Latest / Stuff You Should Know / The Stuff You Should Know 2016 Christmas Extravaganza in 3-D!
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
- 0:13Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
- 0:16Speaker 2: there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there. And
- 0:21Speaker 2: this is the two thy sixteen Stuff You Should Know
- 0:26Speaker 2: Super Christmas Holiday Spectacular glad Tidings Edition.
- 0:33Speaker 3: In three d oh nice and stinkovision. Nice smellovision. That
- 0:39Speaker 3: was a real thing, you know, Yeah it was.
- 0:41Speaker 2: It was a great idea that didn't really pan out
- 0:43Speaker 2: very well.
- 0:43Speaker 3: I don't know about that.
- 0:45Speaker 2: Well, no, it didn't pan out very well.
- 0:48Speaker 3: Well, yeah, funny, I know what you meant. Uh so,
- 0:52Speaker 3: my friend, I look forward to this every year. Yeah,
- 0:54Speaker 3: me too, because, as I've said before, I save up
- 0:58Speaker 3: my vacation and take an elmmentary school break for a
- 1:02Speaker 3: solid three weeks at the end of every year, right,
- 1:05Speaker 3: which also means you get a bit of a break.
- 1:07Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a de facto decision on my behalf as well.
- 1:12Speaker 3: And this is it after in one hour, roughly you're
- 1:16Speaker 3: not going to see me again till next year. Yeah,
- 1:20Speaker 3: you know. I like to get small over the holidays.
- 1:23Speaker 2: That's cool, man. I don't blame you. I do too,
- 1:25Speaker 2: just hold up in the secretly, I'm secretly fine with
- 1:28Speaker 2: you making that decision for me particular one.
- 1:30Speaker 3: Yeah, so are you?
- 1:32Speaker 2: So? Are you full of cheer glad tidings.
- 1:34Speaker 3: Well, I'm in a silly mood. So this will who
- 1:37Speaker 3: knows where this goes?
- 1:38Speaker 2: How's Jerry? Jerry, you're feeling pretty happy?
- 1:41Speaker 3: She is?
- 1:42Speaker 2: She's good.
- 1:43Speaker 3: Just gave a thumbs up. Yeah, she's fresh faced, but.
- 1:48Speaker 2: She tailed Are her hauls decked?
- 1:52Speaker 3: Oh yes, double decked?
- 1:55Speaker 2: Well, I guess we should welcome everybody chuck to the
- 1:59Speaker 2: Christmas spectacular. Tell you, first off, to be sure to
- 2:03Speaker 2: start a fire somewhere in your house. Yes, put on sweater, maybe,
- 2:07Speaker 2: put on some slippers, put on pajamas, make yourself some eggnog,
- 2:12Speaker 2: hot butter room, something like that, and just sit down
- 2:16Speaker 2: and enjoy yourself.
- 2:17Speaker 3: Yeah, and we did our holiday special every year we
- 2:20Speaker 3: like to cover. I'm always afraid we're going to recover
- 2:23Speaker 3: something which I actually pitched, something we had already covered.
- 2:26Speaker 2: I've got a list, so don't worry about it.
- 2:28Speaker 3: Oh okay, great, well then let's ring in the holiday year.
- 2:32Speaker 2: Hey. Also, we should say, if there are any little
- 2:36Speaker 2: true believers among you, you may not want to let them
- 2:39Speaker 2: listen to this one.
- 2:40Speaker 3: Well, yeah, there, I was going to give a warning.
- 2:43Speaker 3: They can listen to most of it, but there is
- 2:45Speaker 3: one feature of the show where where you may not
- 2:48Speaker 3: want your kids to listen to some of the detail
- 2:52Speaker 3: the deats, and we're going to give you a warning
- 2:53Speaker 3: before that comes on. Yeah, so you can.
- 2:57Speaker 2: It'll sound like this wringling knowing that's the Christmas warning.
- 3:04Speaker 3: Well, all right, let's do it.
- 3:06Speaker 2: All right, everybody sit back as we begin our annual
- 3:10Speaker 2: Christmas special. So Chuck, we're gonna hop in our over
- 3:26Speaker 2: there sleigh and head on over to Catalonia. Yeah, parts
- 3:38Speaker 2: of Spain, parts of Spain, part of Spain, and there's
- 3:42Speaker 2: a Catalan tradition. There's a couple of them actually that
- 3:46Speaker 2: are really interesting and are scatological in nature. And the
- 3:51Speaker 2: first one is called Cagatillo.
- 3:54Speaker 3: Yeah. I had never heard of this, but I put
- 3:57Speaker 3: out and you'll see you later in the show. We
- 3:59Speaker 3: put out a call on face book for some unusual
- 4:01Speaker 3: family traditions from listeners, and a couple of people mentioned this,
- 4:05Speaker 3: like saying, we don't do this, but I've heard of
- 4:07Speaker 3: it and it's really strange.
- 4:09Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely a thing, and in large parts of Spain, Portugal,
- 4:15Speaker 2: even some parts of Italy too from what I understand,
- 4:18Speaker 2: but specifically in the Catalan region of Spain, cagatillo, which
- 4:23Speaker 2: means poop log basically in Catalan, is a It's a
- 4:31Speaker 2: Christmas tradition that starts on December eighth when the family
- 4:35Speaker 2: gets around and while they've gone out, I think either
- 4:38Speaker 2: made one or they purchased a cagatillo, which is a
- 4:41Speaker 2: log with a face on it.
- 4:44Speaker 3: Yeah, I get the idea that part of the fun
- 4:46Speaker 3: and correct me if I'm wrong, Spanish among you, But
- 4:50Speaker 3: part of the fun is making it with the family. Sure,
- 4:53Speaker 3: but I'm sure you can buy them though as well,
- 4:56Speaker 3: right full featured.
- 4:58Speaker 2: Even if you bought one fully featured, there's still some
- 5:00Speaker 2: some ritual that you the family have to go through
- 5:03Speaker 2: that would be kind of fun.
- 5:04Speaker 3: Exactly.
- 5:05Speaker 2: So with with Kagatia, with the log, he's got a face,
- 5:09Speaker 2: but very importantly, he also has two front arms, so
- 5:12Speaker 2: he's kind of propped up right yeah, yeah, And when
- 5:15Speaker 2: you bring Kaigatio home, he also has that that the
- 5:18Speaker 2: standard Catalan red kind of overhangy hat yeap, yes, exactly,
- 5:27Speaker 2: And so the family brings him home, and on December eighth,
- 5:30Speaker 2: they get him prepared for the Christmas season. Right, They
- 5:33Speaker 2: wrap them in a blanket, and they basically wrap them
- 5:38Speaker 2: from what would amount to the waist down in a
- 5:40Speaker 2: blanket to keep them warm, to.
- 5:43Speaker 3: Keep him warm, and to maybe incubate what dwells inside
- 5:48Speaker 3: of the log. Yeah, because that's where we're headed with us.
- 5:51Speaker 3: They feed this thing orange peels, a Spanish nugat called
- 5:57Speaker 3: torone's that right, Yeah, And apparently, as tradition is held,
- 6:02Speaker 3: the more you feed the cagatillo, the more gifts it
- 6:06Speaker 3: will bestow to you through the traditional route, which means
- 6:11Speaker 3: out of the rear end.
- 6:12Speaker 2: Right. So the kids every night while they're caring for cagatiu,
- 6:16Speaker 2: and I imagine probably more than just every night. I'll
- 6:19Speaker 2: bet this thing gets fed a lot of orange peels
- 6:21Speaker 2: and nougat. They feed it. And as the Christmas I
- 6:28Speaker 2: guess Christmas Day, I also saw Christmas Eve approaches, they
- 6:33Speaker 2: they prepare to extract the stuff from cagatio. Yeah, and
- 6:40Speaker 2: they do that by by hitting cagato with sticks. And
- 6:44Speaker 2: they have a traditional chant. You want to you want
- 6:46Speaker 2: to give them the translation of the chant?
- 6:49Speaker 3: Yeah, not that not the original in English, it translates
- 6:53Speaker 3: literally as poop log, poop torone, hazel nuts and cottage cheese.
- 6:58Speaker 3: If you don't poop, well, I'll hit you with a
- 7:00Speaker 3: stick poop log.
- 7:04Speaker 2: And so once they've beaten Kagatio with a stick enough times,
- 7:08Speaker 2: they'll look under the blanket and see that he's pooped
- 7:12Speaker 2: out a bunch of candy and treats and gifts. And
- 7:16Speaker 2: it's an amazing, wonderful little Christmas tradition.
- 7:20Speaker 3: It's wonderful.
- 7:21Speaker 2: But that's not the only unusual poop based cautle on
- 7:27Speaker 2: Christmas tradition either, is it.
- 7:28Speaker 1: No.
- 7:28Speaker 3: I was kind of surprised to know that there was
- 7:30Speaker 3: more than one. How do you pronounce this that coganer, coganaire, cogganaire, Yeah,
- 7:36Speaker 3: pretty close. So this is this is just a it's
- 7:40Speaker 3: not a log. It's an actual carved or now you know,
- 7:43Speaker 3: readily manufactured sort of dull figurine that has dropped its
- 7:49Speaker 3: pants and is just pooping.
- 7:51Speaker 2: Yeah. And and with the little traditional figurine, there's a
- 7:54Speaker 2: little pile of poop beneath his rear end on the ground.
- 7:57Speaker 2: So not only is he poopy, he has pooped. And
- 8:00Speaker 2: if it's the original version, it looks like a Catalan peasant,
- 8:05Speaker 2: so he also has that red hat. He's probably smoking
- 8:07Speaker 2: a pipe. And these things are designed to be put
- 8:11Speaker 2: into the Nativity scene as one of the figures along
- 8:14Speaker 2: with the Holy Family, and a lot of Westerners find
- 8:20Speaker 2: that offensive and don't understand that it's it's not meant,
- 8:22Speaker 2: even in a joking manner. It wasn't. Originally, it was
- 8:25Speaker 2: meant because the Kaganair represented things like fertility or good
- 8:31Speaker 2: fortune or good luck and as poop did. But over
- 8:34Speaker 2: time it's definitely evolved, and now you can find Kagan
- 8:37Speaker 2: Air figures of all sorts of famous people, from Barack
- 8:40Speaker 2: Obama to the Star Wars crew has a Kagan Air collection.
- 8:47Speaker 3: Of course.
- 8:48Speaker 2: Did you see it?
- 8:49Speaker 3: Well, yeah I saw. I mean there are all kinds
- 8:51Speaker 3: of pop culture icons now with their pants pulled down pooping.
- 8:55Speaker 2: But did you see the Star Wars one in particular?
- 8:57Speaker 3: No, no, it was it good?
- 8:58Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty great. See three pooped out a nut
- 9:02Speaker 2: like a bolt nut.
- 9:06Speaker 3: Not a nut like one might traditionally find in a stool.
- 9:09Speaker 2: No, no, it's not a peanut, a walnut. Oh man,
- 9:14Speaker 2: who knew this one was going to be so uh gross?
- 9:17Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 9:17Speaker 2: Well I guess we could have guessed.
- 9:19Speaker 3: Yeah, you found the stuff, so yeah, what else can
- 9:22Speaker 3: we mention here? There was a world's record, of course,
- 9:25Speaker 3: on December tenth, I'm sorry, December twenty ten, there was
- 9:29Speaker 3: a nineteen foot pooping figurine placed in the shopping center
- 9:34Speaker 3: and won the record for world's largest Kagan air.
- 9:38Speaker 2: Yeah, in Barcelona.
- 9:39Speaker 3: Pretty good.
- 9:40Speaker 2: Yeah, I looked at a picture. I couldn't find any
- 9:42Speaker 2: actual specs on it, but by my estimates, the pile
- 9:46Speaker 2: of poop is about three feet tall. Oh okay, yeah,
- 9:50Speaker 2: in the middle of the shopping center, the Marra Magnum
- 9:53Speaker 2: shopping center in Barcelona.
- 9:54Speaker 3: Nice. Well, my sister lives in Portugal. Now I'm going
- 9:56Speaker 3: to hit her up and see if she's seen any
- 9:58Speaker 3: in this action.
- 9:59Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Ask her to mail us some caganaiirs.
- 10:02Speaker 2: I'd love one.
- 10:03Speaker 3: You can order one online?
- 10:04Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'll bet she can get a better deal
- 10:06Speaker 2: on one there.
- 10:09Speaker 3: Uh, should we take a break, No, Josh, we shouldn't. Oh, yeah,
- 10:14Speaker 3: we shouldn't because as of per tradition, our Christmas episode
- 10:18Speaker 3: is ad free. It's one of small little thing we
- 10:20Speaker 3: like to do.
- 10:22Speaker 2: It's ad free with one hundred percent more Christmas.
- 10:26Speaker 3: That's right, all right, So let's pile on our sleigh
- 10:28Speaker 3: and let's head on over and see how doctor Crampis
- 10:31Speaker 3: is doing.
- 10:39Speaker 2: Yeah, over in the Alps, in the Alpine regions.
- 10:42Speaker 3: Yes, of Austria. So well, let's talk about Crampis. It's
- 10:47Speaker 3: a it's a weird thing, but then it's not any
- 10:50Speaker 3: weirder than Santa Claus if you really look at it, Yeah,
- 10:53Speaker 3: or bringing a tree into your home.
- 10:55Speaker 2: He's this. No, it's really not. And it actually makes
- 10:59Speaker 2: a lot of sense too, because you know, Santa Claus
- 11:01Speaker 2: is so good and pure and happy and joyful, and
- 11:04Speaker 2: Crampis is all the opposite. So as as it was
- 11:07Speaker 2: put in this one Smithsonian article I read, Crampis is
- 11:11Speaker 2: the Yen to Saint Nick's yang. Yeah, and they actually
- 11:15Speaker 2: hang out together. And we should probably describe Crampus a
- 11:17Speaker 2: little bit first, huh.
- 11:19Speaker 3: Yeah, So here's the legend, is that Crampus shows up.
- 11:23Speaker 3: Crampus is sort of a beast of sorts, a demon,
- 11:28Speaker 3: a demonic, impish beast.
- 11:30Speaker 2: With a long tongue. And Claus, his name, in fact,
- 11:34Speaker 2: is derived from the German word for claw, I.
- 11:36Speaker 3: Believe, Yeah, what's that, uh, Crampin' huh was it that simple?
- 11:44Speaker 3: So Crampus he shows up. He shows up in the
- 11:46Speaker 3: town the night before December sixth, which is also known
- 11:50Speaker 3: as Crampas Snacht or Crampus Knight. And uh, that's also
- 11:56Speaker 3: a Nicholas taug or Saint Nicholas date. December six is.
- 11:59Speaker 2: Right, So they show up on December fifth, the night
- 12:02Speaker 2: of the fifth.
- 12:03Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, like the light in the dark,
- 12:05Speaker 3: Crampus is like, no, no, no, Saint Nick can't just
- 12:07Speaker 3: show up. I will show up as well and try
- 12:10Speaker 3: and ruin the good time.
- 12:12Speaker 2: Right. So what's interesting is like on Crampus Knocked the
- 12:17Speaker 2: Saint Nick goes around and leaves little goodies in the
- 12:21Speaker 2: shoes of good kids. Sure, and then birch sticks in
- 12:24Speaker 2: the shoes of bad kids, ostensibly for their parents to
- 12:27Speaker 2: smack them on the behind with for being bad. But
- 12:31Speaker 2: there's another level reserved for the truly bad kids. And
- 12:34Speaker 2: that's what Crampus is there for. He's there to abduct
- 12:37Speaker 2: and torture and potentially eat the really bad kids. He's
- 12:43Speaker 2: actually going around with Saint Nick visiting people's home.
- 12:47Speaker 3: Yeah, say, how bad are you? Do you need to
- 12:49Speaker 3: be tortured and eaten?
- 12:51Speaker 2: Are you bad, or like crampist level bad.
- 12:54Speaker 3: And this hearkens back the first thing I thought it was,
- 12:56Speaker 3: of course, our episodes on the Grim's fairy Tales very
- 13:00Speaker 3: much sort of aligns with that where children are readily
- 13:03Speaker 3: offered up as food for beasts. You know, like no
- 13:10Speaker 3: one cared back then.
- 13:12Speaker 2: No, they definitely treated their children more harshly, for sure.
- 13:15Speaker 2: There was a lot more like getting lost in the
- 13:17Speaker 2: forest and no one coming to find you, going on.
- 13:20Speaker 3: Yeah, so Crampus obviously, over the years there have been
- 13:23Speaker 3: a lot of people who have been like, let's abolish this.
- 13:25Speaker 3: This is not in the modern Christmas spirit. He is
- 13:30Speaker 3: the son of the Norse god of the underworld hell
- 13:33Speaker 3: h l And during the twelfth century the Catholic Church
- 13:37Speaker 3: tried to ban Crampus, and then more recently in the
- 13:41Speaker 3: nineteen thirties when Austria's conservative Christian Social Party came in
- 13:46Speaker 3: came around, they definitely tried to get Crampus outlawed, but
- 13:50Speaker 3: people would not have it. They needed their Crampus.
- 13:53Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Crampus predates Christianity. He has some staying power,
- 13:57Speaker 2: you know. He was originally like a German demon of
- 14:03Speaker 2: pagan folklore. Yeah, yeah, he would be tough to get
- 14:06Speaker 2: rid of, and probably now more so than ever because
- 14:09Speaker 2: some sort of weird Streisan effect apparently happened, and now
- 14:12Speaker 2: more people are aware of Crampis than ever before, and
- 14:15Speaker 2: he's celebrated big time. People love him. There are mostly people,
- 14:19Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there was yeah, a good horror movie. Well
- 14:22Speaker 2: I don't I can't say if it was good. I
- 14:23Speaker 2: haven't seen it, but it looks good. But people who
- 14:28Speaker 2: are who get sick of the holiday spirit being crammed
- 14:31Speaker 2: down their throat for you know, after X number of
- 14:33Speaker 2: weeks usually turned to Crampis to kind of find some relief.
- 14:39Speaker 3: I looked up this other thing because at the end
- 14:41Speaker 3: of this article it mentions a couple of weird things
- 14:44Speaker 3: demons in other countries Christmas demons and the one in
- 14:47Speaker 3: Greece Cali Kans. Did you look that up?
- 14:52Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 14:53Speaker 3: Yeah, this is crazy. These are little, impish demons that
- 14:58Speaker 3: speak with a lisp and eat worms and frogs and things.
- 15:03Speaker 3: They only come out at night. They're afraid of the
- 15:05Speaker 3: sun fire holy water, and then the rest of the
- 15:08Speaker 3: year they live in the center of the earth and
- 15:10Speaker 3: attempt to chop down the tree of life.
- 15:12Speaker 2: Right, but at Christmas time they emerge to wreak havoc
- 15:16Speaker 2: above ground.
- 15:17Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, And apparently one of the legends of the
- 15:21Speaker 3: Calikansari is that they can only count to two. Did
- 15:25Speaker 3: you see that?
- 15:27Speaker 2: Oh no, I didn't actually, but I'll bet I know
- 15:29Speaker 2: where you're going with this.
- 15:30Speaker 3: Well, they can only They won't say three because it's
- 15:32Speaker 3: a holy number supposedly, so they only count to two.
- 15:34Speaker 3: So if you want to guard your home against these
- 15:37Speaker 3: little imps, you leave a calendar on your torch step.
- 15:41Speaker 3: So they go mad trying to count the holes. They
- 15:44Speaker 3: just go one to one, two, over and over until
- 15:47Speaker 3: they commit suicide.
- 15:49Speaker 2: That's yeah, that's a pretty standard.
- 15:51Speaker 3: It's very strange, you know.
- 15:53Speaker 2: You know what is strange though, too, is that that's
- 15:55Speaker 2: a remedy for protecting yourself against vampires. The original vampires
- 15:59Speaker 2: could count, and they would just go nuts trying to
- 16:02Speaker 2: count like seeds. I think you're supposed to leave.
- 16:04Speaker 3: Oh that's right, yeah, remember, but they were like.
- 16:06Speaker 2: They originated in Greece too, I think.
- 16:08Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's all all. It was a.
- 16:11Speaker 2: Surefire remedy that just works for everything. One size fits all.
- 16:15Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 16:16Speaker 2: Did you see the one about Danny the South African
- 16:18Speaker 2: ghost boy.
- 16:20Speaker 3: Yeah, that was really that. This was just like scary.
- 16:23Speaker 2: So if you're a kid in South Africa around Christmas time,
- 16:27Speaker 2: you need to keep an eye out for the ghost
- 16:29Speaker 2: of Danny, who was a little boy who whose grandmother
- 16:32Speaker 2: made a batch of cookies for Saint Nick and Danny
- 16:36Speaker 2: just couldn't help himself. He ate the whole batch of cookies.
- 16:39Speaker 2: So grandmother murdered him and now his ghost haunts Christmas
- 16:42Speaker 2: in South Africa. It's a weird tradition.
- 16:46Speaker 3: Yeah, it really drives home that we're in an all
- 16:49Speaker 3: time high in terms of regard for children in the world. Yeah,
- 16:53Speaker 3: you know, yep, we're finally doing it right here in
- 16:56Speaker 3: twenty sixteen.
- 16:57Speaker 2: Yep, no children's murdered, children into ghosts on our watch.
- 17:03Speaker 3: You ready for the next segment or you want to.
- 17:05Speaker 2: I'm so psyched about this one. Let's get in this slate.
- 17:12Speaker 3: Yeah, let's ride on over to TV Land.
- 17:17Speaker 2: Yeah, which exists in our imaginations and in Culver City, California.
- 17:24Speaker 3: That's right, of course, we're talking about a Charlie Brown
- 17:26Speaker 3: Christmas and just a little bit of its history. It's
- 17:30Speaker 3: one of my favorites. After all these years, I still
- 17:35Speaker 3: love watching that show.
- 17:37Speaker 2: Yeah, and after all these years, is right. It's been
- 17:40Speaker 2: on every year since nineteen sixty five, which actually makes
- 17:44Speaker 2: it the second longest running animated cartoon special in history.
- 17:50Speaker 2: After it's in second place after Rudolph, which came out
- 17:54Speaker 2: the year before and has run every year since as well.
- 17:56Speaker 3: The Rank and Bass Rudolph, Yes.
- 17:59Speaker 2: Which is kind of Charlie Brown, just can't come in first.
- 18:02Speaker 3: But it's a very Charlie Brown thing though.
- 18:04Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of reassuring.
- 18:06Speaker 3: Well, that's one of the things I always loved about
- 18:07Speaker 3: Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang was the and this
- 18:12Speaker 3: article points it out as the melancholy behind it. It
- 18:14Speaker 3: was never just some happy go lucky dumb kids thing.
- 18:19Speaker 3: There was always just so much melancholy and pathos and
- 18:23Speaker 3: those characters. It really look I don't know, it spoke
- 18:25Speaker 3: to me as a kid.
- 18:26Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I guess the executives at CBS and
- 18:30Speaker 2: the ad agency for Coca Cola were expecting something totally
- 18:34Speaker 2: different from everything that Charles Schultz had done up to
- 18:37Speaker 2: that point with this Christmas special when they heard it.
- 18:39Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, well, it almost wasn't even ordered. There was
- 18:44Speaker 3: a producer named Lee Mendelssohn, who did a little documentary
- 18:47Speaker 3: short about Charles Schultz called a boy named Charlie Brown.
- 18:50Speaker 3: And for the first time for that little documentary, they
- 18:55Speaker 3: just did a little animation because previous it had been
- 18:57Speaker 3: a comic strip only, and so they just a little
- 19:00Speaker 3: bit of animation.
- 19:02Speaker 2: By a guy named Bill Melendez.
- 19:05Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And so they put that famous jazz piano
- 19:09Speaker 3: score by Vince Garli, which is amazing, and people saw
- 19:14Speaker 3: it and they were like, hey, maybe this would be
- 19:16Speaker 3: a Christmas special and they said no, no one wanted it.
- 19:19Speaker 2: Yeah. They somebody though, heard about this documentary, which apparently
- 19:25Speaker 2: was just lost to history pretty quickly, and said, have
- 19:29Speaker 2: you guys ever thought of just doing just a straight
- 19:31Speaker 2: up Christmas special? And apparently Lee Mendelssohn heard the first
- 19:35Speaker 2: rule of Hollywood, which is you answer yes to every question. Yeah,
- 19:39Speaker 2: of course, and he said, yes, of course we have
- 19:42Speaker 2: and apparently wrung up Charles Schultz the next day, and
- 19:45Speaker 2: that next day they had basically all the rough outline
- 19:49Speaker 2: points of what would become the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.
- 19:53Speaker 3: Yeah. They're like, we need this music because we love it.
- 19:56Speaker 3: We want some ice skating, we want a Christmas pageant,
- 19:59Speaker 3: and we want the theme that well, sort of a
- 20:03Speaker 3: religious theme, like Charles Schultz apparently insisted on that.
- 20:07Speaker 2: Well he was, yeah, he was pretty religious, and yeah,
- 20:10Speaker 2: he definitely insisted on it. And again the executives who
- 20:14Speaker 2: were waiting with baited breath for this thing to be
- 20:17Speaker 2: delivered to him, were like, this is awful, Like what's
- 20:21Speaker 2: going on here? Like this is super religious? It's not.
- 20:25Speaker 2: It's not hilarious and joyful. It's like you said, it
- 20:29Speaker 2: has path posts, but it's a children's animated Christmas special.
- 20:33Speaker 2: Where's the laugh track? They wanted to put a laugh
- 20:35Speaker 2: track in.
- 20:36Speaker 3: Yes, and they definitely wanted a Linus reading from the
- 20:39Speaker 3: Bible out.
- 20:41Speaker 2: Well, yeah, they definitely did, and Charles Schultz said, nope,
- 20:44Speaker 2: it's staying in.
- 20:45Speaker 3: And they also wanted to cast adult voice actors. And
- 20:50Speaker 3: it kind of occurred to me that I never knew
- 20:53Speaker 3: who did any of those. So just four quick shout
- 20:57Speaker 3: outs to some of the characters. Charlie Brown was voiced
- 21:01Speaker 3: by Peter Robbins that these great classic iconic voices were
- 21:05Speaker 3: just little kids. Linus was Christopher Shay, Sally was Kathy Steinberg,
- 21:10Speaker 3: and Lucy was Tracy Stratford and you can go look
- 21:13Speaker 3: up with the rest of the cast if you want.
- 21:15Speaker 3: But that would be weird if we read out like
- 21:16Speaker 3: eighteen people, right.
- 21:18Speaker 2: But the other kids actually, so the ones you named
- 21:20Speaker 2: were professionals. The other kids were actually neighborhood kids. And
- 21:24Speaker 2: Bill Mendelssohn, the animator and director's neighborhood. Yeah, so they
- 21:27Speaker 2: were like, not just kids, they were legit kids and
- 21:31Speaker 2: not fake Hollywood kids, right exactly, who are actually like
- 21:35Speaker 2: thirty five or forty Yeah, But the use of kids
- 21:40Speaker 2: was unusual for sure, and they hadn't really thought it
- 21:43Speaker 2: through from what I saw, because some of these kids
- 21:45Speaker 2: were so young that they didn't know how to read yet,
- 21:47Speaker 2: Like the kid who played Lionus didn't know how to read,
- 21:50Speaker 2: so he had to be told what lions to say, yeah,
- 21:53Speaker 2: because he couldn't read the yeah.
- 21:55Speaker 3: And Snoopy actually was the only one not voiced by
- 21:58Speaker 3: a kid. He was voiced by the animator himself. Right,
- 22:02Speaker 3: So that's kind of neat. And it was a huge
- 22:04Speaker 3: hit despite the uh, the doubtful nature of the of
- 22:10Speaker 3: the network, it was a big hit. On Thursday, December ninth,
- 22:13Speaker 3: nineteen sixty five, it was seen literally by half of
- 22:18Speaker 3: the audience available in the country. Yes, almost half.
- 22:22Speaker 2: Yeah, basically everyone who had their TV set turned on
- 22:25Speaker 2: at I think eight o'clock or whatever on that date
- 22:29Speaker 2: watched it in the entire country. That's pretty astounding. And
- 22:32Speaker 2: it's like you said, it's the exact opposite of what
- 22:34Speaker 2: the exacts thought was going to happen. They thought it
- 22:36Speaker 2: was gonna air once and then just be gone.
- 22:40Speaker 3: Yep, it won a Peabody, it won a Emmy Award.
- 22:44Speaker 3: This really says something about the time it finished second
- 22:46Speaker 3: place only to Bonanza, which really says that Americans loved Bonanza.
- 22:52Speaker 2: Man, they really did.
- 22:53Speaker 3: I watched it.
- 22:54Speaker 2: You watch Bonanza? I never did. Sure, Yeah, I never
- 22:59Speaker 2: got into it.
- 23:00Speaker 3: Well, I mean you were. It was probably not a
- 23:03Speaker 3: little hokey for your your taste. Probably by that point,
- 23:07Speaker 3: little you were more sophisticated.
- 23:10Speaker 2: I was a very sophisticated eight year old cravat.
- 23:15Speaker 3: And here are a couple of interesting tidbits about the
- 23:17Speaker 3: Charlie Brown Christmas Is. There have been some scenes cut
- 23:22Speaker 3: throughout the years, notably sponsorship inserts. Notably Coca Cola even
- 23:30Speaker 3: had a full on Coca Cola sign animated into the
- 23:33Speaker 3: show that Linus is thrown into and they cut that
- 23:37Speaker 3: out aft. I'm not sure how long they said several
- 23:41Speaker 3: times is is? I guess just the first few years yea.
- 23:45Speaker 3: And they cut that Coca Cola sign out of there.
- 23:47Speaker 2: Yeah, because other advertisers were like, what the heck, we're.
- 23:51Speaker 3: PEPSI, where's my sign?
- 23:52Speaker 2: We're Royal Crown Cola. We don't want to advertise on
- 23:55Speaker 2: your Coca Cola?
- 23:56Speaker 3: And what else? So something else that wasn't added until
- 23:59Speaker 3: nineteen ninety right.
- 24:01Speaker 2: Well, they had cut out the Peanuts gang throwing snowballs
- 24:05Speaker 2: that it can on a fence scene to make room
- 24:08Speaker 2: for more ads, and it wasn't restored until nineteen ninety seven.
- 24:12Speaker 3: Man, Yeah, well they did the right thing.
- 24:16Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an important part.
- 24:18Speaker 3: And I'll be watching it this year and every year
- 24:20Speaker 3: to come till I got sure.
- 24:28Speaker 2: Charles, Yes, Charles, it would not be our Christmas special
- 24:33Speaker 2: if we didn't teach people how to make booze in
- 24:35Speaker 2: new and interesting ways.
- 24:37Speaker 3: Yeah. This has become a bit of a tradish around here.
- 24:40Speaker 3: Oh yeah, a holiday drink.
- 24:41Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and.
- 24:42Speaker 3: Yeah that one.
- 24:44Speaker 2: I cannot wait to make this one. No, I haven't
- 24:46Speaker 2: okay yet.
- 24:47Speaker 3: Yeah, So you always follow through. I don't.
- 24:49Speaker 2: Yeah, although I have to say I've still not had
- 24:52Speaker 2: a hot buttered rum.
- 24:54Speaker 3: Yeah. See, my whole problem comes it's an effort thing.
- 24:57Speaker 3: Like I get out the bottle of bourbon and the
- 25:00Speaker 3: I'm just like, well, I'll just pour this.
- 25:02Speaker 2: I really, I really don't even need a glass. I
- 25:04Speaker 2: can cut my hand and like bourbon down it.
- 25:09Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's I should really put in the effort.
- 25:11Speaker 2: This one does sound like a little bit of effort
- 25:14Speaker 2: until you really think about it. It's not that bad.
- 25:15Speaker 2: So so down in the Caribbean, it gets so hot
- 25:19Speaker 2: that you wonder do they know it's Christmas time at all? Yes? Yes,
- 25:23Speaker 2: they do actually, and in in the Caribbean, in Jamaica
- 25:27Speaker 2: in particular, there is a drink, a refreshing cold punch
- 25:32Speaker 2: called sorrel punch that apparently screams Christmas. It's part and
- 25:37Speaker 2: parcel with Christmas down there. But again, since it's hot,
- 25:40Speaker 2: they need something that's cool and refreshing. So we're gonna
- 25:42Speaker 2: go with Jamaican sorrel punch this year as the Christmas
- 25:46Speaker 2: drink because it sounds pretty great.
- 25:48Speaker 3: All right, Well, should we just start with the ingredients?
- 25:52Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we should we should say the first ingredient,
- 25:56Speaker 2: sorrel can be really confusing up here in the state.
- 26:00Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the deal there?
- 26:01Speaker 2: So soirel is apparently a part or a flower of
- 26:05Speaker 2: the hibiscus plant, but it's not what those of us
- 26:08Speaker 2: in the United States would think of as the high
- 26:10Speaker 2: biscus flower. It's a different flower. And you can't use
- 26:13Speaker 2: hibiscus flowers or you'll die, You'll be haunted by Danny
- 26:19Speaker 2: the the You want to use straight up dried sorrel
- 26:24Speaker 2: plant flowers, okay, And you can actually find them online
- 26:27Speaker 2: for like five six bucks on like Amazon, or if
- 26:30Speaker 2: you're if you have an international market, you can probably
- 26:35Speaker 2: find them there in that whole like cellophane dried herb
- 26:40Speaker 2: section from other parts of the world, they're probably going
- 26:43Speaker 2: to be there. But you want to start with those.
- 26:45Speaker 3: All right? A couple ounces? Yep, all right, that sounds good.
- 26:48Speaker 3: I can do that.
- 26:50Speaker 2: You want to get some fresh ginger, where do you
- 26:52Speaker 2: do that? You should be able to find that anywhere.
- 26:54Speaker 2: You want to make two one inch cubes peeled and
- 26:57Speaker 2: then finally chop them three cloves. Is a good good
- 27:02Speaker 2: next ingredient?
- 27:03Speaker 3: Yeah, I can taste it in my head.
- 27:06Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's got like coming together Christmas spices. And
- 27:09Speaker 2: then this guy didn't use this this in his recipe,
- 27:13Speaker 2: but I also saw that you could at this point
- 27:15Speaker 2: add orange peels without the pith. You never want to
- 27:18Speaker 2: use the pith with an orange peel, and cinnamon sticks.
- 27:23Speaker 2: And you take all these things and you put them
- 27:24Speaker 2: in a heat proof bowl, and you boil five cups
- 27:29Speaker 2: of water in a saucepan and pour it over the
- 27:32Speaker 2: sorrel mixture. Okay, so basically what you're doing is making
- 27:36Speaker 2: a sorrel tea. Because you let it steep for at
- 27:38Speaker 2: least four hours or overnight.
- 27:40Speaker 3: You're putting together your roue.
- 27:43Speaker 2: I guess I would say tea is closer than rue
- 27:47Speaker 2: the mother batch. There you go, you're making the mother bat.
- 27:51Speaker 3: None of these things are applicable.
- 27:53Speaker 2: So you let you let the mother batch tea ru
- 27:56Speaker 2: sit overnight and just steep. Right, And then you want
- 28:00Speaker 2: to make a simple syrup.
- 28:02Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I would say if you make your
- 28:05Speaker 3: own simple syrup, if you have your own favorite recipe,
- 28:07Speaker 3: you can just use that, right sure?
- 28:09Speaker 2: Yeah, special, No, it doesn't have to be special. You
- 28:12Speaker 2: just want to make a one to one simple syrup.
- 28:14Speaker 2: And since this is the Caribbean, you probably want to
- 28:18Speaker 2: just go with demorera that raw brown, not brown sugar,
- 28:21Speaker 2: but brownish in color. But de Moorera sugar is probably
- 28:27Speaker 2: a good one to use. But you make a simple syrup,
- 28:29Speaker 2: not a complicated syrup. No, a simple syrup. You get
- 28:33Speaker 2: yourself some good amber rum. Yeah, I would recommend getting
- 28:36Speaker 2: the good stuff because this is Christmas, guys.
- 28:39Speaker 3: That one's a year.
- 28:41Speaker 2: And then you add for you, you take the tea
- 28:44Speaker 2: that you've let steep for four hours or overnight, and
- 28:48Speaker 2: you strain out the ingredients in there, so you just
- 28:51Speaker 2: have the tea and then you add to it the
- 28:54Speaker 2: simple syrup in the rum, stir it up little darling
- 29:00Speaker 2: nice and then and then you add some ice cubes
- 29:04Speaker 2: and then garnished with lime and orange slices.
- 29:06Speaker 3: All right, So as far as the amounts, we're talking
- 29:09Speaker 3: a couple of ounces of the sorrel flower. We already
- 29:13Speaker 3: said that. The how much ginger? Three whole cloves, five
- 29:16Speaker 3: and three quarters cups of water, three quarters cups of
- 29:18Speaker 3: sugar for your syrup, one and a half cups of
- 29:21Speaker 3: amber rum, a little more if you're you know, yeah,
- 29:24Speaker 3: to taste and then you know garnish at will Yep,
- 29:30Speaker 3: sounds delicious. I might have to make that this year.
- 29:32Speaker 2: I cannot wait, man, I have the sorrel ordered.
- 29:35Speaker 3: Oh you do already? All right, Well I'm making it up,
- 29:40Speaker 3: all right. Maybe you can bring it to our our
- 29:42Speaker 3: holiday sauna party.
- 29:44Speaker 2: You got it. I'll bring I'll have added rue to it,
- 29:48Speaker 2: some flour, flour and butter. It's just floating in clumps and.
- 29:52Speaker 3: The man, that sounds good. Yeah, all right, so let's
- 29:56Speaker 3: hop back in the sleigh. It's cooled off a bit
- 29:58Speaker 3: because that took longer than I've thought. Yeah, so let's
- 30:01Speaker 3: heat this sucker back up and head over to another
- 30:04Speaker 3: part of the internet. All right, so we're back. We're
- 30:13Speaker 3: out of the sleigh and into the frying pan. Actually
- 30:16Speaker 3: that's not true, because that made it sound like we're
- 30:19Speaker 3: about to cook something.
- 30:20Speaker 2: You are in a silly mood today, aren't you.
- 30:22Speaker 3: I am. I think I've I think I'm mentally gone
- 30:25Speaker 3: on vacation.
- 30:26Speaker 2: You're giddy with delirium.
- 30:27Speaker 3: I am totally.
- 30:28Speaker 2: I like it. Man, you should mentally go on vacation
- 30:31Speaker 2: a lot. It's a good fit.
- 30:36Speaker 3: So we're gonna talk a little about missus claws. It
- 30:39Speaker 3: sort of occurred to me when we were putting this together.
- 30:41Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, you hear about Saint
- 30:43Speaker 3: Nick all the time and nowadays you see his wife
- 30:47Speaker 3: in the photo some but where did she come from?
- 30:50Speaker 3: Who is this woman? And I didn't know, but she
- 30:53Speaker 3: has not been around the entire time. Sanna used to
- 30:56Speaker 3: be very much the batch.
- 30:59Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't realize that either. This article puts it
- 31:02Speaker 2: as kind of a loaner, which is funny. Yeah, but yeah,
- 31:06Speaker 2: he was given a wife finally for the first time
- 31:10Speaker 2: in eighteen forty nine. And there's an American author named
- 31:14Speaker 2: James Reese. And apparently there's an author named James Reese
- 31:17Speaker 2: that's working today. Oh and he's hogged up all of
- 31:21Speaker 2: the Google search engine patches. Cannot find any mention of
- 31:25Speaker 2: the other one. But there was apparently an author named
- 31:28Speaker 2: James Rees who wrote a short story entitled The Christmas Legend,
- 31:32Speaker 2: and it was published in eighteen forty nine.
- 31:34Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder what gave him the right. Don't get
- 31:39Speaker 3: me wrong, I love it, But why did he get
- 31:42Speaker 3: to say, like, you know what, I'm going to just
- 31:44Speaker 3: write in a missus clause?
- 31:46Speaker 2: I guess literary license yeah.
- 31:48Speaker 3: Yeah, so is it canon? Did this get approval from
- 31:52Speaker 3: I guess George Lucas.
- 31:54Speaker 2: I think that just gets worked out over time, you know.
- 31:57Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess so probably huh if enough people buy
- 31:59Speaker 3: into it.
- 32:00Speaker 2: Yeah, although it sounds like she was kind of a
- 32:02Speaker 2: device that he used because he out of necessity, because
- 32:07Speaker 2: in the story, mister and Missus Claws are like delivering
- 32:10Speaker 2: presents to a family, right, And it turns out that
- 32:14Speaker 2: there is no mister and Missus Claus. It was really
- 32:17Speaker 2: a friendly couple that the family was friends with who
- 32:20Speaker 2: had dressed up as mister and Missus Claws.
- 32:22Speaker 3: Yeah, the burn bombs, right, So.
- 32:27Speaker 2: The guy turns out to have no imagination whatsoever for
- 32:31Speaker 2: a short story writer.
- 32:33Speaker 3: Yes, but she did stick a little bit, and then
- 32:36Speaker 3: she really started sticking in later years. She started kind
- 32:39Speaker 3: of popping up more and more in magazines and stories,
- 32:43Speaker 3: and then she showed up in a big way in
- 32:46Speaker 3: a picture book by Catherine Lee Bates, And this is
- 32:51Speaker 3: when she really took hold and everyone was like, Hey,
- 32:54Speaker 3: I love Sanna having a wife. She's super cool. She's
- 32:57Speaker 3: a strong lady that she is the woman behind the
- 33:01Speaker 3: man in the backbone of that whole operation. Right, And
- 33:05Speaker 3: who can argue with that?
- 33:08Speaker 2: Nobody, I mean, everybody liked the fact that Sanna had
- 33:10Speaker 2: finally settled down.
- 33:12Speaker 3: He wasn't just sewing his oats across the world in
- 33:17Speaker 3: Chimney's all over the world.
- 33:19Speaker 2: Seriously, baby, I'll give you a riding my sleigh. You
- 33:24Speaker 2: know something that struck me that I hadn't really realized, Chuck,
- 33:28Speaker 2: missus Claus does not have an official first name.
- 33:31Speaker 3: Well, I looked into that, did you No, did you
- 33:34Speaker 3: find one? Apparently with artistic license, you can just name
- 33:38Speaker 3: or whatever you.
- 33:38Speaker 2: Want, right, Okay, that's what I found as well.
- 33:41Speaker 3: And they're like, you know, Monica, Erica, Martha.
- 33:44Speaker 2: Yeah, Matha, which apparently is a typo.
- 33:49Speaker 3: Was it?
- 33:50Speaker 2: I don't know.
- 33:52Speaker 3: Maybe I wasn't sure. I didn't know if that was
- 33:54Speaker 3: just a variation.
- 33:55Speaker 2: No, I'm sure it was a variation now, but at
- 33:58Speaker 2: the time it was probably a type.
- 34:00Speaker 3: It was like a printer didn't have an R.
- 34:02Speaker 2: So they were just right, exactly fine, just forget the R.
- 34:05Speaker 2: It's the nineteen twenties.
- 34:06Speaker 3: No one cares Sandra that Sandra Claus. That sort of
- 34:10Speaker 3: rings a little bit. Who would you pick? What's your favorite?
- 34:15Speaker 3: Probably Rita that's what I was gonna go with. Yeah,
- 34:19Speaker 3: or Mary Mary Claus. Yeah, but because I mean also
- 34:24Speaker 3: you could.
- 34:25Speaker 2: Say Mary like emy r r y oh sure. The
- 34:28Speaker 2: one I do not agree with, I should say. The
- 34:30Speaker 2: two I do not agree with are Monica and Jessica.
- 34:34Speaker 2: Those are not missus Clau's names.
- 34:35Speaker 3: Monica Claus.
- 34:37Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird, it's a little odd. Nothing nothing against
- 34:40Speaker 2: the name Monica, but just for missus Claus. Come on,
- 34:43Speaker 2: even Monica's can agree with that one?
- 34:45Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.
- 34:46Speaker 2: And then Jessica, that's just too. It's Jessica Rabbit's name
- 34:50Speaker 2: that has no business being part of missus Claus.
- 34:52Speaker 3: Agreed, Charles, mm hmm.
- 35:01Speaker 2: You found something else great on the internet that I
- 35:04Speaker 2: just found very heartening. It is a it's a way oh.
- 35:11Speaker 3: Ingle dingle jingle. Yes, parents, you may not want your
- 35:15Speaker 3: kids to hear this part. It is not dirty and
- 35:17Speaker 3: filthy or weird in any way. But depending how you
- 35:20Speaker 3: run Christmas in your household, if you know what I'm saying,
- 35:23Speaker 3: we just want to give you fair warning. So we'll
- 35:25Speaker 3: give you Let's just do a little Christmas music for
- 35:28Speaker 3: like five seconds. Oh good, gokay, okay.
- 35:36Speaker 2: All right, hopefully you are not a psychopath, and you
- 35:39Speaker 2: got rid of any little kids who still believe.
- 35:42Speaker 3: Yes, and hopefully Jerry inserted the music from the movie
- 35:46Speaker 3: Psycho instead of Christmas music.
- 35:49Speaker 2: That would be wonderful, Yeah, because people would be like,
- 35:53Speaker 2: what are they?
- 35:53Speaker 3: What happened?
- 35:55Speaker 2: And understand it until we came back.
- 35:58Speaker 3: All right? So I found this This is actually new
- 36:01Speaker 3: this year on the social medis. This lady named Charity
- 36:07Speaker 3: Hutchinson had a Facebook post that has really taken off.
- 36:11Speaker 3: Last I looked earlier that was gez had about thirty
- 36:15Speaker 3: thousand likes and has been shared quite a few times.
- 36:20Speaker 3: And she had a solution in her family on what
- 36:23Speaker 3: the conundrum parents face by lying to their children bald
- 36:27Speaker 3: face lying for years about the existence of a real
- 36:32Speaker 3: human Santa Claus as a person.
- 36:36Speaker 2: Right, So she, I guess tried this with her oldest
- 36:41Speaker 2: her firstborn recently, and they've both in the last couple
- 36:44Speaker 2: of years.
- 36:45Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 36:45Speaker 2: Yeah, they fell for her client's sinker. And in a way,
- 36:49Speaker 2: it's a really great thing to do. But at the
- 36:51Speaker 2: same time, you're basically you're getting out of one lie
- 36:54Speaker 2: by creating another different lie.
- 36:58Speaker 3: Right, Oh not really?
- 37:00Speaker 2: Okay, All right, well, let's let everybody judge for themselves.
- 37:02Speaker 2: Let's describe this, okay, So Charity says that you start
- 37:07Speaker 2: off by taking your kid out for coffee. I didn't
- 37:09Speaker 2: realize that was the thing that you do with kids
- 37:10Speaker 2: these days, but apparently it is. So you take your
- 37:14Speaker 2: kid out for coffee or whatever, maybe a milk. Sure, yeah,
- 37:20Speaker 2: we'll let's go with one of those too. But you
- 37:23Speaker 2: take your kid out and you just basically say, hey,
- 37:26Speaker 2: you know what, I've noticed you doing a lot of
- 37:28Speaker 2: really great, kind, compassionate things this year, for example, this
- 37:33Speaker 2: and that, and the time you beat up that bully
- 37:36Speaker 2: who pushed down that smaller kid, that kind of thing,
- 37:40Speaker 2: the time you laid on that bird who had no
- 37:42Speaker 2: chance of surviving without his mother. Just some nice stuff, right,
- 37:47Speaker 2: And you say, you know, son or daughter, I think
- 37:51Speaker 2: you have become compassionate enough and old enough to become
- 37:54Speaker 2: a Santa Claus.
- 37:56Speaker 3: And you drop your mic right, and you leave your
- 37:58Speaker 3: kid in Starbucks and you just walk down the street
- 38:01Speaker 3: feeling good about yourself.
- 38:03Speaker 2: You get your car, you drive off to California to
- 38:06Speaker 2: start a new life with a new name.
- 38:09Speaker 3: So no, you say, I want you, you're old not
- 38:12Speaker 3: to become Santa Claus. And then your kid is like
- 38:15Speaker 3: what yeah, and you say, get ready for your mind
- 38:19Speaker 3: to be blown, kid, because guess what. Here's the deal
- 38:24Speaker 3: with Sanna. Sanna is a construct sort of basically is
- 38:31Speaker 3: what you're trying to do is say you can become
- 38:34Speaker 3: Santa because Sanna is someone who just very kindly and
- 38:42Speaker 3: unselfishly gives something to others anonymously.
- 38:46Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's being Santa is anybody could be Santa.
- 38:50Speaker 2: As long as you want to give to people just
- 38:53Speaker 2: for the sheer joy of making other people happy exactly
- 38:57Speaker 2: is Santa. And anybody who does that can be Santa.
- 39:01Speaker 2: And so hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you
- 39:04Speaker 2: try starting starting it out this year, Like, just pick
- 39:07Speaker 2: somebody that you know and like and say, find out
- 39:12Speaker 2: without them knowing what's going on, something that they really want,
- 39:16Speaker 2: and then go get it for him and wrap it
- 39:18Speaker 2: up and leave it for him. But here's the key.
- 39:21Speaker 2: You have to say that it's from Santa on the
- 39:24Speaker 2: little card or tag and you can never tell them.
- 39:28Speaker 3: That it was you.
- 39:30Speaker 2: That's pretty great, Yeah, And she backs it up by
- 39:33Speaker 2: making the point that being sand is not about getting credit,
- 39:36Speaker 2: it's about just giving for the joy of giving and
- 39:40Speaker 2: making other people happy. So yeah, just never tell so
- 39:43Speaker 2: that in that way you become Santa.
- 39:45Speaker 3: Yeah, and it gives the kid all these lessons, you know,
- 39:47Speaker 3: understanding about what's going on around the world in their
- 39:52Speaker 3: own neighborhood. Maybe this article says it gives some providence
- 39:56Speaker 3: over their own innocence. It's a great point. I think
- 40:00Speaker 3: she said that it works so great with her older kid.
- 40:02Speaker 3: Now that kid is in on it, yep, trying to
- 40:04Speaker 3: help the the new batch about to lose their innocence. Yeah.
- 40:11Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing is chuck and and I don't maybe
- 40:15Speaker 2: you know and I don't, But is there some standard
- 40:18Speaker 2: way that besides this that people recommend breaking the news
- 40:22Speaker 2: to kids.
- 40:23Speaker 3: Or well, I don't know about a standard, but there's
- 40:26Speaker 3: lots of different opinions on that. I put up a
- 40:30Speaker 3: Facebook post tangentially tangentially related to this, and people were
- 40:37Speaker 3: just kind of throwing out their ideas, and one of
- 40:38Speaker 3: them I think they got the most likes was this
- 40:40Speaker 3: guy that was like he does has never described Santa
- 40:44Speaker 3: as a person, he said, he has always from the
- 40:47Speaker 3: beginning described Santa as a like I said, as a construct.
- 40:52Speaker 3: Is that you don't say construct. You're three year old,
- 40:54Speaker 3: but you as just a part of the Christmas spirit.
- 40:58Speaker 3: It's a thing and not a person. Yeah, who literally
- 41:01Speaker 3: comes to your house. And he was like, I can't
- 41:03Speaker 3: tell any difference, Like they'd love that just as much
- 41:06Speaker 3: as I did, thinking it was a real guy. And
- 41:09Speaker 3: he said, you know, they see the Christmas specials and
- 41:11Speaker 3: they get that it's a made up thing, but it's
- 41:13Speaker 3: just a part of the whole idea of Christmas. Right,
- 41:16Speaker 3: So he was just kind of kind of truthful about
- 41:19Speaker 3: the whole thing. Yeah, and they're still delighted with Sanna
- 41:21Speaker 3: and when they see Santa and the mall, they aren't like,
- 41:24Speaker 3: you're a construct, although that would be great.
- 41:27Speaker 2: It would be you did some part of you would
- 41:31Speaker 2: be pretty proud of your kid for that.
- 41:32Speaker 3: Yeah. I think is interesting though. I mean I don't
- 41:36Speaker 3: know what I'm gonna do yet, so I got to
- 41:37Speaker 3: think this over.
- 41:38Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean there's probably parents listening right now
- 41:41Speaker 2: they're like, oh man, yeah, I don't want to do this,
- 41:44Speaker 2: but this is a pretty good out. So everybody give
- 41:47Speaker 2: Charity Hutchinson a pat on the back. Oh all right, Chuck,
- 42:00Speaker 2: it's almost time for soul punch.
- 42:02Speaker 3: That's right, we're gonna wrap it up here. We crowdsource
- 42:06Speaker 3: some Facebook traditions from our listeners, and I asked for
- 42:11Speaker 3: specifically unusual traditions, and I wedded through, waded through the
- 42:16Speaker 3: ninety percent that were not unusual in any way, and
- 42:21Speaker 3: managed to find some pretty interesting things. Yeah.
- 42:25Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so I was I don't know what percentage
- 42:29Speaker 2: I didn't see what percentage of the actual ideas submitted
- 42:33Speaker 2: this is, but some people have some pretty cool little
- 42:36Speaker 2: traditions that I just love. Agreed, So you want to start?
- 42:40Speaker 3: Yeah, So Victoria krum she says that on her father's
- 42:44Speaker 3: side of the family, he was I think he was Polish,
- 42:48Speaker 3: his Polish roots, and so in order to honor their
- 42:52Speaker 3: Polish roots, every year, their father makes a paupers meal
- 42:54Speaker 3: for Christmas Eve. Instead of you know, some big lavish,
- 42:57Speaker 3: extravagant thing. They made sour out soup and Parochi's and
- 43:03Speaker 3: the most reasonable priced cold water fish available.
- 43:06Speaker 2: Yeah, because it kind of honors like the humble roots
- 43:10Speaker 2: that their family has.
- 43:12Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. So Victoria Kroum, good on you for
- 43:16Speaker 3: that one.
- 43:16Speaker 2: Nice. So how about Emily Ruth Vander.
- 43:19Speaker 3: Arks, Yes, this is actually a lot of people had this,
- 43:22Speaker 3: So this is a thing.
- 43:23Speaker 2: So her mom hides a pickle ornament on the Christmas
- 43:28Speaker 2: tree somewhere right, and on Christmas Morning, everybody tries to
- 43:32Speaker 2: find it. Whoever finds it first gets a gift. And
- 43:35Speaker 2: Emily said that it started out just being like, oh, hey,
- 43:38Speaker 2: here's a piece of chocolate. Yeah, and the person would
- 43:41Speaker 2: just be like, just throw it to the ground. But
- 43:44Speaker 2: she said that it's gotten better over the years, so
- 43:46Speaker 2: now it's like up to like a Starbucks gift card.
- 43:48Speaker 3: Whoa yeah, yeah, I saw a lot of people with
- 43:50Speaker 3: this pickle thing though, so obviously it's a thing, and
- 43:53Speaker 3: she said it's regionalized.
- 43:56Speaker 2: She said that her husband is a master ace at
- 43:59Speaker 2: finding the pickle. Yeah, and he wins it every year.
- 44:02Speaker 2: So Champ pickle Finder, Emily's husband, Emily's husband, So thanks, Emily.
- 44:08Speaker 2: Ruth vander Ark. That's a great name.
- 44:10Speaker 3: Yep. Jessica Evans Totin Tautan, this is pretty good. I
- 44:15Speaker 3: love weird dads. After my parents got divorced, my dad
- 44:19Speaker 3: was in charge of getting and wrapping his own Christmas
- 44:22Speaker 3: presents for me and my three older sisters, and he
- 44:24Speaker 3: had a hard time knowing what to get us, so
- 44:26Speaker 3: he made a tradition of buying us a Barbie doll
- 44:29Speaker 3: every year along with a gift receipt, and he called
- 44:32Speaker 3: it a creative gift card. I just love that, basically, like,
- 44:37Speaker 3: I know you're going to take this back, but here,
- 44:39Speaker 3: here's something at least.
- 44:40Speaker 2: And he also has a really fun time rejecting traditional
- 44:46Speaker 2: Christmas wrapping, right, So yeah, he would just put it
- 44:49Speaker 2: in a garbage bag for him this and then apparently
- 44:53Speaker 2: in his older years he's like, I can do better
- 44:55Speaker 2: than this, So now he goes to like thrift stores
- 44:57Speaker 2: in ventedge shops and finds old carpet or old briefcases.
- 45:01Speaker 2: That's awesome, and puts them in there. Yeah, which is
- 45:04Speaker 2: super eighties, like delivering a Barbie doll in a briefcase.
- 45:07Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's still doing it. They still get the barbie.
- 45:12Speaker 3: They're well into adulthood now, she points out, and he
- 45:14Speaker 3: still gets them the barbie every year. So I think
- 45:17Speaker 3: that's a really cool thing. And mister Evans, if that
- 45:20Speaker 3: is your name, sir, I salute you. Yep.
- 45:23Speaker 2: So Catherine Joy Figley, Yeah, this is a good one.
- 45:26Speaker 2: She said that her husband's family wraps presence. They also
- 45:30Speaker 2: reject traditional Christmas paper wrapping paper, so they they kind
- 45:36Speaker 2: of have like a friendly competition or theme going where
- 45:39Speaker 2: they find the weirdest thing they can wrap it in.
- 45:43Speaker 3: Yeah, my favorite is the unused diaper. Yeah that's good.
- 45:47Speaker 2: My favorite birthday wrapping paper?
- 45:50Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I like it. Subversive.
- 45:54Speaker 2: It is extremely saying like, yeah, I'm gonna use wrapping paper.
- 45:59Speaker 2: I'm just not gonna it for this particular holiday.
- 46:01Speaker 3: Yeah, I like it. So that's from Catherine Joy Figley.
- 46:05Speaker 3: Keep that going, all right. Check.
- 46:06Speaker 2: There's this cat named Nick Meller who has a great
- 46:10Speaker 2: Christmas Morning tradition with his mom, who he calls his mom.
- 46:13Speaker 2: So he probably spells color with a you.
- 46:15Speaker 3: I think it's a lady too, Nick.
- 46:18Speaker 2: Oh, it could be Nicole, I guess yeah.
- 46:20Speaker 3: I think she's from Australia.
- 46:21Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well every Christmas morning, this would actually make
- 46:25Speaker 2: a lot of sense that she would be from Australia.
- 46:27Speaker 2: Every Christmas morning, her mom and she get up very
- 46:30Speaker 2: early and they go to the beach and this is
- 46:33Speaker 2: where the Australian clue it kicks in before the hordes
- 46:36Speaker 2: of people get there. The says are not very popular
- 46:39Speaker 2: in the Northern Hemisphere in Christmas time. But she says
- 46:44Speaker 2: that they grab a bottle of champagne and a huge
- 46:46Speaker 2: bucket of cherries and that's what they have for breakfast.
- 46:49Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so neat.
- 46:50Speaker 2: Great Christmas tradition.
- 46:52Speaker 3: Let me see this one. I love, Tanya floyd Ellis.
- 46:55Speaker 3: Growing up, my mom and father in law, my grandpa,
- 46:57Speaker 3: would pass to each other a ba humbug can. They
- 47:00Speaker 3: both relish, disgusting and just sorry and disguising the can.
- 47:04Speaker 3: Don't worry, it gets disgusting to make it unrecognizable as
- 47:07Speaker 3: a rat present. And some of the more memorable additions
- 47:10Speaker 3: to the can, like you put junk in It was
- 47:12Speaker 3: a year's worth of Grandpa's tonios in there. That was
- 47:17Speaker 3: very nice. Pile of dog poop gathered in January and
- 47:20Speaker 3: left to cure until the next December. A clump of
- 47:23Speaker 3: ketchup packets held together by one broken packet now acting
- 47:26Speaker 3: as glue. I love that, Thank you, Tania floyd Ellis.
- 47:32Speaker 2: That's a good one, all right. So how about Sarah
- 47:34Speaker 2: Flora Monte's Christmas tradition. Yes, so every year on Christmas Eve,
- 47:40Speaker 2: her whole family has an ice cream eating contest with
- 47:43Speaker 2: all of her cousins. Yeah, so whoever can finish a
- 47:46Speaker 2: half a gallon of ice cream within an hour. And
- 47:48Speaker 2: here's the key without throwing it up. When's a substantial
- 47:52Speaker 2: amount of cash? She says, She doesn't say how much,
- 47:55Speaker 2: she does use the word substantial. So she says that
- 47:57Speaker 2: it's nearly impossible to do this, and it's only been
- 47:59Speaker 2: done three times before out of probably one hundred attempts.
- 48:03Speaker 2: I'm thinking that they haven't been doing this for a century.
- 48:05Speaker 2: But just if you take the number of people who've
- 48:07Speaker 2: tried it over the years, yeah, you come up with
- 48:09Speaker 2: a hundred.
- 48:10Speaker 3: She means, yeah, I think so.
- 48:12Speaker 2: She says that a lot of people can finish but
- 48:14Speaker 2: not hold it down, and that's where that key comes in.
- 48:17Speaker 2: So there's a lot of vomiting going on at Sarah
- 48:20Speaker 2: Flora Monte's house on Christmas Eve.
- 48:22Speaker 3: Yeah, and she posted pictures too. She posted a couple
- 48:25Speaker 3: one of the entire family sitting around with each with
- 48:28Speaker 3: a gallon half gallon of ice cream in front of them,
- 48:31Speaker 3: and then one of a couple of people doing that
- 48:33Speaker 3: with her her grandmother just like bitter and staring at them.
- 48:38Speaker 2: She said, her grandmother hates it, so they're going to
- 48:40Speaker 2: do it as long as she's around.
- 48:41Speaker 3: It's very nice. Here's one from Norma Mullen that's really
- 48:45Speaker 3: really neat. This is not gross or anything. Our family
- 48:48Speaker 3: has a tablecloth that goes on the Christmas dinner table
- 48:50Speaker 3: every year and everyone signs it with a fabric pen.
- 48:53Speaker 3: And they've been doing this since nineteen ninety four, so
- 48:56Speaker 3: they use the same tablecloth and they're able to look
- 48:59Speaker 3: back every year and look at all these memories and
- 49:03Speaker 3: along with obviously people they've lost over the years and
- 49:06Speaker 3: people that they've gained over the years. So that is
- 49:10Speaker 3: just super cool. It's older than most of her cousins,
- 49:13Speaker 3: and she can see how much their family has grown
- 49:15Speaker 3: year by year.
- 49:16Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
- 49:17Speaker 3: That's really nice.
- 49:18Speaker 2: And then how about Ryan Bradfields.
- 49:21Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good one.
- 49:22Speaker 2: Ryan Bradfield's mom's family, who says it's a large Sicilian bunch.
- 49:27Speaker 2: They have a wind up et toy that they got
- 49:29Speaker 2: in the eighties and somehow it just became family tradition
- 49:33Speaker 2: for them to dress up the et doll as different
- 49:37Speaker 2: character and then they use it as a Christmas tree
- 49:40Speaker 2: topper for their grandparents tree.
- 49:42Speaker 3: Yeah that's pretty great.
- 49:43Speaker 2: So ET's been like Elvis, NBA player, Dolly parton your
- 49:48Speaker 2: favorite Yeah a show girl, And it turns out obviously weirdly,
- 49:54Speaker 2: but one of Bradfield's cousins married a member of the
- 49:58Speaker 2: or a friend I guess of this Spielberg family. So
- 50:01Speaker 2: they're trying to get them pictures of the et dressed up.
- 50:04Speaker 2: Over the years.
- 50:05Speaker 3: I'm sure no one's ever tried to get Steven Spielberg
- 50:08Speaker 3: a funny et picture, right. This one is very sweet.
- 50:13Speaker 3: This is from Holly Henderson of Portland. She and her
- 50:17Speaker 3: husband bought their first house four years ago just outside
- 50:21Speaker 3: of Portland, and the very first night there, on Christmas Eve,
- 50:24Speaker 3: they spent the night in a mattress on the floor
- 50:27Speaker 3: next to the Christmas tree. And she says, now we
- 50:29Speaker 3: do that every year. We bring that mattress back in
- 50:31Speaker 3: the living room on Christmas Eve and sleep on the
- 50:34Speaker 3: mattress by the tree.
- 50:35Speaker 2: It's very sweet, lovely. And then the last one, Chuck,
- 50:40Speaker 2: how about Chelsea Alan Lindsay's.
- 50:43Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the Christmas route Bega, Yeah, I love weird families.
- 50:48Speaker 2: So her family puts a Christmas Rutebiga out in the
- 50:51Speaker 2: living room along with the tree every year. And the
- 50:53Speaker 2: whole thing started from a car trip when they were
- 50:57Speaker 2: living in the UK, and she says that her grandma,
- 51:00Speaker 2: parents and her aunt had come to visit one Christmas time.
- 51:03Speaker 2: They were all in the car and everything was just
- 51:05Speaker 2: going nuts and crazy, and apparently Chelsea's mom started calling
- 51:09Speaker 2: the whole thing rude. Bega's on parade. Yeah, and I
- 51:14Speaker 2: love her mom. She bought a rudabaga and put it
- 51:16Speaker 2: on the dashboard of the car for the rest of
- 51:18Speaker 2: the trip, and then when she got home she made
- 51:22Speaker 2: a face for it out of clothes, put clothes, put
- 51:24Speaker 2: a wreath on it, and then it became a Christmas
- 51:26Speaker 2: root to Bega, Yeah, this is not just weird dad's weird.
- 51:30Speaker 2: Moms are great too.
- 51:31Speaker 3: Sure you know. I got one more, Okay, because I
- 51:34Speaker 3: forgot Michelle Greenwald. I want to be in her family
- 51:38Speaker 3: because they have a holiday they invented called Pajamaica's. Oh yeah,
- 51:42Speaker 3: and I think I see you. I'll see where this
- 51:44Speaker 3: is going. It's the day before Christmas Eve even and
- 51:49Speaker 3: she said it was necessary since we were traveling for
- 51:51Speaker 3: Christmas Day and didn't have a day that was dedicated
- 51:54Speaker 3: just to the four of us in our family. So
- 51:56Speaker 3: Pajamaicus goes down like this. It's immediate family. They get
- 52:00Speaker 3: each other pajamas and change into the pajamas all together.
- 52:05Speaker 3: Well they're all wearing the pajamas in other words. And
- 52:10Speaker 3: then they watch Christmas movies and eat breakfast for dinner,
- 52:13Speaker 3: which is one of my favorite things.
- 52:14Speaker 2: And it's like a no holds barred breakfast for dinner.
- 52:17Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, she says. They cook all day and have
- 52:20Speaker 3: a huge breakfast spread like Latcus waffles, poached eggs, briosh,
- 52:26Speaker 3: you name it.
- 52:26Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever you want you get to have. Yeah for dinner.
- 52:29Speaker 3: I don't know where the green walls are, but I
- 52:32Speaker 3: want to come over for pajamakas. Yeah, it sounds pretty
- 52:35Speaker 3: great to just invite me and I'll be there. Get
- 52:40Speaker 3: me pajamas with feet good. I got nothing else?
- 52:48Speaker 2: So oh okay, well I guess this is the outro
- 52:51Speaker 2: then huh yeah, wow, this is great, Chuck. I mean,
- 52:55Speaker 2: it's it's officially now Christmas time.
- 52:58Speaker 3: For us, that's right, and other wonderful year of stuff
- 53:02Speaker 3: you should know. Twenty sixteen. We're going to close the
- 53:06Speaker 3: books on this one and thank everyone, as we do
- 53:08Speaker 3: every year, for your support, because without you, there would
- 53:11Speaker 3: be no us. We really really don't take that for granted,
- 53:14Speaker 3: and actually a very special birthday shout out. I know
- 53:17Speaker 3: people that are born around Christmas always get jipped off
- 53:21Speaker 3: in the birthday department, but one of our most delightful
- 53:24Speaker 3: and oldest, most supportive fans, Miss Gail Coots. It's her
- 53:29Speaker 3: birthday on Christmas Eve, and her husband Mark was kind
- 53:33Speaker 3: enough to email me because he knows what a big
- 53:35Speaker 3: fan she is and Gail is wonderful. So happy birthday,
- 53:38Speaker 3: Gail from Ohio. You're the best. I hope we can
- 53:41Speaker 3: all meet up someday and sounds.
- 53:44Speaker 2: Good right yep. So happy holidays to everybody. Merry Christmas,
- 53:49Speaker 2: Happy Honikah, Happy Kwanza, tip top tet all that jazz.
- 53:54Speaker 2: You guys have yourselves a wonderful holiday season from all
- 53:57Speaker 2: of us here at Stuff you Should Know.
- 54:06Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
- 54:09Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com. H