Win December: Simple Strategies for Year-End Giving

December is crunch time for nonprofits.  With a third of annual giving happening in the final weeks of the year, your development office can't afford to relax (yet!) for the holidays. Join Andrew and Rhen as they share three strategic moves to maximize your year-end fundraising.  While the strategies they discuss are simple and inexpensive, they will require some time and thoughtfulness. Don't wait until the end of the month to scramble for strategy. Listen now and set yourself up for success.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

08:30.30 Host Well, howdy, everybody. Welcome back to the Petrus Development Show. My name is Rhen Hoehn, and joining me today is Andrew Robison. How's it going, Andrew?

08:39.92 AROB It's going well, Rhen. Going well.

08:43.32 Host We are in the thick of the holiday season. Did you kick it off with a good Thanksgiving? Do anything exciting?

08:49.34 AROB Yeah. Yeah, we took the family to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which was amazing.

08:55.64 Host Dang.

08:56.74 AROB I know.

08:56.76 Host Sounds nice.

08:58.14 AROB Yeah, we've been to... I've been to Wyoming actually two times before. One time, Cheryl and I did a big road trip after I graduated from grad school at St. Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota. We did a big three-week road trip.

09:14.87 AROB Three weeks? No, 10 days. And so we drove through Wyoming, but just like the sliver. And Cheryl drove the whole time and I slept most of it. And at the end of the day, she said, "That was by far the most beautiful driving that I have or probably ever will do in my life."

09:23.23 Host Okay. Wow.

09:32.86 AROB And I was like, "Yeah, awesome."

09:33.30 Host Wow.

09:35.24 AROB Wyoming is great. And so that was the first time—that was 2008. Yeah, 2008. And then the second time, Nora and our dog Penny and I spent some time in Laramie, Wyoming, which is the southeast corner of the state, which is beautiful. It's Wyoming, so it's beautiful, but more fairly flat, some rolling hills out there, but fairly flat. This time we were in Jackson, which is like in the mountains. We went and saw the Grand Tetons. We drove over a couple of mountain passes to get there. It was awesome. It was a lot of fun.

10:15.03 Host That sounds fantastic.

10:16.76 AROB Yeah, no, I definitely enjoyed it. We got a little bit of snow. We were there over Thanksgiving, so it was, you know, maybe it'll snow, maybe it won't. Maybe it'll be cold, maybe it won't.

10:24.44 Host Yeah.

10:25.35 AROB And so temperatures were like in the 30s, got up to like 40, 42 a couple of times. And so there wasn't a lot of snow, but it was perfect for our family, which—in Texas we get no snow.

10:36.57 AROB And so it did snow at least twice.

10:37.03 Host Yeah.

10:39.80 AROB And the kids got out and, you know, they enjoyed being out in the snow. And then it melted, so we didn't have to drive through it. So it was kind of ideal.

10:49.94 Host Perfect. Thanksgiving to remember.

10:52.57 AROB Yeah. How about you? You had a Thanksgiving to remember as well, huh?

10:55.74 Host We had kind of a staycation for Thanksgiving.

10:58.55 AROB Yes.

10:58.68 Host We had a baby a few days before Thanksgiving.

11:00.89 AROB Oh my gosh.

11:01.16 Host So yeah, no big travel for us.

11:02.01 AROB Wait, this is the first I'm hearing about this.

11:03.93 Host Oh my goodness.

11:04.37 AROB Amazing.

11:05.25 Host Surprise.

11:06.77 AROB Surprise. Yeah.

11:08.86 Host So that was fun.

11:09.16 AROB Well, good.

11:09.78 Host So our second oldest now is seven. So there's a bit of a gap there. So it's been a little bit of a relearning process for us.

11:17.34 AROB Wait, your second oldest or second youngest?

11:17.64 Host Oh yeah, that's what I meant—second youngest. Sorry, yep.

11:21.18 AROB Yeah. I know you're not sleeping much these days, so words...

11:30.62 AROB Yes. What'd you have—boy or girl?

11:36.79 AROB Look at you. Good.

11:43.32 AROB And is that where you chose the name from?

11:45.40 Host No, we're kind of going... It's hard to find names that go well with a German last name, a very German last name like ours. So we kind of looked at the German names, and that was kind of the one that my wife has always liked.

11:56.92 Host So it's not really because of The Sound of Music, but that's definitely what everybody knows it from.

12:01.81 AROB Yeah, that's a pretty name.

12:03.35 Host Yeah, so that's been fun.

12:04.31 AROB And how do you spell Liesl?

12:06.69 Host L-I-E-S-L.

12:08.31 AROB There you go.

12:08.34 Host So it's a form of Elizabeth. We were hoping we'd hit one of—there's a couple of Elizabeth's feast days in November.

12:11.03 AROB Oh, I didn't realize that.

12:14.56 Host We did not hit those. Baby was a little bit late instead of a little bit early.

12:18.28 AROB Okay.

12:19.14 Host So, but it's been, I would say, much more fun having big kids, older siblings, than it was having older siblings who are toddlers last time we did this.

12:26.36 AROB Hmm.

12:30.26 Host Much better helpers, just a lot less stressful overall.

12:32.48 AROB Uh-huh, yeah.

12:33.79 Host So that's been a good time, and they're just loving it.

12:33.82 AROB Yeah.

12:37.62 AROB Cool. Well, that's exciting. Congratulations.

12:39.71 Host Oh, thank you. With that, we should probably get this going before we hit Christmas. We're coming up at the end of the year. Big time for giving. 30% of all philanthropic giving happens in December.

12:52.31 Host So if you are not busy as a fundraiser right now, that's not good news. So we want to make sure we just give you a handful of tips here based on our experience of lots of years of fundraising and how you can kind of finish out these last couple weeks of the year strong. How does that sound to you, Andrew?

13:09.40 AROB That sounds great. I like it.

13:10.86 Host All right, let's dive in here. So maybe we should start with something that already should have happened and talk about that. Hopefully, if you're listening to this, your organization has sent out an end-of-the-year appeal, ideally a direct mail appeal accompanied by an electronic appeal. You want to talk a little bit about kind of the considerations of when that should be going out? I know it's probably a little bit late to get one out if you haven't already, but maybe to keep in mind for next year if you didn't do it this year.

13:35.48 AROB Yeah, and I would say if you haven't gotten it out, save the postage and the cost of print and don't try to squeeze one in at the end of the year. I do occasionally talk to somebody who's in a nonprofit and they say, "Yeah, our end-of-the-year appeal didn't do that well."

13:50.70 AROB And I say, "Oh, well when did you send it out?" "Oh, we sent it out about the 15th of December." And it's just too late. Like you've missed the window.

13:56.46 Host Yeah.

13:57.38 AROB And so if direct mail is what you want to do and you haven't sent it out yet, then stay—reallocate those funds. If you haven't already spent the money and printed, reallocate those funds to something else. So end-of-year appeal is best when it—direct mail-wise—when it hits really the week after Thanksgiving. So think that Giving Tuesday week is Tuesday, obviously, after Thanksgiving. Your end-of-year appeal direct mail should also arrive in people's mailboxes that week as well. So just planning for next year.

14:34.13 AROB And for future years, if you're using a print house to print and mail your end-of-year appeal, you really need to be on their schedule by like end of October. Because oftentimes it's busy for you. It's busy for them as well. And so you want to be sure you have your files to them. They've got proofs done and, you know, you've got that kind of couple of weeks to do turnaround and printing. So end-of-year appeal should go out the week after Thanksgiving.

15:02.46 Host Yeah, I took over a fundraising program that had a history of sending out end-of-year appeals for a couple decades. And we were able to match up the mailing date of those mailings and the dollars raised by those mailings, and it was basically a direct correlation.

15:14.22 Host The later it went out, the less money it brought in. It was a direct correlation.

15:16.92 AROB Oh, yeah.

15:17.39 Host Like it was perfectly plotted on the chart. And those ranged anywhere from early December to early January. And the January one, which is, you know, that's a bummer.

15:25.14 AROB Oh, well...

15:27.15 Host It brought in a little bit of money, like basically paid for itself, but it did not do well. But it just kind of shows that people are making their end-of-year giving decisions starting kind of mid-November up until early December.

15:40.60 Host If you get in front of them too late, they've already made their gifts. You're going to be left out there. So you want to get ahead of it.

15:46.74 AROB Completely. Yeah. So end-of-year appeal the week after Thanksgiving. I also like to send a Christmas card that goes out usually around this time, somewhere between December 10th to December 15th. And your end-of-year appeal oftentimes is going to your full list, or at least a large portion of your mailing list. The Christmas card, however, is a more segmented list that's usually top donors, volunteers. You know, most organizations, regardless of size, you're sending somewhere around 100 to 200 Christmas cards out. That allows you to be pretty specific and targeted about who you're sending it to. These are the people that are your loyal supporters. They give every year, or they're active volunteers, advocates. And, you know, they're kind of your super fans. And so the Christmas card, having a smaller list, you can send those out with first-class stamps.

16:43.58 AROB Oftentimes organizations will do their own custom Christmas cards. I don't see—I don't have a problem with you kind of, you know, looking through the catalogs and picking, you know, a classic nativity picture or something like that. But if you have the planning and the ability to send a custom card that's got a picture of your staff, your ministry, you know, even if it's your chaplain wearing a Christmas hat, you know, a Santa hat, something like that, and then electronic signatures of your staff or your leadership with a special note, that's a great Christmas card and then a good reminder to respond to that end-of-year appeal that just hit their mailboxes two weeks earlier.

17:28.38 Host Yeah, and if you haven't—if you're behind on that, haven't gotten that—you know, it's going to be too late to do a big version of that, but maybe you can get, you know, 10 or 20 of them out in the next day or two real quick.

17:38.26 AROB One hundred percent. Yeah.

17:38.29 Host Hand-write a note, and sign it, get those to your top donors, top supporters quick before the end of the year.

17:45.40 AROB And I like the Christmas card because I don't know, Rhen, in your family, but in our household, we have a fireplace mantle, which is funny because we live in Texas and we never turn on the fireplace, but we have the mantle.

17:51.97 Host Hmm.

17:56.53 AROB And so all the Christmas cards every year go on the mantle and, you know, we've been doing this for years. We send out cards. And so, you know, the mantle gets full, but we put every Christmas card up there, whether it's from, you know, a family member or friend or whether it's from a nonprofit that we support. And so, you know, it is that sort of two-week reminder on the mantle for every organization that we support or that sent us a Christmas card—that reminder to us to send in an end-of-year support gift to them. So...

18:33.56 Host We do the same thing. We don't have a fireplace, and I'm in the cold north, and I don't know why that is. We have a wall that we stick them on. But...

18:41.69 AROB You just have a 50-gallon drum out in the backyard, right?

18:44.79 Host Yeah, that's where we warm up in the evening, yeah.

18:48.34 AROB Perfect.

18:48.38 Host Oh, boy.

18:48.38 Host Oh, boy.

18:48.50 AROB Perfect. Good.

18:49.50 Host All right. So let's say you've gotten those things done. Your appeal's out, hopefully. Maybe you've done Christmas cards if you're going to do that. What are some ways—I guess even if you didn't do that—that we can still kind of make the most of these last couple weeks and maximize the gifts that come in?

19:06.12 Host Maybe I'll lead you with this. My favorite kind of list of people to work through this time of year are my LYBUNTs. You want to talk about what that means if listeners don't know, and then what you would do to approach them?

19:12.80 AROB Yeah.

19:17.66 AROB Sure. So from this point on, you're really looking at three different strategies, three different techniques for closing the year out strong. One is reach out to your LYBUNTs. So LYBUNT, for those of you who don't know, is spelled L-Y-B-U-N-T, and it stands for "last year but unfortunately not this year." So the Y just sort of falls off because "LYBUNTy," I guess, is a weird word.

19:37.51 Host Yeah.

19:41.11 Host Ah.

19:42.10 AROB But LYBUNTs are your donors that have supported you in the past but haven't made their annual gift this year yet. So think about, you know, your people who have loyally supported you for many years.

20:00.06 AROB And then you're looking through your list of people that gave, and you're like, "Oh, hey, Sam hasn't—Sam and Stephanie haven't made their end-of-year gift or haven't given yet this year. That's weird. I'm going to give them a call." Just make sure, you know, the sort of the idea behind the LYBUNT is people are busy. They like you, they want to support.

20:19.56 AROB And sometimes they just need that little gentle reminder or prodding. So, starting with your LYBUNT list, start with a phone call. Most phone calls, as we know, are going to go to voicemail. So you're leaving a voicemail and then follow up with an email. And it's just a very simple message. "Hi, Sam and Stephanie. This is Andrew from the organization. I just wanted to follow up and let you know that we're thinking of you, praying for you. And if you would like to make an end-of-year gift and you need some help with that, let me know and I can text you a link or email you a link to our giving site." So it's really just a, you know, it's not a shaming kind of a message. It's not, "Hey, why haven't you given this year?" It's not, you know, making up any sort of false pretenses of, you know, "The doors are going to close if you don't get your end-of-year gift in." It's just a simple reminder. I know you're busy.

21:13.82 AROB I know you care about us. If you'd like to make a gift, I want to make it easy for you.

21:19.45 Host Excellent. And one way I like to use that list as well, or kind of communicate with them, is I would take my list of people who gave last year but not this year. And there's also a group called SYBUNTs—people who gave some year but not this year, which are people who didn't give this year or last year but gave before. And I'd have some number of them, maybe the kind of the highest priority ones among that list, have their end-of-year appeal hand-addressed, right? So I could pay my printer—it was an extra fee per piece—

21:52.66 Host —to hand-address. But, you know, that adds a personal touch that gets them more likely to open the appeal letter once it's in their mailbox and hopefully more likely to make a gift and kind of re-engage some of those people. So that's another way that we like to work with that group as well.

22:06.97 AROB Yeah, and reaching out to your LYBUNTs is something that, you know, if you have a volunteer group, whether it's a board or a leadership council, or you have staff that you're, you know, kind of always looking for ways to get them involved in fundraising, this is a very easy way to get them involved. You know, you can split up your LYBUNT list, give 10 to each board member and say, "Here's your script." Very simple. All you're doing is saying,

22:31.61 AROB calling to say, you know, what I said before: "We just want to make it easy for you. If you'd like to make a gift, here's a way to do it." And it's a good way to engage staff, engage, you know, students if you're at a ministry that has students, or board members if you have that. So it's a very simple thing that you can do on your own, or it's a way to kind of engage other people in the fundraising experience.

22:54.58 Host Love it. All right, let's move into the last three days of the year. Ten percent of all giving happens December 29th, 30th, and 31st for the entire calendar year.

23:05.35 AROB Geez.

23:05.72 Host Right. So even though there's less tax advantage than there used to be for most people to giving in a given calendar year, a lot of people still give at the end of the calendar year for whatever reason. So it's good to finish strong. You're kind of past the point of being able to send a letter at that point. You are. And so you're limited to probably email for most people, maybe some phone calls. But when you get into between Christmas and New Year's, that's even tough to rely on. You're probably off work a bunch of those days.

23:32.98 Host What are some things you could do to maximize giving in those final days of the year?

23:38.48 AROB Okay. So I said there were three techniques. The first one was call your LYBUNT list. The second one is focus on a year-end email sequence. So we've talked about on this show and in a number of our courses that email is not as effective as direct mail.

23:46.86 Host Yeah.

23:54.39 AROB It's definitely not as effective as personal outreach. Your response rates are usually—open rates can vary anywhere from, you know, 5% to 50% open rates, but your click-through rates and your conversion rates, so to speak, how many people see an email, click the link, and then make a gift are usually less than a half a percent.

24:15.22 AROB So you're looking at a very small response. The benefit is they're free. So an email sequence is the way to go. Don't think you're going to send one email and close your end-of-year gap, you know, so to speak. It really is about creating a sequence. And so a very simple email sequence can be three emails. You know, send a Christmas—a Merry Christmas, you know, or... You know, there's just an email on Christmas. Say, "We're wishing you a very Merry Christmas. If you'd like to make a Christmas gift to our organization, here's a link to be able to do that. Thank you and God bless."

24:55.45 AROB And then sending a second email. So that's email one. Sending a second email on around December 28th, 29th, somewhere in there, that just says, "The end-of-year is approaching. Have you made your end-of-year gift? Please consider our organization. Here's a link. We will make it easy for you." And then, you know, the third email in that sequence is December 31st, which is the last chance to give. "Thank you so much for all your previous support. If you'd like to make a gift to our organization, this is your last chance to do it before the end of the calendar year." So very simple email sequence. You can, you know, kind of pretty that up however you want with video, with, you know, other emails. You know, if you want to go four instead of—before Christmas, if you want to segment that list, that's fine. But at a very basic level, three emails—December 25th, December 29th, and December 31st—will yield some fruit for your end-of-year fundraising effort.

25:53.85 Host When I started fundraising, I was very skeptical of that December 31st email. Like, who's even looking at their email that time of year? Everybody's been on vacation for a few days. It's New Year's party time, whatever.

26:06.55 Host And consistently, year after year, that was the single most successful email in terms of bringing in donations. I was always shocked by the number and the size of gifts that came in from that email on the morning of the 31st. So definitely don't skip that one. That's the big one.

26:24.76 AROB Yeah, and you said it there. It's not always the volume, but those gifts that come in at that last email are usually larger. I think the average gift for a digital campaign is somewhere around $150, $140, somewhere around there.

26:41.21 AROB It is not uncommon—it's not going to happen all the time, but it's not uncommon—to get a $1,000, a $500 last-day gift online just because somebody saw the email and clicked the link.

26:50.88 Host Definitely.

26:53.74 Host Yep. It always blew my mind. But that sequence of emails is important because people are going to see the first one like, "Oh, I'm going to make a gift," but they left their wallet over in the other room or whatever. They're busy at the time.

27:05.54 Host They're going to come back and see the second email like, "Oh yeah, I'm really going to make a gift."

27:05.89 AROB Totally. Yep.

27:08.18 Host "I'm going to remember to do that." And the third email, "This is the last chance, last day." They're like, "Okay, I got to sit down and make it happen today." That seems to be, you know, kind of those few steps to get the person to actually push them over the edge to take action.

27:20.12 AROB Totally. Yep.

27:21.59 Host Excellent. What would you be doing with social media going into these last couple of weeks of the year?

27:26.07 AROB Yeah. So first strategy is reach out to your LYBUNT. Second strategy is send an end-of-year email sequence. Third strategy is just to use the channels, the digital channels available to you that people are scrolling through when they're sitting at home and, you know, kind of home for the holidays. So looking at your social media and contriving, creating some sort of a—just the same way we did the email sequence—doing some sort of a social media sequence that really just runs through your highlights from the year. So we're coming up to the end of 2025. So just an email or a social media sequence that goes back—if you've been active on social media on Facebook or on Instagram or on LinkedIn—going back and looking at, you know, some of your highest-performing posts and either not reposting them but, you know, sort of duplicating them as a new post and just, you know, reflecting, "This happened back in," you know, whatever. Just doing that with your social media will remind people—again, why do people give? It's because they want to support the impact they know your organization is having, and they want to create greater impact. And so anything that you can do to highlight the impact of your ministry or your organization's work from that previous year will inspire people to give. And so, you know, just a simple strategy sequence on social media that highlights your impact from the year that gives links for people to go to to give.

29:04.79 AROB Again, if digital media, if email responses are less than half a percent, social media conversions are probably somewhere in the less than a tenth of a percent. So it's very low volume. But again, we're just looking for increased, you know, loyalty, donor loyalty, helping people know, reinforcing that your organization has a great impact. And then, you know, people that do give typically give at higher levels at the end of the year.

29:34.97 Host Yeah, and I think the more you can do to make it, I want to say, personalized to the organization as opposed to like a general, you know, Christmas message, the better.

29:47.19 Host But kind of one of the difficulties—if your followers are following a bunch of Catholic organizations, they're going to see every organization posting "Merry Christmas," "Happy Feast of St. Stephen," like whatever the...

29:58.66 AROB All right.

29:58.68 Host ...you know, the feast is, and there's not much they can do to interact with those other than liking all of them, but they're all kind of the same. And that actually does hurt you. You're going to get your message in front of a lot fewer people because they are getting less interaction. So you have to make it a little bit more unique to stand out and hopefully build some engagement from your followers to get seen by more people. So I guess a little tip there.

30:22.79 AROB Yep. So those are the three strategies for end-of-year from this time on through the end of December 31st: Reach out to your LYBUNTs—phone call, email, text message. You can share that list with people on your, you know, volunteers or staff to help, you know, give them a way to engage. Second is send an end-of-year email sequence—three emails, December 25th, December 29th, and December 31st.

30:52.64 AROB With links in there for how to give. That's strategy number two. And strategy number three is use your social media to highlight impact from the previous year, start pointing people to what the impact is you're going to have next year, but really just make it easy and convenient for them to support that impact and have a greater impact.

31:12.31 AROB You do those three things, and again, we're not talking about high volume. We're talking about high-impact touches that will oftentimes lead to larger gifts. And, you know, all three of these strategies are free. They're not going to cost you anything in terms of postage or printing or anything else, just the time to do it. And, you know, they could—who knows the results that they'll produce.

31:36.60 Host I love it. I think it's a good plan for finishing strong.

31:40.66 AROB Great.

31:41.34 Host And then you can start looking at the coming year. If you want to take your next year, 2026 fundraising to another level, we have an opportunity to kind of pick up your game a little bit. We have our BOAT program—Basic Online Advancement Training—that's starting up in the third week of January and runs through March. It's a 10-week virtual program, all about the kind of the basics and foundations of fundraising, teaches you kind of the whole blueprint of all the different things you do in a fundraising program, how they all fit together, and how you can use them most efficiently. You'll kind of walk away with a plan.

32:14.84 Host ...for the coming year. So if you're interested in that, either for yourself, if you have a new organization that's just starting fundraising, or if you have a new fundraising staff member who kind of needs to get onboarded—they probably don't have a fundraising degree, right? Because that doesn't exist. So they kind of usually have to kind of learn the ropes a little bit. Our BOAT program is great for that. It's petrusdevelopment.com/boat.

32:36.44 AROB Great. I love it. We've had a lot of people go through BOAT. We've had a lot of really great success stories of people that were new to fundraising. They go through that. They build up some relationships. They get the foundations.

32:49.91 AROB And then they're a lot more confident as they're starting out. And so it's a great way. And the thing that I like—it's hard to say what I like best about it. But one of the things that I really do like about the way that we've structured BOAT is that your organization, if you purchase the BOAT, access to BOAT, you actually get access for two people on your staff. And so it's a great way for two people to engage in fundraising to learn, even if it's somebody who—you know, one of those two is somebody that's done fundraising before, has some experience, going through the program—and it's all self-directed outside of the cohort. So, you know, you can engage as much or as little as you want. Obviously, the more you engage, the more you're going to get out of it. But...

33:12.27 Host Yeah.

33:34.91 AROB ...that opens up opportunities for conversations about strategy, about approach. And, you know, it's hard to put a value on that type of dynamic, but I love that we made that change and definitely have seen a lot of fruit from the organizations that send two people through it.

33:54.97 Host Yeah, definitely. And we've had more than 90 organizations go through it now. So it's really kind of become a—yeah, it's a great program.

33:59.52 AROB That's great.

34:03.37 AROB Good. Cool.

34:04.50 Host With that, should we end with a quick game?

34:07.70 AROB I say yes, but I always lose these games, even though you can't really lose them.

34:11.27 Host That's okay. There's not really a losing in this. You're going to be shocked at the game I came up with.

34:14.29 AROB Okay, tell me.

34:17.03 Host You're not going to believe it.

34:17.85 AROB Do tell, yes.

34:18.90 Host It's going to be—we're going to blind-rank your favorite Christmas treats.

34:23.61 AROB Oh, my gosh. I am so shocked to hear that this is the game.

34:26.62 Host Hey. You definitely did not predict that before we started recording.

34:32.50 AROB That's funny. Yeah. As long as Werther's Originals is on the list.

34:34.23 Host I just got back from having a baby and didn't have time to prepare. This is what I came up with.

34:37.82 AROB Okay.

34:40.89 AROB Good. All right. Let's do it.

34:42.89 Host All right. So I'm going to give you five options for Christmas treats. You have to rank them one through five, one being the best, five being the worst, but you don't know what's coming next. So as they come one at a time...

34:55.62 Host Let's start with probably the most common one—candy canes.

34:59.36 AROB Candy canes. Oh, I never go out and buy candy canes. Somehow they always just appear in our house, and I tend to eat them not because I go seeking them—because I'm standing there in the pantry thinking, "Oh gosh, what would be really good? Well, there's a box of candy canes. I guess I'll eat one."

34:59.80 Host Where would you put candy canes?

35:08.41 Host They do just come to you this time of year.

35:22.15 AROB I'll go four on candy canes because I don't know.

35:24.54 Host Okay.

35:25.03 AROB They're not terrible, but I don't—I don't use up my top choices on candy canes.

35:31.22 Host They are pretty great in a mug of hot chocolate. I'll say that.

35:34.80 AROB No, yeah.

35:34.94 Host It's great to kind of hook that in there and add a little peppermint-y flavor. I don't know. It's—maybe it's too hot in Texas to drink hot chocolate.

35:41.08 AROB We do drink hot chocolate. My kids are weenies, so it goes below 50 degrees and they're shivering.

35:45.05 Host Ah.

35:46.85 AROB We actually—one of the kids asked for candy cane spoons. Actually, asked for candy cane straws and couldn't find those, although they do exist. We just didn't look hard enough. But Cheryl found candy cane spoons.

36:00.44 AROB I don't know if they're on Amazon or at the grocery store, but anyways, they are in our pantry. I suspect that those will be used, and I'll have to report back to you on how those turned out.

36:10.94 Host I'm going to have to hear more about this. I have no idea. I can't even picture what this is, but we'll talk about that later.

36:16.28 AROB Great.

36:16.28 Host We have a game to get to. All right. Candy cane's number four. Where would you rank gingerbread?

36:22.97 AROB Ooh, I actually like gingerbread. We make gingerbread houses every year. It's part of what we do with our kids. And they all eat the candy. And then the candy—we get the smaller gingerbread houses. And so then they all sit on the plates and the, you know, windowsill for a couple of days. And then I just walk by and, like, break off chunks and eat them. So I like them more than candy canes, I say. I'll go number three.

36:50.42 Host Okay. It's kind of a divisive one. I feel like I like a little bit of gingerbread at a time. Not too much.

36:55.96 AROB Yeah, we always read the gingerbread man story, you know, "Run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." And so it's hard to just eat a gingerbread without like thinking that tune in my head and singing it and knowing the story of how he gets on the fox and then the fox eats him because he's an idiot.

37:15.47 AROB So, yes.

37:16.57 Host Reenacting Shrek. Yeah. But before we go too far down that road, where would you—what's next?

37:20.41 AROB Yes. "You monster! You're a monster! Not the gumdrop buttons!" Yeah, we do that too.

37:32.75 Host Yeah. So you've ranked gingerbread three, candy canes four. Next is fruitcake.

37:38.42 AROB Ah, I knew fruitcake was going to be on there. I thought you were going to say fruitcake for the last as like, I get stuck with no option.

37:42.36 Host I thought about it. I figured—yeah. Yeah.

37:45.09 AROB I got to put fruitcake number five. We were reading something the other day and they get a fruitcake, and Luke, my six-year-old, was like, "Dad, what's a fruitcake?"

37:47.04 Host Oh.

37:54.97 AROB And I was like, "Hmm, how do I explain this? It's a dessert that in stories is oftentimes a disappointing dessert."

38:03.83 Host Ah.

38:06.04 AROB I don't know how else to say it. It's got fruit. It's got bread. It can be anywhere from, you know, half a pound to 58 pounds. And you just never know.

38:17.08 AROB But oftentimes it's the loser dessert. And he was like, "Oh, okay. I don't like fruitcake." I'm like, "I didn't sell it very well. Sorry."

38:26.04 Host Yeah. There's a monastery up the road from me here, and they make fruitcakes, but they soak them in rum.

38:33.21 AROB There you go.

38:34.08 Host That's how you take it up a notch there.

38:35.93 AROB Yeah, yeah. Leave it to the monks to figure out how to add rum to it. My dad really loves fruitcakes, and there's one place that makes them that he always—someone always gets him a fruitcake for Christmas, and he loves it. So...

38:54.14 Host Nice. Well, good. Somebody likes it.

38:56.20 AROB He'd probably put it number one if it was him.

38:59.29 Host All right. Well, your three, four, and five spots are taken now. You got two spots left.

39:02.48 AROB It's a risky place. Yeah, I'm going to get stuck.

39:04.71 Host Yep. So number one or two is what you have left, and our fourth option here is eggnog.

39:11.61 AROB Oh, eggnog. I like eggnog.

39:13.96 Host Okay. Okay.

39:14.71 AROB Yeah, I do. And I like it with rum. I like it without rum. I like it in a glass. I like it in a mug. It's, you know, eggnog is good to me. And I usually buy like one small container at some point in the Christmas season.

39:28.56 AROB And Cheryl will take a sip and then the other kids take sips and they don't like it. So then I just get all the rest of it. So yeah, that's tricky though.

39:33.66 Host There you go.

39:35.84 AROB What do I go? One or two? Because I don't know what you have left. Oh gosh. Christmas desserts could be anything. Could be a pie, could be a cake. You already done gingerbread. If it's Halloween, I would say you've definitely saved candy corn.

39:54.55 Host And I think we did do that, didn't we? I think I at least thought about it.

39:58.04 AROB All right. I'm going to go number one only because I don't know what you have left, but I think that it's probably not the best.

40:03.48 Host Number one.

40:07.58 Host I saved a weird one. I don't know. I've never had this. I don't know if you have either. Then your number two spot is automatically figgy pudding.

40:16.79 AROB Ah. All right. I feel like I've had a version of figgy pudding at some point in my life. Definitely don't remember it. So sure. Two. Why not?

40:27.86 AROB Maybe it's the best.

40:28.16 Host Amazing. Love it. I've never had that. It doesn't sound great, but they sing about it, so it's got to be—I don't know, there's got to be something to it.

40:31.68 AROB I feel like it's tapioca-based, right?

40:36.57 AROB Is that the one that Little Jack Horner sticks his thumb into?

40:41.87 Host I don't know. I just remember "Oh, bring me some figgy pudding" from whatever Christmas song.

40:44.89 AROB Traditional British holiday dessert. Oh gosh. Dense, moist, steamed, or boiled cake made with dried fruit, spices, and often alcohol. The dessert is famously mentioned in the Christmas carol "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

40:58.65 AROB This feels like the British version of a fruitcake.

41:02.94 Host It does kind of sound that way. Well, it's your number two choice.

41:04.65 AROB It's what it looks like, too. I mean, it's probably worse than the American version of fruitcake, but I think—I knew it.

41:11.79 Host And that—maybe you should make that your mission to try that this Christmas season.

41:14.71 AROB Yeah, I'll have to talk to Cheryl and tell her I got to put figgy pudding on the Christmas treat list.

41:17.88 Host Ah. I love it. I love it.

41:21.53 AROB All right.

41:22.42 Host Great.

41:22.47 AROB Yeah, good.

41:22.62 Host Well, that's going to do it for us for 2025. We'll see you back here in January and we'll kick off a new year of fundraising.

41:29.50 AROB Awesome. Yeah. Have a Merry Christmas.

41:30.97 Host All right. You too.