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Speaker 1: Noel, Oh my gosh, we're doing the classic episode. How

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Speaker 1: could we the audacity, the.

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Speaker 2: Audacity indeed, yeah, got some trips happening and holidays and

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Speaker 2: all of that good stuff. So we just wanted to

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Speaker 2: not leave you without your Ridiculous History fixed for today,

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Speaker 2: and so we're going to bring you a holiday classic already,

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Speaker 2: a classic about when the Puritans decided to maybe cancel Christmas?

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Speaker 2: What does that sound like to you? True?

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Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing. If you were to ask us,

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Speaker 1: if you were to say, Ben nol Max, Hello, what

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Speaker 1: holiday will you cancel? We would never say Christmas. But

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Speaker 1: the Puritans did.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, something to do with no scriptural basis for it.

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Speaker 2: But we'll get right into it in this classic episode

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Speaker 2: coming at you now.

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. I know it's

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Speaker 1: so corny and and please just humor me for a second,

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Speaker 1: Super producer, Casey, can we have a little bit of

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Speaker 1: Christmas music?

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Speaker 2: Humbug? There? We are welcome to the show.

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Speaker 1: Folks. My name's Ben.

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Speaker 2: I don't like Christmas.

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Speaker 1: You don't like Christmas?

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Speaker 2: No, I'm the Grinch? What stole Christmas? And then ransomed

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Speaker 2: it back to the Little Who's of hoovel.

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Speaker 1: The Grinch was very anti Christmas, at least at the

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Speaker 1: offset of the story. Did you see the Halloween special? Oh,

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Speaker 1: that one's that freaked me out when I was a kid.

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Speaker 1: Halloween is Grinch Night.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it's a good one. It's a good one. It's

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Speaker 2: very psychedelic when he lets out all the spooks and

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Speaker 2: the ghosts and stuff and the hacking sacks or Holland

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Speaker 2: we're not talking about Halloween today. We're talking about Christmas.

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Speaker 1: Right, Christmas those for it and against it. If you

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Speaker 1: have in your life someone who is not a fan

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Speaker 1: of the holidays in general or this particular holiday, Christmas, right,

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Speaker 1: then you may enjoy this episode. Because when we think

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Speaker 1: of Christmas here in the West, we think of some

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Speaker 1: basic iconic things. The eulog, yeah, the yule log, Christmas tree,

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Speaker 1: cocoa Nativity scene right, rampant commercialism right right, the Coca cola, Santa.

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Speaker 2: Claus, and the Polar Bears, sometimes all in the same picture.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes it's the Santa Claus riding the Polar Bears. At

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Speaker 2: least that it's in my nightmares.

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Speaker 1: Right, And this is the age of the meme, So

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Speaker 1: we could just go ahead and throw in you know,

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Speaker 1: Jeff Goldbloom or Christopher Walkin, just.

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Speaker 2: Like in the mix.

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Speaker 1: Why not? It's a party all the time in ridiculous history,

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Speaker 1: and Christmas in the US, by a number of different metrics,

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Speaker 1: is a hugely important event, a hugely important annual event. Economically,

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Speaker 1: it's very important to both businesses and to governments right. Spiritually,

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Speaker 1: it's very important to people who practice Christianity, and even

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Speaker 1: for people who don't really consider themselves spiritually aligned with

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Speaker 1: the celebration of Christmas, they might still participate because a

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Speaker 1: lot of the traditions are fun. You know, you got

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Speaker 1: the stockings and the stuff in the stockings, You've got

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Speaker 1: Christmas presence. They're a huge thing. I personally, I don't

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Speaker 1: know about you know, but I personally remember growing up

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Speaker 1: with people who did not consider themselves Christian but celebrated

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Speaker 1: Christmas because they loved you know, the parties, and they

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Speaker 1: loved the gifts in the making marry.

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Speaker 2: The gifts, Christmas gifts, both.

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Speaker 1: With the tea and without.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, it's hard to imagine a time

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Speaker 2: where this wasn't the case, where you know, the Santa

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Speaker 2: Claus riding polar bears on a sleigh of death was

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Speaker 2: not confronting you at every turn. But as it turns out,

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Speaker 2: Christmas did not used to be nearly as big a

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Speaker 2: deal as it is today.

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Speaker 1: Right, absolutely, And to explore this further, we are going

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Speaker 1: to take a trip back in time. Let's go to

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Speaker 1: let's go to what will later be called Cape Cod Massachusetts.

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Speaker 2: Should we time travel? I've done that in a one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go, all right, cool, here we are Noel.

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Speaker 1: It's sixteen twenty European colonists disembark from a ship called

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Speaker 1: the Mayflower with the aim of establishing a colony and

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Speaker 1: a new, better way of life in the new and

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Speaker 1: they wanted to leave a lot of things behind. One

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Speaker 1: of the things they wanted to leave behind was the

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Speaker 1: celebration of Christmas.

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Speaker 2: Not only just Christmas, but like everything associated with Christmas,

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Speaker 2: because to the Puritans it represented debauchery, frivolity, decadence, and

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Speaker 2: ultimately sinfulness.

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Speaker 1: Right m hmm, yeah, so quick and dirty. Background on

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Speaker 1: Puritans and Puritanism. It was a reform movement that arose

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Speaker 1: in the Church of England in the late sixteenth century,

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Speaker 1: and the Church didn't like it. The Crown didn't like it.

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Speaker 1: And this you know in many ways provided the motivation

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Speaker 1: for these colonists to leave and seek a different life

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Speaker 1: in the new world. And without going too far into it,

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Speaker 1: I do want to note this, this is pretty interesting.

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Speaker 1: The word Puritan was actually used as a pejorative. The

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Speaker 1: word came from the enemies of Puritanism. They were also

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Speaker 1: sometimes called precisionist. And boy howdy did they have a

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Speaker 1: bone to pick or a beef to stew with Christmas?

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Speaker 1: They didn't understand it. They said, the harvester are done,

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Speaker 1: the cattle or slaughtered. They want to be fed in winter.

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Speaker 1: This means there's fresh meat and fresh wine as well

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Speaker 1: as a lot of time off in abundance, right. And

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Speaker 1: one of their primary issues with this decadence, aside, was

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Speaker 1: that the Bible, they said, no specific date for the

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Speaker 1: birth of Jesus Christ.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. It's really interesting too, because there were non Puritans

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Speaker 2: in these camps. In fact, a man named William Bradford,

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Speaker 2: in his journal called of Plymouth Plantation, made a note

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Speaker 2: of a disagreement that arose between him and some newly

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Speaker 2: arrived non Puritans on Christmas of six teen twenty one,

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Speaker 2: and it goes like this. One the day called Christmas Day,

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Speaker 2: the governor called them out to work, but most of

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Speaker 2: this new company excused themselves and said it went against

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Speaker 2: their conscience to work on that day. So the governor

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Speaker 2: told them that if they made it matter of conscience,

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Speaker 2: he would spare them till they were better informed. Later

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Speaker 2: he found them in the street at play openly, some

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Speaker 2: pitching the bar and some at stool ball and such

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Speaker 2: like sports. So he went to them and took away

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Speaker 2: their implements and told them that was against his conscience

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Speaker 2: that they should play and others work. If they made

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Speaker 2: the keeping of it matter of devotion, let them keep

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Speaker 2: their houses, but there should be no gaming or reveling

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Speaker 2: in the streets since which time nothing hath been attempted

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Speaker 2: that way, at least openly. It was like, you know, hey,

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Speaker 2: if you gotta play at stoolball and frolic, do it

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Speaker 2: behind closed doors. Man, No one wants to see that.

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Speaker 1: Keep it, yeah, bit under wraps, keep it in the house.

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Speaker 1: That was a great read, and noll And it's true

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Speaker 1: the governor in this case Bradford is not being a

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Speaker 1: unique pill all on his own. The puritance thought that

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Speaker 1: what was going on in England was not just a

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Speaker 1: sign of debauchery for Christmas time and for the English.

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Speaker 1: But it was a sign of the decline of civilization

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Speaker 1: and a decline of all the things that had any

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Speaker 1: value whatsoever. This comes from a history professor named Penn

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Speaker 1: Ristad who wrote a pretty fascinating book called Christmas in America,

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Speaker 1: a History. So they thought they weren't just being fuddy duddies.

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Speaker 1: They thought they were saving Western civilization and the good

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Speaker 1: things of English society. And at first it sounds like

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Speaker 1: he's kind of tolerant, where he says, you know, until

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Speaker 1: you know better, it's okay, do what you want. But man,

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Speaker 1: he just couldn't take him playing out in the streets.

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Speaker 2: That didn't last long, though, Ben, because in sixteen fifty nine,

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Speaker 2: on May eleventh, be precise, the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature

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Speaker 2: passed an official ban on Christmas, and anyone found celebrating

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Speaker 2: it would be fined five shillings. But we're getting ahead

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Speaker 2: of ourselves just slightly. This goes back farther to a

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Speaker 2: man named Oliver Cromwell.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so there was a similar Christmas ban in

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Speaker 1: England during the rule of Oliver Cromwell, when Parliament was

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Speaker 1: controlled by a Puritan majority the Puritan Parliament decided to

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Speaker 1: make Christmas time a period of fasting and humiliation in

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Speaker 1: prayer and prayer, yes, for all the sins of previous Christmases.

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Speaker 1: And let's just point out this, Oliver Cromwell was no joke.

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Speaker 2: He was one of the signers of King Charles the

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Speaker 2: First's death warrant which led to this admittedly brief English

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Speaker 2: Commonwealth and the ban that he imposed lasted nearly twenty years.

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Speaker 2: So for nearly two decades, Christmas carols were banned. Any

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Speaker 2: kind of open celebration of Christmas was banned, and yet

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Speaker 2: people held on to these traditions and had to kind

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Speaker 2: of take it underground. Right, But why did they hate Christmas? Ben?

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Speaker 2: I thought this was a celebration of the birth of

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Speaker 2: baby Jesus.

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Speaker 1: Well, again, they said, there's no specific date assigned to

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Speaker 1: it in the Bible, in their Holy text, so there's

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Speaker 1: nothing to celebrate in their opinion, and they saw it

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Speaker 1: as just, you know, everybody using the holidays and the

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Speaker 1: excuse to create their own Las Vegas.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but what's the origins of Christmas? Ben? We know

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Speaker 2: that it was accused of being too aligned with pagan traditions,

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Speaker 2: but where where does all that come from? And how

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Speaker 2: did December twenty fifth become a thing? Oh?

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Speaker 1: Oh man, okay, this is this is a twisted tale.

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Speaker 1: You can actually hear an interesting take on this from

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Speaker 1: our other show stuff. They don't want you to know.

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Speaker 1: We have a piece about the strange origins of Christmas,

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Speaker 1: and Noel, you are absolutely correct. A lot of the

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Speaker 1: things considered Christmas traditions today arose independently hundreds of years

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Speaker 1: after the era of Jesus Christ, and they come from

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Speaker 1: pre existing religions or folk beliefs.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I was playing a little koy. I actually

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Speaker 2: found this great paper called How December twenty fifth Became

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Speaker 2: Christmas by Andrew McGowan, which originally appeared in The Bible

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Speaker 2: Review in December of two thousand and two, and he

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Speaker 2: says that celebrations of Jesus' birth and the Nativity and

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Speaker 2: all that are not mentioned anywhere in the Gospels or acts,

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Speaker 2: and that one of the only references to a timing

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Speaker 2: a time frame for Jesus birth was this notion of

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Speaker 2: shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the

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Speaker 2: news of Jesus birth, which is from Luke to eight

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Speaker 2: and that suggested actually that this took place during the

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Speaker 2: spring lambing season. But McGowan says, most scholars say it's

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Speaker 2: sort of a mistake to try to pull a specific

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Speaker 2: date out of this kind of circumstantial evidence, right, And

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Speaker 2: I mean it's very vague.

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Speaker 1: Christmas itself, the celebration as we would understand it, and

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Speaker 1: the customs that a lot of Puritans would have been

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Speaker 1: familiar with, it's all the result of this agglomeration of

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Speaker 1: different preexisting festivals, pagan festivals in many cases that were

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Speaker 1: later co opted in some way by the Catholic Church.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there was one particular called Saturnalia that took place

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Speaker 2: in late December and aligned with the winter solstice, and

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Speaker 2: the Roman emperor Eurolian actually established this other feast of

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Speaker 2: the birth of Saul Invictus, or the Unconquered Sun, and

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Speaker 2: that was on December twenty fifth. So mcgallan argues that

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Speaker 2: it was a spin off from these pagan solar festivals.

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Speaker 2: Christmas was in fact the spinoff. And there are two

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Speaker 2: theories of how Christmas became the Christmas that we know today,

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Speaker 2: one of which is more popular than the other, and

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Speaker 2: that is that early Christians chose these dates to coincide

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Speaker 2: with these pre existing they would refer to as barbarian

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Speaker 2: kind of holidays Roman holidays, so that they could kind

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Speaker 2: of encourage Christianity to spread because they'd be like, well,

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Speaker 2: it's the same, it happens around the same time. I

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Speaker 2: might as well just do this new Christmas thing instead

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Speaker 2: of you know, the old ways. But it was a

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Speaker 2: little easier to swallow. But then he goes on to

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Speaker 2: say that there are problems with this that doesn't appear

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Speaker 2: in any early Christian writings, and that to this day

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Speaker 2: it's not one hundred percent sure why December twenty fifth

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Speaker 2: became the day we celebrate Christmas, but it is.

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Speaker 1: Pretty compelling to note that there were, you know, in

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Speaker 1: these pre existing sun worship based you know, religions or

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Speaker 1: sets of beliefs like Mithraism, the Roman religions. James Fraser

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Speaker 1: had this pretty conclusive take on it, at least in

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Speaker 1: his opinion. He said, the largest pagan religious cult that

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Speaker 1: fostered the celebration of December twenty fifth as a holiday

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Speaker 1: was the pagan sun worship Mythraism, and their winter festival

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Speaker 1: was called the Nativity of the Sun. And if they

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Speaker 1: like other civilizations or other belief systems. We're keeping the

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Speaker 1: twenty fifth of December as a sacred day. To them

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Speaker 1: was the birthday of the sun. Essentially, then this idea

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Speaker 1: of co opting makes perfect sense. It's easier to say

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Speaker 1: yes to that, and it's a practice that's common. It's

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Speaker 1: called religious syncretism. So, for instance, when let's say you

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Speaker 1: have a pre existing religion, right, and you want to proselytize,

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Speaker 1: you want to travel and spread the good news, and

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Speaker 1: you go to a land where no one has ever

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Speaker 1: heard of your religion, but they have their own religion.

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Speaker 1: Then you start saying, oh, that God you worship is actually,

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Speaker 1: you know, Saint Jiminy Crickets whatever, I'm making up a religion.

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Speaker 1: And you say, the whole time you've been practicing this religion,

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Speaker 1: let me just show you what to call it.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, it seems like a potentially successful.

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Speaker 1: Ruse, right, or you know, is it even a ruse?

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Speaker 1: To the Puritans, it was, and they thought they were

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Speaker 1: not going to be fooled. But if we returned to

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Speaker 1: the colonies in the New World at this time, we

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Speaker 1: find that people were divided. The Puritans were playing fun police.

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Speaker 1: They kept a stranglehold on fun in New England, but

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Speaker 1: not all of what would become America was against the idea.

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Speaker 1: Settlers in the southern parts like Jamestown, Virginia had no

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Speaker 1: problem celebrating Christmas, and the ban that the Puritans attempted

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Speaker 1: was ultimately well, obviously spoiler alert for anyone listening to

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Speaker 1: this in twenty seventeen, it didn't work. People still celebrate

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Speaker 1: Christmas in the United States. But the ban itself, while

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Speaker 1: it was enforced, was also never completely successful, which is

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Speaker 1: something we see happen a lot with any sort of prohibition.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and back to that ban that they instituted in

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Speaker 2: Boston in sixteen fifty nine, and like I said, it

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Speaker 2: was just if you were found celebrating Christmas, you'd be

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Speaker 2: fined five shillings. Shillings, Yeah, five shillings. And then here

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Speaker 2: is the language of that for preventing disorders arising in

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Speaker 2: several places within the jurisdiction by reason of some still

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Speaker 2: observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countries.

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Speaker 2: To the great dishonor of God and offense of others,

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Speaker 2: is therefore ordered that whosoever shall be found observing any

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Speaker 2: such day as Christmas or the like, either by four

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Speaker 2: bearing of labor, feasting, or any other way. Upon such account,

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Speaker 2: as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for

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Speaker 2: every such offense five shillings as fine to the county, beautiful,

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Speaker 2: very grinch like in him.

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Speaker 1: Yes, And they were attaching a financial incentive there, so

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Speaker 1: that the law actually had.

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Speaker 2: Teeth, you know. And that band actually remained in place

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Speaker 2: for twenty two years and then was abolished in sixteen

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Speaker 2: eighty one. And that's because there was this influx of

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Speaker 2: European immigrants that really insisted upon Christmas.

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Speaker 1: Right, and the society was changing at a different pace

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Speaker 1: in different parts.

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Speaker 2: Of the world.

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Speaker 1: So it was changing at a slower rate in New

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Speaker 1: England and more rapidly in the Middle colonies. In the south,

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Speaker 1: there was a need for pluralism and social harmony, so

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Speaker 1: people began coming together culturally to celebrate Christmas. Yet the

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Speaker 1: status of the holiday it was still haphazard, and there

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Speaker 1: wasn't a huge amount of harmony in the specific traditions

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Speaker 1: that they practiced.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and even after this coming together that you're talking about,

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Speaker 2: it still took a while before Christmas became entrenched the

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Speaker 2: way it is today as far as like a national holiday.

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Speaker 2: Congress was in session on Christmas of seventeen eighty nine,

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Speaker 2: and that was the year after the Constitution was ratified.

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Speaker 2: The Senate worked on Christmas of seventeen ninety seven. The

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Speaker 2: House met on Christmas of eighteen oh two, so this

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Speaker 2: was not a big deal yet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't until later in the nineteenth century that

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Speaker 1: Christmas began to shape up into something that the average

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Speaker 1: person in twenty seventeen would recognize. Different religions and denominations

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Speaker 1: emerged in America and they held Christmas both as a

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Speaker 1: holy day and a day of celebration. The Puritans took notice.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and our author friend Penn Rostad of Christmas in America,

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Speaker 2: a History, said this, the Puritans are sort of being

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Speaker 2: introduced to varieties of religious experiences that can't help but

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Speaker 2: start to kind of wear away one's commitment to a

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Speaker 2: single way of thinking. So, in other words, you know,

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Speaker 2: different religions formed in local governments, and there was this

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Speaker 2: kind of give and take between different networks that helped

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Speaker 2: kind of calm down some of these animosities and biases

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Speaker 2: between these different groups. And then in eighteen seventy two,

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty years after Plymouth Rock, the US declared

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Speaker 2: Christmas and national holiday.

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Speaker 1: And it happened. This declaration happened because of compelling economics,

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Speaker 1: the emergence of a middle class. The idea of giving

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Speaker 1: and receiving Christmas give took hold when people had the

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Speaker 1: ability to afford such exchanges, right, and then there was

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Speaker 1: this symphasis on hanging at home and hanging with your family.

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Speaker 1: So no more stool ball in the street, no more

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Speaker 1: frolicking in the street.

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Speaker 2: And you know, Christmas today still involves a fair amount

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Speaker 2: of gluttony and boozing, you know, depending on your if.

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Speaker 2: I don't know about your family, but it certainly doesn't mind.

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Speaker 2: But I guess we found kind of a middle ground.

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Speaker 2: So it's not like we're going door to door. I

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Speaker 2: meant to mention this earlier, but in the early days

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Speaker 2: of Christmas in England, begging wash sailing they called it.

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Speaker 2: It involved going door to door to wealthy people's houses,

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Speaker 2: begging for food and at times if they refused you

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Speaker 2: you would like barge into their homes and like clockwork

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Speaker 2: or in style and start like trashing the place. You know.

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Speaker 2: So we've come a long way.

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Speaker 1: We have come a long way. We were looking off

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Speaker 1: air into some other unique and interesting Christmas traditions from

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Speaker 1: outside of the United States. Of course, honorable mention to

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Speaker 1: Crampis and Crampis's spot kind of got blown up a

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Speaker 1: few years ago here.

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Speaker 2: In the US. Everybody knew about it.

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Speaker 1: There are multiple films. There's the poop log, a Catalan

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Speaker 1: custom in Spain where they hollow out this log, they

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Speaker 1: add legs in a face and you have to feed

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Speaker 1: it every day here check this out. You have to

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Speaker 1: feed him every day leading up to Christmas, starting on

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Speaker 1: December eighth, And then you sing a song while you're

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Speaker 1: feeding him. And the song is like poop log, poop log,

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Speaker 1: hazel nuts and cottage cheese. If you don't poop, well,

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Speaker 1: I'll hit you with a stick poop log true story.

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Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, you put the

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Speaker 1: poop log in the fireplace and beat him with sticks

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Speaker 1: until he poops out small candies, fruits and nuts that

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Speaker 1: you've been feeding them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that does. Stuff does kind of stick around in

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Speaker 2: your poop. Where how do we get here?

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Speaker 1: Weird Christmas traditions?

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Speaker 2: Do you know about bell Schnickel? Tell me about bell Schnickel,

354
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Speaker 2: for there's different versions of bellsnickel that appear in different culture.

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Speaker 2: Is like it was preserved even in the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition.

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Speaker 2: But I think you would put out a pair of shoes,

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Speaker 2: and he would put candy in streets and small gifts,

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Speaker 2: and I think it was his job to let Santa

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Speaker 2: know if you'd been behaving or not.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, he was a kind of a lieutenant and informer.

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Speaker 2: He definitely is pictured as this. It looks kind of

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Speaker 2: like a trapper, like a fur trapper, you know, and

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Speaker 2: he's carrying around this bundle of sticks. And I'm having

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Speaker 2: a hard time finding precise mention of this, but that

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Speaker 2: was the Dwight thing in the office where he's whipping

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Speaker 2: people with these sticks. So, you know, a patently unpleasant

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Speaker 2: depiction of jolly old Saint Nick.

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Speaker 1: That's that's interesting. I want to learn more about that,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for interesting you see it? To me,

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Speaker 1: my favorite weird Christmas tradition for years running now has

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Speaker 1: been KFC in Japan.

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Speaker 2: You know about this, right, Well, didn't we me and

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Speaker 2: you and Matt from our other show stuff. I don't

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Speaker 2: want you to know we had fried chicken on Christmas.

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Speaker 2: That's right, we did.

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Speaker 1: I'm told you that.

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Speaker 2: Let's hear about it.

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Speaker 1: So the celebration of Christmas in Asia often has often

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Speaker 1: involves imported Western traditions, but in Japan, a lot of

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Speaker 1: those traditions were shaped by commercial interests. So the holiday

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Speaker 1: in Japan has an emphasis on romantic love and it's

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Speaker 1: a day you spend with your sweetie. You know, bakery

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Speaker 1: sell Christmas cakes, but the big thing is Kentucky Fried Chicken.

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Speaker 1: People order special holiday Kentucky Fried Chicken meals. It's a tradition.

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Speaker 1: It's like the busiest time of year for KFC in Japan.

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Speaker 2: Where does this come from? Ben?

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Speaker 1: That's my question, And it might have to be another episode,

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Speaker 1: But I hope somebody will write in and let us

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Speaker 1: know where ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com, let us know

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Speaker 1: about your experience with KFC in Japan, and if you

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Speaker 1: live in Japan, well, I'm really curious. Is it the

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Speaker 1: same kind of KFC that we have here in the

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Speaker 1: States or is it inherently better?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know either, but we do

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Speaker 2: know this.

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Speaker 1: Although the ban on Christmas never was entirely successful, there

397
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Speaker 1: are still groups out there today who consider themselves Christian,

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Speaker 1: and because they are Christian, they believe they should not

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Speaker 1: celebrate Christmas. They also think that, you know, everything about

400
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Speaker 1: it is ultimately a pagan tradition, bringing in the tree, right,

401
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Speaker 1: that's not a biblical thing.

402
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Speaker 2: Also, things like Holly and Ivy. We were talking with

403
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Speaker 2: Casey superproducer Casey Pegrim before we started recording about how

404
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Speaker 2: I didn't It didn't until recently occur to me how

405
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Speaker 2: kind of pagany those lyrics are. It's like the rising

406
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Speaker 2: of the sun and the running of the deer. You know,

407
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:03,400
Speaker 2: it's this very has this kind of mystical you know,

408
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 2: almost Sylvan Woodland kind of vibe to it, you know exactly.

409
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Speaker 1: And the concerns here are valid and they're real. For

410
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Speaker 1: people who feel like it is an appropriation of their

411
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Speaker 1: actual religion, then the logic internally is clear. You wouldn't

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Speaker 1: celebrate Christmas if that's what you believe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and what if you're like a modern day pagan,

414
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Speaker 2: I mean that is a thing. People still hold those

415
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Speaker 2: old traditions and take them very seriously, and Solstice rituals

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Speaker 2: and the like, And there's probably a sense there that

417
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Speaker 2: a lot of that's been kind of co opted, and

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Speaker 2: they are made to feel like what they're doing is

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Speaker 2: in some way wicked.

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Speaker 1: Right, And you know, one thing that I can stand

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Speaker 1: behind is freedom of holidays. People should be allowed to

422
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Speaker 1: celebrate whatever they want. I just think it's a wrong

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Speaker 1: move to ban somebody from a celebration if they're not

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Speaker 1: hurting anyone.

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Speaker 2: Well, as we know from this story. I mean, you

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Speaker 2: can ban it all day long. People are still gonna

427
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Speaker 2: do it. Frolic they might, they might just trip have

428
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Speaker 2: to frolic in secret. The devil seschet. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why I keep using that phrase, but

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Speaker 1: for now, this is going to conclude I guess our

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Speaker 1: very first holiday episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, merry melodies to all.

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Speaker 1: Happy holidays to you and yours.

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Speaker 2: Yes, indeed. Yeah, what's this war on Christmas? I keep

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Speaker 2: hearing about. How's that going? Ah?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's when they write an x Mas instead of Christmas.

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Speaker 2: That is sad, shame.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a It's a real issue for a lot

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Speaker 1: of people. I'd be interested to hear what you think,

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Speaker 1: friends and neighbors. Do you believe that there's a war

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Speaker 1: on Christmas? I'm candidly I'm a little more interested in

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00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 1: hearing any weird Christmas traditions that your family celebrates. Did

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Speaker 1: you ever hear this Christmas pig thing? No, it's going

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00:26:57,880 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 1: to introduce me to it. They take like a pig

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Speaker 1: and they put it in this sack. It's like a

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00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 1: little pig made out of candy, pink pig, and then

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00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 1: they break it with a little hammer. I was at

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00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,640
Speaker 1: a friend's house for Christmas and I still haven't found

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Speaker 1: anybody else who's heard of that.

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Speaker 2: Sounds made up. No, they did it.

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Speaker 1: They had the pig.

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Speaker 2: That's the thing about traditions, though they can be made up,

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Speaker 2: many of them, they're all made up. It's just like,

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Speaker 2: what do you do what works for you? Please let

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00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 2: us know ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can also

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00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 2: drop us a note on Facebook or Instagram, leave us

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00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,439
Speaker 2: a comment. We're gonna start getting into that Instagram ourselves

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00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 2: a little more. We've been kind of just posting previews

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00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 2: to episodes. Let us know what kind of stuff you

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00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 2: want to see. If if there's you know, you want

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00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 2: some candid shots of Ben and I writing roller coasters

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Speaker 2: together on the weekend, we do it.

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Speaker 1: It's been known to happen all true, all true, And

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Speaker 1: if you have a tradition that you think your fellow

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Speaker 1: listeners would enjoy celebrating.

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Speaker 2: Let us know, and most importantly, come on back and

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Speaker 2: join us for the next episode of Ridiculous History, and

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00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 2: you know, have a nice time off. We'll see you

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Speaker 2: next time. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.