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CLASSIC: When the Puritans Canceled Christmas · Ridiculous History

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