How Christmas Worked

all of you listening out there in podcast land. We hope you're having a great holiday season. Yeah, yeah, and safe and well and with family and and uh we wish you all a merry Christmas and Hanukah and Kwanza and whatever each used to celebrate ted what's that? I think that's a Buddhist New Year. Um, there's all sorts of stuff going on this time of year. Yeah, big time. Yeah, but we chose to talk about Christmas. Chuck was brought Baptist, I was raised Catholic. It's what we know. And it's

a pretty interesting story too. And if you're Jewish and you hate Christmas. You're gonna stick around because you're gonna love this one, right, Yeah, and you know what, next year, we will do one on Hanakah. Okay, deal, Yeah, I actually know a significant amount about Hankka. Well, let's do it next year, and then a book it and we'll eventually do Quansa too. Yeah, we'll do that in eleven maybe,

or maybe we'll do like a holiday extravaganza. Buddy. If if we're still around in two thousand eleven, then we're either doing something right or something wrong. Haven't decided which. Okay, all right, Josh Chromas, is that what we're calling it? Christmas? Okay? So, Chuck, have you ever engaged in um Christmas? Yes, Josh, what's a year? I've engaged in thirty eight of them? Wow? That pretty nice, Thank you? That was my int alright,

let's talk about this man. It's so ubiquitous. There's um people who are usually drunk, dressed up as Santa Claus, ringing bells asking for donations. There's little kids like screeching in the middle of aisles and toy stores. There are um minds like elbowing one another in the face. To get to that last line, and then there's people who are um punching Walmart greeters in the stomach for saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. It's the most contentious

time of the year. Do you know where I am. I'm at home and I am shopping online. Dude, it is the way to go. Never again. And you know what we got to Ohio. I just had the gifts ship straight to my in law's house. Very smart, no must, no fuss. Yeah, it's as long as you order early enough to make sure you're not spending the last week biting your nails when they arrive in time. I can tell you, um by experience, that people are very forgiving

if their gifts aren't there. All you do was you get a little card, you right it inside like you're getting this, or you print out a picture of it. It's like it's coming, I promise, and then a coupon for a free BackRub. I did do coupons once. One year. I was so broken. I had a friend take a picture of me standing there with my pockets turned out, me going like it's like, no, it wasn't last year. It was like five years ago. And um that was that, Like everybody kept it. No one turned it in. They

just like they're sure tickets so much. I made birdhouses one year when I was broken. They were good to sure, they're nice alright. So let's talk about Christis How do this? How did this jam get started? Well, Josh, the roots of Christmas are varied, to say the least. You cannot riotously very You cannot point to one single thing and say Christmas was born out of this Jesus's birthday on December. You can't even point to the aspects of Christmas and

say that each one was born out of this. You can't. Basically, Christmas is a bunch of different groups that are from antiquity brought together, right, Yeah. Like, Uh. Most of these early um versions of Christmas, I guess, if you even want to call it that were festivals that marked the winter solstice in Europe, mainly Uh and um Rome. True Rome had a big one called Saturnalia German pagans. They honored Odin, who was a god who flew over settlements

at night, blessing some houses and cursing others. Sounds like coal and switches or treats to me. So that was a pagan god. Yeah, yeah, Germanic um and then also you have the Druids who like to contribute um things like garland and holly to the whole mix. Kissing under the mistletoe actually is apparently a um euphemism for some of the sexual practices that went on to the Druidic Winter Solstice festivals. People probably didn't think they were going

to hear those words in the Christmas podcast. Yeah it's true though, Oh yeah, um, Christmas was rife with sexuality and one could even say perversion and and just crazy parties and in some cases, are you're talking about Rome? That? Yeah, the Druids were big into it too, apparently the Celts right, But in Rome they celebrated the pretty Rockets festival called the Saturnalia from December seventeen. Is that now how you pronounce it? Okay? I thought you're gonna correct me. And

that honors Saturn, the god of agriculture. And they had a big carnival and they feasted and gambled and gave gifts and corrals and got drunk wasted for days. This is Rome, Yeah, one party like they did. They also apparently love to stuff um Jews with food until they were like so full that they could barely move and then make them raise each other naked through the streets for everyone else's enjoyment. So there's Christmas. Um, these are

the roots of it. And then, of course, um, you have Christianity, which effectively took it over in the fourth century a D. Yeah, they say, we need our own holiday to rival all these winter solstice shenanigans, right the fourth the fourth century a D. Really and we are ce depending on who you are, Um, really kind of change things. This is when Christianity stepped it up a bit.

That's been saying Augustine was supposedly issuing all these proclamations. Um. Basically, the Church just made some moves and it it worked. And they chose December, the day of the Feast of the Nativity is what it was originally called. And since they said, hey, pagans, you come over to our religion, we've got something over here. Uh. It celebrates the birth of our savior and all that. But you can still throw down. We're just gonna this is gonna be the

last day. Much like um, fat to ash Wednesday, right right right fat to Marty gral leads up to ash Wednesday and the party stops on ash Wednesday, but they go crazy ahead of time, very much the same thing. And it can any like this for many many centuries. Yeah, and and initially it wasn't um. It still wasn't the big daddy, I mean, Eastern Good Friday still ruled in the feast, and the Nativity was kind of the lesser

of the three. And um, the Puritans had some problems with this though they did pretty much any group that was very doer about um about religion. And we're Christians, uh outlawed or banned Christmas festivities because yeah, he did when he took Christmas in and the Puritans in New England outlawed it. Uh what from sixteen fifty nine to sixteen eighty one in Boston, no Christmas none And actually Cromwell um had soldiers patrolling the streets to make sure

there was no revelry whatsoever. And we're told to arrest anybody they found celebrating Christmas when he outlawed it, um. And still today Jehovah's witnesses, Christians Christian sect um don't sell lebrate Christmas because they clearly see it as or they see it as a clearly pagan holiday. And that all of these roots have have all these pagan roots have come together and just got a Christian stamp of approval.

But it ain't. It's really just pagan, right. Yeah. So, uh, let's move forward a little bit in our in our time machine to the eighteenth and nineteenth century. This is when things start to calm down a little bit and it becomes a little bit more like the Christmas we know and love, including eighteen forty six when Queen Victoria's German husband Albert, Prince Albert, he introduced a Christmas tree to the castle and they essentially got their picture made

in front of it. It was an engraving at the time. Of course they had to stand there for four weeks. Yeah, but it was their children in them in front of the tree, and that's kind of may have been the first Christmas card like we do today. That's nice. You send Christmas cards. No, I don't even know. I'm such a slacker. I've never sent Christmas cards. Yeah, so don't be offended. Friends who listened. None of my friends listen to this. But when I don't see Christmas cards, I

just don't do it. I haven't done it. I'll do that one day. Um, okay, So Chuck, let's talk about gift giving. Okay. In two thousand seven, Consumer Reports said that they issued an article in November of two seven, I said twelve million Americans were still paying off Christmas from the year prior. Just a year later, twelve million Americans were still making payments on their credit card gifts. So in addition to hearing is that Santas slagh and

jingle bells, I hear Josh flying overhead? I think you're hallucinating, am I. I don't hear anything. In addition to that, do you know what I hear is the sound of credit card machines being well, yeah that's old, but yeah, the swipe of the credit cards over a number of things. Thank you. That's what I hear. It is decidedly commercial now and one of the reasons why people are still paying it off is, um, we spend an ass load of money on Christmas presents and decorations, eight billion dollars

on lights alone. Nuts. Listen to this dude in the National Retail Federation, which likes to come out with their annual forecast of how much Americans are going to spend on holiday gifts and just anything that has to do with the holidays. They forecasted a hundred and seventy three billion in nineteen ninety eight. Wow, this is this is the height of the dot com bubble and everybody was rich back then. Everybody You weren't rich either, should uh?

Two thousand nine, this year, the National Retail Federation projects that we will spend four hundred and thirty seven point six billion dollars in a recession. That's not Yeah, I don't drop that much on Christmas. We're gonna spend half a trillion dollars on Christmas in a recession. That's a bad year. I know. And you know what, I think. They've said that during recessions even sometimes you go out of your way to make Christmas special because you've pinched

all year long, So that might infinitely do it. You've done what because you pinched your pennies all year long? You pinched all year long? Yes, I didn't hear that. Okay, But gift giving, Josh, what is this? Where did it come from? Well, like I said, a lot of these pagan rituals they gave gifts, but uh, the roots almost all of them did, Strange, Lena, But the roots are generally traced to Um the Bible and Jesus being born and the Three Kings, the Magi that traveled to Bethlehem

with their three gifts of gold. Frankinsincein mur right and actually um Eastern Orthodox Christians tend to celebrate Three Kings Day in January six, which is the day they think that the magi arrived with their gifts. Yeah, okay, because it took them a while. Sure, yeah, yeah, everybody's writing mules back then, answer forever. Things kind of progressed like this for a while, and then in eighteen twenty, do you know what first appeared? Josh stores began placing Christmas

themed ads and newspapers and magazines. Yeah, and for the first time even before then, though, um Macy's stayed open I think for the first time until midnight Christmas Eve in eighteen sixty seven. That was after that. But yeah, I thought you said, I'm sorry, that's losing my mind here, But yeah, in eighteen sixty seven, they they stayed open for those last minute Christmas shoppers. So by the by eighteen sixty seven, it was already a frenzy. Should we

talk about Boxing Day real quick? Sure? Just cover that for all the Brits out there, if you're in England, Australia, Canada or New Zealand. Uh, Christmas does not end on No, it continues on to the twenty six Boxing Day. So what is that, Josh? Well, apparently it grew out of a tradition where servants who had to work on Christmas all day serving the rich families of New England or New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain and Canada. Um, they

were given the next day off, the twenty six. They have their own Christmas, their own servant version of Christmas. And apparently that was taken over by the rich at cats as well. Right, so there's a Boxing Day and Christmas, I take it in those countries. That's the way I understand it, Chuck, Josh, let's keep going on with this origin stuff. This stuff is very interesting. Can can we talk about St Nick for a second? Yeah? So you know there really was a St. Nick? Right? I do know?

School me. Uh he was actually canonized in the I think nineteenth century. But he was born in two seventy CE in Turkey. Uh. He was a Mediterranean dude. Turkish was he He was Turkish? And I think he died in three forty, so he was old. Um. He was worshiped by a group of sailors who formed a cult around him, the St. Nicholas Cult or the Nicholas cult.

Before he was canonized, a group of sailors, a group of sailors just idolized this guy, like literally, so these sailors, actually, I guess, sailed to Turkey and said, we're gonna take Nick's bones where they're being kept in a shrine in Turkey, bring his bones out exactly, okay. Or they went in and got them themselves, one of the two. Uh, and then they take it back to They take the bones

back to Italy and place him in a shrine. But when they do so, they displaced this pagan idol known as the Grandmother capital T capital g. The Grandmother had a reputation for placing um gifts in children's stockings. St. Nick, who was who was a real person, was a Christian martyr I believe takes over this lady's shrine and the association with gifts and him giving gifts and even gifts and stockings her. Her reputation goes to him. So it originally started with a woman huh in ten seven. That's

when the sailors went, we're not done yet here. My friend Santa Claus has a very long, in circuitous route. But it's amazing how it all comes together. I'm roasting chestnuts, by the way, while I'm listening to this. Because the in the Nicholas Colt gave each other gifts, right um. And since they gave, they were known for giving gifts. They were one of the more popular cults around. So when they spread north, people were like, hey, you're kind of cool, let's hang out. And um they were converted.

They were a very powerful cult. And when they moved into Germany or the Germanic areas. Uh, Odin remember you mentioned him earlier, Long white Beard blew over houses, right. Uh. Santa Claus as we know it today is the collision of Odin and St. Nick and the Grandmother. Technically I had something to do with Germany. I remember hearing that one. So Santa Claus was um I think a Dutch word

for this conception. But it wasn't until eighteen o nine that Washington Irving wrote a satire of Dutch culture and said, um. He used the name Santa Claus, the Dutch name which introduced the name to the English. A few decades after that, guy named Thomas Nast, an illustrator, starts drawing his conception. Santa Claus. Adds the the north pole, the elves, the workshop, all that stuff, and then finally Santa Claus, who we know and love today, the jolly fat man with the

red coat and the white trimming. All these things have accumulated up to this point, and then our image are iconic image of Santa Claus was thanks to an illustrator who was contracted by the Coca Cola company in n and seen, there's Santa Claus and that crazy. That is crazy. What a cool history? I think, so too and slightly disappointing a little bit. Where's the magic? There's no magic? No, al right, Okay, so go ahead, Chuck. I've talked way too much for now. I guess we should talk about

trees a little bit. Um evergreen trees and garlands. We're used to decorate symbols of eternal life by everyone from ancient Chinese to Hebrews and Egyptians and European Pagans even worship these trees. Yeah, I remember we talked about the ruids and u sexual proclivities right, So fast forward a little bit. When Western Germans used fir trees to represent the Tree of Paradise and plays about Adam and Eve.

They decorated these trees with apples and wafers and stuff, and that got more and more popular until they were introduced in North America in the seventeenth century, and then people started decorating them with mistletoe and holly and stuff like that, and like you said, they really took off thanks to Prince Albert and that engraving. Yeah, and in Christmas lights clearly, which were introduced in eighteen ninety or

in the eighteen nineties. And also, as I understand that gingerbread men, Yeah, that is based on a Saturnalia tradition from the ancient Romans where they would eat human shaped biscuits. Yeah, I think about that's what a ginger modes. Yeah. I love ginger cookies. Do you like those? Yeah? Are you with us? Okay, I'm having trouble enunciating during this one.

I know it's strange, So Chuck, I think we've reached the uh, the big finish, the finale it was Jesus born on December is that we're gonna talk about and also, do you want to pop into quick facts. Yeah, So where's the word Christmas come from? Uh? It comes from Mars. It comes from an old English word or term Christ's mass right um or put together Christmas? And do you know where xmus came from? No, X was the standard abbreviation of capital X was the standard abbreviation to represent Christ.

So really it's not taking Christ out of Christmas when you say x mess was an abbreviated version of christs. Did not know that because a lot of people take offense when you write xmus. People get really runtled up about this stuff. They do. They just need to drink a little egg nog, right, yeah, with rum, right delicious rum. So, Josh, let's talk about December and was Jesus really born on December.

There is a one in three hundred and sixty five or one and three hundred and sixty six chance, depending on whether or not it was leap here, that he was born on December twenty Yeah, because the Bible doesn't

say that Jesus was born on December twenty one. Thing I learned from this wonderful article written by our colleague Sarah Dowdy, who hosts Stuff You missed in history class um is that the early Church didn't care much about the Nativity about Jesus being born, that there was no celebration, didn't pick up, like we said, until the fourth century a d. Right, right, So yeah, there wasn't a lot of effort made to really date his birth early on. Yeah. Uh.

There's some clues though that it was probably not on December. Uh. In the chapter of Luke, they say that the shepherds are keeping watch over their flock by night day in night. Well, no, it just says they're flocked by night in the Bible. Whatever. Don't challenge me on the Bible, buddy, I know my Bible. But this suggests that it may have been actually in the spring, during spring lambing, because that is the only time of year where they you keep watch today and night.

Otherwise it's just during the day, so day and night in that case, yes, okay, and you're waiting on that. So this one Bible scholar, his first name was Dionysus, I can't remember his last name. Uh, he calculated that, Um. I think he was the one that calculated December twenty Yes, Josh, chronographers.

Here's another theory here that chronographers reckon that the world was created on the spring equinox, and then four days later, on March, light was created because the earth was created then got created light according to the Bible in Genesis, and since the existence of Jesus UH signaled the beginning of a new era of Christianity or creation Uh, the chronographers assumed that jesus conception would have fallen on March twenty five, which nine months after that would be which

would be his birthday. Yeah, there's a modern Bible scholar who has gone a little broader trying to hammer out the extra a year and um by his reckoning, thanks to Um the presence of Herod King Herod was still alive. He dated it back and figured out that Jesus is probably born in four BC. Four BC, so not too far off as far as the year goes. Not bad.

And again we should remind people that this December twenty thing was largely an attempt to steal um the winter solstice from the Pagans to convert them over to Christianity, So no one knows when Jesus was born. Yeah, and you know we're not saying all this to Pooh Pooh Christmas or the fact that Jesus may or may not have been born on December twenty. None of that matters. The origin doesn't matter. What matters is is that is the day that we celebrate it. And uh, all over

the world, they're different traditions. Some people open their gifts and Christmas Eve, some people do it Christmas Day. Some people don't do Christmas at all. Some people don't celebrate it at all. You know, there's other religions out there. You heard about these, yeah, and and we're gonna cut over these at some other point. But this one is about Christmas. Yeah. Um. And if you think about it, from the true origins of Christmas, all of these disparate

cultures being brought together and molded into this. Sure, you know it was done surreptitiously and a little sneakily, but it kind of reminds you, at the very least, it explains how this whole season it's based around Christmas in the United States. Um, kind of touches everybody. Sure, So that's Christmas, Chuck, Do we have any listener mail today? Oh? Yeah?

If you want to know more about Christmas, you can type the end the handy search bar at how Stuff Works dot com uh, which then I guess leads us to listener mayo. Indeed, Josh, we have a couple of requests which we don't often honor here on the show. We're gonna this year. We love turning down people's requests because I feel bad for people that are born right around Christmas. Do because that just thinks. So, Hey, Josh Chuck and Jerry Chucker and Jerry, I have a sad

Christmas story followed by a huge favor. My story starts almost twenty four years ago, the day after Christmas. That was the day my husband Ian was born. The unfortunate timing of his birth has caused a ton of bitterness over the years. It's all the gloom that comes after the presents are open. We are faced with the fact that Christmas is gone for a whole year, and then it's his birthday. What a let down? Uh. He absolutely hates his birthday as a result, and often refers to

it as the most disappointing day of the year. It's awful. Uh. He is constantly played by the yearly Christmas Birthday present, of course, having his birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper. Just last year, he received a birthday gift with a candy cane tape to the front of it. That's awful. Uh. And he has never even had a birthday party in his whole life because no one ever wants to go out the day after Christmas. He's a complete afterthought. So here's my huge favor. Uh. He is a huge fan

of your you guys, and I mean huge. He watches your live video cast every week. He must be the fan. Then he watches the pobcast and listens to the podcast every Tuesday and Thursday. And he also does his best to spread the word of stuff you should know to everyone, including me. So, by the way, now I'm Cloked's what she said. So I'm hoping you could make this the best birthday ever. From Ashley the birthday Fairy. Ashley, we're gonna give your husband a huge happy birthday here, Happy birthday,

Happy birthday. And we're sorry you were born on the be glad you were born at all. That's what I say. But I'm sorry, dude, that stinks. And we're sending you like a T shirt or something. And she wanted to sign T shirt but with a candy cane tape to it. Yeah, we should totally do s Ian. You've got something coming your way, but it's not gonna be there by, But a happy birthday anyway, Ian, Josh, we have another one. Okay, this from Karen. I just wanted to ask for a

huge favor. My partner, Tristan is a big fan of your show. In fact, thanks to you guys, he now has opinions on a range of subjects and it drives me crazy. He turns thirty on Christmas Eve, and that is today, if I'm not mistaken, and I'm trying to make it a little special by surprising him with thirty gifts, and it would freak him out if he was listening to your podcast and you wish him a happy birthday? Could you help me out? That would be awesome. So, Tristan,

today actually is your birthday. Happy birthday, Happy birthday, Tristan. Are you freaked out thirty gifts? Yeah? So hopefully you're freaked out there in Australia, Tristan, Chris, Tristan, we're talking about you right now, Tristan. Yeah. Uh. And Josh, beyond that, do you want to say a few words here? I do. Actually, I want to wish my darling five ft one and a half inch half okanow and girlfriend you me happy birthday too. Her birthday is December, so she's one of

those poor afflicted people born around Christmas time. Happy birthday, shortcake, Yeah, happy birthday. You mean you call a shortcake? I call a sugar little sweet. Yeah. So John here, we are close to the end of the year, and we'll go ahead and say our salutations here on Christmas Eve to everyone raise a toast of eggnog. Stuff you should know, Army. We're proud of you, guys. We're proud of each other. Jerry, we had a great year. It's been awesome. Great response

has been a really big year. Yeah, it's just been awesome, and we feel great about it. And we feel awesome about the stuff. You should known. Army coming together and being so involved and donating tens of thousands of dollars, that's good stuff. As Josh says on the Keyva thing, what the finest people that have never met. That's close. That's what I feel like we are. Yeah. Well, thanks to all of you out there in s Y s

k Land. We hope that your sugar plum dreams are all fulfilled, that you're all tucked in tight in your warm beds with somebody you love and who loves you. And we'll see in after two more episodes, and we will see to it that we keep you as informed and entertained in as we did in two thousand nine. We ain't going nowhere exactly. Um, Happy holidays? Is that it is that we're going to end this? Is that heartfelt? Enough? Yep? Okay? For more on this and thousands of other topics, is

it how stuff works dot Com? Want more how stuff works? Check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you