Speaker 1: I guess, well, what's that? So it's just about Christmas time,
Speaker 1: and you know I have to repeat my favorite Louis
Speaker 1: Armstrong in fact of all time. I know which one
Speaker 1: is coming. This one's about the tree, right, of course,
Speaker 1: it's about the tree. So you know, I heard this
Speaker 1: fact forever ago about sat Mo and how he got
Speaker 1: his first Christmas tree at age forty. But I love
Speaker 1: the way his wife tells it, so I'm actually just
Speaker 1: gonna quote her. We finally went to bed, and Louis
Speaker 1: was still laying up in the bed watching the tree,
Speaker 1: his eyes just like a baby's eyes would watch something.
Speaker 1: So finally I said, well, I'll turn the lights out
Speaker 1: now on the tree. He said, no, don't turn them out.
Speaker 1: I just have to keep looking at it. You know,
Speaker 1: that's the first tree I ever had. Well, I hadn't
Speaker 1: realized that. You know, Louis was forty years old, and
Speaker 1: it seemed to me that in forty years a person
Speaker 1: would have at least one tree. I was all swollen
Speaker 1: up inside when he told me that we were to
Speaker 1: leave the next day for Kansas City. I figured, Christmas
Speaker 1: is over, today's twenty six. Now I'll leave the tree.
Speaker 1: Louis said no, don't leave the tree. Take the tree
Speaker 1: with you. And he had me take the tree on
Speaker 1: those one night ers. Before I even unpacked a bag,
Speaker 1: I had to set that tree up, his Christmas tree.
Speaker 1: So it's just this wonderful story. And she keeps the
Speaker 1: tree going for like a month, just putting it up
Speaker 1: night after night and taking it down the next morning,
Speaker 1: and all these hotels, and when the tour is over,
Speaker 1: I guess Louis actually wanted her to mail the tree home,
Speaker 1: and she finally had to convince him that the tree
Speaker 1: was going to dry up if she did that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know I've heard that before, but it really is
Speaker 1: such a wonderful story. Yeah, it comes from James Lincoln
Speaker 1: Colliers bio of Louis Armstrong, and I just love that
Speaker 1: story so much and and that this tree gave him
Speaker 1: so much joy, and it made me think maybe this
Speaker 1: week we should do in nine things all about Christmas trees.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're doing. Let's dig in pay their
Speaker 1: podcast listeners, welcome the part time genius. I'm Will Pearson
Speaker 1: and as always I'm joined by my good friend Ticketer
Speaker 1: and sitting behind the soundproof booth dressed like an elf
Speaker 1: on a shelf and he's got this thing nail. That's
Speaker 1: our friend, the producer, Tristan McNeil. Alright, Mango, So I
Speaker 1: know your family isn't Christian, but you grew up with
Speaker 1: Christmas trees though, right, yeah, so we always had trees
Speaker 1: and presents and sang carols around the piano like it
Speaker 1: was just tradition for us. And uh, you know, this
Speaker 1: year I went to my parents place and they'd picked
Speaker 1: out what has to be the fattest, most misshapen tree
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. I actually, I'm gonna pull up this
Speaker 1: picture for you. I'm not sure that that's actually a tree.
Speaker 1: It looks like that tree ate another tree. I know,
Speaker 1: it's always like a like when a python eats a
Speaker 1: goat or something so misshapen, but uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: my friends love the holidays. I think they got a
Speaker 1: discount on that tree. Lizzie, on the other hand, we'll
Speaker 1: spend hours just going store to store, just inspecting every
Speaker 1: single tree and trying to get the perfect shaped tree.
Speaker 1: And every year it is just the one fight we have.
Speaker 1: It is miserable. Lessie. Isn't the only person out there
Speaker 1: looking for the perfect tree? Have you actually ever heard
Speaker 1: of Mr Christmas Tree, I haven't. Is he a tree salesman.
Speaker 1: He's actually a tree scientist. So his name is Gary Chastagner.
Speaker 1: And the thing that he's specializing again is trying to
Speaker 1: get Christmas trees that shed less. So he's kind of
Speaker 1: making the cockapoo of Christmas tree. That's exactly what he does.
Speaker 1: I think it says that on his business card. What
Speaker 1: this this actually comes from mental flaws, and it says
Speaker 1: Mr Christmas Tree is currently leading a five year, one
Speaker 1: point three million dollar research project and it's aimed at
Speaker 1: helping Christmas trees retain their needles longer, and it's about
Speaker 1: selective breeding. So he and his researchers collect these tree
Speaker 1: samples from farms across the country and try to figure
Speaker 1: out which ones are the heartiest and keep their needles
Speaker 1: the longest, and then they'll cross breed those, of course,
Speaker 1: and they keep doing this until they have the tree
Speaker 1: that will last until spring. So it's basically a tree
Speaker 1: made for Louis Armstrong. It would have been perfect. A well,
Speaker 1: here's actually another fact for you. And his research isn't
Speaker 1: just about finding a perfect tree. It also includes how
Speaker 1: to water them. So according to his research, you need
Speaker 1: about a quart of water for every inch of your
Speaker 1: trees diameter, and you're supposed to water with that every
Speaker 1: single day. But here's the catch. Most Christmas tree stands
Speaker 1: can't actually hold that much water, and there aren't many
Speaker 1: great solutions other than just watering your tree a lot.
Speaker 1: In fact, in two thousand and seven, he even tried
Speaker 1: hooking up Christmas trees to I V trips, but even
Speaker 1: that wasn't enough for the thirsty trees. This is how
Speaker 1: dedicated this guy that is wild. Well, here's a quick
Speaker 1: one I had no idea about. If your tree dies
Speaker 1: on you, you know, or you're just through with it
Speaker 1: after the holiday season, you can obviously mulch it, but
Speaker 1: that isn't your only option. You can also donate your
Speaker 1: Christmas tree to a zoo. So why zo? Well, I
Speaker 1: I don't know if you just drop it off at
Speaker 1: any zoo, But according to the San Francisco Gate, the
Speaker 1: Oakland Zoo takes Christmas tree donations because they feed the
Speaker 1: trees as a quote wintertime treat to their animal. So
Speaker 1: the photo with the article is so great, it's just
Speaker 1: got like a bunch of drafts nibbling on the top
Speaker 1: of trees, and I'm sure it leaves them with minty
Speaker 1: fresh breath. That that three of your parents who showed me,
Speaker 1: I feel like that could last them a few weeks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. So when you have next all right, was
Speaker 1: reading this interesting article in the Independent. It was called
Speaker 1: how the Nazis Stole Christmas, And one of the interesting
Speaker 1: bits was that the Nazis tried to take the Christ
Speaker 1: out of Christmas, and so here's how the author describes it.
Speaker 1: The regime's exploitation of Christmas began almost as soon as
Speaker 1: the Nazis took power in nineteen thirty three. Party ideologists
Speaker 1: wrote scores of papers claiming that the festival's Christian element
Speaker 1: was a manipulative attempt by the Church to capitalize on
Speaker 1: what we're really old Germanic traditions. So they worked to
Speaker 1: rebrand it, and instead of stars on the top of
Speaker 1: the tree, they used swastikas naturally, and instead of Santa
Speaker 1: Claus they replaced them with the Germanic and Norse god Odin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so strange, but the artwork of it was supposedly
Speaker 1: really funny, and so here's how the author described it.
Speaker 1: Propaganda posters in the exhibitions show the Christmas or souls.
Speaker 1: This man Odin as a hippie like individual on a
Speaker 1: white horse charger, sporting a thick gray beard slough chat
Speaker 1: and a sack full of gifts. Hippe like Odin doesn't
Speaker 1: sound very Nazi. You know. I feel like Christmas is
Speaker 1: just another thing the Nazis got wrong. So that makes sense. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I was looking into the story of artificial
Speaker 1: trees and this is just an aside. But according to
Speaker 1: the New York Times, they said that unless you're reusing
Speaker 1: your artificial tree for more than twenty years, it's actually
Speaker 1: more environmentally friendly just to cut down a tree every
Speaker 1: single year. Wow. So that's true. Yeah, so I I
Speaker 1: guess they're quoting this environmental consulting firm from Montreal, and
Speaker 1: they took into account it's as greenhouse gas emissions, use
Speaker 1: of resources, and human health impacts, which I guess I
Speaker 1: never would have guest. But here's my fact. Do you
Speaker 1: know that the first artificial trees were actually made of
Speaker 1: green dyed goose feathers. I did not know that. This
Speaker 1: comes from a book on the History of Christmas by
Speaker 1: Bruce David Forbes. But the goose feather trees came from
Speaker 1: Germany and reached the US in nine hundred and according
Speaker 1: to Forbes quote, customers like the one time expense instead
Speaker 1: of an annual outlay at escalating costs, and the artificial
Speaker 1: trees boasted no pine needles and less fire hazards. That
Speaker 1: actually reminds me that weird fact of how miniature golf
Speaker 1: greens used to use dyed goat hair for the artificial ground.
Speaker 1: That's right, so weird. So where do you want to
Speaker 1: go from here? All right? Well, how about the fact
Speaker 1: that Christmas trees used to be a whole lot tinier.
Speaker 1: In fact, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the main
Speaker 1: present delivery system was gifts and the stockings, and instead
Speaker 1: of the tree being on the floor on a table,
Speaker 1: it was actually pretty common to hang the tree from
Speaker 1: a ceiling or from the rafts. It kind of sounds
Speaker 1: like I'm just making this up, this is true. In fact,
Speaker 1: one article I found said that families would even hang
Speaker 1: the tree upside down to point the route toward heaven
Speaker 1: and supposedly fill the tree with divine power. Like that
Speaker 1: just would be so creepy, like a hanging tree. And
Speaker 1: then the fact that like everyone was doing this at
Speaker 1: the time. It's nuts you have a different take on this.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to try this next year. Well,
Speaker 1: I know we've got a fumer facts to go about
Speaker 1: before that. Let's take a quick break. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Part time Genius. We were talking about hanging Christmas trees.
Speaker 1: So will what fact are you gonna go onto next?
Speaker 1: I think one of the things I found most fascinating
Speaker 1: this week was learning that after we started bringing bigger
Speaker 1: trees indoors and not hanging them from the raft, they
Speaker 1: still didn't quite look like the trees that we have today.
Speaker 1: Why is that, Well, I'm sure you've heard about how
Speaker 1: people used to put lit candles on trees, like in
Speaker 1: the era before light. Well, to make that happen, you
Speaker 1: need a lot of space between the branches, you know,
Speaker 1: so the candles aren't lighting the needles that are on
Speaker 1: top of those. So the ideal you of a century
Speaker 1: go was really like a whole lot more sparse and patchy.
Speaker 1: And then you'd use that extra room in there, not
Speaker 1: just to light the candles, but you'd hide these extra
Speaker 1: treats for your kids, which I can imagine that was,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty fun for them to find like little
Speaker 1: gifts in there. And and then when, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: the electric lights came along, all of that space disappeared.
Speaker 1: And that's when we started getting these more full trees
Speaker 1: and the gifts started moving down to the floor. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine Christmas tree shopping with my wife back then,
Speaker 1: just like not having a patchy enough tree got to
Speaker 1: be more patchy. But weirdly enough, the first electric Christmas
Speaker 1: lights actually go way back to the eighteen eighties. That's
Speaker 1: apparently when Thomas Edison's vice president at his company, they
Speaker 1: rigged up the tree with lights. And so then g
Speaker 1: E came out with lights in nineteen o one, and
Speaker 1: this is all from that same book on Christmas. And
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh three, ever Ready came out with the
Speaker 1: first string of eight lights, and it just of course
Speaker 1: kind of took off from there. But I really had
Speaker 1: no idea that it all started that early. I know,
Speaker 1: in that's crazy to think about. So, uh, speaking of
Speaker 1: Christmas tree lights, I've actually got a fact. I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna love and I think it's a great way
Speaker 1: to go out. So in two thousand and ten, the
Speaker 1: Colombian government was trying to figure out how to reach
Speaker 1: guerilla separatists and and kind of try to get them
Speaker 1: to put down their weapons and come home. So this
Speaker 1: ad executive actually came up with this idea and he
Speaker 1: shared it with the government and they decided to try
Speaker 1: it out. And they basically put up all these motion
Speaker 1: sensor Christmas lights, just strings of lights up on trees
Speaker 1: and strategic places. Right, So they picked nine pathways through
Speaker 1: the jungle and they did this in that area and basically,
Speaker 1: whenever the sensor tripped, the lights would go up and
Speaker 1: this message would illuminate that said, if Christmas can come
Speaker 1: to the jungle, you can come home, demobilize at Christmas.
Speaker 1: Everything is possible. Of course, that's an interesting idea, but
Speaker 1: it did it work. Yes, so it was surprisingly effective.
Speaker 1: About three fifty people or so, this was about five
Speaker 1: percent of the guerrillas came home that year and put
Speaker 1: down their arms and rejoined civilization. And uh, it's convinced
Speaker 1: the government to do this almost every year since. So
Speaker 1: they use slightly different tactics, but every year more and
Speaker 1: more people are coming home to their moms. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty great. I have to admit it.
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to give you the final prize
Speaker 1: of the years. Congratulations. Well I also love the fact
Speaker 1: that you can hook up a tree to an I
Speaker 1: v SO in the Christmas fare. Why don't we share
Speaker 1: it with you? Me gave Tristan, even Julian. All right,
Speaker 1: well I'm for that now. Listeners were all for the holidays,
Speaker 1: but we'll be back next year with a whole new
Speaker 1: season of shows. Thank you for the kind reviews and
Speaker 1: all the facts and the letters you send, and we
Speaker 1: love hearing from you, and thanks so much for listening.