Season 4 Step 1: Christmas Special: First Christmas In Two Years

 First Christmas In Two Years

Jingle Jam Ends

AJR played their last song and after a failed encore cheer from the crowd, we all filed out to go home. When we were almost at the door I saw Mom and I told Anna and Jordan I had to go. I hugged both of them goodbye and told Anna, “I'll see you in March!” Anna smiled and walked out the door to begin her next adventure…

New Story

Before I could get across the crowd to where Mom was out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw someone. I approached this person and sure enough, it was my coworker from New Story Mandy. We hugged and I asked her who she came to see. She said she loves AJR and I explained that Ryan plays in Cousin Simple. After we talked about that for a second Mandy asked, “Are you excited for next week?”

I was! The following week was our last week of school before break and so they were going to be some celebrations. I was so excited because as you may recall last Christmas everyone in my family, except for me got covid. Since they could all be together I was forced into the attic alone over the holiday. While I was able to look on the “Bright Side Of Life” at that moment, I was definitely looking forward to celebrating Christmas for the first time in two years!

The following week on Wednesday most of the staff at New Story brought in cookies. Thursday was Pajama day and Friday was ugly sweater day. After work on Friday, a few coworkers and I went out for a drink. After that, I went to my coworkers’ Clo and Lucy’s house with another coworker of ours.

Grandma Opper’s Cookies

My great-grandma Grandma Opper had her very own Christmas cookie recipe. Every year Mom's side of the family gets together and we make the cookies. We made the cookies at my aunt Melissa and uncle Andy's house. Their children, Alex, Maci, Nicholas, and Ellie, along with Alex's girlfriend, Emma, Josh’s girlfriend, Sophia, our grandma (Nimba), our cousin Lexi, our aunt Erin, aunt Cyndi and her children, Caitlin and Cameron all helped in the baking and decorating. After we finished making the cookies the cousins went to see Spider-Man The Way Home, which was awesome! After that Mom, Dad, Ryan and I, went to an ugly Christmas sweater party!

Shopping

Throughout our childhood, my “sister” Arden would take me Christmas shopping because she's really good at it and quite frankly it overwhelms me. As a result, I haven't gone Christmas shopping since Arden moved to Colorado in 2019. Dad owns an art studio called Kobolt and the day before Christmas Eve was their company Christmas party. We just went out to lunch, but it was a fun time! As we were walking back to the studio Mom asked me If had gotten all my Christmas shopping done. “No…” I said, “I don't know what to get anyone!” One of the employees told me just to go for it, and with Mom and Dad’s help, I bought gifts that mostly everyone was happy with!

Christmas Day

On Christmas Eve my family went to Mass, ate dinner, and got ready for bed. Christmas morning we said the rosary as we always do and then we went downstairs to open the presents. After we had opened all of our gifts and I had said hi to the Andersons, we drove back to Melissa & Andy's. We ate lunch/dinner and then started our yearly white elephant game. 

Most years there are a lot of joke gifts, and while there were a few this year, most of them were still usable. I said most… Cyndi's fiance, Jeremy managed to get the majority of the joke gifts. One of them was a twerking game. While it was kind of funny when people were playing it… I will say I'm officially scarred for life.

Every year, Alex, Emma, Maci, Nicholas, Ellie, my brothers and I, play a game of Blackjack with Uncle Andy as the dealer. I think this started as a way for Andy to teach us, the dangers of gambling. I usually leave fairly early in the game, And this time when I left, Cyndi and Mom were singing karaoke. I joined them and eventually so did the rest of the party. Cyndi kept the karaoke going until about 12:30 at night. I’m so happy that I got to spend Christmas with my friends and family!

Hope you had a Greattastic Christmas!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 28: Jingle Jam Part 2: Cousin Simple, Spencer Sutherland, and AJR!

 Jingle Jam Part 2: Cousin Simple, Spencer Sutherland, and AJR!

The only time I thought about Jingle Jam was when I would hear a Charlie Puth song and I would get bitter. All of that changed on October 1st, 2021. That day there was a behavior science conference held by New Story at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. On top of that, it was Noah's birthday so Lori and I were planning to hang out with him that night (Perfect Timing). I got up got dressed and got ready for the big day ahead of me, not expecting anything else to come up.

To my surprise when I went to eat breakfast, Mom and Dad were excited to announce that, Cousin Simple was going to play Jingle Jam 2021, with All Time Low and AJR. I was so excited about this and I couldn't believe that it was finally going to happen. All Time Low eventually said they couldn't do it and that gave me some PTSD, but WNCI pulled a rabbit out of the hat with an artist named Spencer Sutherland.

The night of December 9th finally arrived and I drove Luke and Mom's college best friend, Anita, to the show to meet everyone there. When we got through security, I walked around in the pit, calling my friend Anna on the phone. Anna and her best friend Jordan eventually found me, and we found a place to watch the show.

Cousin Simple played first. I was singing along to all of their songs, including the one that was released that night, Chapstick, and at the end of the set a boy in the crowd asked, “Do you know the band?”

“Yeah, my brother plays lead guitar!” I replied.

The boy and his girlfriend started asking me questions and they were fine, but then I realized a line was starting to form.  I answered a few more people's questions, but they started to be questions that I didn't know the answers to or ones that I didn't have the right to answer. Anna saw the panicked look on my face and she said, “Come on guys, let's get a drink.”

As we walked away I said to Anna, “I probably shouldn't have said that Ryan is my…”

“Mitchell!” Anna scolded, “Be quiet!”

When Spencer Sutherland started playing we return to the pit. While he was good, it was nothing in comparison to AJR! With all the lights and the sound I honestly thought I was going to have a seizure. Despite how miserable that description sounds it was a really fun night!

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 27: Jingle Jam Part 1: Well Of Course “We Don't Talk Anymore”

 Jingle Jam Part 1: Well Of Course “We Don't Talk Anymore”

WNCI (97.9) is Columbus’ local radio station. Every December WNCI hosts a holiday show called “Jingle Jam.” In 2019 Jingle Jam was scheduled for December 2nd. The lineup was for King & Country as an opener and Charlie Puth as the headliner.

On October 17th my parents, Luke, Josh, and I piled out of Mom’s minivan at WNCI’s office for a Cousin Simple show. We walked into the office before the fans started getting there, and we met up with the other Will (Frontman) Mitch (Piano/ukulele), and Joel’s (Former drummer) families. After a small walk around the office, we entered the room where the show would be.

It was a relatively small room and I knew it was going to get packed very quickly, so I stood in front of the stage to claim my usual spot immediately. Right before the boys were scheduled to play Chris Davis, one of WNCI’s radio show hosts, came out on stage introduced himself, and hyped us up. He then introduced the band and the core members (Will, Ryan, Mitch, and Joel) came on stage. The four of them sat down and after Chris Davis interviewed them for a little bit, it was time for them to play. Chris Davis left the stage and Fuad came on. Fuad was, at the time Will’s cousin’s fiance (now husband), and was there to play rhythm guitar.

The show was awesome as always, but it wasn't actually the highlight of the night. After they had finished playing, Chris Davis got back on stage and said, “We love your band so much we were wondering if you'd be willing to play WNCI’s Jingle Jam this year?!”

The crowd screamed and after they had calmed down a bit Will said, “We'd love to!”

I'm not the world's best secret-keeper. I've gotten a lot better…hiding the fact that I was writing a book for three years definitely helped, but it's still something that I have to be very conscientious about. This might take away some of the magic and I'm sorry, but Cousin Simple had already accepted the play Jingle Jam before Chris Davis asked. There were two reasons Chris Davis asking officially were important to me. 1. Everybody knew now, so there was no threat of me messing it up. 2. All of the fans screaming reaffirmed for me what we all had been saying behind the scenes, “They're opening for Charlie Puth…this is a huge deal!”

Starting the next day WNCI played Cousin Simple’s song “Star Destroyers” every day to build up hype for Jingle Jam. Unfortunately, about a week before Thanksgiving Charlie Puth canceled. December 2nd fell on the Monday after Thanksgiving, so with the holiday, WNCI was left with less than a week to find a new headliner which frankly was not possible.

Jingle Jam was canceled and we were all disappointed. The day before Thanksgiving Will's family hosted a “Friendsgiving.” For obvious reasons Jingle Jam being canceled was a huge topic that night. At some point, Will was standing with Ryan and people were talking to them about it. I sarcastically chimed in, “Well of course ‘We Don't Talk Anymore’ Charlie, You always cancel our plans!” I don’t think people appreciated that joke as much as they should have admittedly because it was too soon. While I was kind of mad about it for a while I'm glad he canceled because Jingle Jam 2021 was… well… Greattastic!

To Be Continued…

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 26: Boundless Friendship

 Boundless Friendship

Hello All!

How did I end up here writing this installment for my friend Mitchell?? It all started the night of the Create for a Cause event, which we both happened to be attending. The company that I recently started working for (King Business Interiors) has been putting on this event for a couple years, they choose different nonprofit organizations to partner with to help raise money for different causes. This year they chose to work with I am Boundless, a wonderful nonprofit organization that provides services for those on the spectrum. The goal of the evening was to raise money for I am Boundless. King Business Interiors had different people paint platers which in turn were auctioned off the evening of the event and let me just say they had some really beautiful platters there.

The event started at 7:00pm, and it was held at St. Charles Preparatory High School, which I had never been there before and I’ve lived in Columbus my whole life. Architecturally it's a beautiful building. When you walked in they had a table set up with folks to greet you as you arrived. Lots of lights, balloons, food, and people enjoying themselves.

I arrived with my boyfriend, Russell, and my sister and her husband, as you were allowed to invite relatives and friends to come. We made our way to the table where my parents, aunt, and uncle had been sitting. We chatted with them, enjoyed some drinks, and mingled a little. To be honest I was waiting for the music to start up. I had heard at work that they were going to have a live band there and they were amazing! I’m a dancer, not a trained dancer, just like to bust a move. You know like weddings, this is essentially what this event was, a wedding reception and all these lovely people were invited. I can easily get off topic...I’ll try not to anymore.

Okay, so we drank, ate, mingled and then the music started up. Not many people made their way to the dance floor, however, I didn't let an empty dance floor scare me, so off we went to dance. After dancing for a couple I was having a chat with my sister when a nice young gentleman approached us and kindly introduced himself to us, MITCHELL!! Mitchell has this energy and confidence like no one else, he has a smile that will literally make you smile even if you're in a bad mood, and dance moves like you’ve never seen before. As soon as we started talking I knew we were going to be friends. Mitchell told us about his podcast and blog, he began to tell us how it's about growing up as a person with autism. I wanted to know more about Mitchell. I have worked with friends on the spectrum for years, in fact, the non-profit of the evening, I am Boundless, I worked for them. Funny how things can come full circle. We continued our evening with dancing, taking short breaks to catch our breaths and refresh our beverages, we were breaking a sweat. None of us were ready for the evening to be over.

Mitchell:

When I first met Noah's girlfriend, Lori, I was uncharacteristically nervous. This happened because any “social grace” I had built up in my 22 and a half years of life before covid were long gone by the time the three of us sat down for that dinner. The reason I survived our meeting was that Lori and I have a lot of similarities and Noah knew us both enough to steer the conversation in the correct direction. In the almost year since I met Lori my confidence hadn't reached pre-pandemic levels. When I asked Deanna to do this installment, I knew that she was probably going to say something about my confidence on that night. When I was reading this over, however, I couldn't help but laugh because Deanna and presumably her family were obviously unaware of why I was so confident: THEM. When I approached them, I was super uncomfortable because I was just trying to mingle, but I had no idea what to say to anyone. Deanna and her family gave me a chance to work out any excess awkwardness I have developed over covid and let my confidence come back for the first time since March 12th, 2020!

Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe! 

J. Mitchie Ulibarri & Deanna