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Holiday Classic: When the Puritans Canceled Christmas · Ridiculous History

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