Detailed Notes
Merry Christmas and happy holidays from Building Better Developers!
In this Christmas Day special, we share Christmas 2025 reflections on wrapping up a busy year, making time for family, and giving yourself permission to recharge. We talk about simple holiday traditions, the value of downtime, and why slowing down now can help you start 2026 stronger.
Whether you celebrate Christmas or just enjoy a quieter week, we hope this episode helps you reset, relax, and end the year on a good note.
✅ Subscribe for more episodes on software, careers, and building better habits.
Chapters 00:00 Intro + Merry Christmas 00:45 Christmas 2025 reflections: good thing / bad thing 02:10 Digital nomad prep + simplifying what you carry 03:20 Why downtime matters 04:10 Favorite Christmas Day traditions (food + games) 05:35 Closing thoughts + looking ahead to 2026
#BuildingBetterDevelopers #Christmas2025 #ChristmasReflections #SoftwareDevelopers #YearEndReview #HolidaySeason
Transcript Text
No, I'm not muted. Can you hear me again? >> Yeah, I can now. >> Okay, good. All right. Well, let's got to get shifted here. That that >> Okay, let's see. >> This will be the Christmas episode. >> Yeah, this will be the Christmas. >> Happy holidays. Keep it short or >> something like that. I mean, we'll get Yeah, because this guy totally apparently did not show up at all. So, okay, which is I'm so glad that I was rushing to get that done and get myself centered a little bit better here and do that. So, yeah, at some point I got to get like She's got some stuff. So, I'm going to hopefully get some like consistent lighting going and some stuff like that for >> Yeah, if you got it. >> If we get back to where Okay. >> We can do this after five. Now, I know with you shifting to mornings that might work better. But, um after five I'm at the house and I can be on the microphone and everything, but >> yeah, it won't be. Yeah. Five means it's going to be 11 o'clock at night for us basically. So, we'll see if that's going to work. I don't probably not. I will be a little too like that will be about the time I'm coming in for my night probably. So, it will be a little bit more interesting as we as we do those things. Uh but yeah, we're trying to get it cuz like she's got to get Yeah, she gripes at me, but she's got to get our podcast our other podcast going. We've got a couple recordings, but we need to like >> slap through a couple of those. >> I didn't know I hadn't seen anything on that, so I don't know if you guys had been in that or >> it's sitting there. It's like but we've got other stuff but it's like yeah we got to start we've got a lot of we got to do a lot of recordings on those and then once we get going you know we'll be doing it I guess every day doing regular stuff or not every day but every week we'll have a couple episodes. We'll see how that goes. We've got some good stuff. It's just getting it all together and yeah moving stuff every day and things like that makes it tough to set up like a a place to do recordings and such. But we'll see how this one goes. So, uh, yeah, we'll just dive right into the whole Christmy thing and see how we're feeling about it. Let me do it this way. So, I'm a little bit like that. Change my size a little bit here. I guess I don't I guess I could do this. Ah, screw. I'll do that one. Okay. Three, two. Well, hello and merry Christmas. Help. Welcome back. We are continuing our actually not. We're not continuing our season. We're continuing our holiday season right now. One of our holiday specialists, uh, as we do every year. Uh, but first, we are building better developers, the developer podcast. I am Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of developer, also the founder of RV Consulting, where we help you do business better, we assess your business, help you build a roadmap for success. Good thing, bad thing uh, in this holiday season. A good thing is is that I am wrapping up a year. This has been a very busy year. Lots of stuff going on as we speak. I am not even on the continent. I am like hanging out and having a good old time. Uh enjoying a like mini vacation before I go on a like digital nomad tour for quite a while. Hopefully, as I was just talking in the pre-show here a little bit, Roaming with Robbley will have like lots of cool stuff out there and um we've got all kinds of our things being shared as far as what we're doing and where we're going. Really, this has like been a fun time. So, it's the good thing is like building up to this and all the new toys and figuring out how to like be a digital nomad and how to like take all of my stuff to a very small amount. Um, bad thing is is that it has also been very taxing. Uh, it is very difficult to be like, you know, to have all of these cool toys and say, "Well, these are the ones that I really need to take. Those aren't as cool." um things like just like you know having a um an emotional support you know DS that happens to be sitting over there that you now no longer have with you things of that nature. Uh so that has been it's been a fun year. Uh it's been a productive year and I'm really looking forward to 2026. Uh because also we've got a lot of cool episodes with my co-host who is now going to introduce himself. >> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash. I'm one of the co-founders of developer building better developers. I'm also the founder of Envision Q8, where we work with companies who are tired of software that is holding them back. We build and test tools tailored to your needs so that that your software can run smoother, scale easier, and stop wasting your time, especially when the tech doesn't work. So, check us out at envisionqa.com. Good thing, bad thing. Um, I'll start with the bad thing. I still got to come up with a better slogan than that cuz I I still am fighting with my But anyway, merry Christmas everyone. Happy holidays. It's that time of year again. Uh jingle bells, frosty, uh hot chocolate, and lots of uh sweets and good cooking. And uh oh, I'm so happy to just kick today. Uh looks like it's going to be a cold one again and get the digital fireplace going or our electric fireplace if we still have power. So yeah, so the gift Michael is going to give me in the year ahead is he's going to wrap that. He's going to take that little intro and crank it down to like five seconds or something like that. So we've been trying that's one of the things we've done this year. Uh our gift to you is we're trying to get some of the uh the self-promotional stuff and things like that that we should do because we were working on our business as well. Uh but also to make that like easier so that you guys can dive in, get to the the core content. the core content today being merry Christmas. Enjoy whether you you know whether you celebrate it or not. Uh if you're I think most of places in the world at least today is a holiday of some sort uh or another. So you get to chill out, hang out. Um do what you do best. Whether you're whether you go out and eat Mexican today or ch I guess it's Chinese is what they you know is the big thing is you eat Chinese on Christmas. Uh whether you're a big fan of like hanging out with your family. Uh whether you're watching movies of any sort, whether you're into I don't know horror movies all the way to like you know Christmas movies. Big difference between like Elf the Christmas movie and you know some of the horror movies I can't remember was the gnome or whatever the little guy is. The dwarf uh leprechaun that was it the old leprechaun movies. Um enjoy a little bit of time off. If nothing else it is towards the end of the year and yeah it's depending on where you're at. you may be very much a uh love the holiday season, stuff like that. Maybe you don't. Uh one of the things that I' I've actually lived both of those lives in my my lifetime. There's a period where I was just like didn't really want that big a deal, you know, don't care that much. Uh and I've also been many years where I'm like it's like a great time where I've got like the Christmas music like now I've got like Christmas music going all the time and always enjoyed setting up the the house and doing all that kind of stuff. Uh, but I did always find that this time of year was really good for productivity because you have people on holiday, you have people away, you have all these things going on. So now you don't have as many people distracting you from getting things done. So hopefully that means that you've been able to get your job done. So now you can take a day off and go like as I've done many years try to like at least spend a little time to actually go play like my favorite game that just came out or something like that or go catch up on you know a Netflix movie or or show that I needed to binge that I wanted to to catch up on. This is this is really a great time to be alive. We've got so many things that are out there. We have so many fun distractions. like take a little time and allow yourself to be distracted. Um, I think what I want to talk a little bit about is like favorite like you know Christmas day kinds of things uh from the past and just sort of we could reminisce a little bit as we we take a few minutes of your time. Thank you for being there uh for being here. I I will actually I guess I'll add two. One thing is and I think Michael's maybe even a little frustrated these kind of things is like I do holiday specials. It's like the thing I've said like I got the the gobble and the Christmas thing years and years ago and I'm like those are the marks of like it's now holiday season. It helps remind me that we are in that season as we're we're doing the podcast. Uh but from a a Christmas day like my favorite and I've had a couple of Christmas days where we got up do the gift because we'd always do gifts on Christmas morning. You do that kind of stuff. You get everybody up, have a big honking breakfast, all kinds of stuff. And it's like you just like get all of the breakfasty foods and stuff like that, have a nice big breakfast, and then you basically are come to for the next five or six hours where we're like listening to music, watching a little bit of usually there'd be like maybe a movie on in the background, but usually because I've always had gamers in my family, there were games that were running for like the next three days straight, but somebody was always like playing whatever they got for Christmas. Those are like those are great memories is just being able to like you realize they have nothing to do with work, nothing to do with like whatever my job was or anything like that, but it's actually just going out and just actually enjoying life for a little bit. So, those are a couple things I was going to throw out. How about you, Mike? >> Yeah, my big thing today is, you know, it's family day, so we're going to spend a lot of time together as a family. Uh, yes, there will be some game time. Uh, because my wife's going to end up watching some football games I don't want to watch, which is fine because that's when I'll turn on Pokemon and keep on my Pokemon ZA and maybe do some shiny Pokemon hunt uh Pokemon hunt. Uh, food. We're probably going to uh cook the night be uh we cooked last night uh Christmas Eve and uh we normally we eat all night long and then we have leftover and so Christmas day tends to be more like sandwiches just kicking back, relaxing, sleeping in since the kids uh are no longer uh living with us. uh they'll come over probably later this afternoon and uh we'll open up gifts uh and then probably uh have some food and then you know just sit back and relax and have a nice quiet day. It is nice to do that occasionally. Uh yeah, the food we mentioned a lot. I uh years ago I managed to slowly move my annual physical checkup kind of thing started like was right before Thanksgiving. the next thing I know it was right after Thanksgiving and then right around like for quite a while. So, I finally had to like just not go on time so that I could shift it outside of the holiday seasons cuz every time I've been doing really good and then I hit the holidays and it's like, you know, everything goes through because I there's I don't eat near as good. I have like the greasier foods. I have a lot of sweets. I gain a lot of weight. I don't exercise enough. I drink and like all the things that are not good for you physically. And to do that and then jump into have a doctor to look at you and say wow you really are not in good shape. It's like ah I need to get away from it. So >> you need to move in June like I did. >> Ex Yeah. Exactly. I need to get it like right when I'm in the like the peak form. So like that's great. And the first time I moved off of it was like I'm like wow you lost like whatever it was seven or eight pounds from the last time. I'm like yeah it's funny how you do that when you're not right at the end of like having a big old turkey feast and and stuff like that. And that is like the but that's part of the thing is like enjoying just like the leftovers are great because you don't have to cook again for a couple days. You cook and cook and cook and it's like a big family event and then you're just like okay now we just like nibble for the next you know we snack for days. We have like turkey sandwiches or whatever we got left over and you know just have a good old time and and enjoy it for a little bit and appreciate the holidays. >> And you're you're in London right now, aren't you? >> Yep. So, time shift and everything. So, it's going to be a whole different experience uh as I go into uh 2026 as I'm wrapping up the year. Um London for Christmas, Lisbon for New Year's, and uh then starting uh Portugal for the first few months of 2026 and then we will see where we go there. But, uh already uh looking at doing uh being in Ireland for St. Patrick's Day. uh you know some things like that that are like hey we're going to like we're going to try some of these things out and explore some of the areas of the world that we haven't explored. We and I would say that you know we we're done with Nashville but Nashville changes so much. We could we could keep exploring Nashville for the rest of our lives. It feels like cuz I don't know how many places we've been to that now have been replaced with something else or gotten moved or or there's new stuff. So yeah, there's lots of life out there to live. So, we're going to do it in 2026 and hopefully you guys are doing the same. Um, closing thoughts as we wish you a merry Christmas. >> Yes, merry Christmas everyone. Happy New Year and we will talk to you soon. >> So, for those of you guys hanging out on the YouTube channel, sorry, no bonus material because we're going to go celebrate and we're hoping you do the same. But, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Thank you for yet another year uh as we look at uh the new year special will be coming up uh here soon enough and we'll talk a little bit more about like planning for the year ahead. But until then like have some like kick back, have some eggnog or whatever it is, a good, you know, nice meal, maybe a little nap, watch a couple movies, chill out and uh take care of yourself. So go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, a great end of the year, and we will talk to you next time.
Transcript Segments
No, I'm not muted. Can you hear me
again?
>> Yeah, I can now.
>> Okay, good. All right. Well, let's got
to get shifted here.
That that
>> Okay, let's see.
>> This will be the Christmas episode.
>> Yeah, this will be the Christmas.
>> Happy holidays. Keep it short or
>> something like that. I mean, we'll get
Yeah, because this guy totally
apparently did not show up at all. So,
okay, which is I'm so glad that I was
rushing to get that done and get myself
centered a little bit better here
and do that. So,
yeah,
at some point I got to get like She's
got some stuff. So, I'm going to
hopefully get some like consistent
lighting going and some stuff like that
for
>> Yeah, if you got it.
>> If we get back to where Okay.
>> We can do this after five. Now, I know
with you shifting to mornings that might
work better. But, um after five I'm at
the house and I can be on the microphone
and everything, but
>> yeah, it won't be. Yeah. Five means it's
going to be 11 o'clock at night for us
basically. So, we'll see if that's going
to work. I don't probably not. I will be
a little too like that will be about the
time I'm coming in for my night
probably. So, it will be a little bit
more interesting as we as we do those
things. Uh but yeah, we're trying to get
it cuz like she's got to get Yeah, she
gripes at me, but she's got to get our
podcast our other podcast going. We've
got a couple recordings, but we need to
like
>> slap through a couple of those.
>> I didn't know I hadn't seen anything on
that, so I don't know if you guys had
been in that or
>> it's sitting there. It's like but we've
got other stuff but it's like yeah we
got to start we've got a lot of we got
to do a lot of recordings on those and
then once we get going you know we'll be
doing it I guess every day doing regular
stuff or not every day but every week
we'll have a couple episodes. We'll see
how that goes.
We've got some good stuff. It's just
getting it all together and yeah moving
stuff every day and things like that
makes it tough to set up like a a place
to do recordings and such. But we'll see
how this one goes.
So, uh, yeah, we'll just dive right into
the whole Christmy thing and see how
we're feeling about it. Let me do it
this way. So, I'm a little bit like
that. Change my size a little bit here.
I guess I don't I guess I could do this.
Ah, screw. I'll do that one. Okay.
Three, two.
Well, hello and merry Christmas. Help.
Welcome back. We are continuing our
actually not. We're not continuing our
season. We're continuing our holiday
season right now. One of our holiday
specialists, uh, as we do every year.
Uh, but first, we are building better
developers, the developer podcast. I am
Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of
developer, also the founder of RV
Consulting, where we help you do
business better, we assess your
business, help you build a roadmap for
success. Good thing, bad thing uh, in
this holiday season.
A good thing is is that I am wrapping up
a year. This has been a very busy year.
Lots of stuff going on as we speak. I am
not even on the continent. I am like
hanging out and having a good old time.
Uh enjoying a like mini vacation before
I go on a like digital nomad tour for
quite a while. Hopefully, as I was just
talking in the pre-show here a little
bit, Roaming with Robbley will have like
lots of cool stuff out there and um
we've got all kinds of our things being
shared as far as what we're doing and
where we're going. Really, this has like
been a fun time. So, it's the good thing
is like building up to this and all the
new toys and figuring out how to like be
a digital nomad and how to like take all
of my stuff to a very small amount. Um,
bad thing is is that it has also been
very taxing. Uh, it is very difficult to
be like, you know, to have all of these
cool toys and say, "Well, these are the
ones that I really need to take. Those
aren't as cool." um
things like just like you know having a
um an emotional support you know DS that
happens to be sitting over there that
you now no longer have with you things
of that nature. Uh so that has been it's
been a fun year. Uh it's been a
productive year and I'm really looking
forward to 2026. Uh because also we've
got a lot of cool episodes with my
co-host who is now going to introduce
himself.
>> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash.
I'm one of the co-founders of developer
building better developers. I'm also the
founder of Envision Q8, where we work
with companies who are tired of software
that is holding them back. We build and
test tools tailored to your needs so
that that your software can run
smoother, scale easier, and stop wasting
your time, especially when the tech
doesn't work. So, check us out at
envisionqa.com. Good thing, bad thing.
Um, I'll start with the bad thing. I
still got to come up with a better
slogan than that cuz I I still am
fighting with my But anyway, merry
Christmas everyone. Happy holidays. It's
that time of year again. Uh jingle
bells, frosty, uh hot chocolate, and
lots of uh sweets and good cooking. And
uh oh, I'm so happy to just kick today.
Uh looks like it's going to be a cold
one again and get the digital fireplace
going or our electric fireplace if we
still have power.
So yeah, so the gift Michael is going to
give me in the year ahead is he's going
to wrap that. He's going to take that
little intro and crank it down to like
five seconds or something like that. So
we've been trying that's one of the
things we've done this year. Uh our gift
to you is we're trying to get some of
the uh the self-promotional stuff and
things like that that we should do
because we were working on our business
as well. Uh but also to make that like
easier so that you guys can dive in, get
to the the core content. the core
content today being merry Christmas.
Enjoy whether you you know whether you
celebrate it or not. Uh if you're I
think most of places in the world at
least today is a holiday of some sort uh
or another. So you get to chill out,
hang out. Um do what you do best.
Whether you're whether you go out and
eat Mexican today or ch I guess it's
Chinese is what they you know is the big
thing is you eat Chinese on Christmas.
Uh whether you're a big fan of like
hanging out with your family. Uh whether
you're watching movies of any sort,
whether you're into I don't know horror
movies all the way to like you know
Christmas movies. Big difference between
like Elf the Christmas movie and you
know some of the horror movies I can't
remember was the gnome or whatever the
little guy is. The dwarf uh leprechaun
that was it the old leprechaun movies.
Um
enjoy a little bit of time off. If
nothing else it is towards the end of
the year and yeah it's depending on
where you're at. you may be very much a
uh love the holiday season, stuff like
that. Maybe you don't. Uh one of the
things that I' I've actually lived both
of those lives in my my lifetime.
There's a period where I was just like
didn't really want that big a deal, you
know, don't care that much. Uh and I've
also been many years where I'm like it's
like a great time where I've got like
the Christmas music like now I've got
like Christmas music going all the time
and always enjoyed setting up the the
house and doing all that kind of stuff.
Uh, but I did always find that this time
of year was really good for productivity
because you have people on holiday, you
have people away, you have all these
things going on. So now you don't have
as many people distracting you from
getting things done. So hopefully that
means that you've been able to get your
job done. So now you can take a day off
and go like
as I've done many years try to like at
least spend a little time to actually go
play like my favorite game that just
came out or something like that or go
catch up on you know a Netflix movie or
or show that I needed to binge that I
wanted to to catch up on. This is this
is really a great time to be alive.
We've got so many things that are out
there. We have so many fun distractions.
like take a little time and allow
yourself to be distracted. Um, I think
what I want to talk a little bit about
is like favorite like you know Christmas
day kinds of things uh from the past and
just sort of we could reminisce a little
bit as we we take a few minutes of your
time. Thank you for being there uh for
being here. I I will actually I guess
I'll add two. One thing is and I think
Michael's maybe even a little frustrated
these kind of things is like I do
holiday specials. It's like the thing
I've said like I got the the gobble and
the Christmas thing years and years ago
and I'm like those are the marks of like
it's now holiday season. It helps remind
me that we are in that season as we're
we're doing the podcast. Uh but from a a
Christmas day like my favorite and I've
had a couple of Christmas days where we
got up do the gift because we'd always
do gifts on Christmas morning. You do
that kind of stuff. You get everybody
up, have a big honking breakfast, all
kinds of stuff. And it's like you just
like get all of the breakfasty foods and
stuff like that, have a nice big
breakfast, and then you basically are
come to for the next five or six hours
where we're like listening to music,
watching a little bit of usually there'd
be like maybe a movie on in the
background, but usually because I've
always had gamers in my family, there
were games that were running for like
the next three days straight, but
somebody was always like playing
whatever they got for Christmas. Those
are like those are great memories is
just being able to like you realize they
have nothing to do with work, nothing to
do with like whatever my job was or
anything like that, but it's actually
just going out and just actually
enjoying life for a little bit. So,
those are a couple things I was going to
throw out. How about you, Mike?
>> Yeah, my big thing today is, you know,
it's family day, so we're going to spend
a lot of time together as a family. Uh,
yes, there will be some game time. Uh,
because my wife's going to end up
watching some football games I don't
want to watch, which is fine because
that's when I'll turn on Pokemon and
keep on my Pokemon ZA and maybe do some
shiny Pokemon hunt uh Pokemon hunt. Uh,
food. We're probably going to uh cook
the night be uh we cooked last night uh
Christmas Eve and uh we normally we eat
all night long and then we have leftover
and so Christmas day tends to be more
like sandwiches just kicking back,
relaxing, sleeping in since the kids uh
are no longer uh living with us. uh
they'll come over probably later this
afternoon and uh we'll open up gifts uh
and then probably uh have some food and
then you know just sit back and relax
and have a nice quiet day.
It is nice to do that occasionally. Uh
yeah, the food we mentioned a lot. I uh
years ago I managed to slowly move my
annual physical checkup kind of thing
started like was right before
Thanksgiving. the next thing I know it
was right after Thanksgiving and then
right around like for quite a while. So,
I finally had to like just not go on
time so that I could shift it outside of
the holiday seasons cuz every time I've
been doing really good and then I hit
the holidays and it's like, you know,
everything goes through because I
there's I don't eat near as good. I have
like the greasier foods. I have a lot of
sweets. I gain a lot of weight. I don't
exercise enough. I drink and like all
the things that are not good for you
physically. And to do that and then jump
into have a doctor to look at you and
say wow you really are not in good
shape. It's like ah I need to get away
from it. So
>> you need to move in June like I did.
>> Ex Yeah. Exactly. I need to get it like
right when I'm in the like the peak
form. So like that's great. And the
first time I moved off of it was like
I'm like wow you lost like whatever it
was seven or eight pounds from the last
time. I'm like yeah it's funny how you
do that when you're not right at the end
of like having a big old turkey feast
and and stuff like that. And that is
like the but that's part of the thing is
like enjoying just like the leftovers
are great because you don't have to cook
again for a couple days. You cook and
cook and cook and it's like a big family
event and then you're just like okay now
we just like nibble for the next you
know we snack for days. We have like
turkey sandwiches or whatever we got
left over and you know just have a good
old time and and enjoy it for a little
bit and appreciate the holidays.
>> And you're you're in London right now,
aren't you?
>> Yep.
So, time shift and everything. So, it's
going to be a whole different experience
uh as I go into uh 2026 as I'm wrapping
up the year. Um London for Christmas,
Lisbon for New Year's, and uh then
starting uh Portugal for the first few
months of 2026 and then we will see
where we go there. But, uh already uh
looking at doing uh being in Ireland for
St. Patrick's Day. uh you know some
things like that that are like hey we're
going to like we're going to try some of
these things out and explore some of the
areas of the world that we haven't
explored. We and I would say that you
know we we're done with Nashville but
Nashville changes so much. We could we
could keep exploring Nashville for the
rest of our lives. It feels like cuz I
don't know how many places we've been to
that now have been replaced with
something else or gotten moved or or
there's new stuff. So yeah, there's lots
of life out there to live. So, we're
going to do it in 2026 and hopefully you
guys are doing the same.
Um, closing thoughts as we wish you a
merry Christmas.
>> Yes, merry Christmas everyone. Happy New
Year and we will talk to you soon.
>> So, for those of you guys hanging out on
the YouTube channel, sorry, no bonus
material because we're going to go
celebrate and we're hoping you do the
same. But, thank you so much for hanging
out with us. Thank you for yet another
year uh as we look at uh the new year
special will be coming up uh here soon
enough and we'll talk a little bit more
about like planning for the year ahead.
But until then like have some like kick
back, have some eggnog or whatever it
is, a good, you know, nice meal, maybe a
little nap, watch a couple movies, chill
out and uh take care of yourself. So go
out there and have yourself a great day,
a great week, a great end of the year,
and we will talk to you next time.