Patreon Holiday Throwback Special

Welcome to the Coffee Collides crew, I'm Jason coming at you from our Patreon. The holidays are here and we thought what better way to celebrate than to release on our main channel one of our favorite Patreon bonus holiday specials. In this episode, bonus episode number 24, released back in December 2018, Chris and I discussed the history of Christmas, the origin of traditions,

popular toys and gifts over the years, plus so much more. As it was released in 2018, after re-listening this year, I re-learned a whole bunch of very interesting information. We thought, Let's share it with the wider group of clatchers. If you like this, we have so much more. We have... like 300 episodes of bonus coffee breaks and movie reviews over there. So come check it out if you like what you hear. And also in the holiday spirit, you can now gift memberships.

to friends and family members. So if you want to gift someone you love a month of CKC Podcast or even a year, you just go to our Patreon page, patreon.com slash ckcpodcast, and it's very easy. Or if you're not even a member yet, go on over and check it out. All the information is on our website, coffeeclatchcrew.com. Enjoy the episode, and happy holidays!

Welcome to the Coffee Clash Crew Patreon-exclusive bonus podcast number 24. I'm Jason Pistorino. I'm Christina Lomagina. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah.

Happy Kwanzaa. Happy New Year. Happy holidays. Happy holidays to everybody. Well, that is fitting because, of course, our theme has to be the holidays for this December bonus, right? We talked about the history of Thanksgiving last time. a little dark in certain respects. This is a lot more fun. We're going to talk about where Christmas and our holiday celebrations came from because really it's just an amalgamation of a bunch of different celebrations that happened before. We'll get into

specifically the origins of our tradition such as where did Santa's reindeer come from? Why do we use candy canes during Christmas? Well, we have answers to all of that. plus some fun Christmas facts, and of course our interactive segment where we asked what are your holiday celebrations and traditions. And then we have an announcement for you. As the new year is approaching, we're going to make some changes or some additions to our Patreon pages.

And what that means for you is more content. Yes, don't worry. We're not taking anything away. We're just adding something new, another option for you. So let's dive right in. Jason, do you have any ideas about this? What is your background? Do you know where the celebration of Christmas came from? Well, I grew up Catholic, and I was taught this was the celebration of Jesus' birthday. Exactly. That's what we were told, even though...

Jesus's birthday probably was not. That's right. December 25th at all. But the month came from a different holiday that we stole. Yes. In fact, we stole quite a bit. It turns out. In order to understand this, we have to go all the way back because these celebrations were really an ancient holiday.

I'm talking about the middle of winter, which has long been a time to rejoice. Early Europeans celebrated during the winter solstice when the worst days of winter were behind them and signaled the coming of longer days and extended sunlight. The end of December, well, that was also the perfect time as it was the only time of year when they had a fresh supply of meat because most of the cattle were slaughtered before the winter. That way they wouldn't have to be fed during that time.

In addition, most wine and beer made during the year was finally fermented and ready to drink. In Rome, where winters were not as harsh as those in the far north, Saturnalia, a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture, was celebrated. Beginning in the week leading up to the solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time.

when food and drink were plentiful and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down. For a month, slaves would become masters. Peasants were in command of the city. Businesses and schools were closed so everyone could join in the fun. This would be a fun time to go back into the past and watch them. I'm sure that slaves becoming masters didn't really actually happen.

I'm sure there was like a little bit of a fun twist to it, but they didn't actually switch. I think it was kind of like a fun pretend, do it a little bit. But they said the celebrations were more like Mardi Gras. They were raucous and out of control. And as far as the Europeans... That makes complete sense. I forget the specific day. A few days after Christmas, the days start to get longer. Thank goodness, because it's weird leaving work, and it's dark out. Isn't it the 22nd?

Or maybe it's one of those. But yeah, we talk about that all the time beforehand. When the days are getting shorter, all you really want to do is hibernate and stay inside. And at a time where so much. was contingent upon that your very lives were at stake as to whether you had collected enough food whether you could make it through the winter it absolutely adds up that you would want to celebrate when the days start getting longer and the light comes back that means there's hope for the next

year. Now let's talk about Christianity. In the early years, Easter was the main holiday. The birth of Jesus wasn't celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. But because the Bible doesn't mention a date for his birth, Pope Julius I chose December 25th.

Was it random? No. It's commonly believed the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. By holding Christmas at the same time as the traditional winter solstice festivals, Church leaders increased the chances Christmas would be popularly embraced, but they also gave up the ability to dictate how it was celebrated.

By the Middle Ages, Christianity had for the most part replaced pagan religion. On Christmas, believers attended church, but then they went home and celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere. Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the Lord of Misrule, and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink.

If owners failed to comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief. Whoa. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined debt to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens. Well, that would be nice if it was still that way. So kind of a crazy time. This is not sounding at all like the Christmas we celebrate today, right? Not at all. Christianity.

absorbing this pagan religion is one of many pagan traditions that they absorbed right and it's obviously because they were trying to get more popular they wanted to be well the hip the hip religion Not really, but they wanted to be the religion. Yes. And that meant adopting things that people really liked that they would have trouble letting go of. Yeah. In fact, they just had to make up this holiday. They're like, well, what about the birth of Jesus? Nothing happens in December.

Let's do the birth of Jesus. It doesn't fit. That's okay. Say that it was December 25th because that's around Saturnalia. Yeah. And now we can just meld this all in together. And in fact... Yeah, it was an amalgamation of a bunch of different cultures, traditions, celebrations. We will get to that. And another thing we'll get to, but something to point out so far, there's no Santa Claus yet. Oh, no. No mentions of Santa Claus. No, no, no, no.

This came way later. All right. So how did it transition, you ask? In the early 17th century, a wave of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated in Europe. When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took over England in 1645, they vowed to rid it of decadence, and as a part of their effort, canceled Christmas.

But by popular demand, eventually Charles II was restored to the throne and with him came the return of the popular holiday. To England. But you had these pilgrims, the English separatists that came to America in 1620. We just talked about them in our Thanksgiving episode last time. They were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday at all in early America.

From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. Wow. After the American Revolution, though, English customs began falling out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, it wasn't declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870. That's over 200 years later. Wow. Well, I guess we were trying to get away from England, right? And we were like, well, that's their stuff. We don't want any part of it.

Plus, we have these really orthodox Puritans who they're not going to celebrate this raucous holiday. That's all crazy nonsense. We don't do that. That's true. I'm thinking of Christmas as we know it now. Right. That holiday that you just read. Is insane. Yeah, that sounds a little much. They don't want any part of that.

It wasn't until the 19th century that Americans began to embrace Christmas and reinvented the holiday. So they said, okay, let's bring it back, but we're not going to do it that way. It went from this crazy carnival atmosphere. to a family-centered day of peace and nostalgia. The early 19th century was a period of class conflict and turmoil. Unemployment was high.

Gang rioting by the disenchanted classes often occurred especially during the Christmas season. In 1828, the New York City Council instituted the city's first police force in response to a Christmas riot. Holy shmigolies. Now this catalyzed certain members of the upper class to begin changing the way they thought and the way they celebrated. But there were other influences. In 1819, best-selling author Washington Irving wrote the sketchbook...

of Jeffrey Crayon, a series of stories about the celebration of Christmas in an English manor house. The sketches featured a squire who invited the peasants into his home for the holiday. In contrast to the problems faced in American society, The two groups here mingled effortlessly. In Irving's mind, Christmas should be a peaceful, warm-hearted holiday, bringing groups together across lines of wealth or social status.

He also read about St. Nicholas in his 1809 book, A Knickerbocker's History of New York, where he replaced the outdated bishop in red robes, which was the only image we had of St. Nikolaus. with a jolly looking man sporting an ample belly and riding a horse-drawn wagon above the trees. So he's basically developing a holiday that doesn't exist.

A time where class conflicts aren't there, people are kind to each other, and there's even this jolly old man who comes to help with the celebrations. And horse-drawn wagon. I mean, he was right there. basically thought of everything as we know it now. He built a lot of what we consider to be the holiday. Hey, real quick, the 19th century New York City Council Institution of the Police, is that around the same time of that movie Gangs of New York?

Because it sounds like it. Ooh, I don't know. Actually, we'd have to look into that, but it was the first officially established force because they realized they needed some way to deal with things like that. And no surprise, the rioting was occurring during a time where it's very cold. There's not a lot of food. The lower classes that can't survive. They're suffering. What are they going to do?

And now you take this holiday where it used to be the rich would give to the poor during that time, right? They could come to their door and get food. They can't get that, so they start rioting. I'd riot too. So now you have Irving. developing this new idea about a holiday, and around the same time, you also have English author Charles Dickens, who created the classic holiday tale, A Christmas Carol.

Last year, that was one of the movie choices, that new Christmas Carol movie. We saw it. I liked it. Yeah, although it didn't win, we still had to watch it. And it was really good. I enjoyed it a lot. So I'm sure you're all familiar with that storyline. The message is the importance of charity and goodwill towards all humankind, which struck a powerful chord in the United States and England.

and showed members of Victorian society the benefits of celebrating the holiday again. Also at this time, the family was becoming less disciplined and more sensitive to the emotional needs of children. So Christmas offered a time for families when they could lavish attention and gifts on their kids without appearing to spoil them. It was a very different way of thinking about parenting. Although spoiled kids get spoiled on Christmas.

Well, now they do. But this was a time where kids would get something, anything, a couple minutes of attention, a toy. That's a huge deal. Absolutely. At that point. Especially as a child. I still want attention now. No one gives it to me. As Americans begin to embrace Christmas as the perfect family holiday, this new way, old customs were unearthed. People look toward recent immigrants. Catholic and Episcopalian churches to see how the day should be celebrated.

Over the next hundred years, Americans built a Christmas tradition all their own that included pieces of many other customs, decorating trees, sending holiday cards, and gift giving. But it continued to evolve, even though we kind of had the basis of it at that point.

Into the first half of the 20th century, here's another major influence. The Saturday Evening Post, which was one of the biggest and most influential weekly magazines in the U.S. artist J.C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell portrayed Santa on the cover, with elves there to help build toys, children's wish lists, and a heavy sack of toys upon his back.

You know, this whole time I thought Coca-Cola created Santa. Well, you're jumping the gun because that comes next. So I'm sure you'll remember seeing pictures like this. And this was Rockwell who really started to show the modern day Santa the way we think about him. And evolving some of those traditions about children writing in with gift lists and him delivering toys with this sack upon his back. He brought back the jolly looking Santa with the red suit instead of the...

trimmer santa in a green suit that was popular for a while and then the cemented iconic santa Yes, came from 1931 to 1964, where Sunbloom's series of Christmas-themed ad campaigns for Coca-Cola showed a friendly, jovial, hardworking figure who takes a break from his work to enjoy a refreshing Coke. So I won't forget. Honestly, that is marketing at its best. I remember this. As a kid, I'll never forget this. I was making a joke that I thought said...

Coca-Cola made Santa Claus up. But honestly, as a kid, they went hand in hand. Well, they kind of adapted it from Rockwell. It's similar. Very similar. The difference here is the images were used on billboards, posters, in store displays, not just in a weekly magazine. They were seen everywhere. Now this becomes the cultural icon of Santa. So that's the evolution of Christmas as a holiday in general. But it leaves a lot still unexplained.

Specifically, where did all of our traditions actually come from? Well, we're talking a little about Santa, so let's start there. Our modern depiction, the fat, jolly, white-bearded man in the red suit, black belt and boots. He has his roots in a third-century monk, St. Nicholas. Born in what is now modern-day Turkey, he was famous for his piety and generosity. Legend has it he gave away all his wealth and traveled far and wide helping the sick and poor.

As the story of Saint Nicholas spread throughout the world, his appearance would take on different characteristics, depending on where you were. One legend tells of three poor sisters who could not marry because they had no money for a dowry. To save them from being sold by their father, Saint Nick left each sister a gift of gold coins.

One went down the chimney and landed in a pair of shoes that had been left by the hearth. Another went into a window into a pair of stockings left hanging by the fire to dry. Now you have the gifts coming down the fireplace and gifts going into stockings idea. So you have this ancient tradition of a saint in Holland in the Middle Ages. He was known as Sinterklaus.

In Dutch. He was an archbishop who wore these long robes, a red cape. You can see him depicted in some of these images. It looks very different. But you can see, too, where the route started to take place. Absolutely. This wasn't something that was just made overnight. It was an amalgamation of many ideas that turned into the perfect Santa. But we all know the truth about Santa. It's a human being.

That is chosen. And once they sign the Santa Claus. Okay, yes. They start to gain the weight automatically. no matter how much they exercise their heartbeat becomes jingle bells no matter how many times they shave the hair keeps growing

Or did you not read the card? Yeah, I read the card. Then you're the new Santa. In putting on the hat and jacket, you accepted the contract. What contract? The card in the Santa suit. You said you read it, right? So when you put on the suit, he fell subject to the Santa clause. Yeah, well, there's actually, you're making jokes, but there is a whole section on this magazine we were reading.

about Santa's in pop culture and how that too has come to influence the way we think about Santa over the years. Starting out in 1947, Miracle on 34th Street. I really think that that movie's overrated.

Honestly, I can't watch it. But it was one of the first of its time to talk about this and to depict Santa. And yes, from 94 to 2006, you have Tim Allen in the Santa Claus trilogy. Gotta love it. I hate the second one. But the first and third one are really... good 2004 one of my favorites the polar express well you're coming where why to the north pole

of course. This is the Polar Express! Well, it says here, no photo with the department store Santa this year. No letter to Santa. And you made your sister put out the milk and cookies. Sounds to me like this is your crucial year. If I were you, I would think about climbing on board. Tom Hanks, such a magical movie. But think about how traditions start there. This idea about the bell.

will probably live on now is something we talk about when we think about Christmas. 2003, you have Elf with Ed Asner. Who the heck are you? What are you talking about? I'm Santa Claus. No, you're not. Why, of course I am. If you're Santa, what song did I sing for you on your birthday this year? Happy birthday, of course. So, how old are you, son? Four. You're a big boy. What's your name? Paul. And what can I get you for Christmas? Don't tell him what you want. He's a liar. Let the kid talk.

You disgust me. How can you live with yourself? Elf is one of those that you watch every year. It's a staple. 2007, you had Paul Giamatti and Fred Claus. That was a fun one. 93, You Have the Nightmare Before Christmas, which was actually a big one for me. I know it's more of a Halloween movie, but...

And then a bunch of others. I mean, we could go on and on. We have to say bad Santa because Kirk loves bad Santa. Okay. Bad Santa. Christina doesn't love it. How about where did Santa get his reindeer? That's a good question. How did it come from horses to reindeer? No, it didn't even start there. In 1821, a children's poem depicted Santa's sleigh pulled by just one reindeer.

That's the first image we can find of something pulling Santa's sleigh. You say before then, but when we went over the history in 1819, you stated Irving wrote the sketchbook of Joffrey Crayon. Yes, I don't think it was with an illustrated Santa though. No, but he said horse-drawn wagon. Oh, he did state that. Yeah, horse-drawn wagon above the trees.

You can imagine, though, as an artist, images tend to be far more impactful. Absolutely. So somebody sees this and this now becomes what you think of. See, I listen when you speak. Good job, babe. For the most part. No, that's only one reindeer, though. One reindeer? It looks like a little much for one, if you look at that illustration. That's true. Also a much smaller sleigh, and less presents. Published in 1821.

Old Santa Claus with much delight, which was part of a paperback volume called The Children's Friend, shows Santa being towed by a single antlered critter. Critter? Yeah, I guess they didn't even say. Oh, no, it does say. He was a reindeer. Some other aspects of the Santa tradition were also in flux in this same poem. Santa wears a fur hat. He has a green suit. He often had a green suit back then. Why green?

I guess that started out as the symbolic color. We changed it to red, maybe going back to that story of the archbishop who wore red robes. Yeah, or maybe Coca-Cola changed it. No, it was long before that. Yeah. But two years later, here's the big one. Clement Seymour publishes A Visit from St. Nicholas. Seymour Butts?

More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name. Now Dasher, now Dancer, now Prancer and Vixit. On Comet, on Cupid, on Dunder and Blixen. Huh. That's different. To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, now dash away, dash away, dash away all. I'm sure you've noticed those last two names are different.

Those were the original. They were eventually changed to Donner and Blitzen, which means thunder and lightning in German. And then they added Rudolph. The red-nosed reindeer. Yes, he came later. I'm sure you'll notice he's not there. There's other tales, of course. There's another version that includes 10 reindeer ready for this. Their names, Flossy and Glossy.

racer and pacer, fearless and peerless, ready and steady, reckless and speckless. That's really fun, actually. At first, I hated it, but... It's kind of fun. It's a novel called The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, a 1902 book, in which a baby Santa is adopted by the master woodsman of the world and grows up to invent toys that fail to capture the public's imagination. So yeah, I mean, you can see how this is evolving over time.

By the way, fun fact. Did you know only female reindeer keep their antlers during the winter? The males lose theirs by mid-December, meaning all of Santa's reindeer are females. Oh, okay. Or yeah, they wouldn't have it. What if they don't associate as a female? As male or female? Rudolph, since you bring him up, the most famous reindeer of all, was the product of Robert L. May's imagination in 1939. So that's, what, 19 years later?

The copywriter wrote a poem about the reindeer to help lure customers into the Montgomery Ward department store. Once again, marketing for consumerism, but it's genius because a kid's imagination, they start asking questions, you know, about... And start digging. And they're like, but how does he see? And you can say, well, there's Rudolph. And he's got a glowing nose. Have you seen a deer in real life? A reindeer? Yes. They're huge. Yes.

I did not know that. When I first saw it, I was like, holy shit, it's almost as big as a horse. They're awesome. Okay, what about the Christmas tree? We so far haven't heard about any of that. Well, in Germany...

People honored the pagan god Odin during the midwinter holiday. Germans were terrified of Odin as they believed he made nocturnal flights through the sky to observe his people and then decided who would prosper or perish. Whoa. That sounds familiar though, right? Riding through the sky, who's naughty, who... was nice. Because of his presence, many people chose to stay inside. The first Christmas trees showed up in Strasbourg in the early 17th century.

They were brought to America by German immigrants. And when Germany's Prince Albert married Queen Victoria, he introduced the tradition to England. Prince Albert, that name has forever... been changed in my head yes but why this doesn't state why they brought the christmas tree well german immigrants taking their traditions with them

To the US. So we see the US tends to be an amalgamation because there were so many people coming with their own ideas. And eventually they just start kind of melding together. And when you say Christmas tree, you mean the tree with the lights and the angel and the... Yes, partially, but the lights idea actually came from Thomas Edison.

Of course. Who is trying to market his incandescent bulbs and strung a long row of them up his driveway to show, oh, look how great this lighting could be. And other people started using them as decoration. is amazing again once again marketing and consumerism now we all know thomas edison stole the idea and how to create light but he's there was a guy before him

But he's the one that came out on top. Well, none of these ideas are original. It's kind of the bottom line we're getting to, right? As far as traditions are concerned, I'm wondering, you know, I have friends and colleagues who go as far as taking the family.

going on a road trip out east, finding a tree, chopping it down themselves, bringing it home. It's a big family event. Then I have friends who go to the store and buy a real tree. And then I have friends and colleagues who have... fake trees that they just pull out of the attic and put it up every year growing up my family was the fake tree family it just felt like less work

There was three kids. I don't know how my parents did it. They were so busy all the time. And Christina and myself's tradition as of now is a tiny little tree that we put up in the windowsill. Yeah, well, we could never have a real tree because my sister was allergic. So we had to have the fake tree, but we had a couple throughout the years and one was really amazing, meant to look.

like a real tree with snow on it. And we loved that one. But decorating it was always an event for us. And we would do that a couple days before Christmas to kind of get in the spirit. Well, we would put it up. We would put the lights on it. But really, the doing all of the ornaments, maybe a week before. Okay.

We would wrap presents, and then at the end of doing that, we would make hot chocolate and put all the last ornaments up on the tree. I said this at work, or maybe I said it in the last podcast. I really think there needs to be a month in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We need some time.

Okay, we just, I'm driving home from Connecticut after Thanksgiving. Right away, I'm like, I got to get presents. I got to do that before it's too late. I got to do this. I got to do that. Christina and myself, we love decorations. And we put it up last weekend. And we're one of those who keep it up for like another month. Oh, yeah. Well, nothing happens in January. Yeah. So why not continue the celebration? You still have a lot of darkness.

going on during that time. And that's what the solstice celebration was all about, the return of the light. So why shouldn't you have lights up to keep that kind of feeling going all the way through January? And what we've done is we've made a, you know...

Our living room is our sanctuary. Behind the TV, we have LED lights. And around the window, we have LED lights. During Halloween, we made it Halloween colors. During Thanksgiving, we made it Thanksgiving colors. And right now, we have green and red. For Christmas. And it just, the setting is amazing. And I don't want to get rid of it. I don't blame you. Well, speaking of setting the mood, if we had a fireplace.

It would be lit all winter long. Yes. As it used to be in my house. That was also, you know, this is fitting. Not only the light, but the heat, the warmth. The hearth used to be the center of the house where families would gather around. It was a symbol of family. But... Even more so at Christmas, we have the celebration of the Yule log, right? Where did that come from? Well, it goes back to old pagan traditions.

This time in Scandinavia, where the Norse believed the sun was a great wheel of fire that rolled towards and then away from the earth. They celebrated Yule from December 21st, there we go, the winter solstice, through January. Oh, wow. The Norse believed that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born during the coming year. This is where the picture of the family fireplace becomes the centerpiece of Christmas. Everyone knows that Yule Log channel.

On cable, right? You just go to that. It's a burning log and music constantly through. When I was young, that felt so cheesy and dumb. The older I get, I'm like, yeah, let's put the Yule log on. Especially when you don't have a real fireplace. And that's like my heart. That's my one requirement when we get a house of our own is it has to have wood burning.

fireplace because that is very different to the gas fireplace yeah that requirement is going to be tougher in long island right they just don't seem to make many houses like that but we're going to find it my requirement is um A game room, an office, and a basketball court. That sounds like three requirements. Okay, a little more obscure. What about mistletoe? That was created by a pervert.

who was just like, hey, it's a mistletoe. No, first go back to Celtic people who have long considered mistletoe to have magical powers. It was said to have the ability to heal wounds and increase fertility. So they hung it in their homes to bring themselves good luck and ward off evil spirits, usually over the doorway. During the holidays in the Victorian era,

The English, who seemingly adopted some part of this, would hang sprigs in the door, and if someone was found standing under them, they would be kissed by someone else in the room. And thus we adopted that as we adopted a lot of other English traditions.

Speaking of English traditions, we also took Christmas cards and caroling. An Englishman named John Calcott Horsley helped popularize the tradition of cards when he began producing small ones featuring festive scenes and pre-written holiday greetings.

Also, wandering musicians would travel from town to town, visiting the castles and homes of the rich. In return for their performance, they hope to receive a hot meal or some money. That goes back to the same idea, right? I only see caroling on TV now. I've never actually seen it in real life. I know and I wish that it was still a thing. That'd be nice.

And finally, I promised you I'd come back to where in the hell did candy canes come from? That doesn't seem to fit in with any of this. Well, a German choir master seeking to quiet the noisy children inside his cathedral requested... from a local candy maker. He asked for a crook on the end, a nod to the shepherds visiting baby Jesus to justify their church distribution.

The connection to the nativity eventually made them popular at Christmas time. So this wasn't even at Christmas inside the church. The kids wouldn't shut up. So he said, well, let's give him candy. But we have to find a way to justify why. Oh my goodness, I wasn't visualizing it. Now I get it. So that hook on the top.

into this hook at the top. Genius. Wow. That's amazing. So then people started to say, oh, well, that's like the nativity. We should use those at Christmas time more. Clatchers, you say you don't learn anything from us. Come on. That is genius. Awesome trivia facts. I never knew that about candy canes. That's also smart because if you gave them just regular pieces of candy, they'd eat it real quick and then continue going crazy. These take a while.

And they can hold them by the hook. That's right. This guy was a genius. Well, let me ask you this. Do we know where the cookies and milk came from? Okay, so a lot of this goes back to the ways we used to think about Santa.

His mythical predecessors, Sinterklaas, the older Saint Nicholas, were all known to leave... coal alongside of other unpleasantries such as garlic, onions, twigs for kids who were not good. And in fact, it was Santa himself who would leave letters to the young children, usually on the fireplace mantle, detailing behavior on how to improve in the upcoming year. Eventually, the kids started to write back.

After the Civil War, Americans were coming around to a new hand-delivered mail system, and children saw their postman as a conduit, so they would mail things, but they would also usually leave them at the house with other thanks to Santa. Hope I've been good this year. Here are some cookies for you and a nice little letter. But it used to be exactly the reverse. This was in hopes that they would be on the nice list. I like that. It makes sense. What about ho, ho, ho?

Where did that come from? Okay, I'm going to get to that in a minute. Hold that thought till we come to Santa Tracker. Hold. I have a few other fun facts to tell you. Each year. 30 to 35 million real Christmas trees are sold in the U.S. alone. So talking about do people go chop them down? Do they buy them? 30 to 35 million. That's a lot.

real Christmas trees. That's not even counting the fake ones. At first I was thinking that's a lot of trees dying for that one day and then being thrown out. But in actuality, we continue to grow more. because of this demand. So when one tree goes down, they plant more. Yes and no. There are 21,000 Christmas tree growers in the U.S. So yeah. they're doing this tradition, but also the trees usually grow for about 15 years before they're sold. Of course. Yeah.

That's a long turnaround. But if you have a big enough field and you have it marked off year per year. Keep cycling them. Absolutely. Here's another fun one. What about poinsettia plants? I always wonder how that came into being. They're named after Joel R. Poinsettia. an American minister to Mexico who brought the red and green plant from Mexico to America.

In 1828. This is truly an amalgamation. Right? Just when you think you can't involve any more countries, cultures. When you go into a Catholic church for Christmas, you see those all over the front of the church. Absolutely. I thought it was poinsettia. That's how it's spelt, but it's usually pronounced poinsettia. It's not as pretty.

No, I guess not. The legend of the plant we now associate so strongly with Christmas arose years ago in Mexico where it was traditional to leave gifts on the altar for Jesus on Christmas Eve. As the story goes, among a group of worshippers was a poor young boy.

who had no present. Upset because he couldn't provide a gift, the boy knelt outside the church window and prayed. In the spot where he knelt sprung a beautiful plant with vibrant red leaves. In Mexico, it's called the flower of the holy night. The first American ambassador to Mexico Here's the one you were talking about. The Santa Tracker. Thanks to a mistake made 60 years ago, this is how we got this. In December 1955, Sears Roebuck placed an ad in a Colorado Springs newspaper.

encouraging children to call Santa. But the number they gave was one numeral off and coincidentally sent all inquiries to the infamous red phone. at the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center. A phone that was reserved only for the most urgent calls from the Pentagon. As the calls came rolling in...

Colonel Henry Shoup played along, replying with a jovial, ho, ho, ho, and revealing his current whereabouts, quote unquote. Oh my goodness. So they could track where he was. This is like a movie.

Decades later, every Christmas, NORAD feels 100,000 calls and thousands more emails asking about the current location of Santa's sleigh. Thanks to modern technology, fans can now also track Santa's location starting December 1st through... noradsanta.org and i'm sure you've seen that yeah my little cousins put that up every year on christmas eve oh look santa's here now santa's there now that's genius happy accident 60 years ago wow

Well, it could have been even worse if that guy on the other end was an asshole. Yeah, thank God it was a cool colonel. He's like, let's play along with these awesome kids. That's great. Calling Nora and looking for Santa. I always wondered, why are they doing it? Like, how did they get involved in this? That's a good question. Now we know. Oh, it's hysterical. Here's another fun fact. The infamous 12 days of Christmas. I'm sure that you thought.

As most people did. Five golden rings. Well, actual golden rings, right? Yeah. No. No. It refers to the yellow rings around a pheasant's neck. Has nothing to do with jewelry. Pheasant's neck. Yeah, they have like these markings, this coloring where there's yellow.

rings around them. I mean, think about how the song talks about a lot of birds and other things. Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtles. Why would you have five golden jewelry rings? You wouldn't. Dude, by day 12, I'd be like, what am I going to do with all these birds?

What the hell? This makes a lot more sense, though. They were talking about pheasants. Unbelievable how many things I didn't know about Christmas until I read this. Remember the, I don't know what it's called, the 12 Days of Christmas, but it's like... 12 Pains of Christmas. Yes, those are fun. I love that song. I wait for it. It's really the only fun Christmas song that I like.

Singing Christmas carols. Sale TV specials. Batteries not included. No parking. Yeah. Charities. Gotta make them dinner. Five months up there. Shut up, you! Fine! You're so smart, you'll ring up the lights!

Okay, Jason, I want you to take a couple wild guesses at this last segment here. Or wild gooses. Yeah, sure. Birds, get it? Sorry. The most popular gifts from the 1900s through the 1990s. I have about three for each decade. Ooh, this is fun. Any ideas? The first ones in the 1900s. iPhones. Just kidding. So 1900s, when you say that, you mean... 1901 through 1910. Think about one of the oldest iconic Christmas gifts you can give to a kid. Rocking horse. Yes. And...

Something brand new at the time. Crayola crayons. Oh. Yeah. The first crayons were introduced at that time and became one of the biggest gifts, as well as the die cast Model T Ford. What do you mean? The car? The toy version. Is that why whenever we saw depictions or videos of the elves making toys, there's that car, there's the horse? Probably. That was at the end of the 1900s.

What about the 1910s? Think about a gift we still give to this day. One of the most common. Perfume. No. For kids. Oh, sorry. Batteries. What did I just buy you as an early Christmas gift? It's big. It's snuggly. You got it. After news spread that President Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear on a hunting trip, shop owners turned a piece of velvet into a stuffed bear, displaying it in their window.

But passerby soon wanted to buy the bear. So they asked the president for permission. He agreed, and they made a fortune. Why did they need permission? They did this as like an honor to the president. Oh, okay. It wasn't meant to be something that people could buy. Wow. In addition to Raggedy Ann dolls. Okay. That was another one, 1910s. Okay, 1920s.

We're getting obscure here. Okay, we'll list a few for these until we get later in time. Condoms. 1920s. The radio flyer wagon. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Tinker toys. And you might say what? But you're going to remember this. And I don't know why we still had them as gifts when they came out in the 20s. But toy construction sets that were made of sticks and wooden spools. They looked like a spool at one end and then just a bunch of sticks where you could build things. That's right.

That goes all the way back to that time. The 1930s, Army Men, Monopoly, and Viewmaster. We talked about Viewmaster. Oh, the yo-yo, earlier end of the 30s. Of course. The 1940s, Bubbles. Scrabble, and Slinky. Everyone loves the Slinky. The 1950s. Okay, you want to weigh in on this one? We're getting closer. I'll give you a hint. My nephew still asks for this one.

In fact, most kids play with this one, although it's gotten more advanced over the years. Video games. 50s. Oh, sorry. Comes in different colors. Let me give you a snippet about its background you're never going to believe. After Joe McVicker heard that modeling clay was too hard for children to manipulate.

Play-Doh. Yes. He took the malleable wallpaper cleaner and sent it to school for kids to play with. It was such a hit they renamed it and called it Play-Doh. Now they play with this thing called goo. Like they make goo. It's weird. I remember Play-Doh. That was fun. Well, also... Mr. Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head and Barbies. Barbies, yep. Maybe the biggest toy invention for a while.

1960s, the Easy Bake Oven, the Etch-a-Sketch, G.I. Joes, and Legos. That was a big year. This is all making sense. 1970s, the Rubik's Cube, Stretch Armstrong. 1980s. Here's our year ready. Cabbage Patch Kids, Care Bears, My Little Pony, and Teddy Ruxpin. Classic. It's going to go downhill from there. So I'm just going to read you the 90s and then stop. Wait, wait, let me try 90s. Game Boys. Oh, that's not on there. But yeah, that had to be because I got one for Christmas.

Think more annoying. In fact, almost all the 90s gifs were fucking annoying. What were we thinking? Simon Says? No, that actually was the 70s and got revamped. Okay. The 90s, the 90s. Annoying. It never shut up. Nope. I don't got it. No. Tamagotchis. Tamagotchis. The little eggs. Those little device things. Yeah. We had to like feed it. That you had to feed it or it was going to yell at you. Yeah. The toy pets. I didn't think they were too annoying.

Those were annoying. So was Furby. Furby. Whatever the hell that was. I remember that. That sounded creepy. They made millions of dollars. Tickle me, Elmo. Tickle me. That tickles. Annoying. Yeah. Do you remember? People were fighting over it. They were fighting. Literally almost killing each other. Yeah. And people who had it would resell it for like $1,500. Remember that? And I kept saying to myself.

why don't they just wait till a week after Christmas? It'll be regular price and they can get it. 1996 sold out just about everywhere. Shoppers brawled over dolls while others paid thousands to third-hand sellers. There you go. Yeah, I remember that so clearly. And Beanie Babies.

This was another huge thing which would start to sell for hundreds if you had the certain kind that you couldn't find anywhere. Yeah. Ridiculous. That's when the economy was good. You know the economy is good when you can sell things. for lots of money to collectors because they have that kind of disposable money last year um my mom bought the girls this egg thing that like you rub it and it hatches

I was kind of upset, not upset, but I was like, mom, you shouldn't have gotten that because it was so overpriced and knowing how kids get over things so quickly, it's not worth it. Hatchimals? Yeah. Like Fingerlings, these robotic toys seem to evaporate off the shelves, an interactive furry toy that hatches from a plastic egg. It was, according to a CEO of Spin Master, the company behind the toy, the biggest phenomenon in decades.

He's now worth $1.4 billion. Yeah. I want to say they were almost $100 each. It was ridiculous. But look at them. Why is that? It's because the egg glowed. I saw them doing it. And like the more you touched it, it would actually start to crack a little bit, which was really cool, but not worth the money.

That reminds me of that TV show we used to watch. Dinosaurs? Dinosaurs. Not the mama? Yeah, yeah. Not the mama. Didn't the egg hatch in the beginning? That's right. Well, that's quite enough ancient traditions and background history. Let's move more into current.

traditions and ways that we celebrate. First, I will tell you how some people in other countries celebrate and then we'll move a little more personal to our Clatchers and their traditions. Okay, so these traditions are interesting. Some of them are funny in light, some of them a lot darker. In Sweden, light is still a main theme, but they celebrate it with St. Lucia Day.

A feast near the shortest day of the year where the sun's light begins to strengthen. The oldest daughter of the family is crowned Lucy Bride for the day. She wears a crown with nine lighted candles. And all activity done during that day is by candle or torchlight. At night, torches are carried in a parade. and it ends with everyone throwing them onto a pile of straw to create a bonfire. Essentially, the whole day is celebrating the light. In Finland, many visit the sauna on Christmas Eve.

Families gather to listen to the National Peace of Christmas radio broadcast, and it's customary to visit the grave sites of departed family members. In Australia, due to warm weather, beach time and outdoor barbecues are common. Damn it. That's awesome, right? Yeah. How about this? In the Ukraine, they prepare a traditional 12-course meal. Wow. The family's youngest child watches for the evening star to appear, signaling the feast can begin. That sounds exciting.

In Greece, many believe goblins appear to cause mischief during the 12 days of Christmas, so they don't exchange gifts until January 1st. Huh. In Italy, it's not Christmas, but La Bafana, an ugly... but kind old witch, known as Bufana, giver of gifts, who controls the giving of gifts. I'm looking at a picture of her. You guys have to Google Bufana.

On January 5th, known as the Eve of Epiphany, parents will leave out a place of broccoli with spiced sausage and a glass of wine for her. This is so Italian. Tradition says the good witch flies around on her broom and enters houses through a chimney to deliver clothing, toys, and candy to all of the good children.

And on January 6th, children will find the treats and toys in their stockings. So a lot of this is the epiphany is the real celebration. Since that more coincides with Catholic tradition. And this is the eve of the epiphany or Three Kings Day. Okay, ready for this one? In Japan, Christmas isn't really celebrated, but Kentucky Fried Chicken is. Yes. KFC on December 25th.

Instead of having a homemade Christmas dinner is their tradition. The special recipe, fried chicken, is so popular the chain asks customers to place their order at least two months in advance. Two months? Yes. To KFC. Yes, this began in 1974 when KFC was introduced to Japan for visitors who wanted a dinner resembling a traditional holiday meal. It so attracted the locals, it's still a practice 40 years later. That's amazing.

Okay, this one's kind of cool. Christmas trees in Ukraine are often covered in spider webs. Folklore tells the story of a poor family who grew a Christmas tree from a pine cone. The children were excited about decorating their own tree, but the family did not have the money. When they woke up Christmas morning, they found spiders had spun webs around the tree's branches as a way to decorate it.

So today, Ukrainians dress up their trees with spiderwebs to welcome good luck in the coming year. Wow. Well, that's kind of like our Halloween. This one is rather scary. From Iceland, the Yule Cat. It's a huge and vicious cat from folklore that lurks during Christmas Eve and eats people. who haven't received any new clothes to wear for Christmas Eve. What? Yeah, it began as a threat used by farmers as an incentive for their workers to finish processing the autumn wool before Christmas time.

That is dark. Right? And rude. And you carry it on still as a tradition? That's so rude. Everyone knows that if you don't subscribe to the Coffee Clats Crew Patreon podcast, by the end of the year, a direwolf comes and eats you. Oh, yes. All right. And finally, maybe the coolest one, Venezuela. Why walk to Mass when you can skate there? It's customary to roller skate to your Christmas service.

And many neighborhoods close the streets to cars until 8 a.m. after mass, where they enjoy tostadas and coffee. See, that sounds fun. Let's move to Venezuela. Let's do it. It's just, it's really interesting to see because other cultures have their own ancient traditions that come from somewhere instead of this amalgamation. They celebrate the holidays very differently.

I think we need to introduce a holiday in February because January, February, March, and April too. I mean, you're starting to get happy because summer's coming, but there's... Nothing. You don't get any days off at work. It's cold. It's kind of miserable. I think that's why Valentine's Day became a thing, to be honest with you, because it's the only thing during that time period. And football ends. Really, there's nothing. It's ridiculous.

So how do our Clatchers celebrate the holidays? What are their specific traditions, whether that's based on where they live geographically, their culture, or just something that became popular in their family? So we asked our Clatchers on Patreon and on Twitter, how do you celebrate the holidays in your country, culture, or family? And do you have any special traditions? Okay, Melly wrote in to say, my husband is Asian, but lived in France.

From three months to 33 years. Wait, what? Oh, from three months old to 33 years old? Oh, wow. Okay. So basically French is his culture. Yeah. At first it sounded like... I don't know how long, maybe from like three months to 33 years. Oh, but then they fell in love and he moved to Canada. So they have always had a melting pot of traditions at home.

She says, I have a feeling this is a French tradition, but maybe people do it in the US and Canada too. For kids at Christmas, it's all about imagination when it comes to Santa. Our daughter doesn't see Santa Claus. It freaks her out anyway. Yeah, a lot of kids. But before going to bed on the 24th, she leaves cookies and milk.

Oh, that's a different take. Yeah, I never heard of the slippers, but we were... just talking about how going back to that ancient folklore the daughters who didn't have a dowry one left her shoes under the fireplace and the coins fell into it and the other her stockings to dry So that's where we get stockings from. Maybe the slippers is part of the shoe. I see. Yeah. Tradition.

I know for my nephew and my younger cousins, yes, they leave cookies and milk, but a big thing is also to leave carrots for the reindeer. Oh, yes, that's right. So every year my dad has to take a bite out of the cookies and a chomp out of the carrot so that the kids... will know you know Santa's been there.

She also says the first time she spent Christmas was with her in-laws in France, and she thought it would be like Quebec because they are of French Catholic descent. Turns out there are some differences. They don't eat turkey, meat pies, and meatball stew.

Like we do. Do you eat meatball stew? Mellie, can you send us all of that? Yeah, I'll tell you in a minute what we eat. They have these huge, beautiful platters of seafood. There we go. More like Italian. Some kinds I had never seen in my life and I didn't even know how to eat. And I'm a pretty adventurous eater, so that says something. For the Asian side of Christmas, my mother-in-law buys lacquered pork from the Chinese market? What the heck is that? Does lacquered mean soaked in liquor?

Is that what that means? Oh, maybe Likard? I have no idea. Yeah, okay. They obviously don't celebrate Christmas in Laos, but the fancy food they have at every celebration. Okay. Mellie, we're going to hang out and let's just eat what you eat. Sounds great. Let me tell you how traditional Italian Christmas is spent in my family. Christmas Eve is really the big deal. Christmas Day is...

Really nothing, because this goes back to a time where you would just go to church on Christmas Day, and that'd be kind of a quiet, peaceful time to spend with your family. So Christmas Eve was the big celebration. We would get together and eat. Obviously, Italian customs are all about eating, but you don't eat meat on Christmas Eve. You can't do that till Christmas Day. So this goes back to the seven fish from Catholic tradition.

And we only have a bunch of different kinds of seafood on Christmas Eve. The big thing we do is spaghetti with lobster sauce, but then we have a bunch of other types of fish. And then Christmas Day is when you would have the lasagna and the infamous pizza rustica. Yes, you bring that home for me every year. Which I bring it home. My father has now learned how to make this. If you've never heard of it or had it, it's like an Italian meat pie. It is ginormous, like very, very tall.

with this dough and crust that is completely unique because it's really just about a peppered dough, a highly peppered dough. And the inside is layered with different Italian cheeses and egg. That's so good. It's amazing, but you got to wait till Christmas Day for all that. So after you eat tons of fish and stuff yourself Christmas Eve, you wait till very, very late. Used to be midnight, but...

You know, we can't really do that anymore, especially with kids. So it was always that you could open one gift before midnight and then you'd have to wait for the others. Now we just... as late as we can go, is when all the kids open their gifts from the family. Christmas Day morning is just when the kids get their Santa gifts. I dig that. I think when we have kids, Santa gets one gift.

And the rest is from mommy and daddy. So we get all the credit. Usually it's reversed. I know, I'm just kidding. Like mom and dad give Christmas night and Santa brings all the cool stuff Christmas day. Because of course, we're Santa too, right? Yeah. All right. Rosario says. Rosario, thank you for writing in. I really bullied him into writing to us. I was like, hey, did you look at Patreon yet? This is all during work. He's like, oh, no, not yet.

Well, we have a question. You know, you guys have to answer that. You've got to answer that, man. You've got to answer it. Growing up, like mostly everyone, it was all about the family get-together. We came together on Christmas Eve for dinner. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles would give gifts to cousins, me and my brother to put under the tree, but we couldn't open, here we go, till after midnight. Is Rosario Italian? Mm-hmm.

All of the kids were dying of anticipation of what was waiting under the tree. Once in a while, someone said, we could open one gift. Oh, this is just like my family to keep us happy. Now that I think about it, I don't think we ever made it to midnight because we bugged everyone. And after a big meal, everyone would be overstuffed and tired. So by 9 p.m.

Parents gave into our pleas. Yes, very Italian. Wrapping paper was torn to shreds and laying all over the place. Us cousins would be playing with our gifts and grumbled when we received clothes or money. As we got older, we held out longer for the gift opening. After dinner, the kids, now teens, would play cards with their aunts and uncles and eat the nuts and pastries for desserts. Yeah. That sounds amazing.

Rosario says more, but Melly replied to that one and said, yes, I remember one year my mom did a réveillon. Looks right. Christmas Eve dinner. I must have been around eight or nine. And it was fun to wait for the clock to chime 12 times to begin to eat and open presents. But my mom was exhausted and promised herself she would never do it again. I don't think anyone ever makes it till midnight. But you know that whole waiting thing, we...

We were discussing the tradition from Ukraine with the 12-course meal and the family's youngest child watches for the evening star to appear. That had so much excitement. You wait for the 12 chimes of the clock. You wait for that... start to appear, it makes it way more magical. We should incorporate that into our traditions when we have a child. Yeah, it's a lot of fun, except that they generally can't make it till midnight.

No, we make up our own thing. We make sounds or something. Yeah, it used to just be like an arbitrary, like nine o'clock when we're done, you know? We have to wait for Alexa to chime in to say, you know, something. Well, now my family made up another one where, because I had so many cousins that were younger all at the same time, my uncle would bring them over to, it's kind of like a warehouse.

so to speak, without to give too many details, a family business that we own. And they would look for Santa, right? And so... you would always hear sleigh bells or sounds on the roof, which of course my uncle was making happen, but it became a tradition. And then they would run back home to check. the Santa Tracker online. I think he was just here in tinfoil. Let's take a look. He's very cute.

Rosario goes on to say, when we had kids of our own, we tried to keep getting together for a few years, but because the family got larger, it became impractical to have so many people under one roof. So eventually, each would just meet with our own parents and our own kids. The dinners aren't like what it used to be.

and the kids now open presents Christmas morning with just the immediate family and a call to their cousins to say thank you. It's different but nice too, but I miss being a kid and hanging out with the family the way we used to. I could see it in his eyes when we were talking. talking about this, I could see that he was starting to reminisce a little bit, which I'm doing as well.

Especially now, dad's not around, so Christmases are different, and now you're remembering the way it used to be when you were a child. Things change, you know? Oh, sure. Like, when I'm talking about it, we still do it, but the tradition gets a little smaller. A little less course is Christmas Eve. You wait a little less long because everyone wants to get home early. The in-laws are coming the next day.

it's dwindling. And I think about that too, how big and magical it was when we were kids. Your family is a little different. In regards to, you have something that a lot of families don't. And that's two things. One, you have a huge family. So many kids who have so many kids. My father's one of eight. Yeah. But two, they all live relatively close to each other.

most of which in the same town. So that kind of large party is really doable. In my family, everyone's spread out. Connecticut, New York. Pennsylvania. Still close enough, though, that you guys can see each other for the most part. So the family has shrank significantly. So you have a magic that you should really...

Yeah, and they figured out a way to do it because that's all dad's side. So because Christmas Eve is bigger on the Italian side, we celebrate with them that night. Then everyone goes home to their respective houses. And generally the in-laws, the other side of the family will come Christmas day. Okay. So my mom's side will come that next morning and then we celebrate with her that day. It's like a two part. Yeah. And we kind of try to do it Christmas after Christmas.

With my Aunt Christina. Yeah, you guys do the January celebration. Which is one side of the family. And that's an old school Italian thing, again, going back to the epiphany. But that's the Polish side of my family. Weird. Yeah. I wonder where they pulled that from. If it's the same Catholic. Well, here's the thing. Remember that side of my family, my bopshi had five kids. So.

They were used to a big family thing too. Not eight kids like yours, but five. Oh, yeah. But I wonder if it comes from the religious Catholic side or if they just picked. Oh. After the holidays end and it's a little quieter in January? I think so. Our family struggles to stay in touch. So I think that was her response to trying to keep everyone at least seeing each other at least once a year.

And it keeps the fun going longer. Like you said, there's not a lot into January. So this is like a second Christmas. Yeah. Wow. There is a...

momentous event occurring right now. Let's all have a moment of silence as we move on to our voicemail segment of this podcast. Kirk has finally called in. Woo! Hi, ladies. It's Kurt calling from beautiful San Diego. Long-time listener, first-time caller. I'm afraid I can't really discuss my holiday conditions because I understand you have a family podcast here. Although, as I have heard...

Christina can have a bit of a potty mouth at times. So I'm calling for two questions for you. The first one is, since I heard Jason has gotten some new video equipment lately, can we expect more videos from you two in the future? As someone calling in from Southern California, I would consider it a bit of a Christmas gift to be able to actually see people who really shiver in the winter.

and swelter in the summer my second question is do you have plans to keep your holiday tradition of watching love actually or are you thinking about switching to a marathon Aw, Kirk, that's so sweet. Thank you for finally leaving us a voicemail. Oh, he didn't hang up. so yes actually I try to keep it to a minimum on the podcast but as you are hearing I'm from a big Italian family and a piece of that is

In my normal day-to-day life, my language is not this clean. You should have heard her last night. People are sometimes surprised to hear that, but it's really the F word every other word. Yeah. Well, you know. She gets in moods sometimes. We're going to watch UFC tonight and she'll get loud. When I get passionate. She'll get loud. There's areas of my life where I've had to learn.

I'm a therapist. Obviously, I teach at a university. Now I do a podcast. So I've really had to tone it down. But my natural inclination is to speak like that. Listen, I've been around her family. And the swears are everywhere. Just F-bombs flying. Okay, when it comes to the Christmas movies, I don't think Love Actually is ever going to die. In fact...

We've already watched it. Yes, we did. We watched Love Actually while we decorated the house. And oh, good news, guys. It's back on Netflix because it went away for a little bit and it's back. Did we do a review? We did. So if you're a newer Patreon member and you're at the movie tier, we have Love Actually. Last December. Yeah, it's there. So you guys can check that out. We watch a bunch of things. We tend to do Harry Potter binges during that time.

We do the cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies when we're just like wrapping gifts and doing cards. That's the thing I wanted to talk about briefly. When I go home starting Thanksgiving, home right now is kind of... It's not the happiest place. It's sad. It's full of memories of dad. Mom's still dealing with it. On and on and on. I don't want to go down that. But what I do, and it's a fairly new tradition now, is...

November, when I go home, all the TVs have the Hallmark Christmas channel on. It's over the top, cheesy, happiness. Everyone's rich, apparently. Everyone's house is beautiful and immaculate. And everyone finds love. But you know what? I need that. during these times of the year. It makes me feel warm and it makes my mom feel warm. Well, and that's what love actually does too. Yeah, it's the same thing. But...

What we discovered a couple years back that we were just speaking about in the video. I'm sorry, I misspoke in the video we just recorded. It's called Rise of the Guardians. Came out in 2012.

just a brief synopsis it says when the evil spirit pitch launches an assault on earth the immortal guardians team up to protect the innocence of children all around the world and so good these guardians are the keepers of all of our biggest So Santa for Christmas, a bunny for Easter, but their own spin on this in a way that is remarkable visuals that even still six years later are.

phenomenally beautiful. And like I said, it is on its surface an animated cutesy kids movie, but there's also some kind of cool deeper themes going on that I really like. I agree. So that'll be on our Patreon poll. So that can be something that you guys vote for.

If you didn't see the video, just as a brief explanation, I know that we put up a poll for some new movies that are at the theater and we are going to keep those choices carrying over to January, but we wanted to have a holiday themed movie to cover. since it's the only time of year that we can do that.

Plus, it's going to be really difficult for us to get to the movie theaters right now. So we are going to give you the choice, either the next in the Harry Potter installment, The Goblet of Fire, or this movie, Rise of the Guardians. But Kirk, your first question that you gave us in regards to the new video equipment and do we expect more videos? So there's two things. One, video equipment, quote unquote, is...

A bit of an embellishment. I got the new iPhone, which has a better camera. And we have a stand and a light, some things that we... We have a lot of things, but... Part of which now no longer will work with the new phone. So I do have to buy. Of course, because it's Apple. So I do have to buy some extensions that'll make it work again. That's why we handheld it once again this month.

Because none of their new stuff can fit any of the plugs or the chargers or the outlets for their old stuff. Don't get me started. This is when she starts cussing. Yeah. New videos. One thing I have to get more comfortable in front of a video. I hate the way I look right now. Don't get Jason on this tangent. I'm chubbier than I used to be. The woman in him is going to come out. Really, the bigger thing, though, is that it takes a lot more...

of a different skill set for expertise. It takes us a lot longer to be able to properly record, cut, edit. It's just a whole other area we would have to get better at. But there's a lot of other things. Lighting. We don't have the lighting here. Space. We don't have the space. The backdrop has to be a lot more sexy than what we have here. And honestly, I'll put it forward here. And you're not supposed to do this.

You're supposed to always make it look like things are bigger than they are. When we do a video, we get three or four views. It's not really worth our time at this point. But Kirk... We've had ideas. Maybe in the future we end up doing like little YouTube things when we move and we have a place where we can actually build a nice setting. We'll do like, we had these ideas of after a show that we're reviewing, after an airing of a show.

we'll do a five-minute video. Reactionary. Reactionary. And use that as a way to, one, get a lot of people on our YouTube channel, but also... segue it into listen to the full review on our podcast. I think instant coffee condensed and in video version. Yeah. So that's a goal that we have, but that's really far in the future.

In the meantime, though, as we said, we do have some ideas for expanding slightly in the audio department for Patreon. So we are thinking of things. Don't worry. Kirk, thank you so much for calling. It was nice to hear a voice to the bully. And lastly, for our Christmas voicemails. Hey, guys. It's, well, you know who it is. For holidays.

Let's see, there's several things. I grew up Catholic, so not only would we do the whole Advent calendar, Christmas, midnight mass, St. Nick's Day, which basically is on December 5th, you put out your shoes. and he lives a little present. It's a little, like, a precursor to Christmas. There's Ana Lucia Day, I think it is, from December 14th. Basically, you go to Mass and you get, like, warm cinnamon rolls.

But so now, growing up, we host Christmas Eve dinner for my in-laws. And then we also do the Christmas pickle. which is basically a Christmas ornament that's in the shape of a pickle. I believe it's from Germany. But you hide it on a Christmas tree, and then the first person to find it, usually it's from little kids, gets to open up their first present. Oh, wow.

which was kind of fun. It was a little bit of a scavenger hunt type deal. Yeah. Anyway, happy holidays, everyone. Happy holidays to you, B. That is so cool. I've never heard of that before. Yeah, that's great. A lot of traditions are very similar. Yeah, except this one. Except for the pickle. This is one I've never heard. I love hearing new things. I'm surprised that Brian's voicemail isn't all about...

saying that he now regrets wishing he knew more about the inside workings of CKC. He's no longer really a fan. Oh. We just harassed him and talked his ear off the other night. No, it was really great to get to speak to you, Brian. And thank you to everybody for your voicemail. Please keep calling in. We love hearing about your answers to the questions and getting a voice to match to it. So speaking of the interaction, because...

Yeah, that's what CKC was built on in the first place, right? We wanted to have more of a community. We have been calling it our digital water cooler, a place where we could just talk about some of our favorite things, TV shows, movies. Now topics that... interest us. And we're always trying to think of ways to up that interaction more. The voicemail was something that we thought would be a good way to do that. It's kind of a back and forth conversation about these questions.

We also realized, though, that currently we have three tiers on Patreon. The movie tiers, while they are fun and lengthy and have a lot of information and you guys vote on the polls, isn't really a conversation. back and forth. So we've been starting some of that with a bonus, but we wanted to extend it a little bit more. Thus, we are going to be creating a new Patreon tier. It's going to be a $3 tier.

So people that maybe aren't able to go up to the $5 or $10 but want a little more interaction than what you're getting at the $1, which is the community chat boards. And for that, you will get this sort of second segment. that we've been doing as part of the bonuses the word of the month and trivia

And then the what we're watching, but capped by the clatter questions because that's the big interactive part, right? These back and forths, the voicemails and the answering of the questions for the month. And this new segment will be titled Coffee Break. Every month, our Patreon Clatchers will now be able to take time off from life to have a coffee break. We'll be presenting to you every month.

some fun questions, hopefully fun questions, and you can respond just like you did here, either by replying or via email, contact at coffeeclashcrew.com or voicemail. Yeah, and you bonus in movie tier, people have been seeing that, but...

There's also, we know, a lot of patrons out there who haven't done this yet. So feel free to jump in on the fun and hopefully we'll get some new people who haven't currently been a part of this to join up for that $3 tier and we can widen this conversation. So we hope that you all...

Enjoy your holidays. We will have the December movie coming at you fairly soon. And of course, the new Coffee Break episode where you will get all of those fun interactive segments. Happy holidays. I hope you guys enjoy your time with your family. And friends, Melly just gave us a link on Patreon for a Christmas song, a French Christmas song. So I'm interested in looking at that. So everyone go check that out. And until next time, this round's on me. This round is on me. Go, go, go!