WEBVTT - The SYSK 2020 Holly Jolly Extravaganza! 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:26.280 Heart Radio. Y Hey ho, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.240 I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's even here, and 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.960 we're all wishing you glad tidings and merry tidings and 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.840 decking the halls and all of that for this very 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:44.920 special Christmas edition of Stuff You Should How did you 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:49.120 say stuff you Should? Hoe? I did? That's great, I thought. 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.199 I don't know. It just came to me. And you know, 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.640 it basically made up for the pan of apple Pie 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.240 turnover analogy in the buffet episode. If you ask me, 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:03.880 you rid it twice though, didn't you? The apple Pie one? No, 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.160 I hit the three time thing did for for genuine 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.399 community effect. And I think that episode might. I don't know, 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:12.480 is that gonna come out before this one? Yeah? It come. 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.320 It came out on the okay, and what day is 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.679 this one out? I believe is it on Christmas Day 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.360 this year? I don't know. I'm going to look right 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.039 now to see. And as I'm talking, no, today, this 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.959 one comes out. So buthdays came out of but it's 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:34.800 Christmas Eve. That's even better. Almost. Yeah, Merry Christmas Eve, everybody, Yeah, 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.320 Merry Christmas Eve, and we like to remind people as 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.119 per tradition, we fight tooth and nail for this. Uh. 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.600 It is an ad free episode and that's all we 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:47.039 have to say about that. We don't do ads for 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:49.720 these episodes. Nope, this is a it's a it's a 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.520 very special thing every year, this one in the Halloween episode. Yeah, 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:55.800 we didn't even talk about which how we're going to 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.120 order these, but I'll go ahead and make a pitch 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.680 for lead treat Censel to go first. Okay, that's what 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.320 I've got it up. First to Chuck. It's a Christmas miracle, 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.079 so Tinsel. I think we've talked about in another episode 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.440 before Chuck. Um where that came from. I believe it 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.840 was in one of the really early Christmas episodes. But um, 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:33.320 we can give a little background here in that think 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:38.240 starting around the sixteenth century UM or the seventeenth century, 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:44.560 very wealthy aristocrats UM started putting actual like gold and 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:49.000 silver strands or like more commonly I think these kind 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.640 of like twisted almost candy cane looking hooks made of 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.400 gold and silver. They would put it all over their 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.840 their tree. UM hang this stuff, and they called it tinsel, 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:03.160 which is from Old French for eston cell or sparkle, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.480 and that's kind of where tinsel came from. But you 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.240 have to be fairly wealthy to put strands of pure 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.040 gold and silver on your Christmas shoe. You know. That 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.880 kind of is how it goes. Yeah, I'm surprised that's 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:22.119 a French word. It sounds very German. Tinsel, yeah, tinsel does. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.240 But eston cell, well, that sounds very French. You're right, 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.920 it does. It's almost like that a Spree brand of clothing, 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.400 but just it takes a real sharp turn after that 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:37.400 first es syllable. So yeah, the rich people were doing 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.960 this on the tree, they kind of kept it to themselves. Uh. 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.760 And then the industrial age rolls around and all of 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:49.280 a sudden we had less expensive varieties of this kind 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:55.400 of thing, which meant aluminum copper great for both, and 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.760 lead not great. Well, the aluminum wasn't so great either. 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.720 They would make an aluminum paper tinsel with acetate and 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:08.600 that stuff would go up faster than a matchbook on 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.120 like a dead tree. And you know, this is a 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.240 time when everybody was smoking everywhere all the time. So 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.719 the the illuminum one was particularly bad. And the copper. 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.080 I saw it still around, Chuck. They make garlands of 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.640 copper tinsel, but it's not for decorations. It's for you 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.760 to walk through to discharge static, like if you're going 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:30.680 into say like a computer clean room or something like that. 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.280 They make copper tinsel now, but that didn't really catch 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.640 on either. So they settled finally, like you said, on lead. 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.440 And you know that's kind of problematic because leads as poisonous, 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.800 as we talked about in Our Wise Lead So poisonous episode? 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.479 Did we do that? Yeah? Don't you remember? Um In 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.000 Mother Jones, Kevin drum like made the made them the 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:58.560 case that the the end of leaded gas actually was 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:02.600 responsible for the decline and violent crime over there. You 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:04.400 did an episode and that was a good A long 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.560 time ago. So this was before the FDA got involved 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.039 and knew that lead was you know, in our plates 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.920 and in our paint and in our jewelry was killing people. 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:21.039 And there was a German company called uh Staniel fabriqu 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:26.240 Epstein and they had an imperial pattern on lead tinsel 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:29.640 in nineteen o four and people love this stuff. It 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:37.320 translated uh Stanniel Lamenta into tiny Blade, which is hysterical 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.560 if you think about it, it's kind of what they were. 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.000 But it was people love this stuff because they started 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.120 making it in South Philly too in the early fifties. 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.160 It really hung on it really looked great. It hung 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.200 on the tree very heavy, obviously because it's lead, and 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.839 it looked Apparently this woman, Susan Wagoner wrote a book 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.600 called hand Crafted Christmas where she talks about how wonderful 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.560 it was and it didn't turn ish and it just 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.080 gave a really kind of heavy icicle look to the tree. Yeah. 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.880 And so that German patent was issued in nineteen o four, 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.640 and I guess it took almost fifty years before it 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.000 made its way over to the United States. But by 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.279 the fifties there is a company called bright Star Manufacturing 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:21.200 that was making lead tree tensil for use in the 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.480 United States to UM, but the party didn't last very long. 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.840 About a decade really before UM it was becoming quite 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.520 obvious that lead poisoning was was a real problem. And 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.120 the thing is, it's like you said, there's a you know, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.960 there's a lot of um places where lead turned up 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.320 in your house, including on the plate you ate from. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.480 So tree tinsel was probably one of the lesser evils 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:49.600 in your house too, that that you were going to 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:51.960 get lead poisoning from. But it was also one of 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.360 the easiest things to phase out. And so the FDA 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.320 kind of zeroed in on getting rid of lead tree tensile, 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.720 using these kind of back channel methods to to get 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.440 rid of it before anybody knew what was going on. Yeah, 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:07.280 so they ended up making a deal, the f d 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:12.800 A with tinsel importers and said, you know what, you've 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.320 got no product here that you can sell here anymore. 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.640 And this was in the early seventies. Uh, your time, 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:23.040 face it, Your time here is done. And the thing is, 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:24.640 though they didn't get the word out, it's not like 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.080 they that was like burning up the headlines all over 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.760 the country, because what they were afraid of was people 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:33.440 love this stuff, and if they hear that it's going 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.120 to go away, people are going to go out and 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:37.640 start buying up all the lead tinsel. Total. It's going 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.120 to be counterintuitive to our goal here, which is to 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.320 get rid of the lead tinsel. Right. It would take 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.680 you know, years and years before they finally got phase 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:46.720 would be so much easier if it just didn't come 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.840 back one year and that's basically what happened. The FDA 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.760 managed to kind of secretly get rid of lead from 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.480 Christmas tinsel and say, come up with some other stuff, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:00.400 and uh, in very short order plastic came along to 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.880 replace it. But what what was crazy, Chuck, is that 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:11.320 um lead tinsel remained available in Germany until really yeah, 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.640 they did not get rid of the the lametta until then. 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.840 It's very surprising. Germans are tough. So I want to 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.840 say also, um, big shout out to our friend and 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.520 longtime listener Robert Paulson for suggesting that one. And as 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.160 you'll see later on in the episode, he's basically the 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:34.280 secret elf for this year's Christmas extravaganzas so thank you 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.959 very much, Roberts. His name is Robert Paulson. Should we 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.520 move on to Charles Dickens? Oh yeah, I thought we 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:44.160 would just leave it at his name is Robert Paulson. 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.200 But yes, all right, here we go with a little 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:53.120 bit on how Dickens saved Christmas. Enough enough, he's going 0:08:53.240 --> 0:09:17.679 from name uh um so um. Everybody thinks like a 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.200 Christmas Carol is the most Christmas e thing that anyone's 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.880 ever come up with, and until a Christmas story came 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:28.040 along that was true, and Christmas Carol is kind of 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:32.360 responsible for um a lot of the traditions that we 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.520 think of as Christmas Eve these days. Um it basically 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.600 came from the end of christ of Dickens pen things 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.280 like this idea of having your family around you and 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:48.000 and and being charitable and um spreading goodwill and peace 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.400 and all of that stuff. Like, all of that kind 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.240 of came from this Christmas Carol. And in fact, even 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.040 wishing people marry Christmas was a Dickens invention too. But 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.000 what a lot of people don't realize is that um 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:04.240 Dickens when he wrote a Christmas Carol, he basically grabbed 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.840 Christmas out from the clutches of oblivion and dragged it 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:12.800 back into popular culture. That he was largely responsible, or 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.640 one of a few Victorian authors who were responsible for 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:21.040 saving Christmas from obscurity from around that time about the 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.440 middle of the nineteenth century. It is hard to believe, 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.679 but that is true that in eighteen sixty three Christmas 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:33.640 was dying in no small part to uh at the 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:38.240 hands of a man named Oliver Cromwell, Boo, Lord and 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:43.360 Protector of England, very famous seventeenth century Puritan who didn't 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.679 like Christmas. He didn't like the people were going out 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.280 and having a good time and drinking and eating too much. 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.720 And he was like, listen, there's no scriptural basis for Christmas. 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.040 It's not in the Bible. Uh, there is no you know, 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.960 there's the Sabbath, of course, but it doesn't say, hey, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:04.480 everyone get together on and get drunk, does it right? 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.920 And I mean that's definitely what they were doing. In fact, 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.679 like since the medieval era in Britain and other parts 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.200 of Europe, especially like Celtic centric but pagan basically parts 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:19.720 of Europe. Um, they would get together, uh and kick off. 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.559 I guess the whole thing on Christmas kind of like 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.400 Fat Tuesday ends Marty Gras. It's like, in reverse, Christmas 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:31.440 kicked off twelve days of festivals and celebrating, of gathering 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.640 at the tavern, of having friends and family over for 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.680 a big feast um, and all of it can be 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.440 traced back to these pagan winter solstices. But then when 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.400 Christianity came along, they said, oh, we'll just say it's 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.720 the birth of Jesus kicking all this stuff off. But 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:50.000 it was a big, long twelve day winner festival of revelry, 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.120 and um, people really appreciate it. And Cromwell said, no, 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.160 that's too much fun. Christmas is here here by band, 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.120 and he got it pushed through Parliament that Christmas was 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.040 in fact banned. Yeah, and a couple of acts of 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:08.600 Parliament and forty four and forty seven sixty seven. He uh, 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:13.000 he pushed it underground essentially because people uh still did 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.840 their celebrating. It just wasn't as a raucous at the 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.760 local tavern. It was a little more at home behind 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:24.679 closed doors. But he certainly could not dampen people's spirits. Uh, 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.280 they just took it inside basically. Uh. Then the Industrial 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:33.320 Revolution comes along and people worked on Christmas and it 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.360 wasn't like, well, we gotta work on Christmas this year. 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.560 It was like Christmas was kind of like any other day, 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.920 and you just worked because the factory was open, because 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:44.959 there were seven days in a week and you were 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.080 expected to work all of them. Yeah, Cromwell couldn't quite 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:49.920 get rid of it. And he actually he and the 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.000 rest of the Puritans got pushed aside when the monarchy 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.920 came back and all that stuff got overturned. But just yeah, 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.959 about a hundred years later, when um England went through 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.360 the first Industrial evolution. That was I mean, that almost 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.880 did it in because, like you said, everybody was too 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.240 tired to celebrate Christmas. They didn't have any time off. 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.280 But also very importantly, chuck a lot of those people 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.080 who had been celebrating these Christmas is in the medieval 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.960 style with feasts and friends and family and revelry and 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.199 carols and all that stuff. They used to do that 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.000 back in the country during the agrarian age. Well, the 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.400 agrarian age had come to an abrupt halt during the 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.200 Industrial Age, and so all those people had moved from 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.440 the country to the city and they didn't have these 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:38.600 longstanding multi generational community ties any longer. So celebrating Christmas 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.760 kind of fell away. It stayed back there in the 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.320 in the rural areas, and it didn't quite make that 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.040 transition to the city. So between these long seven day 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:51.680 work weeks and then this transplanting from the countryside to 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.520 the city, Christmas was almost lost had it not been 0:13:54.559 --> 0:14:00.000 for Dickens. That's right. Then a Christmas Carol comes along, uh, 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:01.960 and that kind of did it. People loved it. It It 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.800 was a very big hit Uh, he didn't make a 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.320 ton of money on it because and that was kind 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.880 of his fault because he really wanted, um, a really 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.800 good looking book that was packaged well, he didn't want 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.720 to charge a lot for it. Um. And like you 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:18.320 said at the beginning, a lot of the things that 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.440 we think of it Christmas, like saying Mary Christmas, um, 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:25.160 wishing for a white Christmas. This all comes from Dickens 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.960 version of a Christmas Carol and it was a big hit. 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.440 And he he worked in stuff like um ghost stories, 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.080 which in the medieval times they told Christmas ghost story, 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:38.640 so that's people think that's kind of where he got 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.240 the ghostly visitors from. I think we talked a couple 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.480 of I think the Live Christmas Show we talked about that, 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:50.520 didn't we I think so? Yeah. But yeah, thanks to uh, 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.600 thanks to Dickens, Christmas was a big hit again and 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:58.640 his not been threatened since, except for you know, people 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:03.600 trying to kill Christmas. Now. I guess it's rampant, isn't it. 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:08.680 The new Cromwells. Right, that's right. Well, now you can 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.640 say Merry Christmas everybody, and you can know you're giving 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:34.760 a hat tip to get old Charles Dickens. Al Right. 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:41.160 Next on our list of merriment is finance and economics, 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.760 but in a very fun way. I think I gotta 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:46.720 feel like we've talked about this before because it seems 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.960 so familiar. But the PNC Christmas Price Index, Uh, since 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.920 the PNC Bank has been doing this where they calculate 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.920 the current annual cost or the cost of that year 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.000 for the items on the song from the song that 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:07.680 Twelve Days of Christmas. Obviously we're talking about French hens 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:12.520 and leaping lords and five golden rings and all of 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:18.000 that livestock and jewelry and entertainment. They have very in 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.120 a very fun way, since the mid eighties, have been calculating, 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.680 hey what would that cost this year? Yeah. And in fact, 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:29.360 there's one particular economist at the bank, Rebecca McCann. Fun 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.880 job kind of yeah, it kind of oversees this whole thing. 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.160 She's like, yeah, it's super fun. I don't get to 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.360 stop doing any of my regular work. They make me 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.040 do this on top of everything probably and I don't 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:40.960 even give me a bonus anymore. They did away with 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:45.920 bonuses in the merger. So it's funny when you when 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:47.800 you think about this a lot of these are pretty 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:52.640 easy to get, like turtle doves and partridges. You could 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:57.200 call bird suppliers or hatcheries for hens and swans, or 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.680 a nursery for pear trees and stuff like that, or 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.399 obviously jewelry chains for gold rings. But it gets a 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.000 little trickier when it comes to uh, ladies dancing and 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.920 lords of leaping, Like, what do you pay for that? Well, 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:15.960 she calculated the cost by getting in touch with things 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.399 like like dance companies the Philadelphia Ballet I think was 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.359 one of them, for the Pennsylvania Ballet. The other one, Um, 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.920 she got in touch with philadanco UM, which is a 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:31.000 dance company in Philadelphia, believe it or not. And Um said, basically, 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.760 you know how much would it cost to to put 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:37.480 on a show or to rent I guess eleven lords leaping? 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.080 You know? And I'm sure they hung up a couple 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.760 of times on her before she finally convinced him to 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.240 to give her a straight answer. Um, but yeah, she 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.119 really like she she goes through and figures out the 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.160 price of each of these things. But then she's also 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:52.520 being an economist, says, well, it's more than just that, 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.879 you also have to pay for things like gas for shipping. Um, 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.639 the cost of services has gone up recently, but the 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.359 cost of goods has gone down by comparison. She takes 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.480 all of this, all these different prices together, UM, adds 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.840 them up, and that is the Consumer Price Index every year. 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.520 That's right, the Christmas Price Index. That's right. I'm sorry, 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.280 so it actually it reflects the Consumer Price Index, which 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.960 is a legit thing that's used as a metric to 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.040 track the economy of the United States. This is a 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.879 slightly more tongue in cheek, although we're gonna see it 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.800 actually does have some like real world reflections to it, 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.440 and it is you know that if you went through 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.600 and hired eleven lords of leaping, this is probably roughly 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.000 what you would pay for it, you know. Yeah, I 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.000 think the saddest one for me would be made of milking. 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:43.440 And it's also the easiest one to figure out, because 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:45.320 all she has to do is plug in minimum wage, 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:48.399 because that's what a milking made would probably get paid. 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.160 But that one hasn't changed obviously since two thousand nine, 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:57.080 as uh horrifically, the federal minimum wage has been locked 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:02.080 in place for eleven years. It seven. Yeah, so that 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.680 was a bit of a bummer, and then, um, the 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:11.199 big surprising thing for for me definitely was that, um, 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.720 there were a number of things that you couldn't get 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.280 this year McCann found out, and that the this year's 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:24.000 total Christmas Price index was about sixty percent less than 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.200 last year's. The cost of it In two thousand nineteen 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.840 it was thirty eight thousand, nine nine dollars and fifty 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.840 In twenty it costs you just sixteen thousand, one hundred 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.280 and sixty eight dollars and fourteen cents. And you say, like, okay, 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.760 well that's great. You know things prices are going down. Well, no, 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.399 the like I said, the reason why the cost had 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.000 gone down is because you couldn't get things like Lord's 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:54.800 leaping or drummer's drumming, or pipers piping, or ladies dancing 0:19:55.119 --> 0:20:00.440 because of COVID nineteen. Yeah, kind of rise me. And 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.040 it's not very fun. It's not you could get a 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.919 drumline outdoors, space them out and pay them money. I guess. 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.879 So maybe McCann wanted to point out that there's a 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.320 coronavirus pandemic going on right now. Yeah, I think that's 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:15.600 kind of the deal, is there. I think there's a 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.320 bit of a of a nod and a wink and 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.760 a message to be sent each year when this is released. 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.320 But um, the thing is chucky. Even if you're like, whatever, 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.399 I don't care about the pandemic. I'm I've got this 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:31.040 this price in hand. I'm gonna go with the two 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:33.240 thousand nineteen prices because I'm really going to twist the 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.040 arms of those dance companies and get them to to 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.840 lend me some dancers. Um, do you have to stop 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.879 and ask yourself like, are these actually good gifts anymore? Yeah, 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:46.480 the answer I think would be no. I mean yes, 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.240 the the birds are calling, those are canaries. That's a 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:54.000 pretty good idea. Or if you have like a a 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.520 farm friend and you're like, not only did I get 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.159 you some chickens, I got you some French hens. I 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.240 think they might be slightly impressed. Everybody would like five 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:05.520 gold rings that kind of thing, But if you put 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:07.119 the whole thing together all at once, it can be 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:11.680 kind of overwhelming. And they they mentioned this on an 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.960 episode of Christmas episode at the Office, where Aaron, the receptionist, says, 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.679 whoever is my secret? Saying it that's buying me the 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.640 twelve Days of Christmas presents, like, please stop, it's ruining 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:26.320 my life. She said. The French ends are plucking at 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:29.560 her hair to make nests out of it. That's another 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.080 terrible stuff. So I guess if that's a if that's 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.040 your idea, if that's you're thinking that you're going to 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.400 buy your true love the presents from the twelve Days 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:41.520 of Days of Christmas, just don't don't do it. Maybe 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:45.600 some leaping words, but then stop. Al Right, shall we 0:21:45.600 --> 0:22:01.320 move on to our next segment? Yes, let's we need 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:03.119 to thank Robert Paulson for this one too. Write the 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:07.200 little Elf from Los Angeles came to visit us yet again. Yeah, 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:11.439 the little elf who could? So this is about the 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:14.560 first department store Santa Claus and we need to caveat 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:21.119 this in a big way because um is when Colonel 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:27.040 Jim James, Colonel Jim Edgar Brockton, Massachusetts claims and people 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:31.680 look at him as the first department store Santa Claus. Uh. 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:35.480 And we were emailing back and forth because Macy's they say, 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.879 goes back to eighteen what sixty something? Yeah, there's apparently 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:43.879 there was another one called I think J. W. Parkinson's 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:47.680 from Philadelphia who hired somebody to dress up as Santa 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:51.600 and climb the roof. Um, even before Macy's. But Macy's 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:56.920 was the first to actually have a Santa in their store. UM. 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:00.240 And there's postcards from the seventies that clearly show this. 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:03.720 That's that Macy's was the first. And yet you can 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:06.119 go all over the internet and you you search the 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:09.720 first department store Santa, you're gonna come back with James Edgar. 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:12.720 And people even mentioned this in the same article that yeah, 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:15.280 Macey's had it first, but this guy's the first. Just 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:17.280 you know, let's go out back and fight over it 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:19.800 if you want to. Yeah. I think what you found 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:22.760 and what we're just gonna agree on is that it 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:26.240 said he was the first known what it what it 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:30.600 was the exact wording, not known quantity, but known individual, 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:33.480 known entity. I think is how they put it in 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.680 the weirdest possible way. Yeah, the only thing we could 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:41.000 figure out was is that James, Colonel Jim Edgar was 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:44.919 the first person to say, Hey, I'm Santa Claus in 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:50.360 this town and my name's Colonel Jim Edgar, and everyone 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:53.240 knows it's me that's doing this thing. And he became 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:56.320 known as the guy, whereas I guess Macy's just had 0:23:56.880 --> 0:24:00.800 nameless Santa Claus. So maybe that's the difference that's got 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:04.240 that's is, That's all I can figure out. But let's 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:07.360 put all that nitpicky stuff aside. Okay, but I think 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:09.840 it's important that we said, and I'm glad you man, 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:11.639 I'm glad you brought it up. But the thing is 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:13.800 that I think a lot of the reason why people 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:16.239 are really willing to go out back and fight you 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:20.560 over Jim Egger being the first Santa Claus is because 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:25.960 this guy's character was as close to Santa's probably ever, 0:24:26.080 --> 0:24:28.800 any any Santa's helper whoever put on the suit and 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:31.600 when worked at a department store over the holiday season 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:34.720 ever has Yeah, he seemed like a really good guy. 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:37.800 And there are stories that abound about the good things 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:40.960 that have happened with Colonel Jim and in his wake. 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:45.040 Uh And one that happened in his wake was about 0:24:45.119 --> 0:24:48.679 thirty years after he started doing Santa. I guess he 0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:53.359 was gone at this point. But Brockton, mass was a 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:56.560 shoemaking town. It was very famous for making shoes, but 0:24:56.640 --> 0:24:58.880 by the ninet twenties and thirties it had fallen upon 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:01.960 hard times, and there was a truant officer that found 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:04.520