Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24-7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow-ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year-round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care. We get it.
It's pretty close and it's right just just knuckle deep into the Christmas season Welcome back to privy privy is a podcast about toilets recorded from my home toilet. Merry Christmas everyone. I hope that the Christmas season and the holiday season finds you well. I hope it's the happiest of holidays. Just a quick bathroom update.
The last time we had a chance to uh connect was was over Thanksgiving and Something that I discovered about myself, first of all, I want to acknowledge up front here that ah my voice probably sounds a little different than it normally does. About Tuesday this week, today is Saturday, ah my voice decided to just disappear. ah It's playing a weird game of hide and seek where it's hiding and I'm the only person seeking for it.
so if I sound a little weird or if you hear uh what I like to call um smoke or gravel sound. That's what's going on there. but yeah, something I discovered about myself regarding a Thanksgiving feast is pumpkin pie filling. I don't believe my body responds well to it. Now, I don't know why this is. don't think I'm I'm not saying I'm allergic to it or anything. But like, yeah, it just it just it just reacts interesting interestingly. So Will I continue eating it? Of course.
And will I feel regret? I refuse. I won't do it. And so as I've shared, we traveled for Thanksgiving and we are very thankful because like the day or two after we got back we got a flat tire in the car that we were driving so I'm very thankful that that did not happen on the road and you know...
I've talked before, like clockwork, when you're traveling, especially when you're traveling with young kids, like when you leave the most recent stop, you're always gonna have a kid who needs to go to the bathroom. And I'm get it, I'm sure I did that too when I was their age. And I promise that this episode is not another one Hunter ranting about having to stop at rest areas to go to the bathroom. We've done that, you can go back and find that.
But like when that happens, when that moment happens where you're thinking, man, I gotta go to the bathroom. I don't know if there's even gonna be a spot to go to the bathroom anytime soon. You start to get that like what I like to call the anxious toilet sweats and it just makes you have to go more. Like when you start to get anxious about whether or not you're gonna be able to go to the bathroom, it makes you have to go more and in a different way.
And then like that compounds itself and then it's really just like toilets all the way down. But this time of year, if you celebrate what I like to call stereotypical American Christmas, kids will be or already have written letters to and in the coming weeks will be cooking and setting out cookies for Santa Claus. Privy, here, we, this pod, has long prided itself, interestingly, with being a family-friendly-ish podcast about bathrooms.
There's no swears, there's lots of dumb bathroom humor, but we try to keep it as clean as possible while still acknowledging that sometimes you gotta talk about poop. And so as always, here at Privy, we wanna take a brief look at the history of this week's topic.
And as such, I want to say right now, if you are a parent and are concerned that the real history of our topic, you can probably see the episode title, and if talking about Santa and the history of Santa is something that maybe your kid would not want to hear, um yeah, would encourage you to just skip a portion of this episode. I would jump forward, you'll want to jump ahead about 10 minutes. 10 minutes. So, here it comes.
If you're looking for where to begin your jump forward, jump forward, skip ahead, starting now. If you want the in-depth version of Santa Claus, like you can go to history.com or where there's plenty of information and videos and stuff about Santa Claus. There is no shortage of information about the history and where the idea of Santa Claus comes from. Or you can read Battle for Christmas or any of the other plethora. There's just slews of books written.
about Santa Claus and the history of Santa Claus and Santa's background and the history of Christmas and all those things. But in short, in about 200 AD, there was a man named Saint Nicholas. And Saint Nicholas was renowned for his charity and giving and for giving what he had to the poor and needy, particularly children and orphans. and those who did not have much. And one of the weird things it's kind of hard to tell about Saint Nick is it's hard to tell what is myth and what is real.
Because it seems that like his charity and his capacity for giving almost got too big for his Turkish clad breaches if you get it. And so a lot of the stories that are attributed to Saint Nicholas, don't have like hard and fast evidence. Rather, it's this idea of the nature and just kind of the spirit of who he was lives on in many of these stories. And some of them are probably very real. But as he became more and more popular, that is Saint Nicholas, he kind of took on the sainthood.
He became the patron saint and protector of children and interestingly enough, those traveling at sea. Now, because he was known for giving up what he had to bless others. Now, he gave those things up to bless the kids. But there's something about this idea that he was the patron saint of sailors that's interesting to me. And I think in their world and in their thinking, these sailors or these guys who are giving up, they're leaving home.
to find a better land, to find resources, to find whatever it is on behalf of the people that they're leaving behind. So it's kind of interesting. He was commemorated with, he was given his own Saint Day, and the Saint Day for Saint Nicholas is December 6th, so the day after this episode releases. and I mean, we get it. It's pretty close, and it's right, just, just. knuckle deep into the Christmas season.
This day, December 6th, was considered lucky and folks were encouraged to make large purchases. It's this idea that if you make a large purchase on St. Nicholas's Saint Day, that purchase would be blessed. It would be, it would benefit greatly. And so, uh over time, he became one of the few saints who made it through the Protestant Reformation. Like, A lot of the saints came out on the other side of the Protestant Reformation with kind of, not a negative view, but like this kind of stigma.
But not Saint Nicholas. ah And he's also one of the most well-known saints, if not the most well-known saint today. Like if you ask anybody, hey, name me a saint, they might hit you up with Peter. If they're in it, they might say Paul. I'm sure you'll hear a Mary or something in there. But then like, you're... I think you would be surprised how many people would be like, yeah, St. Nicholas. Like, we'll hit you with that one. He was huge in Europe.
Like, Europe loved St. Nick. And for whatever reason, particularly the Dutch loved St. Nicholas. In the Dutch, in the Deutsch, nope, in the Dutch. Whenever you hear Dutch, you can't help but think of Dutch, Evan. Um, which... Heh. Saint Nick. Dutch oven is a real thing, by the way. Like, it's an actual pot, like an oven, that you cook things in, which is just unfortunate.
I I know that the oven probably came first, but like at some point there was some branding where they had to be like, aw man, people are using that term to describe when they toot under the sheets and trap their friends and partners underneath it. But I digress. uh In the Dutch culture, Saint Nick took on a nickname, Sinterklaas. A New York newspaper reports that Dutch families gathered to honor the death of the beloved saint as early as 1773. That's before we were a country.
As the tradition spread in the United States, and I'll note that they again, they started that to really, really before we were the United States. But as tradition spread about this, this center clause, this Saint Nick, there began to be desires to duplicate the spirit of the season. and find a way to carry on the traditions that the Dutch immigrants had here in the United States.
As such, decorations have been found depicting toys being stuffed in a stocking and treats being hung on the tree and the legend and assumption was Sinterklaas had visited them. In fact, later he was named the patron saint of New York, whatever that means, I'm not gonna lie, I don't really understand that. think Taylor Swift was trying to be the patron pop star of New York for a minute, but she's not as famous as Santa Claus so she just needs to chill.
Although she's got a couple pretty good Christmas songs, one of which wasn't even a Christmas song, like, know, tis the dang season, you know what saying? In 1822, Clement Clark Moore, an Episcopal minister, wrote a Christmas poem which was called an account of a visit from St. Nicholas. In it, he kind of like accidentally stumbled into the invention of modern Santa Claus. I hate it, you know?
It's a bummer when you set out to invent a fun story for your kids at night and then you change the face of like Christmas celebration. But another day, another Episcopal ministry, you know what saying? In his poem, Santa flies from house to house in a miniature sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer and delivers toys for good girls and boys. About 60 years later, a drawing of Clement Clark Moore's Santa was drawn, lending to pretty much the Santa we have today.
There have been some edits and some marketing and branding, and we're going to talk about that in a second. But like, Moore and the sketch done of his Santa, like... I mean they got it. All because Moore penned his famous poem with those infamous opening words, "'Twas the night before Christmas." Santa's appearance has changed over time. As they got the branding down, his popularity grew. Children began to catch on.
Wherever this guy was sneaking goodies into our stockings, maybe he was magical and could bring us bigger things. You couple this with just good old hearty American capitalism, and you have the makings of what we call a cultural phenomenon. Coca-Cola got their finger up on the mix and really changed the look of Santa Claus.
um And like, yeah, our concept of what modern Santa looks like is really lent to Clement Clark Moore and his poem and in the interpretation of Coca-Cola Santa and just good marketing and branding. And as stores caught on, they began to use what was once religious iconography, St. Nick, now clad in a red jacket to attract kids to their shop and shopping centers. By the 20th century, they had worked out the narrative. Like, they got the story straight. Okay everybody, it's go time.
We know the story now. Santa is a jolly man with a wife and a team of elves who builds toys and once a year he delivers those toys to deserving boys and girls of the world. We get it. You know, like Santa. Who was once a saint, bringing charity to those in need was morphed into a wild story of capitalism. And be good, so a random old guy you've never met can determine if you get a toy. Merry Christmas. Parents and kids, welcome back.
What you missed is I essentially threw a tantrum, that's about it. So no worries there. So Santa lives in the North Pole where his elves help him build the toys. We know this. And then on one night of the year, he loads up his magical sack, plops it in his magical sleigh, slaps the reins on his magical reindeer. and takes off to deliver toys and Christmas magic to the good boys and girls of the world.
But if I've learned anything from the number of car trips that I've taken, right when you leave, you're gonna have to go to the bathroom. Which brings us to an important point of privy pondering in our topic for this week. With all that magical gear, Where in the ho ho holy holiday cheer is Santa dropping his yule log during his delivery missions? Santa, you got some explaining to do. Where does Santa poop? Does Santa poop? And if so, how does he keep it so dang quiet?
more importantly, undetectable to stank stank stanch our nose. The traditional answer to this question of whether or not Santa poops is first of all, uh he poops. But it's an answer that actually the Poo-Pourri company, this is not an ad, but the Poo-Pourri company brought us three Christmas seasons ago in a Christmas campaign they ran. Santa hangs beef on your toilet and does his deed wherever his urge hits.
And many of you might think, man, it's concerning enough that this big man is sneaking into my house to drop off gifts. But like, does he have to take Brown in my bathroom as well? for goodness sake, Santa. And if you're thinking that, then like, how come no one has ever heard Santa flush? And yes, Santa is flushing the toilet. Because if he wasn't flushing the toilet, he's a dang hypocrite for telling these kids to be good. Because if he ain't flushing the toilet, that's just bad.
And yes, yeah, Santa's flushing. And how come no one has ever smelled Santa's crime? You know what I'm saying? Like, where's the smell? And according to the Poopery Company, uh it's because Santa's hitting houses, first of all. And he's hitting it with that fully loaded can just to just to hide the smell of his deed but Part of it is Santa is hitting houses when like when you got a poop You figure Santa hits like a house every couple seconds. The dudes quick.
He's got magic behind him You can choose to hit a house that has enough toilets to where you're be able to facilitate Flush and get out of there and nobody in the house is gonna think Hmm Rodney, Rodney's who I wonder if Rodney already snuck out of his room to go to the bathroom like maybe that was Rodney No, he's gonna hit up houses that have enough toilet
Real estate to where he ain't gonna get caught going to the bathroom Santa ain't ever gonna get caught Stay tuned for more And to wash his hands to to cut down cuz he's washing his hands He could use hand sanitizer or he could, you know, he could wash his hands up in the sleigh um so as to remain undetected from hand washing sounds and other maneuvers. When Santa Claus comes to town, he brings a bag full of toys and he delivers those to some good girls and boys.
But to some people, Santa's leaving a lot more than toys. So, you desire, cause dude, the dude's eating cookies like woofy. you can't tell me that, you figure he eats one cookie per house. The dude's eating thousands, if not a million plus cookies a year. Like, you can't tell me he doesn't have to poop at some time during his Christmas Eve run. Like, absolutely he does.
So when Santa comes to town, if you desire Santa to use your facilities, maybe you're like me and you would like Santa to use your bathroom. And that's a goal that you have. For me personally, Santa, if you listen to this, and you know why, my bathroom is gonna be wide open for the taking. Just come and flop Brown right in my toilet, Just... Just flash. Just flush it. He's eating plenty of cookies. You know he has to go. There have been some theories that say that Santa uses his sleigh toilet.
Now here's the problem. In all of my cultural wanderings, like, and now unless Santa's at, okay, the Santa that you see on movies is, you that ain't the real Santa. Like, that's a depiction of Santa. But like, the real Santa, if his sleigh is modeled anything after like every single model of sleigh we've ever seen depicted in movies, It never has a porta potty on it. Like it doesn't have a bathroom attachment. It's not a tour bus. Like, there's not a toilet on it.
Here's the problem, Santa's magic that allows him to get to every house in one night doesn't give him enough time on his sleigh to actually do his business before he makes his next stop. I'm convinced that Santa spends a relatively little amount of time on his sleigh um and that actually he is probably more likely just like pixie dusting himself from house to house and the sleigh just moves along with him and he reloads on toys when he needs to.
And the idea that Santa would make children counterbalance the Christmas cheer needed to carry his poop weight on the sleigh is ludicrous. Because countless, you know, it's Christmas cheer that gives the Christmas magic that makes the sleigh able to fly. And the weight of all the toys is proportionate to the Christmas spirit. Thus, it should always fly. But the more Santa drops dews on his delivery run is going to out, is going to weigh down the sleigh.
Now, as the Christmas spirit goes, that's great, but I think it is a little bit just, I think it's kind of not right. And this is why I don't think he has a toilet on his sleigh. Santa does not have a toilet on his sleigh. Cause if he had a toilet on his sleigh, then he's asking small children to believe hard enough so that way he can poop on his sleigh. When he can just poop in the houses that he is delivering toys to. It's fine. I've also heard posit that santa uses depends diapers.
It's possible but I don't like that idea. The reality is the majority of what Santa's gonna be producing is gonna be cookies and milk. it's gonna be the byproduct of cookies and milk. Which is gonna produce a bit of a lactose situation. And I think Santa actually might have some sort of medication before his Christmas Eve trip that helps him in his bathrooming area during the sleigh ride. So, I now have a proposal.
The trouble is, In conducting this experiment, you are likely insuring a year on the naughty list. My proposal is that we catch Santa. We need to get him stuck in the bathroom longer. If all those cookies are loaded up with Xlax, put some, let me just mix a little Xlax into Santa's milk. Use some laxative chocolate in the cookies. Let's drive Santa to the toilet and then maybe we can catch Santa. As I stated, I believe that this will consign someone to the naughty list for the year.
so, like let's be honest though. When I was a kid, I wanted to try to catch Santa. I definitely never thought about catching him at the scene of the biggest crime of the night. But Santa poops. Santa definitely poops. And to everyone's knowledge, Santa doesn't forget to flush. And perhaps this is the real magic of Christmas. But I guarantee you that Mrs. Claus is the first person to tell Santa that he put the toilet paper roll on backwards.
Merry Christmas and thanks for listening to another episode of privy. We're into the holiday season here and as we wind out the year I would I just I hope that you are enjoying the the Christmas themed episodes. Yes we'll we'll be back in 2022 with with just a whole mess and we're going to try to try to expand some things. It might take some time but yeah I just want to say that up front here.
Also, if you don't get enough of hearing me, on the latest episode as of the recording of this, uh of Pickled Parables, I got to share again. And so if you are interested, you can go check out Pickled Parables. And if you're interested in that Bible teaching type sort of thing, I would encourage you to follow what Jesse and the good work that he's doing over there. Yeah, go check it out. But just a little plug there at the end. But like I said, thank you guys for listening.
ah I hope you guys have very Merry Christmases. If you do decide to try to catch Santa, tell me how it goes. Send me some pics. ah We would love for you to connect with us on social media. We're at privycast. You can email us, privycast at gmail.com. Send us your thoughts and feedbacks. topic ideas for an upcoming episode as we move into the new year. We're going to be diving in and there's a lot to go over. So we're going to be getting into that.
As always, we want to thank Kevin McLeod for the use of Barroom Ballet as our intro and outro music. You can find Kevin's music at Incompetech.com and his music is licensed under Creative Commons license Attribution 4.0. The sound effects you heard in the episode are under Creative Commons license attribution for P1O and uh the snippet of the Poo-Pourri ad is a licensed product of the Poo-Pourri company. This has been another episode of Privvy. Thank you so much for joining us.
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and now, as always, don't forget to flush. Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24-7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow-ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free.
With Dutch you'll get more time with your pets and year-round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.