8 Surprising Ways Radio Host Delilah Makes the Holidays Feel Extra Special

The holidays are wonderful, sure, but there’s no denying that they can also be tough. Delilah, the hugely popular radio personality, knows this all too well.

Often referred to as the “most-listened-to woman” in American radio, Delilah frequently takes calls from listeners on her nighttime radio program, which reaches between 10 to 13 million weekly listeners across more than 200 stations nationwide and, in 2026, will mark its 40th year on the air. During the holidays, she often hears stories of stress and loss.

“Whatever anybody’s going through” — a death in the family, divorce, job loss — “multiply it by 100, and that’s what my calls are from October 30 until January 15,” she says over a breakfast of eggs and tea and under a ceiling festooned with Christmas ornaments at a busy Times Square restaurant.

Make a messy pie.

Delilah, who, over the past decade, has published three books, each with either “love” or “heart” in the title, is a big believer in refocusing on what’s important and letting go of holiday stress. All those expectations we put on ourselves for things to be holiday-card perfect are not real, she says, and they’re certainly not productive.

“When we start trying to people-please or match the pictures on Instagram,” she says, the comparison can be “crippling.”

“If you think, ‘Oh, my pie should look like that,’ it won’t. Those are professional bakers!” she says. “Putting pressure on yourself to try to make your pie crust latticework look like somebody who's been doing it for 25 years is ridiculous. So make a messy pie. Nobody’s going to care. And anybody that cares shouldn’t be at the table. Focus on what really matters.”

What really matters? “Love,” Delilah says, is “the only thing.”

Let go of the pressure to go all out.

It follows, then, that Delilah’s holiday-hosting tips have nothing to do with tasteful table settings or trendy foods and everything to do with approach: “Relax,” she says. “Life’s too short. Ninety percent of the stuff we fuss and worry about doesn't matter.”

That’s not to say that Delilah doesn’t understand the pressure to go all out with holiday celebrations. She used to do it herself. For years, she’d deck out her farmhouse in rural Washington, where she keeps about 150 animals – horses, cows, goats, chickens, sheep, ducks, pigs, geese, mini donkeys, two emus, dogs, an indoor cat, barn cats and a zebra named Misty – in full Christmas regalia. She’d do cookie exchanges and host multiple big parties to celebrate the season. About a decade ago, though, Delilah says, she decided to let all that go.

“I don’t really do formal holiday gatherings anymore. I don’t need the stress,” says the radio hall-of-famer, who now lives with her large family at her husband’s ranch in Oregon, but travels back to the Washington farm for vacations and holidays. “I hit a point where I thought, why am I killing myself? This is supposed to be a joyful time. So now gatherings are family and friends — and totally chill.”

Let loss help you focus on what matters.

Of course, “chill” may not mean the same thing to everyone. Delilah’s friends and family gatherings average around 35 people; she has 14 children, 12 of them adopted — “bio-children” and “heart-children,” she calls them — ranging in age from 5 to 40-something, 25 grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. (The foundation she founded in 2004, Point Hope, aims to serve as a “voice for forgotten children everywhere.”)

The loss of two of her sons in recent years – Sammy from sickle cell anemia in 2012 and Zack to suicide in 2017 – has taught her to focus on what matters: kindness, compassion, creativity and a legacy of love that Delilah calls “eternal consequences.”

“Death sucks and grief sucks, but it sure puts things in perspective,” she says.

For perfect lasagna, mix cheeses the night before.

So what does Delilah’s holiday look like? A lot of fun, mostly.

Before every holiday — Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter — she spends a week (“Lasagna Week,” she calls it) cooking a staggering number of lasagnas to feed her large family and gift them to loved ones. This past Thanksgiving, she made 11 of them, customizing each to suit the varying tastes and dietary requirements of her large crew, which includes a son, Al Hassan, who eats halal and a daughter who keeps kosher.

Delilah’s lasagnas, which she has been making for at least 35 years, are based on a recipe from a friend’s Italian mother and features her own sauce, made using tomatoes she has grown on her own 55-acre farm, where she also sources her own meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables. (She says the secret is mixing the cheeses – ricotta, cottage cheese, spices and parmesan – the night before assembling the lasagna and refrigerating it overnight “so the flavors blend perfectly.”) Her kids love them.

“They don’t want the turkey, they don’t want the stuffing, they want ‘The Lasagna!’” she says.

Make sure pickles are at the table.

Also popular at Delilah’s holiday table? Mac and cheese, which two of her daughters usually make, and her own homemade pickled veggies: beets, carrots, onions and peppers — and pickled green beans using her mother’s recipe.

“‘Wilma Dean’s Dilly beans,’ they’re called. I’ve got to bring 20 jars because everybody wants one to take home,” she says.

Embrace the mismatch.

While generous in size, her holiday spreads are “nothing fancy,” she says. “I’m not a fancy food girl. I don’t care about plating. I don’t care about drizzling anything on anything. We just like really good, hearty, delicious food.”

She serves it all buffet style and it’s a find-your-own seat at the table kind of affair. Sometimes, with space being at a premium, the family eats in shifts.

“It is not the Rockwell painting, you know, with everybody sitting around and matching silverware and matching plates,” she says. “Anyone who has matching glasses can’t be in my inner circle.”

Try her brilliantly low-tech game.

Delilah also leans into the homemade when it comes to gifts and entertainment. A dedicated painter and crafter, she makes kits — a decorate-it-yourself snowman ornament, for example— and sends them out to all the kids in her family every year. She gets ideas on social media and then tweaks them to make them her own.

She also hunts around for low-tech games for the kids to play when they are all together. One, in particular, has become a family favorite. Delilah takes small toys, coins, dollar bills, makeup and jewelry and wraps them all in layers of cellophane until the whole thing forms a big ball. Then the family passes the ball around and each person hurries to unwrap the cellophane to collect a prize before a dice-roll requires them to pass the ball along.

After the ball is unwrapped and all the little gifts have been claimed, “That’s when the real fun begins,” Delilah says. “You start swapping. You’re like, ‘I’ll trade you three pieces of chocolate for that set of earrings.’ The kids are like, ‘I don't want the earrings. Give me the chocolate.’”

Think: ‘What will they remember?’

More than anything, Delilah advocates keeping a focus on warmth and authenticity for the holidays.

“People get caught up in the decorations or centerpiece or garlands or this season’s ‘it’ toy,” she says. “In two years, the kids are not going to remember the toy,” she says. “They’re gonna remember, did you play ‘Go Fish’ with them or read a book to them?”

Similarly, she says, guests won’t recall “your kids’ soccer cleats piled up at the door.” They’ll remember singing carols around the piano or a meaningful conversation while washing dishes.

“It’s the moments, the connection, the love that matters,” she says, “not the tree ornaments.”

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