movie.

Monique Ramsey (40:17):
Yeah, yeah. Now have you guys ever gone out exploring Balboa Park or looking at Christmas lights anywhere in San Diego?

Amber (40:27):
Last year I went to the Coronado Hotel. Yeah. I really loved it. Like the Christmas lights.

Monique Ramsey (40:33):
Oh, I saw there an email for their stuff and it's like one week from today, which means that it'll be, I think later this week they'll be all decorated for Christmas.

Amber (40:42):
Yeah, exactly.

Monique Ramsey (40:43):
It looked beautiful. So I think I might have to

Amber (40:46):
A skating rink too.

Monique Ramsey (40:47):
Oh really? Oh my gosh. Yeah, I saw something like little igloos and I don't know, but it looked amazing. So I think I'm going to have to take a trip down there once they get decorated.

Amber (40:56):
Yeah,

Monique Ramsey (40:58):
It's fun. Yeah. Well thanks Amber. So enjoy your holiday season and thanks for sharing a little bit about your favorite things with us and go find somebody to tap and bring into the seat.

Amber (41:11):
Okay, sounds good. Thank you.

Monique Ramsey (41:13):
So now I'm welcoming Brittney to the podcast. Brittney Murphy has been with us since she was like 17 years old and I don't want to give away your age, but more than half your life, right? Yes. Or less, more.

Brittney (41:25):
Well now as I'm getting older, probably less than half my life, but

Monique Ramsey (41:29):
Okay, a long time. She knows everything, she's done everything. And she's our queen of assisting and organizing because we need it. All of us going in 19 different directions. Brittney's the one that keeps us all on task and keeps us all going in the right direction. So tell us, we're going to have you tell us about your holiday favorite things. And so tell me a fun holiday memory you have maybe from growing up.

Brittney (42:05):
It's funny, I think most people are probably going to go Thanksgiving or Christmas, but for me that was always going to grandma's house on dad's side and Nana's house on my mom's side. So it was very kind of busy around those holidays. So for me, my favorite holiday tradition that I always look back to is actually New Year's Eve. We would do something really unique with my aunt and uncle and all of our cousins. We would go to the beach down in Coronado, close to kind of the ball dropping around 10:00 PM and it was really cool. We were young kids, so we'd all load up in the car and go down, go to the beach at dark. And then really funny, they would take us to the local Denny's and we got to order whatever we wanted and we'd be so cool. We got to give the waiter, the server our order.

(43:05):
So feel all grown up. And then my grandparents lived in IB, Imperial Beach. And so we would swing by on the way home, wake up granddad, and because he could never stay up until the ball dropped. And so we'd all hop on granddad's bed, wake him up, wish him a happy New Year, and then have a sleepover at my uncle and aunt's house. And that was our unique holiday tradition that I always remember. And obviously we grew up and we stopped doing it. We all had our New Year Eve plans, but that always resonates in something I'll always remember.

Monique Ramsey (43:48):
Yeah, that's really neat. And now you have a child of your own and how old is Rowan?

Brittney (43:54):
He's going to be three in January already. So kind of thinking of those holiday traditions to him because now he's getting into those things from

Monique Ramsey (44:05):
He's getting into it, right. So in terms of what you guys are planning to do, do you have any certain things that you think you might want to introduce as a family?

Brittney (44:18):
Yes. So he is very musical, so he's already learning his Christmas songs. Good, good. He daily, nightly is singing Jingle Bells, already doing the Christmas cookie decorating. And this year my mom has the house decorated as Grinchmas. And so he's already into the lights and just taking it all in and Oh, how fun. He loves it. Loves it already.

Monique Ramsey (44:47):
So I brought this up with Dr. Salazar and I have an opinion too. So I'm interested to see your opinion. Does Santa wrap the gifts that Santa leaves or does Santa leave them under the tree unwrapped?

Brittney (45:03):
I think I'm going back to how it was for me as a kid. It depends on the gift. If it's one of those big gifts, if we got bikes as a kid that's put together, but unwrapped, if they're like little trinkets, it was always in a different wrapping paper. So not to give it away, but definitely.

Monique Ramsey (45:27):
Yeah. So the reason I asked the question is, so I'm no longer married, but when I got married, my Santa only brought toys that were unwrapped. Everything was assembled, everything was there set up, but there was no wrapping. Family gifts were wrapped. And then my husband, I find out, "oh no, no, no, no, what are you talking about? They have to be wrapped. These presents have to be wrapped. Santa's workshop wraps the gifts." I'm like, "no, they don't." It was the funniest thing. We agreed on so many things, but that one thing, we had both had very strong ideas about what it should be. And I'm going to ask you, who do you think won?

Brittney (46:09):
Your middle name's Noël. I mean, you're all things Christmas.

Monique Ramsey (46:13):
You're right. I won that battle. I'm like, no. And it's just funny. It's funny to see things that when you grow up, it's like a certain way and how would it be different than that way? And then you go like, "oh, okay, I guess it could be different." And somebody else has a whole different idea. So do you have a certain recipe that maybe just screams Christmas to you?

Brittney (46:41):
With me, it was probably, and I don't know if it's a certain recipe, but it's something that we'd always do around the holidays is tamale making. I come from a Mexican family, so it was always making tamales before Christmas. So we had them around Christmas and New Year's to make. And with us it was, you started as a young kid, you were the tamale holders and you would upgrade as you got older if you kind of graduated. So that's our Mexican recipe. And it was just another kind of tradition, family bonding time, and some of the best times we had as a family together, it had the music playing in the background. It was just an all day time to spend together as a family.

Monique Ramsey (47:29):
And what are your favorite tamales? Are they like the sweet ones or do you like something more spicy or savory?

Brittney (47:35):
Yeah, no, I was never a fan of the sweet ones. We do like a chicken concoction and you stuff it with the green olives, the potatoes, the green beans, the jalapenos.

Monique Ramsey (47:47):
Wow.

Brittney (47:48):
Yeah, those ones are good. That sounds good. It's really good.

Monique Ramsey (47:51):
If you can share that recipe with us, that'd be awesome. Now do you ever, I'm thinking Rowan might like to go see Christmas lights. Do you think you guys are going to go out for Christmas lights?

Brittney (48:02):
Definitely. So we're going to see, I got his pictures with Santa this Friday with my niece who's about to turn one and they're just like two peas in a pod. So Christmas pictures with Santa and then, yeah, well, I like to hold off as much as possible because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so I like to hold off on a lot of the Christmas stuff so I can just enjoy all the holidays and then do all the Christmas lights and things. Especially around Coronado, they have the best lights.

Monique Ramsey (48:32):
Oh, that's what I've heard that a couple times today. The Coronado is where it's at.

Brittney (48:36):
Yes.

Monique Ramsey (48:37):
So well, thanks for coming on the podcast and sharing your favorite things with us for the holidays. And I'll remind everybody that if you go on our website under the Specials and Events tab, you click on that and it'll take you over to the Favorite Things promotion we're doing. So do it quick because there's only so many surgical slots before Christmas or before the new year, and we want to make sure that you get one of them if you're thinking about having a favorite thing from one of our plastic surgeons. So thanks Brittney for helping organize getting everybody on the podcast today, and I think it's going to be a really fun episode and a really merry holiday season.

Announcer (49:20):
Take a screenshot of this podcast episode with your phone and show it at your consultation or appointment or mention the promo code podcast to receive $25 off any service or product of $50 or more at La Jolla Cosmetic. La Jolla Cosmetic is located just off the I-5 San Diego Freeway in the XiMED building on the Scripps Memorial Hospital campus. To learn more, go to ljcsc.com or follow the team on Instagram @ljcsc. The La Jolla Cosmetic Podcast is a production of The Axis, theaxis.io.