Julie Chrisley worked with what she had to make the holidays feel festive, even while in prison.
Savannah Chrisley has been reading letters from her mother in a series coined “Prison Diaries” on her Unlocked podcast and the latest episode featured letters from Julie’s first-ever holiday season behind bars.
On Tuesday, the Chrisley Knows Best alum shared the fourth part of the podcast segment and read aloud notes from a few months ago.
“I decided to cook for Thanksgiving,” Julie, 51, wrote in the first letter, dated November 23 and specified as her 311th day in prison. “I fought against it but I decided to do it.”
She explained how about 10 of the prisoners ate together and that some of the women made desserts. Julie took it upon herself to make chicken and stuffing casseroles, which immediately caused Savannah to raise her eyebrows.
“Y’all,” the 26-year-old interjected in the podcast in a lighthearted tone. “I don’t even know how she—oh god.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/todd-julie-chrisley-havent-spoken-in-195-days-080123-02-e1169ed2cee749f989e635ab3eed8fb8.jpg)
“It doesn’t sound like much but cooking anything in here is a chore,” she wrote before diving into more details.
Julie continued, “Cooking is done on radiators in the winter and with hot water and a small Rubbermaid orange cooler in the summer. There’s no refrigerator, no knives, no staples other than a few spices from commissary. We made the best of it though and just sitting around a table was nice.”
“There really are some great women in here. We are all so different however prison unites you in a way,” she noted.
“I made it through another holiday. Christmas is next and I’m not looking forward to it,” Julie wrote, concluding the first letter there.
Julie is currently serving her now-reduced five-year prison sentence in Lexington, Kentucky while her husband Todd, 54, is also serving a reduced 10-year sentence at Federal Prison Camp Pensacola in Florida for their financial crimes.
In other letters, Julie detailed how difficult Christmas was for her and these comments made Savannah emotional.
Julie explained that she missed her children but told them not to come and visit her on Christmas Day.
“I do not want them to ever have that memory of sitting in a prison visitation room on Christmas,” she shared, adding compliments to Savannah for having done a “great job” making the holiday season feel festive for the family.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(337x13:339x15):format(webp)/savannah-chrislet-mother-011823-1-666bb78384de40fa9b7ad8e3e3e38048.jpg)
While Savannah said she has been trying her best, the reality star revealed that it’s “still so hard” to see the people around her “moving on” and “doing what they want to do.”
“I think what’s tough for me is how Mom and Dad feel like, you know, they have that feeling that life is just continuing to move on without them,” she explained in the episode, explaining that she’s felt like her loved ones have continued “living their life” without a care in the world.
Todd and Julie were indicted in August 2019 for 12 counts of bank and wire fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy, all of which they have denied. The couple was cleared of their state tax evasion charge in Georgia in October 2019 but continued to face federal charges for allegedly evading federal taxes.
Following a nearly three-week-long trial that began in May 2022, the Chrisleys were later sentenced that November to a combined 19 years in prison. And despite having appealed the case, they reported to prison in January 2023.
In September, PEOPLE confirmed that Todd and Julie’s prison sentences had been reduced with the former leaving nearly two years before his original 12-year sentence was meant to conclude and the latter leaving 14 months before her seven-year sentence. Their attorneys are set to argue Todd and Julie’s case before a judge in Georgia next month, which Savannah previously indicated makes them “one step closer to getting mom and dad home.”
