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When the Puritans Canceled Christmas · Ridiculous History

0:23
Speaker 1: I know it's so corny and and and please just
0:26
Speaker 1: humor me for a second, Super producer, Casey, can we
0:29
Speaker 1: have a little bit of Christmas music? Humbug? There? We
0:40
Speaker 1: are welcome to the show. Folks. My name's Ben. I
0:43
Speaker 1: don't like Christmas. You don't like Christmas? No, I'm the
0:46
Speaker 1: Grinch what stole Christmas? And then ransomed it back to
0:49
Speaker 1: the Little Who's of Hoogl. The Grinch was very anti Christmas,
0:54
Speaker 1: at least at the offset of the story. Did you
0:56
Speaker 1: see the Halloween special that that freaked me out when
0:59
Speaker 1: I was kitten? Halloween is grinched night. Yes, it's a
1:02
Speaker 1: good one. It's a good one, very psychedelic. When the
1:05
Speaker 1: he lets out all the books and the ghosts and
1:07
Speaker 1: stuff and the hackensacks or holan. We're not talking about
1:10
Speaker 1: Halloween today. We're talking about Christmas, right, Christmas, those four
1:14
Speaker 1: it and against it. If you have in your life
1:18
Speaker 1: someone who is not a fan of the holidays in
1:22
Speaker 1: general or this particular holiday, Christmas right, then you may
1:27
Speaker 1: enjoy this episode. Because when we think of Christmas here
1:32
Speaker 1: in the West, we think of some basic iconic things.
1:36
Speaker 1: The Eulelag, Yeah, the Ulag, the Christmas tree, caught cocoa
1:41
Speaker 1: Nativity scene right, rampant commercialism right, right, the Coca Cola,
1:45
Speaker 1: Santa Claus, and the Polar Bears sometimes all in the
1:48
Speaker 1: same picture. Sometimes it's the Santa Claus riding the Polar Bears.
1:51
Speaker 1: At least that's in my nightmares. Right. And this is uh,
1:55
Speaker 1: this is the age of the meme. So we could
1:57
Speaker 1: just go ahead and and throw in you know, Jeff
2:00
Speaker 1: Goldblum or Christopher walking, just like in the mix. Why not.
2:05
Speaker 1: It's a party all the time in ridiculous history. And
2:09
Speaker 1: Christmas in the US, by a number of different metrics,
2:13
Speaker 1: is a hugely important event, a hugely important annual event. Economically,
2:18
Speaker 1: it's very important to both businesses and to governments, right. Uh. Spiritually,
2:25
Speaker 1: it's very important to people who practice Christianity. And even
2:29
Speaker 1: for people who don't really uh consider themselves spiritually aligned
2:35
Speaker 1: with the celebration of Christmas, they might still participate because
2:38
Speaker 1: a lot of the traditions are fun. You know, you've
2:41
Speaker 1: got the stockings and the stuff in the stockings, You've
2:46
Speaker 1: got Christmas presents, they're huge thing. Um. I personally, I
2:51
Speaker 1: don't know about you know, but I personally remember growing
2:53
Speaker 1: up with people who did not consider themselves Christian, but
2:58
Speaker 1: celebrated Christmas because they loved you know, the parties, and
3:02
Speaker 1: they loved the gifts in the making Mary the gifts,
3:06
Speaker 1: Christmas gifts, both with a team without. Yeah, well, you know,
3:10
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine a time where this wasn't the case,
3:14
Speaker 1: where you know, the Santa Claus riding polar bears um
3:18
Speaker 1: on on a sleigh of death was not confronting you
3:22
Speaker 1: at every turn. But as it turns out, Christmas did
3:25
Speaker 1: not used to be uh nearly as big a deal
3:28
Speaker 1: as it is today. Right, absolutely, and too explore this further,
3:33
Speaker 1: we are going to take a trip back in time.
3:38
Speaker 1: Let's go to Let's go to what will later be
3:41
Speaker 1: called Cape Cod Massachusetts. Should we? Should we time travel?
3:45
Speaker 1: I've done that in a while. Yeah, let's go here.
3:51
Speaker 1: We are old. It's sixteen twenty European colonists disembark from
3:56
Speaker 1: a ship called the Mayflower with the aim of establishing
3:59
Speaker 1: a colony and a new better way of life in
4:03
Speaker 1: the new World, and they wanted to leave a lot
4:05
Speaker 1: of things behind. One of the things they wanted to
4:08
Speaker 1: leave behind was the celebration of Christmas. Not only just Christmas,
4:14
Speaker 1: but like everything associated with Christmas, because to the Puritans
4:19
Speaker 1: it represented debauchery, uh, decadence and ultimately sinfulness. Right yeah,
4:30
Speaker 1: so quick and dirty background on on Puritans and Puritanism.
4:35
Speaker 1: It was a reform movement that arose in the Church
4:37
Speaker 1: of England in the late sixteenth century, and the Church
4:41
Speaker 1: didn't like it. The Crown didn't like it, and this,
4:45
Speaker 1: you know, in many ways provided the motivation for these
4:48
Speaker 1: colonists to leave and seek a different life in the
4:52
Speaker 1: new world. And without going too far into it, I
4:57
Speaker 1: do want to note this, this is pretty interesting. The
5:00
Speaker 1: word Puritan was actually used as a pejorative. The word
5:06
Speaker 1: came from the enemies of Puritanism. They were also sometimes
5:10
Speaker 1: called Precisionist and boy howdy did they have a bone
5:15
Speaker 1: to pick or a beef to stew with Christmas? Uh?
5:19
Speaker 1: They didn't understand it. They said, the harvest are done,
5:22
Speaker 1: the cattle are slaughtered, Zeland to be fed in winter.
5:25
Speaker 1: This means there's fresh meat and fresh wine, as well
5:28
Speaker 1: as a lot of time off in abundance. Right. And
5:32
Speaker 1: one of their primary issues with this decadent society was
5:36
Speaker 1: that the Bible, they said, notes no specific date for
5:39
Speaker 1: the birth of Jesus Christ, Yeah, it's really interesting too,
5:43
Speaker 1: because there were non Puritans um in these camps. In fact,
5:47
Speaker 1: a man named William Bradford, in his journal um called
5:51
Speaker 1: of Plymouth Plantation, made a note of a disagreement that
5:56
Speaker 1: arose between him and some newly arrived non Puritans on
6:02
Speaker 1: Christmas of sixteen one, And it goes like this. One
6:07
Speaker 1: the day called Christmas Day, the governor called them out
6:10
Speaker 1: to work, But most of this new company excused themselves
6:14
Speaker 1: and said it went against their conscious to work on
6:17
Speaker 1: that day. So the governor told them that if they
6:20
Speaker 1: made it matter of conscience, he would spare them till
6:22
Speaker 1: they were better informed. Later he found them in the
6:25
Speaker 1: street at play openly, some pitching the bar and some
6:30
Speaker 1: at stoolball and such like sports. So he went to
6:34
Speaker 1: them and took away their implements and told them that
6:37
Speaker 1: was against his conscience that they should play and others work.
6:41
Speaker 1: If they made the keeping of it matter of devotion,
6:44
Speaker 1: let them keep their houses, but there should be no
6:47
Speaker 1: gaming or reveling in the streets. Since which time nothing
6:51
Speaker 1: hath been attempted that way, at least openly. That's like,
6:55
Speaker 1: you know, hey, if you gotta play at stoolball and frolic.
6:59
Speaker 1: Do it behind closed doors, man, No one wants to
7:02
Speaker 1: see that. Keep it, yeah, keep it under wraps, keep
7:05
Speaker 1: it in the house. That was a great Readonal, And
7:08
Speaker 1: it's true the governor in this case, Bradford, is not
7:11
Speaker 1: being um a unique pill all on his own. The
7:15
Speaker 1: Puritans thought of what was going on in England was
7:19
Speaker 1: not just a sign of debauchery for Christmas time and
7:24
Speaker 1: for the English, but it was a sign of the
7:26
Speaker 1: decline of civilization and a decline of all the things
7:30
Speaker 1: that had any value whatsoever. This comes from a history
7:34
Speaker 1: professor named penn Ristad who wrote a pretty fascinating book
7:39
Speaker 1: called Christmas in America, a History. So they thought they
7:43
Speaker 1: weren't just being fuddy duddies. They thought they were saving
7:47
Speaker 1: Western civilization and the good things of English society. And
7:52
Speaker 1: at first it sounds like he's kind of tolerant, where
7:56
Speaker 1: he says, you know, until you know better, it's so hey,
8:01
Speaker 1: do what do what you want. But man, he just
8:03
Speaker 1: couldn't take them playing out in the streets. That didn't
8:05
Speaker 1: last long, though, Ben because in sixteen fifty nine, on
8:08
Speaker 1: May eleventh, to be precise, the Massachusetts Bay Colony Legislature
8:13
Speaker 1: passed an official ban on Christmas, and anyone found celebrating
8:18
Speaker 1: it would be fined uh five shillings. But we're getting
8:22
Speaker 1: ahead of ourselves just slightly. This goes back farther to
8:26
Speaker 1: a man named Oliver Cromwell. Yes, yeah, uh so there
8:31
Speaker 1: was a similar Christmas band in England during the rule
8:35
Speaker 1: of Oliver Cromwell, when Parliament was controlled by a Puritan majority.
8:41
Speaker 1: The Puritan Parliament decided to make Christmas time a period
8:45
Speaker 1: of fasting and humiliation in prayer and prayer for all
8:51
Speaker 1: the sins of previous Christmas is. And let's just point
8:54
Speaker 1: out this, Oliver Cromwell was no joke. He was one
8:58
Speaker 1: of the signers of King Charles the first death Warrant
9:02
Speaker 1: which led to this admittedly brief English Commonwealth Uh. And
9:08
Speaker 1: the band that he imposed lasted nearly twenty years. So
9:14
Speaker 1: for nearly two decades, Christmas carols were banned. Any kind
9:19
Speaker 1: of open celebration of Christmas was banned. Um. And yet
9:25
Speaker 1: people held onto these traditions and had to kind of
9:28
Speaker 1: take it underground. Right, But why did they hate Christmas?
9:32
Speaker 1: Ben I thought this was a celebration of the birth
9:35
Speaker 1: of baby Jesus. Well again, they said there's no specific
9:39
Speaker 1: date assigned to it in the Bible, in their Holy Text,
9:43
Speaker 1: so there's nothing to celebrate in their opinion, and they
9:47
Speaker 1: saw it as just you know, everybody using the holidays
9:51
Speaker 1: and the excuse to create their own Las Vegas. Yeah,
9:53
Speaker 1: but what's the origins of Christmas? Ben? We know that
9:58
Speaker 1: it was accused of being two aligned with pagan traditions,
10:01
Speaker 1: But where where does all that come from? And how
10:03
Speaker 1: did December become a thing? Oh? Oh man, Okay, this
10:09
Speaker 1: is uh, this is a twisted tale. You can actually
10:13
Speaker 1: hear an interesting take on this from our other show.
10:17
Speaker 1: Uh stuff. They don't want you to know. We have
10:19
Speaker 1: a piece about the strange origins of Christmas, and know
10:23
Speaker 1: you are absolutely correct. A lot of the things consider
10:26
Speaker 1: Christmas traditions today arose independently hundreds of years after the
10:33
Speaker 1: era of Jesus Christ, and they come from pre existing
10:38
Speaker 1: religions or folk beliefs. Right. Yeah, I was playing a
10:41
Speaker 1: little coy. I actually found this great paper called How
10:44
Speaker 1: December Became Christmas by Andrew McGowan, which originally appeared in
10:50
Speaker 1: The Bible Review in December of two thousand two, and
10:53
Speaker 1: he says that celebrations of Jesus Birth and the Nativity
10:57
Speaker 1: and all that are not mentioned anywhere in the Gospels
11:01
Speaker 1: or acts um. And that one of the only references
11:06
Speaker 1: to the timing a time frame for Jesus Birth was
11:09
Speaker 1: this notion of shepherds tending their flocks at night when
11:12
Speaker 1: they hear the news of Jesus Birth, which is from
11:15
Speaker 1: Luke to eight, and that suggested actually that this took
11:18
Speaker 1: place during the spring lambing season. Um. But McGowan says,
11:25
Speaker 1: most scholars say it's sort of a mistake to try
11:29
Speaker 1: to pull a specific date out of this kind of
11:32
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence, right, And I mean there's it's it's very
11:36
Speaker 1: vague Christmas itself, the celebration as we would understand it,
11:47
Speaker 1: and the customs that a lot of Puritans would have
11:49
Speaker 1: been familiar with. Uh, it's all the result of this
11:52
Speaker 1: agglomeration of different pre existing festivals, pagan festivals in many
11:59
Speaker 1: cases that were later co opted in some way by
12:01
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church. Yeah, there was one particular called Saturnalia
12:06
Speaker 1: that took place in late December and aligned with the
12:09
Speaker 1: winter solstice UM. And the Roman emperor Eurolean actually established
12:16
Speaker 1: this other feast of the Birth of Saul Invictus or
12:20
Speaker 1: the Unconquered Son, and that was on DECEMBERY. So mc
12:26
Speaker 1: gallan argues that it was a spinoff from these pagan
12:31
Speaker 1: solar festivals. Christmas was in fact a spinoff. And there
12:34
Speaker 1: are two theories of how Christmas became the Christmas that
12:38
Speaker 1: we know today, um, one of which is more popular
12:42
Speaker 1: than the other, and that is that early Christians chose
12:47
Speaker 1: these dates to coincide with these pre existing uh they
12:52
Speaker 1: would refer to as barbarian kind of holidays Roman holidays,
12:56
Speaker 1: so that they could kind of encourage Christianity to spread
13:01
Speaker 1: because they really, well, it's the same, it happens around
13:03
Speaker 1: the same time. I might as well just do this
13:05
Speaker 1: new Christmas thing instead of you know, the old ways.
13:08
Speaker 1: But it was a little easier to swallow. But then
13:11
Speaker 1: he goes on to say that there are problems with
13:12
Speaker 1: this that doesn't appear in any early Christian writings um,
13:15
Speaker 1: and that to this day it's not hundred percent sure
13:19
Speaker 1: why December became the day we celebrate Christmas, but it
13:24
Speaker 1: is pretty compelling to note that there were unit these
13:26
Speaker 1: pre existing sun worship based you know, religions or sets
13:32
Speaker 1: of beliefs like Mythraism, the Roman religions. James Fraser had
13:38
Speaker 1: this pretty conclusive take on it, at least in his opinion.
13:42
Speaker 1: He said, the largest pagan religious cult that fostered the
13:45
Speaker 1: celebration December as a holiday was the Pagan sun worship
13:49
Speaker 1: myth Realism, and their winter festival was called the Nativity
13:52
Speaker 1: of the Sun. And if they, like other civilizations or
13:57
Speaker 1: other belief systems we're keeping, they December as a sacred day.
14:04
Speaker 1: To them was the birthday of the Sun. Essentially, then
14:07
Speaker 1: this idea of co opting makes perfect sense. It's easier
14:11
Speaker 1: to say yes to that. And it's a practice that's common.
14:15
Speaker 1: It's called religious syncretism. So for instance, when um, let's
14:20
Speaker 1: say you have a pre existing religion, right, and you
14:24
Speaker 1: want to proselytize, you want to travel and spread the
14:27
Speaker 1: good news, and you go to a land where no
14:30
Speaker 1: one has ever heard of your religion, but they have
14:32
Speaker 1: their own religion. Then you start saying, oh, that, uh,
14:36
Speaker 1: that god you worship is actually you know, uh sat Jiminy,
14:42
Speaker 1: crickets whatever, I'm making up a religion. And you say,
14:45
Speaker 1: the whole time you've been practicing this religion, let me
14:48
Speaker 1: just show you what to call it. Absolutely it seems
14:50
Speaker 1: like a potentially successful ruse, right or you know, is it?
14:56
Speaker 1: Is it even a ruse? To the Puritans, it was,
14:59
Speaker 1: and they thought they were not going to be fooled.
15:02
Speaker 1: But if we returned to the colonies in the New
15:04
Speaker 1: World at this time, we find that people were divided.
15:09
Speaker 1: The Puritans were playing fun police. They kept a strangle
15:12
Speaker 1: hold on fund in New England, but not all of
15:16
Speaker 1: what would become America was against the idea of settlers
15:18
Speaker 1: in the southern parts like Jamestown, Virginia had no problem
15:22
Speaker 1: celebrating Christmas, and the band that the Puritans attempted was
15:27
Speaker 1: ultimately well, obviously spoiler alert for anyone listening to this
15:31
Speaker 1: seventeen it didn't work. People still celebrate Christmas in the
15:34
Speaker 1: United States. But the band itself, while it was enforced,
15:38
Speaker 1: was also never completely successful, which is something we see
15:42
Speaker 1: happen a lot with any sort of prohibition. And back
15:44
Speaker 1: to that band that they instituted in Boston, um in
15:48
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty nine, and like I said, it was just
15:51
Speaker 1: if you're found celebrating Christmas, you'd be fine. Five five shillings. Uh.
15:56
Speaker 1: And then here is the language of that for preventing
15:59
Speaker 1: disorders or rising in several places within this jurisdiction, by
16:02
Speaker 1: reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously
16:07
Speaker 1: kept in other countries. To the great dishonor of God
16:10
Speaker 1: and offense of others, is therefore ordered that whosoever shall
16:14
Speaker 1: be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like,
16:18
Speaker 1: either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way,
16:22
Speaker 1: upon such account, as aforesaid, every such person so offending
16:27
Speaker 1: shall pay for every such offense five shillings as fine
16:31
Speaker 1: to the county. Beautiful, very grinch like in it. Yes,
16:36
Speaker 1: And they were attaching a financial incentive there, so that
16:39
Speaker 1: the law actually had teeth, you know. And that band
16:42
Speaker 1: actually remained in place for twenty two years and then
16:46
Speaker 1: was abolished in se And that's because there was this
16:51
Speaker 1: influx of European immigrants that really insisted upon Christmas right,
16:57
Speaker 1: and the society was changing at a different pace in
17:01
Speaker 1: different parts of the world. So it was changing at
17:03
Speaker 1: a slower rate in New England and more rapidly in
17:06
Speaker 1: the Middle colonies. In the South, there was a need
17:09
Speaker 1: for pluralism and social harmony, so people began coming together
17:14
Speaker 1: culturally to celebrate Christmas. Yet the status of the holiday.
17:20
Speaker 1: It was still haphazard and there wasn't a huge amount
17:24
Speaker 1: of harmony in the specific traditions that they practiced. Yeah,
17:29
Speaker 1: and even after this coming together that you're talking about,
17:32
Speaker 1: it still took a while before Christmas became entrenched the
17:36
Speaker 1: way it is today as far as like a national holiday.
17:39
Speaker 1: Congress was in session on Christmas of sevent nine, that
17:42
Speaker 1: was the year after the Constitution was ratified. The Senate
17:45
Speaker 1: worked on Christmas, of the House met on Christmas of
17:49
Speaker 1: eighteen o two, So this was not um a big
17:52
Speaker 1: deal yet. Yeah, it wasn't until later in the nineteenth
17:55
Speaker 1: century that Christmas began to shape up into something that
17:59
Speaker 1: the average person in seventeen would recognize. Uh, different religions
18:04
Speaker 1: and denominations emerged in America, and they held Christmas both
18:08
Speaker 1: as a holy day and a day of celebration. The
18:11
Speaker 1: Puritans took notice, and our author friend Penn Rastad of
18:16
Speaker 1: Christmas in America, a History um said this, the Puritans
18:21
Speaker 1: are sort of being introduced to varieties of religious experiences
18:24
Speaker 1: that can't help but start to kind of wear away
18:27
Speaker 1: one's commitment to a single way of thinking. So, in
18:31
Speaker 1: other words, you know, different religions formed in local governments,
18:35
Speaker 1: and there was this kind of given take between different
18:38
Speaker 1: networks that helped kind of calm down some of these
18:40
Speaker 1: animosities and biases between these different groups. And then in
18:45
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy, two hundred and fifty years after Plymouth Rock,
18:50
Speaker 1: the US declared Christmas and national holiday. And it happened.
18:53
Speaker 1: This declaration happened because of compelling economics, the emergence of
18:58
Speaker 1: a middle class. The idea of giving and receiving Christmas
19:01
Speaker 1: gifts took hold when people had the ability to afford
19:06
Speaker 1: uh such exchanges, right, and then there was this emphasis
19:11
Speaker 1: on hanging at home and hanging with your family. So
19:13
Speaker 1: no more stoolball in the street and we're frolicking in
19:16
Speaker 1: the street. And you know, Christmas today still involves a
19:20
Speaker 1: fair amount of gluttony and boozing, you know, depending on
19:24
Speaker 1: your if. I don't know about your family, but it
19:26
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't mind. But I guess we found kind of
19:29
Speaker 1: a middle ground. Um, so it's not like we're going
19:32
Speaker 1: door to door. I meant to mention this earlier, but
19:34
Speaker 1: in the early days of Christmas in England, begging was sailing,
19:39
Speaker 1: they called it. It involved going door to door to
19:42
Speaker 1: wealthy people's houses, begging for food, and at times if
19:45
Speaker 1: they refused you, you would like barge into their homes
19:49
Speaker 1: and like like clockwork orange style and start like trashing
19:53
Speaker 1: the place. You know. So we've come a long way.
19:56
Speaker 1: We have come a long way. We were looking off
20:05
Speaker 1: air into some other unique and interesting Christmas traditions from
20:10
Speaker 1: outside of the United States. Of course, Honorable mentioned to
20:13
Speaker 1: Crampus and Crampus spot kind of got blown up a
20:16
Speaker 1: few years ago here in the US. Everybody knew about it.
20:20
Speaker 1: They're multiple films. Uh. There's the poop log, a Catalan
20:24
Speaker 1: custom in Spain where they hollow out this log, they
20:29
Speaker 1: add legs in a face, and you have to feed
20:32
Speaker 1: it every day. Here. Check this out. You have to
20:34
Speaker 1: feed him every day leading up to Christmas, started on
20:37
Speaker 1: December eight. Uh. And then you you sing a song
20:42
Speaker 1: while you're feeding him. And the song is like poop log,
20:46
Speaker 1: poop log, hazelnuts and cottage cheese. If you don't poop, well,
20:49
Speaker 1: I'll hit you with a stick poop log. True story. Yeah.
20:54
Speaker 1: And on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, you put the
20:56
Speaker 1: poop log in the fireplace and beat him with sticks
20:58
Speaker 1: until he poops. Out small candies, fruits and nuts you've
21:01
Speaker 1: been feeding them? Yeah, that does. Stuff does kind of
21:03
Speaker 1: stick around in your poop. Where how do we get here?
21:08
Speaker 1: Weird Christmas traditions? You know about bell Schnickel. Tell me
21:12
Speaker 1: about bell schnickel. For there's different versions of bell Schnickel
21:14
Speaker 1: that appear in different cultures, like it was preserved even
21:16
Speaker 1: in the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition. But I think you would
21:20
Speaker 1: put out a pair of shoes, uh, and and he
21:24
Speaker 1: would put candy in streets and small gifts. And I
21:27
Speaker 1: think it was his job to let Santa know, um,
21:30
Speaker 1: if you'd been behaving or not. Okay, he's uh, he's
21:34
Speaker 1: kind of a lieutenant and informer. He definitely is pictured
21:37
Speaker 1: um as this. It looks kind of like a trapper,
21:40
Speaker 1: like a fur trapper, you know. And he's carrying around
21:42
Speaker 1: this bundle of sticks. And I'm having a hard time
21:45
Speaker 1: finding precise mention of this, but that was the Dwight
21:48
Speaker 1: thing in the office where he's whipping people with these sticks.
21:51
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, a patently unpleasant depiction of of
21:55
Speaker 1: jolly old st Nick. That's that's interesting. I want to
21:57
Speaker 1: learn more about that. And thank you for introducing to
22:00
Speaker 1: me my my favorite weird Christmas tradition for years running
22:04
Speaker 1: now has been KFC in Japan. You know about this, right,
22:08
Speaker 1: Well didn't we? Me and you and Matt from our
22:11
Speaker 1: other show stuff. I don't want you to know we
22:13
Speaker 1: had fried chicken on Christmas? That's right, we did. Let's
22:18
Speaker 1: hear about it. So the celebration of Christmas in Asia
22:22
Speaker 1: often has often involves imported Western traditions, but in Japan,
22:27
Speaker 1: a lot of those traditions were shaped by commercial interest.
22:30
Speaker 1: So the holiday in Japan has an emphasis on romantic
22:33
Speaker 1: love and it's a day you spend with your sweetie.
22:35
Speaker 1: You know, bakery sell Christmas cakes, But the big thing
22:40
Speaker 1: is Kentucky Fried Chicken. People order special holiday Kentucky Fried
22:45
Speaker 1: Chicken meals. It's a tradition. It's like the busiest time
22:48
Speaker 1: of year for KFC in Japan. Where does this come from? Ben?
22:52
Speaker 1: That's my question, And it might have to be another episode,
22:55
Speaker 1: but I hope somebody will right in and let us
22:59
Speaker 1: know we're ridiculou This at how stuff works dot com.
23:01
Speaker 1: Let us know about your experience with KFC in Japan.
23:05
Speaker 1: Uh and if you live in Japan, well, I'm really curious.
23:09
Speaker 1: Is it the same kind of KFC that we have
23:11
Speaker 1: here in the States or is it inherently better? I
23:15
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know either, but we do know this.
23:18
Speaker 1: Although the Band on Christmas never was entirely successful, there
23:24
Speaker 1: are still groups out there today who consider themselves Christian,
23:29
Speaker 1: and because they are Christian, they believe they should not
23:32
Speaker 1: celebrate Christmas. They also think that the you know, that
23:35
Speaker 1: everything about it is ultimately a pagan tradition bringing in
23:39
Speaker 1: the tree, right, that's not a biblical thing. Also, things
23:43
Speaker 1: like Holly and Ivy. We were talking with Casey super
23:47
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram before we started recording about how I
23:50
Speaker 1: didn't It didn't until recently occurred to me how kind
23:53
Speaker 1: of pagany those lyrics are. It's like the rising of
23:56
Speaker 1: the sun and the running of the deer, you know,
23:58
Speaker 1: it's it's very has this kind of mystical um you know,
24:03
Speaker 1: almost Sylvan Woodland kind of vibe to it, you know exactly.
24:07
Speaker 1: And the concerns here are are valid and they're real.
24:11
Speaker 1: For people who feel like it is a um an
24:16
Speaker 1: appropriation of their actual religion, then the logic internally is clear.
24:21
Speaker 1: You wouldn't celebrate Christmas if that's what you believe. Yeah,
24:24
Speaker 1: and what if you're like a modern day pagan. I
24:26
Speaker 1: mean that is a thing. People still hold those old
24:29
Speaker 1: traditions and take them very seriously and solstice rituals and
24:32
Speaker 1: the like, and there's probably a sense there that a
24:35
Speaker 1: lot of that's been kind of co opted and they
24:37
Speaker 1: are made to feel like what they're doing is in
24:39
Speaker 1: some way wicked. Right, And you know, one thing that
24:44
Speaker 1: I can stand behind is freedom of holidays. People should
24:47
Speaker 1: be allowed to celebrate whatever they want. I just think
24:51
Speaker 1: it's a wrong move to ban somebody from a celebration
24:54
Speaker 1: if they're not hurting anyone. Well, as we know from
24:56
Speaker 1: this story. I mean, you can ban it all day long.
24:58
Speaker 1: People are still gonna do it for they might. They
25:00
Speaker 1: might just have to frolic in secret the Devil's saget.
25:05
Speaker 1: I don't know why I keep using that phrase, but
25:08
Speaker 1: for now, this is going to conclude. I guess our
25:11
Speaker 1: very first holiday episode. Ye so you know, uh, Mary
25:15
Speaker 1: melodies to all Happy holidays to you and yours? Um Yeah,
25:21
Speaker 1: what what? What? What's this war on Christmas? I keep
25:23
Speaker 1: hearing about. How's that going? Ah? Yeah, that's when they
25:28
Speaker 1: write an X m a s instead of Christmas is
25:33
Speaker 1: sad shame. Yeah, it's a It's a real issue for
25:38
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I'd be interested to hear what
25:41
Speaker 1: you think, friends and neighbors. Do you believe that there's
25:45
Speaker 1: a war on Christmas? I candidly, I'm a little more
25:49
Speaker 1: interested in hearing any weird Christmas traditions that your family celebrates.
25:54
Speaker 1: Did you ever hear this Christmas pig thing? Introduced me
25:58
Speaker 1: to it. They take like a pig, they put it
26:00
Speaker 1: in this sack. It's like a little uh pig made
26:02
Speaker 1: out of candy pink pig, and then they break it
26:06
Speaker 1: with a little hammer. That was at a friend's house
26:09
Speaker 1: for Christmas. And I still haven't found anybody else who's
26:12
Speaker 1: heard of that. Sounds made up. No, they did it.
26:15
Speaker 1: They had the pig. That's the thing about traditions, though
26:17
Speaker 1: they can be made up, many of they're all made up.
26:20
Speaker 1: It's just like, what what do you do? What works
26:22
Speaker 1: for you? Please let us know ridiculous house stuff works
26:24
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also drop us a note on
26:26
Speaker 1: Facebook or Instagram, leave us a comment. Um, we're gonna
26:30
Speaker 1: start getting into that Instagram ourselves a little more. We we
26:32
Speaker 1: we we We've been kind of just posting a little
26:34
Speaker 1: previews to episode. Let us know what kind of stuff
26:36
Speaker 1: you want to see. If if there's you know, you
26:38
Speaker 1: want some candid shots of of Ben and I riding
26:42
Speaker 1: roller coasters together on the weekend, we do it. It's
26:47
Speaker 1: been known to happen, all true, all true, And if
26:49
Speaker 1: you have a tradition that you think your fellows listeners
26:52
Speaker 1: would enjoy celebrating, let us know. And most importantly, come
26:57
Speaker 1: on back and join us for the next episode of
26:59
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History, and you have a nice time off. We'll
27:03
Speaker 1: see you next time.