Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 2: there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there. And
Speaker 2: this is the two thy sixteen Stuff You Should Know
Speaker 2: Super Christmas Holiday Spectacular glad Tidings Edition.
Speaker 3: In three d oh nice and stinkovision. Nice smellovision. That
Speaker 3: was a real thing, you know, Yeah it was.
Speaker 2: It was a great idea that didn't really pan out
Speaker 2: very well.
Speaker 3: I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: Well, no, it didn't pan out very well.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, funny, I know what you meant. Uh so,
Speaker 3: my friend, I look forward to this every year. Yeah,
Speaker 3: me too, because, as I've said before, I save up
Speaker 3: my vacation and take an elmmentary school break for a
Speaker 3: solid three weeks at the end of every year, right,
Speaker 3: which also means you get a bit of a break.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a de facto decision on my behalf as well.
Speaker 3: And this is it after in one hour, roughly you're
Speaker 3: not going to see me again till next year. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know. I like to get small over the holidays.
Speaker 2: That's cool, man. I don't blame you. I do too,
Speaker 2: just hold up in the secretly, I'm secretly fine with
Speaker 2: you making that decision for me particular one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so are you?
Speaker 2: So? Are you full of cheer glad tidings.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm in a silly mood. So this will who
Speaker 3: knows where this goes?
Speaker 2: How's Jerry? Jerry, you're feeling pretty happy?
Speaker 3: She is?
Speaker 2: She's good.
Speaker 3: Just gave a thumbs up. Yeah, she's fresh faced, but.
Speaker 2: She tailed Are her hauls decked?
Speaker 3: Oh yes, double decked?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess we should welcome everybody chuck to the
Speaker 2: Christmas spectacular. Tell you, first off, to be sure to
Speaker 2: start a fire somewhere in your house. Yes, put on sweater, maybe,
Speaker 2: put on some slippers, put on pajamas, make yourself some eggnog,
Speaker 2: hot butter room, something like that, and just sit down
Speaker 2: and enjoy yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we did our holiday special every year we
Speaker 3: like to cover. I'm always afraid we're going to recover
Speaker 3: something which I actually pitched, something we had already covered.
Speaker 2: I've got a list, so don't worry about it.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, great, well then let's ring in the holiday year.
Speaker 2: Hey. Also, we should say, if there are any little
Speaker 2: true believers among you, you may not want to let them
Speaker 2: listen to this one.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, there, I was going to give a warning.
Speaker 3: They can listen to most of it, but there is
Speaker 3: one feature of the show where where you may not
Speaker 3: want your kids to listen to some of the detail
Speaker 3: the deats, and we're going to give you a warning
Speaker 3: before that comes on. Yeah, so you can.
Speaker 2: It'll sound like this wringling knowing that's the Christmas warning.
Speaker 3: Well, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody sit back as we begin our annual
Speaker 2: Christmas special. So Chuck, we're gonna hop in our over
Speaker 2: there sleigh and head on over to Catalonia. Yeah, parts
Speaker 2: of Spain, parts of Spain, part of Spain, and there's
Speaker 2: a Catalan tradition. There's a couple of them actually that
Speaker 2: are really interesting and are scatological in nature. And the
Speaker 2: first one is called Cagatillo.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I had never heard of this, but I put
Speaker 3: out and you'll see you later in the show. We
Speaker 3: put out a call on face book for some unusual
Speaker 3: family traditions from listeners, and a couple of people mentioned this,
Speaker 3: like saying, we don't do this, but I've heard of
Speaker 3: it and it's really strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely a thing, and in large parts of Spain, Portugal,
Speaker 2: even some parts of Italy too from what I understand,
Speaker 2: but specifically in the Catalan region of Spain, cagatillo, which
Speaker 2: means poop log basically in Catalan, is a It's a
Speaker 2: Christmas tradition that starts on December eighth when the family
Speaker 2: gets around and while they've gone out, I think either
Speaker 2: made one or they purchased a cagatillo, which is a
Speaker 2: log with a face on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get the idea that part of the fun
Speaker 3: and correct me if I'm wrong, Spanish among you, But
Speaker 3: part of the fun is making it with the family. Sure,
Speaker 3: but I'm sure you can buy them though as well,
Speaker 3: right full featured.
Speaker 2: Even if you bought one fully featured, there's still some
Speaker 2: some ritual that you the family have to go through
Speaker 2: that would be kind of fun.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: So with with Kagatia, with the log, he's got a face,
Speaker 2: but very importantly, he also has two front arms, so
Speaker 2: he's kind of propped up right yeah, yeah, And when
Speaker 2: you bring Kaigatio home, he also has that that the
Speaker 2: standard Catalan red kind of overhangy hat yeap, yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: And so the family brings him home, and on December eighth,
Speaker 2: they get him prepared for the Christmas season. Right, They
Speaker 2: wrap them in a blanket, and they basically wrap them
Speaker 2: from what would amount to the waist down in a
Speaker 2: blanket to keep them warm, to.
Speaker 3: Keep him warm, and to maybe incubate what dwells inside
Speaker 3: of the log. Yeah, because that's where we're headed with us.
Speaker 3: They feed this thing orange peels, a Spanish nugat called
Speaker 3: torone's that right, Yeah, And apparently, as tradition is held,
Speaker 3: the more you feed the cagatillo, the more gifts it
Speaker 3: will bestow to you through the traditional route, which means
Speaker 3: out of the rear end.
Speaker 2: Right. So the kids every night while they're caring for cagatiu,
Speaker 2: and I imagine probably more than just every night. I'll
Speaker 2: bet this thing gets fed a lot of orange peels
Speaker 2: and nougat. They feed it. And as the Christmas I
Speaker 2: guess Christmas Day, I also saw Christmas Eve approaches, they
Speaker 2: they prepare to extract the stuff from cagatio. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: they do that by by hitting cagato with sticks. And
Speaker 2: they have a traditional chant. You want to you want
Speaker 2: to give them the translation of the chant?
Speaker 3: Yeah, not that not the original in English, it translates
Speaker 3: literally as poop log, poop torone, hazel nuts and cottage cheese.
Speaker 3: If you don't poop, well, I'll hit you with a
Speaker 3: stick poop log.
Speaker 2: And so once they've beaten Kagatio with a stick enough times,
Speaker 2: they'll look under the blanket and see that he's pooped
Speaker 2: out a bunch of candy and treats and gifts. And
Speaker 2: it's an amazing, wonderful little Christmas tradition.
Speaker 3: It's wonderful.
Speaker 2: But that's not the only unusual poop based cautle on
Speaker 2: Christmas tradition either, is it.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I was kind of surprised to know that there was
Speaker 3: more than one. How do you pronounce this that coganer, coganaire, cogganaire, Yeah,
Speaker 3: pretty close. So this is this is just a it's
Speaker 3: not a log. It's an actual carved or now you know,
Speaker 3: readily manufactured sort of dull figurine that has dropped its
Speaker 3: pants and is just pooping.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And and with the little traditional figurine, there's a
Speaker 2: little pile of poop beneath his rear end on the ground.
Speaker 2: So not only is he poopy, he has pooped. And
Speaker 2: if it's the original version, it looks like a Catalan peasant,
Speaker 2: so he also has that red hat. He's probably smoking
Speaker 2: a pipe. And these things are designed to be put
Speaker 2: into the Nativity scene as one of the figures along
Speaker 2: with the Holy Family, and a lot of Westerners find
Speaker 2: that offensive and don't understand that it's it's not meant,
Speaker 2: even in a joking manner. It wasn't. Originally, it was
Speaker 2: meant because the Kaganair represented things like fertility or good
Speaker 2: fortune or good luck and as poop did. But over
Speaker 2: time it's definitely evolved, and now you can find Kagan
Speaker 2: Air figures of all sorts of famous people, from Barack
Speaker 2: Obama to the Star Wars crew has a Kagan Air collection.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: Did you see it?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah I saw. I mean there are all kinds
Speaker 3: of pop culture icons now with their pants pulled down pooping.
Speaker 2: But did you see the Star Wars one in particular?
Speaker 3: No, no, it was it good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty great. See three pooped out a nut
Speaker 2: like a bolt nut.
Speaker 3: Not a nut like one might traditionally find in a stool.
Speaker 2: No, no, it's not a peanut, a walnut. Oh man,
Speaker 2: who knew this one was going to be so uh gross?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well I guess we could have guessed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you found the stuff, so yeah, what else can
Speaker 3: we mention here? There was a world's record, of course,
Speaker 3: on December tenth, I'm sorry, December twenty ten, there was
Speaker 3: a nineteen foot pooping figurine placed in the shopping center
Speaker 3: and won the record for world's largest Kagan air.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in Barcelona.
Speaker 3: Pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I looked at a picture. I couldn't find any
Speaker 2: actual specs on it, but by my estimates, the pile
Speaker 2: of poop is about three feet tall. Oh okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: in the middle of the shopping center, the Marra Magnum
Speaker 2: shopping center in Barcelona.
Speaker 3: Nice. Well, my sister lives in Portugal. Now I'm going
Speaker 3: to hit her up and see if she's seen any
Speaker 3: in this action.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Ask her to mail us some caganaiirs.
Speaker 2: I'd love one.
Speaker 3: You can order one online?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'll bet she can get a better deal
Speaker 2: on one there.
Speaker 3: Uh, should we take a break, No, Josh, we shouldn't. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: we shouldn't because as of per tradition, our Christmas episode
Speaker 3: is ad free. It's one of small little thing we
Speaker 3: like to do.
Speaker 2: It's ad free with one hundred percent more Christmas.
Speaker 3: That's right, all right, So let's pile on our sleigh
Speaker 3: and let's head on over and see how doctor Crampis
Speaker 3: is doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, over in the Alps, in the Alpine regions.
Speaker 3: Yes, of Austria. So well, let's talk about Crampis. It's
Speaker 3: a it's a weird thing, but then it's not any
Speaker 3: weirder than Santa Claus if you really look at it, Yeah,
Speaker 3: or bringing a tree into your home.
Speaker 2: He's this. No, it's really not. And it actually makes
Speaker 2: a lot of sense too, because you know, Santa Claus
Speaker 2: is so good and pure and happy and joyful, and
Speaker 2: Crampis is all the opposite. So as as it was
Speaker 2: put in this one Smithsonian article I read, Crampis is
Speaker 2: the Yen to Saint Nick's yang. Yeah, and they actually
Speaker 2: hang out together. And we should probably describe Crampus a
Speaker 2: little bit first, huh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So here's the legend, is that Crampus shows up.
Speaker 3: Crampus is sort of a beast of sorts, a demon,
Speaker 3: a demonic, impish beast.
Speaker 2: With a long tongue. And Claus, his name, in fact,
Speaker 2: is derived from the German word for claw, I.
Speaker 3: Believe, Yeah, what's that, uh, Crampin' huh was it that simple?
Speaker 3: So Crampus he shows up. He shows up in the
Speaker 3: town the night before December sixth, which is also known
Speaker 3: as Crampas Snacht or Crampus Knight. And uh, that's also
Speaker 3: a Nicholas taug or Saint Nicholas date. December six is.
Speaker 2: Right, So they show up on December fifth, the night
Speaker 2: of the fifth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, like the light in the dark,
Speaker 3: Crampus is like, no, no, no, Saint Nick can't just
Speaker 3: show up. I will show up as well and try
Speaker 3: and ruin the good time.
Speaker 2: Right. So what's interesting is like on Crampus Knocked the
Speaker 2: Saint Nick goes around and leaves little goodies in the
Speaker 2: shoes of good kids. Sure, and then birch sticks in
Speaker 2: the shoes of bad kids, ostensibly for their parents to
Speaker 2: smack them on the behind with for being bad. But
Speaker 2: there's another level reserved for the truly bad kids. And
Speaker 2: that's what Crampus is there for. He's there to abduct
Speaker 2: and torture and potentially eat the really bad kids. He's
Speaker 2: actually going around with Saint Nick visiting people's home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, say, how bad are you? Do you need to
Speaker 3: be tortured and eaten?
Speaker 2: Are you bad, or like crampist level bad.
Speaker 3: And this hearkens back the first thing I thought it was,
Speaker 3: of course, our episodes on the Grim's fairy Tales very
Speaker 3: much sort of aligns with that where children are readily
Speaker 3: offered up as food for beasts. You know, like no
Speaker 3: one cared back then.
Speaker 2: No, they definitely treated their children more harshly, for sure.
Speaker 2: There was a lot more like getting lost in the
Speaker 2: forest and no one coming to find you, going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Crampus obviously, over the years there have been
Speaker 3: a lot of people who have been like, let's abolish this.
Speaker 3: This is not in the modern Christmas spirit. He is
Speaker 3: the son of the Norse god of the underworld hell
Speaker 3: h l And during the twelfth century the Catholic Church
Speaker 3: tried to ban Crampus, and then more recently in the
Speaker 3: nineteen thirties when Austria's conservative Christian Social Party came in
Speaker 3: came around, they definitely tried to get Crampus outlawed, but
Speaker 3: people would not have it. They needed their Crampus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Crampus predates Christianity. He has some staying power,
Speaker 2: you know. He was originally like a German demon of
Speaker 2: pagan folklore. Yeah, yeah, he would be tough to get
Speaker 2: rid of, and probably now more so than ever because
Speaker 2: some sort of weird Streisan effect apparently happened, and now
Speaker 2: more people are aware of Crampis than ever before, and
Speaker 2: he's celebrated big time. People love him. There are mostly people,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there was yeah, a good horror movie. Well
Speaker 2: I don't I can't say if it was good. I
Speaker 2: haven't seen it, but it looks good. But people who
Speaker 2: are who get sick of the holiday spirit being crammed
Speaker 2: down their throat for you know, after X number of
Speaker 2: weeks usually turned to Crampis to kind of find some relief.
Speaker 3: I looked up this other thing because at the end
Speaker 3: of this article it mentions a couple of weird things
Speaker 3: demons in other countries Christmas demons and the one in
Speaker 3: Greece Cali Kans. Did you look that up?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is crazy. These are little, impish demons that
Speaker 3: speak with a lisp and eat worms and frogs and things.
Speaker 3: They only come out at night. They're afraid of the
Speaker 3: sun fire holy water, and then the rest of the
Speaker 3: year they live in the center of the earth and
Speaker 3: attempt to chop down the tree of life.
Speaker 2: Right, but at Christmas time they emerge to wreak havoc
Speaker 2: above ground.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, And apparently one of the legends of the
Speaker 3: Calikansari is that they can only count to two. Did
Speaker 3: you see that?
Speaker 2: Oh no, I didn't actually, but I'll bet I know
Speaker 2: where you're going with this.
Speaker 3: Well, they can only They won't say three because it's
Speaker 3: a holy number supposedly, so they only count to two.
Speaker 3: So if you want to guard your home against these
Speaker 3: little imps, you leave a calendar on your torch step.
Speaker 3: So they go mad trying to count the holes. They
Speaker 3: just go one to one, two, over and over until
Speaker 3: they commit suicide.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, that's a pretty standard.
Speaker 3: It's very strange, you know.
Speaker 2: You know what is strange though, too, is that that's
Speaker 2: a remedy for protecting yourself against vampires. The original vampires
Speaker 2: could count, and they would just go nuts trying to
Speaker 2: count like seeds. I think you're supposed to leave.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right, yeah, remember, but they were like.
Speaker 2: They originated in Greece too, I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's all all. It was a.
Speaker 2: Surefire remedy that just works for everything. One size fits all.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Did you see the one about Danny the South African
Speaker 2: ghost boy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was really that. This was just like scary.
Speaker 2: So if you're a kid in South Africa around Christmas time,
Speaker 2: you need to keep an eye out for the ghost
Speaker 2: of Danny, who was a little boy who whose grandmother
Speaker 2: made a batch of cookies for Saint Nick and Danny
Speaker 2: just couldn't help himself. He ate the whole batch of cookies.
Speaker 2: So grandmother murdered him and now his ghost haunts Christmas
Speaker 2: in South Africa. It's a weird tradition.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really drives home that we're in an all
Speaker 3: time high in terms of regard for children in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, yep, we're finally doing it right here in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Yep, no children's murdered, children into ghosts on our watch.
Speaker 3: You ready for the next segment or you want to.
Speaker 2: I'm so psyched about this one. Let's get in this slate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's ride on over to TV Land.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which exists in our imaginations and in Culver City, California.
Speaker 3: That's right, of course, we're talking about a Charlie Brown
Speaker 3: Christmas and just a little bit of its history. It's
Speaker 3: one of my favorites. After all these years, I still
Speaker 3: love watching that show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and after all these years, is right. It's been
Speaker 2: on every year since nineteen sixty five, which actually makes
Speaker 2: it the second longest running animated cartoon special in history.
Speaker 2: After it's in second place after Rudolph, which came out
Speaker 2: the year before and has run every year since as well.
Speaker 3: The Rank and Bass Rudolph, Yes.
Speaker 2: Which is kind of Charlie Brown, just can't come in first.
Speaker 3: But it's a very Charlie Brown thing though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of reassuring.
Speaker 3: Well, that's one of the things I always loved about
Speaker 3: Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang was the and this
Speaker 3: article points it out as the melancholy behind it. It
Speaker 3: was never just some happy go lucky dumb kids thing.
Speaker 3: There was always just so much melancholy and pathos and
Speaker 3: those characters. It really look I don't know, it spoke
Speaker 3: to me as a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I guess the executives at CBS and
Speaker 2: the ad agency for Coca Cola were expecting something totally
Speaker 2: different from everything that Charles Schultz had done up to
Speaker 2: that point with this Christmas special when they heard it.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, well, it almost wasn't even ordered. There was
Speaker 3: a producer named Lee Mendelssohn, who did a little documentary
Speaker 3: short about Charles Schultz called a boy named Charlie Brown.
Speaker 3: And for the first time for that little documentary, they
Speaker 3: just did a little animation because previous it had been
Speaker 3: a comic strip only, and so they just a little
Speaker 3: bit of animation.
Speaker 2: By a guy named Bill Melendez.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And so they put that famous jazz piano
Speaker 3: score by Vince Garli, which is amazing, and people saw
Speaker 3: it and they were like, hey, maybe this would be
Speaker 3: a Christmas special and they said no, no one wanted it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They somebody though, heard about this documentary, which apparently
Speaker 2: was just lost to history pretty quickly, and said, have
Speaker 2: you guys ever thought of just doing just a straight
Speaker 2: up Christmas special? And apparently Lee Mendelssohn heard the first
Speaker 2: rule of Hollywood, which is you answer yes to every question. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, and he said, yes, of course we have
Speaker 2: and apparently wrung up Charles Schultz the next day, and
Speaker 2: that next day they had basically all the rough outline
Speaker 2: points of what would become the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.
Speaker 3: Yeah. They're like, we need this music because we love it.
Speaker 3: We want some ice skating, we want a Christmas pageant,
Speaker 3: and we want the theme that well, sort of a
Speaker 3: religious theme, like Charles Schultz apparently insisted on that.
Speaker 2: Well he was, yeah, he was pretty religious, and yeah,
Speaker 2: he definitely insisted on it. And again the executives who
Speaker 2: were waiting with baited breath for this thing to be
Speaker 2: delivered to him, were like, this is awful, Like what's
Speaker 2: going on here? Like this is super religious? It's not.
Speaker 2: It's not hilarious and joyful. It's like you said, it
Speaker 2: has path posts, but it's a children's animated Christmas special.
Speaker 2: Where's the laugh track? They wanted to put a laugh
Speaker 2: track in.
Speaker 3: Yes, and they definitely wanted a Linus reading from the
Speaker 3: Bible out.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, they definitely did, and Charles Schultz said, nope,
Speaker 2: it's staying in.
Speaker 3: And they also wanted to cast adult voice actors. And
Speaker 3: it kind of occurred to me that I never knew
Speaker 3: who did any of those. So just four quick shout
Speaker 3: outs to some of the characters. Charlie Brown was voiced
Speaker 3: by Peter Robbins that these great classic iconic voices were
Speaker 3: just little kids. Linus was Christopher Shay, Sally was Kathy Steinberg,
Speaker 3: and Lucy was Tracy Stratford and you can go look
Speaker 3: up with the rest of the cast if you want.
Speaker 3: But that would be weird if we read out like
Speaker 3: eighteen people, right.
Speaker 2: But the other kids actually, so the ones you named
Speaker 2: were professionals. The other kids were actually neighborhood kids. And
Speaker 2: Bill Mendelssohn, the animator and director's neighborhood. Yeah, so they
Speaker 2: were like, not just kids, they were legit kids and
Speaker 2: not fake Hollywood kids, right exactly, who are actually like
Speaker 2: thirty five or forty Yeah, But the use of kids
Speaker 2: was unusual for sure, and they hadn't really thought it
Speaker 2: through from what I saw, because some of these kids
Speaker 2: were so young that they didn't know how to read yet,
Speaker 2: Like the kid who played Lionus didn't know how to read,
Speaker 2: so he had to be told what lions to say, yeah,
Speaker 2: because he couldn't read the yeah.
Speaker 3: And Snoopy actually was the only one not voiced by
Speaker 3: a kid. He was voiced by the animator himself. Right,
Speaker 3: So that's kind of neat. And it was a huge
Speaker 3: hit despite the uh, the doubtful nature of the of
Speaker 3: the network, it was a big hit. On Thursday, December ninth,
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty five, it was seen literally by half of
Speaker 3: the audience available in the country. Yes, almost half.
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically everyone who had their TV set turned on
Speaker 2: at I think eight o'clock or whatever on that date
Speaker 2: watched it in the entire country. That's pretty astounding. And
Speaker 2: it's like you said, it's the exact opposite of what
Speaker 2: the exacts thought was going to happen. They thought it
Speaker 2: was gonna air once and then just be gone.
Speaker 3: Yep, it won a Peabody, it won a Emmy Award.
Speaker 3: This really says something about the time it finished second
Speaker 3: place only to Bonanza, which really says that Americans loved Bonanza.
Speaker 2: Man, they really did.
Speaker 3: I watched it.
Speaker 2: You watch Bonanza? I never did. Sure, Yeah, I never
Speaker 2: got into it.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean you were. It was probably not a
Speaker 3: little hokey for your your taste. Probably by that point,
Speaker 3: little you were more sophisticated.
Speaker 2: I was a very sophisticated eight year old cravat.
Speaker 3: And here are a couple of interesting tidbits about the
Speaker 3: Charlie Brown Christmas Is. There have been some scenes cut
Speaker 3: throughout the years, notably sponsorship inserts. Notably Coca Cola even
Speaker 3: had a full on Coca Cola sign animated into the
Speaker 3: show that Linus is thrown into and they cut that
Speaker 3: out aft. I'm not sure how long they said several
Speaker 3: times is is? I guess just the first few years yea.
Speaker 3: And they cut that Coca Cola sign out of there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because other advertisers were like, what the heck, we're.
Speaker 3: PEPSI, where's my sign?
Speaker 2: We're Royal Crown Cola. We don't want to advertise on
Speaker 2: your Coca Cola?
Speaker 3: And what else? So something else that wasn't added until
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety right.
Speaker 2: Well, they had cut out the Peanuts gang throwing snowballs
Speaker 2: that it can on a fence scene to make room
Speaker 2: for more ads, and it wasn't restored until nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3: Man, Yeah, well they did the right thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an important part.
Speaker 3: And I'll be watching it this year and every year
Speaker 3: to come till I got sure.
Speaker 2: Charles, Yes, Charles, it would not be our Christmas special
Speaker 2: if we didn't teach people how to make booze in
Speaker 2: new and interesting ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah. This has become a bit of a tradish around here.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, a holiday drink.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah that one.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait to make this one. No, I haven't
Speaker 2: okay yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you always follow through. I don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although I have to say I've still not had
Speaker 2: a hot buttered rum.
Speaker 3: Yeah. See, my whole problem comes it's an effort thing.
Speaker 3: Like I get out the bottle of bourbon and the
Speaker 3: I'm just like, well, I'll just pour this.
Speaker 2: I really, I really don't even need a glass. I
Speaker 2: can cut my hand and like bourbon down it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's I should really put in the effort.
Speaker 2: This one does sound like a little bit of effort
Speaker 2: until you really think about it. It's not that bad.
Speaker 2: So so down in the Caribbean, it gets so hot
Speaker 2: that you wonder do they know it's Christmas time at all? Yes? Yes,
Speaker 2: they do actually, and in in the Caribbean, in Jamaica
Speaker 2: in particular, there is a drink, a refreshing cold punch
Speaker 2: called sorrel punch that apparently screams Christmas. It's part and
Speaker 2: parcel with Christmas down there. But again, since it's hot,
Speaker 2: they need something that's cool and refreshing. So we're gonna
Speaker 2: go with Jamaican sorrel punch this year as the Christmas
Speaker 2: drink because it sounds pretty great.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, should we just start with the ingredients?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we should we should say the first ingredient,
Speaker 2: sorrel can be really confusing up here in the state.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the deal there?
Speaker 2: So soirel is apparently a part or a flower of
Speaker 2: the hibiscus plant, but it's not what those of us
Speaker 2: in the United States would think of as the high
Speaker 2: biscus flower. It's a different flower. And you can't use
Speaker 2: hibiscus flowers or you'll die, You'll be haunted by Danny
Speaker 2: the the You want to use straight up dried sorrel
Speaker 2: plant flowers, okay, And you can actually find them online
Speaker 2: for like five six bucks on like Amazon, or if
Speaker 2: you're if you have an international market, you can probably
Speaker 2: find them there in that whole like cellophane dried herb
Speaker 2: section from other parts of the world, they're probably going
Speaker 2: to be there. But you want to start with those.
Speaker 3: All right? A couple ounces? Yep, all right, that sounds good.
Speaker 3: I can do that.
Speaker 2: You want to get some fresh ginger, where do you
Speaker 2: do that? You should be able to find that anywhere.
Speaker 2: You want to make two one inch cubes peeled and
Speaker 2: then finally chop them three cloves. Is a good good
Speaker 2: next ingredient?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can taste it in my head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's got like coming together Christmas spices. And
Speaker 2: then this guy didn't use this this in his recipe,
Speaker 2: but I also saw that you could at this point
Speaker 2: add orange peels without the pith. You never want to
Speaker 2: use the pith with an orange peel, and cinnamon sticks.
Speaker 2: And you take all these things and you put them
Speaker 2: in a heat proof bowl, and you boil five cups
Speaker 2: of water in a saucepan and pour it over the
Speaker 2: sorrel mixture. Okay, so basically what you're doing is making
Speaker 2: a sorrel tea. Because you let it steep for at
Speaker 2: least four hours or overnight.
Speaker 3: You're putting together your roue.
Speaker 2: I guess I would say tea is closer than rue
Speaker 2: the mother batch. There you go, you're making the mother bat.
Speaker 3: None of these things are applicable.
Speaker 2: So you let you let the mother batch tea ru
Speaker 2: sit overnight and just steep. Right, And then you want
Speaker 2: to make a simple syrup.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I would say if you make your
Speaker 3: own simple syrup, if you have your own favorite recipe,
Speaker 3: you can just use that, right sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, special, No, it doesn't have to be special. You
Speaker 2: just want to make a one to one simple syrup.
Speaker 2: And since this is the Caribbean, you probably want to
Speaker 2: just go with demorera that raw brown, not brown sugar,
Speaker 2: but brownish in color. But de Moorera sugar is probably
Speaker 2: a good one to use. But you make a simple syrup,
Speaker 2: not a complicated syrup. No, a simple syrup. You get
Speaker 2: yourself some good amber rum. Yeah, I would recommend getting
Speaker 2: the good stuff because this is Christmas, guys.
Speaker 3: That one's a year.
Speaker 2: And then you add for you, you take the tea
Speaker 2: that you've let steep for four hours or overnight, and
Speaker 2: you strain out the ingredients in there, so you just
Speaker 2: have the tea and then you add to it the
Speaker 2: simple syrup in the rum, stir it up little darling
Speaker 2: nice and then and then you add some ice cubes
Speaker 2: and then garnished with lime and orange slices.
Speaker 3: All right, So as far as the amounts, we're talking
Speaker 3: a couple of ounces of the sorrel flower. We already
Speaker 3: said that. The how much ginger? Three whole cloves, five
Speaker 3: and three quarters cups of water, three quarters cups of
Speaker 3: sugar for your syrup, one and a half cups of
Speaker 3: amber rum, a little more if you're you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: to taste and then you know garnish at will Yep,
Speaker 3: sounds delicious. I might have to make that this year.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait, man, I have the sorrel ordered.
Speaker 3: Oh you do already? All right, Well I'm making it up,
Speaker 3: all right. Maybe you can bring it to our our
Speaker 3: holiday sauna party.
Speaker 2: You got it. I'll bring I'll have added rue to it,
Speaker 2: some flour, flour and butter. It's just floating in clumps and.
Speaker 3: The man, that sounds good. Yeah, all right, so let's
Speaker 3: hop back in the sleigh. It's cooled off a bit
Speaker 3: because that took longer than I've thought. Yeah, so let's
Speaker 3: heat this sucker back up and head over to another
Speaker 3: part of the internet. All right, so we're back. We're
Speaker 3: out of the sleigh and into the frying pan. Actually
Speaker 3: that's not true, because that made it sound like we're
Speaker 3: about to cook something.
Speaker 2: You are in a silly mood today, aren't you.
Speaker 3: I am. I think I've I think I'm mentally gone
Speaker 3: on vacation.
Speaker 2: You're giddy with delirium.
Speaker 3: I am totally.
Speaker 2: I like it. Man, you should mentally go on vacation
Speaker 2: a lot. It's a good fit.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna talk a little about missus claws. It
Speaker 3: sort of occurred to me when we were putting this together.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, you hear about Saint
Speaker 3: Nick all the time and nowadays you see his wife
Speaker 3: in the photo some but where did she come from?
Speaker 3: Who is this woman? And I didn't know, but she
Speaker 3: has not been around the entire time. Sanna used to
Speaker 3: be very much the batch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't realize that either. This article puts it
Speaker 2: as kind of a loaner, which is funny. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 2: he was given a wife finally for the first time
Speaker 2: in eighteen forty nine. And there's an American author named
Speaker 2: James Reese. And apparently there's an author named James Reese
Speaker 2: that's working today. Oh and he's hogged up all of
Speaker 2: the Google search engine patches. Cannot find any mention of
Speaker 2: the other one. But there was apparently an author named
Speaker 2: James Rees who wrote a short story entitled The Christmas Legend,
Speaker 2: and it was published in eighteen forty nine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder what gave him the right. Don't get
Speaker 3: me wrong, I love it, But why did he get
Speaker 3: to say, like, you know what, I'm going to just
Speaker 3: write in a missus clause?
Speaker 2: I guess literary license yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so is it canon? Did this get approval from
Speaker 3: I guess George Lucas.
Speaker 2: I think that just gets worked out over time, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess so probably huh if enough people buy
Speaker 3: into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although it sounds like she was kind of a
Speaker 2: device that he used because he out of necessity, because
Speaker 2: in the story, mister and Missus Claws are like delivering
Speaker 2: presents to a family, right, And it turns out that
Speaker 2: there is no mister and Missus Claus. It was really
Speaker 2: a friendly couple that the family was friends with who
Speaker 2: had dressed up as mister and Missus Claws.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the burn bombs, right, So.
Speaker 2: The guy turns out to have no imagination whatsoever for
Speaker 2: a short story writer.
Speaker 3: Yes, but she did stick a little bit, and then
Speaker 3: she really started sticking in later years. She started kind
Speaker 3: of popping up more and more in magazines and stories,
Speaker 3: and then she showed up in a big way in
Speaker 3: a picture book by Catherine Lee Bates, And this is
Speaker 3: when she really took hold and everyone was like, Hey,
Speaker 3: I love Sanna having a wife. She's super cool. She's
Speaker 3: a strong lady that she is the woman behind the
Speaker 3: man in the backbone of that whole operation. Right, And
Speaker 3: who can argue with that?
Speaker 2: Nobody, I mean, everybody liked the fact that Sanna had
Speaker 2: finally settled down.
Speaker 3: He wasn't just sewing his oats across the world in
Speaker 3: Chimney's all over the world.
Speaker 2: Seriously, baby, I'll give you a riding my sleigh. You
Speaker 2: know something that struck me that I hadn't really realized, Chuck,
Speaker 2: missus Claus does not have an official first name.
Speaker 3: Well, I looked into that, did you No, did you
Speaker 3: find one? Apparently with artistic license, you can just name
Speaker 3: or whatever you.
Speaker 2: Want, right, Okay, that's what I found as well.
Speaker 3: And they're like, you know, Monica, Erica, Martha.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Matha, which apparently is a typo.
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe I wasn't sure. I didn't know if that was
Speaker 3: just a variation.
Speaker 2: No, I'm sure it was a variation now, but at
Speaker 2: the time it was probably a type.
Speaker 3: It was like a printer didn't have an R.
Speaker 2: So they were just right, exactly fine, just forget the R.
Speaker 2: It's the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3: No one cares Sandra that Sandra Claus. That sort of
Speaker 3: rings a little bit. Who would you pick? What's your favorite?
Speaker 3: Probably Rita that's what I was gonna go with. Yeah,
Speaker 3: or Mary Mary Claus. Yeah, but because I mean also
Speaker 3: you could.
Speaker 2: Say Mary like emy r r y oh sure. The
Speaker 2: one I do not agree with, I should say. The
Speaker 2: two I do not agree with are Monica and Jessica.
Speaker 2: Those are not missus Clau's names.
Speaker 3: Monica Claus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird, it's a little odd. Nothing nothing against
Speaker 2: the name Monica, but just for missus Claus. Come on,
Speaker 2: even Monica's can agree with that one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: And then Jessica, that's just too. It's Jessica Rabbit's name
Speaker 2: that has no business being part of missus Claus.
Speaker 3: Agreed, Charles, mm hmm.
Speaker 2: You found something else great on the internet that I
Speaker 2: just found very heartening. It is a it's a way oh.
Speaker 3: Ingle dingle jingle. Yes, parents, you may not want your
Speaker 3: kids to hear this part. It is not dirty and
Speaker 3: filthy or weird in any way. But depending how you
Speaker 3: run Christmas in your household, if you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: we just want to give you fair warning. So we'll
Speaker 3: give you Let's just do a little Christmas music for
Speaker 3: like five seconds. Oh good, gokay, okay.
Speaker 2: All right, hopefully you are not a psychopath, and you
Speaker 2: got rid of any little kids who still believe.
Speaker 3: Yes, and hopefully Jerry inserted the music from the movie
Speaker 3: Psycho instead of Christmas music.
Speaker 2: That would be wonderful, Yeah, because people would be like,
Speaker 2: what are they?
Speaker 3: What happened?
Speaker 2: And understand it until we came back.
Speaker 3: All right? So I found this This is actually new
Speaker 3: this year on the social medis. This lady named Charity
Speaker 3: Hutchinson had a Facebook post that has really taken off.
Speaker 3: Last I looked earlier that was gez had about thirty
Speaker 3: thousand likes and has been shared quite a few times.
Speaker 3: And she had a solution in her family on what
Speaker 3: the conundrum parents face by lying to their children bald
Speaker 3: face lying for years about the existence of a real
Speaker 3: human Santa Claus as a person.
Speaker 2: Right, So she, I guess tried this with her oldest
Speaker 2: her firstborn recently, and they've both in the last couple
Speaker 2: of years.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they fell for her client's sinker. And in a way,
Speaker 2: it's a really great thing to do. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, you're basically you're getting out of one lie
Speaker 2: by creating another different lie.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh not really?
Speaker 2: Okay, All right, well, let's let everybody judge for themselves.
Speaker 2: Let's describe this, okay, So Charity says that you start
Speaker 2: off by taking your kid out for coffee. I didn't
Speaker 2: realize that was the thing that you do with kids
Speaker 2: these days, but apparently it is. So you take your
Speaker 2: kid out for coffee or whatever, maybe a milk. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll let's go with one of those too. But you
Speaker 2: take your kid out and you just basically say, hey,
Speaker 2: you know what, I've noticed you doing a lot of
Speaker 2: really great, kind, compassionate things this year, for example, this
Speaker 2: and that, and the time you beat up that bully
Speaker 2: who pushed down that smaller kid, that kind of thing,
Speaker 2: the time you laid on that bird who had no
Speaker 2: chance of surviving without his mother. Just some nice stuff, right,
Speaker 2: And you say, you know, son or daughter, I think
Speaker 2: you have become compassionate enough and old enough to become
Speaker 2: a Santa Claus.
Speaker 3: And you drop your mic right, and you leave your
Speaker 3: kid in Starbucks and you just walk down the street
Speaker 3: feeling good about yourself.
Speaker 2: You get your car, you drive off to California to
Speaker 2: start a new life with a new name.
Speaker 3: So no, you say, I want you, you're old not
Speaker 3: to become Santa Claus. And then your kid is like
Speaker 3: what yeah, and you say, get ready for your mind
Speaker 3: to be blown, kid, because guess what. Here's the deal
Speaker 3: with Sanna. Sanna is a construct sort of basically is
Speaker 3: what you're trying to do is say you can become
Speaker 3: Santa because Sanna is someone who just very kindly and
Speaker 3: unselfishly gives something to others anonymously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's being Santa is anybody could be Santa.
Speaker 2: As long as you want to give to people just
Speaker 2: for the sheer joy of making other people happy exactly
Speaker 2: is Santa. And anybody who does that can be Santa.
Speaker 2: And so hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you
Speaker 2: try starting starting it out this year, Like, just pick
Speaker 2: somebody that you know and like and say, find out
Speaker 2: without them knowing what's going on, something that they really want,
Speaker 2: and then go get it for him and wrap it
Speaker 2: up and leave it for him. But here's the key.
Speaker 2: You have to say that it's from Santa on the
Speaker 2: little card or tag and you can never tell them.
Speaker 3: That it was you.
Speaker 2: That's pretty great, Yeah, And she backs it up by
Speaker 2: making the point that being sand is not about getting credit,
Speaker 2: it's about just giving for the joy of giving and
Speaker 2: making other people happy. So yeah, just never tell so
Speaker 2: that in that way you become Santa.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it gives the kid all these lessons, you know,
Speaker 3: understanding about what's going on around the world in their
Speaker 3: own neighborhood. Maybe this article says it gives some providence
Speaker 3: over their own innocence. It's a great point. I think
Speaker 3: she said that it works so great with her older kid.
Speaker 3: Now that kid is in on it, yep, trying to
Speaker 3: help the the new batch about to lose their innocence. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing is chuck and and I don't maybe
Speaker 2: you know and I don't, But is there some standard
Speaker 2: way that besides this that people recommend breaking the news
Speaker 2: to kids.
Speaker 3: Or well, I don't know about a standard, but there's
Speaker 3: lots of different opinions on that. I put up a
Speaker 3: Facebook post tangentially tangentially related to this, and people were
Speaker 3: just kind of throwing out their ideas, and one of
Speaker 3: them I think they got the most likes was this
Speaker 3: guy that was like he does has never described Santa
Speaker 3: as a person, he said, he has always from the
Speaker 3: beginning described Santa as a like I said, as a construct.
Speaker 3: Is that you don't say construct. You're three year old,
Speaker 3: but you as just a part of the Christmas spirit.
Speaker 3: It's a thing and not a person. Yeah, who literally
Speaker 3: comes to your house. And he was like, I can't
Speaker 3: tell any difference, Like they'd love that just as much
Speaker 3: as I did, thinking it was a real guy. And
Speaker 3: he said, you know, they see the Christmas specials and
Speaker 3: they get that it's a made up thing, but it's
Speaker 3: just a part of the whole idea of Christmas. Right,
Speaker 3: So he was just kind of kind of truthful about
Speaker 3: the whole thing. Yeah, and they're still delighted with Sanna
Speaker 3: and when they see Santa and the mall, they aren't like,
Speaker 3: you're a construct, although that would be great.
Speaker 2: It would be you did some part of you would
Speaker 2: be pretty proud of your kid for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think is interesting though. I mean I don't
Speaker 3: know what I'm gonna do yet, so I got to
Speaker 3: think this over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean there's probably parents listening right now
Speaker 2: they're like, oh man, yeah, I don't want to do this,
Speaker 2: but this is a pretty good out. So everybody give
Speaker 2: Charity Hutchinson a pat on the back. Oh all right, Chuck,
Speaker 2: it's almost time for soul punch.
Speaker 3: That's right, we're gonna wrap it up here. We crowdsource
Speaker 3: some Facebook traditions from our listeners, and I asked for
Speaker 3: specifically unusual traditions, and I wedded through, waded through the
Speaker 3: ninety percent that were not unusual in any way, and
Speaker 3: managed to find some pretty interesting things. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so I was I don't know what percentage
Speaker 2: I didn't see what percentage of the actual ideas submitted
Speaker 2: this is, but some people have some pretty cool little
Speaker 2: traditions that I just love. Agreed, So you want to start?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Victoria krum she says that on her father's
Speaker 3: side of the family, he was I think he was Polish,
Speaker 3: his Polish roots, and so in order to honor their
Speaker 3: Polish roots, every year, their father makes a paupers meal
Speaker 3: for Christmas Eve. Instead of you know, some big lavish,
Speaker 3: extravagant thing. They made sour out soup and Parochi's and
Speaker 3: the most reasonable priced cold water fish available.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it kind of honors like the humble roots
Speaker 2: that their family has.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. So Victoria Kroum, good on you for
Speaker 3: that one.
Speaker 2: Nice. So how about Emily Ruth Vander.
Speaker 3: Arks, Yes, this is actually a lot of people had this,
Speaker 3: So this is a thing.
Speaker 2: So her mom hides a pickle ornament on the Christmas
Speaker 2: tree somewhere right, and on Christmas Morning, everybody tries to
Speaker 2: find it. Whoever finds it first gets a gift. And
Speaker 2: Emily said that it started out just being like, oh, hey,
Speaker 2: here's a piece of chocolate. Yeah, and the person would
Speaker 2: just be like, just throw it to the ground. But
Speaker 2: she said that it's gotten better over the years, so
Speaker 2: now it's like up to like a Starbucks gift card.
Speaker 3: Whoa yeah, yeah, I saw a lot of people with
Speaker 3: this pickle thing though, so obviously it's a thing, and
Speaker 3: she said it's regionalized.
Speaker 2: She said that her husband is a master ace at
Speaker 2: finding the pickle. Yeah, and he wins it every year.
Speaker 2: So Champ pickle Finder, Emily's husband, Emily's husband, So thanks, Emily.
Speaker 2: Ruth vander Ark. That's a great name.
Speaker 3: Yep. Jessica Evans Totin Tautan, this is pretty good. I
Speaker 3: love weird dads. After my parents got divorced, my dad
Speaker 3: was in charge of getting and wrapping his own Christmas
Speaker 3: presents for me and my three older sisters, and he
Speaker 3: had a hard time knowing what to get us, so
Speaker 3: he made a tradition of buying us a Barbie doll
Speaker 3: every year along with a gift receipt, and he called
Speaker 3: it a creative gift card. I just love that, basically, like,
Speaker 3: I know you're going to take this back, but here,
Speaker 3: here's something at least.
Speaker 2: And he also has a really fun time rejecting traditional
Speaker 2: Christmas wrapping, right, So yeah, he would just put it
Speaker 2: in a garbage bag for him this and then apparently
Speaker 2: in his older years he's like, I can do better
Speaker 2: than this, So now he goes to like thrift stores
Speaker 2: in ventedge shops and finds old carpet or old briefcases.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, and puts them in there. Yeah, which is
Speaker 2: super eighties, like delivering a Barbie doll in a briefcase.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's still doing it. They still get the barbie.
Speaker 3: They're well into adulthood now, she points out, and he
Speaker 3: still gets them the barbie every year. So I think
Speaker 3: that's a really cool thing. And mister Evans, if that
Speaker 3: is your name, sir, I salute you. Yep.
Speaker 2: So Catherine Joy Figley, Yeah, this is a good one.
Speaker 2: She said that her husband's family wraps presence. They also
Speaker 2: reject traditional Christmas paper wrapping paper, so they they kind
Speaker 2: of have like a friendly competition or theme going where
Speaker 2: they find the weirdest thing they can wrap it in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my favorite is the unused diaper. Yeah that's good.
Speaker 2: My favorite birthday wrapping paper?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I like it. Subversive.
Speaker 2: It is extremely saying like, yeah, I'm gonna use wrapping paper.
Speaker 2: I'm just not gonna it for this particular holiday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like it. So that's from Catherine Joy Figley.
Speaker 3: Keep that going, all right. Check.
Speaker 2: There's this cat named Nick Meller who has a great
Speaker 2: Christmas Morning tradition with his mom, who he calls his mom.
Speaker 2: So he probably spells color with a you.
Speaker 3: I think it's a lady too, Nick.
Speaker 2: Oh, it could be Nicole, I guess yeah.
Speaker 3: I think she's from Australia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well every Christmas morning, this would actually make
Speaker 2: a lot of sense that she would be from Australia.
Speaker 2: Every Christmas morning, her mom and she get up very
Speaker 2: early and they go to the beach and this is
Speaker 2: where the Australian clue it kicks in before the hordes
Speaker 2: of people get there. The says are not very popular
Speaker 2: in the Northern Hemisphere in Christmas time. But she says
Speaker 2: that they grab a bottle of champagne and a huge
Speaker 2: bucket of cherries and that's what they have for breakfast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so neat.
Speaker 2: Great Christmas tradition.
Speaker 3: Let me see this one. I love, Tanya floyd Ellis.
Speaker 3: Growing up, my mom and father in law, my grandpa,
Speaker 3: would pass to each other a ba humbug can. They
Speaker 3: both relish, disgusting and just sorry and disguising the can.
Speaker 3: Don't worry, it gets disgusting to make it unrecognizable as
Speaker 3: a rat present. And some of the more memorable additions
Speaker 3: to the can, like you put junk in It was
Speaker 3: a year's worth of Grandpa's tonios in there. That was
Speaker 3: very nice. Pile of dog poop gathered in January and
Speaker 3: left to cure until the next December. A clump of
Speaker 3: ketchup packets held together by one broken packet now acting
Speaker 3: as glue. I love that, Thank you, Tania floyd Ellis.
Speaker 2: That's a good one, all right. So how about Sarah
Speaker 2: Flora Monte's Christmas tradition. Yes, so every year on Christmas Eve,
Speaker 2: her whole family has an ice cream eating contest with
Speaker 2: all of her cousins. Yeah, so whoever can finish a
Speaker 2: half a gallon of ice cream within an hour. And
Speaker 2: here's the key without throwing it up. When's a substantial
Speaker 2: amount of cash? She says, She doesn't say how much,
Speaker 2: she does use the word substantial. So she says that
Speaker 2: it's nearly impossible to do this, and it's only been
Speaker 2: done three times before out of probably one hundred attempts.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking that they haven't been doing this for a century.
Speaker 2: But just if you take the number of people who've
Speaker 2: tried it over the years, yeah, you come up with
Speaker 2: a hundred.
Speaker 3: She means, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: She says that a lot of people can finish but
Speaker 2: not hold it down, and that's where that key comes in.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of vomiting going on at Sarah
Speaker 2: Flora Monte's house on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she posted pictures too. She posted a couple
Speaker 3: one of the entire family sitting around with each with
Speaker 3: a gallon half gallon of ice cream in front of them,
Speaker 3: and then one of a couple of people doing that
Speaker 3: with her her grandmother just like bitter and staring at them.
Speaker 2: She said, her grandmother hates it, so they're going to
Speaker 2: do it as long as she's around.
Speaker 3: It's very nice. Here's one from Norma Mullen that's really
Speaker 3: really neat. This is not gross or anything. Our family
Speaker 3: has a tablecloth that goes on the Christmas dinner table
Speaker 3: every year and everyone signs it with a fabric pen.
Speaker 3: And they've been doing this since nineteen ninety four, so
Speaker 3: they use the same tablecloth and they're able to look
Speaker 3: back every year and look at all these memories and
Speaker 3: along with obviously people they've lost over the years and
Speaker 3: people that they've gained over the years. So that is
Speaker 3: just super cool. It's older than most of her cousins,
Speaker 3: and she can see how much their family has grown
Speaker 3: year by year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: That's really nice.
Speaker 2: And then how about Ryan Bradfields.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2: Ryan Bradfield's mom's family, who says it's a large Sicilian bunch.
Speaker 2: They have a wind up et toy that they got
Speaker 2: in the eighties and somehow it just became family tradition
Speaker 2: for them to dress up the et doll as different
Speaker 2: character and then they use it as a Christmas tree
Speaker 2: topper for their grandparents tree.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's pretty great.
Speaker 2: So ET's been like Elvis, NBA player, Dolly parton your
Speaker 2: favorite Yeah a show girl, And it turns out obviously weirdly,
Speaker 2: but one of Bradfield's cousins married a member of the
Speaker 2: or a friend I guess of this Spielberg family. So
Speaker 2: they're trying to get them pictures of the et dressed up.
Speaker 2: Over the years.
Speaker 3: I'm sure no one's ever tried to get Steven Spielberg
Speaker 3: a funny et picture, right. This one is very sweet.
Speaker 3: This is from Holly Henderson of Portland. She and her
Speaker 3: husband bought their first house four years ago just outside
Speaker 3: of Portland, and the very first night there, on Christmas Eve,
Speaker 3: they spent the night in a mattress on the floor
Speaker 3: next to the Christmas tree. And she says, now we
Speaker 3: do that every year. We bring that mattress back in
Speaker 3: the living room on Christmas Eve and sleep on the
Speaker 3: mattress by the tree.
Speaker 2: It's very sweet, lovely. And then the last one, Chuck,
Speaker 2: how about Chelsea Alan Lindsay's.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the Christmas route Bega, Yeah, I love weird families.
Speaker 2: So her family puts a Christmas Rutebiga out in the
Speaker 2: living room along with the tree every year. And the
Speaker 2: whole thing started from a car trip when they were
Speaker 2: living in the UK, and she says that her grandma,
Speaker 2: parents and her aunt had come to visit one Christmas time.
Speaker 2: They were all in the car and everything was just
Speaker 2: going nuts and crazy, and apparently Chelsea's mom started calling
Speaker 2: the whole thing rude. Bega's on parade. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: love her mom. She bought a rudabaga and put it
Speaker 2: on the dashboard of the car for the rest of
Speaker 2: the trip, and then when she got home she made
Speaker 2: a face for it out of clothes, put clothes, put
Speaker 2: a wreath on it, and then it became a Christmas
Speaker 2: root to Bega, Yeah, this is not just weird dad's weird.
Speaker 2: Moms are great too.
Speaker 3: Sure you know. I got one more, Okay, because I
Speaker 3: forgot Michelle Greenwald. I want to be in her family
Speaker 3: because they have a holiday they invented called Pajamaica's. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: and I think I see you. I'll see where this
Speaker 3: is going. It's the day before Christmas Eve even and
Speaker 3: she said it was necessary since we were traveling for
Speaker 3: Christmas Day and didn't have a day that was dedicated
Speaker 3: just to the four of us in our family. So
Speaker 3: Pajamaicus goes down like this. It's immediate family. They get
Speaker 3: each other pajamas and change into the pajamas all together.
Speaker 3: Well they're all wearing the pajamas in other words. And
Speaker 3: then they watch Christmas movies and eat breakfast for dinner,
Speaker 3: which is one of my favorite things.
Speaker 2: And it's like a no holds barred breakfast for dinner.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, she says. They cook all day and have
Speaker 3: a huge breakfast spread like Latcus waffles, poached eggs, briosh,
Speaker 3: you name it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever you want you get to have. Yeah for dinner.
Speaker 3: I don't know where the green walls are, but I
Speaker 3: want to come over for pajamakas. Yeah, it sounds pretty
Speaker 3: great to just invite me and I'll be there. Get
Speaker 3: me pajamas with feet good. I got nothing else?
Speaker 2: So oh okay, well I guess this is the outro
Speaker 2: then huh yeah, wow, this is great, Chuck. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's officially now Christmas time.
Speaker 3: For us, that's right, and other wonderful year of stuff
Speaker 3: you should know. Twenty sixteen. We're going to close the
Speaker 3: books on this one and thank everyone, as we do
Speaker 3: every year, for your support, because without you, there would
Speaker 3: be no us. We really really don't take that for granted,
Speaker 3: and actually a very special birthday shout out. I know
Speaker 3: people that are born around Christmas always get jipped off
Speaker 3: in the birthday department, but one of our most delightful
Speaker 3: and oldest, most supportive fans, Miss Gail Coots. It's her
Speaker 3: birthday on Christmas Eve, and her husband Mark was kind
Speaker 3: enough to email me because he knows what a big
Speaker 3: fan she is and Gail is wonderful. So happy birthday,
Speaker 3: Gail from Ohio. You're the best. I hope we can
Speaker 3: all meet up someday and sounds.
Speaker 2: Good right yep. So happy holidays to everybody. Merry Christmas,
Speaker 2: Happy Honikah, Happy Kwanza, tip top tet all that jazz.
Speaker 2: You guys have yourselves a wonderful holiday season from all
Speaker 2: of us here at Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com. H