Hello and welcome to day eight of the 12 days of Christmas. I'm Mimi Fotz, and this is Hello from the Van. Parents, today's episode is about six minutes. It's a short one. Plan accordingly. Now, before we begin, don't fly off the handle. I need you to be all ears. Oh, and hold those horses. Because we've got some things we need to discuss. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Do you guys have horses? Are you actually all ears? And can you actually fly? Off a handle? What handle? The handle of what? A door handle? Wait a second. I think I know what we're talking about today. We're talking about idioms. An idiom is a phrase that means something else. Like hold your horses. Do I actually mean to go find some whole horses and hold on to them? No. When I say be all ears, do I actually mean that you are your head is just made of ears? No, I don't. It means listen really well. That's what an idiom is. An idiom is a phrase that we don't take literally, it means something else. Did you know that Christmas has its own set of idioms? It does. There are phrases that we use only at Christmas. For example, don't get your tinsel in a tangle. Do I actually mean tinsel on a tree in a tangle? No. I mean don't get upset. There are so many Christmas idioms that we're actually going to play a game today. You can play together with someone else, you can play by yourself, but just know this is low stakes. This is not high stakes. This is a low stakes. This should be just something fun that you do either with your family or by yourself. So here's how it's going to work. I'm going to say a Christmas idiom. And then you just shout out what you think it means. Whoever's the most correct gets a point. If you're playing by yourself, awesome. You're the winner. If you're playing with other people, feel free to keep score or don't. It doesn't matter. This should just be fun. This is low stakes, Saturday fun. Are you ready? Idiom number one. Good things come in small packages. Yeah, it's a pretty easy one. It just means that small things can be great. Here's the next one. Oh, they were working so hard. They were working as busy as elves. As busy as elves. What does that mean? Did you guess very busy? Yes, working really hard, being very busy. Alright, here's the next one. She sure cut them to ribbons. What does that mean? Cut them to ribbons. It means to judge or to criticize. Alright, this next one comes to us all the way from England. You ready for this? Aw, it's like turkeys voting for Christmas. What does that mean? Like turkeys voting for Christmas. It means that you choose to accept a situation which will result in very bad things for you. Like a turkey who says, Yeah, sure, let's have Christmas and y'all can eat me there. We would use the idiom, like a turkey voting for Christmas, when you're talking about someone making a bad decision. So for example, oh yeah, they went over there like a like a turkey voting for Christmas. Basically, like they went somewhere that wasn't safe, or they went somewhere that something something terrible could happen to them, like a turkey voting for Christmas. All right, two more left. Here we go. The next one is the proof is in the pudding. So if I used this, I might say, Oh yeah, you know, I had my doubts, but the proof is in the pudding. What does that mean? The proof is in the pudding. It means the success is in the results, like tasting pudding. So for example, if I went to a Christmas dinner and I tried the Christmas pudding, I would try it and then I would know that it was successful. So when you say the proof is in the pudding, you're saying you know the success of something by trying it or seeing it or doing it. So the proof is in the pudding. All right, last one, here we go. Oh, I'm definitely coming to your party. I'll be there with bells on. To be there with bells on. What does that mean? To be there with bells on. It means that you will be there loud and clear. Everyone will hear you coming because you are so excited. It just means you're excited about something and everyone's gonna know that you're gonna be there. So, oh, will you come to my concert? Oh, I'll be there with bells on. I'll be there and I'll make a hoot and a holler, right? It's just one more way of saying that you're really excited about something. So that's our quick lesson in idioms, specifically Christmas idioms. So it's about time we wrap it up. Are we actually wrapping anything? No, it just means we're putting something together. It's about time we wrap it up and put an end to this podcast. I'm Mimi Fotz, and this has been Hello from the Band.