Latest / Repcolite Home Improvement Show / Home in Progress: The Christmas Extravaganza 2025

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Home in Progress: The Christmas Extravaganza 2025 · Repcolite Home Improvement Show

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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, thanks for tuning in. You're listening to Home
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Speaker 1: in Progress, sponsored by repcoll Like Paints and Benjamin Moore,
0:15
Speaker 1: And as you can certainly tell from the opening music,
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Speaker 1: this is our much anticipated annual Christmas extravaganza. And I'm
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Speaker 1: sorry if you don't like these I do, and that's
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Speaker 1: what matters to me this giving time of the year.
0:31
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give myself a little gift, you know, I mean, really,
0:34
Speaker 1: it's almost Christmas. I don't feel like home improvement stuff
0:39
Speaker 1: or talking about color theory or paint projects at this
0:41
Speaker 1: point in the air, and I don't know that you
0:43
Speaker 1: want to listen to it. So every single year we
0:46
Speaker 1: kick back, we take one episode where we have a
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Speaker 1: little bit of fun, we work our way through a
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Speaker 1: bunch of unusual Christmas related topics. And this year, I'm
0:54
Speaker 1: actually gonna be giving away some presents. I'm gonna be
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Speaker 1: giving away ten one dollar certificates after the show concludes,
1:02
Speaker 1: ten of them. So to get entered, all you need
1:05
Speaker 1: to do, I'm gonna tell you right now. Normally I
1:06
Speaker 1: save this for the end. I'm telling you right now,
1:09
Speaker 1: and I'll remind you throughout the show to get entered.
1:11
Speaker 1: All you need to do is email me at radio
1:13
Speaker 1: at repcol Light dot com and tell me your favorite
1:16
Speaker 1: Christmas song, your favorite Christmas memory, whatever it is. You know,
1:20
Speaker 1: maybe your favorite gift, you know, the favorite gift you've
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Speaker 1: ever given, your favorite gift you've ever received, what the
1:25
Speaker 1: season means to you, whatever, have fun with it, send
1:28
Speaker 1: me anything. Just email it to radio at repcoll Light
1:32
Speaker 1: dot com. And then at the end of the show,
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Speaker 1: after it concludes, I'll draw ten random winners and I'll
1:38
Speaker 1: email you right away and let you know if you want.
1:40
Speaker 1: All right, I'll remind you as we go multiple times
1:43
Speaker 1: so you're aware of all all of your opportunities to
1:46
Speaker 1: get entered. Okay, with that out of the way, that's
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Speaker 1: business out of the way. Let's kick things off with
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Speaker 1: Christmas cards. You know, a lot of us send Christmas cards.
1:54
Speaker 1: A lot of us make a big deal out of
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Speaker 1: creating the perfect, absolutely perfect Christmas card every single year.
2:02
Speaker 1: You know. The other day, I was flipping through, you know,
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Speaker 1: a big box of old photos and I stumbled into
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Speaker 1: one of my favorite Christmas cards that we've ever sent out. Now,
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Speaker 1: at the time we had three kids. I got five
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Speaker 1: in total, but at that point we had three, Caleb
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Speaker 1: and Maddie. They were the oldest. They were about five,
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Speaker 1: and their brother Andrew was right around two, you know,
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Speaker 1: the terrible terrible twos. Anyway, we had big ideas for
2:28
Speaker 1: the picture, and we dressed them all up in spectacular
2:31
Speaker 1: you know, little outfits, brushed their hair, cleaned the crunchy
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Speaker 1: you know, food off their faces, and we started taking
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Speaker 1: solo photos of each kid. Maddie she was beautiful. Caleb
2:44
Speaker 1: he was dapper, you know, a dapper little gentleman. He
2:46
Speaker 1: looked great. They did wonderfully, and then we get to Andrew,
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Speaker 1: and no matter what in the world we did, we
2:52
Speaker 1: couldn't get the kid to stop screaming. You know, he's
2:55
Speaker 1: just red faced rage screaming. He's leaning forward, his eyebrows
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Speaker 1: are angled angrily, he's full throated screaming. You know. We
3:03
Speaker 1: couldn't get a happy picture to save our lives. And
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Speaker 1: we were getting frustrated. Right Anyway, the idea with this
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Speaker 1: particular card was going to be separate photos of each
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Speaker 1: kid mounted on this nice Christmas background, right, everybody smiling,
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Speaker 1: everybody happy, and then we'd put a nice little happy
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Speaker 1: message with it. Well, when we couldn't get Devil boy
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Speaker 1: to stop screaming and hollering. Inspiration struck me, you know.
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Speaker 1: I snapped a picture of the angry screaming kid, and
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Speaker 1: then I slapped that one on a card with the
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Speaker 1: other two happy kids. We put a message on it
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Speaker 1: that said, made the joy that we experience every day
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Speaker 1: in our home be with you this Christmas season. And
3:40
Speaker 1: then we mass produced that card and send them out
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Speaker 1: to all our friends and family. All the fancy perfect
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Speaker 1: Christmas cards that we've ever made, I can't even remember them,
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Speaker 1: but this one, this one was absolutely sheer gold because
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Speaker 1: of the screaming kid. Anyway, Christmas cards, so that's really
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Speaker 1: the whole point of that. Christmas cards. Nowadays, there's something
4:00
Speaker 1: that everybody sends out and have been doing. We've been
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Speaker 1: doing that as people, as a collective group of people
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Speaker 1: for ages. And if you don't send them out, you know,
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Speaker 1: people do notice, right, you know. I don't mean to
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Speaker 1: pile on more pressure, you know, during a season where
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Speaker 1: there's already too much pressure, but people do log these things.
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Speaker 1: You know. We used to have a spreadsheet that I
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Speaker 1: kept up to find out who was sending us cards
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Speaker 1: and who wasn't. Now I'm not saying that that didn't
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Speaker 1: solely determine how we treated those people, you know, as
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Speaker 1: the year unfolded. But I'm not really saying that it
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Speaker 1: didn't figure in to how we treated them anyway. Christmas
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Speaker 1: cards they're kind of a big deal, but did you
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Speaker 1: know that they weren't always viewed that way. In fact,
4:43
Speaker 1: when they were first introduced, people were like furious about them.
4:47
Speaker 1: Here's the scoop the first because people, you know, before
4:50
Speaker 1: I say why, they were mad, I just think it's
4:52
Speaker 1: funny that people get mad about everything. You know, we
4:55
Speaker 1: sometimes think I don't know about you, I can't say you.
4:58
Speaker 1: I sometimes think that, you know, the world has just
5:02
Speaker 1: gotten angrier, right, you know, people are more upset than
5:05
Speaker 1: they used to be. Used to be calm and cool
5:08
Speaker 1: and collected way back, you know, way back when. But
5:10
Speaker 1: nowadays everybody's amped up. Everybody's looking for a fight. Oh,
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Speaker 1: they were mad about Christmas cards. Not mad because they
5:17
Speaker 1: didn't get them. They were mad because they did. Right,
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Speaker 1: That's how mad people were back then. I could have
5:24
Speaker 1: sent andrews angry screaming Christmas card back then and they
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Speaker 1: would have thought, yeah, this is how we feel getting
5:29
Speaker 1: this stupid Christmas card. Anyway, here's why they were mad.
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Speaker 1: The first commercially produced Christmas card, it appears in eighteen
5:37
Speaker 1: forty three in England. It was designed by artist John
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Speaker 1: kelcut horsely and commissioned by a guy. I got hung up.
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry I paused when I said, hoarsely. My brain
5:49
Speaker 1: played pictures of mister Ed, you know, the talking horse,
5:52
Speaker 1: and I was gonna make a joke about that, but
5:53
Speaker 1: I figured that's not professional. But I couldn't get my
5:56
Speaker 1: train of thought back, so I paused, and I now
5:59
Speaker 1: I've just really wrecked everything. I'm gonna start over. It
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Speaker 1: was designed the very first Christmas card was designed by
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Speaker 1: artist John Kelcutt hoarsely, not anything connected with mister Ed.
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Speaker 1: And it was commissioned by a guy named Sir Henry Cole.
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Speaker 1: And here's an important detail about Sir Henry Cole. That
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Speaker 1: guy was busy, all right. He was busy. He was
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Speaker 1: well connected, socially active, you know, he was completely overwhelmed
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Speaker 1: by holiday correspondence. Because in Victorian England, if somebody sent
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Speaker 1: you a Christmas letter, you were expected, you were socially
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Speaker 1: obligated to write back, you know, by hand with ink
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Speaker 1: from an inkwell, and in fancy you know, looping penmanship.
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Speaker 1: And on top of all of that, you had to
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Speaker 1: be sincere, you had to be witty, you had to
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Speaker 1: be heartfelt, you had to be loving. And thankfully, Sir
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Speaker 1: Henry Cole basically said, nope, I don't have time for
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Speaker 1: this kind of thing, and you know what, I don't
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Speaker 1: think other people do either. So with that in mind,
6:54
Speaker 1: with those thoughts swirling in his little brain, he goes
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Speaker 1: out and commissions a printed card with a simple mass
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Speaker 1: message wishing people to marry Christmas. And then he had
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Speaker 1: a thousand cards printed up. He sent some of them
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Speaker 1: off himself, and then the rest he sold to the public.
7:09
Speaker 1: And once people saw the especially people who were just
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Speaker 1: as busy or just as socially entangled as he was,
7:16
Speaker 1: when they saw the idea really started to spread fast.
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Speaker 1: You know. Suddenly this wasn't just one guy dodging his mail,
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Speaker 1: you know, and his response his social responsibilities. It was
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Speaker 1: a new way of handling Christmas altogether. However, while some
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Speaker 1: people liked it, I told you already, some people were mad.
7:35
Speaker 1: Others hated it. Almost immediately, Christmas cards were criticized as impersonal.
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Speaker 1: You know, that's what they're mad about. These are impersonal.
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Speaker 1: Victorian commentators complained that sending a printed card was a shortcut,
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Speaker 1: a way of avoiding real effort. Yeah, that's the whole point, right.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine that you're mad about that,
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Speaker 1: But I guess these people were extremely ten souls and
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Speaker 1: they wanted long, heartfelt messages. You know, if I knew
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Speaker 1: that they were feeling that way about Christmas cards I
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Speaker 1: was sending, I would send them some real heartfelt messages.
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Speaker 1: But I don't know that they want to read them,
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Speaker 1: and it certainly wouldn't be in the Christmas spirit anyway.
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Speaker 1: They're frustrated about that because they're seeing it as a
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Speaker 1: way of people, you know, avoiding any real effort. The
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Speaker 1: general idea was if you really cared, you'd write, you know,
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Speaker 1: you wouldn't just send a card, you'd write. But Christmas
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Speaker 1: cards spread anyway, and they spread fast, and they did
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Speaker 1: that because they solved a real problem. People had more
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Speaker 1: social connections than ever before. I wonder what that's like.
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Speaker 1: My social connections are pretty limited, and even at that point,
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Speaker 1: there's too many of them. But back then, people were,
8:45
Speaker 1: you know, moving in a shaken they were rubbing elbows
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Speaker 1: with people, and they just couldn't keep up with everything.
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Speaker 1: They had fewer hours to maintain all these new relationships.
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Speaker 1: They had things to do, people to see, and writing
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Speaker 1: pages and pages and pages of heartfelt you know, heartfelt
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Speaker 1: letters to everybody on their list that was that was
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Speaker 1: just out of the question. Couldn't do it. So Christmas
9:07
Speaker 1: cards let people stay connected across distance and time. They
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Speaker 1: made it possible to acknowledge relationships that would otherwise fade.
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Speaker 1: And slowly because of that, the criticism softened, and what
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Speaker 1: had once been dismissed as a lazy thing started to
9:21
Speaker 1: look practical. Right. People started to realize this is a
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Speaker 1: good way to go. It started to look thoughtful because
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Speaker 1: not sending anything that was way worse than just sending
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Speaker 1: a card. And then, over time the whole Christmas card
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Speaker 1: thing flipped entirely on its head. It went from being
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Speaker 1: a social shortcut to being a social obligation from something suspicious,
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Speaker 1: you know, they must not care enough, something that was,
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Speaker 1: you know, kind of making me mad, to something I'm expecting.
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Speaker 1: I'm going to the mailbox every day, where's my card
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Speaker 1: from so and so? I haven't seen it yet. I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna put them on my spreadsheet they're gonna be sorry
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Speaker 1: if they don't get me a card. Right, That's how
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Speaker 1: it changed. And today, if somebody sends you a Christmas card,
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Speaker 1: you're certainly not thinking, Wow, that's impersonal. You know what
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Speaker 1: a jerk this person is? You think that was nice
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Speaker 1: of them? Or if you're like me, you think, oh no,
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Speaker 1: I didn't send them anything. Now what maybe maybe I'll
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Speaker 1: text them? You know? Does that count? Can I text?
10:19
Speaker 1: And that's where we're at right now, and the same
10:21
Speaker 1: debate is raging. Our texts less personal than phone calls. Yeah,
10:26
Speaker 1: but they're quicker, right, that's a plus. Our emails worse
10:29
Speaker 1: than letters. We ask all these questions. Every single new
10:32
Speaker 1: form of communication starts out as kind of suspicious or
10:36
Speaker 1: kind of suspicious is the wrong word impersonal? That's probably
10:40
Speaker 1: a better way to think about it. We worry that
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Speaker 1: it's hollow, that it's lazy, that it's replacing something that
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Speaker 1: was more meaningful, And then, slowly, thank goodness, these things
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Speaker 1: become normal. You know, Christmas cards didn't ruin Christmas. They
10:52
Speaker 1: didn't destroy sincerity. They just adapted it to a world
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Speaker 1: that was getting bigger and busier. They weren't perfect, but
10:59
Speaker 1: they were human. And in the end, that's why they stuck,
11:02
Speaker 1: you know, in one form or another. And that's why
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Speaker 1: someday we'll all be sending Christmas texts and that will
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Speaker 1: be good enough. And eventually those texts will be reduced
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Speaker 1: from actual words to just an emoji, and we won't feel,
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Speaker 1: you know, that we got the short end of the stick.
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Speaker 1: When we get a smiling emoji for Christmas, we'll feel like, Wow,
11:21
Speaker 1: that's exactly what I was hoping for. All right, that's
11:24
Speaker 1: enough of that. Many of us can't wait for Christmas
11:26
Speaker 1: songs to start playing on the radio every single year,
11:29
Speaker 1: and others of us, you know, we want to hold
11:31
Speaker 1: off Mariah Carey as long as is humanly possible. Either way,
11:36
Speaker 1: wherever we land in that debate, few of us probably
11:38
Speaker 1: think about the days before radio, you know, the silent
11:41
Speaker 1: days of Christmas. So let's go back to the day
11:44
Speaker 1: that Christmas hit the airwaves for the very first time.
11:47
Speaker 1: And we're gonna do that right after this Homan Progress
11:51
Speaker 1: is brought to you by repcole Like Paints and Benjamin Moore.
11:53
Speaker 1: You know, people often think of paint as just another
11:56
Speaker 1: line item on the project's supply list. But here's the thing,
11:59
Speaker 1: every thing you do, every hour of prep, every stroke
12:02
Speaker 1: of the brush, all comes down to the quality of
12:04
Speaker 1: the paint. The paint is the project. Make sure it's
12:07
Speaker 1: the best. Well, we're just kicking off our Christmas Extravaganza
12:11
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, and as I mentioned in the last segment,
12:14
Speaker 1: at the end of the show, I'm going to give
12:17
Speaker 1: away ten one hundred dollars Repcolite gift certificates and to
12:20
Speaker 1: get entered into that contest, so you can win one,
12:24
Speaker 1: just send me an email right now or anytime throughout
12:27
Speaker 1: the show. You email Radio at repco Light dot com
12:31
Speaker 1: and you tell me your favorite Christmas memory, your favorite
12:33
Speaker 1: Christmas song, favorite tradition, favorite story, whatever, as long as
12:39
Speaker 1: it's Christmas related. Send those emails to Radio at repco
12:42
Speaker 1: Light dot com. And then after the show concludes, I'll
12:45
Speaker 1: draw ten random winners and I'll email you right away
12:48
Speaker 1: to let you know, and I may email respond to everybody.
12:52
Speaker 1: So just because you get an email from me, don't
12:54
Speaker 1: freak out and think you won. You got to read
12:57
Speaker 1: the message to find out either way you want, because
13:00
Speaker 1: I'm reaching out to you, but you may not have
13:03
Speaker 1: won the prize. That's normally why I don't respond to
13:06
Speaker 1: everybody who emails the show for a contest. I'm always
13:10
Speaker 1: afraid somebody's gonna think they won something when they didn't.
13:14
Speaker 1: All Right, Christmas music it's ubiquitous, right, It's everywhere you look,
13:18
Speaker 1: everywhere you listen. Everywhere you listen, the grocery store, the
13:22
Speaker 1: coffee shop, the car you're driving around, even if you
13:25
Speaker 1: try to avoid Christmas music, somehow, Mariah Carey, she's gonna
13:30
Speaker 1: find you, right, She's gonna find you and make you
13:33
Speaker 1: listen to everything she's saying. But here's something worth sitting
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Speaker 1: around and thinking with for just a minute. For most
13:40
Speaker 1: of human history, Christmas was actually pretty quiet, right, No
13:45
Speaker 1: background music, no shared soundtracks, no Bing Crosby, no Mariah,
13:51
Speaker 1: nothing really except the sounds of song and voice that
13:55
Speaker 1: you could generate on your own, you know, in your
13:58
Speaker 1: own family. And that all changed for everybody on Christmas
14:02
Speaker 1: Eve nineteen oh six with a guy who really really
14:05
Speaker 1: wanted people to understand how smart he was and what
14:08
Speaker 1: he had figured out. All right. His name was Reginald
14:11
Speaker 1: Aubrey Fessenden. He was Canadian born, working in the United States.
14:16
Speaker 1: He was briefly employed by Thomas Edison and by most accounts,
14:20
Speaker 1: Fessenden was brilliant and difficult. The best of us are, right.
14:26
Speaker 1: The smarter you get, the harder you are to tolerate.
14:29
Speaker 1: He was convinced he was right about pretty much everything,
14:31
Speaker 1: you know, everything, and that's really annoying for all his
14:36
Speaker 1: friends and acquaintances. You know, no matter what subject came up,
14:40
Speaker 1: good old Rege he just knew better, right, he had
14:44
Speaker 1: something to say about everything, I'm sure you know. And
14:47
Speaker 1: we all have a rege in our lives. Sometimes we're
14:49
Speaker 1: the reg in our lives right in other people's lives anyway,
14:53
Speaker 1: And to be honest, in the grand scheme of things,
14:55
Speaker 1: it's more fun to be reg than it is to
14:57
Speaker 1: endure reg So if you've got to chew who's you know,
15:01
Speaker 1: you'll have fewer true friends, but you'll have more fun
15:03
Speaker 1: at parties if you're the Redge. Anyway, good old Redge
15:06
Speaker 1: redg Festenden. He thought he was pretty much the smartest
15:09
Speaker 1: guy in every room that he walked into. And what
15:12
Speaker 1: probably made him harder to tolerate than just that is
15:16
Speaker 1: that he was usually right about it. You know, the
15:18
Speaker 1: guy was brilliant. One of the areas where he really
15:21
Speaker 1: demonstrated his smarts was in terms of radio. Now, we
15:24
Speaker 1: don't even think about radio anymore. You know, we're just
15:27
Speaker 1: so used to radio and streaming and Wi Fi and
15:31
Speaker 1: Bluetooth and all of these different technologies that we rarely
15:34
Speaker 1: think how crazy the concept really is, or at least
15:38
Speaker 1: how crazy it seemed, you know, a long time ago.
15:41
Speaker 1: I mean way back when radio, what they called wireless
15:45
Speaker 1: was considered a near miracle. Yet it was basically just
15:48
Speaker 1: a fancy telegraph. You know. I don't know that everybody
15:51
Speaker 1: realizes that. But when you hear people talking about the
15:55
Speaker 1: wireless or wireless, originally, what they're talking about is something
15:58
Speaker 1: that really could only send and receive you know, signals
16:02
Speaker 1: in one way. You know, on and off is the concept.
16:05
Speaker 1: It can be beeps, clicks, you know, morse code, but
16:09
Speaker 1: that's it, And that meant one thing very clearly. You
16:11
Speaker 1: can't send sound over the wireless that not sound like
16:15
Speaker 1: the human voice. You know, the human voice isn't an
16:18
Speaker 1: on off kind of a thing. Music isn't on and off.
16:21
Speaker 1: They're continuous waves, you know, their shape, tone, vibration, all
16:25
Speaker 1: of that. It's not an on off thing. So that's
16:28
Speaker 1: radio back then, that's how it worked in Reginald's day
16:31
Speaker 1: just beeps and you know, basically morse code. But he
16:34
Speaker 1: was adamant that it didn't need to be limited to
16:37
Speaker 1: just that. And even though most people assumed that voice
16:41
Speaker 1: transmission over radio, it just wasn't possible. Good old Rege,
16:46
Speaker 1: you know, the guy, the smartest guy in the room,
16:47
Speaker 1: the guy who knows better. He believed it was, and
16:50
Speaker 1: he persevered, and eventually, because he really was as smart
16:53
Speaker 1: as he thought he was, he eventually figured out the answer.
16:57
Speaker 1: And he discovered that instead of interrupting the signal, you know,
17:00
Speaker 1: triggering the on and off, the dots and dashes kind
17:02
Speaker 1: of effect, instead of doing that, you could ride sound
17:06
Speaker 1: on top of the signal. All right, you take a
17:08
Speaker 1: steady radio wave. I'm not gonna get all sciency here.
17:11
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do my best to not to dumb it
17:14
Speaker 1: down because you're an incredibly brilliant audience. I'm gonna make
17:18
Speaker 1: it as simple as possible. You take a steady radio wave,
17:20
Speaker 1: something continuous and unbroken, and then you modulate it, you
17:24
Speaker 1: shape it. You let the vibrations of a human voice
17:26
Speaker 1: change the strength of that wave as it travels, so
17:29
Speaker 1: the signal stays on the whole time, and the information
17:33
Speaker 1: is carried in how it moves. So think about it
17:35
Speaker 1: like ocean waves. You know, the tide is steady, that's
17:38
Speaker 1: the radio signal. Your voice is kind of like the
17:41
Speaker 1: wind on top of it shaping the size of the waves.
17:45
Speaker 1: That's amplitude modulation or shortened its AM radio. And that
17:50
Speaker 1: insight changed everything, all right. So that's what he came
17:56
Speaker 1: up with. That's his idea. But how did he bring
17:59
Speaker 1: you know, sound in voice and music to Christmas. Well,
18:02
Speaker 1: that part of the story happens with a first ever
18:04
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve broadcast that red airs. Now, what we actually
18:09
Speaker 1: know about what happened the night that he aired this
18:11
Speaker 1: broadcast is a little bit sketchy. You know. We know
18:14
Speaker 1: enough to be confident that it really did happen, but
18:17
Speaker 1: we don't know enough to really build a beautiful made
18:20
Speaker 1: for TV movie out of it. We do know that
18:23
Speaker 1: it happened on Christmas Eve nineteen oh six. We know
18:25
Speaker 1: that it came from brant Rock, Massachusetts, that's where he
18:28
Speaker 1: broadcasts from. We know that it used a continuous wave transmitter,
18:32
Speaker 1: something that was radically different from the on off spark
18:35
Speaker 1: transmitters that everybody else was using, and we know that
18:38
Speaker 1: it carried music and spoken words in a way radio
18:41
Speaker 1: simply hadn't done before. That part isn't in dispute. What's
18:45
Speaker 1: less clear is pretty much everything else, which is really
18:49
Speaker 1: too bad because it would make for an amazing, fun story.
18:53
Speaker 1: But we don't have all those details. We do have
18:55
Speaker 1: some info though, that helps us flesh it out a
18:58
Speaker 1: little bit. We know that this wasn't spontaneous. You know
19:01
Speaker 1: that Rege wasn't just sitting around one day and you know,
19:04
Speaker 1: flipped on the microphone and just started talking. You know,
19:07
Speaker 1: he'd been working towards this voice transmission for years and
19:10
Speaker 1: this particular event was a very deliberate demonstration of the
19:14
Speaker 1: technology and what he could do. But it also wasn't
19:17
Speaker 1: a broadcast in the modern sense. You know, there was
19:19
Speaker 1: no studio, no established audience, no expectation that this was
19:23
Speaker 1: going to make headlines the next morning. You know, radio
19:26
Speaker 1: didn't have listeners yet. It had operators, but not really listeners.
19:30
Speaker 1: You know, nobody was listening for entertainment. It was work.
19:33
Speaker 1: So basically, if anybody knew to listen for this broadcast,
19:38
Speaker 1: it would really have only been a very small group.
19:40
Speaker 1: Wireless telegraph operators on ships and possibly a few coastal stations.
19:45
Speaker 1: Now at most they may have been told something like, hey,
19:47
Speaker 1: keep your equipment on tonight. You might hear something kind
19:51
Speaker 1: of unusual. You know. That's about it for the prep
19:54
Speaker 1: and the marketing of the event. But think about it
19:57
Speaker 1: for just a minute, because it's so intriguing to me.
20:00
Speaker 1: You know, I love first you know, well, yes, I
20:04
Speaker 1: love hearing about first. I don't necessarily want to be involved,
20:07
Speaker 1: you know, in a first of anything, unless it's something
20:11
Speaker 1: really amazing, but like the first surgery, to have such
20:15
Speaker 1: and such removed from your body. Not big on being
20:17
Speaker 1: the first for that, but the story is interesting just
20:21
Speaker 1: thinking that somebody thought I can pull all of these
20:24
Speaker 1: intestines out and set them aside and do some work
20:27
Speaker 1: over here and put everything back in place. You know,
20:30
Speaker 1: let's try that. You know, that first one. That's really intriguing,
20:34
Speaker 1: just not to be the person, but to hear about it.
20:37
Speaker 1: So I love thinking about this first broadcast. You know,
20:39
Speaker 1: imagine being a ship's radio operator in nineteen oh six. Okay,
20:44
Speaker 1: you're trained to listen for beeps, clicks, patterns. That's it.
20:48
Speaker 1: That's your entire world. That's all you've ever heard through
20:50
Speaker 1: the headphones that you're sitting there, you know, monitoring. Then
20:54
Speaker 1: you get this night Christmas Eve nineteen oh six. You're
20:57
Speaker 1: sitting around, you're monitoring your equipment, your mind, your own business.
21:00
Speaker 1: You're thinking about parties or whatever. I wish I was home,
21:04
Speaker 1: I wish I was unwrapping presents. I wish I wasn't here,
21:07
Speaker 1: you know whatever. And then all of a sudden, something
21:09
Speaker 1: comes to the static that's completely unexpected. It's not beeps
21:14
Speaker 1: or anything like that. It's actually human voice. And then
21:17
Speaker 1: you hear music, you know, a violin playing something like,
21:20
Speaker 1: oh Holy night. It had to be absolutely an incredible moment,
21:26
Speaker 1: you know, stunning. Yet the only info, frustratingly, the only
21:29
Speaker 1: info we have is that a number of wireless operators
21:32
Speaker 1: talked later about how it was impossible, you know, they
21:35
Speaker 1: couldn't understand how this was happening. They couldn't believe what
21:38
Speaker 1: they were hearing. Some thought their equipment was malfunctioning. Others
21:42
Speaker 1: reached out to nearby operators to see if they were
21:44
Speaker 1: hearing the same thing. There's some stories of people saying,
21:47
Speaker 1: you know, my goodness, this is a human voice. It
21:51
Speaker 1: was stunning to them. But like I said, sadly, we
21:53
Speaker 1: don't have more of that info. But it had to
21:55
Speaker 1: be absolutely mind blowing. Now, the broadcast itself was really short. Again,
22:00
Speaker 1: I don't have that information. There is a reproduction of
22:04
Speaker 1: what people think it might have sounded like. I'll link
22:06
Speaker 1: to that in the show notes. It's really interesting and
22:09
Speaker 1: it's well done. I mean, it's going to give you
22:10
Speaker 1: a vibe and it's really got it, you know, a
22:13
Speaker 1: cool feel to it. Especially listen to that reproduction with
22:18
Speaker 1: the idea that all you've ever heard coming through speakers
22:21
Speaker 1: before or through the headphones over the wireless are beeps
22:25
Speaker 1: and clicks. Now imagine hearing this violin, you know, on
22:29
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve. It had to be really really powerful. Of course,
22:32
Speaker 1: it takes time to develop and mature and to find
22:35
Speaker 1: its way into homes. Right in nineteen oh six, radios
22:38
Speaker 1: were expensive, they were complicated, they were rare. Wireless stays
22:42
Speaker 1: the thing for another decade and a half, but then
22:45
Speaker 1: World War One ends and their surplus equipment, there's trained operators,
22:50
Speaker 1: technical knowledge, spreads and radios become more affordable and accessible.
22:54
Speaker 1: And then in nineteen twenty KDKA a station in Pittsburgh
22:58
Speaker 1: broadcasts the result of the Harding Cox presidential election, and
23:03
Speaker 1: this time regular people hear it in their living rooms,
23:06
Speaker 1: Families all gathered around, and suddenly radio absolutely explodes. You know,
23:11
Speaker 1: by nineteen twenty two there are hundreds of stations. By
23:14
Speaker 1: the mid twenties, radio is everywhere, and in regards to Christmas,
23:18
Speaker 1: radio does something almost magical to the holiday. Again, think
23:22
Speaker 1: about it. It creates shared time and shared experiences. You know,
23:26
Speaker 1: before radio Christmas was really really local. Whatever happened in
23:30
Speaker 1: your house was the experience. And now all of a sudden,
23:34
Speaker 1: millions of people everywhere can hear the same thing, the
23:36
Speaker 1: same song, the same story, the same voice, all of
23:39
Speaker 1: it at the same time that had never ever happened
23:42
Speaker 1: before in the history of the world. This is an
23:45
Speaker 1: incredibly major event. And then, of course, once advertisers and
23:50
Speaker 1: sponsors get involved, radio doesn't just spread Christmas traditions, it
23:54
Speaker 1: ends up creating them. Rudolph exists because of radio. White
23:57
Speaker 1: Christmas becomes the best selling single of all time because
24:01
Speaker 1: of radio. So when we talk about Christmas music being
24:04
Speaker 1: everywhere today inescapable even it's worth remembering this one hundred
24:09
Speaker 1: and twenty years ago. None of this existed, Christmas was quiet,
24:12
Speaker 1: and then somebody figured out how to send a human
24:14
Speaker 1: voice through the air without turning the signal on and off.
24:17
Speaker 1: And that one technical breakthrough didn't just change communication, It
24:21
Speaker 1: changed how we experienced time and memory and togetherness. It
24:26
Speaker 1: took something that used to happen only in your house
24:29
Speaker 1: and made it happen everywhere at once. So, yeah, sometimes
24:33
Speaker 1: the music drives us a little crazy. I get that,
24:35
Speaker 1: But it also means that the silence doesn't get to
24:38
Speaker 1: dominate the scene the way it used to, and that
24:40
Speaker 1: has shaped how we experienced Christmas, and honestly, it's shaped
24:44
Speaker 1: how we experience the modern world. All Right, most of
24:47
Speaker 1: us love Christmas lights, right, and some of us go
24:50
Speaker 1: to extravagant measures to light up our homes and our
24:53
Speaker 1: exteriors every season. But have you ever wondered about that
24:57
Speaker 1: the whole process of getting there? You know, why do
24:59
Speaker 1: we reach for lif in the first place? Why did
25:01
Speaker 1: people a couple hundred years ago risk putting burning candles
25:05
Speaker 1: on their trees? You know what's the big deal with
25:07
Speaker 1: Christmas lights? Anyway, we'll get into all of that right
25:10
Speaker 1: after this. You're listening to Home in Progress, where the
25:14
Speaker 1: projects are real, the mistakes. They're educational, sometimes painful, mostly educational.
25:20
Speaker 1: And the only thing more stubborn than that old wallpaper
25:24
Speaker 1: on your bathroom wall is your determination to get it fixed.
25:28
Speaker 1: Proudly sponsored by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore Paint with
25:31
Speaker 1: a Purpose, people who care, and everything you need to
25:34
Speaker 1: get the job done right. Well, we're wrapping up our
25:37
Speaker 1: Christmas Extravaganza twenty twenty five. And before I get to
25:41
Speaker 1: the last segment, as I mentioned in you know pretty
25:45
Speaker 1: much the rest of the show, all the earlier parts
25:47
Speaker 1: of the show. At the end of the show today,
25:49
Speaker 1: I'm going to be giving away ten one hundred dollars
25:51
Speaker 1: repcol Like gift certificates. If you want to chance to
25:54
Speaker 1: win one of those, all you need to do is
25:57
Speaker 1: send me an email right now, email at repco Light
26:00
Speaker 1: dot com. Tell me your favorite Christmas memory, your favorite
26:04
Speaker 1: Christmas song, maybe your favorite Christmas tradition or story or anything. Honestly,
26:11
Speaker 1: if you can't think of anything like that, just tell
26:13
Speaker 1: me a topic that you'd love me to cover in
26:15
Speaker 1: a future episode. Put all of that or any of
26:19
Speaker 1: that in an email and send it to radio at
26:21
Speaker 1: repcoll Light dot com and then I'll draw ten random
26:24
Speaker 1: winners around nine to fifteen or so this morning, and
26:27
Speaker 1: then I'll alert you right away as to whether you
26:31
Speaker 1: won or not. All right, Christmas lights they're pretty cool, right.
26:36
Speaker 1: Lots of folks invest huge amounts of time and energy
26:40
Speaker 1: into planning and decorating their homes with them every single year.
26:44
Speaker 1: And then another group of us, a large group of us,
26:47
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time driving around and judging how
26:50
Speaker 1: well these folks. Did you know my family loves this game,
26:54
Speaker 1: and I know you all do the same thing. We
26:56
Speaker 1: all judge everybody all the time. We walk past or
26:59
Speaker 1: drive past houses and we're scoping them out. Do they
27:03
Speaker 1: pass the test? Do they fail? Do we like that
27:07
Speaker 1: combination of lights over there? Do we like those colors?
27:10
Speaker 1: Or are those a little gaudy? Those might be a
27:12
Speaker 1: little gaudy. What do you guys think? What about the
27:14
Speaker 1: flashing lights over here? Are we up on those? Do
27:17
Speaker 1: we like them? Are they making us feel festive or
27:20
Speaker 1: are they kind of making us feel like we're gonna
27:22
Speaker 1: have a seizure? You know, we do that all season long.
27:26
Speaker 1: We love it anyway. Christmas lights, there's so much a
27:29
Speaker 1: part of our modern Christmas celebrations that I really doubt
27:32
Speaker 1: many of us spend a lot of time thinking about
27:34
Speaker 1: the fact that for most of history history, for most
27:39
Speaker 1: of history, having Christmas lights actually meant toying around with
27:42
Speaker 1: potential life altering fire damage and destruction. Right if you
27:47
Speaker 1: were going to win any home decorating contests back then
27:50
Speaker 1: around the Christmas season, you had to be willing to
27:53
Speaker 1: run the risk of burning your house to the ground.
27:55
Speaker 1: Because remember, having lights on a tree until relatively recently,
27:58
Speaker 1: meant literal candles and open flames on dry pine branches.
28:03
Speaker 1: So when I think about that, a ton of questions
28:06
Speaker 1: come to mind. You know, first, why did people decide
28:09
Speaker 1: to add lights to Christmas trees in the first place?
28:11
Speaker 1: You know, what made them think it was okay to
28:14
Speaker 1: do that? To bring those lights in with candles? You know,
28:17
Speaker 1: what did they do to keep it safe? And then
28:19
Speaker 1: how did we get from candles to electric lights? I mean,
28:22
Speaker 1: we all know it's the natural flow of progress, But
28:24
Speaker 1: there was a first time that people saw electric lights
28:27
Speaker 1: on the tree. What was that like? And how did
28:29
Speaker 1: it move from there and end up in all of
28:32
Speaker 1: our homes? So let's look at all of that, and
28:34
Speaker 1: let's start here why did people start adding lights to
28:37
Speaker 1: the tree and what made them think it was okay
28:39
Speaker 1: to do that with candles? Well, first off, the reason
28:42
Speaker 1: for adding lights goes way deeper than just thinking it
28:44
Speaker 1: looked pretty. There's a lot of symbolism and hope and
28:48
Speaker 1: belief wrapped up in the lights. You know, darkness back
28:50
Speaker 1: then was way different than darkness is now. You know,
28:54
Speaker 1: you can just hear the old timers if you listen.
28:57
Speaker 1: You know, back in my day, the darkness it was
29:00
Speaker 1: really dark, not this wimpy darkness that you've got today. Right,
29:04
Speaker 1: can't you hear the old people just saying that at
29:07
Speaker 1: all the family get togethers. I can. But as silly
29:11
Speaker 1: as that concept kind of sounds, it was actually true.
29:14
Speaker 1: You know. Back in the day that darkness was dark.
29:17
Speaker 1: I mean there's no street lights, there's no glow you know,
29:20
Speaker 1: from neighboring houses, there's no cars going by on a
29:23
Speaker 1: regular basis. Once the sun went down, the world went
29:27
Speaker 1: pretty dark. So light wasn't just decorative, It was psychological.
29:31
Speaker 1: You know. It pushed back against something people genuinely feared,
29:34
Speaker 1: and humans have been fighting winter darkness for ages, you know,
29:39
Speaker 1: long before Christianity was prevalent. In Europe, people celebrated the
29:43
Speaker 1: winter solstice with fire and light, you know, the Yule log, bonfires,
29:47
Speaker 1: candles and windows and so on. And then when Christianity
29:50
Speaker 1: spread through Europe, it didn't erase these traditions, it redeemed them.
29:54
Speaker 1: You know. The Church took that ancient human need light
29:57
Speaker 1: in the darkness and it gave it new meaning. You know,
30:00
Speaker 1: Christmas falls right after the winter solstice, the darkest point
30:03
Speaker 1: of the year, and Christianity said, this is when the
30:06
Speaker 1: light of the world enters the world. You know, christ
30:09
Speaker 1: is that light, hope is breaking into the darkness. The
30:11
Speaker 1: candles on the tree weren't just pushing back the night anymore.
30:15
Speaker 1: They were actually representing something eternal and something incredibly hopeful.
30:20
Speaker 1: And for people whose faith shaped pretty much every part
30:22
Speaker 1: of daily life, that symbolism wasn't abstract, it was essential.
30:26
Speaker 1: You know. They knew there was danger in putting candles
30:29
Speaker 1: on the tree, but the meaning or the symbolism justified
30:32
Speaker 1: the danger. And also when it comes to understanding how
30:35
Speaker 1: or why they would accept that risk so readily, we
30:38
Speaker 1: should remember a couple of things that it kind of
30:40
Speaker 1: puts it in perspective. First off, the folks that lived
30:44
Speaker 1: in this world. They lived with fire all the time.
30:47
Speaker 1: You know, homes were heated by open flames, food was
30:50
Speaker 1: cooked over fire. Candles and oil lamps were the only
30:53
Speaker 1: source of light after sunset, So fire wasn't an unusual
30:57
Speaker 1: danger like it kind of is to us now. It
31:01
Speaker 1: was pretty much a daily companion, So lighting a tree
31:03
Speaker 1: with candles didn't feel as completely foreign and nuts to
31:07
Speaker 1: them as it does to us. And to keep things
31:10
Speaker 1: as safe as possible, here's some things I wasn't aware
31:14
Speaker 1: of I should have, you know. I guess if you
31:15
Speaker 1: just think it through for more than two minutes, you'll
31:17
Speaker 1: come to this conclusion. But I never thought it through
31:21
Speaker 1: for more than just a couple minutes. Anyway. The tree
31:24
Speaker 1: wasn't lit all night long, you know, with the candles.
31:26
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like what we do now. The
31:29
Speaker 1: tree was basically lit very briefly, you know, often for
31:32
Speaker 1: just a few minutes, and usually only on Christmas Eve.
31:35
Speaker 1: You know, the family gathered together. That one kid, you know,
31:39
Speaker 1: we've all got that one kid or maybe more of
31:41
Speaker 1: them in our home who knocks everything over and breaks everything.
31:44
Speaker 1: You know, that kid was probably locked away in another
31:47
Speaker 1: room somewhere. But the rest of the family would gather,
31:50
Speaker 1: they'd light the tree, they'd have a moment, probably say
31:52
Speaker 1: a prayer, sing a song, and then they'd put the
31:54
Speaker 1: candles out, and on top of that, most of them
31:57
Speaker 1: had water ready to go, you know, just in So
32:00
Speaker 1: those are the beginnings, and then we move into the
32:02
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds and we start to get some safety improvements,
32:06
Speaker 1: but it's not like they're really knocking it out of
32:08
Speaker 1: the park here, so don't get too excited. For example,
32:10
Speaker 1: you get candle holders, little clip on devices, little metal
32:14
Speaker 1: mounts that will hold the candle upright, but you're still
32:17
Speaker 1: clipping them, you know, burning candles onto pine branches. So
32:21
Speaker 1: it was all baby steps at that point. The big
32:24
Speaker 1: shift started in the late eighteen hundreds when electricity began
32:28
Speaker 1: to slowly make its way into Holmes. Then in eighteen
32:31
Speaker 1: eighty two, Edward H. Johnson, the vice president of the
32:34
Speaker 1: Edison Electric Light Company, Edward H. Johnson, decorated a Christmas
32:39
Speaker 1: tree in New York with eighty electric light bulbs. And
32:42
Speaker 1: not only that, he did it with incredible flare. You know,
32:46
Speaker 1: the bulbs were red, white, and blue, and the tree
32:48
Speaker 1: actually rotated on a revolving pedestal. Now, the display that
32:52
Speaker 1: he set up drew a crowd, it drew the press,
32:55
Speaker 1: and everybody was excited because at the time, you know,
32:57
Speaker 1: electric lighting itself was still new and exciting, and nobody
33:00
Speaker 1: had really ever seen a Christmas tree put together. You know,
33:04
Speaker 1: there are newspaper articles we can still find today where
33:07
Speaker 1: they recount, you know, just this amazing thing that they
33:11
Speaker 1: were viewing, you know, seeing all these lights on a tree.
33:13
Speaker 1: They found it. You know, the people who were writing
33:15
Speaker 1: the articles found it to be one of the most
33:17
Speaker 1: beautiful things they'd ever seen in their lives. It was
33:19
Speaker 1: that exciting. But even with all that, even with the
33:22
Speaker 1: fact that it looked amazing, the costs and the fact
33:25
Speaker 1: that most homes didn't have electricity kind of made the
33:27
Speaker 1: whole idea of Christmas lights electric ones non starters. Candles,
33:32
Speaker 1: even with all their problems, were still cheap, They were
33:34
Speaker 1: still familiar and so for a while yet they persisted.
33:37
Speaker 1: In fact, for about another twenty five years, candles were
33:41
Speaker 1: still the primary way that most people lit their trees. Then, finally,
33:45
Speaker 1: by the early nineteen hundreds, as electricity becomes more common
33:48
Speaker 1: in the cities, you start seeing electric Christmas lights show
33:51
Speaker 1: up more often. The biggest step to get us to
33:54
Speaker 1: you know, where we are today. That biggest step came
33:57
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen when a teenager named Albert Sedaka thought
34:01
Speaker 1: to repurpose the white novelty lights that his family produced
34:05
Speaker 1: in their business and switch them over to colored bulbs,
34:08
Speaker 1: creating the very first Christmas lights that were safe for
34:10
Speaker 1: widespread use in the homes. Now. He proposed that idea,
34:14
Speaker 1: worked on it, and it took off. And as these
34:16
Speaker 1: lights were mass produced, the costs came down, and finally
34:20
Speaker 1: average families could afford them. And from there the transition
34:23
Speaker 1: away from candles accelerated quickly. You know, within a decade
34:26
Speaker 1: or two, the idea of lighting a Christmas tree with
34:29
Speaker 1: open flames wouldn't feel just old fashioned. It feel absolutely nuts,
34:34
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much like we would think of it today.
34:37
Speaker 1: And as those lights became more and more popular and
34:40
Speaker 1: began to see more and more use, something really interesting
34:43
Speaker 1: begins to happen. You know, just like we talked about
34:45
Speaker 1: with radio and how that changed the vibe of Christmas.
34:50
Speaker 1: With the lights, the whole vibe of Christmas starts to change.
34:53
Speaker 1: Electric lights make the Christmas tree less of a brief
34:56
Speaker 1: supervised moment and more of an all night glow. Leave
35:00
Speaker 1: them on the entire Christmas season. You can enjoy them
35:03
Speaker 1: all of that time safely. You can sit in the
35:05
Speaker 1: living room and let the tree be a part of
35:07
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, not just an event that you risk your
35:10
Speaker 1: life and you're home for. You don't need twelve buckets
35:13
Speaker 1: of water sitting in the living room just in case. Anyway,
35:16
Speaker 1: once the indoor lights became reliably safe, the next obvious
35:20
Speaker 1: step was to go outdoors. And that brings us to
35:23
Speaker 1: where we're at today with all of the crazy, you know,
35:26
Speaker 1: chaotic and amazing Christmas light displays that we see all
35:29
Speaker 1: around our neighborhoods this time of year. All right, there
35:32
Speaker 1: you go. That's going to do it for this episode
35:34
Speaker 1: of Home and Progress. The next two weeks are going
35:37
Speaker 1: to be a couple of best of shows that I'll
35:39
Speaker 1: put together, and then starting January ten, we'll be back
35:42
Speaker 1: with new stuff. Now, I want to wish all of
35:44
Speaker 1: you from all of us at Repcolite, a very merry
35:46
Speaker 1: Christmas and a happy New Year. And don't forget to
35:49
Speaker 1: get your emails in if you want a chance to
35:51
Speaker 1: win one of ten one hundred dollars Repcollite gift certificates.
35:54
Speaker 1: Email me right now at radio at Repcolit dot com
35:57
Speaker 1: and tell me something about your favorite Christmas or your
36:01
Speaker 1: favorite song, your favorite Christmas song, or even tell me
36:03
Speaker 1: some topics that you'd love me to cover on new episodes.
36:06
Speaker 1: As we start twenty twenty six, I'll be digging through
36:08
Speaker 1: all of the emails I've received from the beginning of
36:10
Speaker 1: the show until about nine point fifteen this morning, and
36:13
Speaker 1: then I'll pick ten random winners. Remember, though, I'm going
36:17
Speaker 1: to respond to all of these emails, so just because
36:20
Speaker 1: you get an email back from me, don't assume you
36:23
Speaker 1: won only to end up being disappointed. The message is
36:26
Speaker 1: going to tell you if you want or not. So
36:28
Speaker 1: when you see an email come, you still got to
36:31
Speaker 1: read it to find out if you want. Don't get
36:32
Speaker 1: all pumped up and think you're a winner and then
36:36
Speaker 1: be disappointed. I hate to bring disappointment, So get those
36:39
Speaker 1: emails into radio at repcol Light dot com. You've got
36:41
Speaker 1: a few minutes yet. All right, everybody, have a great
36:44
Speaker 1: weekend and a blessed Christmas, and I'll see you next week.
36:47
Speaker 1: I'm Dan Hansen for Home in Progress. Thanks for listening.