2022 Holiday Spectacular!

love your job. Vacation is better. Yeah, some vacation is better. Yeah, I agreed. And this is gonna be our longest Christmas break yet, and we're both super excited to do that. But we're even more excited to share with you another set of it's getting thin, but another set of great stories for Christmas. I disagree. I feel reinvigorated. I think we hit the We hit rock bottom two years ago and and we've been coming back ever since then. I feel great about this one. Did you really look at

two years ago? Was it bad? No? No, I just remember it. It was not It was not great. Yeah, I don't know. I need to be invigorated by you then, because every year I keep thinking, oh boy, have like, that's a lot of years to be doing six to eight Christmas stories, Like how many are out there? There's plenty. Man, we'll we'll never run out. Come over here. I'll invigorate you right now. Okay, all right, thank you Hamana Hammanahammed. Uh okay, we're gonna start out with your pick, one

of your picks. Yes. Um, this is actually from uh a listener named Alexandra stock Or Still I'm not sure. I bet it's stuck. She wrote in for several years with a bunch of really good ideas, but she really really was pushing for the chestnut one. And I understand why now, because um, it's a really interesting story, the story behind why chestnuts used to be basically like the the the symbol of Christmas in America for a couple hundred years, until it just suddenly stopped being that way. Um,

and let's talk about that. Yeah, and big thanks to USA Today for a great article from Cape Morgan. I wonder if that's the same Cape Morgan that writes for How Stuff Works. Oh, I don't know. That's a great question. I bet it is at any rate. Uh if you've ever heard the Christmas song, not a Christmas song, but the Christmas song from Coroon or net King Cole. You might not even know. That was the title of what's more commonly referred to as Chestnuts Roasting on an open fire. Yeah. Uh,

this was corded in nineteen forty six. It was a very big hit, one of the biggest Christmas songs of all times. Uh. And I guess it's sort of acted like everyone around was in America was sitting around roasting chestnuts. But I've never seen a chestnut, nor roasted or tasted one. And that's because by that point there were no chestnut

trees in the United States anymore. No, very sadly, a blight started to spread, I think starting in nineteen o four, and within forty years almost every single American chestnut tree was dead. And how many were there, There were a lot of them. At one point, half of the trees in the forests on the East coast from Maine to Alabama, as far west over to Kentucky and Ohio were chestnuts.

Half of the trees in those in that stretch were chestnuts, and I think there were as many as four billion of them, So that's a lot of chestnut trees, and that's a lot of chestnuts. That's a lot of roasting because people used to eat these things. The chestnuts themselves were small, They're about acorn size, and they had a very obviously nutty flavor, but very sweet and carrot like is what I've seen. When you just eat them out

of the shell. But then you roast them up a little bit, things got even nuttier, and they got a little sweeter, as things often often happened when they roast, And it was a it was like a American and especially a Christmas staple, where on street corners and cities all over the United States and the Eastern Seaboard there were chestnut roasters serving up bags and bags of this stuff. Yeah, Kate Morgan puts it really, really great. She says, for more than a century it was the smell of Christmas

in America. Nice I even wrote, gosh after that in my notes. But it's sad, I mean, think about that. There was this amazing tradition that dated back easily to the eighteenth century, if not even a little earlier in

North America. Um, once Europeans came over and discovered chestnuts, that I'm quite sure the indigenous people's were well aware of for long before that, and they said, hey, these are pretty amazing, and they made it not just part of Christmas, but you could find chestnuts and dishes in America and like throughout the year. But something about roasting chestnuts that Christmas time was was very Christmas ee um.

And it's like you said, Chuck, were bereft. Those of us alive today who were born after the mid forties have never tasted a chestnut the way that it's supposed to taste in America because the stuff we got now it's not it's not holding up. No, they're importing chestnuts, uh, I think largely probably for the Christmas season, even though you can probably get them, I imagine all year round, but they're mainly imported from Korea or Italy or China apparently,

and these are not the American chestnuts. They apparently do not taste like they taste that Apparently they don't taste that great at all. Uh. The way this one person that was interviewed in here described them was this is Libby O'Connell, who's a food historian. Wrote a book called The American Plate colon a culinary history and one bytes. But Libby describes them as sort of like a soft potato and bland and not like this crunchy thing that you would think of when you think of eating a

rusted chestnut. No, and in a horrible ironic twist, those chestnuts that were eating today in America, like shmos, come from the very same tree that was imported to Long Island in the late nineteenth century that started the blight that killed off the American chestnut. You won't catch me buying those, then, it's terrible. Luckily, there is a glimmer of hope. There is a group called the American Chestnut Foundation. Since three they've planted at least seventy three thousand test trees.

They've been trying really hard to crossbreed American chestnuts with Asian chestnuts so that they'll be um immune to the blight. But they'll still produce those American chestnuts chest nuts. They think maybe in a decade, maybe a little longer, we will be able to experience the Christmas chestnuts like they used to have back in the days of Nat King Cole. That's right. So if you live in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, or Pennsylvania. Then your state is growing those chest chestnut trees,

and uh, we all have our fingers crossed. A lot is writing on this. Yeah, yeah, that's really well put in chunk. So shall we climb in our sleigh and hop over to the next roof. Yes, let's and we'll have Jerry give us a little musical interlude in the meantime. I gotta tell you the song's Jerry puts in or that's my favorite part of this whole time. I like us talking, it's fine, but the the holiday trimming that that Jerry puts on it is just magnificent. And you

know what you're not gonna hear. Oh yeah, what ads? That's right. We we we wall this one in the Halloween episode off every year and say don't come near my episode. That's right. And I think it's a great tradition if you ask me, I think it is too. There's nothing like leaving money on the table, all right. So you dug up some cool stuff along with Sean Flynn of Forbes Magazine on some very special places all over the world that kind of have a cottage Christmas

industry in one way or another and for different reasons. Yeah, there's places that say this is Santa claus is home. Another places, No, this is Sant Claus is. Another places, this is Santa claus Is summer home, um and or other places are just like we're not saying that, we're just celebrating Christmas year round. One of them is called Rovaniemi Finland, where in Finland they know Santa Claus. You lpuki, that's in Finnish. I've seen Rare Exports enough times that

I'm pretty sure that's how they pronounce it. It's rare Exports. It's a Finnish Christmas movie that came out five six, seven years ago. Yes, but they envisioned Santa Claus is like a demon, not a not a friendly elf, and they have to basically capture them and it's really interesting. It's a great movie. Okay, I'll have to check that out, you pukey uh so, and you'll wait. Not in yolla puki, that's that's Santa Claus. What am I saying? And Rovaniemi they are one of the ones to say, now this

this is where Santa was born. It's the official home of Santa. We have the Santa Christmas House right over there. You can go visit it. Uh, we have a post office here where it is chock full of letters from children all over the world, and we even have a toy factory, so we lay claim. I looked at pictures of Rovaniemi and enchanting under states that place. It's amazing. It looks pretty pretty sweet. So that's one place. They don't necessarily say Santa lives here now, but they say

Santa was born here. They've got a contender over in Norway called drew Back, and they say, oh, yeah, you think Santa was born in Finland. Wrong, he was born in Norway under a rock outside of this town. Nothing is more fun and disturbing than Scandinavian folk tales. It seemed like they always fought something really weird, right, like sa was born under a rock a few hundred years ago, and that rock is right over there. Uh. They also, of course have their own post office. Uh where kids

in their list? So kids are they're sitting their list of different places all over the world where. I guess it depends on where your parents allegiances lie. Yeah, but I think all of these post off us is like in drew Back and Roviniemi and the other places. We'll talk about nowhere to forward him onto the North Pole. So they get to Santa right. There a mere way station, right exactly? What about Alaska? Isn't there a North Pole Alaska?

There is? Um. There's a place called the Santa Claus House in North Pole, Alaska, and it is um supposedly Satan Nick's home. I think it's one of as many how homes UM and it's really cute. It's pretty kitchy looking. There's a lot of strange paintings outside of it. UM. But one of the other things that they have are light poles. They are shaped like candy canes. That's yes, that's stretch along um roads and streets called Santa Claus

Lane St. Nicholas Drive. Um, there's one. I'm wondering if this is a nod to the vacation movies Holiday Road. Oh yeah, that was Lindsey Buckingham, was it? It may have been Fleetwood mac r i p Christine mcneeh. He just asked away in real time. Yeah, very sad. Yeah, I know. It's it's pretty neat to see how many people are like this is a big deal. Yeah, very big deal. That was very sad. Listen to it all night, No but but that's not what this is about. This

is about Santa Claus Is sounds around that world. Snowman Lane in North Pole, Alaska. Yeah, so North Pole, Alaska. Another place that says this is where Santa lives. There's a place in Indiana called Santa Claus Indiana and they say, no, no, this is where Santa Claus lives. I can understand the distinction here because Indiana is much further south than Alaska or Norway or Finland. So this is possibly Santa Claus

is like summer home, one of his summer homes. Yeah, this seems like the k o a campground of kitche Santa places. Yeah, because they do have a campground. They have a Lake rootolf there with a campground and they they pour it on pretty thick there in Indiana with a light show that tells the story of Rudolph and his Trevia Hills. And they have a Santa's Candy Castle. Yes, it's you know, they've made it. I'm glad you included links to these places. You should go look them up.

It's it's pretty fun to look at. Santa's Candy Castle was sponsored by the Curtis Candy Corporation, who make Butterfinger and Baby Ruth and they they opened this place in nineteen thirty five to really kind of give Santa Claus Indiana boost. Of course, there's also a Santa Claus Museum that would be worth visiting. I'd love to go visit that someday. Yeah, you get in the Christmas spirit, right, Yeah.

Another thing they'll get you in the Christmas spirit in July even is the eighty one foot wide star over Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. That's right, that's on South Mountain that was built in nineteen thirty seven, and apparently in nineteen thirty seven it was a real, uh sort of sign of hope during the Great Depression, right, And I believe that the city itself was founded on Christmas Eve there in a lahem, and so I'm sure, I mean that's why they got

the name, right, Yeah, for sure. And they make no claim whatsoever on Santa Claus having a home there, having been born there. They're just fans, really big fans, you know. Uh. And then finally, I guess Santa has his beach condo, because who wouldn't if he were Santa and you could just you know, he basically prints money every year. You know, sure, Uh,

this is where where exactly? This is in Florida. This is inland, um kind of along the St. John's River, So rather beach, he would have like, this is his airboat, um swamp? Getaway. Okay, give me a north or south. It's south south of what South Florida is. It's south of Gainesville. It's east of Gainesville. It's due east of Orlando. Okay, so I got you, I got you, so right there in the center of the state sort of, yeah, pretty

much the center right. The Florida is very misleading because it takes as long to drive to Miami me from Atlanta, as it does to drive to New York, which seems hard to believe, but it's true. But to drive from um like Orlando to Tampa, it takes a hour and a half. Basically, it's crazy. You can get to so many places in Florida in two or three hours. It's it's just nuts, right, But from tip to top to

bottom it's a long way. Yes, agreed. But Christmas, Florida used to be Fort Christmas because it was a ford. It was an army stock aide that was built an eighteen thirty seven and they said, hey, I guess we got this place with this name, and we got a post office that kids are gonna want that postmark once again from Christmas on stamped onto their letter. So that seems to be the main industry. How yeah is their post office? It's it's true, and they keep it decorated

year round to really attract people. Yeah, I love it for sure. So there's some places you could visit if you were like I really wanted to feel closer to Santa this year, and I feel like doing some traveling. There's a great list for or you everybody, all right, and now we are going to talk about the two worst Christmas songs in history. Oh my h you might be right though, now that I think about it, I

hadn't hadn't considered that, but I think you're right. I mean, there are certainly some annoying like pop rock versions of Christmas songs, but it does not get much worse. Then Grandma got run over by a reindeer and all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. Uh. I will say this, Grandma got run over by a reindeer is so infuriating, Lee catchy. It's been stuck in my head all day and I didn't listen to it. Oh wow,

that's hilarious. Just from reading it and doing this research, I've been walking around bashing my head against the wall all day. It is catchy. It's what people in the corporate world would call sticky. It's very sticky. Um. And it's actually way older than I thought. I think of that song is firmly in the mid eighties, but apparently it was written all the way back in the seven by a songwriter from Dallas named Randy Brooks. And depending on who you ask, either his grandmother left him out

of her will or he no, I don't either. I think it was a joke by whoever said it. And then um, the likelier one that I think Randy Brooks says that he was just thinking about those country songs he as he put it, where they dragged you into love with the character and then killed him off in the third verse, and how he was kind of sick of that, that kind of songwriting, and he wanted to kind of make light of it. So he started thinking about grandma being killed off, and even worse, what about

Grandma dying at Christmas? And he started wondering, like, exactly how would Grandma die at Christmas and it hit him like a flash. Yeah, it strikes me that Brooks may have been sort of trying to get on the out tales of like Ray Stevens, who was a country sort of hed He wrote some serious songs, but he was kind of known for novelty and joke songs, and it was like the American Yakov. Yeah, sort of. Uh. He

definitely looked like, I'm not any thing about it. But it was sort of a thing back then in country music where you could write some songs that were humorous and they could end up being big hits. So Brooks would apparently do some of this apparently, Uh, did you mention the Johnny Walker thing? No, I didn't. Supposed he was headed to bed with his guitar and quote his co writer Johnny Walker black and and wrote this song, which you know, if you've never uh, certainly that chorus

will stick in your head. But how I'm not gonna sing it, but I don't remember any of the words. I knew Grandma got run over just from the chorus. But when you look at the lyrics, it is, uh, it's very dark. Grandma's drunk on Eggna is like leaving the party and they're like, no, don't go, Grandma, and she's like, I need to get my meds and goes to get medication drunk and gets run over by Rudolph and they say they find her dead in the snow with footprints on her forehead and claws as in Santa

Claus marks on her back. That's pretty clever. What else? Um? So the family celebrates Christmas dressed in black because their mourning, and they have like a whole conundrum in front of him. They were like, should we just open Grandma's presence or should we send them back? And then the song goes over and focuses on Grandpa, who's handling the whole thing really really well. He's having a party. He's hanging out watching football on TV and drinking beer and playing cards

and seems to be okay about this whole thing. Yeah, so that's the essence of the song. Uh, Like I said, Brooks had made a name sort of. It sounds like regionally um writing these Ray Stevens esque country song And I was performing it out one night when a married duo married at the time just divorced a handful of years later named Elmo and Patsy were in the audience and they were recording artists, and they said, hey, can we record your song? Uh. There they weren't huge stars,

but I looked them up and they were. They were pretty well known at the time in that in the country music scene. Uh. And Dr Elmo went on to be a doctor veterinary medicine, which I thought was interesting. I saw that too. Yeah, so um uh Randy Brooks said sure, you guys can record my song, and they actually started pressing their own copies of this. I guess a single like a forty five of Grandma got run over by a reindeer, so this was I saw. They met at a high in Lake Tahoe during a blizzard

and that's where the whole thing happened. But the upshot of it is um. By Christmas Day ninety nine, one of these singles had made its way into the hands of a DJ in San Francisco, and this DJ played it on the radio for the first time, and uh, it apparently was very polarizing from the outset. Some people called the radio station and said, don't ever play that record again. Other people said, like, where can I get

a copy of that record? And year by year, it just kind of slowly started to spread around the country, and then in three that was the year it just absolutely blew up. Yeah. I mean that's why you remember it as mid eighties because in eight three it became a big, big hit for ish plus years after it was written and a few years after it was first recorded, So that's it's definitely or I guess actually more like, uh, six years after it was written, in four years after

it was recorded. Yeah, Apparently it got a big boost because Elmo and Patsy had gone to the trouble of paying for a video to be made just in time for MTV, and MTV put it in heavy rotation and it ended up being the number one song on the Billboard Holiday Charts for several years in a row, and it spawned a whole bunch of stuff. It went gold, it eventually went platinum. There's toys, ugly sweaters, there's a cartoon based on it, sended candles. UM. Randy Brooks said

there was a hot chocolate mix. Couldn't find that to corroborate it. Uh. And then there's a Christmas theme podcast I found UM that seems to have released the most recent episode last year. UM but they have twenty nine episodes under their belt. Grandma got run over by a podcast. Uh. And as far as the two singers, they got divorced. I think that next year or so. So yeah, maybe all that success went to their head. Yeah, that'll do it. I've seen that movie. It could happen to you. Can

I read the last line? You wrote this last line right? Yeah, not a bad run for a man who's co writer is Scotch. You like that? That's great, very much tickled me. So are we going to put a musical interlude in between these two? Are we gonna head right over to All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. Let's just head right over there. Big thanks. I got

most of this stuff. There's a bunch of histories of this song, but the most thorough was from the Greenville Theater in Greenville, South Carolina at Greenville Theater dot org. And they they do Christmas plays and I think they performed this every year. It will have been ended by the time this comes out, But support local theater and support the Greenville, South Carolina Theater. Yeah, And I found

it confusing at first. I was like, what does Greenville Theater in South Carolina have to do with this, because this whole thing took place in at Smithtown Elementary in Smithtown, New York, Long Island, Yeah, where a man named Donald Gardner and his wife Doris Gardner were music teachers at

Smithtown Elementary. And Donald Gardner was coming trying to come up with a song for the second graders at one point, and he noticed that they were talking amongst themselves and kept saying like all I want for Christmas is, all I want for Christmas is, And that's kind of a phrase that they used. And then at some point, I think Donald Gardner told a joke and all the children started laughing, and he noticed something very significant about those

kids that inspired him. Uh, they did, and he actually put a number thanks to the Washington Post, I know, the actual statistic is sixteen out of the twenty two children in the classroom, we're missing their front teeth. The front two thing is funny when you have a kid. My my daughter is pretty late on her teeth, losing her baby teeth, so she still has this cute little

top baby teeth. Uh. But sometimes you'll see, like as a kid as young as like four and five that have these giant honkin front teeth because you know, those adult teeth come in sometimes they don't fit in the mouth so well. Yeah, true, but it's always funny to see her friends at school, like a lot of them have those big teeth. She still got her little teeth. But losing the two front teeth is a big deal. I remember I lost my front two in pretty quick succession.

We talked about uh, and I even put it on my Instagram when my mom dressed me up as Huckleberry Finn for the photo shoot, which you can find at Chuck The at Chuck the Podcast. On my Instagram, you have to dig back because I'm not going to repost it or anything like that. But losing the front teeth is a big deal. All these kids had their teeth out and it struck. Donald Gardner is very funny and apparently he whipped up this song you can tell in

about thirty minutes. Yeah, that's that's pretty amazing. Though he was also like he he was a music teacher, he also was really good at writing music as well. He went on to write um songs for musical textbooks, among other things. But Um the song initially was just relegated to Smithtown Elementary for the first several years. Um, but it became like a tradition that they still carry on today.

At Smithtown Elementary they have a holiday sing along and um invariably they play or sing all I Want for Christmas is my two front teeth. Um. But it really kind of blew up in night when it was first recorded and kind of hit. I think that's the impression I have after Spike Jones and his City Slickers recorded it. Yeah, there was a lady right before this who heard Gardner sing this thing at a teacher's conference and said, that's really catchy. Why don't you meet my boss at wit

Mark Music Company. They published the song and then, like you said, Spike Jones and his City Slickers put it out and it was Yeah it was. It was a number one hit. Doesn't get much bigger, and it got covered most um, notably by the Chipmunks. Yeah, it was a Chipmunks song, wouldn't it. It was me and the Chipmunks. Christmas songs are great. We listen to a lot of

Christmas music over the course of December. I love it until I don't, right, But um, Emily she dives in right after Thanksgiving and in fact, I wanted to play it before Thanksgiving this year. I was like, Babe, it's come on too early, just too early. Can we at least wait till after Thanksgiving? So we haven't put on the Chipmunks yet, But that's always a fun one in the house. My favorite of all time is Frante and Tiger.

They're dueling pianos. I haven't heard that one good stuff. Yes, yes, it is just I mean, I'm sure it's nostalgic for me because I grew up on that, but I don't I can't imagine anybody would hear it and be like this is terrible. It's like, it's really great. Ferrante f E r R A n t E and Tyker t E I c h E R. And they actually did the theme to Midnight Cowboy too. They were really accomplished musicians,

but they would both play grand pianos. That was like their thing and their take on Christmas songs with two grand pianos, and once it is really really something to hear. Well, that's what I will try and do most times, is put on like Christmas piano solo stuff to keep from area the bad pop music. So I love them. Yeah, yeah, that in a little Mannheim steam roller, and I'm all set stirring stuff all right, I think it's slight time, right it is. Let's slay on over to something else

with the musical annard leader. So chuck. Um. We've got a little shorty here that we're gonna squeeze in about peppermint, because if you stop and think about it, I can't think of a taste, especially now that chestnut trees are all dead. Um that is associated with Christmas more than peppermint. You know. Yeah, you might get those little peppermints on the way out of a restaurant, but aside from that, you're not going to be tasting a lot of peppermint.

I don't think outside of December. No. And there's a writer named Sam Worley for Epicurius who kind of rattles off some good examples, like there's a bunch of Mochas and Starbucks that uses it. There's ice cream treats called frosty trees that I looked up. I was not aware of frosty trees, and now I really want a frosty tree? Have you ever had one? Now? Is it like a hand by basically? But in the shape of a Christmas

tree made of peppermint ice cream a frozen handpie. So so the peppermint is it's kind of the unofficial flavor of Christmas, and Warlie asks a pretty good question like what you know, why how did that happen? He ascribes it to peppermint candy canes. I think that's a pretty good case. But I also think you could make a case that peppermint is like a cool blast of winter in your mouth. So I can see just from that as well being associated with it. Yeah, totally. It's not

like it tastes like you know, broiled liver. No, boy, that would be imagine the world if that was the

taste of Christmas. Oh, as the story goes, and I found this in a bunch of different places, and I'm more like kind of helped to verify it at epicurious but um, as the story goes, and certainly in the book The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, there was a German choral master uh in Cologne, Germany in the sort of latest seventeenth century who had some rally German kids at a live nativity and was like, this is getting out of hand every time these kids come in.

All they're doing is cutting up. So can I get something Mr. Local candy maker, like a candy that will last for an hour or so and keep them busy? And voila the candy cane, right, because nothing settles kids down like a sugar stick. Yeah, but that's how it came up. And apparently because of that link to the Nativity, that's the reason that candy cane is curved. It's supposed to replicate a shepherd's staff or echo what I guess like that. Yeah, And I think originally they were only

white and the red stripes came a little later. Uh. And I think, you know, it's funny you think of peppermint is like red and white, but that's I think that's probably strictly coloring, right, Yeah, peppermint is. I mean, it's it's a lot like spearmint. It looks very green and leafy. Yeah. Um. And it's apparently indigenous to the Middle East in Europe. Um, and it was used as like a medicine for a really long time. But yeah, I can't imagine peppermint is anything but red and white

striped too. That's what we know it as. I am not a big peppermint guy. But I'll I'll munch on a little candy cane every now and then for nostalgis sake. Oh sure, I like the fruity kinds though more than anything. Oh like the rainbow colored m What about the big giant miniature baseball bet peppermint candy canes that you would get as a kid. It's a little ostentatious for me. Do you remember those though? Sure you're like, uh like

billie clubs. They were, and if you had an older brother, they were probably used like a billy club against you, although not Scott. Scott would ever do something like that. He would never do that. He would he would lick his into a vampire killing spear, right and just drive it right through the back of your knee. That's right. Um, So here's a little fact for you. You can you can bust out at your next Christmas party or holiday gathering. The candy cane was invented about two years before it

became peppermint flavor. It was this kind of clean sugar flavor up to that point. Yeah, like lick him stick. Yeah, I love those as well. All right, that sleigh is calling our name, my friend, let's get in the seats still warm. Gross. Sorry head wish had net at broiled liver. I thought with the open air of the sleigh it might not really hit your nostrils too bad. But no, Christmas is ruined. I was mistaken. So speaking of Christmas, how about Elvis? How about him? So you dug something

up about um Elvis and and Christmas? Apparently the two went hand in hand. And if you stop and think about Elvis, I am not at all surprised that that that this particular season was like the end all be all to him. Yeah, Elvis was very into his family and his friends, very into just sort of home in America and just a well grounded Tennessee druck at it right. I was about to say really into Ben's a dream, but he was way into Christmas. And I have been

to Graceland two times. I went once regular and I went once during Christmas. You show off. It is really lovely. I would recommend going not at Christmas. It's sort of like, uh, if you've ever been to the Biltmore House in Asheville, I find that the regular tour is better than the Christmas because it's so over overdone Christmas it kind of gets in the way, a little bit of just the regular beauty of both of the places I see. But

Elvis did it up for Christmas. Um colored lights everywhere. Uh, six eight ft Christmas trees out front, blue lights up that long driveway. Uh, it's funny they call it a mansion. Graceland was not that big. Every time people go to Graceland for the first time, they're always like, uh, this is it. Yeah, I remember thinking that. But it's a fun visit, and you should, I mean you and you we should definitely go at Christmas. If you haven't been it, it's if you've seen it regular, then you should go

at Christmas. Yeah, we saw it regular style, not peppermint style. You said that he lined his house with blue lights. I just find that so wonderful. Like, yes, plain white lights are good, even multi colored lights are good. But something about blue lights at Christmas are just they just they really kind of make it more Christmas Eve to

me for some reason. Totally, And that was sort of the style back then before everyone thought like the only thing you could do was classy white lights, right exactly. I know you like your color lights, yeah, Now I love the big fat multicolored bulbs. Something about the small blue lights too. I'm kind of my tastes have evolved into that, I think. So we have a quote here from the Memphis Press Scimitar in nineteen sixty six where Elvis said, it really is the best season of the year. Man.

Christmas carols, trees and lionses just grab you. Something about Christmas and being home I just can't explain. Maybe he's been with family and friends, time to read and study, and of course snowball fights and the sleigh rides and you know, just home beautiful. That was wonderful, Elvis. Yeah, I think he did a great job describing it. So you can imagine that Elvis, as he was, and as rich as he was, uh, and as much as he liked Christmas, he really overdid it with presents. Um. Usually

employees got big fat cash bonuses. Um. Friends and family would get anything from like jewelry to cars, uh to daw dogs. He gave a girlfriend a poodle once. Um. He just really liked to do it up. Um. And apparently between nineteen fifty four and nineteen seventy six he celebrated twenty three Christmas is at at Graceland. Whenever he could, he would make his way home and and spend the holidays at Graceland. Uh. And more often than not he

was he was able to, that's right. And we know this because of the book Elvis Colan Day by Day by Ernst Jorgensen and Peter Girl Nick Garrel, Nick, I think you got it the second time. I think so. But they went year by year and it sounds like day by day. But we're gonna go over a handful of these years that are notable. In fifty four, this is before Elvis was a big famous star, and his family lived in a little apartment on Alabama Street. And just the week before that, Elvis made his first sort

of musical appearance at the Louisiana Hayride radio program. A few days after Christmas, he ended up playing a club in Houston and his career started on its way basically. Yeah, But nineteen fifty six was his breakout year. Get this. He had seventeen songs on the Billboard one that year. Three of them were number one in nineteen fifty six. So nineteen fifty seven he had bought Grace Lane and this is his first Christmas at Graceland, but it was

ruined by the U. S. Military that's right. A few days before Christmas he got his draft notice and on Christmas Eve he asked for a deferm it and got it and pushed that by just a few months. Oh, actually a year and a few months. Pushed this deferm it to March twenty nine nine. Yeah, let's still just a few months. Oh okay, yeah, that's how yours work. You're gonna make me cough? What else? Seven in ninety Well, his mother died. Um. It was his first Christmas without

his mother. I'm sure that was rather sad. It was. It was also a Christmas that he's spent in Germany because he was stationed there during his military service, so he probably was not very happy in Christmas nineteen fifty's trying to make the best of it. Not a blue light to be found in Germany and his his mom was missing, So not the best Christmas of all time. Uh. Fifty nine was his first with Priscilla. But you mentioned

the girlfriend who got the French poodle. Um, he had a girlfriend at the time named Anita Wood, and he sent Anita the French poodle while he was car noodling in Germany with Priscilla. But by nineteen sixty six, he said, it's I'm I'm I'm gonna make an honest man out of myself. And he proposed to to Priscilla are on Christmas Eve, which now I understand that's a super Elvius

thing to do. UM. And apparently between nineteen sixties seven and nineteen seventy three there wasn't a whole lot going on, just happy normal holidays. Be as we pick up again in Yeah, and this was you know, the last few years of Elvis's life are well documented. Is not being great for his health. Uh, he was having some health problems in seventy four during Christmas, and so to pick his spirits up, I think he flew in a gospel backup group called Voice a few times in and out

of Memphis just so they could sing with him at Graceland. Yeah, that's pretty cool. What about the last one? Why are you leaving that to me? I'll take it then, So this is the year I was born. I've always been convinced that I am the reincarnation of Elvis. Seventy six is the last Christmas of UM of Elvis's life. Um. He apparently it says that he had a bizarre last Las Vegas engagement. Was that the very famous like Vegas

fat Elvis? Well, sure in seventy six, absolutely, Okay, so then that that happened right before Chris Miss then yeah, but that was I can't remember the incident, but there was one concert in particular that kind of went off the rails. Okay, it sounds like it was this Las Vegas one. Yeah, I think I think it's one where like he couldn't remember lyrics and he was sweaty and it was just a bad scene. That's not good. So um,

that was his last show before Christmas. I guess he went and recuperated, and then two days after he started up another tour at Wichita State UM. And then six and a half months later he died. Where chuck on the toilet at Graceland, right, Well, I was just gonna say it Graceland, but yes, yeah, you can't go up there in his in his personal quarters as you know, totally can't go up those stairs at Graceland. So that was Elvis and Christmas in the blue lights there. I

loved it. They were like, all right, Elvis, you got one more tour in you. Let's let's launch it at which is All State University. Right where all the best tours are kicked off. All right, so we finish up with a boozy recipe like we like to do. I think we should be first. How about a musical interlude from Jerry Okay, Chuck. I don't know if we had a boozy recipe the last couple of years, so it's time to bring it back. And this one anyone can make.

You can make it with your eyes closed, you can make it with your feet, You can make it very easily. If you're you could have your eight year old child make it for you if you wanted to. It's just that easy. But what's interesting about it. It's called moose milk and it's associated um exclusively with the Canadian military. That's right. Apparently all of the militaries in Canada, the Army and the Navy and the air Force and their moose patrol, they all claim I guess, ownership, or at

least claim to have written the recipe. But we do know that regardless of who did it, it was a drink that was concocted back in World War Two and has become just a very very customary drink to have in Canada. I think, certainly for the military, but I think all the way around Canada, right, Yeah, especially on Christmas and New Year's Day. So, um, there's a lot of different things you can do. There's a lot of

different ingredients. As you'll you'll get the gist of it from this, and you can kind of let your imagination run wild. And that's kind of what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to make it to taste, using as much or as little as as you want. Um. But our friends at Atlas Obscura found a recipe from the Cape Breton News, and um, they recommend that you basically stay with whiskey, rum or vodka. I've seen rum more often than not, and apparently though the military used rum when

they ran out of whiskey. So I would recommend one of those two. But if you don't like the Brown liquors, vodka apparently works. Yeah. This sounds barely even drink anymore. But I am inspired by this very soothing, sweet sounding Christmas treat, So I'm gonna have one of these soon, Okay, but you should probably have it in the morning because of the first ingredient, or else you'll stay up all night. Coffee didn't keep me up, so one cup of cold coffee, a cup of half and half. It's a lot totally

cal Uh. What else you got in there? Ice cream? Maybe? Yeah, one and a half cups good vanilla ice cream, not the cheap stuff that could be vanilla bean perhaps so.

And this is UM. This is basically I don't know how many UM servings this makes now that I think about it, but based on the amount of liquor, I would guess one serving because it just calls for two ounces UM of rum, whiskey or vodka actually says and or uh, and then a tablespoon of kohlua, and you mix it all together in a bowl, whisk it until the ice cream has melted, and then you put it in a cup and top it off with either nutmeg or dark chocolate shavings to make it classy. I would

say not for the lactose intolerant, No, definitely not. And I've seen that mentioned like this is this is not for for you if if you are lactose intolerant UM. But regardless of what UM recipe you use, whoever posts the recipe invariably mentions that if you're in the military, go ahead and double the amount of alcohol. Call for yeah. I mean, if you've got a cup of coffee, a cup of cream and ice cream, I think you could stand you know, a half a cup of rum. Sure,

I could Navy strength No, wait, that's gin. Yeah, I think there's navy strength rum too. Though. Okay, this is I mean, this is not too far off from a one of those trendy espresso martinis. That's right, that's right because the in the coffee, yeah, really kind of make it like that. So that's kind of a fancier version. I found another one on a cooking website called with Love from Beck's b e X and her recipe apparently her husband was in the Canadian military, so I'm getting

the impression that it's adapted from him. It's way easier, it's way more straightforward. And this is the one that you're eight year old can make for you. Yeah, this one's got ice cream, vanilla again, uh and rum, but this time it's got egg nog in it and then just a little nutmeg. That's about it. So but again you just mix it all together, mix it all together, and then whip it up into a cup. And she she uses like two leaders ice cream, four leaders, eggnog

two leaders, rum and a tablespoon of nutmeg. Obviously this is for more than one person. I hope, I really hope. Yeah. I wonder if our buddy, our colleague Alex at work has a great tradition he does every year where he makes the George Washington recipe for boozy eggnog and he makes a big matches and bottles and leaves it on his front porch and sends out the email to all of us and says, hey, it's out there again this year.

Come by and get some if you want. Yeah, And he makes the nog from scratch, like eggs and everything I've made. I've made the recipe with store made eggnog, but then with brandy, I think whiskey and rum and it's really really good, is it? But yeah, and I've yet to have any of Alex's. I'm sure that it's just knock your socks off when it's made from scratch. And Alex says a great podcast as well called Ephemeral

that we can recommend. And also before we close, I did a guest spot on another I Heart show called Parenting is a Joke. It's a great O'feira Eisenberg of asked me another fame and she's got a show with us or old buddy Julie Smith produces it. Oh really that's awesome, Yeah, said, Julie got in touch and she's like, hey, you want to be on talk about parenting, And so

I'm on an episode that has already dropped. It will be a few weeks old by the time you hear this where I talk about parenting and uh and Ruby's adoption story. And if you stay and listen through the credits, there's a very short, little forty five second interview with Ruby. That's adorable. Oh that is adorable. Great plug, Chuck. It's a check it out and it's a it's a really

good show and check out aphemeral and happy holidays everybody. Yeah, yeah, here's the part where we wish everybody happy holidays, right, I mean I just did. Okay, Well, I'm gonna take it up from there. I'm gonna say Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, have a tip top Ted, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kuanza. Sure, happy holidays in general, however you celebrate them. We're really glad that you hung out with us, and we hope we gave you some holiday spirit, right, Chuck, that's right.

And uh, we always like to think of our listeners who have a bad time this time of year, because it's true for a lot of people. It's not all merriment for everyone. So if the holiday seasons are rough for you, then we are thinking about you, and you are not alone. And uh, we just want to wish everyone well and uh, let's let's head into feeling good. Yeah. So from Chuck and Jerry and me and from Frank the Chair, from Dave, c, from Max, from Ben, from

everybody here. Stuff you Should Know, I have a happy holiday. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.