Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know from house stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Heane, welcome to the podcast. Merry Christmas, Happy holidays,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. Right, it's like, this isn't
Speaker 1: the Halloween episode. You sounds sad? Do I? Well, you
Speaker 1: sounded sad? How do I sound now? Awake? Yeah? But
Speaker 1: happy too? Yeah. Man, this is one of our two
Speaker 1: favorite shows of the year, and we are celebrating. We're
Speaker 1: drinking a little wine a little bit, how about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you never know what's going to happen in here. No, actually,
Speaker 1: you usually know what happens in here, which is no wine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and gaminess. It gets gamy in here. Although they fixed
Speaker 1: the a C, Yeah, and I fixed the a C,
Speaker 1: we realized that they turned it on for the first
Speaker 1: time in here. They're like your flaps clothes. Oh, dead raccoon,
Speaker 1: there's your problem. Yeah, it's usually a dead raccoon, that's right.
Speaker 1: You know. Uh, Well, since we said dead raccoon, they
Speaker 1: can mean nothing else than the fact that this is
Speaker 1: our two thousand fifteen holiday extravaganza. I don't remember what
Speaker 1: we called it. I think we've called it something different
Speaker 1: every year. Yeah, but I'm saying, like I don't know
Speaker 1: what we called this one yet. Yeah, yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: not bad. Yeah, but here we are in November. But
Speaker 1: we have that Christmas spirit. It's well within us. It
Speaker 1: is alive in our bones and uh, we cobbled together
Speaker 1: were it's I thought I was starting to get thin really,
Speaker 1: but um, when you start digging around you you can
Speaker 1: find plenty of good holiday content. Yeah you know. Oh,
Speaker 1: I see what you mean. As far as like finding
Speaker 1: something to fill an hour. Yeah, and um, we didn't know.
Speaker 1: We couldn't remember because we've done. This is like I
Speaker 1: think the fifth one that we've done. Okay, we couldn't
Speaker 1: remember which ones we've done. Documents helped went back and
Speaker 1: listen to all of them, and it's like, okay, we
Speaker 1: covered this, we did we cover that. There were several
Speaker 1: things that I was surprised to find that we had covered.
Speaker 1: Surprised and dismayed because we can't do them again. Nope,
Speaker 1: they're done. But um, we have put together a blog
Speaker 1: post on Stuff you should Know dot Com called the
Speaker 1: Christmas Sweet and it has all of our Christmas specials
Speaker 1: so you can go listen to them all in one place. Yes,
Speaker 1: and as we do every year, we would like to
Speaker 1: encourage you to gather the family. Sure, build a fire
Speaker 1: if you have a fireplace, not not just on your
Speaker 1: hardwood floor or not out of your hardwood floor unless
Speaker 1: you're into that. There's a free country even still think
Speaker 1: you probably don't want to do that, you know, So
Speaker 1: gather the family around a light the you'll log. Pour
Speaker 1: up some hot buttered rum or whatever you're boozy eggnog
Speaker 1: or you're non alcoholic drink of choice, sure, sparkling cider.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves that cold duck. And then listen, cold duck.
Speaker 1: Don't you remember cold duck? What's that? It's like a
Speaker 1: non alcoholic sparkling wine called cold duck. Yeah, I grew
Speaker 1: up on it. Weird. I guess it is a little
Speaker 1: weird now you think about it, Cold duck, and it
Speaker 1: just doesn't sound like something you'd want to drink. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you don't have a choice, that's what you drink.
Speaker 1: All right, support some cold duck and uh settle in
Speaker 1: and let us take you on a Christmas journey through
Speaker 1: the ages. And thanks to Jerry by the way as always,
Speaker 1: and uh our friend John begin did the jingles for
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah, so uh yeah, thanks for always gussing
Speaker 1: this thing up and putting us in the Christmas mood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: way to go to Jerry. All right, let's get do it, Chuck. Yes,
Speaker 1: you were raised in the United States of America. That
Speaker 1: is true. I was too. Did you know that? Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: Toledo is in the U S. Toledo is in the
Speaker 1: US for now. Um, And so we were kind of raised.
Speaker 1: Even though you were in the South, I was in
Speaker 1: the north, the Midwest. Our Christmas customs were fairly similar.
Speaker 1: Sure we're children in the seventies essentially, Yes, for sure.
Speaker 1: So um we were raised with macromay Christmas, oh man.
Speaker 1: So um. If you go around the world, though, Christmas
Speaker 1: is celebrated all throughout the world among Christians, non Christian,
Speaker 1: secular humanists, everybody, not everybody. A lot of people celebrate Christmas.
Speaker 1: But since it's in different parts of the world, Um,
Speaker 1: there's different traditions. I bet even Anton LaVey has given
Speaker 1: and gotten a Christmas kick. Yeah. He was like, Chris
Speaker 1: didn't mean anything. All right, it's a studied leather color.
Speaker 1: I'll take it, right, He's like, you have to open
Speaker 1: it upside down. That's right. It is celebrated all over
Speaker 1: the world. And here in segment one are a few
Speaker 1: uh customs around the world that I had never heard of,
Speaker 1: and most of them are pretty interesting. Most of them
Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know, actually they were all pretty good.
Speaker 1: I thought they were great. Yeah, agreed. All right, let's
Speaker 1: start out. Maybe let's get not in the way back
Speaker 1: machine but just our space travel pod and let's go
Speaker 1: to India. Isn't it nice? It is? It's balmy, it is,
Speaker 1: but it's lovely that people are great. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of them. And the food is amazing. I doesn't agree
Speaker 1: with much stomach, but I'll still eat it. Really, you
Speaker 1: have trouble with Indian food, I lament that for you.
Speaker 1: Indian food is it's tied for first with Japanese food.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it's good stuff. So you'll notice, chuck
Speaker 1: that there are twenty five million Christians here celebrating um
Speaker 1: Christmas in Andya. I can tell significant amount of people.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, they don't have any customary type
Speaker 1: of tree that you would decorate, so they use mango
Speaker 1: and orange trees. That's right, you know. So if you
Speaker 1: look around, you're gonna see decorated trees on the streets.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see if you go into a house, you're
Speaker 1: gonna even see the leaves of these trees used as decoration. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like Garland basically. And buy orange. I meant banana,
Speaker 1: of course. Oh did you say orange. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: my customary holiday slip up. That's right. Uh. So India
Speaker 1: is great everyone. I love the decorations they're getting in
Speaker 1: the spirit, even though they don't have the because you know,
Speaker 1: and I'll remember we covered it Christmas tree start out
Speaker 1: in Germany. Oh yeah, the ten In bomb. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: lousy with fir trees and leave in the Tenon Bomb.
Speaker 1: But h so we're gonna leave India for now and
Speaker 1: let's travel over in our space pod. Okay, one of
Speaker 1: your favorite places. Japan wonderful, but they have a very
Speaker 1: unusual to me Christmas tradition. Oh, it's unusual across the board.
Speaker 1: Eating Kentucky fried chicken. Kentucky fried chicken is the traditional
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve dinner for Japan, and it has been since
Speaker 1: about nineteen seventy four. So apparently there are some American
Speaker 1: travelers who are stranded or visiting Japan. That's the stranded.
Speaker 1: They weren't stranded, it was they were visiting Japan and
Speaker 1: around Christmas, and they went to try to find a
Speaker 1: turkey dinner. They don't turkey in Japan. You gotta be
Speaker 1: beyond rich to find turkey in Japan. Basically, so it
Speaker 1: just so happened. KFC had been there for a couple
Speaker 1: of years that had just broken through. Starting about nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy there was a big expo. Wasn't called KFC back then,
Speaker 1: it was Kentucky Fright Chicken, right right? Um, And they
Speaker 1: they these I guess, these travelers alerted KFC that they
Speaker 1: had decided to go with Kentucky Fried Chicken instead of
Speaker 1: a turkey dinner. And Colonel Sanders sounds say, it sounds
Speaker 1: like a good idea. Yeah, was that your Norm McDonald
Speaker 1: or your Daryl Hammond? Was Norm McDonald? That's not bad.
Speaker 1: Um if it was Daryl Hammond, terrible. But so Kentucky
Speaker 1: Fried Chicken decided to capitalize on this, and starting in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, they created the Kentucky for Christmas campaign
Speaker 1: and basically established a tradition among Japanese people that you
Speaker 1: go line up on Christmas Eve Day and wait in
Speaker 1: line around the block for your turn to buy your
Speaker 1: pre ordered bucket of KFC, your cake, and your bottle
Speaker 1: of champagne. Yeah, and uh, I think of champagne now,
Speaker 1: but back then it was wine. And then they got classy,
Speaker 1: that's right. And today, uh, more than two hundred forty
Speaker 1: buckets or barrels two what I say two? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: stopped at two fourth. Now that was just that the
Speaker 1: main location. Two d forty thousand barrels or buckets of
Speaker 1: chicken or sold, which is apparently five to ten times
Speaker 1: the normal monthly sales. And um, it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: And these Christmas cakes are a big deal there too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they dress Colonel Sanders up as Santa Claus out front,
Speaker 1: and it's a huge deal. It's wonderful. It is Kentucky
Speaker 1: for Christmas, Kentucky for Christmas. All right, let's get back
Speaker 1: in the spacepod. Let's jet on up to Finland. But
Speaker 1: the people are nice, and the taxes are heavy. But
Speaker 1: the health care that's so bad. Yeah, they pay like
Speaker 1: half your money in taxes. But it's the best place
Speaker 1: in the world to live. And it's one of the
Speaker 1: few places on Earth where people live that you can
Speaker 1: just see a reindeer walking around. Yeah, exactly, how's that
Speaker 1: for Christmas spirit? And also, Chuck, you have ever seen
Speaker 1: Rare Exports? No, you haven't seen Rare Exports Christmas horror movie.
Speaker 1: Oh man, go see. It's set in Finland. It's awesome. Really,
Speaker 1: it's actually a finished movie with subtitles, and it's it's
Speaker 1: a Christmas classic? Is it? What year two thousand and
Speaker 1: twelve already a classic? Yes? So in Finland. Um, despite
Speaker 1: their pinchon for enjoying the holidays, they have a little
Speaker 1: darker side, you might say, to Christmas because they visit
Speaker 1: the graves of their ancestors and uh, and they put
Speaker 1: candles on the graves. It's very nice, I guess, not
Speaker 1: exactly dark if they like dug them up and put
Speaker 1: their heads off or something after their first Christmas underground.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, yeah, it's not dark necessarily because it
Speaker 1: is a tribute to their cease loved ones. But it
Speaker 1: is unusual to me on Christmas to visit the cemetery,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. But but apparently cemeteries because when
Speaker 1: they visit, they light candles for their deceased loved ones,
Speaker 1: and even people who don't aren't near their deceased loved
Speaker 1: ones will still like light a candle. So like by
Speaker 1: the time midnight rolls around on Christmas Eve, it's also
Speaker 1: they're burning down all over the country, right exactly, apparently
Speaker 1: quite a sight to behold, it is. And not only that,
Speaker 1: but at home, uh and this is kind of sweet.
Speaker 1: They don't they sleep on the floor to to leave
Speaker 1: their beds. You know how we leave cookies out for Santa.
Speaker 1: They leave their beds open for the ghostly spirits of
Speaker 1: their ancestors to sleep and to sleep. And tonight here
Speaker 1: you take the bed, I'll take the floor. And apparently
Speaker 1: it's the same with saunas too, So most families have
Speaker 1: their own sauna in Finland sauna sauna and after sunset
Speaker 1: that becomes they leave that alone for their dead ancestors
Speaker 1: to enjoy as well. Yeah, but before sunset it's naked
Speaker 1: family party time in the sound, which is not gross
Speaker 1: or pready, it's just how it is in Finland. All right,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna saw it? And like a bathing suit,
Speaker 1: that's weird. Well that's what I do. But I'm at
Speaker 1: the y m c A. I'd get arrested, you know,
Speaker 1: you would. Venezuela. Let's hop in our little space spot
Speaker 1: and travel a little bit of Caracas, Venezuela. So we're
Speaker 1: in Caracas, and on Christmas Eve, the children do a
Speaker 1: kind of an odd thing. They tie a piece of
Speaker 1: string to their big toe and then they run the
Speaker 1: string out of their window and hang it down the
Speaker 1: side of their home. So far, so weird, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is a little strange. Then the following morning they go
Speaker 1: to early morning Mass. They they don't grown ups too,
Speaker 1: and they close off the streets until eight am so
Speaker 1: people can roller skate to maths. And if they see
Speaker 1: any of these strings still hanging, they tug on the string,
Speaker 1: which supposedly our guess logically would talk on the big
Speaker 1: toe of the child and wakes the kid up for
Speaker 1: Christmas morning. Pretty neat a passing by roller skater tugs
Speaker 1: on the string to wake you up for Christmas morning.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool tradition. And finally, yeah, we will travel
Speaker 1: from Caracas, Venezuela over to Sweden. Really we should have
Speaker 1: ordered this differently. We could have really saved some space gas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but sky miles, Oh yeah, you know, we are racking
Speaker 1: up totally. So we're in Sweden now, and this is
Speaker 1: my favorite one. I think in nine st tall goat
Speaker 1: of straw was erected in the town square of Gavel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's called the gavel Baching gavel Bachen. At the stroke
Speaker 1: of midnight that first year, Uh, some kid thought it
Speaker 1: would be funny if he burned it down. And now
Speaker 1: it's a tradition, Yeah it is. And so it's not
Speaker 1: a tradition like wicker Man where the town gathers to
Speaker 1: set the man on fire or the goat on The
Speaker 1: town does not want the goat to be set on fire. Instead, Um,
Speaker 1: the town hires security guards. Apparently one year it was
Speaker 1: particularly cold and all the guards went in to get
Speaker 1: warm at once, and when they did, vandals struck burned
Speaker 1: it down. Um. They fireproof the stuff with a subs
Speaker 1: or the goat with the with the substance that they
Speaker 1: used to fireproof airplanes. And people still manage to burn
Speaker 1: this down apparently between nineteen sixties, six and two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven, according to our friends honk yat where we
Speaker 1: got this article. By the way, Um it's been burned
Speaker 1: down twenty five times, that's what about or so not
Speaker 1: a bad rate. Not a bad burn rate if you're
Speaker 1: a vandal if you're a town elder, that's terrible rate.
Speaker 1: So uh, that's segment one and thanks to who our
Speaker 1: friends at honky Cat hon Kiyot hon Kiyot for that
Speaker 1: not honky Cat. Okay, that's Elton John's subsite. So Chuck
Speaker 1: does a nice little interlude. Um, have you ever been
Speaker 1: in New York? I knew you've been in New York.
Speaker 1: No at Christmas? Do you remember the time we were
Speaker 1: the guests of Like Discovery for a Christmas party? Yes,
Speaker 1: at the Campbell apartment at Grand Central Station. One of
Speaker 1: the great, uh corporate parties I've ever been to. There
Speaker 1: was a pit bull there, Parole who owned the pit bull.
Speaker 1: We drank martinis, Yes, we did lots of them. Are
Speaker 1: I did? I don't know what would you have whiskey Martini?
Speaker 1: I think I have martiniz And it was good. We
Speaker 1: were hot shots back then. We were we were up
Speaker 1: and coming. Um so at this at the during that
Speaker 1: that stay, I walked around and visited like shop windows, sacks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I hit Barnes and I at the time,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm so clever, what a cool thing to do.
Speaker 1: What I didn't realize is I was engaging in like
Speaker 1: about a hundred and fifty year old tradition of traveling
Speaker 1: to New York to see these storefront windows, the Christmas
Speaker 1: window displays. It's actually really old ritual, that's right. And
Speaker 1: this story is called not really old but kind of old.
Speaker 1: The story is called The History of Department Store Holiday
Speaker 1: Window Displays by Victoria Lewis, and I am not ashamed
Speaker 1: to admit that I had never considered the term department
Speaker 1: store and what that meant until I read this. I
Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, what is the their's departments
Speaker 1: is in? Yeah, the boys department, the ladies department, the
Speaker 1: sports department. I had just never dawned on me what
Speaker 1: that means. Just took it as like, that's what it is.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know how it's one of those
Speaker 1: understand you know, we're in an old department store right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's Yeah, absolutely had terrible window displaces. It did. So
Speaker 1: here's the fascinating history of department store window displays, which
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this article. Yeah, what was it from? Well,
Speaker 1: initially it goes back to the Industrial Revolution, the late
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, um. And like anything, it's usually some weird
Speaker 1: innovation that leads to something else. In this case, it
Speaker 1: was the innovation was glass windows. Yeah. Up to that point,
Speaker 1: up to the Industrial Revolution, um shopkeepers just kept their
Speaker 1: wares behind piewood and no one could see it, you know.
Speaker 1: So once they figured out play glass windows, they were like,
Speaker 1: this is much better. And so the passers by on
Speaker 1: the street thought it was much better as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's literally where the turn window shopping comes from.
Speaker 1: And they said, we can have these great window displays
Speaker 1: where people on the street, uh could walk by and
Speaker 1: and fantasize if they don't have money about buying the stuff.
Speaker 1: Thiks to our enormous sea through class um the best
Speaker 1: kind of glass, And apparently it was Mr Macy. Mr
Speaker 1: Macy had a great name, Roland Hussey Macy, who did
Speaker 1: not live up to his name, was quite approved frankly
Speaker 1: and Roland Hussey Macy. UM opened Macy's tried four times.
Speaker 1: So I opened, yeah, and tried and failed, I should
Speaker 1: say the the fifth time, I think on sixth Avenue
Speaker 1: between thirteenth and fourteenth Street in eighteen fifty eight, Roland
Speaker 1: Macy opened his store with opening day sales totaling eleven
Speaker 1: dollars and six cents, which you're like, oh, well it's
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight. Sure, that's a three million dollars today bucks.
Speaker 1: Not good for a department store. So back in the day,
Speaker 1: these stores were what are called dry goods stores, where
Speaker 1: you can find everything that wasn't wet, um, you know,
Speaker 1: chaps alasso, uh, stuff that wasn't wet, like that, wheat flour,
Speaker 1: wheat flower, all this stuff. And and these were the
Speaker 1: the progenitors of dry of department stores. And a lot
Speaker 1: of them grew out of dry goods stores into department stores.
Speaker 1: And over time, um, they got savvier and savvier. And
Speaker 1: again R. H. Macy was one of the first to
Speaker 1: get super duper savvy. And he was apparently the first
Speaker 1: to put up these elaborate displays around Christmas time. Not
Speaker 1: only that, my friend, he was the first in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty two to feature an in store Santa that children
Speaker 1: and could come in annoy yes, and if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about the life of an in store
Speaker 1: saying that you should listen to last year's because they
Speaker 1: went into that in depth. Absolutely so in eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: four he says, I'm gonna step it up a notch.
Speaker 1: We got this plate class. So I'm going to create
Speaker 1: a window display porcelain dolls from around the world and uh,
Speaker 1: sort of weirdly scenes from Harriet Beecher Stowe's great book
Speaker 1: Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's all the rage. Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: seemed an odd choice for the holidays. All the rage,
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna second guess it because it worked.
Speaker 1: It would be like making a Star Wars special holiday
Speaker 1: special at the time, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think all the rage. So it really caught on
Speaker 1: By the early nineteen hundreds. Um, all the big retailers
Speaker 1: were doing it in New York, Chicago, all the bit
Speaker 1: major cities, and um, window shopping was a legitimate, legitimate
Speaker 1: thing at this point. Yeah, thanks to things like, um, again,
Speaker 1: the plate glass window people actually putting up displays worth seeing,
Speaker 1: and then later on electrical lighting so that you see
Speaker 1: these things long after the store had closed, and that
Speaker 1: attracted people to the displays just for the displays stake themselves.
Speaker 1: It made him a destination, so that a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years later, yokels like you and me could be
Speaker 1: walking around New York saying, I'm gonna go check out
Speaker 1: the sex fifth Avenue window. It looks like real snow.
Speaker 1: Ye Lord and Taylor with the first to um, actually
Speaker 1: not even worry about showing merchandise in the window and
Speaker 1: just say, you know what, this is something cool looking
Speaker 1: that will attract people to our window. Well what the
Speaker 1: cool looking thing? They did too? At the time it
Speaker 1: must have been mind blowing. You have to put yourself
Speaker 1: in their shoes. But it was automated bells that moved
Speaker 1: in time to a recording of the sound of bells playing,
Speaker 1: which sounds about as primitive as a monkey turning a crank.
Speaker 1: But it actually, I mean that must have been pretty
Speaker 1: mind blowing at the time. We're talking ninety eight, and
Speaker 1: even before that, I think it was um, I think
Speaker 1: it Nieman Marcus in Dallas used free on in air
Speaker 1: conditioned copper tubings to basically create frosted trees in their
Speaker 1: window display that that's what they call for people who
Speaker 1: read books on airplanes. A game changer and not to
Speaker 1: be outdone in nineteen In the nineteen fifties, Washington d
Speaker 1: c s Woodward and Lowthrope, which I've not heard of,
Speaker 1: have you, no? Never? But it totally sounds like either
Speaker 1: a law firm or a department. Uh, and they put
Speaker 1: live penguins in the display. This is clearly before animal
Speaker 1: rights activists had to say in things They're like, how
Speaker 1: can we make our window display cruel? And over the
Speaker 1: years many famous artists have even been involved, including Andy Warhol, Uh,
Speaker 1: Murray Sindac, Salvador Dali, and Jasper John's. Imagine it pays
Speaker 1: pretty good if you hire one of those artists, or
Speaker 1: maybe they were up and coming at the time they
Speaker 1: were up and coming. Actually, I think they also hire
Speaker 1: famous people to come in. Oh, they definitely do sometimes
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, you're right. Um. So apparently today it's
Speaker 1: spread around. It's not just New York, and it's in
Speaker 1: London too. It started in London in nine thanks to
Speaker 1: an American the guy who started or who worked at
Speaker 1: marshall Fields and then came and started self Ridges. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: But today, if you ask Lord and Taylor, about two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand people past their holiday window display
Speaker 1: every day. That's crazy, and between Thanksgiving and Christmas they'll
Speaker 1: attract eight million shoppers to their store. New York is great,
Speaker 1: and it's awesome during the holiday season because you can
Speaker 1: go broke, but you can also not spend a dime
Speaker 1: and just walk around and look at all the cool junk. Yes,
Speaker 1: New York. I love you and you're giving me chills.
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, moving on to the next segment. All right, Josh,
Speaker 1: Now we're moving on to uh something. Believe it or not.
Speaker 1: I have never even tasted in my life, really never
Speaker 1: tasted fruitcake. I would be even more incredulous if I
Speaker 1: hadn't either, right, have you? That's what I'm saying. I haven't. Okay,
Speaker 1: I was trying to make sense of all that. Sorry,
Speaker 1: So neither on Jerry, You ever had fruit cake? Wow?
Speaker 1: Jerry says, No, Nol's like in the window with a
Speaker 1: fruitcake in his mouth. I got a fruit cake in
Speaker 1: my pocket. Alright. So fruitcake is uh. It's famous for
Speaker 1: one thing, which is yeah, which is being a maligned,
Speaker 1: uh food product that is generally made fun of as
Speaker 1: like a brick or a concrete block or a doorstop.
Speaker 1: So much so that there's a town called Manitoo Springs,
Speaker 1: Colorado that in the at the beginning of January holds
Speaker 1: the Great Fruitcake Toss every year, and you throw a
Speaker 1: fruitcake as far as you can. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: punkin chunking. But with fruitcakes, basically you know they should
Speaker 1: have though is on the landing side, they should have
Speaker 1: plate glass. Just see how much the fruitcake like maybe
Speaker 1: layers of plate glass and see how many layers it
Speaker 1: can smash. Yeah, like that one ice breaking scene and
Speaker 1: karate Kid too. So, um, the fruitcake. It's not much loved.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of people like it. The people who
Speaker 1: do like it are just trying to be ironic, by
Speaker 1: the way, or elderly and being genuine Maybe yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't tell elderly people. It's tough to pin down whether
Speaker 1: they're really secretly being ironic. And it's just a big
Speaker 1: it's a big performance piece. But um, it's it's it
Speaker 1: is in and of it'sself ironic that fruitcake would be
Speaker 1: so maligned because it started out as a distinct luxury
Speaker 1: item for sure, because the stuff you find a fruit
Speaker 1: cake today then you're like, oh, what is this terrible stuff?
Speaker 1: Is actually an assemblage of If you go a thousand
Speaker 1: years back in history, you will find like these are
Speaker 1: the most sought after items on the planet. Spices, nuts, um,
Speaker 1: fruit cake, ginger, all this stuff coming together to create
Speaker 1: some very rich delicacies. Wow. Thank you. Uh. It did
Speaker 1: not begin as a cake though supposedly in ancient Rome
Speaker 1: they use pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins and then
Speaker 1: they fold it in in some barley mash. This is
Speaker 1: before ovens. They didn't really bake it into a cake
Speaker 1: at this point. Was it before ovens though? I took
Speaker 1: issue with that? Oh yeah, yeah, I think they had.
Speaker 1: They had bread back then. People have been making bread,
Speaker 1: remember to like use as a starter for beer, sure
Speaker 1: for thousands of years by then. Alright, so official issue
Speaker 1: taken ovens. Alright, we'll look that up. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: they started adding other spices. Is in the Middle East, um, honey.
Speaker 1: Ginger was a big deal in the Middle East before
Speaker 1: it spread to Europe. One of my favorite things in
Speaker 1: the world. Ginger, fresh ginger. Oh yeah, sure, love it.
Speaker 1: Get your hands on some good fresh ginger. You're like,
Speaker 1: this is good? Shots of it? Oh yeah, hot stuff, health, yeah,
Speaker 1: health and wellness. Do you drink it hot or cool?
Speaker 1: And it's like hot spicy? Yeah? I mean, have you
Speaker 1: ever done a gender shot. It's super hot. Yeah, it'll
Speaker 1: burn your throat. So fair warning to all your juicers
Speaker 1: out there. But if you're a juicer your way on
Speaker 1: the ginger tip. There's nothing new to you. This is
Speaker 1: the hippest Christmas special we've ever recorded anyway. I love
Speaker 1: ginger and they loved it in the Middle East and
Speaker 1: eventually spread to Europe in the fifteenth century. Then they added, uh,
Speaker 1: some butter, some sugar, and they said, we have a lumpy,
Speaker 1: dense cake on our hands. We definitely have ovens, so
Speaker 1: we're going to bake them, bake it. Yeah. And now
Speaker 1: there's apparently a couple of bakeries in the United States.
Speaker 1: One here right here in Blaxton, Georgia. You knew that, right,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Oh yeah, Claxton fruitcakes are huge,
Speaker 1: one of the big two, right yeah. The other one
Speaker 1: is in Corsicana, Texas. Um, that's Colin Street Bakery. And
Speaker 1: if you have a fruitcake look at the label. I
Speaker 1: guarantee you it's one of those two. I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: giving them for gifts ironically or sincerely both nice because
Speaker 1: it's all in how you take it. Sure it is.
Speaker 1: Someone might say that's pretty funny, Chuck, and someone might
Speaker 1: say this delicious, my friend, Yeah, and then you go
Speaker 1: you are on my nice list. That's right, moving on,
Speaker 1: what is another Christmas food? This one was kind of
Speaker 1: surprising to me. So sugar plums have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with plums, it turns out. And there's a lot of confusion,
Speaker 1: I guess, and the fact that it uses the word plums,
Speaker 1: so you would think, well, a sugar plum is a
Speaker 1: sweet plump, and food historians say there may actually have
Speaker 1: been some sort of fruit producing shrub that produced something
Speaker 1: that you would call a sugar plum, a plum like
Speaker 1: fruit that was very sweet. We don't have any evidence
Speaker 1: of it. It's all conjecture apparently. But sugar plums themselves
Speaker 1: were candies. They were sugar balls surrounded with nuts or
Speaker 1: spices or seeds or some combination of that, and they
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with plums. Plums never made an
Speaker 1: appearance in the actual sugar plum. Yeah. And apparently a
Speaker 1: lot of dried fruit is called plum, which I didn't know,
Speaker 1: and that's where the confusion comes from. Yeah, And plum
Speaker 1: pudding in England apparently doesn't even have plums in it. No,
Speaker 1: it can have like raisins, curans, all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: doesn't have any plums whatsoever, plum like, it's just from
Speaker 1: I think about the seventeenth century on, plum became a
Speaker 1: widely used term to describe certain kinds of candies, certain
Speaker 1: kinds of sweet desserts that dance in your head, and bribes.
Speaker 1: I read, yes. So if somebody gives you a bribe,
Speaker 1: you're like, that's quite a plum, right, I can put
Speaker 1: it in my fruitcake, right, Or that's a plumb job.
Speaker 1: It's something like super sweet, something great like you, or
Speaker 1: a bribe. I'm asking for a bribe right now. I
Speaker 1: wasn't picking up on that. I'll slide this five dollar bill.
Speaker 1: Thank you across the tables. Gingerbread. It's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things. Are you like gingerbread? Love it? I meant
Speaker 1: to tell you this. In the one of the Fairy
Speaker 1: Tales episodes, Hansel and Gretel is based partly in fact,
Speaker 1: there's a woman named Katerina Schrederin who in sixteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: she was a renowned gingerbread baker. She was so good
Speaker 1: that a local rival tried to marry her to get
Speaker 1: her to quit baking and undermining him. She refuses advances,
Speaker 1: he accused her of witchcraft. The town came and burned
Speaker 1: her alive. Holy cow. That's true. Yes, it is true.
Speaker 1: And they think that she became the basis of the
Speaker 1: witch in the Hansel and Gretel story. Yeah, how about that.
Speaker 1: But she was really good at creating gingerbread, and she
Speaker 1: was in Germany, which is the whole point of what
Speaker 1: I was just saying. That's right because it started in Germany,
Speaker 1: like so many Christmas things, Uh, sweet spicy cookies, cakes, breads,
Speaker 1: ginger flavored, which you know is one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1: Like you said, I don't pick up on it a
Speaker 1: ton in gingerbread, not as much. You know, the molasses
Speaker 1: definitely dominates, absolutely, But try eating gingerbread without any kind
Speaker 1: of ginger in it. You'll spit it out, really spit
Speaker 1: it out on the ground. Uh. It involved into the
Speaker 1: Christmas treat we know and love because Um early on
Speaker 1: it started to be um known to be something you
Speaker 1: would serve at a special event, and I guess that
Speaker 1: dwindled down to the holidays and then some people got
Speaker 1: smart and started cutting it out to fund shapes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Pretty early on, the medieval bakers, including probably miss Katerina
Speaker 1: the Witch, um would cut him into like if you
Speaker 1: were having a coronation, you could probably in Germany you
Speaker 1: could find gingerbread cookies in the shape of a king. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing, right, And that evolved
Speaker 1: into Christmas e things, and it became associated with the
Speaker 1: holidays ginger bread. Thankfully, I really want some gingerbread right now.
Speaker 1: And then lastly, Chuck, have you ever did you get
Speaker 1: oranges as a kid and you're stocking we wouldn't you
Speaker 1: beat your hand in and be like, oh, this is great,
Speaker 1: I like this candies And then your hand would hit
Speaker 1: that familiar, cold, wrinkled skin and you draw it out
Speaker 1: and hold it up accusingly to everyone and be like,
Speaker 1: who did this? And your parents would be like, Santa, Santa,
Speaker 1: it was Santa, and you just glare at them that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and I'd say, I think I saw
Speaker 1: these in the kitchen yesterday. Right. It turns out that
Speaker 1: oranges are actually a long standing tradition and they used
Speaker 1: to be an amazing thing to get in your stocking,
Speaker 1: because until the eighteen eighties, if you lived outside of
Speaker 1: Florida or California, you were s o l as far
Speaker 1: as oranges went. Yeah, so it was a special treat um,
Speaker 1: which I guess caught on. I don't buy this other
Speaker 1: theory at all. Um. Apparently they said it may reference
Speaker 1: in a Christmas tale when St. Nicholas left bags of
Speaker 1: gold in stockings. Uh, and in place of bags of gold,
Speaker 1: they put an orange. And you think, Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: buy that. Everybody wants to suck on a lemon on
Speaker 1: Christmas morning. Yeah, I'm not so sure about that. I
Speaker 1: might be wrong. I could see it, but either way,
Speaker 1: it became a special Christmas treat that um somehow endors
Speaker 1: to this day. Josh, if you know me, then you
Speaker 1: know I love the movie Elf. I suspect that that's
Speaker 1: why you selected this. Do you like it? Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1: It's not my favorite. It's a good new classic. Yeah, agreed,
Speaker 1: it's no Christmas story, but it's good. It'll hold up
Speaker 1: over the decades. I guess. This is a great article
Speaker 1: that I found called ten things you Didn't know about Elf,
Speaker 1: and Uh, we're gonna go over those right now because
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things Wild Ferrell, uh in the
Speaker 1: classic movie about an Elf that is really a human
Speaker 1: that realizes he's a human and ghost in New York
Speaker 1: City to find his real papa James Cohn. But he's
Speaker 1: not insane. He actually is an Elf insane his workshop,
Speaker 1: which he has to leave to go find himself. But
Speaker 1: he's not really enough because he's super tall and goofy
Speaker 1: and everyone that's the joke, right, and everyone else's Elf size. So, uh,
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen Elf, pause this episode, go watch
Speaker 1: Elf and then come back and tell me what the
Speaker 1: sunlight looks like outside your home because he's been living
Speaker 1: under a rock. So initially, apparently, Chuck, the script for
Speaker 1: Elf is pretty old. I think it was originally made
Speaker 1: in the like two two seven somewhere around there, Okay,
Speaker 1: and um, it was actually written in and back. Will
Speaker 1: Farrell was basically in diapers, even though he was a
Speaker 1: grown man by this time. But the script was initially
Speaker 1: written for Jim Carrey or with Jim Carrey mind, and
Speaker 1: it was offered to him and he turned it down. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: no good, I say, with Jim Carey being I can't
Speaker 1: see anybody but Will Ferrell doing it. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's one of those things where anytime someone
Speaker 1: is ultimately cast, he can't picture anyone else, like except
Speaker 1: for Tom Selleck, you could still probably picture as Indiana Jones, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: or Christopher Columbus Huh he played Columbus, did he? Or
Speaker 1: did he played King Ferdinand in the uh, the movie
Speaker 1: adaptation of your favorite book? No, it was okay, So
Speaker 1: Jim Carrey out Will Ferrell and uh classic now because
Speaker 1: of that great move sentence fragments Ralphie in a Christmas story, Um,
Speaker 1: Peter Billingsley appears as an elf. He's buddies with Favrow
Speaker 1: has produced a lot of his movies, and there he
Speaker 1: is a little Ralphie all grown up. Makes a cameo,
Speaker 1: so does Ray Harry House and he makes a voice
Speaker 1: cameo and he if his name sound familiar, he was
Speaker 1: the guy who basically pioneered stop motion animation and film
Speaker 1: and motion pictures. So like, if you love Clash of
Speaker 1: the Titans, you loved Ray Harry Housing's work, that's right.
Speaker 1: And Jon Favreau very smartly said, you know what, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there who love those ranking
Speaker 1: bass Christmas specials, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and others.
Speaker 1: And he said, let's have that same look so we
Speaker 1: can echo that beloved style. Uh. And it really paid off.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the reasons it's such a
Speaker 1: classic today. Yeah, so he instead of doing it c
Speaker 1: g I, which you totally could have. You can make
Speaker 1: it look stop motioning using computers, and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I want to shoot it that way. And just as
Speaker 1: an additional nod, he grabbed Ray Harry Housing and said,
Speaker 1: why don't you do one of the stop motion Polar
Speaker 1: Bear cubs and he voiced it, which is pretty cool,
Speaker 1: very cool. And an additional nod was the costumes that
Speaker 1: the elves were were the exact costume replicas from the
Speaker 1: original Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer stop motion film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I a nice little nod to the past. So
Speaker 1: if you find yourself just like overwhelmed with nostalgia and
Speaker 1: weeping when you watch ELF, these are probably the reasons.
Speaker 1: Why what else? Oh the famous scene one of my
Speaker 1: favorites with the Jack in the Box when Will Ferrell
Speaker 1: is testing the Jack in the Box. I had to
Speaker 1: go look it up and watch it. It's pretty great
Speaker 1: And those were genuine reactions apparently, Yeah, he wanted Will
Speaker 1: Ferrell to not know, so he had even though I
Speaker 1: think he had the last one rigged to not even
Speaker 1: be attached to the Jack in the box. He had
Speaker 1: the control off screen and he wanted it to seem
Speaker 1: like it wasn't gonna open at all. So yeah, in
Speaker 1: the movie, Will Ferrell's elf what's his name, Buddy, Buddy
Speaker 1: is he's he's been relegated to having to test Jack
Speaker 1: in the Boxes for um, the little clown and comers
Speaker 1: at Jackson the Box, Jacks in the Box, Yes, you're right,
Speaker 1: Jacks in the Boxes, Um, and he's he's he's the tester,
Speaker 1: the quality control guy. And while when they were filming it, yeah,
Speaker 1: John of Rowe had of remote control, so he had
Speaker 1: no idea when they were actually going to pop out.
Speaker 1: And you can tell when you watch it, like his
Speaker 1: reactions are delightful, Yeah, they really are. Uh. The huge
Speaker 1: burp that he has after drinking the two Leader of
Speaker 1: Coke was done by Um, a voice from a very
Speaker 1: popular voice actor named Maurice La March who voiced everything
Speaker 1: from Egon on The Real Ghostbusters to Brain on Animaniacs
Speaker 1: and apparently was really good at burping. He's a belching champions,
Speaker 1: a belching champ like Booger from Better Off Dead? And uh,
Speaker 1: was it Better Off Dead or Revenge of the Nerds
Speaker 1: that he burp did? Well, it was Revenge of the nerds,
Speaker 1: but he was he was better and better off. Dend
Speaker 1: agreed this entire mountains All right, let's go with one
Speaker 1: more here. Um. Will Ferrell actually worked as a department
Speaker 1: store Santa at the point years not not to train
Speaker 1: for it. Wasn't a method actor like this was years
Speaker 1: before when he was with the Groundlings in Los Angeles, US.
Speaker 1: That's like second City kind of sure or ucb um.
Speaker 1: And he and a fellow Groundling named Chris Ktan actually
Speaker 1: got the same gig. Will Farrell was Santa and Chris
Speaker 1: Catan played an Elf, and they both ended up on
Speaker 1: SARTA Night Live together. Can you imagine being in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and Will Farrell is your Santa and Chris Catan
Speaker 1: is an Elf and you have no idea, right yeah?
Speaker 1: Or watching sorta Night Live five years later and being like,
Speaker 1: wait right a minute's wait a second. And Farrell was
Speaker 1: even offered a boatload of money to do a sequel
Speaker 1: to Elf, like almost thirty million dollars yeah, and he
Speaker 1: said no, which I think is great, a great move
Speaker 1: because then you have the untainted classic. Uh and like
Speaker 1: the Christmas Story Part two, you never have to suffer
Speaker 1: through something like that or Anchorman two. Oh you know,
Speaker 1: although a dude who is in our TV show was
Speaker 1: in that his speaking part Matt. I don't remember his
Speaker 1: last name, but he played the paramedic in the episode
Speaker 1: where you get stung by It. Yeah, I know Matt.
Speaker 1: He's in. He's in Anchorman too, and he has like
Speaker 1: a little speaking role. Oh no, because they shot there
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta. Yeah, it's great. He does good. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen Anchor Man too. I avoided it because I
Speaker 1: didn't want to taint the original. I heard it was
Speaker 1: so bad. I take issue with that. I don't think
Speaker 1: a sequel contained the original. The original stands on its own,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. M I disagree with it, Okay,
Speaker 1: and I could be wrong. Well, now what's your opinion?
Speaker 1: Thank you? So you can't be wrong that Chuck? Pretty Christmas,
Speaker 1: wasn't It's the Christmas here? You want to end this thing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it with our traditional reading. Yes, So, everybody,
Speaker 1: if you didn't have the law going yet, or you
Speaker 1: didn't have a family gather around, if you didn't take
Speaker 1: Chuck's advice at the beginning, you probably should now because
Speaker 1: it unto you. Yes, whoa whoa, Everybody it's time for
Speaker 1: our Christmas reading, and we read all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1: We found the most obscure Christmas story of all time,
Speaker 1: written by the guy who wrote Wizard of Oz. For
Speaker 1: last year. Um, we've done twice. The night before Christmas,
Speaker 1: we did some story about naked elves a few years back.
Speaker 1: You remember that we do a Gift of the Magi
Speaker 1: may Yeah, we read the entire Gift of the Magis
Speaker 1: the night before Christmas. Yeah, so this time we're finally
Speaker 1: we cannot put it off any longer. We are going
Speaker 1: going to read a selection from the movie Boogie Nights,
Speaker 1: all right, where the word Christmas is used but out
Speaker 1: of context. That's good, chuckings. We're going to read a
Speaker 1: very classic letter, a real life letter that was written
Speaker 1: to the New York Sun on September by a little
Speaker 1: girl named Virginia O'Hanlon. And this really happened. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: about this? I'll read the little girls and then you
Speaker 1: can read the response. Oh wow, really yeah? Are you
Speaker 1: sure we have to take our roles here? Okay? All right,
Speaker 1: New York Sun, September eighteen seven. People, Dear editor, I
Speaker 1: am eight years old. Some of my little friends say,
Speaker 1: there is no, Santa Claus, Papa says, if you see
Speaker 1: it in the sun, it's so. What he means is
Speaker 1: the Sun newspaper. Not look directly into the sun because
Speaker 1: you'll go blind. Please tell me the truth. Is there
Speaker 1: a Santa Claus, signed Virginia O'Hanlon of Well should we
Speaker 1: read her address? I think she's long gone one fifteen
Speaker 1: West Street. Man, if you live at one set today,
Speaker 1: you should know that that's a very legendary abode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. Now here was the reply, which was pretty great.
Speaker 1: This is from the editors of the New York Sun,
Speaker 1: who wrote, we take pleasure in answering thus prominently the
Speaker 1: communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification
Speaker 1: that it's faithful author is numbered among the friends of
Speaker 1: the Sun. This was their apply, Virginia, your little friends
Speaker 1: are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of
Speaker 1: a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see.
Speaker 1: They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible
Speaker 1: by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be
Speaker 1: men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours.
Speaker 1: Man is a mere insect, and aunt in his intellect
Speaker 1: is compared with the boundless world about him, as measured
Speaker 1: by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth
Speaker 1: and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause. He
Speaker 1: exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist,
Speaker 1: and you know that they abound and give your life
Speaker 1: its greatest beauty and joy. Alas how dreary would be
Speaker 1: the world if there were no Santa Clause. It would
Speaker 1: be as dreary as if there were no Virginia's. There
Speaker 1: would be no childlike faith, then no poetry, no romance
Speaker 1: to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment
Speaker 1: except in sense and sight, the external light with which
Speaker 1: child old hood fills the world would be extinguished. Not
Speaker 1: believe in Santa Claus, you might as well not believe
Speaker 1: in fairies. You might get your Papa to hire men
Speaker 1: to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to
Speaker 1: catch Santa Claus. But even if you did not see
Speaker 1: Santa coming down, what would that proof. Nobody sees Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: But that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: The most real things in the world are those that
Speaker 1: neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see
Speaker 1: fairies dancing on the lawn, of course not, but that's
Speaker 1: no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive
Speaker 1: or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable
Speaker 1: in the world. You tear apart the baby's rattle and
Speaker 1: see what makes the noise inside. But there is a
Speaker 1: veil covering the unseen world, which not the strongest man,
Speaker 1: nor even the united strength of all the strongest men
Speaker 1: that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love,
Speaker 1: romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture
Speaker 1: the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real, Virginia,
Speaker 1: In all this world, there's nothing else real and abiding. No,
Speaker 1: Santa Claus, Thank God, he lives and lives forever a
Speaker 1: thousand years from now, Virginia, nay ten times ten thousand
Speaker 1: years from now. He will continue to make glad the
Speaker 1: heart of childhood. How about that? Pretty great response? Yeah,
Speaker 1: slightly scathing at times. Yeah take that, you little nonbelieving kids.
Speaker 1: All in the good name of the Christmas Spirit. Yep So,
Speaker 1: in the good name of the Christmas Spirit, from us
Speaker 1: Chuck and Josh and Jerry and No and Noel and
Speaker 1: h little sack from Casey to uh, Emily and Umi
Speaker 1: and Anna Sure nice uh Ruby Rose and yeah we
Speaker 1: have family. Wow, I know it's been a great two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteens. Pretty sweet. Who else? Anybody? I think that's everybody.
Speaker 1: That's the whole stuff. You should know family, my mistress Natasha,
Speaker 1: all right, forget you. We want to wish you guys
Speaker 1: a happy holiday season. Merry Christmas. Yeah, be safe out
Speaker 1: there and enjoy each other. And hey, we'll see you
Speaker 1: again in well, we'll see them before them. Merry Christmas, everybody.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com