Part Two: Keep the Yuletide Gay: Saturnalia & the Puritan War on Christmas

about the pagan ship Christmas borrowed from today. We're talking about my favorite Christmas, which is medieval Christmas. Medieval Christians had not forgotten their pagan roots. They were again this is purely from my point of view, basically just pagan to like cross themselves and went to church sometimes because otherwise people were just talking to them at Latin and they just kept being doing whatever they wanted to do.

That is my totally historical I'm an anthropologist. Anyway, Christmas in medieval England was a lot of fun for starters. There's twelve days of it, like the song on Christmas Day, their church services there was then there was drinking, feasting and games for about two weeks. The twelfth day of Christmas was called Epiphany or sometimes just twelfth Day, and it is more important in Christmas Day. In medieval Christmas, it represents when the three wizards we talked about last

time who totally belong. It's like it's like if you're reading a story where there's only one wizard, and then all of a sudden there's like a reference to three other wizards and they're just never talked about again because like in in like Christianity, no one can do magic, but like God, right, but then there's just some fucking wizards. Yeah, I mean there, I mean there, there is. There is a few other other there is a few other people who do magic in the Old Testament. But it's like, oh, yeah,

that's true. If you do it, you're basically working with demons or Satan. It's like you can't do it, it's just evil. Yeah. And then of course like Agnostic Christianity, everyone can do magic because everyone is Jesus. All right, what's that meme? I would like to know more about your religion and please give me a pamphlet. There's like a meme where people are like someone says something they think is cool. And it's not like a meme, like an image meme. It's like a a thing people say

on the internet maybe who says that? Where someone says something and you're like, I would like to know more about your religion, Please give me a pamphlet. Anyway, Epiphany represents when the three Wizards showed up and we're like, damn, this kid is important. I think his dad is gone.

In a couple hundred years from now, it's gonna be a big fuss about whether that means it literally or not, because spoiler, early Christianity spent a lot of time getting into the very heated debates with some death involved about whether or not Jesus was the Son of God or

God literally or whatever any of that ship means. And and unfortunately the Catholics won that debate and the Gnostics didn't boo boo, Although would we be sitting here like right now years later if the Gnostics had won, the Nats would have come into power and they would have been just but they would have been just a shitty I don't know, I I because like the Gnostics are way less hierarchical than the Catholics. Catholic maybe like casultism is so built on hierarchy, like they built a hierarchy

of angels. They build a hierarchy of like of of of like hell reality, whereas the Gnostics are like, everyone can be their own savior and we should we should all fight the demiurge, like we we need to fight

God and become our own savior. Generally way more decentralized, right, But the Protestant Revolution was also the decentralization of religious authority, and it did not It was at best a lateral move in terms of actual liberation for the world because it made everyone cops instead of one cop far away that you can ignore. Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying

to come for the Gnostics. I'm just like, I just think it'd be really funny and interested if, like the Gnostics said, on that fight and then the Catholics have been like a cool underground one that like people totally possible. It's that that is that is that is definitely completely possible that the world would have been just as shitty. But there's no interesting because it's it's such a different theology. Yeah. Anyway, Uh,

thanks for coming down that with me. So Midnight Mass has been part of Christmas since basically forever, starting around four d because Christ, who's totally not the sun, was born at exactly the darkest time of the darkest night of the year, just when the sun starts returning. Totally unrelatedly, it's just a weird coincidence of when he when his mom got knocked up by an angel. Funny how that

worked out. Yeah. St. Nicholas got attached to Christmas when the Protestants, who are trying to phase out all the pagan holidays and fun in general, they especially the Puritans, they crammed him into Christmas instead of his traditional day December six, which is the day that everyone used to give people presents. People gave each other presents a lot during a lot of these times, but like giving kids presence was like a St. Nicholas Day thing, and in

some place, I think it still is. And then they were like, no, it needs to be like the presence need to somehow be like God presence, not St. Presence. So it got moved to Christmas so we could put the Christ in Christmas, you know. And St. Nick himself was kind of interesting his own right. His whole thing was he like gave sh it away to people just like all right, it seems it seemed like he was kind to sex workers, which is nice. I guess it's

the main way to judge someone, honestly. Anyway, medieval peasants they remembered some of those pagan roots and because of that there was ritual transvestism as part of Christmas continuing to be extremely based, and there was feasting and merriment, etcetera. And the Church didn't like this. They just couldn't do anything about it. They tried, They tried two different things. It's the same two things that everyone uses to try

and stop the power of Christmas. First you try repress and then when that doesn't work, you try co option if you can't beat them joint of Yeah, basically that is what happened, is the Catholic Church didn't steal Christmas. Catholic Church acquiesced and joined Christmas. Is how is my

reading on this? Yeah. In seven the year seven forty two, a bishop wrote to complain about the quote singing and dancing in the streets and pagan style heathen acclamations and sacrilegious songs, banquets by day and night, the wearing and selling by women of flactories and ligatures, which I think means like sex charms and love charms. Okay, okay. They did better with co option, and they really worked on the sanitization of Christmas. And that's the the real war

against Christmas is the sanitization of it. The gift giving got replaced, as you pointed out, by gifts of the magi, and the whole thing was treated as if it was about Christ or whatever. But the cool ship continued to filter through. Take Christmas carols. The medieval versions of Christmas carols were based on a pre Christian style of singing where a leader sang a verse and then a crew of dancers sang and danced the chorus together. And this got lewd, And I am so annoyed that I could

not find more information in history besides it got lewd. Okay, okay, I would I would love to see. Yeah, what the two things in all of the history should I read? The two things that are written out of it? It is fucking sex, working drugs like any hedonism and and sex. All the people that write this stuff down are all nerds, and the wrong kind of nerds. Yeah, none of them actually do the cool stuff. They're all like they're yeah, yeah,

they're like he he he, it got lewd. I'm like, does that mean they showed their ankles or were their orgies in the streets? Yeah, because they're entirely possible. I know people did weird ship. People still do weird ship right now. In any given town. You could go to a club where people are like t he he, I can see that person's ankle, or you can go join a weird public orgy like it still happens. So then there's the Feast of the Innocence, which is a feast

day that gets it. It gets assigned to a bunch of different days in different traditions and calendars and ship. It's usually decembery and the current whatever, but I'm gonna call it December. And the Feast of the Innocence is weird. It's about when King Herod of Syria killed all the boys under two years old, like tens of thousands of kids. This is probably folklore. It probably didn't happen, I don't know, Like the Bible, I guess, And these kids are seen

as the first martyrs of Christianity. And I've read two versions of what happens on the Feast Day of the Feast of Innocence in the in the medieval tradition. They are very different takes on what happened on this day. One is sick. It's a role reversal for kids and adults. You go, there's like just it's just a chaos day. Kids run around, the kids like run the Catholic mass. Uh. They tell everyone what to do. The parents have to

listen to the kids. And there's another version of the Feast of the Innocence, which is like this shitty game of hide and seek where all the kids hide and then the parents try to find them, and if they find the children, they beat them. What the FUCKA whoa? Those are so different, They're so different. What is going on? I don't know. I the subtext of the beat the kids one is a little bit like the parents might not have tried to find the kids. It might have

been like get out of our hair, or will hit you? Okay, we want to have like yeah, yeah, mommy adult time or whatever. I don't know, I can't I'm so annoyed, you know, like sometimes sometimes in these episodes, I wish I had like months per episode, you know, yeah, because that is that was I mean is it likely that just like both happened at different places. And honestly that's yeah,

because we're talking about like medieval England. I'm talking about like five hundred fifteen hundred in the entire continent of because it's like one of those is much more similar to like the Saturnalia role reversal thing, and the other one is just child abuse. Yeah, totally, and there's more role reversal. That's a hard that is a hard thing to say. Yeah, in medieval England and again medieval Oh, actually, well this one, I can give you a specific country, England,

a random peasant, would you draw lots again? And instead of being the King of Saturnalia, you are the Lord of Misrule? Okay, which still sounds pretty rule. It is the single best title that one could possibly have, I believe, is the Lord of Misrule. And they were in charge and their job is to make sure the revelry was fucking chaos, eat dinner at the altar of the church, fucking drink. People would complain because random strangers, I think,

like random richer folks coming town. But I don't know, maybe that's like me trying to be like, oh it was like based but who knows it might have sucked who fucking it was chaos, random rich strangers coming into town might get spanked and robbed, and everyone is and people are of course cross dressing all over the fucking place. There is a chance that at the end of his reign, the Lord of Misrule was sacrificed, just like might have

happened on Saturnalia. And it's an interesting image, and it's presented by like a bona fide folklorist and anthropologist who should know what he's talking about. A lot of people are real skeptical. I'm I'm skeptical. I'm more skeptical about medieval England humans prificing the Lord of Misrule at the end of their week, but or at the end of the twelve days of Christmas, that'd be a funny And on the twelfth David of Christmas, I gave you just

literally you're dead now, just sucking killing you. A lot of the like neat stories about weird, wacky ways that people killed themselves in each other from like the oldie times turn out to be just stories like the thing and the like Scandinavian thing, or like the Swedish thing about like old people have to throw themselves off of cliffs in order to die in order to like not take up resources from the community or whatever. I can't it's used in that movie Midsummer Spoiler. I guess that's

not real as far as anyone can tell. That's like a that's a story. It's a story. Yeah yeah. Whereas, on the other hand, most of the stories that hint about sucking and drugs it seem to actually usually be true and are not because poor people fucking to drugs. Yeah, it's more sustainable than Yeah, you can you can do drugs more than during your lifetime die one time typically unless you are again Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Yeah, or that guy the first zombie, who do you summoned

back from the dead, Oh, Lazarus, Yeah, that's it. And then also one of the reasons I sort of doubt this is that for all of the I really don't want to be like for good things that Christianity culturally exported, but um, the overall Christianity cut down on human sacrifice a good solid amount whenever it was around, and then they found their way to do killing another way. Oh yeah, no, absolutely, yeah, yeah,

that's God. Maybe that's just all made the Crusaders pent up whatever anyway, So the Lord of Misrule ties into but is distinct from the Feast of Fools, which started probably in Central Europe. And all of these names are so good, I know, and they're all fucking cool things.

It's start in Central Europe. It's uh January one Colens, which is still part of Christmas if if you're doing the twelve Days, and it was a day of the Feast of Fools was wildness and folly and role reversal and lewdness and like everything is permitted very like actually kind of like Mardi Gras is the sort of modern thing that people would sort of tiles into and it's all happening like in the name of God. But the priests in there being like fun, fun, fun fuck. How

do we stop this fun fun fun fuck? There was like in the name of God, and they're like doing everything that Christianity normally says not to do. Is there having like a transgender orgy? Yeah? Yeah, And it took a couple hundred years for the Church to successfully stomp out the Feast of Fools. Unfortunate, unfortunate. I know, It's like to me, it seems like maybe how like a person who lives in England is ostensibly rule by the English King, and a Catholic is ostensibly ruled by the

Catholic Church. But really people are just people and doing their own thing, and these authoritarian structures are just trying to claim authority that they only somewhat have. And that's how I feel about the like folk Catholicism of this time. Catholicism is this type of Catholicism is at odds with the Church rather than being in like obedience to the Church. And this seems to be the Catholicism that was actually practiced by a lot of Catholics instead of what people

claimed they should be practicing. So was sailing. So what sailing is when you demand stuff from people? And do you know who else is demanding stuff from us? From you? The listener, Sophie Lichtman is demanding that in order to continue to eat food on Arran. Yeah that, um, we should shift over to hearing different voices, a diversity of opinions. I have these opinions about cool people did cool stuff, whereas you might be about to hear an opinion that

says that you should become a cop. Hopefully those ads are gone. Now yeah, I mean we really don't have control over most of the ads. Yeah, so we don't endorse them. Yeah. It so we can do our shows and pay people and eat food and have homes. Yeay, here's the ads. We are back. Was sailing traditionally done on the twelfth night. Was sailing probably gets its name from the Norse. It basically means like hail, as in

like hail and well met, or like hey, what's up? Yeah, it means it means be in good health, and it's what predates modern caroline. It basically means go around and make the rich people give you nice ship by singing songs. It gets referred to as recipient initially gated charity, which is my favorite euphemism in the world. That's great because I would like to present a spectrum of ways of

engaging in power. I have top down charity, in which the rich give to the poor, usually in ways that maintain the power structure and you know, not based make them feel good about themselves. Then there's mutual aid, which is people giving freely amongst equals, and then there's recipient initiated charity aka give me your ship. Unfortunately, I mean, there's kind of a way of seeing all of this, like revelry, this sort of negative interpretation of all of

this stuff that I really like. I don't subscribe to this belief, but it is the danger of all this revelry is that it lets out pent up aggression. If you get to be in charge, if you're an ancient Rome and you're enslaved and you get to be fed by your master for a week a year, you're less likely to revolt. Yeah, this is the same type of thing we see a lot of the time, and like, uh, it's the recuperation of like anti capitalist resistance and selling it back to you in a way that is palpable.

But bye. By by doing that exchange, you feel like you're living in a world where where there actually is actual resistance, but a lot of it is paid for.

Like it's it's it's the the One of the few good jokes from Rick and Morny is the is the is the simple ricks wafers and how they start selling the simple ricks freedom wafer selects how you can you can you can you can buy this wafer and it gives you a taste of what it's like to be actually truly free and so like it's it's and it's and and this this wafer flavor was was designed by like studying the brain of someone who just laid like

a revolt against a factory. Um and it's like getting this getting this taste into into into the way for and this person worked at the wafer factory. So it's this company that is like using this revolt to make more of their products. And you can, you can engage with it, and it gives you a taste, but that it's actually it's it's it's just gonna prolong the amount of time that you're living under this because now you

have this little bit of the taste. And what I would argue is that when the government or the forces that be or whatever the funk do this kind of stuff to us, it's dangerous for them. It's not as completely under continued their control as they would like to claim, you know, um Like sometimes these things, these things that to them are like controlled burns, get out of control. And I would argue that as they like let the

steam out of the pent up. I mean, how many metaphors can I possibly use here, But you know, as they let the steam out or whatever, right let out the pent up energy or whatever, so that the whole thing doesn't s blowed. It's still sometimes it's like actually teaching us. Like sometimes you get that taste that wayfer in your mouth and you're like, you know, what if we had the whole fucking factory, what if we had that all the time? Yeah, no, like that, that's the

same thing. I think I was talking with this with people when um the TV show and or finished coming out, which how did how did Disney allow them to make this thing that's showcasing how to do all these various forms of resistance, And there's a part of it that's like they're selling you back this version of right of uprising for us to consume. And maybe if we just consume, that will be happy enough that we're that we're able to consume this thing that we'll forget that you can

do this in in the real world. But I don't I think that is uh with considering, but I don't. I don't think it's it has the full picture. Yeah, yeah, I think what happened there is that you have people who actually it less that Disney was like ha ha,

this is our big evil plan. I mean, like like what if there was like a single radio conglomerate that controlled like half of podcasts the radio stations, and then people got paid to talk about rebels on their network, Right, I would argue that they would be doing these hypothetical people would be doing it to make use of a power structure that exists, like rather than like for the sake of that power structure. And it's a dangerous and

complicated game. But the the old cliche is that the the last capitalist will sell you the rope with which to hang him. Yeah, and that doesn't mean he doesn't yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, which is why I like that saying. And people will use that saying like to mean the opposite and I'm like, no, that's the capitalist is still diet. Yeah, And anyway, recipients initiated charity. Big part of was sailing. It's like the role reversal thing.

So peasants would go to their feudal lords or just like rich people, and they would sing and demand good food and booze and sometimes just straight up money. And this looked lots of different ways. Sometimes it's like you show up and you're like give us your figgie pudding or we won't go away and they're like ha ha ha, here's your figgie pudding. And then you're like, thank you, sir,

And everyone feels really good about themselves. And sometimes there's all these like people writing complaining about being like the rich people are afraid to leave their houses because gangs of youth are outside station to rob them. So there's like a whole spectrum. Yeah, of was sailing. Uh. Sometimes people would curse the rich people, but you know, totally not pagan, just regular curses, good Christian curses. Yes, yes, all of those Christian curses. Yeah. Sometimes they would vandalize

the place. And this is actually the rick the root of trick or treating, as far as I can tell, trick or treat that's what it was reminding me of. Yeah, it's give me some candy or egg your fucking house is like the once you're like twelve or thirteen, you know, that's the level of trick or treating or whatever. Maybe it's just me. Uh. A clergyman from the time said quote, men dishonor Christ more in twelve days of Christmas than in all the twelve months. Besides, great people would drink

and gamble and feast and probably they fucked. But you know, the history books won't say plus they fucked. Instead they say they engaged in licentatious behavior. Cross dressing big part of it and a big part of a sailing. So every single fucking little bit of tradition has people across dressing. It's part of it. There's this book that rules. It's called Witchcraft in the Gay Counterculture, and it was basically a love letter written to me and you Garrison, okay um.

It was by Arthur Evans, probably Robert's dad. I'm not can neither confirm nor deny mhm um. And it talks about how everyone kept dressing up as weird ship quote. So common was the practice of animal masquerades in the Middle Ages that detailed condemnations were issued against them. Theodore, a seventh century archbishop of Canterbury Centerbury maybe I wrote

that wrong might be. Canterbury wrote, if anyone in the colens of January goes about as a stag or a bowl, that is, making himself into a wild animal, and dressing in the skin of a herd and putting on the head of beasts, those who in such wise transforms themselves into the appearance of a wild animal penance for three years because this is devilish. And the same book Witchcraft in the Gay Counterculture says links between witchcraft and transvestism

appear regularly in early Christian Europe. In the sixth century, the Christian writer Cesarius of Aries denounced the pagan practices of ritual transvestism and the wearing of animal costumes. Six and seventh century synods repeat condemned trends. Condemned transvestism during the popular New Year's holiday, where men dressed as women quote a masquerade probably originating in a fertility right of some kind. In ninth century, a Christian guide book prescribed

penance for men who practice ritual transvestism. A thirteenth century inquisitor in southern France denounced female worshippers of the goddess

Diana along with male transvestites. This is this is all super fascinating because I I just I just for the last episode of the Tenacious Unicorn ranch series I was writing about there's been these attacks on drag shows by these these Christian far right groups YUM, and particularly this past month, there's been multiple attacks on Christmas themed drag shows. It's just fascinating because like these, these these Christmas themed drag shows are more like traditionally Christmas yet all of

these Christians who are attacking them. But it's also this interesting look a bit on, like this exact scenario isn't new, this has been going on for thousands of years. It's the same thing. They're doing, the same thing. We're both following into our traditional roles. Yes, these Christians are attacking these other Christians or these these holiday like drag performances in the same way that these Christians are attacking a

ritual transmestism. It's the same ship. Yep. And I love that the Church has multiple times over the years needed to say please stop cross dressing and or dressing up like cows, and people just kept being like no, no, no, no, We're gonna do it. I can't stop me. And I'm doing it in the name of God. Um. And there's also something in the last the last line from that last quote about the inquisitor in France coming after female worshippers with the gost Diana along with male trends best dates.

And there's a bunch of things there. One is that like there were a bunch of women worshiping Diana including sis women and trans women was more or less what that's saying. But also that like the modern Turfs who want to like separate system trans women, like the enemies, have been demanding we burned together for a very long time. Yes, okay, more cool about Christmas. The Welsh tradition have you heard of mary lud? I don't think so. It's not actually lude like lude, it's it's l w y d Okay, Okay.

So you take a horse skull, right, and you put the horse skull on a stick. Uh, you make like a hobby horse out of it, you know, like a little kid. Yeah, and then you drape a sheet sort of over it, like kind of on the neck so that you can hide under the sheet. And so it's just a horsehead on a stick with a person underneath it. And that's that's your Christmas, uh, with say alien thing that you bring around And so with sailors would take this horrific, awesome horse skull around them with them as

they were sucking up the rich and getting drunk. And historians have no idea whether this Welsh tradition, the mary lewd is the gray mayor I believe is what it translates to they have no idea of its pre Christian or not. Rather, lots of people have ideas about whether it's pretty Christians or not, but no one can prove it. Um. The records of it go back to about eighteen hundred, but they talk about it being a thing from before them.

Another thing that predates Mary Lewd is the concept of advertisement. So true, you're so true. Yeah, we can all make it through it together. We are back. You could also with sail and orchard, in case you were ever wondering. You're like, but I was sailing orchard? Well, the answer, Garrison Davis, is that you could if you would choose what type of things would be at the orchard and the end of December. So I think this is was sailing now taken out of Christmas time. I can't I

can't tell. It still might have been, because you're not like going and getting the apples at this point, you're blessing the orchard for better harvest in the here to come. Yeah, okay, yeah, and so it actually still could have been midwinter. I I really kind of like, I don't know. I spent a while trying to figure out exactly when they were

with sailing orchards. Okay, so yeah you can with sail orchards, which even up into the seventeenth century was really fucking pagan I mean folklore or superstitious people would march from orchard to orchard, led by the wassail king and queen to the orchard and drink to the health of the trees and scare away evil spirits. In order to bring about a good harvest. They would lift the wassail queen up into the bows to place booze soaked bread in

the branches. Yeah, totally Christian. Yeah, this is yes, this this doesn't sound like filick paganism at all. No, no, just a Christian thing. Other was sailing traditions included drinking mould cider and various types of booze from a with sail bowl, which is a big communal bowl that everyone drank from, and the drink was called with sale because they're really original namers and it's been a bunch of different drinks at different times. For a while, it was

mead with crab apples. Later it was cier um, like what people drink Christmas now. Other times it was like ale with baked apples in it. Basically it's like some combination of like apples of some variety and alcohol. I mean, stuff like this has has continued on today this yeah, this this this style of tradition yeah yeah, And I really like it. It is like one of the things

that I'm not talking about that in the script. But I still genuinely like, like the real at my heart, the reason that I never actually like didn't like Christmas even when I was like a baby anarchist and spent all of my time rallying against consumerism and shipped like that. And I still believe the same ship I believed but

noted noted fan of consumerism. Yeah, but like the idea of gathering together with your family and the darkest day of the year and like at the darkest time, like and it's not just that the light is returning, but it's at the coldest setting in And how hope returns even as things get worse. And I think about this a lot with the current rise of fascism. Right, even when we turn the tide on fascism, things will continue to get worse for a while, but we can't lose hope.

We know that as the light returns eventually delayed so will the warmth. UM. I really care about both Soulstice and Christmas, and I like, I really I'm very blessed. And then I come from a wonderful family um and and enjoy gathering them, and so I feel like I need to like shout out that. Like another important part about Christmas is something that does get held onto for all of it, which um is fucking family togetherness in tradition and all that ship. Um. Anyway, that's my my

little earnest moment for the week. Medieval Christmas. I'm all for it. Medieval Christmas is the best of all Christmas is a lot of people weren't for it. The real war on Christmas is the war to sanitize it. It's a war that's been mostly one the middle class in the US, and the eight hundreds is a big part of the war against Christmas. For some reason. They didn't like drunken poor people showing up at their house demanding ship and vantalizing their houses. Overall, the US started by

fucking Puritans kind of missed out on spicy Christmas. Yeah, which is a shame. The traditional Christmas, as we've discussed, he gave you crime cross dress be a furry worship the old gods while pretending like you obey the Church and the Christian God of your Roman conquerors. And now I want to talk about the first real I mean, I've been talking with the War on Christmas being the

seventeen hundred year longing. I want to talk about the first time that Christians almost got rid of Christmas, the War on Christmas of the sixteen forties. In the sixteen forties England, they had this whole funk off Civil War thing.

It should have been cool, but it actually sucked. It should have been cool because it was a commonwealth resting power away from a monarch, but it was also they were Puritans, and they deposed a slightly more religiously tolerant king and then they turned around in genocide of the Ship out of Ireland. I have some bias against Cromwell that will work its way through anything I talk about history. When the Puritans took over England in the sixteen forties,

they didn't like fun. That was kind of their whole thing, not not fun enjoyers, and so Christmas became a culture war issue. During the lead up to the Civil War, the middle class parliamentarians opened their shops on Christmas to say fuck you to the holiday. Christmas was clearly a holdover from Catholicism and therefore holdover from pagan is um, and the Puritans don't like paganism or Catholicism plus revelry and gender bending. No fucking good? Am I right? So true? Yeah?

For the most part, commoners wanted nothing to do with either side of this war. They were like the king of the rich people. I'm good. Oh, I forget the name of it. In my Civil English Civil War episode, I think I talked about them. There was this whole group that was basically the Band of Brothers from Game of Thrones. There's a whole group of people who are like, we're just going to defend our fucking towns from both

armies because both armies are fox. Yeah. The commoners, they didn't want anything to do with the pissing match between the Royalists and the parliamentarians, and they didn't want to lose Christmas. So in sixteen forty three, a bunch of apprentices rioted and smashed up the shops that were open on Christmas because they're trying to deny society. It's weeks of feasting and merrymaking up based you have to fight for your right to party, which is the only Beastie

Boys reference. I will ever make the entire a run of this podcast. Yeah, I do love a riot to ensure the continuation of Christmas. Yeah. So the Puritans came out ahead in the Civil War. Then they had King Charles the first in jail in SI. They banned Christmas in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. No mince pies. Like literally, they banned not just Christmas, but they banned mince pies, plum putting, no hanging holly, no excessive drinking or parties.

And you're required to keep your shops open. No fucking free commerce here. You have to keep your shops open on Christmas. This didn't go well. No, this doesn't sound like people would respond to this very nicely. No. There were demonstrations and riots all over England and probably Scotland, Wales and Ireland. While Wales Ireland was busy some other ship. Around this point, in London, arms soldiers had to break up an unruly crowd to stop the crowd from hang

in holly. In Norwich, forty people were killed when the city's ammunition stockpile caught fire in the rioting. Oh my god, in Ipswitch, which is totally the name of the town and not whatever. Supposedly a protester named Christmas was killed, which then got turned into propaganda, which the history book I read was like, and then this happened. I don't I don't believe it. I straight up don't believe it.

I know that propaganda was made about it, but I don't know there are actually some protester named Christmas was murdered. I am at the very least skeptical. Yeah, people in Canterbury, which is actually a city in England, and not just the name of a book I was supposed to read in high school. Uh, they rioted. These are called the plum Pudding riots. The mayor went through the market and forced everyone to open their stalls for fear, or like he would throw you in the stocks if you wouldn't

open your stalls at the market. So an angry mob followed behind, trashing every shop that opened. So these shopkeepers, they're just fucked. If they opened their shop, it'll get trashed.

If they don't, they get thrown the stocks. The crowd caught up with the mare and threw him down into the mud, but he got up and he managed to order the crowd to back off, and then, in a move that sounds like someone making fun of England, the crowd produced some footballs and started this massive game of football across the whole city with no rules that dragged everyone into the game or to hide in their houses,

which was basically a Christmas tradition, was Calvin ball. Puritans who tried to stop them were pelted with mud, and the pro Christmas rioters took their city back from authorities for the day. Later, some instigators were rounded up, but the grand jury refused to indict them, so the Christmas Rioters got off scot free again, all for traditional Christmas sees your city party for twelve days, cross dress, drink

other people's wine, play sports that don't have rules. The main fallout for the canceling of Christmas was pretty much the end of the religious component of Christmas. People were like, all right, we just won't go to church on Christmas. We'll do all of the other stuff, but we won't go to church. They also canceled Easter, not the protesters, but the Puritans. I don't really care m as much

about Easter. Cancel culture strikes again. I know. Eventually you've got the Reformation and people got a king again, which was once again a lateral move. Should have been a make things worse, but fucking lateral move. And they also got Christmas back. Um, it wasn't as cool as anymore though. The Lord of misrule was gone and forgotten. Lord of misrule was a died in the Puritan War on Christmas.

How that what a what a loss? I know, it's funny to me because it's the exact same sort of people in the seventeenth century England banning Christmas that are so adamantly defending it today, right, but there, but the thing that they're not defending Christmas, they're just Christo fascists trying to yeah, like defend Christian hegemony. Yeah, they're they're trying to set up a Christian Domini state. Like that's

that's what they're actually doing. Yeah, totally. Anyway, later in sixteen fifty nine, the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay they banned Christmas too. Quote, whoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, had to pay a five shilling fine, which was about three days wages for the average skilled laborer, so it's like, oh, like three hundred bucks today. I

don't know what skilled fred dollars. Christmas was functionally banned in Massachusetts until the eighteen hundreds. When I when I was a kid learning US history, I always heard about the Puritans as this like poor oppressed minority that fled

England presumably fearing for their lives or some ship. Uh. They never taught us how Puritans in England soon took control of England, or the fact that one of their sticking points had been the reason they felt oppressed is that they didn't tolerate other religions, and literally one of their problems with the king, as he was fairly religiously tolerant.

He was even married to a Catholic. The religious freedom that the Puritans were fighting for was the religious freedom to not allow religious freedom, which I don't know it might sound familiar to the modern Yeah, listen, alright, one more group that tried to get rid of Christmas. Stalin Really I didn't know this. In the USSR banned Christmas.

They banned it in the same way that the Catholics banded senturnalien Yule and tried to ban Christmas, which is that they tried to ban it and that didn't work because people just kept celebrating Christmas. So then they co opted it. The band last from when they realized what everyone has always realized. People need a fucking holiday in the middle of the goddamn darkest time of the fucking year,

especially in Russia. I know, those those four Russians. So the Christmas trees got rebranded New Year's for trees, gift giving was moved to New Year's too, and then that totally materialist, absolutely rational figure grandfather Frost, was the one to bring them. Okay, people feasted, people dressed up in costumes, totally secular fun times for all the non religious people in the non religious country. It was probably a little bit bland, a little bit sanitized, like the U S

version of the holiday. And I I totally get why revolutionaries came for institutions of power, which include the church. Yeah, and I get why people wanted to destroy the vestiges of religion, but people want midwinter celebrations and frankly it's gonna feel religious whatever fucking religion. People don't care. It could be soul invictus. It could be the Horned God.

It could be Odin, it could be yahweh, it could be Marks who fucking ever give us our figgy putting or break your fucking windows, and that, Garrison Davis, is the true meaning of Christmas. Give us our figgy pudding or we'll break your fucking windows. I've never had figgy pudding, but I'll take your word for it. I don't know what figgy pudding is. I assume it's putting made out of figs. That actually sounds good, now that you mentioned it,

that probably that that doesn't make sense. I looked up a thousand things for this episode because I didn't grow up in a very religious household, and um, I didn't look up figgy pudding. I looked up what was in with sale, but I didn't look up figgy pudding. Figgy pudding does indeed have figs? All right, well, that makes sense. Is it a pudding because there's also blood. It's it's a putting in the sense of like a British pudding, so like it's like a dessert. It's like a it's

like a more congealed, bready type thing. All right, Yeah, you know I would say it probably tastes good, but I've had some British food. Yeah, I'm gonna it doesn't look great. Okay, everyone Google it looks like meat loaf. That is nicer than what I what it looked like. It's kind of like it was. It's kind of fruitcake yea, exactly. Essentially it is a fruit cake but with like there's figs and like there's times people are saying they put like brandy in it, and sometimes there's other dried fruits

and stuff. But you know, biggy pudding that's cool. And on that note, that is the Christmas cool people who did cool stuff in which we talked about Christmas, which is the cool The cool people are the people who party no matter what whatever they get told to do

or not do. Yeah, the people who are going to be throwing hardened figgy puddings through windows if they if they don't get allowed to take their tree up three flights of stairs and shove it in their apartment because if it's cold, they're cold, bring the tree spirits inside, which is like it's like a very like a Miyazaki type. And if you want to save money on candles, you can also just sacrifice people. Uh, and leave the bodies in the window. I'm not sure if that's going to

catch on anymore. I don't know. We're past that. That's just sailed. We're having we're having to fight for for like drag Queen Christmas. I'm not sure if we're ready to fight for the dead bodies in the window. Okay, we're ready to fight for a thousand year old Christmas, but not ready. We're going to defend our traditional values, all right, all right, go out there, everyone and defend your traditional values of people's. This part is not sarcastic.

People should be allowed to fucking drag shows. Jesus fucking Christ. What the fund is wrong with people? Yeah, that's what I got. End of your plugs, anyone, or suck at all, buck at all, Lord of misrule, declare yourself the lord of misrule, but survived of the week. That is your duty, each and every one of you. Hi, everyone, See you next year. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a

production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,