You know, I still haven't had a chance
to go through all the mail that I got over the holidays
so I thought I would read a few letters right now.
Andy, will you bring me my mail?
Thank you so much.
I hope you all don't mind I'm just going
to go through a few of them.
OK.
Big mail.
I don't know how-- there's not even a stamp on it,
how did it get to me?
It's so weird.
OK, it says, "Dear Ellen, hey girl.
I was wondering if you had any extra tickets
to 12 Days of Giveaways.
Stedman just loves your show so it would mean a lot.
Thanks, Oprah.
P.S. Happy Holidays."
I really don't know how these get through the mail.
So weird.
All right, here's another one.
"Hi Ellen, Merry Christmas.
My name is Malik Dixon, and I want
to tell you about my beautiful wife, Nataye,
and her adorable daughter Nyliah.
They absolutely love your show and I think
they're your biggest fans.
Nataye is the most kindhearted and amazing person I know.
She goes above and beyond for her family and even strangers.
I married a woman who is truly beautiful inside and out.
Ellen, she's dying to see your show
and I would love to be the reason her dreams come true."
And that is not the first time Malik
has written in about his wife.
In fact, the Dixon's are here in the audience.
And what Nataye doesn't know is that Malik has
asked to upgrade their seats.
So if all three of you will just come down here.
[APPLAUSE]
Y'all can share this one.
You can have your own mic, how about that?
Is it Nyliah?
Yes.
OK, and Nataye?
Yes.
All right.
Hi, Malik.
So you had no idea that he did this, right?
Can you believe that?
What a great guy.
Oh my gosh thank you, babe.
Yeah.
Really sweet.
You watch the show a lot, huh?
Every day.
Every single day.
You watch the show.
And I noticed-- I saw some pictures--
it seems like you have actually more swag from the Ellen shop
than we do.
I don't know.
You have a lot of my stuff.
Yeah, we do.
We have headbands, underwear, onesies for my son,
t-shirts for her since she was two.
I just bought him an Ellen hoodie for Christmas.
That's fantastic.
You have a lot of stuff.
And you dressed up like me for Halloween?
Yes.
I have to see that picture.
Did you do well?
Yes.
Did people like it?
Yes.
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
That's so fantastic.
And I won best costume.
[APPLAUSE]
Did they know who you were?
Yes.
They were like, oh little Ellen Degeneres.
Oh my gosh, I love your show, can we have tickets?
You're adorable.
It was amazing.
I made that wig.
That's a good wig.
That's almost as good as this one.
So you have a very sweet husband.
How did you two meet?
Well, back home in Philadelphia, my car
was down so I took the public transportation.
And I was like, Mr. Bus Driver, how long are you going to be?
Because I've got to get home at 3 o'clock.
And he's like what are you in a rush to do?
What, are you trying to see Ellen?
What you know about Ellen?
What?
And he was like, Ellen is the truth.
We love Ellen.
What are you talking about?
I was like, wow.
I was hooked ever since.
You bonded over me?
Yeah, it was a blessing.
You know of course we talked about other things.
But he's like, you like Ellen?
And I said look.
And he sees my Ellen gear.
The wig, everything.
Wow Ellen is amazing.
That's so sweet.
You all are amazing.
I mean, everything that I have heard about you.
I heard today that you take in foster children, right?
Yes.
And why do you do that?
Well, I had an experience in the foster care system.
I had an amazing experience.
My foster parent is amazing.
My parents, everything is amazing, is positive.
And I want to be a blessing to other children
like my foster parent was to me.
And you have a foster child now, right?
So tell everybody what your foster daughter
asked for for Christmas.
She asked us to adopt her.
And we're going to do it.
[APPLAUSE]
That's so great.
All right.
Well, I have a belated Christmas gift for you.
I have some of the newest stuff from the Ellen store
that you do not have yet.
Christmas must have been stressful
because I'm thinking about having a six-month-old baby,
having a new foster child in your home.
Yeah.
It's a lot.
It's a lot going on.
Yeah, it's a lot, you know.
But it's absolutely well worth it
once you see the smiles on your children's faces
and just faces that you know they just glow and everything.
And as we speak, my account is actually overdrafted,
but it was well worth it.
But what's amazing too is-- and this is why you're here--
is we found out that no matter how
stressed you are about money and how thin you're stretching it,
you actually go out and help the homeless.
Yes I do.
Yeah, I do.
There's this one man in Philadelphia.
I see him a lot.
And I stopped and pulled over and I walked over to him.
And I'm like, how you doing?
He was like, you know, I'm losing faith
out here and everything.
I said you know what, it gets greater later.
I said, all I have is $40.
You can have it.
And he was like, oh thank you so much.
I can get my ID.
I said whatever you need to get.
And I went to McDonald's, brought him
back something to eat.
He's like, you came back.
No one ever comes back.
And I said you know what, stay strong.
It gets greater later.
And be kind to one another.
He's like, that's from Ellen.
I said yes.
We love Ellen.
Like
You are amazing, Ellen.
You are such a beautiful person inside and out.
You help so many people.
You change lives.
You put smiles on millions and millions of people's faces
every day, including us.
No matter how rough my day is going,
I know I have my husband, my children, and Ellen
at 3 o'clock
Oh my god.
[APPLAUSE]
Well, you have just given me the best Christmas present ever
just hearing that, and knowing that-- first of all,
it's interesting how many people you run into that
that actually know me.
I think it's you.
I think you're--
Everybody knows Ellen.
Everyone knows Ellen.
All right, so here's what I want to do.
OK, so because I feel like Christmas probably
wasn't the best Christmas that you could have had,
I want you to have-- you know about 12 days of giveaways,
right?
Yeah.
OK, so I want you to have everything
that we gave away on day one.
I want you to have everything we gave away on day two.
Everything we gave away on day three, everything
we gave away on day four.
Actually, everything we gave away all 12 days.
Oh my god.
[APPLAUSE]
All of those gift cards, everything we've given away.
And it was actually 15 days this year, as you know,
because it was our 15th season.
So you have every single thing that we have given away.
Every vacation, every gift card, every single day.
Thank you so much.
[APPLAUSE]