Weird Christmas Podcast
All things holly, jolly, and odd-ly.
Episodes
2024 Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest Winners:
Weird Card Winner: “The Study of Owls and the Christmas Contronyms” by Daniel Roop
Please see WeirdChristmas.com for text and info on all the stories and writers.
Craig talks with the ever knowledgeable and jolly Benito Cereno about Scandinavian elves, which you're starting to see more and more places in decorations and movies. All links mentioned on the show, along with info on Benito, can be found at WeirdChristmas.com at this link:
https://weirdchristmas.com/2023/12/23/nisser-and-tomtar-scandinavian-elves-with-benito-cereno/
If you’re feeling generous, you can leave a donation at Ko-Fi.co...
The best show of the year: 19 stories of Christmas Weirdness from the annual Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest. Please visit WeirdChristmas.com to get information on the authors and to read the stories again.
If you want to support the contest and help make more and bigger prizes for the writers next year, please visit Ko-Fi.com/weirdchristmas to donate any amount.
I talk to Earl Fontainelle of the SHWEP (Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast). We try to trace down any textual evidence that would connect the origins of Christmas to ancient pagan sources, namely the Mithras cult and Emperor Constantine’s Sol Invictus cult.
Listen here, on your favorite podcast app, or at the Podbean site.
Music:
- "Scriaben Christmas Time is Here" by Kurt Knecht
- "C...
Benito and I discuss the traditions surrounding the Mari Lwyd, getting into similarities with other European wassailing and hobby horse traditions.
A recording of the Mari Lwyd rhyme in action by the BBC.
Benito's Links:
- Benito’s Christmas history videos
- Benito’s writing at Gumroad
- Apocrypals podcast
- Friends ‘Till the End podcast
- Progressively Horrified
Music:
- "Here Comes the Mari Lwyd" by The Eugenes
- "Mari Lwyd" by ...
SURPRISE CHRISTMAS IN JULY PODCAST!
I never quite got this show finished during the season, so my humble apologies. All is now well.
Thank you to Meghan Arcuri for talking to me about Charlotte Riddell! Her collection of Riddell’s stories will be out very soon. And here are some links to her work, which I encourage everyone to check out:
- A Little Purple Book of Sharp Wit by Charlotte Riddel, ed. Meghan Arcuri
- Arcuri’s stories: ...
I chat with Thomas Ruys Smith, editor of Christmas Past: An Anthology of Seasonal Stories from Nineteenth Century America and Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of East Anglia.
Links from the show:
- Christmas Past: An Anthology of Seasonal Stories from Nineteenth Century America [publisher] [Amazon]
- Thomas Ruys Smith's author website
Bumper music:
- Usual opening: “O Holy Night” by Tiny Tim, ...
It’s out later than I would have preferred, but like the inevitability of New Year’s following Christmas, it is here.
To read the stories, get bio information and links on the authors, and for all other show notes, please check out WeirdChristmas.com.
Results:
- Overall Winner: “The Fight” by Elizabeth Guilt
Talking with Christopher Philippo, editor of Volumes 4 and 5 of the Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories.
- Chris' Goodreads site
- Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Volume 4 (the American stories) [Amazon]
- Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Volume 5 [Amazon]
Links to the poems and other goodies from the show are at WeirdChristmas.com.
Al Ridenour is back after talking to us last year about Krampus, but this time to help unpack the lore and traditions around the Perchten, Krampus-esque goblin-ish creatures tied to both Krampus and Frau Perchta.
Links mentioned on the episode:
Happy Thanksgiving! We dive deep into the history of Christmas murder ballads with my friend (and cohost from the ReReading Wolfe Podcast) James Wynn.
I'll get links to all the songs from the episode up here shortly. But for now, here are links for James:
- ReReading Wolfe Podcast
- RRW on Twitter
- Our Xmas episodes of RRWolfe: 2020 (we discuss 3 stories), 2019 (we read one story)
Bumper music:
- Usual opening: "O Ho...
La Befana, Perchta, Holda, and so many more! We chat with the always encyclopedic Benito Cereno about all the Christmas witch folklore in Christmas history.
Links:
- Benito's Christmas history videos
- Benito's writing at Gumroad
- Apocrypals podcast
- Friends 'Till the End podcast
- Progressively Horrified
Music:
- "La Befana" by Make Like Monkeys
- "Perchta" by The Champagne Drops
- "Christmas Witch" by ChatterBox
- "The Chr...
Full text of all the winners are at WeirdChristmas.com along with bios, information, and links for all the authors.
All fiction copyright 2020 by the authors.
Please visit WeirdChristmas.com for full information.
Sometimes when you have a podcast, you talk to people who interest you and you don’t worry so much about how it relates to the show or your topic or what your hard-won audience really cares about. So you put out a show that’s all about really, really narrow interests you have. This is half that. The other half is about an amazing book about whether or not you should believe in Santa.
Links from the show:
“…And scary ghost stories of Christmasses long, long ago!”
Ghost stories from previous years if you’re in a spooky mood: 2019, 2018, 2017
Next year, we should break open this boys’ club with a tale from this…
Links from the show:
- Full text of the story, “Between the Lights”
- A bit about Benson
- Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Vol. 4 by Christopher Philippo.
Our narrators this year:
Time to destroy your appetite! I talk to Glen Warren from the Season's Eatings Podcast about weird Christmas food throughout history.
Links:
- Season's Eatings Podcast
- List of Christmas Podcasts (from Brian Earl's Christmas Past)
- Holly Jolly Xmasu (Japanese Christmas music podcast)
- Totally Rad Christmas ("Rudolph's Shiny New Year" episode with me)
- The Lamppost Huggers by Christopher Stanley (some Christmas horror stories)
- Va...
As a Thanksgiving treat, enjoy a deep dive down the rabbit hole of Santa history with Tom Jerman, author of Santa Claus Worldwide: A History of St. Nicholas and Other Holiday Gift-Bringers. This is my favorite book of Santa history, and Tom and I covered a lot of ground.
Links mentioned in the show:
- Buy the book!
- From Amazon
- From McFarland Publishers
- Tom's new website A Collection of Santas with new blog posts ...
I'm not usually your go-to source for new movies. But this one is worth your time. The Christmas Ride is a mumblecore (improvised dialogue) film about a ride share driver getting an emotional gut punch on Christmas day. I talked to the producer/director Stefanie Davis, and I hope you'll check it out.
Here's the trailer for a taste:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y45euwomp9g&t
You can stream it from Amazon (free with Prime) an...
Krampus. Seems like I should have done a show on Krampus years ago, but I was waiting for the right person. And that person is Al Ridenour, author of The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas: Roots and Rebirth of the Folkloric Devil. This is the definitive book on Krampus, and Al fills us in on all the history and celebrations we could want.
Links mentioned in the show:
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