Josh and Chuck's Christmas Extravaganza

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Hey, and welcome to the podcast Mark here the bells a Christmas podcast. Yeah, this is a Christmas podcast, the Holiday Special. Uh huh. Lots of glad tidings here. Yeah, your ear buds are gonna be bursting with them.

We have real muppets.

I wish, I so wished.

You just look so disappointed.

Really for a second, what do you yeah, surprise, I wish. No, there's no muppets. Thanks for the letdown already, it's like thirty seconds into this thing. No, instead, chuck, this is it's our higher Holiday Special where we put together some little Christmas podcasts that we're going to do. Get some shorties, some longies.

We're gonna dispel some myths, we're gonna enforce some myths.

That's right, and we're gonna explain the origins of some things. And if you're all very good boys and girls, we may even read a story at the end. How do you like that? That's exciting? Yeah, So this is a little different. It's a little a little it's packed with at least one hundred and twenty percent more holiday cheer than our typical episode. Yes, like shrunken heads, right, maybe that one is up to like one hundred and eighty percent more, And this.

One will come out I believe on what like the twenty second Yeah, just.

A it's Christmas Eve, Eve Eve, that's right.

But you should be off work as far as I'm concerned already and like roasting chestnuts.

But even if you're not, it's that time of year where like you're going to work and you feel absolutely great about things, you know what I'm talking about. Have you ever worked retail on the holiday season? Yeah, even in retail right before Christmas, you can feel terrific work as a gap. I worked at American Eagle. Really Yeah?

What was on your heavy rotate?

There?

Santa's got a brand new bag? James Brown?

Over and over ours? Was that Chrissy hind one about? It is a good one except when you hear eight hundred times. Yeah, it was a good mix, but y end, it was the same mix over and over again. What's my favorite Christmas song of all time? Yeah? Gosh, that's tough, So I would have to say Chuck my favorite Christmas performers are Johnny Mathis and Fronte and Tyscher. Excellent Christmas album. Bing Crosby's Christmas Album is possibly the greatest Christmas album

I haven't gotten it yet, but my morning Jacket has a Christmas EP they just put out, which I'm gonna get, and then I think it's.

The waitresses Merry Christmas.

Yeah, that's Emily's favorite and has since become one of my favorites.

Yeah, it's a good one too, very upbeat. When at the end of like the Gong Show or something, you just.

Said, no, no, no, it's the horn break and Merry Christmas by the Waitresses.

Yeah, it's a good song.

So is that enough pilabor for the beginning?

I think, So let's get to it. We're doing this a little differently. There is gonna be a little bit of Christmas cheer between some of the segments, and we hope that this finds you with a nice cup of cocoa. You're a warm fire or scotch that too. If you're a night watchman, sure that there are. You're surrounded by people you care about who care about you. Yeah, or at the very least, you're having a good time with us.

Regardless of how you choose to celebrate this time of the year. We're going with Christmas because that's what we do.

That's a great point, Chuck.

Yeah, But we respect all religions and stuff like that, right.

We wish glad tidings to all. So let's get it started, shall we. Yes, let's.

So Josh to kick this extravaganza off, this cheer fest as.

You call it.

Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about Christmas caroling.

You ever do that I have as a child, that going door to door singing like Christmas songs, Narco ballads, whatever. As long as you're doing a door to door and it's winter, you're in the clear as a carol. I don't know about that, but you know, originally they started out as very secular. They weren't religious necessarily.

Well, that's true, and in fact, the word carol itself lies not in song, as Sam Abramson, our old little buddy has to say, but in dance. An old French Carol with an e at the end means a kind of dance. In Latin carola means a dance to a flute, and in Greek caroleas means a.

Flute player who accompanies the coral dance.

So it was all about dance early on, and some were religious early on, but generally there were secular dance tunes American.

Bandstand, the Eleven Lords of Leaping, you could consider them caroling, especially if there was a flute that they were leaping to good point. So, like a lot of Christmas traditions, which if you go back and listen to last year's How Christmas Worked, I think it was in past tense for some reason. Really episode yeah.

Because we killed Christmas.

I guess. Yeah, Silent night, deadly night happened. And you'll find that there is a lot of I guess stealing going on through Christmas traditions from pagan holidays, specifically Northern European pagan holidays, specifically the winter solstice festival of Yule, which is where we get Yule tie, Yule log, all that stuff, all the mules. But they think that caroling originally has its roots in the Yule festival, where a lot of Northern Europeans got together and said, let's sing,

Wassale is a thick, hot, spicy beverage that they would give travelers, you know, to keep them warm and to wish them well. And it became a holiday staple obviously because of the weather.

Have you ever had it? Now? Have you no? But I want to. Typically it's like cider, brandy, yeah, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, oranges, apple, sure, honey, sugar yum, and hot orange. Just take a take a crockpot, an ancient pagan crock pot if you can. That's customarily how it's how it's heated well.

And from that word, uh, jolly, bands of churchgoers would go door to door and it's.

An old Norse term. They would call it watling or was sailing?

Yeah?

Is it what's sailing?

I think so?

And they would spread the joy through hymns Christmas hymns, right, and that was although see I thought that would have been the origin of caroling, but Sam says here, we don't really know.

Yeah, Sam kind of bounces all over the place in this mini article. But it's Sam. I wonder if he listens, you know, if you if you're listening, Sam, we miss you, buddy, glad tidings to you.

Sam used to work here, by the way, If you haven't picked up on that.

So chuck it. It's possible. There's well, there's different aspects to it. So you have the carrols, right, Yes, a lot of carrols like oh come all, ye faithful guy, rest ye married gentlemen. I saw three ships of sailing, that kind of stuff. Silent night, silent I. They're very very religious, very very Christian. They are talking about the Nativity, right,

As we know it exactly. And they were very energetic, as you said, and that spread through across Europe, and of course anything that spread across Europe was eventually going to root down here in the New World. That's right, the United States. And eventually little Chuck's gonna find himself as a fifteen year old going door to door in Snow Mountain.

With his youth group.

That is nice, Chuck, It was nice. I'll say, you're such a supportive like fellow youth group member. Oh yeah, you really nailed that, Carol. I've been paying attention to you at practice and you really nailed it. Oh I didn't ever do it though, that's the key. Well, that's not overdoing it. You mean it.

These days, a lot of groups do this for for charity.

Like I said, churches, and I didn't get for charity though they hit people up for money or something.

I think that people sometimes give him tips in lieu of wasasle because it's kind of hard to come by sometimes in the average house in Michigan. Sure, they don't necessarily have wacle there, so sometimes people give people money. There's like an exchange of something. It's almost like a Halloween Well, you're actually giving somebody something in the form of like well wishes or glad.

Tidings exactly, but you're earning your keep. As Sam pointed out, this could have come from the feudal tradition of singing for your supper. Another idea of possibly where Carolyn.

Began, or going door to door, especially singing for your supper. Right, sure, because it's not just the caroling. There's a thing of going door to door. Why are people going door to door? Why don't they just stand in a central location make everybody come to them. Yeah, you can, but you're not really doing the whole thing.

There's another legend, Sam says, probably isn't true. There's no basis for it, but there was a young girl named Carol Poles, and she was a little English girl who went missing very sadly in London during the holiday season the nineteenth century. They went door to door looking for her, singing to declare their good intentions, like, hey, don't shoot us in the face, We're really just looking for little Carol. But Sam goes on to say that there's really no

So you want to talk about a few Carols, A couple of twelve days of Christmas? I mentioned eleven Lord's a leaping. A lot of people say that this is a means of secretly teaching children the Catholic symbols and values and beliefs from a time when you couldn't practice it, and that's bunk.

Well, or teaching them memory at least, and how to recall things. Well, that's true, that's true, But the Catholic parts fault.

Right, right, And twelve Days of Christmas came about around eighteenth century in England, so it makes it something of an old one, but definitely not the oldest. What about Tenembaum, that's one of my favors.

That's a classic.

Aka Christmas Tree.

That's right, that is a German in origin, and we're going to pick up on that in a later story.

By the way, the exact roots.

Are not known, but the melody might be familiar to you if you live in Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, or New Jersey, because your state anthem is sung to the tune of Christmas Tree.

Who knew, Chuck, Let's get to the bottom of probably one of the great mysteries. I know what you're gonna Christmas? Yeah, what is figgy pudding?

If you're in England, you're gonna say, of course we know what piggy pudding is, right, but it's it's British in origin.

If you're in America and you're familiar with the carol we wish you had married Christmas and the line we won't go until we get some, We won't go until we get some. Now bring it right here. I think that are e figgy pudding.

Comes after bring us some figgy pudding? I believe is the more on the nose line. Okay, which precedes it?

Right? Sure, I said, are e figgy pudding? Oh okay, yeah, sorry about that.

It is British. It's a dessert.

It is uh sort of like carrot cake meets custard, but it's got chopped figs in it and spices and things.

I don't know. Does it sound good to you? Yes? Oh really, yes. I love carrot cake, but I love custard.

I'm not a big custard guy.

I would definitely try it, all right.

They said it's unique in the texture and taste, and I'm not gonna that.

So while you're sitting there by the fire, maybe now that we've kind of given you roughly the recipes for wassle and figgy pudding, you go make this. We'll be right here.

Someone should send us figgy pudding.

They should, all the way from England. Chuck, Josh, I'm sure you, being a sentient person, have noticed that there are there's a plant, a Christmas plant, as it were, like probably the official flora mascout of Christmas, the cactus. Uh no, no, the points said to you, Yes, the very brilliantly colored red leafed plant that you see everywhere this time of year.

Did you say red leaf?

Yes?

Well that's good that you said that, Josh, because a lot of people, because the leaves are so gorgeous and red and shaped like stars, think that that is the flower and the flowers, in fact, the little yellow thing in the center.

Yeah, and the flowers like oh orh somebody would pay attention to me. I know, but I'm small and yellow. So what this is? You agree then that probably the official plant of Christmas besides missiletoe. And really that's just a cutting the official plant with a root ball of Christmas.

To the tune of about two hundred million dollars in sales every holiday.

But the crazy thing is as much as it's associated with Christmas and snow and sleigh rides and things like that. Sure, the point Setti is native to Mexico. I had no idea, did neither. No. It grows to heights of about twelve feet.

Yeah, it's a shrub, a tropical shrub.

Yeah, in southern Mexico. And actually it turns out that it's a Christmas It's associated with Christmas thanks to America's first diplomat to Mexico, a guy named doctor Joe Roberts. Point set were they named after? Okay?

Yeah, he in the nineteenth century.

He went down to Mexico eighteen twenty eight, discovered the point Setia and thought, hey, this is really really pretty. I bet this would look great on my mantle in my heart in December.

In South Carolina? Is that where it was?

Yeah, South Carolina, And so he brought it back and it wasn't initially, it didn't catch on like wildfire initially, but over the years throughout the twentieth century, it became the mainstay of Christmas.

It also suffered some indignity in what it was called before it finally landed on point Setia, like, oh really, the lobster flower or the Mexican flame leaf, like lobster flower. And then well, actually down in Mexico they considered it a holy plan as well. It's called the florist de Nocee Buayna in Mexico. That's Spanish for Flowers of the

Hey, that sounds like a good story.

It's a great story.

I don't buy it.

It's better than the lobster flower. Story because in that version it turns into an angry lobster.

So that is generally where people think that they got the Christmas tie right.

Well, that and the fact that they bloom in December.

Right, And another interpretation is that it's a symbol of the Star of Bethlehem because the leaf looks like a star in a way.

And then the real interpretation is that they bloom in December exactly right. So is that it Well, no, there's a lot of a lot of scorn heaped on points set he is that they are in fact poisonous. It turns out that they will give you diarrhea if you eat leaves which are called bracts the upper portion of the which why would you do that because you're a little kid and it's red. Okay, you will get a little case of diarrhea, you're telling me, will hurt, but

And as my wife pointed out, oh, but they're toxic to cats.

I look that up. They are somewhat toxic to cats, but I don't know if they're deadly.

And the website I found said cats aren't gonna really like the taste that much anyway, so you really don't need to sweat it. But if your leaves drop off on the floor and you got cats, you might as well pick it up and put it in the trash because you don't want to make kiddy sick.

It's true.

Ever, Laurn and the Wizard are point Setia free.

Although my house is riddled with them.

With Lauran and the Wizard, no with point Setius. Well, Chuck, we missed it this year, but next year, well now know. Also, December twelfth is National point Setia Day in the United States, aka go.

Out and buy some point Settias. Yes, so that's point Setia it is.

And I want to take this opportunity to wish merry Christmas to the Wizard and Lauren. Thank you. They have their stockings.

What I'm hoping is that because of this podcast, there will be tens of thousands of people all over the country saying, Hey, did you know the point Setti is actually from Mexico?

I hope that happens around dinner tables all over the world.

Chuck, it's time for probably my favorite Christmas story.

My favorite, You like this one? My new favorite?

You weren't You weren't familiar with this until recently.

Well I sort of was. Here's the deal. I saw the movie at midnight. Clear Have you ever seen that?

Yeah? I know, yes, I have been not for years. I forgot about that.

Really good movie and uh, not so much based on but inspired by this story.

Yeah, and it was always one of my favorite movies.

But there was actually another movie that hits this one on the head from five years.

Ago, cannon Ball Run. What it's called.

It's a foreign film called joyex Noel, which means Merry Christmas Noel. Yes, and it tells this story straight.

Up, does it? So? The story that you're talking about, I want to explain to you is called The Christmas Truth. It is so great and it is a true story, as you're saying, and it took place in World War one. World War one, Chuck, humans have gotten pretty good at war by the time World War World War one came around.

World War One, the more I hear about it, it sounds like perhaps the most brutal of the world wars.

It gave us our first understanding of PTSD, which we used to call shell shock. Yeah, it gave us mustard gas posgen gas, chlorine gas. Chemical warfare is another way to put it. Powers, yeap tanks, machine guns that could spit out six hundred bullets a.

Minute, airplanes in combat, mass bombing, dropping bombs on civilians.

And most pertinent to this story, trenches. Trench warfare. Yeah, this is nutty. The trenches made their debut along the Western Front in Europe apparently too great success. Too great of a success. For example, the Battle of Verdun lasted nine months, there were three hundred thousand deaths and almost no changes in the positions between the two trenches.

I mean, war was so enthrallingly basic back then. It was literally just like gaining ground foot by foot.

Right, Yeah, but this was the first step toward modern warfare. It was that. Yeah, but it was the first step toward modern warfare where you could kill a bunch of people at once, and a lot of people did die from World War One. Eight point five million people died from the war, including civilians as well.

Well, you make a really startling point in here, and this is your article, right, Yes, with the trenches. Sometimes these things were as little as thirty yards apart from each other. And out of all the hundreds of miles of these trenches, there was an average of four soldiers or no, a soldier every four inches.

That's the average, that's what I read. Wow, isn't that astounding? Boy?

That is some close quarters. It is exped well, and it's not just close quarters. Boy that it's inconvenient close quarters to be scared out of.

Your mind, yeah, or wounded and dying.

Yeah, crazy to see somebody next to you. It was horrific. And one of the one of the things that naturally comes about when you dig two trenches and are fighting one another is a space in between with a lot of dead guys. And that's yes, that's called no man's land. Yeah, the space between two trenches called no man's land.

Is that where that term originated?

Really? Yes? So cool? And so World War One was already in full swing by the time Pope Benedict the fifteenth was elected. Pope and one of the first things he did was say, hey, hey, hey, let's have a truthless Christmas Day. Yeah, good idea. Apparently the Germans said, okay, all right, we'll think about it, and the Allies said, no way, We're not going to give up any fortification or even a single antwer. We just got to keep going.

Right, I get the idea. That word got around though at least.

Yeah, he had called for it, sure right, and that it was turned down. And for the most part, for almost everywhere in the world, there wasn't a truce on Christmas Day, sept for one little part of the trenches in Flanders, Belgium. Chuck, this is such a great story.

If you've seen the movie, you know that what the Germans did well. First of all, they all got gifts brought to the front line soldiers did tobacco puddings, maybe figgy pudding at times, chocolates, just.

Little tokens of appreciation.

That the Germans got their little tannem bombs with these little small Christmas trees. And in the middle of the night, these Germans.

Put up their little.

Trees on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve lit their little candles and the dudes I don't know if it was thirty yards, but the dudes acrossing the other trench the Allies were like, well, hey, that looks kind of nice. And then all of a sudden they saw these signs from the Germans said you know, fight, we know fight.

That's adorable, and the British held up signs that said Merry Christmas.

He said, what the heck are you talking about?

But I think what originally got them was the Germans, with their little Christmas trees on the tops of their trenches everyone could see, started singing carols, and carols are kind of universal. They're pretty old, sure, and I imagine they were probably singing oh ten and bomb, which sounds to the English like oh Christmas tree, and the British soldiers started singing back to them football fight songs. Yeah.

The Germans then sang steel a nacht yea, and they're like, you're not picking up on what we're trying to do here, guys.

Put the whiskey down.

But what ended up happening was little by little, they started poking their heads up, saying, yeah, you're not gonna shoot me, are you.

They're like, uh no, I'm not gonna shoot you.

If you don't shoot me. And then they met up in no Man's land and partied down.

Yep, they had Christmas celebration and No Man's Land in the trench was like Christmas nineteen fourteen.

They shared tobacco, yeah, I imagine they shared their puddings.

Yeah, they exchanged them as gifts pretty much. The soccer match broke out, yeah, and the Germans won three to two.

I bet as cheery as it was.

Anytime England and Germany gets together to play football, it's not a very pleasant, So I bet you there was some elbows being thrown, maybe a.

Little bit, although I'll bet it was kind of like hey, sorry.

Sorry, but they still wanted to win.

Yeah. There was a juggler at one point along the front and he put on a nice little show German guy, right. Yeah. And for in a lot of circumstances, there were places where fighting did continue, and in some circumstances, commanding officers like established a formal impromptu truce with the opposing commanding officer. In some places, commanding officers said you need to keep fighting, and soldiers from both sides just defied their orders and stopped.

That's pretty awesome.

Yeah, because you think, I mean, I don't know, it's crazy for our generation to think about these world wars in Europe because if you ever traveled around Europe just to imagine these what would be equivalent of our states just going at it when in fact Europe is you know, it's its own, small, smallish place. They're right there across the border and they're like, you know, hey, dudes, we're not so far apart.

It could be like Tennessee fighting Kansas.

Yeah, that's great.

Or Georgia. No, I'm just saying, like Tennessee and Kansas can fight too.

Well.

Sure, I was trying to keep us out of it, Okay, more Switzerland.

I just thought you were giving a Kansas shout out.

No, okay, no, but I should huh yeah, sure, Merry Christmas, Kansas.

So the sad part about this is that, of course there was a war to be fought. At the end of this truce in nineteen fourteen, they had to go back to fighting and killing each other.

Yeah, the same dudes.

They were just playing soccer within hugging and drinking.

Yeah. And sometimes the shots picked up, you know, on Christmas or the day after Christmas. But in some places, some of this this troops went on beyond New Year to the New Year. That's awesome, It is very awesome, But it's crazy, Chuck, if you ask me, is not that the Christmas Truth happened on that Christmas in nineteen fourteen in the trenches Long Flanders, Belgium, but that they ever went back to fighting again? Agreed?

And that is a story of the nineteen fourteen Christmas Truth.

Is enough, hiding enough?

You're going from Napy' clocket.

It is.

Oh so josh, that is uh?

Part three? Was that Part four?

In the fog of the Christmas spirit? Chuck, I can't even count. I'm so giddy.

Let's move on to one of my favorite parts about Christmas. It's not the big gifts, but the stocking stuffers.

Right, one of my favorite parts.

Growing up was getting up on Christmas morning, going downstairs Scott Michelle Chuck each had her own individual stockings. They were not like they weren't even the same. They were styled differently. Oh okay, yeah, and seeing what was in there, and because it was my family, it was the occasional small action figure or babble, but generally it was things like toothbrushes and the deodorant in stocks and these like necessities of life that my family should have been providing

Yeah, I think it's the odorant. My family had matching stockings. They were all macro made by a family friend. Oh sure, but yeah there would be stuff in They're like little thing like chapstick or something like that. An action figure was great stocking stuffer. But we always got an apple and an orange.

Oh yeah, yeah, we got candy and stuff.

We get candy as well, And I'd be like, why is there an apple and an orange in here? Who wants this apple and orange? This is not candy? So I would give mine away, right, And I'm probably less healthy today because it didn't eat that apple and that orange on Christmas more, but you're eating them now I am.

My faves were the little hollowed out plastic candy canes with the little tiny eminem like things inside.

Oh yeah, but they weren't m and ms. They had a very distinct flavor.

Which was not eminem flavor exactly. But Chuck, I remember being a young lad and getting my stocking down and being so excited and then just stopping and being like, this is insane. Where did this start?

You remember thinking that?

And now I know, Now I understand why where the idea of stockings came from.

Well we have the answer, Josh. Saint Nicholas. Originally St. Nicholas goes back to the third century.

You remember we talked about him and the how Christmas worked.

Yes, so a brief recap.

The ancient town of Myra and what is now Turkey is had a shrine dedicated to Bishop Nicholas. Over the centuries, tale sprung up about how generous Bishop Nicholas was, and this is where we first got the idea of Saint Nick being a gift giver. So that's where it starts. The actual stocking part of this whole story is Nicholas would go by the homes of these ladies that were too poor to have a dowry, which is the dough that your family has to give to your husband goat which.

I got no dowry. Are you going to get a dowry? No, no, I don't believe so. My dowry's in happiness exactly.

That's what Emily always tells me.

And then the bishop would throw these gold coins down to these poor maidens down the chimneys, and they would fall into the stockings which were already hanging there to dry out of fire, and boom, there's your little of trivia.

And I went back and looked, and I was like, were there stockings in third century Turkey? There may have been, sure, if you consider sock stockings, but they would have been a new invention, because socks were invented by the Romans in about the third century.

And stockings they didn't proceed that at all.

Of it was an offshoot of socks.

In my opinion, I would have thought socks would have been an offshoot of stockings, but I don't think.

The other closer to home temporally idea is that we put stockings out because we're mimicking little Dutch children who for their center claws, who rides a horse. They tend to leave in their little wooden shoes. Hey for the horse, for center clauses horse.

Is that why we leave out cookies and stuff for Santa?

Yes, for the reindeer. We left beer. We left old Milwaukee and Christmas cookies and a carrot.

And your family did yeah really, ye see, beer wasn't allowed on our households.

We left milk and cookies. My father strongly encouraged us to leave beer for Santa. I wonder why an old Milwaukee tall boy. But so Dutch children would leave their little wooden shoes out with hay, and then Santa would take the hay and feed it to his horse, and in exchange leave presence in the little wooden shoes. And they think that it started in America in the early nineteenth century and it was from emulating this Dutch custom. Pretty cool. That's where we get stockings.

So let's just roll this one right in. I consider this next one almost a companion piece.

Oh you do, because we're.

Talking about Christmas Day.

So we're going to talk about an odd thing that happened in Atlanta last year. We actually had our first white Christmas in a long long time.

We did didn't we It was very very cool. It was very sweet. Well, Chuck, white Christmas. You know, I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. It's a song that was written by Irving Berlin in January of nineteen forty. Yeah, so he's obviously still in the Christmas It's in the Guinness Book of World Records for selling one hundred million copies, which is a lot of copies. Wow. Remember I was telling you that I think Being Crosby may have the best Christmas album ever.

Yeah, it's a great version.

Yes, this popularized it. He's the one who really kind of got it on everybody's radar. But the carpenters you mentioned, Willie Nelson, God, what a great Christmas ell I Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, pretty much everybody's done white Christmas. He did it. Yeah. And Noah, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.

What what's that got to do with Christmas?

They got in on the white Christmas thing. If you search white Christmas and Noah, you're going to come up with a pretty cool map that shows your chances of having a white Christmas based on weather data from nineteen sixty one to nineteen ninety.

I think so it's just a historical record, that's all it is.

It's a prediction based on that. Yes, so like here in Atlanta we have a less than five percent chance.

Yeah, shows how lucky we were.

But if you live in Calumet, Mishiga on the Upper Peninsula, and that's I think the upper Upper Peninsula, right, you have a greater than ninety percent chance of having a white Christmas. Ohio.

This is where I go every year to Akron. Obviously there's always snow on the ground. Whether or not it snows or not is kind of hit or miss.

I remember those though as a kid growing up in Toledo pretty great. But white Christmas was it didn't matter how much snow is on the ground. If it was snowing on Christmas, it was insanely comfy. You know where it stinks La like one percent. I think I.

Didn't even look, but I lived there for you know, five years, and it's you know, they do their best. In fact, LA kind of goes overboard with the decor from what I remember. Yeah, I think because it's you know, sunny and has palm trees and stuff like that. But it's really really tough to get it going out there in a Christmas sense.

Yeah.

I always told it when I came home.

It's like that in Apache Junction or something too Chuck. In London they take bets on whether it'll be a white Ristmiths and I looked it up. Sky Bet is giving odds and the odds are eleven to two for white Christmas for London this year. I bet London is lovely in the snow. Yeah. And then every once in a while, no matter what your bet is, no matter what Noah predicts, no matter what Bing Crosby and Irvan Berlin say, there is a fluke, a fluke white Christmas. And that happened

I bet they were partying it up that day.

I'll bet they were too, you know the assis. So that's the that's white Christmas. You can go to search noah n O A A and white Christmas slash stockings. Well that's works one.

Yeah, yeah, okay, No, I mean that arch story was.

Like, don't forget to put the slash stockings dot HDM for your Search.

Of Love on.

Chuck Josh. I believe that everybody has been good enough listening to this oh yeah episode that they should get a story of some sort.

On Donner on Dancer.

Yeah all right, But what we're going to read here is called twas the Night Before Christmas, alternately titled A Visit from Saint Nicholas, and it was written by a guy named doctor Clement C. Moore who loved his kids and loved writing poetry, and one Christmas in I believe the early nineteenth century, he put the two together and wrote A Visit from Saint Nicholas for his kids as a poem, and it caught on and was printed in a newspaper first and then a magazine school readers, and

So we want to encourage everyone.

Turn it up, gather the children around the fire, pour up a hot toddy or some wasael if you got some on hand, and let us take you away to a different time and place.

And we want to say to everybody listening, thanks for joining us. Merry Christmas, Happy holidays, clad tidings to every one of you. We hope this Christmas finds you safe and happy.

Absolutely twas the night before Christmas went all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads. And Mama and her kerchief, and I, in my cap, had just settled our brains for a long winter's.

Nap, went out on the lawn. There arose such a clatter. I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window, I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow, gave the luster of midday to objects below. When what to my wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sleigh with eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver.

So lively and quick I knew in a moment it must be Saint Nick, more.

Rapid than eagles. His coursers.

They came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name. Now Dasher, now Dancer, now Prancer, now Vixen, on Comet, on Cupid, on Donner, and blitzen. To the top of the porch, to the top.

Of the wall.

Now dash away, dash away, dash away, all.

As dry leaves that before the while hurricane fly. When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So up to the housetop the coursers they flew with the sleigh full of toys, and Saint Nicholas too. And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof the prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my hand and was turning around down the chimney, Saint Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot, and his clothes were all turnished with ashes and soot. A bundle of toys he had flung on his back looked like a peddlar just opening his pack. His eyes, how they twinkled. His dimples, how merry. His cheek were like roses, his nose like a cherry. His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and a little round belly that shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf. And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work and filled all the stockings, and turned with a jerk, and laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod up the chimney.

He rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team, gave a whistle, and away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, Harry drove out of sight. Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

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