Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there.
Speaker 1: And this is the two thousand sixteen Stuff You Should
Speaker 1: Know Super Christmas Holiday Spectacular Glad Tidings Edition in three D,
Speaker 1: Nice and Stinko vision, nice smell. A vision that was
Speaker 1: a real thing, you know, Yeah it was. It was
Speaker 1: a great idea that didn't really pan out very well.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. Well, no, it didn't pan
Speaker 1: out very well. Well and funny, I know you. Uh so,
Speaker 1: my friend, I look forward to this every year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too, because, uh, as I've said before, I saved
Speaker 1: up my vacation and take an LM Entry school break
Speaker 1: for a solid three weeks at the end of every year, right,
Speaker 1: which also means you get a bit of a break. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a de facto decision on my behalf as well.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh this is it after in in one hour,
Speaker 1: roughly you're not gonna see me again until next year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I like to get small over the holidays.
Speaker 1: That's cool, man, I don't blame me. I do too.
Speaker 1: Secret I'm secretly fine with you making that decision for me,
Speaker 1: that that particular one. So are you? So are you
Speaker 1: full of cheer glad tidings? Well, I'm in a silly
Speaker 1: who knows where this goes? How's Jerry? Jerry? You feeling
Speaker 1: pretty happy? She is? She's good, just gave a thumbs up.
Speaker 1: She's fresh faced, but she tailed h Are her halls decked? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: double decked? Well, I I guess we should welcome everybody
Speaker 1: Chuck to the Christmas spectacular. Tell you, first off, to
Speaker 1: be sure to start a fire somewhere in your house,
Speaker 1: put on sweater, maybe, put on some slippers, put on pajamas,
Speaker 1: some eggnog, hot butter room, something like that, and just
Speaker 1: sit down and enjoy yourself. Yeah, and we we did
Speaker 1: our holiday special of you here. We like to cover.
Speaker 1: I'm always afraid we're gonna recover something which I actually pitched,
Speaker 1: something we had already covered. I've got a list, so
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. Okay, great, Well, then let's ring
Speaker 1: in the holiday ch year. Hey. Also, we should say,
Speaker 1: if there are any um a little true believers among you,
Speaker 1: you may not want to let them listen to this one. Well. Yeah, there. Um,
Speaker 1: I was gonna give a warning. They can listen to
Speaker 1: most of it, but there is one feature of the
Speaker 1: show where uh, where you may not want your kids
Speaker 1: to listen to some of the detail the deats. And
Speaker 1: we're gonna give you a warning before that comes on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can. It'll it'll sound like this wrinklingly. That's
Speaker 1: the Christmas warning. All right, let's do it. All right,
Speaker 1: everybody sit back as we begin our annual Christmas special.
Speaker 1: So Chuck, we're gonna hop in our over there sleigh
Speaker 1: uh and head on over to um. Catalonia parts of Spain,
Speaker 1: parts of Spain, part of Spain, and there's a Catalan tradition. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of them actually that are really interesting
Speaker 1: and our scatological in nature. Um. And the first one
Speaker 1: is called kagatio. Yeah. I had never heard of this,
Speaker 1: but um I put out and you'll see you later
Speaker 1: in the show. We put out a call in face
Speaker 1: Spook for some unusual family traditions from listeners, and a
Speaker 1: couple of people mentioned this like saying, we don't do this,
Speaker 1: but I've heard of it and it's really strange. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a thing. Um. And in large parts of UH, Spain, Portugal,
Speaker 1: even some parts of Italy too from what I understand,
Speaker 1: but specifically in the Catalan region of Spain, UH cagatio
Speaker 1: which means um pooplog basically U in Catalan um is a.
Speaker 1: It's a Christmas tradition that starts on December eight when
Speaker 1: the family gets around and while they've gone out, I
Speaker 1: think either made one or they purchased a cagatio, which
Speaker 1: is a log with a face on it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: get the idea that part of the fun and correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, UH Spanish among you, But part
Speaker 1: of the fun is is making it with the family.
Speaker 1: But um, I'm sure you can buy them though as well,
Speaker 1: even featured. Even if you bought one fully featured, there's
Speaker 1: still some some ritual that you the family have to
Speaker 1: go through that would be kind of fun. Exactly. So
Speaker 1: with with Kagato, with the log, he's got a face,
Speaker 1: but very importantly, he also has two front arms, so
Speaker 1: he's kind of propped up. Yeah, and when you bring
Speaker 1: Kagatio home, he also has that um that they standard
Speaker 1: Catalan red kind of overhanging hat. Yes, exactly. Um. And
Speaker 1: so they the family brings him home and on December eighth,
Speaker 1: they get him prepared for the Christmas season. Right, they
Speaker 1: wrap him in a blanket and um, they basically wrap
Speaker 1: him from what would amount to the waist down in
Speaker 1: a blanket to keep him warm, to keep him warm
Speaker 1: and to maybe incubate what dwells inside of the log. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's where we're headed with us. They feed this
Speaker 1: thing orange peels, a Spanish new get called torone. It's
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, and apparently as tradition as hell, the
Speaker 1: more you feed the coga TiO, uh, the more gifts
Speaker 1: it will bestow to you through the traditional route, which
Speaker 1: means out of the rear end. Right. So the kids
Speaker 1: every night while they're caring for cogato, and I imagine
Speaker 1: probably more than just every night, I'll bet this thing
Speaker 1: gets fed a lot of orange peels and nougat. Um
Speaker 1: they feed it, and uh as the Christmas I guess
Speaker 1: Christmas Day, I also saw Christmas Eve approaches. Um, they
Speaker 1: they prepare to extract the stuff from cogatio, and they
Speaker 1: do that by by hitting coga TiO with sticks. And
Speaker 1: they have a traditional chance. You want to you want
Speaker 1: to give them the translation of the chant? Yeah, not that,
Speaker 1: not the original uh. In English, it translates literally as
Speaker 1: poop log, poop torone, hazelnuts and cottage cheese. If you
Speaker 1: don't poop, I'll hit you with a stick poop log.
Speaker 1: And so once they've beaten Kagatio with a stick enough times,
Speaker 1: they'll look under the blanket and see that he's pooped
Speaker 1: out a bunch of candy and treats and gifts. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's an amazing, wonderful little Christmas tradition. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1: But that's not the only unusual poop based caudal on
Speaker 1: um Christmas tradition either, is now. I was kind of
Speaker 1: surprised to know that there was more than one um.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you pronounce this that kaganergan
Speaker 1: a cogan air? Yeah, pretty close. So this is um.
Speaker 1: This is just a it's not a log. It's an
Speaker 1: actual carved or now you know, readily manufactured sort of
Speaker 1: doll figuring that has dropped its pants and it's just pooping. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and with the little traditional figuring, there's a little
Speaker 1: pile of poop beneath his rear end on the ground.
Speaker 1: So not only is he poopy, he has pooped. And
Speaker 1: if it's the original version, it looks like a Catalan peasants.
Speaker 1: So he also has that red hat's probably smoking a pipe. Um.
Speaker 1: And these things are designed to be put into the
Speaker 1: Nativity scene as one of the figures, along with the
Speaker 1: the Holy Family, and a lot of a lot of Westerners,
Speaker 1: Uh find that offensive and don't understand that it's it's
Speaker 1: not meant even in a joking manner. It wasn't. Originally
Speaker 1: it was meant um because the Kagan Air represented things
Speaker 1: like fertility or good fortune or good luck and as
Speaker 1: poop did. But over time it's definitely evolved, and now
Speaker 1: you can find Kagan Air figures of all sorts of
Speaker 1: famous people, from Barack Obama to um. The Star Wars
Speaker 1: crew has a Kagan Air collection, of course. Did you
Speaker 1: see it? Well, yeah I saw. I mean they are
Speaker 1: all kinds of pop culture icons now with their pants
Speaker 1: pulled down pooping. But did you see the Star Wars
Speaker 1: one in particular? No, Yeah, it's pretty great. C three
Speaker 1: po has pooped out a nut like a bolt nut,
Speaker 1: not a nut like one might traditionally find in a stool. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's not a peanut, a walnut. Oh man, who knew
Speaker 1: this one was gonna be so gross. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: guess we could have guessed. Yeah, he found this stuff,
Speaker 1: so yeah. Um, what else can we mention here? Uh?
Speaker 1: There was a world's record, of course on December ten,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, December two, thou there was a nineteen foot
Speaker 1: pooping figurine placed in the shopping center. Uh, and won
Speaker 1: the record for the world's largest cog in air. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in Barcelona. Pretty good. Yeah. I looked at a picture
Speaker 1: of I couldn't find any actual um specs on it,
Speaker 1: but by my estimates, the pile of poop is about
Speaker 1: three ft tall. Oh okay, yeah, in the middle of
Speaker 1: the shopping center, the Marrow Magnum shopping center in Barcelona. Nice. Well,
Speaker 1: my sister lives in Portugal. Now I'm gonna hit her
Speaker 1: up and see if she's seen any in this action.
Speaker 1: Yeah for ask her to mail some Cogan airs. I'd
Speaker 1: love one. You can order one online? Yeah, yeah, all that,
Speaker 1: you can get a better deal on one. Uh. Should
Speaker 1: we take a break? No, Josh, we shouldn't. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't because, as a per tradition, our Christmas episode
Speaker 1: is ad free. It's one small little thing we like
Speaker 1: to do. It's ad free. With a hundred percent more Christmas.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's pile in her sleigh and let's
Speaker 1: head on over and see how Dr Crampus is doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: over and in the Alps, in the Alpine regions, yes,
Speaker 1: of Austria. So, um, well, let's talk about Crampus. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a weird thing, but then it's not any
Speaker 1: weirder than Santa Claus if you really look at it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: or bringing a tree into your home. He's this. Um, no,
Speaker 1: it's really not. And it actually makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense too, because you know, Santa Claus is so good
Speaker 1: and pure and happy and joyful and Crampuses all the opposite.
Speaker 1: So as as it was put in this one Smithsonian
Speaker 1: article I read, um, Crampus is the yend st Nick's yang. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they actually hang out together, and we should probably
Speaker 1: describe Crampus a little bit first time. Yeah. So here's
Speaker 1: the legend is that Crampus shows up. Uh. Crampus is
Speaker 1: sort of a beast of sorts, a demon, a demonic,
Speaker 1: impish beast with a long tongue and clause. His name,
Speaker 1: in fact, is derived from the German word for claw,
Speaker 1: I believe, Yeah, what's that uh cramping yeh was it
Speaker 1: that simple? So Crampas he shows up. He shows up
Speaker 1: in the town the night before December six, which is
Speaker 1: also known as Crampas knocked or Crampus Night, and uh
Speaker 1: that's also Nicholas taug or St. Nicholas Day. December six
Speaker 1: is right, So they show up on December five, the
Speaker 1: night of the fifth. Yeah, and you know, like the
Speaker 1: light in the dark, Crampus is like, Donna know St.
Speaker 1: Nick can't just show up. I will show up as
Speaker 1: well and try and ruin the good time. Right. So
Speaker 1: what's interesting is like on um Crampus Knocked, the St.
Speaker 1: Nick goes around and leaves little goodies in the shoes
Speaker 1: of good kids and then birch sticks in the shoes
Speaker 1: of bad kids, ostensibly for their parents to smack him
Speaker 1: on the behind with for being bad. But there's another
Speaker 1: level reserved for the truly bad kids, and that's what
Speaker 1: Crampus is there for. He's there to abduct and torture
Speaker 1: and potentially eat, uh, the really bad kids. He's actually
Speaker 1: going around with St. Nick visiting people's home. How bad
Speaker 1: are you? Do you need to be tortured and eating?
Speaker 1: Are you bad? Or like Crampus level bad and this
Speaker 1: hearkens back the first thing I thought it was, of course,
Speaker 1: our episodes on the Grimms fairy tales very much sort
Speaker 1: of aligns with that where children are readily offered up
Speaker 1: as uh as food for beasts. You know, like no one,
Speaker 1: no one cared back then. You know, they definitely treated
Speaker 1: their children more harshly, for sure. There's a lot more
Speaker 1: like getting lost in the forest and no one coming
Speaker 1: to find you, going on. Yeah, so Crampus obviously, over
Speaker 1: the years there have been a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have been like, let's abolish this. This is not in
Speaker 1: the modern Christmas spirit um. He is the son of
Speaker 1: the Norse god of the underworld hell h e l.
Speaker 1: And during the twelfth century the Catholic Church tried to
Speaker 1: ban Crampus, and then more recently in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: when Austria's conservative Christian Social Party came in UH came around,
Speaker 1: they definitely tried to get Crampas outlawed, but people would
Speaker 1: not have it. They needed their Crampus. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: Crampas predates Christianity. He has some staying power, you know.
Speaker 1: He was originally like a German annek Um demon of
Speaker 1: of pagan folklore. So yeah, he he would be tough
Speaker 1: to get rid of, and probably now more so than
Speaker 1: ever because some sort of weird Streisan effect apparently happened,
Speaker 1: and now more people are aware of Crampus than ever before,
Speaker 1: and he's celebrated big time. People love him. They're mostly people.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there was a good horror movie. Well I
Speaker 1: don't I can't say if it was good. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, but it looks good. But he Uh. People
Speaker 1: who are who get sick of the holiday spirit being
Speaker 1: crammed down their throat for you know, after X number
Speaker 1: of weeks usually turned to Crampus to kind of find
Speaker 1: some relief. I looked up this other thing because at
Speaker 1: the end of this article it mentions a couple of
Speaker 1: weird things demons in other countries Christmas demons and the
Speaker 1: one in Greece. Uh, calicants or I did you look
Speaker 1: that up? Yeah? Yeah, this is crazy. These are little,
Speaker 1: impish demons that speak with a lisp and eat worms
Speaker 1: and frogs and things. Uh. They only come out at night.
Speaker 1: They're afraid of the sun, fire, holy water, and then
Speaker 1: the rest of the year they live in the center
Speaker 1: of the earth. An attempt to chop down the tree
Speaker 1: of life, right, but at Christmas time they emerge to
Speaker 1: to wreak havoc above ground. Right. Yeah, And apparently the
Speaker 1: one of the legends of the Calicanzari is that they
Speaker 1: can only count to two. Did you see that? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: I didn't, actually, but I'll bet I know where you're
Speaker 1: going with this. Well, they can don't. They won't say
Speaker 1: three because it's a holy number supposedly, so they only
Speaker 1: count to two. So if you want to guard your
Speaker 1: home against these little uh imps, you leave a calendar
Speaker 1: on your torch step. So they go mad trying to
Speaker 1: count the holes. They just go one to one, two,
Speaker 1: over and over until they commit suicide. That's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that's pretty standard. It's very strange, you know. You know
Speaker 1: what is strange though, too, is that, um, that's a
Speaker 1: remedy for protecting yourself against vampires. The original vampires could count,
Speaker 1: and they would just go nuts trying to count like seeds.
Speaker 1: I think you're supposed to, but they were like they
Speaker 1: originated in Greece too, I think. So it's all. It
Speaker 1: was a sure fire remedy that just works for everything,
Speaker 1: one size fits all. Yeah, did you see the one
Speaker 1: about Danny, the South African ghost boy. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: really that. This was just like scary. So if you're
Speaker 1: if you're a kid in South Africa around Christmas time,
Speaker 1: you need to keep an eye out for the ghost
Speaker 1: of Danny, who was a little boy who um whose
Speaker 1: grandmother made a batch of cookies for St. Nick and
Speaker 1: Danny just couldn't help himself. He ate the whole batch
Speaker 1: of cookies, took grandmother, murdered him, and now his ghost
Speaker 1: haunts Christmas in South Africa. It's a weird tradition. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It really drives home that we're in an all time
Speaker 1: high in terms of regard for children in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, yep, we're finally doing it right here in Yep.
Speaker 1: No children's murdered children into ghosts on our watch. Uh
Speaker 1: you ready for the next segment or you wanna? I'm
Speaker 1: so psyched about this one. Let's get in this late. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's ride on over to TV Land. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: exists in our imaginations and in Culver City, California. That's right,
Speaker 1: of course, we're talking about a Charlie Brown Christmas. Uh,
Speaker 1: and just a little bit of its history. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: one of my favorites. Um after all these years, I
Speaker 1: still love watching that show. Yeah, and after all these years,
Speaker 1: is right. It's been on every year since nine, which
Speaker 1: actually makes it the second longest running UM animated cartoon
Speaker 1: special in history. UM after It's in second place after
Speaker 1: UM Rudolph, which came out the year before and has
Speaker 1: run every year since as well. The ranking bass Roodolf, Yes,
Speaker 1: which is kind of I had Charlie Brown just can't
Speaker 1: come in first, but Charlie, Yeah, it's kind of reassuring. Well,
Speaker 1: that's one of the things I always loved about Charlie
Speaker 1: Brown and the Peanuts uh Gang, was the and this
Speaker 1: article points it out, was the melancholy behind it. It
Speaker 1: was never just some happy go lucky dumb kids thing.
Speaker 1: There was always just so much melancholy and pathos and
Speaker 1: those characters. It really look I don't know, it spoke
Speaker 1: to me as a kid. Yeah, And so I guess
Speaker 1: the executives that CBS and the ad agency for Coca
Speaker 1: Cola were expecting something totally different from everything that Charles
Speaker 1: Schultz had done up to that point with this Christmas
Speaker 1: special when they ordered it, right, Yeah, well it almost
Speaker 1: wasn't even ordered Uh. There was a producer named Lee
Speaker 1: Mendelssohn who did a little documentary short about Charles Schultz
Speaker 1: called a boy named Charlie Brown, and um, for the
Speaker 1: first time for that little documentary, they just did a
Speaker 1: little animation because previous it had been a comic strip only.
Speaker 1: And so they a little bit of animation, um by
Speaker 1: a guy named Bill Melendez. Yeah, exactly. And so they
Speaker 1: put that famous uh jazz piano score by Vince Garaldi,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. And people saw it and they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe this would be a Christmas special and they said no,
Speaker 1: no one wanted it. Yeah they they they somebody though,
Speaker 1: heard about this documentary, which apparently was just lost the
Speaker 1: history pretty quickly, and said, have you guys ever thought
Speaker 1: of just doing just a straight up Christmas special? And
Speaker 1: apparently Lee Mendelsohn heard the first rule of Hollywood, which
Speaker 1: is you answer yes to every question of course, um,
Speaker 1: and he said, yes, of course we have and apparently
Speaker 1: rung up Charles Schultz the next day, and that next
Speaker 1: day they had basically all the rough outline points of
Speaker 1: what would become, um like Charlie Brown Christmas Special. Yeah,
Speaker 1: They're like, we need this music because we love it.
Speaker 1: We want some ice skating, we want a Christmas pageant,
Speaker 1: and we want the theme that, um, well, sort of
Speaker 1: a religious theme like Charles Schultz apparently insisted on that.
Speaker 1: Well he was, yeah, he was pretty religious. Um, and yeah,
Speaker 1: he definitely insisted on it. And again the the executives
Speaker 1: who were waiting with bated breath for this thing to
Speaker 1: be delivered to him, We're like, this is awful, like that,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Like this is super religious? It's not.
Speaker 1: It's not hilarious and joyful. It's like it's like you said,
Speaker 1: it has path posts, but it's a children's animated Christmas special.
Speaker 1: Where's the laugh track? They wanted to put a laugh
Speaker 1: track in, yes, and they definitely wanted a lionus reading
Speaker 1: from the Bible out. Yeah, they definitely did, and Charles
Speaker 1: Schultz said, nope, it's staying in. And they also wanted
Speaker 1: to cast adult voice actors. And uh, it kind of
Speaker 1: occurred to me that I never knew who did any
Speaker 1: of those. So just four quick shoutouts to some of
Speaker 1: the characters. Um, Charlie Brown was voiced by Peter Robbins
Speaker 1: that these great classic iconic voices were just little kids.
Speaker 1: Linus was Christopher Shay, Sally was Kathy Steinberg, and Lucy
Speaker 1: was Tracy Stratford. And you can go look up at
Speaker 1: the rest of the cast if you want, but that
Speaker 1: would be weird if we read out like eighteen people, right,
Speaker 1: But the other kids actually, so the ones you named
Speaker 1: were professionals. The other kids were actually neighborhood kids and
Speaker 1: Bill Mendelsohn, the animator and director's neighborhood, so they were like,
Speaker 1: not just kids, they were legit kids, and um, not
Speaker 1: fake Hollywood kids, right exactly, who are actually like thirty
Speaker 1: five or forty, um, the the but the the use
Speaker 1: of kids was unusual, for sure, and they hadn't really
Speaker 1: thought it through from what I saw, because some of
Speaker 1: these kids were so young that they didn't know how
Speaker 1: to read yet, Like the kid who played Linus didn't
Speaker 1: know how to read, so he had to be told
Speaker 1: what lines to say because he couldn't read the Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Snippy actually was the one only one not voiced
Speaker 1: by a kid. He was voiced by the animator himself, right,
Speaker 1: So that's kind of neat And it was a huge
Speaker 1: hit despite the the doubtful uh nature of the of
Speaker 1: the network. Uh, it was a big hit. On Thursday,
Speaker 1: December n it was seen literally by half of the
Speaker 1: audience available in the country. Yes, almost half. Yeah, basically
Speaker 1: everyone who had their TVs that turned on and I
Speaker 1: think eight o'clock or whatever on that date, UM watched
Speaker 1: it in the entire country. That's pretty astounding. And it's
Speaker 1: like you said, it's the exact opposite of what the
Speaker 1: exact thought was gonna happen. They thought it was gonna
Speaker 1: air once and then just be gone. Yep. It won
Speaker 1: a Peabody, it won a Emmy Award. Um. This really
Speaker 1: says something about the time it finished second place only
Speaker 1: to Bonanza, which really says that Americans loved Bonanza. Man,
Speaker 1: they really did. I watched it the West Bonanza. I
Speaker 1: never did looked. Yeah, I never got into well, I
Speaker 1: mean you were it was probably not. Uh, it was
Speaker 1: a little hokey for your your taste. Probably by that
Speaker 1: point you're more so, you were more sophisticated. I was
Speaker 1: a very sophisticated eight year old. Were a cravat. Uh.
Speaker 1: And here are a couple of interesting tidbits about Charlie Brown.
Speaker 1: Christmas is Um. There have been some scenes cut throughout
Speaker 1: the years, notably um sponsorship inserts. Uh. Notably, Coca Cola
Speaker 1: even had a full on Coca Cola sign animated into
Speaker 1: the show that Linus is thrown into and um, they
Speaker 1: cut that out after I'm not sure how long he
Speaker 1: said several times is is? I guess that just the
Speaker 1: first few years and then they cut that Coca Cola
Speaker 1: sign out of there. Yeah, because other advertisers were like,
Speaker 1: what the heck, we're we're PEPSI, where's my sign? We're
Speaker 1: Royal Crown Cola. We don't want to advertise on your
Speaker 1: Coca Cola and what else till something else that wouldn't
Speaker 1: add it until n even right, Well, they had cut
Speaker 1: out um, the Peanuts gang throwing snowballs at a can
Speaker 1: on a fence, seen um, to make room for more ads,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't restored until Yeah, well they did the
Speaker 1: right thing. Yeah, that's an important part. Uh And I'll
Speaker 1: be watching it this year in every year to come
Speaker 1: till Charles, Charles, it would not be our Christmas Special
Speaker 1: if we didn't teach people how to make booze in
Speaker 1: new and interesting ways. Yeah. This has become a bit
Speaker 1: of a tradition around here. Holiday drink oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: cannot wait to make this one. No, I haven't yet,
Speaker 1: so you always follow through. I don't. Yeah, although I
Speaker 1: have to say I've still not had a hot bartered rum. Yeah.
Speaker 1: See my whole problem comes. It's an effort thing. Like
Speaker 1: I get out the bottle of bourbon and I'm just like, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just pour this. I really, I really don't even
Speaker 1: need a glass. I can cut my hand and like bourbon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's I should really put in the effort this.
Speaker 1: This one does sound like a little bit of effort
Speaker 1: until you really think about it. It's not that bad.
Speaker 1: So so down in the Caribbean, it gets so hot
Speaker 1: that you wonder do they know it's Christmas time at all? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes they do actually um and in in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: in Jamaica in particular, there is a drink, a refreshing
Speaker 1: cold punch called sorrel punch um that apparently screams Christmas.
Speaker 1: It's part and parcel with Christmas down there. But again,
Speaker 1: since it's hot, they need something that's cool and refreshing.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go with Jamaican sorrel punch this year
Speaker 1: as the Christmas drink because it sounds pretty great. All right, Well, um,
Speaker 1: should we just start with the ingredients? Yeah, we should.
Speaker 1: We should say the first ingredients. Sorrel can be really confusing. Um,
Speaker 1: up here in the state. Yeah, what's the deal there?
Speaker 1: So sorel is apparently a part or a flower of
Speaker 1: the hybiscus plant, but it's not what those of us
Speaker 1: in the United States would think of as the hybiscus flowers.
Speaker 1: A different flower. And you can't use hybiscus flowers or
Speaker 1: you'll die, You'll be haunted by Danny. Uh. The the
Speaker 1: the You want to use straight up dried sorrel plant flowers. Um.
Speaker 1: And you can actually find them online for like five
Speaker 1: six bucks on like Amazon or if you're if you
Speaker 1: have an international market, Um, you can probably find them
Speaker 1: there in that whole like cellophane dried um herb section
Speaker 1: from other parts of the world, they're probably going to
Speaker 1: be there. But you want to start with those Yea,
Speaker 1: all right, that sounds good that you want to get
Speaker 1: some fresh ginger where you should be able to find
Speaker 1: that anywhere. You want to make two one inch cubes
Speaker 1: peeled and then finally chop them three cloves is a
Speaker 1: good good Next ingredient. I can taste it in my head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's got like together Christmas Eve spices. And then
Speaker 1: this guy didn't use this um this in his recipe.
Speaker 1: But I also saw that you could at this point
Speaker 1: at orange peels without the pith. You never want to
Speaker 1: use the pith with an orange peel. Um and cinnamon sticks.
Speaker 1: And you take all these things and you put them
Speaker 1: in a heat proof bowl, and you boil five cups
Speaker 1: of water in a saucepan and pour it over the
Speaker 1: sorrel mixture. So basically what you're doing is making a
Speaker 1: sorrel tea because you let it steep for at least
Speaker 1: four hours or overnight. You're putting together your rue. I
Speaker 1: guess I'm just kidding. I would say tea is closer
Speaker 1: than rue. The mother batch. There you go, you're making
Speaker 1: the mother bat. So you let you let the mother
Speaker 1: batch tea ru sit overnight and just steep. Right, And
Speaker 1: then you want to make a simple syrup. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I would say if you make your own central
Speaker 1: simple syrup, if you have your own favorite recipe, you
Speaker 1: can just use that, right sure, Yeah, No, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be special. You just want to make a
Speaker 1: one to one simple syrup. And since this is the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: you probably want to just go with demarrera that raw brown,
Speaker 1: not brown sugar, but brownish in color. But Demarrera sugar
Speaker 1: um is probably a good one to use. But you
Speaker 1: make a simple syrup, not a complicated syrup. No simple syrup.
Speaker 1: You get yourself some good amber rum. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: recommend getting the good stuff because this is Christmas, guys,
Speaker 1: once a year. Uh. And then you add for you,
Speaker 1: you take the tea that you've let steep for four
Speaker 1: hours or overnight, and you strain out the ingredients in there,
Speaker 1: so you just have the tea and then you add
Speaker 1: two with the simple syrup and the rum, stir it
Speaker 1: up little darlin and then uh, and then you had
Speaker 1: some ice cubes and then garnished with lime and orange slices.
Speaker 1: All right, So as far as the amounts, we're talking
Speaker 1: a couple of ounces of the sorrel flower. Uh. We
Speaker 1: already said that. The how much ginger? Three whole clothes,
Speaker 1: five and three quarters cups of water, three quarters cups
Speaker 1: of sugar for your syrup, one and a half cups
Speaker 1: of amber rum. A little more if you're you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: to taste. Uh, and then you know garnish at will Yep,
Speaker 1: sounds delicious. I might have to make that this year.
Speaker 1: I can't wait, man, I I have the sorrel ordered.
Speaker 1: Oh you do already? All right, Well, I'm making it up,
Speaker 1: all right. Maybe you can bring it to our our
Speaker 1: holiday sound up party. You've got it. I'll bring olive
Speaker 1: added roof to it, some flour, flower and butter. It's
Speaker 1: just floating in clumps and man, that sounds good. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's hop back in the sleigh. It's uh cooled
Speaker 1: off a bit because that took longer than I've thought.
Speaker 1: So let's heat this sucker back up and head over
Speaker 1: to another part of the internet. All right, So we're back. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're out of the sleigh and into the frying pan.
Speaker 1: Actually that's not true, because that made it sound like
Speaker 1: we're about to cook something. You are in a silly
Speaker 1: mood today, I am. I think I've think I've mentally
Speaker 1: gone on vacation. You're giddy with delirium. I am totally.
Speaker 1: I like it. Man, you should mentally go on vacation
Speaker 1: a lot. Good. It's a good um. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about Mrs Claus. It's sort of
Speaker 1: occurred to me when we were putting this together. I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, you hear about St Nick
Speaker 1: all the time? And nowadays you see his wife in
Speaker 1: the photo some but where did she come from? Who
Speaker 1: is this woman? And I didn't know, but she has
Speaker 1: not been around the entire time. Santa used to be
Speaker 1: very much the batch. Yeah, I didn't realize that either.
Speaker 1: This article puts it as kind of a loner, which
Speaker 1: is funny. But yeah, he was given a wife finally
Speaker 1: for the first time in eighteen forty nine. And there's
Speaker 1: an American author named James Reese. And apparently there's an
Speaker 1: author named James Reese that's working today and he's he's
Speaker 1: hogged up all of the Google search engine pages. Cannot
Speaker 1: find any mention of the other one. But there was
Speaker 1: apparently an author named James Reese who wrote a short
Speaker 1: story entitled The Christmas Legend and it was published in
Speaker 1: eighteen forty nine. Yeah, I wonder what gave him the right.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I love it, but why did
Speaker 1: he get to say, like, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just right in and Mrs Claws, I guess literary license. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so is it Cannon did this approval from I guess
Speaker 1: George Lucas. I think that just gets worked out over time,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, I guess so probably. Uh, people buy
Speaker 1: into it, Yeah, although it sounds like she was kind
Speaker 1: of a device that he used because he out of necessity,
Speaker 1: because in the story Mr and Mrs Claus are like
Speaker 1: delivering presents to a family, right, and it turns out
Speaker 1: that there is no Mr and Mrs Clause. It was
Speaker 1: really a friendly couple that the family was friends with
Speaker 1: who had dressed up as Mr and Mrs Claus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the burn bombs, right, so they the the guy turns
Speaker 1: out to have no imagination whatsoever for a short story writer. Yes,
Speaker 1: but she did stick a little bit, and then she
Speaker 1: really started sticking um in later years. She started kind
Speaker 1: of popping up more and more in magazines and stories. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then she showed up in a big way in
Speaker 1: a in a picture book by Catherine lead Bates, And
Speaker 1: this is when she really took hold and everyone was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I love Santa having a wife. She's super cool. She's
Speaker 1: a strong lady that she is the woman behind the
Speaker 1: man in the backbone of that whole operation. And who
Speaker 1: can argue with that? Nobody, I mean everybody, like the
Speaker 1: fact that Santa had finally settled down. He wasn't just
Speaker 1: uh sewing his oats across the world and chimneys all
Speaker 1: over the world. Seriously, babe, I'll give you a ride
Speaker 1: in my sleve. You know something that struck me that
Speaker 1: I hadn't really realized, Chuck, Mrs Claus does not have
Speaker 1: an official first name. Well, I looked into that. Did
Speaker 1: you know, did you find one? Apparently with artistic license
Speaker 1: you can just name or whatever you want, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's what I found as well. And they're like, you know,
Speaker 1: Monica Erica Martha Matha matha, which apparently is a typo.
Speaker 1: Was it? I don't know. Maybe I wasn't sure. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if that was just a variation. No, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was a variation now, but at the time
Speaker 1: it was probably a type of It was like a
Speaker 1: printer didn't have an R, so they were something writing text.
Speaker 1: Just forget the R. It's the nights and twenties. No
Speaker 1: one cares Sandra that Sandra clause. That's sort of a
Speaker 1: little bit. Who would you pick? What's your favorite? Probably Rita,
Speaker 1: That's what I was gonna go with. Yeah, um or
Speaker 1: Mary Mary Claus. Yeah, but because I mean also you
Speaker 1: could say Mary like Emmy r r y. The one
Speaker 1: I do not agree with, I should say that. Two
Speaker 1: I do not agree with are Monica and Jessica, not
Speaker 1: Mrs Claus names Monica Claus. Yeah, that's weird. It's a
Speaker 1: little odd. Nothing nothing against the name Monica, but just
Speaker 1: for Mrs Claus. Come on, even Monicas can agree with
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, I think so. And then Jessica, that's
Speaker 1: just too. It's Jessica Rabbit's name that has no business
Speaker 1: being part of Mrs Claus. Agreed, Charles, m hmm. You
Speaker 1: found something else great on the internet that I just
Speaker 1: found very heartening. It is a it's a way king
Speaker 1: kingle kingle kingle kingle kingle. Yes, parents, you may not
Speaker 1: want your kids to hear this part. It is not
Speaker 1: dirty and filthy or weird in any way. But depending
Speaker 1: how you run Christmas in your household, if you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, we just want to give you fair warning.
Speaker 1: So we'll give you let's just do a little Christmas
Speaker 1: music for like five seconds. Oh good, okay, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: hopefully you are not a psychopath and you got rid
Speaker 1: of any little kids who still believe. Yes, and hopefully
Speaker 1: Jerry inserted the music from the movie Psycho instead of Christmas.
Speaker 1: That would be wonderful, yeah, because people would be like,
Speaker 1: what are the what happened to understand it until we
Speaker 1: came back? All right? So I found this this is
Speaker 1: actually new this year UM on the social meds. This
Speaker 1: lady named Charity Hutchinson had a Facebook post that has
Speaker 1: really taken off. Last I looked earlier that was Gee's
Speaker 1: had about thirty thousand likes UM and has been shared
Speaker 1: quite a few times. And she had a solution in
Speaker 1: her family on what the conundrum parents face by lying
Speaker 1: to their children bald face lying for years about the
Speaker 1: existence of a real human Santa Claus as a person. Right,
Speaker 1: So she, I guess tried this with her oldest, her
Speaker 1: firstborn recently, and they bought in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: They fell for her client ands singer. And in a
Speaker 1: way it's a really great thing to do. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you're basically you're getting out of one
Speaker 1: lie by creating another different lie. Right, Oh not really? Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, let's let everybody judge for themselves. Let's
Speaker 1: describe this, okay, So, so charity uh says that you
Speaker 1: start off by taking your kid out for coffee. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that was the thing that you do with
Speaker 1: kids these days, but apparently it is. So you take
Speaker 1: your kid out for coffee or whatever. So maybe uh
Speaker 1: milk Uh yeah, well let's go with one of those two. Um,
Speaker 1: but you take your kid out and you just basically say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, I've noticed you're doing a lot of
Speaker 1: really great, kind, compassionate things this year, for example, this
Speaker 1: and that, and the time you beat up that bully
Speaker 1: who pushed down that smaller kid. Uh, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: the time you laid on that bird who had no
Speaker 1: chance of surviving without its mother. Just some nice stuff, right,
Speaker 1: And uh, you say, you know, son or daughter, I
Speaker 1: think you have become compassionate enough and old enough to
Speaker 1: become a Santa Claus. And you drop your mic and
Speaker 1: you leave your kid in Starbucks and you just walk
Speaker 1: down the streets feeling good about yourself. You give in
Speaker 1: your car, you drive off to California to start a
Speaker 1: new life with a new name. So so no, you say,
Speaker 1: I want you to your old ness to become Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: And then your kid is like what yeah, and you say,
Speaker 1: get ready for your mind to be blown, kid, because
Speaker 1: guess what. Here's the deal with Santa. Santa is a
Speaker 1: construct sort of basically is what what you're trying to
Speaker 1: do is say you can become Santa because Santa is
Speaker 1: someone who just um very kindly and unselfishly gives something
Speaker 1: to others anonymously. Yeah, it's a it's being Santa is
Speaker 1: anybody could be Santa. As long as you are want
Speaker 1: to give to people just for the sheer joy of
Speaker 1: making other people happy, is Santa. And anybody who does
Speaker 1: that can be Santa. And so hey, I've got an idea.
Speaker 1: Why don't you try starting starting it out this year, Like,
Speaker 1: just pick somebody that you know and like and say,
Speaker 1: find out without them knowing what's going on, something that
Speaker 1: they really want, and then go get it for him
Speaker 1: and wrap it up and leave it for him. But
Speaker 1: here's the key. You have to say that it's from
Speaker 1: Santa on the little card or tag and you can
Speaker 1: never tell them that it was you. That's pretty great, yeah,
Speaker 1: and she she backs it up by making the point
Speaker 1: that Santa being Santa is not about getting credit. It's
Speaker 1: about just giving for the joy of giving and making
Speaker 1: other people happy. So you just never tell so that
Speaker 1: in that way you become Santa. Yeah, and it gives
Speaker 1: the kid all these lessons that you know, understanding about
Speaker 1: what's going on around the world and in their own neighborhood. Maybe. Uh,
Speaker 1: this article says it gives some providence over their own innocence.
Speaker 1: It's a great point, I think. And she said that
Speaker 1: it works so great with her older kid. Now that
Speaker 1: kid is in on it, trying to help the new
Speaker 1: batch about to lose their innocence. Yeah, but the thing
Speaker 1: is chucking and I maybe you know and I don't.
Speaker 1: But is there some standard way that besides this that
Speaker 1: people recommend breaking the news to kids or well, I
Speaker 1: don't know about a standard, but there's lots of different
Speaker 1: opinions on that. Um. I put up a Facebook post
Speaker 1: tangentially tangentially related to this, and people were just kind
Speaker 1: of throwing out their ideas and one of them I
Speaker 1: think they got the most likes was this guy that
Speaker 1: was like he does has never described Santa as a person.
Speaker 1: He said he is always from the beginning described Santa
Speaker 1: as a um, like I said, as a construct as
Speaker 1: you don't say constructor your three year old, but you, um,
Speaker 1: is just a part of the Christmas spirit. It's a
Speaker 1: thing and not a person who literally comes to your house.
Speaker 1: And he was like, I can't tell any difference, Like
Speaker 1: they'd love that just as much as I did, thinking
Speaker 1: it was a real guy. And he said, you know,
Speaker 1: they see the Christmas specials and they get that it's
Speaker 1: a made up thing, but it's just a part of
Speaker 1: the whole idea of Christmas. So he was just kind
Speaker 1: of kind of truthful about the whole thing. And they're
Speaker 1: still delighted with Santa. And when they see Santa and
Speaker 1: the mall, they aren't like, you're a construct, Although that
Speaker 1: would be great, it would be you some part of
Speaker 1: you would be pretty proud of your kid for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting, though. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do yet, so I gotta think this over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean there's probably parents listening right now they're like,
Speaker 1: oh man, yeah, I don't want to do this, but
Speaker 1: this is a pretty good out. So everybody give Charity
Speaker 1: Hutchinson a pat on the back, all right, Chuck, It's
Speaker 1: almost time for sorrel punch. That's right, we're gonna wrap
Speaker 1: it up here. Were crowdsource some Facebook traditions from our listeners,
Speaker 1: and I asked for specifically unusual traditions, and I wedded through,
Speaker 1: weighted through the that we're not unusual in any way,
Speaker 1: and managed to find some pretty interesting things. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was I don't know what percentage I didn't
Speaker 1: see what percentage of the actual ideas submitted this is,
Speaker 1: but some people have some pretty cool little traditions that
Speaker 1: I just love. Agreed, So you want to start? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Victoria Croom, she says that on her father's side
Speaker 1: of the family, he was um, I think he was Polish,
Speaker 1: his Polish roots, and so, in order to honor their
Speaker 1: Polish roots, every year, their father makes a pauper's meal
Speaker 1: for Christmas Eve instead of you know, some big lavish
Speaker 1: extravagant thing. They made uh sour out soup and paroke
Speaker 1: e's and reason the most reasonable priced cold water fish available. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it kind of honors like the humble roots that
Speaker 1: their their family has. Yeah that's great. So Victoria Croom, Uh,
Speaker 1: good on you for that one. Nice. So how about
Speaker 1: Emily Ruth vander arks, yes, that this was actually a
Speaker 1: lot of people had this, so this is a thing.
Speaker 1: So his her mom um hides a pickle ornament on
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree somewhere right and on Christmas Morning, everybody
Speaker 1: tries to find it. Whoever finds at first gets a gift.
Speaker 1: And Emily said that, uh, it started out just being like, oh, here,
Speaker 1: here's a piece of chocolate, and then person would just
Speaker 1: be like, just throw it to the ground. But she
Speaker 1: said that it's gotten better over the years, so now
Speaker 1: it's like up to like a Starbucks gift card. WHOA. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of people with this pickle thing though,
Speaker 1: so obviously it's a thing, um, and she said it's regionalized.
Speaker 1: She said that her husband is a master a s
Speaker 1: at finding the pickle and yeah, and he wins it
Speaker 1: every year. So Champ pickle finder, Emily's husband, Emily's husband.
Speaker 1: So thanks, Emily, Ruth vander Ark. That's a great name. Uh,
Speaker 1: Jessica Evans Toten tauten, Uh, this is pretty good. I
Speaker 1: love weird dad's um. After my parents got divorced, my
Speaker 1: dad was in charge of getting and wrapping his own
Speaker 1: Christmas presents for me. And my three older sisters, and
Speaker 1: he had a hard time knowing what to get us,
Speaker 1: so he made a tradition of buying us a Barbie
Speaker 1: doll every year along with a gift receipt, and he
Speaker 1: called it a creative gift card. I just love that, basically, like,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna take this back, but here here's
Speaker 1: something at least. And he also, um has a really
Speaker 1: fun time rejecting um traditional Christmas wrapping, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: he would just put it in a garbage bag for him,
Speaker 1: and then apparently in his older years he's like, I
Speaker 1: can I can do better than this. So now he
Speaker 1: goes to like thrift stores inventage shops and finds old
Speaker 1: carpet eggs are all briefcases and puts them in there,
Speaker 1: which is super eighties, like delivering a Barbie doll in
Speaker 1: a briefcase. And he's still doing it. They still get
Speaker 1: the barbie. They're well into adulthood now, she points out,
Speaker 1: and he still gets them the barbie every year. So
Speaker 1: I think that's a really cool thing. And uh, Mr Evans,
Speaker 1: if that is your name, sir, I salute you. So
Speaker 1: Catherine Joy Figley, Yeah, this is a good one. She
Speaker 1: said that her husband's family um wraps presents. They also
Speaker 1: reject traditional Christmas paper wrapping paper, so they kind of
Speaker 1: have like a friendly competition or theme going where they
Speaker 1: find the weirdest thing they can wrap it in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my favorite is the unused diaper. Yeah that's good. My
Speaker 1: favorite birthday wrapping paper. Yeah, I like it. Subversive. It
Speaker 1: is extremely saying like, yeah, I'm gonna use wrapping paper.
Speaker 1: I'm just not gonna is it for this particular holiday? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I like it. So that's from Catherine Joy Figgley. Keep
Speaker 1: that going, all right. Check. There's this cat named Nick
Speaker 1: Miller who has a great Christmas morning tradition with his mom,
Speaker 1: who he calls his mom. So he probably spells color
Speaker 1: with a you Nick. Oh, it could be Nicole, I
Speaker 1: guess yeah. I think she's from Australia. Okay, well every
Speaker 1: Christmas morning, this would actually make a lot of sense
Speaker 1: that she would be from Australia. Every Christmas morning, her
Speaker 1: mom and she get up very early and they go
Speaker 1: to the beach and this is where the Australian clue
Speaker 1: it kicks in before the hordes of people get there.
Speaker 1: Because are not very popular in the Northern Hemisphere in
Speaker 1: Christmas time. But um, she says that they grab a
Speaker 1: bottle of champagne and a huge bucket of cherries and
Speaker 1: that's what they have for breakfast. Yeah, that's so neat.
Speaker 1: Great Christmas tradition. Uh, let me see this one. I love,
Speaker 1: Tanya floyd Ellis. Growing up, my mom and father in
Speaker 1: law my grandpa, would pass to each other a ba
Speaker 1: humbug can. Uh they both relish disgusting uh and just
Speaker 1: sorry and disguising the can. Don't worry it gets disgusting
Speaker 1: to make it unrecognizable as a rat present. And some
Speaker 1: of the more memoral additions to the can, like you
Speaker 1: put junk in it was a year's worth of grandpas tonils.
Speaker 1: Uh in there that was very nice. Pile of dog
Speaker 1: poop gathered in January and left the cure until the
Speaker 1: next December. Uh clump of ketchup packets held together by
Speaker 1: one broken packet now acting as glue. I love that,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tanya floyd Ellis. That's a good one. All right.
Speaker 1: So how about Sarah Flora Monte's Christmas tradition. Yes, so
Speaker 1: every year on Christmas Eve, her whole family has an
Speaker 1: ice cream eating contest with all of her cousins. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So whoever can finish a half a gallon of ice
Speaker 1: cream within an hour and here's the key without throwing
Speaker 1: it up, wins a substantial amount of cash. She says,
Speaker 1: she didn't say how much. She does use the word substantial.
Speaker 1: So she says that it's nearly impossible to do this,
Speaker 1: and it's only been done three times before out of
Speaker 1: probably a hundred attempts. I'm thinking that they haven't been
Speaker 1: doing this for a century. But just if you take
Speaker 1: the number of people who have tried it over the years,
Speaker 1: you come up with a hundred. She means, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. She says that a lot of people can
Speaker 1: finish but not hold it down, and that's where that
Speaker 1: key comes in. So there's a lot of vomiting going
Speaker 1: on at Sarah floora Monte's house on Christmas Eve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she posted pictures too. She posted a couple one
Speaker 1: of the entire family sitting around with each with a
Speaker 1: gallon half gallon of ice cream in front of them,
Speaker 1: and then one of a couple of people doing that
Speaker 1: with her her grandmother just like bitter and staring at them. Said,
Speaker 1: her grandmother hates it. So they're gonna do it as
Speaker 1: long as she's around. It's very nice. Uh. Here's one
Speaker 1: from Norma Mullin that's really really neat. This is not
Speaker 1: gross or anything. Our family has a tablecloth that goes
Speaker 1: on the Christmas dinner table every year and everyone signs
Speaker 1: it with a fabric pin. And they've been doing this
Speaker 1: since n So they use the same table cloth and
Speaker 1: they're able to look back every year and look at
Speaker 1: all these memories and along with obviously people they've lost
Speaker 1: over the years and people that they've gained over the years.
Speaker 1: So that is just super cool. It's older than most
Speaker 1: of her cousins, and she can see how much of
Speaker 1: their family has grown year by year. Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That's really nice. Uh. And then how about Ryan Bradfields. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Ryan Bradfield's mom's family, who he says,
Speaker 1: it's a large Sicilian bunch. They have a wind up
Speaker 1: et toy that they got in the eighties and somehow
Speaker 1: it just became family tradition for them to dress up
Speaker 1: the et doll as different characters and then they use
Speaker 1: it as a Christmas tree topper for their grandparents tree.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's pretty great. So Et has been like Elvis,
Speaker 1: NBA player, Dolly Parton your favorite Yeah, a show girl.
Speaker 1: And it turns out obviously, um weirdly, but one of
Speaker 1: Bradfield's cousins married a member of the or a friend
Speaker 1: I guess of this Fielberg family. So they're trying to
Speaker 1: get them pictures of the et dressed up. Over the years.
Speaker 1: I'm sure no one's ever tried to get Steven Spielberg
Speaker 1: a funny et picture, right. Uh, this one is very sweet.
Speaker 1: This is from Holly Henderson of Portland's. Uh. She and
Speaker 1: her husband bought their first house four years ago just
Speaker 1: outside of Portland, and on the very first night there,
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve, they spent the night in a mattress
Speaker 1: on the floor next to the Christmas tree. And she says,
Speaker 1: now we do that every year. We bring that mattress
Speaker 1: back in the living room on Christmas Eve and sleep
Speaker 1: on the mattress by the tree. It's very sweet, lovely.
Speaker 1: And then the last one, Chuck, how about Chelsea Allen
Speaker 1: Lindsay's Oh yeah, the Christmas root to bega. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love weird families. So her family puts a Christmas rude
Speaker 1: beg out in the living room along with the tree
Speaker 1: every year. And the whole thing started from a car
Speaker 1: trip when um, they were living in the UK, and
Speaker 1: she says that her grand parents and her had come
Speaker 1: to visit one Christmas time. They were all in the
Speaker 1: car and everything was just going nuts and crazy, and
Speaker 1: apparently Chelsea's mom started calling the whole thing rue to
Speaker 1: Bega's on parade and I love I love her mom.
Speaker 1: She bought a rudabaga and put it on the dashboard
Speaker 1: of the car for the rest of the trip, and
Speaker 1: then when she got home she made a face for
Speaker 1: it out of clothes, put clothes, put a wreath on it,
Speaker 1: and then it became a Christmas rootabaga. That's not just
Speaker 1: weird dad's weird. Moms are great too. Uh. You know
Speaker 1: I got one more, Okay, because I forgot Michelle Greenwald.
Speaker 1: I want to be in her family because they have
Speaker 1: a holiday they invented called Pajamaicas. Uh. And I think
Speaker 1: he's I see you, I'll see where this is going.
Speaker 1: And um, it's the day before Christmas Eve even uh.
Speaker 1: And she said it was necessary since we were traveling
Speaker 1: for Christmas Day and didn't have a day that was
Speaker 1: dedicated just to the four of us in our family.
Speaker 1: So pajamakas goes down like this, it's immediate family. Uh.
Speaker 1: They get each other pajamas and change into the pajamas altogether. Well,
Speaker 1: they're all wearing the pajamas in other words. And then
Speaker 1: they watch Christmas movies and eat breakfast for dinner, which
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite things. And it's like a
Speaker 1: no holds barred breakfast for dinner. Yeah, she says. They
Speaker 1: cook all day and have a huge breakfast spread. Uh
Speaker 1: like laccas, waffles, poached eggs, brios, you name it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever you want, you get to have for dinner. I
Speaker 1: don't know where the green walls are, but I want
Speaker 1: to come over for pajama kas. Yeah, it sounds pretty
Speaker 1: great to just invite me and I'll be there. Give
Speaker 1: me pajamas with feet. Who those are? Kid? I got
Speaker 1: nothing else? So oh okay, well I guess this is
Speaker 1: the outra then. Huh yeah, wow, this is great, Chuck.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's officially now Christmas time for us,
Speaker 1: that's right, and an other wonderful year of stuff you
Speaker 1: should know. Uh, we're gonna close the books on this
Speaker 1: one and thank everyone, as we do every year. For
Speaker 1: your support, because without you there would be no us
Speaker 1: and we really really don't take that for granted. And
Speaker 1: actually a very special birthday shout out. I know people
Speaker 1: that are born around Christmas always get jipped off in
Speaker 1: the birthday department, but one of our most delightful and oldest,
Speaker 1: most supportive fans uh ms Gayle Kountz. It's her birthday
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve and her husband Mark was kind enough
Speaker 1: to email me because he knows what a big fan
Speaker 1: she is and Gayle is wonderful. So happy birthday, Gayl
Speaker 1: from Ohio. You're the best. I hope we can all
Speaker 1: meet up someday and uh sounds good right yep. So
Speaker 1: happy holidays to everybody. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza.
Speaker 1: Tip top tet all that chance you guys have yourselves
Speaker 1: a wonderful holiday season from all of us here at
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com. M