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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented twenty twelve Camri. It's ready.

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Speaker 1: Are you welcome to you stuff you should know from

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Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot Com.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast Mark here the bells

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Speaker 2: a Christmas podcast. Yeah, this is a Christmas podcast, the

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Speaker 2: Holiday Special. Uh huh. Lots of glad tidings here. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: your ear buds are gonna be bursting with them.

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Speaker 3: We have real muppets.

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Speaker 2: I wish, I so wished.

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Speaker 3: You just look so disappointed.

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Speaker 2: Really for a second, what do you yeah, surprise, I wish. No,

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Speaker 2: there's no muppets. Thanks for the letdown already, it's like

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Speaker 2: thirty seconds into this thing. No, instead, chuck, this is

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Speaker 2: it's our higher Holiday Special where we put together some

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Speaker 2: little Christmas podcasts that we're going to do. Get some shorties,

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Speaker 2: some longies.

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Speaker 4: We're gonna dispel some myths, we're gonna enforce some myths.

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Speaker 2: That's right, and we're gonna explain the origins of some things.

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Speaker 2: And if you're all very good boys and girls, we

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Speaker 2: may even read a story at the end. How do

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Speaker 2: you like that? That's exciting? Yeah, So this is a

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Speaker 2: little different. It's a little a little it's packed with

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Speaker 2: at least one hundred and twenty percent more holiday cheer

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Speaker 2: than our typical episode. Yes, like shrunken heads, right, maybe

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Speaker 2: that one is up to like one hundred and eighty

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Speaker 2: percent more, And this.

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Speaker 4: One will come out I believe on what like the

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Speaker 4: twenty second Yeah, just.

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Speaker 2: A it's Christmas Eve, Eve Eve, that's right.

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Speaker 4: But you should be off work as far as I'm

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Speaker 4: concerned already and like roasting chestnuts.

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Speaker 2: But even if you're not, it's that time of year

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Speaker 2: where like you're going to work and you feel absolutely

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Speaker 2: great about things, you know what I'm talking about. Have

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Speaker 2: you ever worked retail on the holiday season? Yeah, even

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Speaker 2: in retail right before Christmas, you can feel terrific work

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Speaker 2: as a gap. I worked at American Eagle. Really Yeah?

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Speaker 3: What was on your heavy rotate?

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Speaker 2: There?

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Speaker 3: Santa's got a brand new bag? James Brown?

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Speaker 2: Over and over ours? Was that Chrissy hind one about?

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Speaker 2: It is a good one except when you hear eight

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Speaker 2: hundred times. Yeah, it was a good mix, but y end,

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Speaker 2: it was the same mix over and over again. What's

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Speaker 2: my favorite Christmas song of all time? Yeah? Gosh, that's tough,

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Speaker 2: So I would have to say Chuck my favorite Christmas

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Speaker 2: performers are Johnny Mathis and Fronte and Tyscher. Excellent Christmas album.

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Speaker 2: Bing Crosby's Christmas Album is possibly the greatest Christmas album

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Speaker 2: ever released Carpenters. Maybe that's a good one. Definitely. Bing

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Speaker 2: Crosby is at least tied with the Charlie Brown Christmas

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Speaker 2: Special Soundtrack, the Vince Giraldi Trio soundtrack, Classic Jazz Vince,

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Speaker 2: and of course William's Last Christmas. That's a good one.

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Speaker 2: I'm not kidding like it's good. It's probably the best

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Speaker 2: can temporary Christmas song of all time if you ask me.

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Speaker 4: I haven't gotten it yet, but my morning Jacket has

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Speaker 4: a Christmas EP they just put out, which I'm gonna get,

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Speaker 4: and then I think it's.

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Speaker 3: The waitresses Merry Christmas.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's Emily's favorite and has since become one of

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Speaker 4: my favorites.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good one too, very upbeat. When at

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Speaker 2: the end of like the Gong Show or something, you just.

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Speaker 4: Said, no, no, no, it's the horn break and Merry

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Speaker 4: Christmas by the Waitresses.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good song.

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Speaker 3: So is that enough pilabor for the beginning?

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Speaker 2: I think, So let's get to it. We're doing this

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Speaker 2: a little differently. There is gonna be a little bit

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Speaker 2: of Christmas cheer between some of the segments, and we

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Speaker 2: hope that this finds you with a nice cup of cocoa.

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Speaker 2: You're a warm fire or scotch that too. If you're

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Speaker 2: a night watchman, sure that there are. You're surrounded by

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Speaker 2: people you care about who care about you. Yeah, or

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Speaker 2: at the very least, you're having a good time with us.

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Speaker 4: Regardless of how you choose to celebrate this time of

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Speaker 4: the year. We're going with Christmas because that's what we do.

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Speaker 2: That's a great point, Chuck.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, But we respect all religions and stuff like that, right.

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Speaker 2: We wish glad tidings to all. So let's get it started,

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Speaker 2: shall we. Yes, let's.

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Speaker 3: So Josh to kick this extravaganza off, this cheer fest as.

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Speaker 2: You call it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about Christmas caroling.

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Speaker 2: You ever do that I have as a child, that

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Speaker 2: going door to door singing like Christmas songs, Narco ballads, whatever.

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Speaker 2: As long as you're doing a door to door and

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Speaker 2: it's winter, you're in the clear as a carol. I

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Speaker 2: don't know about that, but you know, originally they started

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Speaker 2: out as very secular. They weren't religious necessarily.

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Speaker 4: Well, that's true, and in fact, the word carol itself

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Speaker 4: lies not in song, as Sam Abramson, our old little

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Speaker 4: buddy has to say, but in dance. An old French

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Speaker 4: Carol with an e at the end means a kind

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Speaker 4: of dance. In Latin carola means a dance to a flute,

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Speaker 4: and in Greek caroleas means a.

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Speaker 3: Flute player who accompanies the coral dance.

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Speaker 4: So it was all about dance early on, and some

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Speaker 4: were religious early on, but generally there were secular dance

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Speaker 4: tunes American.

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Speaker 2: Bandstand, the Eleven Lords of Leaping, you could consider them caroling,

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Speaker 2: especially if there was a flute that they were leaping

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Speaker 2: to good point. So, like a lot of Christmas traditions,

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Speaker 2: which if you go back and listen to last year's

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Speaker 2: How Christmas Worked, I think it was in past tense

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Speaker 2: for some reason. Really episode yeah.

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Speaker 3: Because we killed Christmas.

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Speaker 2: I guess. Yeah, Silent night, deadly night happened. And you'll

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Speaker 2: find that there is a lot of I guess stealing

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Speaker 2: going on through Christmas traditions from pagan holidays, specifically Northern

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Speaker 2: European pagan holidays, specifically the winter solstice festival of Yule,

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Speaker 2: which is where we get Yule tie, Yule log, all

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Speaker 2: that stuff, all the mules. But they think that caroling

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Speaker 2: originally has its roots in the Yule festival, where a

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Speaker 2: lot of Northern Europeans got together and said, let's sing,

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Speaker 2: let's dance. Maybe there's a flute, maybe there's not, but

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Speaker 2: there's probably wassale. Yes.

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Speaker 4: Wassale is a thick, hot, spicy beverage that they would

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Speaker 4: give travelers, you know, to keep them warm and to

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Speaker 4: wish them well. And it became a holiday staple obviously

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Speaker 4: because of the weather.

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Speaker 2: Have you ever had it? Now? Have you no? But

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Speaker 2: I want to. Typically it's like cider, brandy, yeah, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, oranges, apple, sure, honey,

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Speaker 2: sugar yum, and hot orange. Just take a take a crockpot,

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Speaker 2: an ancient pagan crock pot if you can. That's customarily

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Speaker 2: how it's how it's heated well.

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Speaker 4: And from that word, uh, jolly, bands of churchgoers would

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Speaker 4: go door to door and it's.

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Speaker 3: An old Norse term. They would call it watling or

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Speaker 3: was sailing?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Is it what's sailing?

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Speaker 2: I think so?

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Speaker 4: And they would spread the joy through hymns Christmas hymns, right,

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Speaker 4: and that was although see I thought that would have

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Speaker 4: been the origin of caroling, but Sam says here, we

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Speaker 4: don't really know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Sam kind of bounces all over the place in

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Speaker 2: this mini article. But it's Sam. I wonder if he listens,

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Speaker 2: you know, if you if you're listening, Sam, we miss you, buddy,

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Speaker 2: glad tidings to you.

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Speaker 3: Sam used to work here, by the way, If you

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Speaker 3: haven't picked up on that.

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Speaker 2: So chuck it. It's possible. There's well, there's different aspects

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Speaker 2: to it. So you have the carrols, right, Yes, a

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Speaker 2: lot of carrols like oh come all, ye faithful guy,

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Speaker 2: rest ye married gentlemen. I saw three ships of sailing,

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Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. Silent night, silent I. They're very

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Speaker 2: very religious, very very Christian. They are talking about the Nativity, right,

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Speaker 2: the birth of Christ exactly. Like I said, carols were

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Speaker 2: originally secular, although I'm not exactly sure what they were

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Speaker 2: singing about necessarily, right, maybe like it's cold, it's really cold.

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Speaker 2: Come we have some wacle right, and that was a carol, sure,

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Speaker 2: But in about the fourth or fifth century AD, carols

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Speaker 2: were written in Latin. They were very solemn, serious, not

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Speaker 2: necessarily associated with Christmas. It wasn't until the thirteenth century

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Speaker 2: when Saint Francis of ASSISI said, you know what I

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Speaker 2: need to jazz up my congregation. I'm going to make

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Speaker 2: some upbeat, up tempo carols. They're going to be about

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Speaker 2: the Nativity, but they're going to be happy, and I'm

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Speaker 2: going to make everybody sing them on Christmas. And that

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Speaker 2: was the birth of the Christmas carol.

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Speaker 4: As we know it exactly. And they were very energetic,

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Speaker 4: as you said, and that spread through across Europe, and

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Speaker 4: of course anything that spread across Europe was eventually going

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Speaker 4: to root down here in the New World. That's right,

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Speaker 4: the United States. And eventually little Chuck's gonna find himself

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Speaker 4: as a fifteen year old going door to door in

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Speaker 4: Snow Mountain.

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Speaker 3: With his youth group.

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Speaker 2: That is nice, Chuck, It was nice. I'll say, you're

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Speaker 2: such a supportive like fellow youth group member. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: you really nailed that, Carol. I've been paying attention to

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Speaker 2: you at practice and you really nailed it. Oh I

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Speaker 2: didn't ever do it though, that's the key. Well, that's

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Speaker 2: not overdoing it. You mean it.

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Speaker 3: These days, a lot of groups do this for for charity.

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Speaker 4: Like I said, churches, and I didn't get for charity

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Speaker 4: though they hit people up for money or something.

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Speaker 2: I think that people sometimes give him tips in lieu

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Speaker 2: of wasasle because it's kind of hard to come by

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Speaker 2: sometimes in the average house in Michigan. Sure, they don't

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Speaker 2: necessarily have wacle there, so sometimes people give people money.

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Speaker 2: There's like an exchange of something. It's almost like a

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Speaker 2: Halloween Well, you're actually giving somebody something in the form

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Speaker 2: of like well wishes or glad.

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Speaker 4: Tidings exactly, but you're earning your keep. As Sam pointed out,

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Speaker 4: this could have come from the feudal tradition of singing

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Speaker 4: for your supper. Another idea of possibly where Carolyn.

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Speaker 2: Began, or going door to door, especially singing for your supper. Right, sure,

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Speaker 2: because it's not just the caroling. There's a thing of

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Speaker 2: going door to door. Why are people going door to door?

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Speaker 2: Why don't they just stand in a central location make

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Speaker 2: everybody come to them. Yeah, you can, but you're not

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Speaker 2: really doing the whole thing.

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Speaker 4: There's another legend, Sam says, probably isn't true. There's no

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Speaker 4: basis for it, but there was a young girl named

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Speaker 4: Carol Poles, and she was a little English girl who

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Speaker 4: went missing very sadly in London during the holiday season

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Speaker 4: the nineteenth century. They went door to door looking for her,

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Speaker 4: singing to declare their good intentions, like, hey, don't shoot

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Speaker 4: us in the face, We're really just looking for little Carol.

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Speaker 4: But Sam goes on to say that there's really no

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Speaker 4: basis in fact for this. It might just be legend.

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Speaker 2: So you want to talk about a few Carols, A

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Speaker 2: couple of twelve days of Christmas? I mentioned eleven Lord's

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Speaker 2: a leaping. A lot of people say that this is

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Speaker 2: a means of secretly teaching children the Catholic symbols and

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Speaker 2: values and beliefs from a time when you couldn't practice it,

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Speaker 2: and that's bunk.

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Speaker 4: Well, or teaching them memory at least, and how to

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Speaker 4: recall things. Well, that's true, that's true, But the Catholic

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Speaker 4: parts fault.

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Speaker 2: Right, right, And twelve Days of Christmas came about around

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Speaker 2: eighteenth century in England, so it makes it something of

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Speaker 2: an old one, but definitely not the oldest. What about Tenembaum,

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Speaker 2: that's one of my favors.

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Speaker 3: That's a classic.

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Speaker 2: Aka Christmas Tree.

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Speaker 4: That's right, that is a German in origin, and we're

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Speaker 4: going to pick up on that in a later story.

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Speaker 2: By the way, the exact roots.

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Speaker 4: Are not known, but the melody might be familiar to

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Speaker 4: you if you live in Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, or New Jersey,

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Speaker 4: because your state anthem is sung to the tune of

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Speaker 4: Christmas Tree.

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Speaker 2: Who knew, Chuck, Let's get to the bottom of probably

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Speaker 2: one of the great mysteries. I know what you're gonna Christmas? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: what is figgy pudding?

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Speaker 4: If you're in England, you're gonna say, of course we

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Speaker 4: know what piggy pudding is, right, but it's it's British

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Speaker 4: in origin.

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Speaker 2: If you're in America and you're familiar with the carol

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Speaker 2: we wish you had married Christmas and the line we

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Speaker 2: won't go until we get some, We won't go until

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Speaker 2: we get some. Now bring it right here. I think

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Speaker 2: that are e figgy pudding.

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Speaker 4: Comes after bring us some figgy pudding? I believe is

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Speaker 4: the more on the nose line. Okay, which precedes it?

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Speaker 2: Right? Sure, I said, are e figgy pudding? Oh okay, yeah,

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Speaker 2: sorry about that.

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Speaker 3: It is British. It's a dessert.

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Speaker 4: It is uh sort of like carrot cake meets custard,

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Speaker 4: but it's got chopped figs in it and spices and things.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. Does it sound good to you? Yes?

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Speaker 2: Oh really, yes. I love carrot cake, but I love custard.

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Speaker 3: I'm not a big custard guy.

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Speaker 2: I would definitely try it, all right.

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Speaker 4: They said it's unique in the texture and taste, and

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Speaker 4: I'm not gonna that.

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Speaker 2: So while you're sitting there by the fire, maybe now

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Speaker 2: that we've kind of given you roughly the recipes for

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Speaker 2: wassle and figgy pudding, you go make this. We'll be

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Speaker 2: right here.

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Speaker 3: Someone should send us figgy pudding.

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Speaker 2: They should, all the way from England. Chuck, Josh, I'm

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Speaker 2: sure you, being a sentient person, have noticed that there

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Speaker 2: are there's a plant, a Christmas plant, as it were,

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Speaker 2: like probably the official flora mascout of Christmas, the cactus.

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Speaker 2: Uh no, no, the points said to you, Yes, the

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Speaker 2: very brilliantly colored red leafed plant that you see everywhere

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Speaker 2: this time of year.

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Speaker 3: Did you say red leaf?

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 4: Well that's good that you said that, Josh, because a

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Speaker 4: lot of people, because the leaves are so gorgeous and

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Speaker 4: red and shaped like stars, think that that is the

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Speaker 4: flower and the flowers, in fact, the little yellow thing

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Speaker 4: in the center.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the flowers like oh orh somebody would pay

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Speaker 2: attention to me. I know, but I'm small and yellow.

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Speaker 2: So what this is? You agree then that probably the

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Speaker 2: official plant of Christmas besides missiletoe. And really that's just

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Speaker 2: a cutting the official plant with a root ball of Christmas.

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Speaker 4: To the tune of about two hundred million dollars in

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Speaker 4: sales every holiday.

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Speaker 2: But the crazy thing is as much as it's associated

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Speaker 2: with Christmas and snow and sleigh rides and things like that. Sure,

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Speaker 2: the point Setti is native to Mexico. I had no idea,

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Speaker 2: did neither. No. It grows to heights of about twelve feet.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a shrub, a tropical shrub.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, in southern Mexico. And actually it turns out that

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Speaker 2: it's a Christmas It's associated with Christmas thanks to America's

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Speaker 2: first diplomat to Mexico, a guy named doctor Joe Roberts.

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Speaker 2: Point set were they named after? Okay?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he in the nineteenth century.

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Speaker 4: He went down to Mexico eighteen twenty eight, discovered the

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Speaker 4: point Setia and thought, hey, this is really really pretty.

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Speaker 4: I bet this would look great on my mantle in

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Speaker 4: my heart in December.

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Speaker 2: In South Carolina? Is that where it was?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, South Carolina, And so he brought it back and

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Speaker 4: it wasn't initially, it didn't catch on like wildfire initially,

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Speaker 4: but over the years throughout the twentieth century, it became

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Speaker 4: the mainstay of Christmas.

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Speaker 2: It also suffered some indignity in what it was called

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Speaker 2: before it finally landed on point Setia, like, oh really,

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Speaker 2: the lobster flower or the Mexican flame leaf, like lobster flower.

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Speaker 2: And then well, actually down in Mexico they considered it

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Speaker 2: a holy plan as well. It's called the florist de

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Speaker 2: Nocee Buayna in Mexico. That's Spanish for Flowers of the

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Speaker 2: Holy Night. Yeah, And that's based on a Christmas story

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Speaker 2: that's told down Mexico way about a little girl who

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Speaker 2: is very, very poor and who was there at the

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Speaker 2: birth of Jesus and all she had was weeds to

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Speaker 2: bring him. As she showed up, the weeds bloomed into

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Speaker 2: the beautiful point Setia plant.

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Speaker 3: Hey, that sounds like a good story.

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Speaker 2: It's a great story.

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Speaker 3: I don't buy it.

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Speaker 2: It's better than the lobster flower. Story because in that

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Speaker 2: version it turns into an angry lobster.

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Speaker 4: So that is generally where people think that they got

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Speaker 4: the Christmas tie right.

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Speaker 2: Well, that and the fact that they bloom in December.

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Speaker 4: Right, And another interpretation is that it's a symbol of

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Speaker 4: the Star of Bethlehem because the leaf looks like a

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Speaker 4: star in a way.

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Speaker 2: And then the real interpretation is that they bloom in

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Speaker 2: December exactly right. So is that it Well, no, there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of scorn heaped on points

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Speaker 2: set he is that they are in fact poisonous. It

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Speaker 2: turns out that they will give you diarrhea if you

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Speaker 2: eat leaves which are called bracts the upper portion of

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Speaker 2: the which why would you do that because you're a

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Speaker 2: little kid and it's red. Okay, you will get a

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Speaker 2: little case of diarrhea, you're telling me, will hurt, but

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Speaker 2: you won't. It's not fatal. Apparently scientists somehow figured out

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Speaker 2: that a little kid would have to eat about five

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Speaker 2: hundred point seati of bracts for it to become a

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Speaker 2: toxic dose. So you want to keep them away from

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Speaker 2: the points that he is anyway, just so they don't

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Speaker 2: have diarrhea. This Christmas. But you don't have to worry

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Speaker 2: about them dying at least.

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Speaker 4: And as my wife pointed out, oh, but they're toxic

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Speaker 4: to cats.

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Speaker 3: I look that up. They are somewhat toxic to cats,

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Speaker 3: but I don't know if they're deadly.

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Speaker 4: And the website I found said cats aren't gonna really

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Speaker 4: like the taste that much anyway, so you really don't

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Speaker 4: need to sweat it. But if your leaves drop off

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Speaker 4: on the floor and you got cats, you might as

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Speaker 4: well pick it up and put it in the trash

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Speaker 4: because you don't want to make kiddy sick.

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Speaker 2: It's true.

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Speaker 4: Ever, Laurn and the Wizard are point Setia free.

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Speaker 3: Although my house is riddled with them.

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Speaker 2: With Lauran and the Wizard, no with point Setius. Well, Chuck,

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Speaker 2: we missed it this year, but next year, well now know. Also,

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Speaker 2: December twelfth is National point Setia Day in the United States,

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Speaker 2: aka go.

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Speaker 4: Out and buy some point Settias. Yes, so that's point

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Speaker 4: Setia it is.

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Speaker 2: And I want to take this opportunity to wish merry

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Speaker 2: Christmas to the Wizard and Lauren. Thank you. They have

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Speaker 2: their stockings.

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Speaker 4: What I'm hoping is that because of this podcast, there

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Speaker 4: will be tens of thousands of people all over the

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Speaker 4: country saying, Hey, did you know the point Setti is

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Speaker 4: actually from Mexico?

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Speaker 3: I hope that happens around dinner tables all over the world.

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Speaker 2: Chuck, it's time for probably my favorite Christmas story.

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Speaker 3: My favorite, You like this one? My new favorite?

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Speaker 2: You weren't You weren't familiar with this until recently.

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Speaker 4: Well I sort of was. Here's the deal. I saw

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Speaker 4: the movie at midnight. Clear Have you ever seen that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I know, yes, I have been not for years.

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00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:19,159
Speaker 2: I forgot about that.

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Speaker 4: Really good movie and uh, not so much based on

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Speaker 4: but inspired by this story.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was always one of my favorite movies.

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Speaker 4: But there was actually another movie that hits this one

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Speaker 4: on the head from five years.

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Speaker 2: Ago, cannon Ball Run. What it's called.

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Speaker 3: It's a foreign film called joyex Noel, which means Merry

375
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Speaker 3: Christmas Noel. Yes, and it tells this story straight.

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Speaker 2: Up, does it? So? The story that you're talking about,

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Speaker 2: I want to explain to you is called The Christmas Truth.

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Speaker 2: It is so great and it is a true story,

379
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Speaker 2: as you're saying, and it took place in World War one.

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Speaker 2: World War one, Chuck, humans have gotten pretty good at

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Speaker 2: war by the time World War World War one came around.

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Speaker 4: World War One, the more I hear about it, it

383
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Speaker 4: sounds like perhaps the most brutal of the world wars.

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Speaker 2: It gave us our first understanding of PTSD, which we

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Speaker 2: used to call shell shock. Yeah, it gave us mustard

386
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Speaker 2: gas posgen gas, chlorine gas. Chemical warfare is another way

387
00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:21,879
Speaker 2: to put it. Powers, yeap tanks, machine guns that could

388
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Speaker 2: spit out six hundred bullets a.

389
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Speaker 4: Minute, airplanes in combat, mass bombing, dropping bombs on civilians.

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Speaker 2: And most pertinent to this story, trenches. Trench warfare. Yeah,

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00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:38,800
Speaker 2: this is nutty. The trenches made their debut along the

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Speaker 2: Western Front in Europe apparently too great success. Too great

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Speaker 2: of a success. For example, the Battle of Verdun lasted

394
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Speaker 2: nine months, there were three hundred thousand deaths and almost

395
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Speaker 2: no changes in the positions between the two trenches.

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Speaker 4: I mean, war was so enthrallingly basic back then. It

397
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Speaker 4: was literally just like gaining ground foot by foot.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, but this was the first step toward modern warfare.

399
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:15,000
Speaker 2: It was that. Yeah, but it was the first step

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Speaker 2: toward modern warfare where you could kill a bunch of

401
00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:18,640
Speaker 2: people at once, and a lot of people did die

402
00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:21,280
Speaker 2: from World War One. Eight point five million people died

403
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Speaker 2: from the war, including civilians as well.

404
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:27,960
Speaker 4: Well, you make a really startling point in here, and

405
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Speaker 4: this is your article, right, Yes, with the trenches. Sometimes

406
00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:35,080
Speaker 4: these things were as little as thirty yards apart from

407
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Speaker 4: each other. And out of all the hundreds of miles

408
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:42,760
Speaker 4: of these trenches, there was an average of four soldiers

409
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Speaker 4: or no, a soldier every four inches.

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Speaker 2: That's the average, that's what I read. Wow, isn't that astounding? Boy?

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Speaker 4: That is some close quarters. It is exped well, and

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Speaker 4: it's not just close quarters. Boy that it's inconvenient close

413
00:21:53,720 --> 00:21:55,600
Speaker 4: quarters to be scared out of.

414
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:58,200
Speaker 3: Your mind, yeah, or wounded and dying.

415
00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:01,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy to see somebody next to you. It was horrific.

416
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Speaker 2: And one of the one of the things that naturally

417
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Speaker 2: comes about when you dig two trenches and are fighting

418
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:10,800
Speaker 2: one another is a space in between with a lot

419
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Speaker 2: of dead guys. And that's yes, that's called no man's land. Yeah,

420
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Speaker 2: the space between two trenches called no man's land.

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Speaker 3: Is that where that term originated?

422
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:23,199
Speaker 2: Really? Yes? So cool? And so World War One was

423
00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:27,000
Speaker 2: already in full swing by the time Pope Benedict the

424
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Speaker 2: fifteenth was elected. Pope and one of the first things

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Speaker 2: he did was say, hey, hey, hey, let's have a

426
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 2: truthless Christmas Day. Yeah, good idea. Apparently the Germans said, okay,

427
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 2: all right, we'll think about it, and the Allies said,

428
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Speaker 2: no way, We're not going to give up any fortification

429
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Speaker 2: or even a single antwer. We just got to keep going.

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Speaker 4: Right, I get the idea. That word got around though

431
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Speaker 4: at least.

432
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:51,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had called for it, sure right, and that

433
00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 2: it was turned down. And for the most part, for

434
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 2: almost everywhere in the world, there wasn't a truce on

435
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Speaker 2: Christmas Day, sept for one little part of the trenches

436
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 2: in Flanders, Belgium. Chuck, this is such a great story.

437
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:09,679
Speaker 4: If you've seen the movie, you know that what the

438
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 4: Germans did well. First of all, they all got gifts

439
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:17,080
Speaker 4: brought to the front line soldiers did tobacco puddings, maybe

440
00:23:17,119 --> 00:23:20,840
Speaker 4: figgy pudding at times, chocolates, just.

441
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 3: Little tokens of appreciation.

442
00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:24,400
Speaker 4: That the Germans got their little tannem bombs with these

443
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:28,280
Speaker 4: little small Christmas trees. And in the middle of the night,

444
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:30,159
Speaker 4: these Germans.

445
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 3: Put up their little.

446
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:33,040
Speaker 2: Trees on Christmas Eve.

447
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:37,119
Speaker 4: On Christmas Eve lit their little candles and the dudes

448
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:38,399
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was thirty yards, but the

449
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 4: dudes acrossing the other trench the Allies were like, well, hey,

450
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:42,800
Speaker 4: that looks kind of nice. And then all of a

451
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 4: sudden they saw these signs from the Germans said you know, fight,

452
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 4: we know fight.

453
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 2: That's adorable, and the British held up signs that said

454
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas.

455
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 3: He said, what the heck are you talking about?

456
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 2: But I think what originally got them was the Germans,

457
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 2: with their little Christmas trees on the tops of their

458
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:02,719
Speaker 2: trenches everyone could see, started singing carols, and carols are

459
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 2: kind of universal. They're pretty old, sure, and I imagine

460
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:08,480
Speaker 2: they were probably singing oh ten and bomb, which sounds

461
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 2: to the English like oh Christmas tree, and the British

462
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:16,440
Speaker 2: soldiers started singing back to them football fight songs. Yeah.

463
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:20,000
Speaker 4: The Germans then sang steel a nacht yea, and they're like,

464
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,120
Speaker 4: you're not picking up on what we're trying to do here, guys.

465
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 2: Put the whiskey down.

466
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,719
Speaker 4: But what ended up happening was little by little, they

467
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 4: started poking their heads up, saying, yeah, you're not gonna

468
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 4: shoot me, are you.

469
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 2: They're like, uh no, I'm not gonna shoot you.

470
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 3: If you don't shoot me. And then they met up

471
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 3: in no Man's land and partied down.

472
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 2: Yep, they had Christmas celebration and No Man's Land in

473
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 2: the trench was like Christmas nineteen fourteen.

474
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 4: They shared tobacco, yeah, I imagine they shared their puddings.

475
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, they exchanged them as gifts pretty much. The soccer

476
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:53,239
Speaker 2: match broke out, yeah, and the Germans won three to two.

477
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:55,399
Speaker 3: I bet as cheery as it was.

478
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 4: Anytime England and Germany gets together to play football, it's

479
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 4: not a very pleasant, So I bet you there was

480
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 4: some elbows being thrown, maybe a.

481
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 2: Little bit, although I'll bet it was kind of like hey, sorry.

482
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:07,080
Speaker 3: Sorry, but they still wanted to win.

483
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:10,639
Speaker 2: Yeah. There was a juggler at one point along the

484
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 2: front and he put on a nice little show German guy, right. Yeah.

485
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:18,439
Speaker 2: And for in a lot of circumstances, there were places

486
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:23,959
Speaker 2: where fighting did continue, and in some circumstances, commanding officers

487
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:29,439
Speaker 2: like established a formal impromptu truce with the opposing commanding officer.

488
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 2: In some places, commanding officers said you need to keep fighting,

489
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 2: and soldiers from both sides just defied their orders and stopped.

490
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,679
Speaker 2: I love that. And then in some commanding officers just

491
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 2: kind of looked the other way or didn't do anything

492
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 2: about it. But soldiers were there in the middle of

493
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 2: no man's land, who they've just been shooting at just

494
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 2: hours before, were now playing soccer with and making jokes

495
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:52,360
Speaker 2: and smoking with and hanging out.

496
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 3: That's pretty awesome.

497
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:55,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you think, I mean, I don't know, it's

498
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:57,919
Speaker 4: crazy for our generation to think about these world wars

499
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 4: in Europe because if you ever traveled around Europe just

500
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 4: to imagine these what would be equivalent of our states

501
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:08,159
Speaker 4: just going at it when in fact Europe is you know,

502
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:11,919
Speaker 4: it's its own, small, smallish place. They're right there across

503
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 4: the border and they're like, you know, hey, dudes, we're

504
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 4: not so far apart.

505
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 2: It could be like Tennessee fighting Kansas.

506
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great.

507
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 2: Or Georgia. No, I'm just saying, like Tennessee and Kansas

508
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 2: can fight too.

509
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:24,680
Speaker 3: Well.

510
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 2: Sure, I was trying to keep us out of it, Okay,

511
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 2: more Switzerland.

512
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 4: I just thought you were giving a Kansas shout out.

513
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 2: No, okay, no, but I should huh yeah, sure, Merry Christmas, Kansas.

514
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 4: So the sad part about this is that, of course

515
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 4: there was a war to be fought. At the end

516
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,479
Speaker 4: of this truce in nineteen fourteen, they had to go

517
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 4: back to fighting and killing each other.

518
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, the same dudes.

519
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 3: They were just playing soccer within hugging and drinking.

520
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:53,439
Speaker 2: Yeah. And sometimes the shots picked up, you know, on

521
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 2: Christmas or the day after Christmas. But in some places,

522
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 2: some of this this troops went on beyond New Year

523
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 2: to the New Year. That's awesome, It is very awesome,

524
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 2: But it's crazy, Chuck, if you ask me, is not

525
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 2: that the Christmas Truth happened on that Christmas in nineteen

526
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:14,360
Speaker 2: fourteen in the trenches Long Flanders, Belgium, but that they

527
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:16,880
Speaker 2: ever went back to fighting again? Agreed?

528
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 3: And that is a story of the nineteen fourteen Christmas Truth.

529
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 4: Is enough, hiding enough?

530
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 5: You're going from Napy' clocket.

531
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 2: It is.

532
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 5: Oh so josh, that is uh?

533
00:27:57,680 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 3: Part three? Was that Part four?

534
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 2: In the fog of the Christmas spirit? Chuck, I can't

535
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 2: even count. I'm so giddy.

536
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 4: Let's move on to one of my favorite parts about Christmas.

537
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 4: It's not the big gifts, but the stocking stuffers.

538
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 3: Right, one of my favorite parts.

539
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 4: Growing up was getting up on Christmas morning, going downstairs

540
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:21,159
Speaker 4: Scott Michelle Chuck each had her own individual stockings. They

541
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 4: were not like they weren't even the same. They were

542
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 4: styled differently. Oh okay, yeah, and seeing what was in there,

543
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 4: and because it was my family, it was the occasional

544
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 4: small action figure or babble, but generally it was things

545
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 4: like toothbrushes and the deodorant in stocks and these like

546
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 4: necessities of life that my family should have been providing

547
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 4: me with anyway. Sure, but they were stuffed in the

548
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 4: stocking and I always get a good crack up about

549
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 4: that thinking about that.

550
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's the odorant. My family had matching stockings.

551
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 2: They were all macro made by a family friend. Oh sure,

552
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 2: but yeah there would be stuff in They're like little

553
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 2: thing like chapstick or something like that. An action figure

554
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 2: was great stocking stuffer. But we always got an apple

555
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 2: and an orange.

556
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, we got candy and stuff.

557
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 2: We get candy as well, And I'd be like, why

558
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 2: is there an apple and an orange in here? Who

559
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 2: wants this apple and orange? This is not candy? So

560
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 2: I would give mine away, right, And I'm probably less

561
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 2: healthy today because it didn't eat that apple and that

562
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 2: orange on Christmas more, but you're eating them now I am.

563
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 4: My faves were the little hollowed out plastic candy canes

564
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 4: with the little tiny eminem like things inside.

565
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but they weren't m and ms. They had

566
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 3: a very distinct flavor.

567
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 2: Which was not eminem flavor exactly. But Chuck, I remember

568
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 2: being a young lad and getting my stocking down and

569
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 2: being so excited and then just stopping and being like,

570
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 2: this is insane. Where did this start?

571
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 3: You remember thinking that?

572
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 2: And now I know, Now I understand why where the

573
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 2: idea of stockings came from.

574
00:29:55,680 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 4: Well we have the answer, Josh. Saint Nicholas. Originally St.

575
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 4: Nicholas goes back to the third century.

576
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 2: You remember we talked about him and the how Christmas worked.

577
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 3: Yes, so a brief recap.

578
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 4: The ancient town of Myra and what is now Turkey

579
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 4: is had a shrine dedicated to Bishop Nicholas. Over the centuries,

580
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 4: tale sprung up about how generous Bishop Nicholas was, and

581
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 4: this is where we first got the idea of Saint

582
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 4: Nick being a gift giver. So that's where it starts.

583
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 4: The actual stocking part of this whole story is Nicholas

584
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 4: would go by the homes of these ladies that were

585
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 4: too poor to have a dowry, which is the dough

586
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 4: that your family has to give to your husband goat which.

587
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 2: I got no dowry. Are you going to get a dowry? No, no,

588
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 2: I don't believe so. My dowry's in happiness exactly.

589
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:47,959
Speaker 3: That's what Emily always tells me.

590
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 4: And then the bishop would throw these gold coins down

591
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 4: to these poor maidens down the chimneys, and they would

592
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 4: fall into the stockings which were already hanging there to

593
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 4: dry out of fire, and boom, there's your little of trivia.

594
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 2: And I went back and looked, and I was like,

595
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 2: were there stockings in third century Turkey? There may have been, sure,

596
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 2: if you consider sock stockings, but they would have been

597
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 2: a new invention, because socks were invented by the Romans

598
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 2: in about the third century.

599
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 3: And stockings they didn't proceed that at all.

600
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 2: Of it was an offshoot of socks.

601
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 4: In my opinion, I would have thought socks would have

602
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 4: been an offshoot of stockings, but I don't think.

603
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 2: The other closer to home temporally idea is that we

604
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 2: put stockings out because we're mimicking little Dutch children who

605
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 2: for their center claws, who rides a horse. They tend

606
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 2: to leave in their little wooden shoes. Hey for the horse,

607
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 2: for center clauses horse.

608
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 3: Is that why we leave out cookies and stuff for Santa?

609
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 2: Yes, for the reindeer. We left beer. We left old

610
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 2: Milwaukee and Christmas cookies and a carrot.

611
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 4: And your family did yeah really, ye see, beer wasn't

612
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 4: allowed on our households.

613
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 2: We left milk and cookies. My father strongly encouraged us

614
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 2: to leave beer for Santa. I wonder why an old

615
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 2: Milwaukee tall boy. But so Dutch children would leave their

616
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 2: little wooden shoes out with hay, and then Santa would

617
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 2: take the hay and feed it to his horse, and

618
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 2: in exchange leave presence in the little wooden shoes. And

619
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 2: they think that it started in America in the early

620
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 2: nineteenth century and it was from emulating this Dutch custom.

621
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 2: Pretty cool. That's where we get stockings.

622
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 4: So let's just roll this one right in. I consider

623
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 4: this next one almost a companion piece.

624
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 2: Oh you do, because we're.

625
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 3: Talking about Christmas Day.

626
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 4: So we're going to talk about an odd thing that

627
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 4: happened in Atlanta last year. We actually had our first

628
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 4: white Christmas in a long long time.

629
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 2: We did didn't we It was very very cool. It

630
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 2: was very sweet. Well, Chuck, white Christmas. You know, I'm

631
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 2: dreaming of a white Christmas. It's a song that was

632
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 2: written by Irving Berlin in January of nineteen forty. Yeah,

633
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 2: so he's obviously still in the Christmas It's in the

634
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 2: Guinness Book of World Records for selling one hundred million copies,

635
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 2: which is a lot of copies. Wow. Remember I was

636
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 2: telling you that I think Being Crosby may have the

637
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 2: best Christmas album ever.

638
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great version.

639
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 2: Yes, this popularized it. He's the one who really kind

640
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 2: of got it on everybody's radar. But the carpenters you mentioned,

641
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 2: Willie Nelson, God, what a great Christmas ell I Fitzgerald,

642
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 2: Louis Armstrong, pretty much everybody's done white Christmas. He did it. Yeah.

643
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 2: And Noah, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.

644
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 3: What what's that got to do with Christmas?

645
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 2: They got in on the white Christmas thing. If you

646
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 2: search white Christmas and Noah, you're going to come up

647
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 2: with a pretty cool map that shows your chances of

648
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 2: having a white Christmas based on weather data from nineteen

649
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 2: sixty one to nineteen ninety.

650
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 3: I think so it's just a historical record, that's all

651
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 3: it is.

652
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 2: It's a prediction based on that. Yes, so like here

653
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 2: in Atlanta we have a less than five percent chance.

654
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, shows how lucky we were.

655
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 2: But if you live in Calumet, Mishiga on the Upper Peninsula,

656
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 2: and that's I think the upper Upper Peninsula, right, you

657
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 2: have a greater than ninety percent chance of having a

658
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 2: white Christmas. Ohio.

659
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 4: This is where I go every year to Akron. Obviously

660
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 4: there's always snow on the ground. Whether or not it

661
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 4: snows or not is kind of hit or miss.

662
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,800
Speaker 2: I remember those though as a kid growing up in

663
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 2: Toledo pretty great. But white Christmas was it didn't matter

664
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:22,360
Speaker 2: how much snow is on the ground. If it was

665
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 2: snowing on Christmas, it was insanely comfy. You know where

666
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 2: it stinks La like one percent. I think I.

667
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 4: Didn't even look, but I lived there for you know,

668
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 4: five years, and it's you know, they do their best.

669
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 4: In fact, LA kind of goes overboard with the decor

670
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 4: from what I remember. Yeah, I think because it's you know,

671
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 4: sunny and has palm trees and stuff like that. But

672
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 4: it's really really tough to get it going out there

673
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:49,439
Speaker 4: in a Christmas sense.

674
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:49,840
Speaker 2: Yeah.

675
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:51,439
Speaker 3: I always told it when I came home.

676
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:56,280
Speaker 2: It's like that in Apache Junction or something too Chuck.

677
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 2: In London they take bets on whether it'll be a

678
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 2: white Ristmiths and I looked it up. Sky Bet is

679
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:04,800
Speaker 2: giving odds and the odds are eleven to two for

680
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:07,840
Speaker 2: white Christmas for London this year. I bet London is

681
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 2: lovely in the snow. Yeah. And then every once in a while,

682
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 2: no matter what your bet is, no matter what Noah predicts,

683
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 2: no matter what Bing Crosby and Irvan Berlin say, there

684
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 2: is a fluke, a fluke white Christmas. And that happened

685
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 2: in two thousand and four in New Orleans. New Orleans

686
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 2: had its first white Christmas in fifty years. Though, Wow,

687
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 2: that's crazy. And then in two thousand and six, Chuck.

688
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 2: Two years later in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia,

689
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 2: there was a freak snowstorm on Christmas morning that brought

690
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 2: nearly a foot a foot of snow to some areas

691
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 2: in Australia. And the reason why this was such a

692
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 2: strange occurrence was because Christmas falls on Australia's summer. Yeah,

693
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:50,320
Speaker 2: because they're in the Southern hemisphere. Sure, so that really

694
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 2: was a weird white cross. That is weird. Yeah.

695
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 3: I bet they were partying it up that day.

696
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 2: I'll bet they were too, you know the assis. So

697
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 2: that's the that's white Christmas. You can go to search

698
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 2: noah n O A A and white Christmas slash stockings.

699
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:07,279
Speaker 2: Well that's works one.

700
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:09,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay, No, I mean that arch story was.

701
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 2: Like, don't forget to put the slash stockings dot HDM

702
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 2: for your Search.

703
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 5: Of Love on.

704
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,439
Speaker 2: Chuck Josh. I believe that everybody has been good enough

705
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 2: listening to this oh yeah episode that they should get

706
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:56,360
Speaker 2: a story of some sort.

707
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 3: On Donner on Dancer.

708
00:36:57,680 --> 00:37:01,399
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, But what we're going to read here

709
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 2: is called twas the Night Before Christmas, alternately titled A

710
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 2: Visit from Saint Nicholas, and it was written by a

711
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 2: guy named doctor Clement C. Moore who loved his kids

712
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 2: and loved writing poetry, and one Christmas in I believe

713
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 2: the early nineteenth century, he put the two together and

714
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,759
Speaker 2: wrote A Visit from Saint Nicholas for his kids as

715
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 2: a poem, and it caught on and was printed in

716
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 2: a newspaper first and then a magazine school readers, and

717
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 2: then it was turned into its own little story book

718
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 2: with very cute drawings. It was translated into French, German, Braille, Swahili.

719
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,959
Speaker 2: Probably it's probably the greatest known Christmas poem of all time.

720
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 2: So Chuck agreed, you're really good at this. You're very

721
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 2: good at reading stories, as everybody who's ever listened to

722
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:50,239
Speaker 2: the Halloween episode knows. I think you should start this

723
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 2: off all right.

724
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 3: So we want to encourage everyone.

725
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:56,919
Speaker 4: Turn it up, gather the children around the fire, pour

726
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 4: up a hot toddy or some wasael if you got

727
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 4: some on hand, and let us take you away to

728
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 4: a different time and place.

729
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 2: And we want to say to everybody listening, thanks for

730
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:13,439
Speaker 2: joining us. Merry Christmas, Happy holidays, clad tidings to every

731
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 2: one of you. We hope this Christmas finds you safe

732
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 2: and happy.

733
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 4: Absolutely twas the night before Christmas went all through the house,

734
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 4: not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The

735
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 4: stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes

736
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,359
Speaker 4: that Saint Nicholas soon would be there. The children were

737
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 4: nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar

738
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 4: plums danced in their heads. And Mama and her kerchief,

739
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:41,280
Speaker 4: and I, in my cap, had just settled our brains

740
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:42,439
Speaker 4: for a long winter's.

741
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 2: Nap, went out on the lawn. There arose such a clatter.

742
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 2: I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

743
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 2: Away to the window, I flew like a flash, tore

744
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 2: open the shutters, and threw up the sash. The moon

745
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 2: on the breast of the new fallen snow, gave the

746
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 2: luster of midday to objects below. When what to my

747
00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:03,319
Speaker 2: wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sleigh with eight

748
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 2: tiny reindeer.

749
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 3: With a little old driver.

750
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 4: So lively and quick I knew in a moment it

751
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:10,840
Speaker 4: must be Saint Nick, more.

752
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 3: Rapid than eagles. His coursers.

753
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 4: They came, and he whistled and shouted and called them

754
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:19,360
Speaker 4: by name. Now Dasher, now Dancer, now Prancer, now Vixen,

755
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 4: on Comet, on Cupid, on Donner, and blitzen. To the

756
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:25,240
Speaker 4: top of the porch, to the top.

757
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 2: Of the wall.

758
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 3: Now dash away, dash away, dash away, all.

759
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:32,719
Speaker 2: As dry leaves that before the while hurricane fly. When

760
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 2: they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So

761
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:38,560
Speaker 2: up to the housetop the coursers they flew with the

762
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 2: sleigh full of toys, and Saint Nicholas too. And then

763
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 2: in a twinkling I heard on the roof the prancing

764
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 2: and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in

765
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:49,839
Speaker 2: my hand and was turning around down the chimney, Saint

766
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 2: Nicholas came with a bound.

767
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 4: He was dressed all in fur from his head to

768
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 4: his foot, and his clothes were all turnished with ashes

769
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 4: and soot. A bundle of toys he had flung on

770
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:01,919
Speaker 4: his back looked like a peddlar just opening his pack.

771
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 4: His eyes, how they twinkled. His dimples, how merry. His

772
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 4: cheek were like roses, his nose like a cherry. His

773
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 4: droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and

774
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 4: the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

775
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:15,800
Speaker 2: The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

776
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 2: and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

777
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 2: He had a broad face and a little round belly

778
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:23,840
Speaker 2: that shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.

779
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 2: He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.

780
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 2: And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.

781
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 2: A wink of his eye and a twist of his

782
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 2: head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

783
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 4: He spoke not a word, but went straight to his

784
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 4: work and filled all the stockings, and turned with a jerk,

785
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 4: and laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving

786
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 4: a nod up the chimney.

787
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:44,800
Speaker 3: He rose.

788
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:48,280
Speaker 4: He sprang to his sleigh, to his team, gave a whistle,

789
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 4: and away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

790
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 4: But I heard him exclaim, Harry drove out of sight.

791
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:57,919
Speaker 4: Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

792
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

793
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click

794
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 1: on the podcast icon in the uppright corner of our homepage.

795
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 1: The house Stuffworks iPhone app has a arrived. Download it

796
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: today on iTunes. Brought to you by the reinvented twenty

797
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Speaker 1: twelve Camri. It's ready, are you