In this episode, Angie Austin chats with her dear friend Michelle Rahn about the essence of Christmas. Delve into heartwarming family traditions, the significance of building lasting memories, and how acts of kindness define holiday spirit. The episode also features a delightful segment about a holiday cruise adventure offering a fresh way to celebrate the season together.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 05 :
We get a little extra Jim Stovall in the Christmas season because he’s got lots of family stories, and I think I have some actually decent Christmas memories as well. I didn’t have the Jim Stovall childhood by any means, but we had a few Christmas trees here and there, definitely some pretty sparse years where we didn’t have much of anything but you know there’s always a roof over the head even if it was section eight low-income housing we weren’t out in the rain so i really can’t complain but jim i just wanted uh you know just to talk about christmas and cool memories any traditions that your family had we’ve kind of got a fun thing going on this year that i’ll tell you about in a minute but when you think of christmas what do you think about
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I think about, you know, being a small child going to my grandparents and the annual pilgrimage back there and see my cousins and things and all of that. And then it became a time to kind of the parentheses, you know, we would go around the table and everybody would say, what have you done this year since we were here last year? What did you do? Yeah. That idea of checking in with people, that was great because throughout the year I would think, okay, if I do this well, I can tell everybody at Christmas. When you’re a little bit, that’s kind of a big deal. I still use it that way. There’s a speech I give for a charity group here in town. Every Christmas they have me come and share. It’s fun to sit there and think, where was I a year ago? and what has happened in the last year, and it’s a good way to kind of have the Zig Ziglar check up from the neck up, see what am I doing, and what have I done for others, and Christmas is a great time for that, and to look at… What are you doing for other people? How is that working? And, you know, I remember being at my grandparents’ and through their church, there would always be, you know, we’re going to go take clothes to these homeless people or we’re going to work at the food kitchen and do things. And there was always something like that in the morning that kind of put it in perspective, you know. And so, yeah, I just have all those wonderful memories. And then I really enjoyed it when I started working. buying presents for other people you know and you get to that age where you’re actually thinking about who am i going to buy a present for and what am i going to get them and and then you find out it is more blessed to give than receive so those are just some of my you know and then i remember my my nephew when he was eight he my father every year would read the christmas story from luke and uh The first time he heard it, he recognized it as the Charlie Brown thing. And I said, well, yeah, that’s the Charlie Brown thing. It was written a little before that by St. Luke, but yeah, that’s the Charlie Brown thing. But my dad would read that. And then he got to be, my nephew got to be a teenager, and he was a typical teenager. He said, are we going to have to sit through that again? And I said, yeah. I said, and someday you’ll give everything you have to hear that old man read that story one more time. Right. And then it happened. You know, he got into his 20s, and my dad was up in his 90s. But he said, now we’re going to get the story again, aren’t we? And I said, yeah, we’re going to get the story. As long as that old man’s alive, you’re going to get the story. And then the first year my father had passed, he came to me and he says, do you think it would be okay if I read the story? I said, I think that’s why he read the story all those years. Yeah, I think that’s what it’s about. You read the story. So, you know, all those things put together, and it’s just a great time. And, you know, I just am grateful every year for it. And we shut the office down for a couple of weeks, and everybody goes and does their thing. And it’s a wonderful time, wonderful opportunity.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s kind of neat, too, when you shut the office down for a few weeks so people can plan ahead and celebrate with their families because so many people try to ask off for time at Christmas, and they can’t do that over the holiday season. They can’t take that vacation time because people are fighting for it. So to close the office down, that’s really a cool thing that people can really plan ahead and not have that stress of not knowing if they’ll get to visit with their family.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, and one of the cool things you can do when you’re an entrepreneur or you own a business is you can do that several months in advance this year. And every year we let people know, okay, from December 18th until January 5th, we are closed, guys. Go do whatever you need to do. But they can also, those that have things that have to be done during that time can get ahead of it. Everybody can do what they need to do. And it’s great because, you know, we’re a production house. And it takes everybody working together to get TV done and all the things we have to do. And it’s good to just shut down it. Everybody at the same time then be missing somebody and you’ve got to cover for them. So it’s always nice. It is always nice. And, you know, I just… And, you know, once again, I go to work every day and my audience and the people we serve are number one. The people that work with me are number two. And I’m number three. And we usually don’t ever have to get that far because I get everything I want and a lot more just taking care of the people we serve and the people that work with me.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know… I uh and I know that you know your office is definitely family and it’s such a family environment and we have a great group of people too at um Crawford uh we have the you know the big Christmas party every year it’s so much fun when my husband left he’s like wow those people are so nice and I’m like usually Christian radio you know people are you know pretty cool people there’s some political people and there are other types of shows obviously and I do a lot of good news but um yeah it’s a great bunch of people okay so for our christmas this year and this isn’t a tradition but it might be a fun one to start the kids really wanted to take a cruise and it’s hard to kind of work everybody’s schedule around you know two kids coming in from college and you know the high school basketball schedule and my husband’s work and my show anyway so i started planning it only about a month or two ago And we are going to the ABC Islands, really far south, interestingly enough, near Venezuela. So my brother said, don’t take any fishing boats out that resemble drug boats out for your excursions. I’m like, oh, my gosh. So anyway, we’re going to Venezuela. A private island and Half Moon Cay. It’s owned by the cruise ship. And then we’re going to Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao and like rent golf carts and go snorkeling. And then the kids really like all the activities. And this year, it’s kind of cool because there’s so many kids on the ship during a holiday like this. I guess there’s 400 kids 17 and under and then several hundred kids between college age. So they were going to have a young people meet and greet and mixer in addition to the teen club because one of my kids can go to the teen club but the others can’t. So they’re really excited about that because they make friends and they get to do all kinds of things. Yeah. They’re always busy on the ship, and then we meet back around midnight, and that’s our time that we’d like the kids to be back in the room. We’ll see you at our oldest if we do that this time. But anyway, to come back, because nothing good really happens after midnight anyway, even on a cruise ship. So we then talk about what we did, but we order room service, and the kids always love to get – Club sandwiches with extra bacon and extra turkey. And then they like to get hot chocolate chip cookies or chocolate cake and then milk and maybe an extra order of fries. And so that’s like, of course, you know, the young people meal where they don’t get fat. But anyway, so we like to do that. And then the other cool thing we do as a family is we do forced pictures. Like when we get off, they try to take your picture. We never really buy them, but it’s fun to, you know, do weird poses and laugh about the pictures every day when they come out on our apps because now you have an app where you can view them. You don’t have to go to like a picture store. But we meet for dinner every night. And at first we didn’t get into the main dining room. And the main dining room is like something I imagine would be in like Paris or New York City where it’s multiple stories tall with giant glass chandeliers. And it’s very elegant. And your wait staff is usually four people. Somebody’s working on your water. Somebody delivers your food. You’ve got your main waiter. And then usually there’s a sommelier. So you’ve got like a whole team of four people waiting on your family there. And I just love that. And we’re good tippers. I love to take good care of people that treat us well. And so what I love is every night when we come to the table, generally, they already know what our drink order is. So they have our drinks there and non-alcoholic. Thank you. And then, like, for instance, I like berries for dessert with whipped cream. Well, that’s not on the menu. And so they’ll make sure every night I get fresh berries and whipped cream, even though it’s not on the dessert menu. And the dessert menu, Jim, you know, it’s like 10 or 12 things. I mean, some nights it’s like lobster and steak night and whatever. And I don’t know. It’s just the kids have a… They like – because I normally would not let my kids order lobster and steak. We go out a fair a month, but I’m not one to go, oh, every kid gets a $50 filet mignon. Go for it. I just think that’s wasteful because I know there’s other things that they like almost as much that we don’t need to spend $500 to go out to dinner. um, is a big family. So anyway, they just get a kick out of the freedom, you know, on the ship and making new friends and all the activities and all the events and things. So that’s, Oh, and I’m bringing a Christmas tree. It’s tinsel. So it’s in a box. It’s like, um, no bigger really than a shoe box. It’s a little bit wider and a little flatter than that. And then you just pull it up and hook it on the top of like a stick and it’s, and it has lights on it and it’s a whole tinsel tree. And then I’m going to put a few presents underneath it, which is snorkel gear, you know, not like a real, you know, a surprise and, And then I got some Christmas decorations for the room. And it’s my husband’s birthday right before Christmas. So I have like birthday surprise decorations for like the table in the room. So I think it’ll be a really cool, you know, family tradition.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, I think so, you know, and that’s a great thing to invest your time and money in, you know, because, I mean, the only things we can do with our money is to spend it on stuff, make memories with it, and go places or give it away. And during the holidays, you know, stuff is what everybody focuses on, but the really good things are the memories we make and the things we do for others, you know, and… And so I’m really excited, and this year I’m really excited. My brother was a basketball player, and I was doing an event, a charity thing, and Shaquille O’Neal was over there, and he was signing stuff for people. And when he was done, we had a little extra time, and I said, Shaq, you mind signing one of those basketballs for my brother? And he did, and I’m giving that to my brother, and I’m really excited about it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, that is exciting. It is a really cool feeling when you really hit the nail on the head and get something that they really love. When I was little, and I remember my parents got divorced, we didn’t have much. I was so excited because my grandmother came to visit. She was a teacher, and so she got us a couple of gifts. I needed shoes for a dance, not a dance, pardon me, a choir performance. And I really wanted the Nikes that were in at the time. They were white with the blue swoosh and they were all leather. And they’re really like the big thing. But I needed to have something to wear with my dress. But I was like, well, forget it. I really want these Nikes. So I’m just going to wear them with my dress, which now I guess kids do it all the time. But then it was like kind of odd that it wasn’t wearing like sandals or whatever. So I get these Nikes. And so that was like my big deal thing because I had to have new shoes. So I wear those to the choir concert and I come home and My grandmother’s got two presents for me underneath the – actually, there was just one for me. So the one present that was for me under the Christmas tree, I was so excited, Jim. I tore just the corner so I could just see what it was. I was so excited because we didn’t have any money that year. And I think my dad gave me a box of Junior Mints. which now cost a dollar. So I’m back then, I’m assuming they were probably a quarter, but that’s what I got for my dad, a box of junior. He was a professor at a university. Like that was my gift. Okay. So I was a little like, you know, when you’re in sixth grade, you’re a fifth or sixth grade here, you’re a little bitter about the junior mints. Right. So anyway, I, um, tear the little corner and it was um socks white tube socks and i’m like i have three brothers jim i had white tube socks coming out of my ears right because every single all old boy clothing went to me like like camo parkas orange hunting hats you know really ugly camo pants like all of those beautiful items would go would flow down the line to the little sister you know so So the last thing I wanted was boys’ tube socks. Oh, Jim. But you know what? Merry Christmas. The memories now make me laugh because, you know, you and I, we want for nothing now. So those memories just make me pleased I can do so much for my kids. I adore you, friend. Thank you for everything. Merry Christmas.
SPEAKER 01 :
Merry Christmas to you and everyone.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
Hello there, Angie Austin and my good friend, Michelle Rahn. As you know from some of our interviews over the years, we text daily because Beatrice Bruno, Michelle and I are friends and we exchange scripture and chit-chat with each other. And I wanted Michelle to join us. She’s a speaker as well, Miss Senior America 2004. She’s very involved in that group. And as you heard in a prior interview, she likes to learn something new every day. So she’s constantly going on these outings. But I also wanted to talk to her about the meaning of Christmas because she is a strong Christian and I wanted to talk about some of her traditions and what Christmas means to her. Hello there, friend.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, hi, Angie. I just love being with you. Thank you. That was a great introduction and not so much deserving as those wonderful words, but I’m grateful for it. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, you and I used to do a word a week because you’re a teacher. And last time you were on, I teased you about how you still plan field trips. And you and your husband, Bob, who’s also a teacher, you get out there and you, you know, explore the world and learn something. And you did tell me… in the break that day something i want to share with everyone because you said when we talked about bishop’s castle in colorado that the story behind that castle was the man the man who built it on his own and he’d sit in this chair and it would say you know free you can come if you want to donate great because i don’t make any money off this thing i’m just i wanted to build this castle that was accessible to everybody you can donate if you want but you said angie the point of that castle was the man it’s the person You know, all of these outings you do, like Mother Cabrini’s Shrine, or you go to Legacy Pies or Hammond’s Candy. There’s a person or people behind these things, and that’s the story. And so what’s the book that you recommended to me?
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s called Young at Heart. It’s an old book, but it’s a wonderful, wonderful book about different people. It’s by Anne, A-N-N-E, Snowden Crossmont. C-R-O-S-M-A-N. And what she did was interview many, many people as to what they feel their old age is attributed to. And it’s excellent. It’s just excellent. And I’ve, gosh, I’ve read this a million times and underlined and underscored, but I love the fact that she interviewed the person. And many of them are famous, yes, but many of them are not. And it’s just a wonderful collection of philosophies. And many, many, many of them are Christian. Some are not. And it’s just what they attribute their lifelong great journey and what they enjoy about it. So I would recommend it.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m already ordering it from my mom, and it’s got famous people on the cover. And it says, Young at Heart, 61 Extraordinary Americans Tell How to Defy Age with Zest, Work, and Healthy Lifestyles by Ann Snowden-Crossman. And it’s an older book, but you can get a used version. That’s what I’m going to do for my mom for six bucks. And I see a lot of the famous people on the cover. You would have been a good interview for that book.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love that. Okay. All right. Well, speaking of staying young at heart, I don’t want to forget because I always ask you about this and I want, I’m just so curious about it. You have this tablecloth when we talk about the holidays. You’ve got your daughters. You’ve got your, how many perfect grandkids? You’ve got to tell everyone. Five. Yes. And that’s how she introduced, five perfect ones, five perfect grandkids. And you and Bob and the girls and the in-laws and the grandkids. Okay. a tablecloth. Can you explain what this tablecloth has to do with a holiday?
SPEAKER 06 :
You bet. Well, well, yes, I can. And we started it years ago. Gosh, I think it’s been 25 years ago. Wow. Around that time now. And in fact, we’re on our second tablecloth. All I did was we spend Christmas sometime during Christmas together. And of course, as Kids get older and we get older. It’s harder to get everybody together.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
But we do grab at least some time where we’re all together. And my daughters and I pull out the tablecloth, which has been signed. And each person, sometime during that get-together, sits down and signs with a colorful pen, one that you can wash, and says, they briefly tell what they loved about the year that has just passed. And it’s been very, very fun to read. Now that I have a grandson who’s graduated from college and working now as an engineer, I can go back and read what he wrote. He scribbled at age five. And it’s just been a real fun thing to do. Of course, it’s not a tablecloth that I use to put food on. I will put a piece of plastic, you know, those… those great things you can put over to protect. and put it over. But the kids all go back and read through that. And it’s joyful. And it gives a personal sense to our family.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s a really great way to describe it, that it’s joyful. I love that. Oh, that is so sweet.
SPEAKER 06 :
And some years have not been joyful for everybody. I mean, there’s been times in there where that’s been mentioned too. But those are things that we build on and that God has walked through us
SPEAKER 05 :
with us and those are times that we need to remember too oh that’s beautiful okay so um you know having raised your your young people your you know your kids as christians um and that being an important part of their upbringing and you saying to me as i’ve repeated to you many times over the over a decade that we’ve been friends i’d say about 15 years or so maybe even 20, you said if you had one regret from your younger year, it was that you wish that you talked to Jesus more, that you prayed more, that you connected more. And so I want you to tell everybody about that again, because that’s been one of the significant things that stuck with me that you’ve said in our friendship, because I think of you and Beatrice, our little texting group in the morning. Yes, she’s so good. Yes, I think of you guys in constant prayer, every day praying and connecting with the Lord.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly, and And even when we don’t see answers to prayer, which we may not see until we see Jesus face to face, keep praying. Those prayers are they they’re like incense. They grow. They just float up to Jesus and to God, to our home, to him. So, yes. Gosh, Angie, when I was growing up, I had a wonderful mother who loved Jesus. And so I learned to love her, to love her and her Jesus. But I will say that it was not a relationship. And that’s where I feel the difference happened when I was older, that I developed a real sense that God is real, that Jesus is walking with me, that he loves me in spite of me. He has my name on his palm, just as he has your name on his palm. And it’s just a real sense that he’s real. it isn’t a made up thing. It isn’t just the story we read at Christmas, but I developed a relationship and I, I continue to seek coming closer to him. What is it, Jesus, that you want me to do today? Who is it that I’m supposed to be with? You’re meeting, meeting people in the grocery store or along the way, or somebody who just shows up. Those are not coincidences. Those are God incidences. And Jesus, There’s a great little book, of course, called The God Wink. And those are places where God takes us because he wants us to do something, further his kingdom, show God’s love, tell somebody that Jesus loves them. And it isn’t so much what we say as how we live. And I am a believer in that. I mean, we know how to talk to people in a way that’s not going to make it sound like we know everything. All I can share is my experience, what I’ve experienced. And people can’t argue with that because that’s my story. And yet I can share that story. And that’s important. So that’s how I feel that I would wish that I had known that sooner, that Christ is real. He is a real friend. He is the person who loves me the most. And as I said before, in spite of me, he still loves me.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, I would have loved to have known your mom. You’ve said so many, I get like teary-eyed just saying it because you’ve told me so many things about her over the years and you speak about her with such love.
SPEAKER 06 :
For sure. She was one in a million. And of course, growing up, I didn’t always realize that, probably hardly ever, but I sure do when I look back and never do I want to look back and put her on a pedestal that She did everything right. She didn’t, but she learned, and I watched her learn. I watched as she went. She was sick her whole life. So we see how people live through adversity and how she relied on Jesus, and she didn’t have to say anything. She just showed it, showed it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I have really enjoyed, you know, learning from you and you learn so much from her. So in a way, I feel like I knew her because there’s such an essence of her in how you go through your life. I want to talk about because of your relationship with Jesus, you know, Christmas, you know, what it means to you and how you celebrate it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Again, our whole family gets together at some point and How we celebrate it has changed over the years. When the girls were little, we always had Jesus’ birthday cake. And why are we celebrating? Because it’s his birthday. We all went together as a family to church some kind of Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. And now with families who go to their own churches, that certainly has changed. But the fact that we still get together… And celebrate Jesus is the most important. And Christmas cards, I think, are an important part of the way our family has celebrated. I have an ex-son-in-law who didn’t enjoy our Christmas gatherings because every year Michelle would say, okay, when are we going to do our Christmas picture? Because for every year since Bob and I have been married, which is 56, we have sent out Christmas cards with our family’s picture, whether that’s just Bob and me or what it is. But it is a time that all of us have been together and, you know, before our cameras, before our phones that have the camera now. It was an all-day experience. We would go with another family. We’d take their Christmas pictures. They’d take ours. But it was all day because you didn’t know if the pictures were going to develop just fine. You had to wait until you put it in to develop. So you took hundreds of pictures. But that’s been one of our family traditions that I love. I can’t say that my whole family loves that, but I do.
SPEAKER 05 :
it’s a neat thing to see the grandkids grow up and, you know, everybody maturing and things like that. And I, I’ve received some really beautiful, um, you know, cards from you over the years and kept them up on the fridge. And it’s fun to see those five grandkids, you know, grow up and they’re so adorable. Um, I think that’s a really cool tradition. I wish we would have been, uh, you know, more diligent about getting photos. We have so few family photos because you’ve got to get someone, an extra person to take that photo of the whole family, you know? Well, um,
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, not anymore.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s true. That’s true. That’s true.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it works.
SPEAKER 05 :
It works. That’s true. I should have one of my tech-savvy kids do that. All right. We have just a minute left. I also want you to talk about, you know, you had a heart attack way back in the early 2000s. So here we are.
SPEAKER 06 :
In 1999.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, my goodness. Okay. So here we are. It was Columbine. All these years later, yes, the day of Columbine, because you knew people involved in that and had a heart attack that day. How, you know, 25 years later, how have you stayed healthy or so vibrant and full of life taking these field trips and walk? Like, what do you do to stay, you know, healthy?
SPEAKER 06 :
I appreciate that. And this year, God is so good. I have two brand new hips and it feels so wonderful to walk. I do walk regularly. Exercise is a word that I don’t enjoy at all. Not at all. Walking, I can do. I like to walk outside. I’m not good at walking on a machine. That’s boring to me. But I do like being outside. So just appreciation of what God has graced me with and had a pacemaker put in close to 10 years ago. But I can’t. When I had the heart attack all those many, many years ago, I came out of the hospital with Vonette Bright’s philosophy. She was Bill Bright’s wife, who was a great evangelist. And her philosophy was the fact that God has me living means he has something left for me to do. And that’s my request. What is it you have in mind for me to do today, God? Is it time for me to come home to you? What do you want me to do? I want to be I want to work towards your kingdom for as long as you’ve allowed me to be here. And so he provides.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love that. He will provide. I love that. Merry Christmas, my friend. Give us your website.
SPEAKER 06 :
Merry Christmas, honey. Thank you. Oh, website. Michelle at MichelleARon.com.
SPEAKER 05 :
MichelleARon.com. Thank you, friend. Thank you, Angie. Love you. Love you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
