>> Speaker A: Welcome back to privy. Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom. I'm your host, hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms. Welcome back, and Mary. Privy. Christmas. it is the holiday season. and here on privy, we hope you're having the holliest, jolliest living holiday that you can get for your money or for no money. Just a quick, just. I shove so much famous Dave's swine into my body this
afternoon. my family went on a little Christmas train excursion today, and afterwards we went and got famous David's very good barbecue. And, golly, I dug on some swine, and it's just so much swine, and it's very good, but it's going to make for quite a situation later. I, also want to say that I'm here in the Pacific northwest of the United States, and for a minute there, it looked like we were going
to get some truly holiday weather. Like we were looking like we were going to get some winter weather. we're talking. We were dealing with frost every morning. We were dealing with window scrapings and what looked like the makings of snow. And then all of a sudden, December 1 hits Christmas. Privy. Christmas season starts, and it just downpours. Rain. It's rainmageddon. flood warnings, winter storm warnings. but not really because it's like almost 50 degrees. It's insane.
it's as if it waited for the Christmas season to just be wet. And it's fine. We live in Oregon. We know what we're getting into. But I will admit, those days of frosty weather, I was kind of getting my hopes up that we were going to see some white wet, but naveray, not yet. Also, my beard just got stuck in my pop cover on my microphone, so that's a fun new feature. there's a first time
for everything. but this week, in the past, we like to really focus in for the Christmas season and focus in on some weird Christmas related traditions that, of course, have to do with the bathroom. And in past episodes, we have discussed catalonian Christmas traditions, including the. And. And the, I think nadal. Ah. Which is like the pooping log. It's this little log that poops out little guys. it's pretty fun stuff. we talked about the Christmas carp that is stored in the bathtub.
we've even ventured out there to talk about where Santa poops. Oh, yeah, of course we've discussed Mr. Hanky. Now, we will be returning for a round three on Mr. Hanky. Here on the pod, thus continuing our adventures in hunter, not having seen south park, but venturing into south park via the turd that is Mr. Hanky the Christmas poo. And that's for another time. Last year, we were also joined in bathroom by Santa himself.
He was pretty pissed, and was upset that two years ago I had told all the kids to, put the xlax in the cookies. So, Santa, if you're hearing this, we got a few weeks till Christmas, and, I'm telling the kids right now, do not wink. Put the xlax in his cookies, stir it into his milk. and so this year, I'm privy. I went out and I kind of started to just delve into the possibilities for our privy Christmas season.
What sort of bathroom Christmas wonders are we going to find ourselves just merry up to our necks with? And what I'm finding is, while there are plenty of bathroom traditions that relate to Christmas, some of them are lackluster. And so I was going to originally discuss these german chocolate pooping pigs, but it was relatively hard to find a lot of information about these. I heard about them, and then I tried
to go look them up, and I'm not convinced. I heard about them on a podcast where it's like this lady is telling a story about her family and how they have this tradition where they put out these pigs that poop out little german chocolates before the season, and it's all over Germany. Well, I assure you, and no shade to the woman on, that podcast, but it's not that widespread because I went looking, and boy, howdy, did I not catch any fish.
I couldn't find anything about german chocolate Christmas pooping pigs. I would have loved to. Trust me, nothing sounds more thrilling to me than the idea of german chocolate Christmas pooping pigs. Like, it just sounds good. And if it's anything to do with what I did at famous David's very good barbecue establishment, I might make an appearance later. but, yeah, it just was kind of difficult to find anything about
it. And while that's not very interesting, there are a number of strange and loosely or directly related Christmas traditions out there, but none of those, and not all of those directly relates to the bathroom. And I should also confess that as time goes on and we want to explore bathroom related Christmas traditions more and more, we're going to have to continue to
stretch our definitions further and further. I think, unless people want to start making up wild bathroom Christmas traditions, like, we're swapping out the coal for something brown. Oh, baby. Waterloo. We were pleased to have Santa stop by the show last year, and who knows? I've Santa proofed the recording studio. My bathroom here pretty much, I doubt we're going to get a visit from Santa. I'm pretty confident that he had his piece last year, and he's a
busy man. You got to let him be. You got to let him be. but this week on privy, to get us into the privy Christmas tradition and mood and season, we are going to discuss something that is less a tradition and more of a theory tied to a very specific moment in history. Every year, jolly old St. Nicholas Claus flies his magical sleigh around the world to deliver toys to good girls and boys. Nowadays, here in the year 2023, here comes angry dad rant. we can't say a kid is being bad.
Santa's taken those toys to girls and boys and everything else, I suppose, whether they've been good or not. because we can't say behavior is bad. Oh, all behavior is just communication. Yeah, they're communicating that they need a whooping. No. but it's just like the idea of Santa, the naughty and nice list. I think that's going away, and I think it's going away because we want children, and as a result, them, as young adults, to be entitled to whatever they want and get. so why
try? But everyone knows that, good boy and girl or not, Santa travels all over the world. We all know. How. How does Santa travel all over this great world of ours? We're going to say it with me on 3123 magical reindeer. Now, that's right. Now, it's not pixie dust, and it's not elven magic. It's magical reindeer. and we all know those magical reindeers by name. Let's say them. Sleepy, dopey, bashful, sneezy, grumpy, happy in doc, that's a goof. I know that that's not the reindeer's names,
silly. And I don't know if you knew this, but they were fixing, like, the Disney company when they were getting ready to make, their original, like, 1920s or 1930s snow White, the good one, not the nonsense that Disney is fixing to pump out nowadays. It's freaking stupid. But they were going to have, like, 16 or 23 reindeers or dwarves. Imagine if they were little reindeers running around. But they were also had on the docket. Wheezy, lazy, jumpy,
dizzy. Hickey. Say what now, Gabby? Nifty? Sniffy? What's he sniffing? Swifty. Puffy. I wonder why we got rid of that one. Stuffy, burpee. And not to mention tubby, baldy, defi, and shorty. Now, some of these were quote unquote canceled before it was cool to quote unquote cancel something. looking at you, tubby, baldy, defy, and shorty. Like, apparently, we can't say those. Like, if someone's bald, they bald. Like, it's fine. It's not bad. It's not a problem. But if you're
bald, you're bald. Former guest and friend of the show, Michael Wall. He is bald. He'll tell you flat out, yeah, I'm bald. It ain't nothing wrong with it. It ain't nothing wrong with being short, either. Everybody, just needs to chill out. Conversely, the story of Santa would be so much more fun if his sleigh were pulled by Snow White, seven to 23 dwarves. It'd be so
good. But no. Santa's reindeer are Dasher, dancer, prancer, vixen, comet, Cupid, Donner, blitzen, and the most famous Reindeer of all, Rudolph, the red nose. Why is this nose so red? one of the things with these reindeers that has been a struggle for some time, and we've taken a crack at it over and over in the Christmas lore, but people have been trying to figure out what makes these reindeer fly. Are they magical? Like,
I've seen reindeer. I've seen reindeer in real life, and most of the ones I've seen can't inherently fly. could you imagine being out hunting and you're out and you're walking around in the woods, and you just look up and you just see a reindeer just we over top of you. It's crazy. And for a long time, there have been a lot of theories as to how this works. How do these reindeer get. I'm looking at the. Oh, there was a farting reindeer on YouTube at one point that he gave them jet
propulsion. I think we've had jet propulsion of various types. there's been a number of theories. Is it something Santa does to the reindeer, for the reindeer? I know last year, Santa said he's taking baths with the reindeer. Maybe he's, like, farting in the bathtub water, and, maybe it's, like imbibing the reindeers with magic. maybe it's something in the water, quite literally, this bathtub
water or other water that they're drinking. Or maybe it's something in Santa sleigh that when the reindeer are hitched to it, the magical properties are extended to them. Well, a number of theories about how these reindeer are getting up in the air have been posited in some tellings of the story. Looking at you, Rudolph, the reindeers seem to be inherently born with the ability to fly. And with enough practice, I'm going to say bad parenting and I guess bullying the reindeer can figure out
how to fly. That's kind of the message of Rudolph. the reindeer and Rudolph seem to just. They're, like, born able to fly, and they just have to realize it. in other accounts, the reindeer and Santa sleigh seem to be able to fly on a combination of magic, usually in the form of Christmas spirit, as they do an elf Rocket propulsion, also an elf, or by way of magnetic influence based on the poles. Santa's big magnet. Man, that'd be pretty
fun. I think magnets might be the closest thing to magic that exists. Like, think about it. You take something that's magnetic, you got this magnet, and it looks like a rock, and you put it next to metal, and it sucks it together. Or if you put it next to another magnet, it's like pushing the magnet away. It's like there is something, propelling that magnet away from it. If you didn't understand magnets, I don't think I actually understand magnets. I think it's something
about electrons. I don't know. I'm not a scientist, but it's hoogity boogity stuff, magnets. But many of these accounts state that Santa is the one sprinkling or feeding the reindeer with flying powder, pixie dust, or something. Others, in order to explain with science by turning it into essentially magic, how Santa delivers all those gifts and flies, suggest that Santa is warping time and space to do so. I think another word for this is a
portal or wormhole. And I don't think Santa's doing this, but something that's interesting. However, Santa gets his reindeer flying today, and I'm sure they're taking practice flights, because we're sitting at t -20 days until the big day at the release of this episode at the beginning of privy Christmas. But I want to ask the question, did Santa's reindeer always fly? And if not, when did they start to fly?
Parents, if you're listening and if your young one is listening with you and they are looking forward to surprises by Santa this year, you may want to jump the pod ahead. go ahead and pause it now, and you can jump ahead to. You're going to want to skip ahead till about the 33 to 34 minutes, mark. Okay, and now on with the discussion. We need to acknowledge something. When it comes to Santa Claus, a lot of what is happening today is story to try to make
sense of something. The tale of Santa comes from all over the place, but it has some roots in nordic traditions. In fact, this story that we are going, this theory that we're going to look at, might shed light on a number of our traditions. Again, it's a theory, but it is as good of one as others.
The first known depiction of Santa using a reindeer on the front of his sleigh is in an illustrated poem titled old Santa Claus with much delight, where Santa's sleigh is seen being pulled by a single lone reindeer. Two years later, the famous twas the night before Christmas was released, depicting Santa's quote, eight tiny reindeer. We hit them before. Let's hit them again. Dasher, dancer, prancer, vixen,
comet, cupid, Donner, blitzen. Sorry, Rudolph, you didn't make the cut on first round there. But they decided to ask the publisher of that original poem, old Santa Claus, with much delight, they said, and it was a man named Gilly. And so the author of the poem was unknown, but William Gilly was the publisher of the paper that that poem was written and put into. And, in fact, much of the art in this piece is where we get our lore of Santa Claus. It's where we build the character.
But they ask this William Gilly why he had depicted, or why the author of the poem had depicted Santa as driving a reindeer sleigh. And he said that the author told them that it was about way out north of there, out by the nordic and siberian north, where many of the native peoples of the lands dwell. There are these stories of antlerd animals that were said to have been able to fly. It was later discovered that these were likely the native people to Scandinavia and other
nearby regions. Now, at first, it was originally believed that these were not actually reindeer, but some sort of a cryptid reindeer hybrid creature imbued with some sort of special power that allows it to fly. It's spooky. Think of, like, skinwalkers, but it's flying reindeers you don't always think of. Could. We could get a really creepy Santa reboot movie where he's got, like, skinwalker reindeer. That could be fun.
It was also discovered that these reindeer, known as Lapland reindeer for the region of Scandinavia they come from, were known for one thing, if Snoop Dogg gets zooted on Mary Jane. These reindeer were known for tripping over some magical mushrooms. Record says these reindeer would eat the red and white colored mushrooms. The name amanita mUscaria. Now, Amanita muscaria, this mushroom that is native to the region contains natural hallucinogens. Muskamol. Don't know. An ebotanic acid
along with the protein toxin. Muscarine. This is not a magic mushroom that makes people tweak their bean and flop around the floor. And people are growing illegally. Those mushrooms, are psilocybin mushrooms. The toxin in the mushrooms that these deer are digging on is muscarine. Now, it's a lot more toxic. Fly, agaric is dangerous stuff to that's these mushrooms. Fly agaric. Early laplanders, the people of the area and Siberians probably took their chances
with the fungus to while away the knights. The idea is that it is known as the happiness mushroom, and it is believed that as technology advanced, it quit being used to while the days away. It's a less toxic form of perhaps entertainment for these people. These fungi were relatively rare. Is usually reserved for special occasions, holidays, if you will. Now, it should be noted there are a few things about this mushroom that lend this to being credible. First,
it's real. these mushrooms do, in fact, exist, from what I can tell. Second, they are often found growing under conifer and other evergreen trees in the region. And their bright red and white color are reminiscent of the red, white, and green that we are so fond of in this season. Magic mushrooms. Merry Christmas, everybody. And when I said there were theories about how SAnta's reindeer fly, I bet you didn't expect this, but it's not the worst. We're not even there yet.
Because while in these accounts, and again, these are all theories, but in these theories and accounts, the reindeer seemed to be having a swell time of it. Apparently, someone of the SAMI people tried one of these shrooms at one point, and the toxin was too much, and they did die. Now, the properties, it is said the properties are toxic to people outright. And you might hear that and say, okay, well, people don't need to eat them. That's fine. Let's just stay away from these wild
mushrooms. Like, let's just chill out. Let the reindeer eat them. They like them. And also, hunter, how does anybody even fly from these shrooms where we're getting there? Apparently these deer were zoinking so hard that some sort of shaman or witch doctor or medicine person or something said, we have gat to figure out how we can have that for ourselves. My dude Rudolph is tripping Balls deluxe, and we got to get a piece of that pie. So
they did the only thing that made sense. Now, on the count of three, I want you to take a minute. I want you to think to yourself, what do you think they did? The reindeer are tripping like woofie. They want a little piece. They want something of that. What do you think they did on 3123 go? They drank the filtered mushroom urine of the reindeer? Yep. Oh, my know, people of the past, if somehow the people of the past are listening, if perhaps a time traveler,
greetings. If you are that time traveler, if somehow you have come forward in time or backwards, I'm not going to try to figure out time travel stuff. And you have gotten a hold of this podcast of all the ones out there. I know. but please go back and tell people of the past to quit drinking urine. Like, just stop. There's so much better. Take them Gatorade, take them Waterloo Seltzer, take them anything to replace their desire to apparently drink deer
urine. I don't understand it, but turns out, after the deer eat the mushrooms, their body processes much of the toxins, and their PeA, while stanky and still full of those hallucinogenic toxins has filtered much of what will kill you out. Now, in one account of this, I should note that this urine is round three, because, again, these are theories, and there's all
sorts of different theories about how this urine gets in the system. M but one of these theories said that the rich people in the area would boil down the mushrooms, so that way they could eat the mushrooms. They would have their euphoria, and while they're tripping and zoinking hard, they pee in the snow. The deer lap that up. They drank the rich people's urine, and, then, having seen the results of both the rich people and the reindeer, the poor of society and the less cultured of society.
Get some on round three. P I'm skeptical of this third round version. Some versions of this tale also note that ceremonies were heralded by a stick placed upright through the smokehole of the shaman's hut, the hole through which the spirit of the shaman supposedly exited and entered. It's a chimney. It's a chimney. It was also common for the shaman to offer samples of fly agar agaric, that's the mushroom, to his flock, samples which were carried in a leather sack. It's a
bag. It's the big bag. According to some accounts, the association between these rituals and mushrooms was so strong that the shamans decorated their fur clothing with red and white, the colors of the mushroom. It's Santa. So there you have it. A cheerful man dressed in red white fur, bearing a sack of presents. Add this to the imagery of the smokehole and the hallucinating reindeer, and you got yourself a jolly old saint Nick. Well, similar to the Sami people, the Evans people
share a lot in common. And one of their shared notions are a focus on reindeer. Now, in the area around where the Evans or Evans people, I don't know, I don't know how to say it. there are these megalithic, quote, reindeer stones. Now, some of these megalithic reindeer stones date back 3000 years old. They're these big, like, rock pillar looking things. But on them, on these rocket pillars are depictions of winged reindeer. Winged reindeer? Who had ever heard of such a thing?
Why? Yet still we do not have a reason for why the reindeer are flying. What would cause these reindeers to take flight? There's AMPLe EVIDenCe that, again, these shaman were drinking reindeer urine. And in their culture, the reindeer often served as spirit guides. You do the sweat lodge thing, you do a sweat, and your spirit guide comes to you and it guides you into further understanding. That's the idea
here. And during these guided trips, it is often said that the reindeer are seen to be flying, guiding the shaman to various gifts. And you can start to see how the Santa Claus things start slipping in here. Psychedelic reindeer urine. Coupled that with the idea that as the people are drinking this thing, they see reindeer and their hallucinations make them zoink, and the reindeer start taking off and flying around the room.
The connection is not a straight line, and rather, I believe I'm going to give you the privy. Cast Hunter Hoover's brief history of SantA's reindeer as follows. Reindeer exists. Reindeer exist in part of the world where there are also magic mushrooms of the fly agric variety. The native people of this region love reindeer and view them as a creature to be revered and as
a guide through life. These reindeer at some point ate those magic mushrooms through their curiosity, an attempt to use, quote, all parts of the animal, or perhaps pure curiosity or mysticism. Some shamans in the region of Siberia, or somewhere towards our north pole, consumed tainted reindeer urine, feeling as if they have been guided by the reindeer to do so. What ensued was the trip of a lifetime, and in this DrUG induced state, they saw flying reindeer.
This story of the flying reindeer gets told and passed and moves about until the unknown author of old Santa Claus, with much delight, decides to depict Santa who hails from the north, perhaps near Siberia, as having a flying reindeer as a nod to the old shaman stories, human imagination and the need to turn Santa into a thing of magic and mysticism. And let's be honest, capitalism. Like, we got to make some money off this Guy. Like, what's the story? There fills in the rest.
And the argument then is this, do Santa's reindeer fly, or do those who see his reindeer fly? Much like the samian events, shamans of old simply perceive this as such due to the effects of psychedelic reindeer urine. Is Santa somehow spraying the populace with psychedelic reindeer urine to make us perceive
and believe that the reindeer do fly? Or maybe, perhaps it's just those who catch Santa in a tirade and he somehow spritzes them with psychedelic reindeer urine, thus to make them see the reindeer fly away. Either way, this Christmas, leave Santa's deer, some carrots, and if you're funny, leave a handful of, like, just classic pizza topping mushrooms out. It'd be a nice nod for Santa. Welcome back, kids. don't worry, your secrets
are safe with me. Thank you for joining us, on this adventure down reindeer Lane. This, brings us to the end of another episode of privy. As was noted last month, we have lit into an endeavor here, and moving into 2024. Every rating and review that you leave our show. Please go do that right now. Open up your podcatcher, Podbean Apple, podcast, Spotify. Those are the three easiest ways to do it. Open up your podcatcher and leave us a rating and review. Rating. Just hit those
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episode suggestions if you have a story to tell. If you would like to be on privy, reach out on that email. We would love to hear from you. We're going to try some things in the new year. and so, yeah, give us suggestions. We eagerly await them. This has been another episode of privy. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for being here. My name is Hunter. It's been a pleasure having you here in my bathroom. Keep
pooping in the free world. Own your stank. And now, as always, don't forget to flash.