Ep 359 - Merry Christmas!

Hey, everybody. Flip and Annie here, founder of the Freedom Real Estate Group family of companies. And welcome to another episode of our.

Podcast, which is called Freedom through Passive Income.

That's right. And welcome to our Christmas edition. This is our Christmas episode, and as you can tell, something's flashing over here. I'm not sure.

Yes, you are flashing, my dear.

This is my ugly sweater. But. So it's a Michigan state. Of course. And for those of you that are listening and not watching, my shirt is flashing different color, or my sweater is flashing different colors and it's got a huge spartan head on. So it's my ugly Christmas sweater that lights up. But what I'm going to spare everyone from is that it also plays music.

I wonder what it plays.

Well, it connects Bluetooth to your phone, and so I typically have it playing the Michigan State fight song, but last night I was walking around the house and it had Christmas music playing, so it was too hilarious.

Yeah. And I'm standing in this episode because I wanted everybody to be able to see. I can't. I'm standing on my tiptoes. Oh, it's a little bulldog with, like, a Santa hat and. Oh, it's cute.

It's a Christmas bulldog.

That's right. It's the only Christmas shirt I packed to go to Arizona. I couldn't believe it. I'm looking going one Christmas shirt.

I could have brought you some anomi.

So funny. But we are. We were. We are recording this early. That's why you see Flip still in his hotel room in Austin, and I'm in my condo here in Scottsdale. I'm recording it early, but today is Christmas. Merry Christmas to everybody who's listening to this episode. We hope you're having a wonderful time with your family. We are spending Christmas day in Arizona with my family. We've got my brother here, my. Both my parents here, and my sister, which is a family of eight. And then Flip and I. Plus two dogs. Yeah. And I don't even know if. If my sister is bringing any of their pets. I don't think so. So it. Hopefully it's just the two dogs. So super excited Christmas morning. I know my mom is super excited. She's having the kids sing, and we're having, like, a little mini church service because that's what she wanted to do. And we got lots of, you know, lots of things and activities, and it's just really, you know, pretty cool that we're going to get to be with family. Right. Because that's ultimately what it's all about. You know, for us, it's our why and spending time with them, being able to see them, and it's just really, really cool. And I can't believe that there's only six days left in the year.

I know. Last year I'm sitting there going, wow, we're going to record a podcast every day. And. And I just look. Trying to think of what 2022 is going to look like. And now we're getting to the end of it, and it's just like, there's only six days left. Where did it go?

Yeah, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. Anyway, we'll talk about the. We'll. The remembering of 2022 on the next episodes. But it just. It's. It's amazing, you know? Yeah. I can't believe it just flew by.

Yes. Yes. So what's your favorite thing about Christmas? What?

Well, what's funny is we decided because Danny's families in Phoenix and my family's in Texas, and one year we would go to Texas, and then the next year we would go to Arizona. And what we decided earlier this year, you know what, our families are all getting older, and we. We should visit both families each year. And so what we decided is that one. One year we're going to go to. So this year we're going to. Well, we were supposed to, but things went sideways. But we were going to go to Texas first for like five days, and then. And then we go to Phoenix, and we'll be to Phoenix over Christmas, and then the next year we go to Phoenix first, and then we go to Texas during Christmas. And it was. It was just to be. So that way we could visit, and then we go to the other family and have Christmas. And then the next year we go to visit and we go to the other family and have Christmas. What we didn't see happening is that both families decided to have Christmas early. And so now. Now we get to have two Christmases. I would have known that I would have been doing this like 10 years ago.

So funny.

But, you know, your question is, what. What do I like? It's. It's being around family. I mean, you know, you've been around your family, you know, your mom and dad for the last few weeks. And. And so I just got to Texas. I got to spend some time with my brother and my sister and my mom. But last night we had, you know, the family was there. And so, you know, we had. The kiddos were over and. And. And so got to talk to them that you don't really get to talk to very often and, you know, and so it's just getting to see everybody and just getting to, you know, know, have fun and. And, you know, with the family and. And, yeah, it was. It was a good time. It was. It. It felt really good last night. It was. It was really nice.

Yeah, I. I love it, too, for all the reasons that you said. I. That's why I love Christmas, too. I think it's more. More than anything, it's just about family and for the position that we're in. I think what I love is it's an opportunity for us to give to the family. Right? Christmas isn't about presents, but it is about giving. Right. And seeing, hey, how can we help you in your life? Is there things that you need that you want, that can either help you because you need them or provide you pleasure because it's something that you want? Right? And it's just really, really cool to be able to do that. And when you achieve certain things in life. And for us, it's been through the vehicle of real estate, which is why we've done this podcast. And you have the means to be able to do stuff like this. I think that's. I always kind of. Kind of come to times like this and like, oh, my gosh, this is why we've been working so hard. This is why we've been on this journey, because it is so cool to be able to go, hey, no problem. Got it, got it, got it. You know, they might not be able to afford the things that we can afford to help with. Right? And to provide and to give. And that is the coolest thing to me, that not only we get to be there with them, but we get to. To do things for them that we have not been able to do in the past because we didn't have the means, the extra means to do so. Right? We're taking care of ourselves first and then giving to others as well. As long as we were taken care of and we were, you know, feeding ourselves, paying our bills, building our businesses, and then as we got more and more blessed, we were able to bless more people. And so I think that is really, really cool. And this is also the time of the year where you just think about all those causes and organizations that you want to support. It's the time of the year that you start thinking about what can. What more can you do in the. In the coming year. This is just that, that wonderful time of year that all of this comes together all at once, right? You get to be with family, you get to give. You get to think about the coming year and how you want to improve and how you want to do different things and scrap the old stuff and that you don't want to do anymore. It's just. It is absolutely my favorite time of the year.

Love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you would, you would enjoy Christmas if it was all year round. I know you.

Love it, love it, love it.

Well, I think that's it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're just here on this episode to say merry Christmas and to kind of talk about, you know, just life in general. There was no real purpose of this other than to you and I chit chat about what we love about this holiday and to wish everybody a merry Christmas.

Yeah. And. And I can't believe I haven't seen Christmas Story once this year. I gotta. I gotta get to work. But again, a very merry Christmas. For those of you that celebrate Christmas and for those of you that don't, we wish you a very happy holidays and we hope that you have a great time with your friends and families over this holiday season. But we hope you enjoyed this episode and we like to end all of our episodes with invest Smart, Live Happy. Bye everybody. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions and information on the show are not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit and loss.