December 22, 2011 • 41 mins
Have you ever wondered why the poinsettia is the official plant of Christmas or why we hang stockings by the chimney with care? Join Chuck and Josh for this very special Christmas episode. Who knows, maybe even St. Nick will make an appearance (he doesn't).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented twenty twelve Camri. It's ready.
Are you welcome to you stuff you should know from
HowStuffWorks dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast Mark here the bells
a Christmas podcast. Yeah, this is a Christmas podcast, the
Holiday Special. Uh huh. Lots of glad tidings here. Yeah,
your ear buds are gonna be bursting with them.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
We have real muppets.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I wish, I so wished.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
You just look so disappointed.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Really for a second, what do you yeah, surprise, I wish. No,
there's no muppets. Thanks for the letdown already, it's like
thirty seconds into this thing. No, instead, chuck, this is
it's our higher Holiday Special where we put together some
little Christmas podcasts that we're going to do. Get some shorties,
(00:56):
some longies.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
We're gonna dispel some myths, we're gonna enforce some myths.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's right, and we're gonna explain the origins of some things.
And if you're all very good boys and girls, we
may even read a story at the end. How do
you like that? That's exciting? Yeah, So this is a
little different. It's a little a little it's packed with
at least one hundred and twenty percent more holiday cheer
than our typical episode. Yes, like shrunken heads, right, maybe
(01:24):
that one is up to like one hundred and eighty
percent more, And this.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
One will come out I believe on what like the
twenty second Yeah, just.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
A it's Christmas Eve, Eve Eve, that's right.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
But you should be off work as far as I'm
concerned already and like roasting chestnuts.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
But even if you're not, it's that time of year
where like you're going to work and you feel absolutely
great about things, you know what I'm talking about. Have
you ever worked retail on the holiday season? Yeah, even
in retail right before Christmas, you can feel terrific work
as a gap. I worked at American Eagle. Really Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
What was on your heavy rotate?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
There?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Santa's got a brand new bag? James Brown?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Over and over ours? Was that Chrissy hind one about?
It is a good one except when you hear eight
hundred times. Yeah, it was a good mix, but y end,
it was the same mix over and over again. What's
my favorite Christmas song of all time? Yeah? Gosh, that's tough,
(02:23):
So I would have to say Chuck my favorite Christmas
performers are Johnny Mathis and Fronte and Tyscher. Excellent Christmas album.
Bing Crosby's Christmas Album is possibly the greatest Christmas album
ever released Carpenters. Maybe that's a good one. Definitely. Bing
Crosby is at least tied with the Charlie Brown Christmas
(02:44):
Special Soundtrack, the Vince Giraldi Trio soundtrack, Classic Jazz Vince,
and of course William's Last Christmas. That's a good one.
I'm not kidding like it's good. It's probably the best
can temporary Christmas song of all time if you ask me.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I haven't gotten it yet, but my morning Jacket has
a Christmas EP they just put out, which I'm gonna get,
and then I think it's.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
The waitresses Merry Christmas.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, that's Emily's favorite and has since become one of
my favorites.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, it's a good one too, very upbeat. When at
the end of like the Gong Show or something, you just.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Said, no, no, no, it's the horn break and Merry
Christmas by the Waitresses.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, it's a good song.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
So is that enough pilabor for the beginning?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
I think, So let's get to it. We're doing this
a little differently. There is gonna be a little bit
of Christmas cheer between some of the segments, and we
hope that this finds you with a nice cup of cocoa.
You're a warm fire or scotch that too. If you're
a night watchman, sure that there are. You're surrounded by
people you care about who care about you. Yeah, or
(03:52):
at the very least, you're having a good time with us.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Regardless of how you choose to celebrate this time of
the year. We're going with Christmas because that's what we do.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
That's a great point, Chuck.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Yeah, But we respect all religions and stuff like that, right.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
We wish glad tidings to all. So let's get it started,
shall we. Yes, let's.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So Josh to kick this extravaganza off, this cheer fest as.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You call it.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about Christmas caroling.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You ever do that I have as a child, that
going door to door singing like Christmas songs, Narco ballads, whatever.
As long as you're doing a door to door and
it's winter, you're in the clear as a carol. I
don't know about that, but you know, originally they started
out as very secular. They weren't religious necessarily.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Well, that's true, and in fact, the word carol itself
lies not in song, as Sam Abramson, our old little
buddy has to say, but in dance. An old French
Carol with an e at the end means a kind
of dance. In Latin carola means a dance to a flute,
and in Greek caroleas means a.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Flute player who accompanies the coral dance.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
So it was all about dance early on, and some
were religious early on, but generally there were secular dance
tunes American.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Bandstand, the Eleven Lords of Leaping, you could consider them caroling,
especially if there was a flute that they were leaping
to good point. So, like a lot of Christmas traditions,
which if you go back and listen to last year's
How Christmas Worked, I think it was in past tense
for some reason. Really episode yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Because we killed Christmas.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I guess. Yeah, Silent night, deadly night happened. And you'll
find that there is a lot of I guess stealing
going on through Christmas traditions from pagan holidays, specifically Northern
European pagan holidays, specifically the winter solstice festival of Yule,
which is where we get Yule tie, Yule log, all
(06:24):
that stuff, all the mules. But they think that caroling
originally has its roots in the Yule festival, where a
lot of Northern Europeans got together and said, let's sing,
let's dance. Maybe there's a flute, maybe there's not, but
there's probably wassale. Yes.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Wassale is a thick, hot, spicy beverage that they would
give travelers, you know, to keep them warm and to
wish them well. And it became a holiday staple obviously
because of the weather.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Have you ever had it? Now? Have you no? But
I want to. Typically it's like cider, brandy, yeah, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, oranges, apple, sure, honey,
sugar yum, and hot orange. Just take a take a crockpot,
an ancient pagan crock pot if you can. That's customarily
how it's how it's heated well.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
And from that word, uh, jolly, bands of churchgoers would
go door to door and it's.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
An old Norse term. They would call it watling or
was sailing?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Is it what's sailing?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I think so?
Speaker 4 (07:21):
And they would spread the joy through hymns Christmas hymns, right,
and that was although see I thought that would have
been the origin of caroling, but Sam says here, we
don't really know.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, Sam kind of bounces all over the place in
this mini article. But it's Sam. I wonder if he listens,
you know, if you if you're listening, Sam, we miss you, buddy,
glad tidings to you.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Sam used to work here, by the way, If you
haven't picked up on that.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So chuck it. It's possible. There's well, there's different aspects
to it. So you have the carrols, right, Yes, a
lot of carrols like oh come all, ye faithful guy,
rest ye married gentlemen. I saw three ships of sailing,
that kind of stuff. Silent night, silent I. They're very
very religious, very very Christian. They are talking about the Nativity, right,
the birth of Christ exactly. Like I said, carols were
(08:09):
originally secular, although I'm not exactly sure what they were
singing about necessarily, right, maybe like it's cold, it's really cold.
Come we have some wacle right, and that was a carol, sure,
But in about the fourth or fifth century AD, carols
were written in Latin. They were very solemn, serious, not
necessarily associated with Christmas. It wasn't until the thirteenth century
(08:31):
when Saint Francis of ASSISI said, you know what I
need to jazz up my congregation. I'm going to make
some upbeat, up tempo carols. They're going to be about
the Nativity, but they're going to be happy, and I'm
going to make everybody sing them on Christmas. And that
was the birth of the Christmas carol.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
As we know it exactly. And they were very energetic,
as you said, and that spread through across Europe, and
of course anything that spread across Europe was eventually going
to root down here in the New World. That's right,
the United States. And eventually little Chuck's gonna find himself
as a fifteen year old going door to door in
(09:08):
Snow Mountain.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
With his youth group.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
That is nice, Chuck, It was nice. I'll say, you're
such a supportive like fellow youth group member. Oh yeah,
you really nailed that, Carol. I've been paying attention to
you at practice and you really nailed it. Oh I
didn't ever do it though, that's the key. Well, that's
not overdoing it. You mean it.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
These days, a lot of groups do this for for charity.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Like I said, churches, and I didn't get for charity
though they hit people up for money or something.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think that people sometimes give him tips in lieu
of wasasle because it's kind of hard to come by
sometimes in the average house in Michigan. Sure, they don't
necessarily have wacle there, so sometimes people give people money.
There's like an exchange of something. It's almost like a
Halloween Well, you're actually giving somebody something in the form
of like well wishes or glad.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Tidings exactly, but you're earning your keep. As Sam pointed out,
this could have come from the feudal tradition of singing
for your supper. Another idea of possibly where Carolyn.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Began, or going door to door, especially singing for your supper. Right, sure,
because it's not just the caroling. There's a thing of
going door to door. Why are people going door to door?
Why don't they just stand in a central location make
everybody come to them. Yeah, you can, but you're not
really doing the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
There's another legend, Sam says, probably isn't true. There's no
basis for it, but there was a young girl named
Carol Poles, and she was a little English girl who
went missing very sadly in London during the holiday season
the nineteenth century. They went door to door looking for her,
singing to declare their good intentions, like, hey, don't shoot
(10:41):
us in the face, We're really just looking for little Carol.
But Sam goes on to say that there's really no
basis in fact for this. It might just be legend.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So you want to talk about a few Carols, A
couple of twelve days of Christmas? I mentioned eleven Lord's
a leaping. A lot of people say that this is
a means of secretly teaching children the Catholic symbols and
values and beliefs from a time when you couldn't practice it,
(11:11):
and that's bunk.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Well, or teaching them memory at least, and how to
recall things. Well, that's true, that's true, But the Catholic
parts fault.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Right, right, And twelve Days of Christmas came about around
eighteenth century in England, so it makes it something of
an old one, but definitely not the oldest. What about Tenembaum,
that's one of my favors.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
That's a classic.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Aka Christmas Tree.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
That's right, that is a German in origin, and we're
going to pick up on that in a later story.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
By the way, the exact roots.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Are not known, but the melody might be familiar to
you if you live in Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, or New Jersey,
because your state anthem is sung to the tune of
Christmas Tree.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Who knew, Chuck, Let's get to the bottom of probably
one of the great mysteries. I know what you're gonna Christmas? Yeah,
what is figgy pudding?
Speaker 4 (12:06):
If you're in England, you're gonna say, of course we
know what piggy pudding is, right, but it's it's British
in origin.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
If you're in America and you're familiar with the carol
we wish you had married Christmas and the line we
won't go until we get some, We won't go until
we get some. Now bring it right here. I think
that are e figgy pudding.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Comes after bring us some figgy pudding? I believe is
the more on the nose line. Okay, which precedes it?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Right? Sure, I said, are e figgy pudding? Oh okay, yeah,
sorry about that.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It is British. It's a dessert.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
It is uh sort of like carrot cake meets custard,
but it's got chopped figs in it and spices and things.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I don't know. Does it sound good to you? Yes?
Oh really, yes. I love carrot cake, but I love custard.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I'm not a big custard guy.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I would definitely try it, all right.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
They said it's unique in the texture and taste, and
I'm not gonna that.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So while you're sitting there by the fire, maybe now
that we've kind of given you roughly the recipes for
wassle and figgy pudding, you go make this. We'll be
right here.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Someone should send us figgy pudding.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
They should, all the way from England. Chuck, Josh, I'm
(13:37):
sure you, being a sentient person, have noticed that there
are there's a plant, a Christmas plant, as it were,
like probably the official flora mascout of Christmas, the cactus.
Uh no, no, the points said to you, Yes, the
very brilliantly colored red leafed plant that you see everywhere
(13:58):
this time of year.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Did you say red leaf?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Well that's good that you said that, Josh, because a
lot of people, because the leaves are so gorgeous and
red and shaped like stars, think that that is the
flower and the flowers, in fact, the little yellow thing
in the center.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, and the flowers like oh orh somebody would pay
attention to me. I know, but I'm small and yellow.
So what this is? You agree then that probably the
official plant of Christmas besides missiletoe. And really that's just
a cutting the official plant with a root ball of Christmas.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
To the tune of about two hundred million dollars in
sales every holiday.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
But the crazy thing is as much as it's associated
with Christmas and snow and sleigh rides and things like that. Sure,
the point Setti is native to Mexico. I had no idea,
did neither. No. It grows to heights of about twelve feet.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, it's a shrub, a tropical shrub.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, in southern Mexico. And actually it turns out that
it's a Christmas It's associated with Christmas thanks to America's
first diplomat to Mexico, a guy named doctor Joe Roberts.
Point set were they named after? Okay?
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, he in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
He went down to Mexico eighteen twenty eight, discovered the
point Setia and thought, hey, this is really really pretty.
I bet this would look great on my mantle in
my heart in December.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
In South Carolina? Is that where it was?
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Yeah, South Carolina, And so he brought it back and
it wasn't initially, it didn't catch on like wildfire initially,
but over the years throughout the twentieth century, it became
the mainstay of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
It also suffered some indignity in what it was called
before it finally landed on point Setia, like, oh really,
the lobster flower or the Mexican flame leaf, like lobster flower.
And then well, actually down in Mexico they considered it
a holy plan as well. It's called the florist de
Nocee Buayna in Mexico. That's Spanish for Flowers of the
(15:56):
Holy Night. Yeah, And that's based on a Christmas story
that's told down Mexico way about a little girl who
is very, very poor and who was there at the
birth of Jesus and all she had was weeds to
bring him. As she showed up, the weeds bloomed into
the beautiful point Setia plant.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Hey, that sounds like a good story.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It's a great story.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I don't buy it.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It's better than the lobster flower. Story because in that
version it turns into an angry lobster.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
So that is generally where people think that they got
the Christmas tie right.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Well, that and the fact that they bloom in December.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Right, And another interpretation is that it's a symbol of
the Star of Bethlehem because the leaf looks like a
star in a way.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
And then the real interpretation is that they bloom in
December exactly right. So is that it Well, no, there's
a lot of a lot of scorn heaped on points
set he is that they are in fact poisonous. It
turns out that they will give you diarrhea if you
eat leaves which are called bracts the upper portion of
(17:02):
the which why would you do that because you're a
little kid and it's red. Okay, you will get a
little case of diarrhea, you're telling me, will hurt, but
you won't. It's not fatal. Apparently scientists somehow figured out
that a little kid would have to eat about five
hundred point seati of bracts for it to become a
toxic dose. So you want to keep them away from
(17:23):
the points that he is anyway, just so they don't
have diarrhea. This Christmas. But you don't have to worry
about them dying at least.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
And as my wife pointed out, oh, but they're toxic
to cats.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I look that up. They are somewhat toxic to cats,
but I don't know if they're deadly.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
And the website I found said cats aren't gonna really
like the taste that much anyway, so you really don't
need to sweat it. But if your leaves drop off
on the floor and you got cats, you might as
well pick it up and put it in the trash
because you don't want to make kiddy sick.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Ever, Laurn and the Wizard are point Setia free.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Although my house is riddled with them.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
With Lauran and the Wizard, no with point Setius. Well, Chuck,
we missed it this year, but next year, well now know. Also,
December twelfth is National point Setia Day in the United States,
aka go.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Out and buy some point Settias. Yes, so that's point
Setia it is.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
And I want to take this opportunity to wish merry
Christmas to the Wizard and Lauren. Thank you. They have
their stockings.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
What I'm hoping is that because of this podcast, there
will be tens of thousands of people all over the
country saying, Hey, did you know the point Setti is
actually from Mexico?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I hope that happens around dinner tables all over the world.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Chuck, it's time for probably my favorite Christmas story.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
My favorite, You like this one? My new favorite?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
You weren't You weren't familiar with this until recently.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Well I sort of was. Here's the deal. I saw
the movie at midnight. Clear Have you ever seen that?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah? I know, yes, I have been not for years.
I forgot about that.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Really good movie and uh, not so much based on
but inspired by this story.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, and it was always one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
But there was actually another movie that hits this one
on the head from five years.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Ago, cannon Ball Run. What it's called.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
It's a foreign film called joyex Noel, which means Merry
Christmas Noel. Yes, and it tells this story straight.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Up, does it? So? The story that you're talking about,
I want to explain to you is called The Christmas Truth.
It is so great and it is a true story,
as you're saying, and it took place in World War one.
World War one, Chuck, humans have gotten pretty good at
war by the time World War World War one came around.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
World War One, the more I hear about it, it
sounds like perhaps the most brutal of the world wars.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It gave us our first understanding of PTSD, which we
used to call shell shock. Yeah, it gave us mustard
gas posgen gas, chlorine gas. Chemical warfare is another way
to put it. Powers, yeap tanks, machine guns that could
spit out six hundred bullets a.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Minute, airplanes in combat, mass bombing, dropping bombs on civilians.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And most pertinent to this story, trenches. Trench warfare. Yeah,
this is nutty. The trenches made their debut along the
Western Front in Europe apparently too great success. Too great
of a success. For example, the Battle of Verdun lasted
(20:52):
nine months, there were three hundred thousand deaths and almost
no changes in the positions between the two trenches.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
I mean, war was so enthrallingly basic back then. It
was literally just like gaining ground foot by foot.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Right, Yeah, but this was the first step toward modern warfare.
It was that. Yeah, but it was the first step
toward modern warfare where you could kill a bunch of
people at once, and a lot of people did die
from World War One. Eight point five million people died
from the war, including civilians as well.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Well, you make a really startling point in here, and
this is your article, right, Yes, with the trenches. Sometimes
these things were as little as thirty yards apart from
each other. And out of all the hundreds of miles
of these trenches, there was an average of four soldiers
or no, a soldier every four inches.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's the average, that's what I read. Wow, isn't that astounding? Boy?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
That is some close quarters. It is exped well, and
it's not just close quarters. Boy that it's inconvenient close
quarters to be scared out of.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Your mind, yeah, or wounded and dying.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, crazy to see somebody next to you. It was horrific.
And one of the one of the things that naturally
comes about when you dig two trenches and are fighting
one another is a space in between with a lot
of dead guys. And that's yes, that's called no man's land. Yeah,
the space between two trenches called no man's land.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Is that where that term originated?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Really? Yes? So cool? And so World War One was
already in full swing by the time Pope Benedict the
fifteenth was elected. Pope and one of the first things
he did was say, hey, hey, hey, let's have a
truthless Christmas Day. Yeah, good idea. Apparently the Germans said, okay,
all right, we'll think about it, and the Allies said,
(22:40):
no way, We're not going to give up any fortification
or even a single antwer. We just got to keep going.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Right, I get the idea. That word got around though
at least.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, he had called for it, sure right, and that
it was turned down. And for the most part, for
almost everywhere in the world, there wasn't a truce on
Christmas Day, sept for one little part of the trenches
in Flanders, Belgium. Chuck, this is such a great story.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
If you've seen the movie, you know that what the
Germans did well. First of all, they all got gifts
brought to the front line soldiers did tobacco puddings, maybe
figgy pudding at times, chocolates, just.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Little tokens of appreciation.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
That the Germans got their little tannem bombs with these
little small Christmas trees. And in the middle of the night,
these Germans.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Put up their little.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Trees on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
On Christmas Eve lit their little candles and the dudes
I don't know if it was thirty yards, but the
dudes acrossing the other trench the Allies were like, well, hey,
that looks kind of nice. And then all of a
sudden they saw these signs from the Germans said you know, fight,
we know fight.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
That's adorable, and the British held up signs that said
Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
He said, what the heck are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
But I think what originally got them was the Germans,
with their little Christmas trees on the tops of their
trenches everyone could see, started singing carols, and carols are
kind of universal. They're pretty old, sure, and I imagine
they were probably singing oh ten and bomb, which sounds
to the English like oh Christmas tree, and the British
soldiers started singing back to them football fight songs. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
The Germans then sang steel a nacht yea, and they're like,
you're not picking up on what we're trying to do here, guys.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Put the whiskey down.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
But what ended up happening was little by little, they
started poking their heads up, saying, yeah, you're not gonna
shoot me, are you.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
They're like, uh no, I'm not gonna shoot you.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
If you don't shoot me. And then they met up
in no Man's land and partied down.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yep, they had Christmas celebration and No Man's Land in
the trench was like Christmas nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
They shared tobacco, yeah, I imagine they shared their puddings.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, they exchanged them as gifts pretty much. The soccer
match broke out, yeah, and the Germans won three to two.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I bet as cheery as it was.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Anytime England and Germany gets together to play football, it's
not a very pleasant, So I bet you there was
some elbows being thrown, maybe a.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Little bit, although I'll bet it was kind of like hey, sorry.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Sorry, but they still wanted to win.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah. There was a juggler at one point along the
front and he put on a nice little show German guy, right. Yeah.
And for in a lot of circumstances, there were places
where fighting did continue, and in some circumstances, commanding officers
like established a formal impromptu truce with the opposing commanding officer.
(25:29):
In some places, commanding officers said you need to keep fighting,
and soldiers from both sides just defied their orders and stopped.
I love that. And then in some commanding officers just
kind of looked the other way or didn't do anything
about it. But soldiers were there in the middle of
no man's land, who they've just been shooting at just
hours before, were now playing soccer with and making jokes
(25:50):
and smoking with and hanging out.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Yeah, because you think, I mean, I don't know, it's
crazy for our generation to think about these world wars
in Europe because if you ever traveled around Europe just
to imagine these what would be equivalent of our states
just going at it when in fact Europe is you know,
it's its own, small, smallish place. They're right there across
the border and they're like, you know, hey, dudes, we're
(26:15):
not so far apart.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
It could be like Tennessee fighting Kansas.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Or Georgia. No, I'm just saying, like Tennessee and Kansas
can fight too.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Well.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Sure, I was trying to keep us out of it, Okay,
more Switzerland.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I just thought you were giving a Kansas shout out.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
No, okay, no, but I should huh yeah, sure, Merry Christmas, Kansas.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
So the sad part about this is that, of course
there was a war to be fought. At the end
of this truce in nineteen fourteen, they had to go
back to fighting and killing each other.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, the same dudes.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
They were just playing soccer within hugging and drinking.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah. And sometimes the shots picked up, you know, on
Christmas or the day after Christmas. But in some places,
some of this this troops went on beyond New Year
to the New Year. That's awesome, It is very awesome,
But it's crazy, Chuck, if you ask me, is not
that the Christmas Truth happened on that Christmas in nineteen
fourteen in the trenches Long Flanders, Belgium, but that they
(27:14):
ever went back to fighting again? Agreed?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
And that is a story of the nineteen fourteen Christmas Truth.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Is enough, hiding enough?
Speaker 5 (27:23):
You're going from Napy' clocket.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
It is.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Oh so josh, that is uh?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Part three? Was that Part four?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
In the fog of the Christmas spirit? Chuck, I can't
even count. I'm so giddy.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Let's move on to one of my favorite parts about Christmas.
It's not the big gifts, but the stocking stuffers.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Right, one of my favorite parts.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Growing up was getting up on Christmas morning, going downstairs
Scott Michelle Chuck each had her own individual stockings. They
were not like they weren't even the same. They were
styled differently. Oh okay, yeah, and seeing what was in there,
and because it was my family, it was the occasional
(28:32):
small action figure or babble, but generally it was things
like toothbrushes and the deodorant in stocks and these like
necessities of life that my family should have been providing
me with anyway. Sure, but they were stuffed in the
stocking and I always get a good crack up about
that thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, I think it's the odorant. My family had matching stockings.
They were all macro made by a family friend. Oh sure,
but yeah there would be stuff in They're like little
thing like chapstick or something like that. An action figure
was great stocking stuffer. But we always got an apple
and an orange.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, we got candy and stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
We get candy as well, And I'd be like, why
is there an apple and an orange in here? Who
wants this apple and orange? This is not candy? So
I would give mine away, right, And I'm probably less
healthy today because it didn't eat that apple and that
orange on Christmas more, but you're eating them now I am.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
My faves were the little hollowed out plastic candy canes
with the little tiny eminem like things inside.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Oh yeah, but they weren't m and ms. They had
a very distinct flavor.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Which was not eminem flavor exactly. But Chuck, I remember
being a young lad and getting my stocking down and
being so excited and then just stopping and being like,
this is insane. Where did this start?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
You remember thinking that?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
And now I know, Now I understand why where the
idea of stockings came from.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Well we have the answer, Josh. Saint Nicholas. Originally St.
Nicholas goes back to the third century.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
You remember we talked about him and the how Christmas worked.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Yes, so a brief recap.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
The ancient town of Myra and what is now Turkey
is had a shrine dedicated to Bishop Nicholas. Over the centuries,
tale sprung up about how generous Bishop Nicholas was, and
this is where we first got the idea of Saint
Nick being a gift giver. So that's where it starts.
The actual stocking part of this whole story is Nicholas
(30:31):
would go by the homes of these ladies that were
too poor to have a dowry, which is the dough
that your family has to give to your husband goat which.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I got no dowry. Are you going to get a dowry? No, no,
I don't believe so. My dowry's in happiness exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
That's what Emily always tells me.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
And then the bishop would throw these gold coins down
to these poor maidens down the chimneys, and they would
fall into the stockings which were already hanging there to
dry out of fire, and boom, there's your little of trivia.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
And I went back and looked, and I was like,
were there stockings in third century Turkey? There may have been, sure,
if you consider sock stockings, but they would have been
a new invention, because socks were invented by the Romans
in about the third century.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
And stockings they didn't proceed that at all.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Of it was an offshoot of socks.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
In my opinion, I would have thought socks would have
been an offshoot of stockings, but I don't think.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
The other closer to home temporally idea is that we
put stockings out because we're mimicking little Dutch children who
for their center claws, who rides a horse. They tend
to leave in their little wooden shoes. Hey for the horse,
for center clauses horse.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Is that why we leave out cookies and stuff for Santa?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yes, for the reindeer. We left beer. We left old
Milwaukee and Christmas cookies and a carrot.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
And your family did yeah really, ye see, beer wasn't
allowed on our households.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
We left milk and cookies. My father strongly encouraged us
to leave beer for Santa. I wonder why an old
Milwaukee tall boy. But so Dutch children would leave their
little wooden shoes out with hay, and then Santa would
take the hay and feed it to his horse, and
in exchange leave presence in the little wooden shoes. And
they think that it started in America in the early
(32:22):
nineteenth century and it was from emulating this Dutch custom.
Pretty cool. That's where we get stockings.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
So let's just roll this one right in. I consider
this next one almost a companion piece.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Oh you do, because we're.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Talking about Christmas Day.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
So we're going to talk about an odd thing that
happened in Atlanta last year. We actually had our first
white Christmas in a long long time.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
We did didn't we It was very very cool. It
was very sweet. Well, Chuck, white Christmas. You know, I'm
dreaming of a white Christmas. It's a song that was
written by Irving Berlin in January of nineteen forty. Yeah,
so he's obviously still in the Christmas It's in the
Guinness Book of World Records for selling one hundred million copies,
which is a lot of copies. Wow. Remember I was
(33:07):
telling you that I think Being Crosby may have the
best Christmas album ever.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Yeah, it's a great version.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yes, this popularized it. He's the one who really kind
of got it on everybody's radar. But the carpenters you mentioned,
Willie Nelson, God, what a great Christmas ell I Fitzgerald,
Louis Armstrong, pretty much everybody's done white Christmas. He did it. Yeah.
And Noah, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
What what's that got to do with Christmas?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
They got in on the white Christmas thing. If you
search white Christmas and Noah, you're going to come up
with a pretty cool map that shows your chances of
having a white Christmas based on weather data from nineteen
sixty one to nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I think so it's just a historical record, that's all
it is.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
It's a prediction based on that. Yes, so like here
in Atlanta we have a less than five percent chance.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Yeah, shows how lucky we were.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
But if you live in Calumet, Mishiga on the Upper Peninsula,
and that's I think the upper Upper Peninsula, right, you
have a greater than ninety percent chance of having a
white Christmas. Ohio.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
This is where I go every year to Akron. Obviously
there's always snow on the ground. Whether or not it
snows or not is kind of hit or miss.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I remember those though as a kid growing up in
Toledo pretty great. But white Christmas was it didn't matter
how much snow is on the ground. If it was
snowing on Christmas, it was insanely comfy. You know where
it stinks La like one percent. I think I.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Didn't even look, but I lived there for you know,
five years, and it's you know, they do their best.
In fact, LA kind of goes overboard with the decor
from what I remember. Yeah, I think because it's you know,
sunny and has palm trees and stuff like that. But
it's really really tough to get it going out there
in a Christmas sense.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I always told it when I came home.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
It's like that in Apache Junction or something too Chuck.
In London they take bets on whether it'll be a
white Ristmiths and I looked it up. Sky Bet is
giving odds and the odds are eleven to two for
white Christmas for London this year. I bet London is
lovely in the snow. Yeah. And then every once in a while,
no matter what your bet is, no matter what Noah predicts,
(35:14):
no matter what Bing Crosby and Irvan Berlin say, there
is a fluke, a fluke white Christmas. And that happened
in two thousand and four in New Orleans. New Orleans
had its first white Christmas in fifty years. Though, Wow,
that's crazy. And then in two thousand and six, Chuck.
Two years later in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia,
there was a freak snowstorm on Christmas morning that brought
(35:35):
nearly a foot a foot of snow to some areas
in Australia. And the reason why this was such a
strange occurrence was because Christmas falls on Australia's summer. Yeah,
because they're in the Southern hemisphere. Sure, so that really
was a weird white cross. That is weird. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
I bet they were partying it up that day.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
I'll bet they were too, you know the assis. So
that's the that's white Christmas. You can go to search
noah n O A A and white Christmas slash stockings.
Well that's works one.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Yeah, yeah, okay, No, I mean that arch story was.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Like, don't forget to put the slash stockings dot HDM
for your Search.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Of Love on.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Chuck Josh. I believe that everybody has been good enough
listening to this oh yeah episode that they should get
a story of some sort.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
On Donner on Dancer.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah all right, But what we're going to read here
is called twas the Night Before Christmas, alternately titled A
Visit from Saint Nicholas, and it was written by a
guy named doctor Clement C. Moore who loved his kids
and loved writing poetry, and one Christmas in I believe
the early nineteenth century, he put the two together and
wrote A Visit from Saint Nicholas for his kids as
(37:19):
a poem, and it caught on and was printed in
a newspaper first and then a magazine school readers, and
then it was turned into its own little story book
with very cute drawings. It was translated into French, German, Braille, Swahili.
Probably it's probably the greatest known Christmas poem of all time.
(37:41):
So Chuck agreed, you're really good at this. You're very
good at reading stories, as everybody who's ever listened to
the Halloween episode knows. I think you should start this
off all right.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
So we want to encourage everyone.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Turn it up, gather the children around the fire, pour
up a hot toddy or some wasael if you got
some on hand, and let us take you away to
a different time and place.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
And we want to say to everybody listening, thanks for
joining us. Merry Christmas, Happy holidays, clad tidings to every
one of you. We hope this Christmas finds you safe
and happy.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Absolutely twas the night before Christmas went all through the house,
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The
stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes
that Saint Nicholas soon would be there. The children were
nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar
plums danced in their heads. And Mama and her kerchief,
(38:38):
and I, in my cap, had just settled our brains
for a long winter's.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Nap, went out on the lawn. There arose such a clatter.
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window, I flew like a flash, tore
open the shutters, and threw up the sash. The moon
on the breast of the new fallen snow, gave the
luster of midday to objects below. When what to my
wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sleigh with eight
(39:03):
tiny reindeer.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
With a little old driver.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
So lively and quick I knew in a moment it
must be Saint Nick, more.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Rapid than eagles. His coursers.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
They came, and he whistled and shouted and called them
by name. Now Dasher, now Dancer, now Prancer, now Vixen,
on Comet, on Cupid, on Donner, and blitzen. To the
top of the porch, to the top.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Of the wall.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Now dash away, dash away, dash away, all.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
As dry leaves that before the while hurricane fly. When
they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So
up to the housetop the coursers they flew with the
sleigh full of toys, and Saint Nicholas too. And then
in a twinkling I heard on the roof the prancing
and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in
my hand and was turning around down the chimney, Saint
(39:49):
Nicholas came with a bound.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
He was dressed all in fur from his head to
his foot, and his clothes were all turnished with ashes
and soot. A bundle of toys he had flung on
his back looked like a peddlar just opening his pack.
His eyes, how they twinkled. His dimples, how merry. His
cheek were like roses, his nose like a cherry. His
droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and
the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly
that shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his
head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his
work and filled all the stockings, and turned with a jerk,
and laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving
a nod up the chimney.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
He rose.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team, gave a whistle,
and away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, Harry drove out of sight.
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast Mark here the bells
a Christmas podcast. Yeah, this is a Christmas podcast, the
Holiday Special. Uh huh. Lots of glad tidings here. Yeah,
your ear buds are gonna be bursting with them.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
We have real muppets.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I wish, I so wished.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
You just look so disappointed.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Really for a second, what do you yeah, surprise, I wish. No,
there's no muppets. Thanks for the letdown already, it's like
thirty seconds into this thing. No, instead, chuck, this is
it's our higher Holiday Special where we put together some
little Christmas podcasts that we're going to do. Get some shorties,
(00:56):
some longies.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
We're gonna dispel some myths, we're gonna enforce some myths.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's right, and we're gonna explain the origins of some things.
And if you're all very good boys and girls, we
may even read a story at the end. How do
you like that? That's exciting? Yeah, So this is a
little different. It's a little a little it's packed with
at least one hundred and twenty percent more holiday cheer
than our typical episode. Yes, like shrunken heads, right, maybe
(01:24):
that one is up to like one hundred and eighty
percent more, And this.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
One will come out I believe on what like the
twenty second Yeah, just.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
A it's Christmas Eve, Eve Eve, that's right.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
But you should be off work as far as I'm
concerned already and like roasting chestnuts.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
But even if you're not, it's that time of year
where like you're going to work and you feel absolutely
great about things, you know what I'm talking about. Have
you ever worked retail on the holiday season? Yeah, even
in retail right before Christmas, you can feel terrific work
as a gap. I worked at American Eagle. Really Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
What was on your heavy rotate?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
There?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Santa's got a brand new bag? James Brown?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Over and over ours? Was that Chrissy hind one about?
It is a good one except when you hear eight
hundred times. Yeah, it was a good mix, but y end,
it was the same mix over and over again. What's
my favorite Christmas song of all time? Yeah? Gosh, that's tough,
(02:23):
So I would have to say Chuck my favorite Christmas
performers are Johnny Mathis and Fronte and Tyscher. Excellent Christmas album.
Bing Crosby's Christmas Album is possibly the greatest Christmas album
ever released Carpenters. Maybe that's a good one. Definitely. Bing
Crosby is at least tied with the Charlie Brown Christmas
(02:44):
Special Soundtrack, the Vince Giraldi Trio soundtrack, Classic Jazz Vince,
and of course William's Last Christmas. That's a good one.
I'm not kidding like it's good. It's probably the best
can temporary Christmas song of all time if you ask me.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I haven't gotten it yet, but my morning Jacket has
a Christmas EP they just put out, which I'm gonna get,
and then I think it's.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
The waitresses Merry Christmas.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, that's Emily's favorite and has since become one of
my favorites.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, it's a good one too, very upbeat. When at
the end of like the Gong Show or something, you just.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Said, no, no, no, it's the horn break and Merry
Christmas by the Waitresses.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, it's a good song.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
So is that enough pilabor for the beginning?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
I think, So let's get to it. We're doing this
a little differently. There is gonna be a little bit
of Christmas cheer between some of the segments, and we
hope that this finds you with a nice cup of cocoa.
You're a warm fire or scotch that too. If you're
a night watchman, sure that there are. You're surrounded by
people you care about who care about you. Yeah, or
(03:52):
at the very least, you're having a good time with us.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Regardless of how you choose to celebrate this time of
the year. We're going with Christmas because that's what we do.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
That's a great point, Chuck.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Yeah, But we respect all religions and stuff like that, right.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
We wish glad tidings to all. So let's get it started,
shall we. Yes, let's.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So Josh to kick this extravaganza off, this cheer fest as.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You call it.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about Christmas caroling.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You ever do that I have as a child, that
going door to door singing like Christmas songs, Narco ballads, whatever.
As long as you're doing a door to door and
it's winter, you're in the clear as a carol. I
don't know about that, but you know, originally they started
out as very secular. They weren't religious necessarily.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Well, that's true, and in fact, the word carol itself
lies not in song, as Sam Abramson, our old little
buddy has to say, but in dance. An old French
Carol with an e at the end means a kind
of dance. In Latin carola means a dance to a flute,
and in Greek caroleas means a.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Flute player who accompanies the coral dance.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
So it was all about dance early on, and some
were religious early on, but generally there were secular dance
tunes American.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Bandstand, the Eleven Lords of Leaping, you could consider them caroling,
especially if there was a flute that they were leaping
to good point. So, like a lot of Christmas traditions,
which if you go back and listen to last year's
How Christmas Worked, I think it was in past tense
for some reason. Really episode yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Because we killed Christmas.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I guess. Yeah, Silent night, deadly night happened. And you'll
find that there is a lot of I guess stealing
going on through Christmas traditions from pagan holidays, specifically Northern
European pagan holidays, specifically the winter solstice festival of Yule,
which is where we get Yule tie, Yule log, all
(06:24):
that stuff, all the mules. But they think that caroling
originally has its roots in the Yule festival, where a
lot of Northern Europeans got together and said, let's sing,
let's dance. Maybe there's a flute, maybe there's not, but
there's probably wassale. Yes.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Wassale is a thick, hot, spicy beverage that they would
give travelers, you know, to keep them warm and to
wish them well. And it became a holiday staple obviously
because of the weather.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Have you ever had it? Now? Have you no? But
I want to. Typically it's like cider, brandy, yeah, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, oranges, apple, sure, honey,
sugar yum, and hot orange. Just take a take a crockpot,
an ancient pagan crock pot if you can. That's customarily
how it's how it's heated well.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
And from that word, uh, jolly, bands of churchgoers would
go door to door and it's.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
An old Norse term. They would call it watling or
was sailing?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Is it what's sailing?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I think so?
Speaker 4 (07:21):
And they would spread the joy through hymns Christmas hymns, right,
and that was although see I thought that would have
been the origin of caroling, but Sam says here, we
don't really know.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, Sam kind of bounces all over the place in
this mini article. But it's Sam. I wonder if he listens,
you know, if you if you're listening, Sam, we miss you, buddy,
glad tidings to you.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Sam used to work here, by the way, If you
haven't picked up on that.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So chuck it. It's possible. There's well, there's different aspects
to it. So you have the carrols, right, Yes, a
lot of carrols like oh come all, ye faithful guy,
rest ye married gentlemen. I saw three ships of sailing,
that kind of stuff. Silent night, silent I. They're very
very religious, very very Christian. They are talking about the Nativity, right,
the birth of Christ exactly. Like I said, carols were
(08:09):
originally secular, although I'm not exactly sure what they were
singing about necessarily, right, maybe like it's cold, it's really cold.
Come we have some wacle right, and that was a carol, sure,
But in about the fourth or fifth century AD, carols
were written in Latin. They were very solemn, serious, not
necessarily associated with Christmas. It wasn't until the thirteenth century
(08:31):
when Saint Francis of ASSISI said, you know what I
need to jazz up my congregation. I'm going to make
some upbeat, up tempo carols. They're going to be about
the Nativity, but they're going to be happy, and I'm
going to make everybody sing them on Christmas. And that
was the birth of the Christmas carol.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
As we know it exactly. And they were very energetic,
as you said, and that spread through across Europe, and
of course anything that spread across Europe was eventually going
to root down here in the New World. That's right,
the United States. And eventually little Chuck's gonna find himself
as a fifteen year old going door to door in
(09:08):
Snow Mountain.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
With his youth group.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
That is nice, Chuck, It was nice. I'll say, you're
such a supportive like fellow youth group member. Oh yeah,
you really nailed that, Carol. I've been paying attention to
you at practice and you really nailed it. Oh I
didn't ever do it though, that's the key. Well, that's
not overdoing it. You mean it.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
These days, a lot of groups do this for for charity.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Like I said, churches, and I didn't get for charity
though they hit people up for money or something.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think that people sometimes give him tips in lieu
of wasasle because it's kind of hard to come by
sometimes in the average house in Michigan. Sure, they don't
necessarily have wacle there, so sometimes people give people money.
There's like an exchange of something. It's almost like a
Halloween Well, you're actually giving somebody something in the form
of like well wishes or glad.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Tidings exactly, but you're earning your keep. As Sam pointed out,
this could have come from the feudal tradition of singing
for your supper. Another idea of possibly where Carolyn.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Began, or going door to door, especially singing for your supper. Right, sure,
because it's not just the caroling. There's a thing of
going door to door. Why are people going door to door?
Why don't they just stand in a central location make
everybody come to them. Yeah, you can, but you're not
really doing the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
There's another legend, Sam says, probably isn't true. There's no
basis for it, but there was a young girl named
Carol Poles, and she was a little English girl who
went missing very sadly in London during the holiday season
the nineteenth century. They went door to door looking for her,
singing to declare their good intentions, like, hey, don't shoot
(10:41):
us in the face, We're really just looking for little Carol.
But Sam goes on to say that there's really no
basis in fact for this. It might just be legend.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So you want to talk about a few Carols, A
couple of twelve days of Christmas? I mentioned eleven Lord's
a leaping. A lot of people say that this is
a means of secretly teaching children the Catholic symbols and
values and beliefs from a time when you couldn't practice it,
(11:11):
and that's bunk.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Well, or teaching them memory at least, and how to
recall things. Well, that's true, that's true, But the Catholic
parts fault.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Right, right, And twelve Days of Christmas came about around
eighteenth century in England, so it makes it something of
an old one, but definitely not the oldest. What about Tenembaum,
that's one of my favors.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
That's a classic.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Aka Christmas Tree.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
That's right, that is a German in origin, and we're
going to pick up on that in a later story.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
By the way, the exact roots.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Are not known, but the melody might be familiar to
you if you live in Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, or New Jersey,
because your state anthem is sung to the tune of
Christmas Tree.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Who knew, Chuck, Let's get to the bottom of probably
one of the great mysteries. I know what you're gonna Christmas? Yeah,
what is figgy pudding?
Speaker 4 (12:06):
If you're in England, you're gonna say, of course we
know what piggy pudding is, right, but it's it's British
in origin.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
If you're in America and you're familiar with the carol
we wish you had married Christmas and the line we
won't go until we get some, We won't go until
we get some. Now bring it right here. I think
that are e figgy pudding.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Comes after bring us some figgy pudding? I believe is
the more on the nose line. Okay, which precedes it?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Right? Sure, I said, are e figgy pudding? Oh okay, yeah,
sorry about that.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It is British. It's a dessert.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
It is uh sort of like carrot cake meets custard,
but it's got chopped figs in it and spices and things.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I don't know. Does it sound good to you? Yes?
Oh really, yes. I love carrot cake, but I love custard.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I'm not a big custard guy.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I would definitely try it, all right.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
They said it's unique in the texture and taste, and
I'm not gonna that.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So while you're sitting there by the fire, maybe now
that we've kind of given you roughly the recipes for
wassle and figgy pudding, you go make this. We'll be
right here.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Someone should send us figgy pudding.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
They should, all the way from England. Chuck, Josh, I'm
(13:37):
sure you, being a sentient person, have noticed that there
are there's a plant, a Christmas plant, as it were,
like probably the official flora mascout of Christmas, the cactus.
Uh no, no, the points said to you, Yes, the
very brilliantly colored red leafed plant that you see everywhere
(13:58):
this time of year.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Did you say red leaf?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Well that's good that you said that, Josh, because a
lot of people, because the leaves are so gorgeous and
red and shaped like stars, think that that is the
flower and the flowers, in fact, the little yellow thing
in the center.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, and the flowers like oh orh somebody would pay
attention to me. I know, but I'm small and yellow.
So what this is? You agree then that probably the
official plant of Christmas besides missiletoe. And really that's just
a cutting the official plant with a root ball of Christmas.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
To the tune of about two hundred million dollars in
sales every holiday.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
But the crazy thing is as much as it's associated
with Christmas and snow and sleigh rides and things like that. Sure,
the point Setti is native to Mexico. I had no idea,
did neither. No. It grows to heights of about twelve feet.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, it's a shrub, a tropical shrub.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, in southern Mexico. And actually it turns out that
it's a Christmas It's associated with Christmas thanks to America's
first diplomat to Mexico, a guy named doctor Joe Roberts.
Point set were they named after? Okay?
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, he in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
He went down to Mexico eighteen twenty eight, discovered the
point Setia and thought, hey, this is really really pretty.
I bet this would look great on my mantle in
my heart in December.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
In South Carolina? Is that where it was?
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Yeah, South Carolina, And so he brought it back and
it wasn't initially, it didn't catch on like wildfire initially,
but over the years throughout the twentieth century, it became
the mainstay of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
It also suffered some indignity in what it was called
before it finally landed on point Setia, like, oh really,
the lobster flower or the Mexican flame leaf, like lobster flower.
And then well, actually down in Mexico they considered it
a holy plan as well. It's called the florist de
Nocee Buayna in Mexico. That's Spanish for Flowers of the
(15:56):
Holy Night. Yeah, And that's based on a Christmas story
that's told down Mexico way about a little girl who
is very, very poor and who was there at the
birth of Jesus and all she had was weeds to
bring him. As she showed up, the weeds bloomed into
the beautiful point Setia plant.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Hey, that sounds like a good story.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It's a great story.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I don't buy it.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It's better than the lobster flower. Story because in that
version it turns into an angry lobster.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
So that is generally where people think that they got
the Christmas tie right.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Well, that and the fact that they bloom in December.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Right, And another interpretation is that it's a symbol of
the Star of Bethlehem because the leaf looks like a
star in a way.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
And then the real interpretation is that they bloom in
December exactly right. So is that it Well, no, there's
a lot of a lot of scorn heaped on points
set he is that they are in fact poisonous. It
turns out that they will give you diarrhea if you
eat leaves which are called bracts the upper portion of
(17:02):
the which why would you do that because you're a
little kid and it's red. Okay, you will get a
little case of diarrhea, you're telling me, will hurt, but
you won't. It's not fatal. Apparently scientists somehow figured out
that a little kid would have to eat about five
hundred point seati of bracts for it to become a
toxic dose. So you want to keep them away from
(17:23):
the points that he is anyway, just so they don't
have diarrhea. This Christmas. But you don't have to worry
about them dying at least.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
And as my wife pointed out, oh, but they're toxic
to cats.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I look that up. They are somewhat toxic to cats,
but I don't know if they're deadly.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
And the website I found said cats aren't gonna really
like the taste that much anyway, so you really don't
need to sweat it. But if your leaves drop off
on the floor and you got cats, you might as
well pick it up and put it in the trash
because you don't want to make kiddy sick.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Ever, Laurn and the Wizard are point Setia free.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Although my house is riddled with them.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
With Lauran and the Wizard, no with point Setius. Well, Chuck,
we missed it this year, but next year, well now know. Also,
December twelfth is National point Setia Day in the United States,
aka go.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Out and buy some point Settias. Yes, so that's point
Setia it is.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
And I want to take this opportunity to wish merry
Christmas to the Wizard and Lauren. Thank you. They have
their stockings.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
What I'm hoping is that because of this podcast, there
will be tens of thousands of people all over the
country saying, Hey, did you know the point Setti is
actually from Mexico?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I hope that happens around dinner tables all over the world.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Chuck, it's time for probably my favorite Christmas story.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
My favorite, You like this one? My new favorite?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
You weren't You weren't familiar with this until recently.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Well I sort of was. Here's the deal. I saw
the movie at midnight. Clear Have you ever seen that?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah? I know, yes, I have been not for years.
I forgot about that.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Really good movie and uh, not so much based on
but inspired by this story.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, and it was always one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
But there was actually another movie that hits this one
on the head from five years.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Ago, cannon Ball Run. What it's called.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
It's a foreign film called joyex Noel, which means Merry
Christmas Noel. Yes, and it tells this story straight.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Up, does it? So? The story that you're talking about,
I want to explain to you is called The Christmas Truth.
It is so great and it is a true story,
as you're saying, and it took place in World War one.
World War one, Chuck, humans have gotten pretty good at
war by the time World War World War one came around.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
World War One, the more I hear about it, it
sounds like perhaps the most brutal of the world wars.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It gave us our first understanding of PTSD, which we
used to call shell shock. Yeah, it gave us mustard
gas posgen gas, chlorine gas. Chemical warfare is another way
to put it. Powers, yeap tanks, machine guns that could
spit out six hundred bullets a.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Minute, airplanes in combat, mass bombing, dropping bombs on civilians.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And most pertinent to this story, trenches. Trench warfare. Yeah,
this is nutty. The trenches made their debut along the
Western Front in Europe apparently too great success. Too great
of a success. For example, the Battle of Verdun lasted
(20:52):
nine months, there were three hundred thousand deaths and almost
no changes in the positions between the two trenches.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
I mean, war was so enthrallingly basic back then. It
was literally just like gaining ground foot by foot.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Right, Yeah, but this was the first step toward modern warfare.
It was that. Yeah, but it was the first step
toward modern warfare where you could kill a bunch of
people at once, and a lot of people did die
from World War One. Eight point five million people died
from the war, including civilians as well.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Well, you make a really startling point in here, and
this is your article, right, Yes, with the trenches. Sometimes
these things were as little as thirty yards apart from
each other. And out of all the hundreds of miles
of these trenches, there was an average of four soldiers
or no, a soldier every four inches.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's the average, that's what I read. Wow, isn't that astounding? Boy?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
That is some close quarters. It is exped well, and
it's not just close quarters. Boy that it's inconvenient close
quarters to be scared out of.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Your mind, yeah, or wounded and dying.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, crazy to see somebody next to you. It was horrific.
And one of the one of the things that naturally
comes about when you dig two trenches and are fighting
one another is a space in between with a lot
of dead guys. And that's yes, that's called no man's land. Yeah,
the space between two trenches called no man's land.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Is that where that term originated?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Really? Yes? So cool? And so World War One was
already in full swing by the time Pope Benedict the
fifteenth was elected. Pope and one of the first things
he did was say, hey, hey, hey, let's have a
truthless Christmas Day. Yeah, good idea. Apparently the Germans said, okay,
all right, we'll think about it, and the Allies said,
(22:40):
no way, We're not going to give up any fortification
or even a single antwer. We just got to keep going.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Right, I get the idea. That word got around though
at least.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, he had called for it, sure right, and that
it was turned down. And for the most part, for
almost everywhere in the world, there wasn't a truce on
Christmas Day, sept for one little part of the trenches
in Flanders, Belgium. Chuck, this is such a great story.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
If you've seen the movie, you know that what the
Germans did well. First of all, they all got gifts
brought to the front line soldiers did tobacco puddings, maybe
figgy pudding at times, chocolates, just.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Little tokens of appreciation.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
That the Germans got their little tannem bombs with these
little small Christmas trees. And in the middle of the night,
these Germans.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Put up their little.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Trees on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
On Christmas Eve lit their little candles and the dudes
I don't know if it was thirty yards, but the
dudes acrossing the other trench the Allies were like, well, hey,
that looks kind of nice. And then all of a
sudden they saw these signs from the Germans said you know, fight,
we know fight.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
That's adorable, and the British held up signs that said
Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
He said, what the heck are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
But I think what originally got them was the Germans,
with their little Christmas trees on the tops of their
trenches everyone could see, started singing carols, and carols are
kind of universal. They're pretty old, sure, and I imagine
they were probably singing oh ten and bomb, which sounds
to the English like oh Christmas tree, and the British
soldiers started singing back to them football fight songs. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
The Germans then sang steel a nacht yea, and they're like,
you're not picking up on what we're trying to do here, guys.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Put the whiskey down.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
But what ended up happening was little by little, they
started poking their heads up, saying, yeah, you're not gonna
shoot me, are you.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
They're like, uh no, I'm not gonna shoot you.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
If you don't shoot me. And then they met up
in no Man's land and partied down.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yep, they had Christmas celebration and No Man's Land in
the trench was like Christmas nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
They shared tobacco, yeah, I imagine they shared their puddings.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, they exchanged them as gifts pretty much. The soccer
match broke out, yeah, and the Germans won three to two.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I bet as cheery as it was.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Anytime England and Germany gets together to play football, it's
not a very pleasant, So I bet you there was
some elbows being thrown, maybe a.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Little bit, although I'll bet it was kind of like hey, sorry.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Sorry, but they still wanted to win.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah. There was a juggler at one point along the
front and he put on a nice little show German guy, right. Yeah.
And for in a lot of circumstances, there were places
where fighting did continue, and in some circumstances, commanding officers
like established a formal impromptu truce with the opposing commanding officer.
(25:29):
In some places, commanding officers said you need to keep fighting,
and soldiers from both sides just defied their orders and stopped.
I love that. And then in some commanding officers just
kind of looked the other way or didn't do anything
about it. But soldiers were there in the middle of
no man's land, who they've just been shooting at just
hours before, were now playing soccer with and making jokes
(25:50):
and smoking with and hanging out.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Yeah, because you think, I mean, I don't know, it's
crazy for our generation to think about these world wars
in Europe because if you ever traveled around Europe just
to imagine these what would be equivalent of our states
just going at it when in fact Europe is you know,
it's its own, small, smallish place. They're right there across
the border and they're like, you know, hey, dudes, we're
(26:15):
not so far apart.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
It could be like Tennessee fighting Kansas.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Or Georgia. No, I'm just saying, like Tennessee and Kansas
can fight too.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Well.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Sure, I was trying to keep us out of it, Okay,
more Switzerland.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I just thought you were giving a Kansas shout out.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
No, okay, no, but I should huh yeah, sure, Merry Christmas, Kansas.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
So the sad part about this is that, of course
there was a war to be fought. At the end
of this truce in nineteen fourteen, they had to go
back to fighting and killing each other.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, the same dudes.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
They were just playing soccer within hugging and drinking.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah. And sometimes the shots picked up, you know, on
Christmas or the day after Christmas. But in some places,
some of this this troops went on beyond New Year
to the New Year. That's awesome, It is very awesome,
But it's crazy, Chuck, if you ask me, is not
that the Christmas Truth happened on that Christmas in nineteen
fourteen in the trenches Long Flanders, Belgium, but that they
(27:14):
ever went back to fighting again? Agreed?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
And that is a story of the nineteen fourteen Christmas Truth.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Is enough, hiding enough?
Speaker 5 (27:23):
You're going from Napy' clocket.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
It is.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Oh so josh, that is uh?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Part three? Was that Part four?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
In the fog of the Christmas spirit? Chuck, I can't
even count. I'm so giddy.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Let's move on to one of my favorite parts about Christmas.
It's not the big gifts, but the stocking stuffers.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Right, one of my favorite parts.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Growing up was getting up on Christmas morning, going downstairs
Scott Michelle Chuck each had her own individual stockings. They
were not like they weren't even the same. They were
styled differently. Oh okay, yeah, and seeing what was in there,
and because it was my family, it was the occasional
(28:32):
small action figure or babble, but generally it was things
like toothbrushes and the deodorant in stocks and these like
necessities of life that my family should have been providing
me with anyway. Sure, but they were stuffed in the
stocking and I always get a good crack up about
that thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, I think it's the odorant. My family had matching stockings.
They were all macro made by a family friend. Oh sure,
but yeah there would be stuff in They're like little
thing like chapstick or something like that. An action figure
was great stocking stuffer. But we always got an apple
and an orange.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, we got candy and stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
We get candy as well, And I'd be like, why
is there an apple and an orange in here? Who
wants this apple and orange? This is not candy? So
I would give mine away, right, And I'm probably less
healthy today because it didn't eat that apple and that
orange on Christmas more, but you're eating them now I am.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
My faves were the little hollowed out plastic candy canes
with the little tiny eminem like things inside.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Oh yeah, but they weren't m and ms. They had
a very distinct flavor.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Which was not eminem flavor exactly. But Chuck, I remember
being a young lad and getting my stocking down and
being so excited and then just stopping and being like,
this is insane. Where did this start?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
You remember thinking that?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
And now I know, Now I understand why where the
idea of stockings came from.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Well we have the answer, Josh. Saint Nicholas. Originally St.
Nicholas goes back to the third century.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
You remember we talked about him and the how Christmas worked.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Yes, so a brief recap.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
The ancient town of Myra and what is now Turkey
is had a shrine dedicated to Bishop Nicholas. Over the centuries,
tale sprung up about how generous Bishop Nicholas was, and
this is where we first got the idea of Saint
Nick being a gift giver. So that's where it starts.
The actual stocking part of this whole story is Nicholas
(30:31):
would go by the homes of these ladies that were
too poor to have a dowry, which is the dough
that your family has to give to your husband goat which.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I got no dowry. Are you going to get a dowry? No, no,
I don't believe so. My dowry's in happiness exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
That's what Emily always tells me.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
And then the bishop would throw these gold coins down
to these poor maidens down the chimneys, and they would
fall into the stockings which were already hanging there to
dry out of fire, and boom, there's your little of trivia.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
And I went back and looked, and I was like,
were there stockings in third century Turkey? There may have been, sure,
if you consider sock stockings, but they would have been
a new invention, because socks were invented by the Romans
in about the third century.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
And stockings they didn't proceed that at all.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Of it was an offshoot of socks.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
In my opinion, I would have thought socks would have
been an offshoot of stockings, but I don't think.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
The other closer to home temporally idea is that we
put stockings out because we're mimicking little Dutch children who
for their center claws, who rides a horse. They tend
to leave in their little wooden shoes. Hey for the horse,
for center clauses horse.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Is that why we leave out cookies and stuff for Santa?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yes, for the reindeer. We left beer. We left old
Milwaukee and Christmas cookies and a carrot.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
And your family did yeah really, ye see, beer wasn't
allowed on our households.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
We left milk and cookies. My father strongly encouraged us
to leave beer for Santa. I wonder why an old
Milwaukee tall boy. But so Dutch children would leave their
little wooden shoes out with hay, and then Santa would
take the hay and feed it to his horse, and
in exchange leave presence in the little wooden shoes. And
they think that it started in America in the early
(32:22):
nineteenth century and it was from emulating this Dutch custom.
Pretty cool. That's where we get stockings.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
So let's just roll this one right in. I consider
this next one almost a companion piece.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Oh you do, because we're.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Talking about Christmas Day.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
So we're going to talk about an odd thing that
happened in Atlanta last year. We actually had our first
white Christmas in a long long time.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
We did didn't we It was very very cool. It
was very sweet. Well, Chuck, white Christmas. You know, I'm
dreaming of a white Christmas. It's a song that was
written by Irving Berlin in January of nineteen forty. Yeah,
so he's obviously still in the Christmas It's in the
Guinness Book of World Records for selling one hundred million copies,
which is a lot of copies. Wow. Remember I was
(33:07):
telling you that I think Being Crosby may have the
best Christmas album ever.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Yeah, it's a great version.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yes, this popularized it. He's the one who really kind
of got it on everybody's radar. But the carpenters you mentioned,
Willie Nelson, God, what a great Christmas ell I Fitzgerald,
Louis Armstrong, pretty much everybody's done white Christmas. He did it. Yeah.
And Noah, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
What what's that got to do with Christmas?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
They got in on the white Christmas thing. If you
search white Christmas and Noah, you're going to come up
with a pretty cool map that shows your chances of
having a white Christmas based on weather data from nineteen
sixty one to nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I think so it's just a historical record, that's all
it is.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
It's a prediction based on that. Yes, so like here
in Atlanta we have a less than five percent chance.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Yeah, shows how lucky we were.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
But if you live in Calumet, Mishiga on the Upper Peninsula,
and that's I think the upper Upper Peninsula, right, you
have a greater than ninety percent chance of having a
white Christmas. Ohio.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
This is where I go every year to Akron. Obviously
there's always snow on the ground. Whether or not it
snows or not is kind of hit or miss.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I remember those though as a kid growing up in
Toledo pretty great. But white Christmas was it didn't matter
how much snow is on the ground. If it was
snowing on Christmas, it was insanely comfy. You know where
it stinks La like one percent. I think I.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Didn't even look, but I lived there for you know,
five years, and it's you know, they do their best.
In fact, LA kind of goes overboard with the decor
from what I remember. Yeah, I think because it's you know,
sunny and has palm trees and stuff like that. But
it's really really tough to get it going out there
in a Christmas sense.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I always told it when I came home.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
It's like that in Apache Junction or something too Chuck.
In London they take bets on whether it'll be a
white Ristmiths and I looked it up. Sky Bet is
giving odds and the odds are eleven to two for
white Christmas for London this year. I bet London is
lovely in the snow. Yeah. And then every once in a while,
no matter what your bet is, no matter what Noah predicts,
(35:14):
no matter what Bing Crosby and Irvan Berlin say, there
is a fluke, a fluke white Christmas. And that happened
in two thousand and four in New Orleans. New Orleans
had its first white Christmas in fifty years. Though, Wow,
that's crazy. And then in two thousand and six, Chuck.
Two years later in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia,
there was a freak snowstorm on Christmas morning that brought
(35:35):
nearly a foot a foot of snow to some areas
in Australia. And the reason why this was such a
strange occurrence was because Christmas falls on Australia's summer. Yeah,
because they're in the Southern hemisphere. Sure, so that really
was a weird white cross. That is weird. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
I bet they were partying it up that day.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
I'll bet they were too, you know the assis. So
that's the that's white Christmas. You can go to search
noah n O A A and white Christmas slash stockings.
Well that's works one.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Yeah, yeah, okay, No, I mean that arch story was.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Like, don't forget to put the slash stockings dot HDM
for your Search.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Of Love on.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Chuck Josh. I believe that everybody has been good enough
listening to this oh yeah episode that they should get
a story of some sort.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
On Donner on Dancer.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah all right, But what we're going to read here
is called twas the Night Before Christmas, alternately titled A
Visit from Saint Nicholas, and it was written by a
guy named doctor Clement C. Moore who loved his kids
and loved writing poetry, and one Christmas in I believe
the early nineteenth century, he put the two together and
wrote A Visit from Saint Nicholas for his kids as
(37:19):
a poem, and it caught on and was printed in
a newspaper first and then a magazine school readers, and
then it was turned into its own little story book
with very cute drawings. It was translated into French, German, Braille, Swahili.
Probably it's probably the greatest known Christmas poem of all time.
(37:41):
So Chuck agreed, you're really good at this. You're very
good at reading stories, as everybody who's ever listened to
the Halloween episode knows. I think you should start this
off all right.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
So we want to encourage everyone.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Turn it up, gather the children around the fire, pour
up a hot toddy or some wasael if you got
some on hand, and let us take you away to
a different time and place.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
And we want to say to everybody listening, thanks for
joining us. Merry Christmas, Happy holidays, clad tidings to every
one of you. We hope this Christmas finds you safe
and happy.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Absolutely twas the night before Christmas went all through the house,
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The
stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes
that Saint Nicholas soon would be there. The children were
nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar
plums danced in their heads. And Mama and her kerchief,
(38:38):
and I, in my cap, had just settled our brains
for a long winter's.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Nap, went out on the lawn. There arose such a clatter.
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window, I flew like a flash, tore
open the shutters, and threw up the sash. The moon
on the breast of the new fallen snow, gave the
luster of midday to objects below. When what to my
wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sleigh with eight
(39:03):
tiny reindeer.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
With a little old driver.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
So lively and quick I knew in a moment it
must be Saint Nick, more.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Rapid than eagles. His coursers.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
They came, and he whistled and shouted and called them
by name. Now Dasher, now Dancer, now Prancer, now Vixen,
on Comet, on Cupid, on Donner, and blitzen. To the
top of the porch, to the top.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Of the wall.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Now dash away, dash away, dash away, all.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
As dry leaves that before the while hurricane fly. When
they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So
up to the housetop the coursers they flew with the
sleigh full of toys, and Saint Nicholas too. And then
in a twinkling I heard on the roof the prancing
and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in
my hand and was turning around down the chimney, Saint
(39:49):
Nicholas came with a bound.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
He was dressed all in fur from his head to
his foot, and his clothes were all turnished with ashes
and soot. A bundle of toys he had flung on
his back looked like a peddlar just opening his pack.
His eyes, how they twinkled. His dimples, how merry. His
cheek were like roses, his nose like a cherry. His
droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and
the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly
that shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his
head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his
work and filled all the stockings, and turned with a jerk,
and laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving
a nod up the chimney.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
He rose.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team, gave a whistle,
and away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, Harry drove out of sight.
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
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