Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there. And this is the two thy sixteen Stuff You Should Know Super Christmas Holiday Spectacular glad Tidings Edition.
In three d oh nice and stinkovision. Nice smellovision. That was a real thing, you know, Yeah it was.
It was a great idea that didn't really pan out very well.
I don't know about that.
Well, no, it didn't pan out very well.
Well, yeah, funny, I know what you meant. Uh so, my friend, I look forward to this every year. Yeah, me too, because, as I've said before, I save up my vacation and take an elmmentary school break for a solid three weeks at the end of every year, right, which also means you get a bit of a break.
Yeah. It's a de facto decision on my behalf as well.
And this is it after in one hour, roughly you're not going to see me again till next year. Yeah, you know. I like to get small over the holidays.
That's cool, man. I don't blame you. I do too, just hold up in the secretly, I'm secretly fine with you making that decision for me particular one.
Yeah, so are you?
So? Are you full of cheer glad tidings.
Well, I'm in a silly mood. So this will who knows where this goes?
How's Jerry? Jerry, you're feeling pretty happy?
She is?
She's good.
Just gave a thumbs up. Yeah, she's fresh faced, but.
She tailed Are her hauls decked?
Oh yes, double decked?
Well, I guess we should welcome everybody chuck to the Christmas spectacular. Tell you, first off, to be sure to start a fire somewhere in your house. Yes, put on sweater, maybe, put on some slippers, put on pajamas, make yourself some eggnog, hot butter room, something like that, and just sit down and enjoy yourself.
Yeah, and we did our holiday special every year we like to cover. I'm always afraid we're going to recover something which I actually pitched, something we had already covered.
I've got a list, so don't worry about it.
Oh okay, great, well then let's ring in the holiday year.
Hey. Also, we should say, if there are any little true believers among you, you may not want to let them listen to this one.
Well, yeah, there, I was going to give a warning. They can listen to most of it, but there is one feature of the show where where you may not want your kids to listen to some of the detail the deats, and we're going to give you a warning before that comes on. Yeah, so you can.
It'll sound like this wringling knowing that's the Christmas warning.
Well, all right, let's do it.
All right, everybody sit back as we begin our annual Christmas special. So Chuck, we're gonna hop in our over there sleigh and head on over to Catalonia. Yeah, parts of Spain, parts of Spain, part of Spain, and there's a Catalan tradition. There's a couple of them actually that are really interesting and are scatological in nature. And the first one is called Cagatillo.
Yeah. I had never heard of this, but I put out and you'll see you later in the show. We put out a call on face book for some unusual family traditions from listeners, and a couple of people mentioned this, like saying, we don't do this, but I've heard of it and it's really strange.
Yeah, it's definitely a thing, and in large parts of Spain, Portugal, even some parts of Italy too from what I understand, but specifically in the Catalan region of Spain, cagatillo, which means poop log basically in Catalan, is a It's a Christmas tradition that starts on December eighth when the family gets around and while they've gone out, I think either made one or they purchased a cagatillo, which is a log with a face on it.
Yeah, I get the idea that part of the fun and correct me if I'm wrong, Spanish among you, But part of the fun is making it with the family. Sure, but I'm sure you can buy them though as well, right full featured.
Even if you bought one fully featured, there's still some some ritual that you the family have to go through that would be kind of fun.
Exactly.
So with with Kagatia, with the log, he's got a face, but very importantly, he also has two front arms, so he's kind of propped up right yeah, yeah, And when you bring Kaigatio home, he also has that that the standard Catalan red kind of overhangy hat yeap, yes, exactly, And so the family brings him home, and on December eighth,
they get him prepared for the Christmas season. Right, They wrap them in a blanket, and they basically wrap them from what would amount to the waist down in a blanket to keep them warm, to.
Keep him warm, and to maybe incubate what dwells inside of the log. Yeah, because that's where we're headed with us. They feed this thing orange peels, a Spanish nugat called torone's that right, Yeah, And apparently, as tradition is held, the more you feed the cagatillo, the more gifts it will bestow to you through the traditional route, which means out of the rear end.
Right. So the kids every night while they're caring for cagatiu, and I imagine probably more than just every night. I'll bet this thing gets fed a lot of orange peels and nougat. They feed it. And as the Christmas I guess Christmas Day, I also saw Christmas Eve approaches, they they prepare to extract the stuff from cagatio. Yeah, and they do that by by hitting cagato with sticks. And they have a traditional chant. You want to you want to give them the translation of the chant?
Yeah, not that not the original in English, it translates literally as poop log, poop torone, hazel nuts and cottage cheese. If you don't poop, well, I'll hit you with a stick poop log.
And so once they've beaten Kagatio with a stick enough times, they'll look under the blanket and see that he's pooped out a bunch of candy and treats and gifts. And it's an amazing, wonderful little Christmas tradition.
It's wonderful.
But that's not the only unusual poop based cautle on Christmas tradition either, is it.
No.
I was kind of surprised to know that there was more than one. How do you pronounce this that coganer, coganaire, cogganaire, Yeah, pretty close. So this is this is just a it's not a log. It's an actual carved or now you know, readily manufactured sort of dull figurine that has dropped its pants and is just pooping.
Yeah. And and with the little traditional figurine, there's a little pile of poop beneath his rear end on the ground. So not only is he poopy, he has pooped. And if it's the original version, it looks like a Catalan peasant, so he also has that red hat. He's probably smoking a pipe. And these things are designed to be put into the Nativity scene as one of the figures along with the Holy Family, and a lot of Westerners find that offensive and don't understand that it's it's not meant,
even in a joking manner. It wasn't. Originally, it was meant because the Kaganair represented things like fertility or good fortune or good luck and as poop did. But over time it's definitely evolved, and now you can find Kagan Air figures of all sorts of famous people, from Barack Obama to the Star Wars crew has a Kagan Air collection.
Of course.
Did you see it?
Well, yeah I saw. I mean there are all kinds of pop culture icons now with their pants pulled down pooping.
But did you see the Star Wars one in particular?
No, no, it was it good?
Yeah, it's pretty great. See three pooped out a nut like a bolt nut.
Not a nut like one might traditionally find in a stool.
No, no, it's not a peanut, a walnut. Oh man, who knew this one was going to be so uh gross?
Yeah?
Well I guess we could have guessed.
Yeah, you found the stuff, so yeah, what else can we mention here? There was a world's record, of course, on December tenth, I'm sorry, December twenty ten, there was a nineteen foot pooping figurine placed in the shopping center and won the record for world's largest Kagan air.
Yeah, in Barcelona.
Pretty good.
Yeah, I looked at a picture. I couldn't find any actual specs on it, but by my estimates, the pile of poop is about three feet tall. Oh okay, yeah, in the middle of the shopping center, the Marra Magnum shopping center in Barcelona.
Nice. Well, my sister lives in Portugal. Now I'm going to hit her up and see if she's seen any in this action.
Yeah, for sure. Ask her to mail us some caganaiirs. I'd love one.
You can order one online?
Yeah, yeah, I'll bet she can get a better deal on one there.
Uh, should we take a break, No, Josh, we shouldn't. Oh, yeah, we shouldn't because as of per tradition, our Christmas episode is ad free. It's one of small little thing we like to do.
It's ad free with one hundred percent more Christmas.
That's right, all right, So let's pile on our sleigh and let's head on over and see how doctor Crampis is doing.
Yeah, over in the Alps, in the Alpine regions.
Yes, of Austria. So well, let's talk about Crampis. It's a it's a weird thing, but then it's not any weirder than Santa Claus if you really look at it, Yeah, or bringing a tree into your home.
He's this. No, it's really not. And it actually makes a lot of sense too, because you know, Santa Claus is so good and pure and happy and joyful, and Crampis is all the opposite. So as as it was put in this one Smithsonian article I read, Crampis is the Yen to Saint Nick's yang. Yeah, and they actually hang out together. And we should probably describe Crampus a little bit first, huh.
Yeah, So here's the legend, is that Crampus shows up. Crampus is sort of a beast of sorts, a demon, a demonic, impish beast.
With a long tongue. And Claus, his name, in fact, is derived from the German word for claw, I.
Believe, Yeah, what's that, uh, Crampin' huh was it that simple? So Crampus he shows up. He shows up in the town the night before December sixth, which is also known as Crampas Snacht or Crampus Knight. And uh, that's also a Nicholas taug or Saint Nicholas date. December six is.
Right, So they show up on December fifth, the night of the fifth.
Yeah, and you know, like the light in the dark, Crampus is like, no, no, no, Saint Nick can't just show up. I will show up as well and try and ruin the good time.
Right. So what's interesting is like on Crampus Knocked the Saint Nick goes around and leaves little goodies in the shoes of good kids. Sure, and then birch sticks in the shoes of bad kids, ostensibly for their parents to smack them on the behind with for being bad. But there's another level reserved for the truly bad kids. And that's what Crampus is there for. He's there to abduct
and torture and potentially eat the really bad kids. He's actually going around with Saint Nick visiting people's home.
Yeah, say, how bad are you? Do you need to be tortured and eaten?
Are you bad, or like crampist level bad.
And this hearkens back the first thing I thought it was, of course, our episodes on the Grim's fairy Tales very much sort of aligns with that where children are readily offered up as food for beasts. You know, like no one cared back then.
No, they definitely treated their children more harshly, for sure. There was a lot more like getting lost in the forest and no one coming to find you, going on.
Yeah, so Crampus obviously, over the years there have been a lot of people who have been like, let's abolish this. This is not in the modern Christmas spirit. He is the son of the Norse god of the underworld hell h l And during the twelfth century the Catholic Church tried to ban Crampus, and then more recently in the nineteen thirties when Austria's conservative Christian Social Party came in came around, they definitely tried to get Crampus outlawed, but
people would not have it. They needed their Crampus.
Yeah, I mean, Crampus predates Christianity. He has some staying power, you know. He was originally like a German demon of pagan folklore. Yeah, yeah, he would be tough to get rid of, and probably now more so than ever because some sort of weird Streisan effect apparently happened, and now more people are aware of Crampis than ever before, and he's celebrated big time. People love him. There are mostly people, Oh yeah, there was yeah, a good horror movie. Well
I don't I can't say if it was good. I haven't seen it, but it looks good. But people who are who get sick of the holiday spirit being crammed down their throat for you know, after X number of weeks usually turned to Crampis to kind of find some relief.
I looked up this other thing because at the end of this article it mentions a couple of weird things demons in other countries Christmas demons and the one in Greece Cali Kans. Did you look that up?
Yeah?
Yeah, this is crazy. These are little, impish demons that speak with a lisp and eat worms and frogs and things. They only come out at night. They're afraid of the sun fire holy water, and then the rest of the year they live in the center of the earth and attempt to chop down the tree of life.
Right, but at Christmas time they emerge to wreak havoc above ground.
Right, Yeah, And apparently one of the legends of the Calikansari is that they can only count to two. Did you see that?
Oh no, I didn't actually, but I'll bet I know where you're going with this.
Well, they can only They won't say three because it's a holy number supposedly, so they only count to two. So if you want to guard your home against these little imps, you leave a calendar on your torch step. So they go mad trying to count the holes. They just go one to one, two, over and over until they commit suicide.
That's yeah, that's a pretty standard.
It's very strange, you know.
You know what is strange though, too, is that that's a remedy for protecting yourself against vampires. The original vampires could count, and they would just go nuts trying to count like seeds. I think you're supposed to leave.
Oh that's right, yeah, remember, but they were like.
They originated in Greece too, I think.
Yeah, so it's all all. It was a.
Surefire remedy that just works for everything. One size fits all.
Yeah.
Did you see the one about Danny the South African ghost boy.
Yeah, that was really that. This was just like scary.
So if you're a kid in South Africa around Christmas time, you need to keep an eye out for the ghost of Danny, who was a little boy who whose grandmother made a batch of cookies for Saint Nick and Danny just couldn't help himself. He ate the whole batch of cookies. So grandmother murdered him and now his ghost haunts Christmas in South Africa. It's a weird tradition.
Yeah, it really drives home that we're in an all time high in terms of regard for children in the world. Yeah, you know, yep, we're finally doing it right here in twenty sixteen.
Yep, no children's murdered, children into ghosts on our watch.
You ready for the next segment or you want to.
I'm so psyched about this one. Let's get in this slate.
Yeah, let's ride on over to TV Land.
Yeah, which exists in our imaginations and in Culver City, California.
That's right, of course, we're talking about a Charlie Brown Christmas and just a little bit of its history. It's one of my favorites. After all these years, I still love watching that show.
Yeah, and after all these years, is right. It's been on every year since nineteen sixty five, which actually makes it the second longest running animated cartoon special in history. After it's in second place after Rudolph, which came out the year before and has run every year since as well.
The Rank and Bass Rudolph, Yes.
Which is kind of Charlie Brown, just can't come in first.
But it's a very Charlie Brown thing though.
Yeah, it's kind of reassuring.
Well, that's one of the things I always loved about Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang was the and this article points it out as the melancholy behind it. It was never just some happy go lucky dumb kids thing. There was always just so much melancholy and pathos and those characters. It really look I don't know, it spoke to me as a kid.
Yeah, And so I guess the executives at CBS and the ad agency for Coca Cola were expecting something totally different from everything that Charles Schultz had done up to that point with this Christmas special when they heard it.
Right, Yeah, well, it almost wasn't even ordered. There was a producer named Lee Mendelssohn, who did a little documentary short about Charles Schultz called a boy named Charlie Brown. And for the first time for that little documentary, they just did a little animation because previous it had been a comic strip only, and so they just a little bit of animation.
By a guy named Bill Melendez.
Yeah, exactly. And so they put that famous jazz piano score by Vince Garli, which is amazing, and people saw it and they were like, hey, maybe this would be a Christmas special and they said no, no one wanted it.
Yeah. They somebody though, heard about this documentary, which apparently was just lost to history pretty quickly, and said, have you guys ever thought of just doing just a straight up Christmas special? And apparently Lee Mendelssohn heard the first
rule of Hollywood, which is you answer yes to every question. Yeah, of course, and he said, yes, of course we have and apparently wrung up Charles Schultz the next day, and that next day they had basically all the rough outline points of what would become the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.
Yeah. They're like, we need this music because we love it. We want some ice skating, we want a Christmas pageant, and we want the theme that well, sort of a religious theme, like Charles Schultz apparently insisted on that.
Well he was, yeah, he was pretty religious, and yeah, he definitely insisted on it. And again the executives who were waiting with baited breath for this thing to be delivered to him, were like, this is awful, Like what's going on here? Like this is super religious? It's not. It's not hilarious and joyful. It's like you said, it has path posts, but it's a children's animated Christmas special. Where's the laugh track? They wanted to put a laugh track in.
Yes, and they definitely wanted a Linus reading from the Bible out.
Well, yeah, they definitely did, and Charles Schultz said, nope, it's staying in.
And they also wanted to cast adult voice actors. And it kind of occurred to me that I never knew who did any of those. So just four quick shout outs to some of the characters. Charlie Brown was voiced by Peter Robbins that these great classic iconic voices were just little kids. Linus was Christopher Shay, Sally was Kathy Steinberg, and Lucy was Tracy Stratford and you can go look up with the rest of the cast if you want. But that would be weird if we read out like eighteen people, right.
But the other kids actually, so the ones you named were professionals. The other kids were actually neighborhood kids. And
Bill Mendelssohn, the animator and director's neighborhood. Yeah, so they were like, not just kids, they were legit kids and not fake Hollywood kids, right exactly, who are actually like thirty five or forty Yeah, But the use of kids was unusual for sure, and they hadn't really thought it through from what I saw, because some of these kids were so young that they didn't know how to read yet, Like the kid who played Lionus didn't know how to read, so he had to be told what lions to say, yeah,
because he couldn't read the yeah.
And Snoopy actually was the only one not voiced by a kid. He was voiced by the animator himself. Right, So that's kind of neat. And it was a huge hit despite the uh, the doubtful nature of the of the network, it was a big hit. On Thursday, December ninth, nineteen sixty five, it was seen literally by half of the audience available in the country. Yes, almost half.
Yeah, basically everyone who had their TV set turned on at I think eight o'clock or whatever on that date watched it in the entire country. That's pretty astounding. And it's like you said, it's the exact opposite of what the exacts thought was going to happen. They thought it was gonna air once and then just be gone.
Yep, it won a Peabody, it won a Emmy Award. This really says something about the time it finished second place only to Bonanza, which really says that Americans loved Bonanza.
Man, they really did.
I watched it.
You watch Bonanza? I never did. Sure, Yeah, I never got into it.
Well, I mean you were. It was probably not a little hokey for your your taste. Probably by that point, little you were more sophisticated.
I was a very sophisticated eight year old cravat.
And here are a couple of interesting tidbits about the Charlie Brown Christmas Is. There have been some scenes cut throughout the years, notably sponsorship inserts. Notably Coca Cola even had a full on Coca Cola sign animated into the show that Linus is thrown into and they cut that out aft. I'm not sure how long they said several times is is? I guess just the first few years yea. And they cut that Coca Cola sign out of there.
Yeah, because other advertisers were like, what the heck, we're.
PEPSI, where's my sign?
We're Royal Crown Cola. We don't want to advertise on your Coca Cola?
And what else? So something else that wasn't added until nineteen ninety right.
Well, they had cut out the Peanuts gang throwing snowballs that it can on a fence scene to make room for more ads, and it wasn't restored until nineteen ninety seven.
Man, Yeah, well they did the right thing.
Yeah, that's an important part.
And I'll be watching it this year and every year to come till I got sure.
Charles, Yes, Charles, it would not be our Christmas special if we didn't teach people how to make booze in new and interesting ways.
Yeah. This has become a bit of a tradish around here. Oh yeah, a holiday drink.
Oh yeah, and.
Yeah that one.
I cannot wait to make this one. No, I haven't okay yet.
Yeah, So you always follow through. I don't.
Yeah, although I have to say I've still not had a hot buttered rum.
Yeah. See, my whole problem comes it's an effort thing. Like I get out the bottle of bourbon and the I'm just like, well, I'll just pour this.
I really, I really don't even need a glass. I can cut my hand and like bourbon down it.
Yeah, it's it's I should really put in the effort.
This one does sound like a little bit of effort until you really think about it. It's not that bad. So so down in the Caribbean, it gets so hot that you wonder do they know it's Christmas time at all? Yes? Yes, they do actually, and in in the Caribbean, in Jamaica in particular, there is a drink, a refreshing cold punch called sorrel punch that apparently screams Christmas. It's part and parcel with Christmas down there. But again, since it's hot,
they need something that's cool and refreshing. So we're gonna go with Jamaican sorrel punch this year as the Christmas drink because it sounds pretty great.
All right, Well, should we just start with the ingredients?
Yeah, I mean we should we should say the first ingredient, sorrel can be really confusing up here in the state.
Yeah, what's the deal there?
So soirel is apparently a part or a flower of the hibiscus plant, but it's not what those of us in the United States would think of as the high
biscus flower. It's a different flower. And you can't use hibiscus flowers or you'll die, You'll be haunted by Danny the the You want to use straight up dried sorrel plant flowers, okay, And you can actually find them online for like five six bucks on like Amazon, or if you're if you have an international market, you can probably find them there in that whole like cellophane dried herb section from other parts of the world, they're probably going to be there. But you want to start with those.
All right? A couple ounces? Yep, all right, that sounds good. I can do that.
You want to get some fresh ginger, where do you do that? You should be able to find that anywhere. You want to make two one inch cubes peeled and then finally chop them three cloves. Is a good good next ingredient?
Yeah, I can taste it in my head.
Yeah, it's it's got like coming together Christmas spices. And then this guy didn't use this this in his recipe, but I also saw that you could at this point add orange peels without the pith. You never want to use the pith with an orange peel, and cinnamon sticks. And you take all these things and you put them in a heat proof bowl, and you boil five cups of water in a saucepan and pour it over the sorrel mixture. Okay, so basically what you're doing is making
a sorrel tea. Because you let it steep for at least four hours or overnight.
You're putting together your roue.
I guess I would say tea is closer than rue the mother batch. There you go, you're making the mother bat.
None of these things are applicable.
So you let you let the mother batch tea ru sit overnight and just steep. Right, And then you want to make a simple syrup.
Yeah, I mean I would say if you make your own simple syrup, if you have your own favorite recipe, you can just use that, right sure?
Yeah, special, No, it doesn't have to be special. You just want to make a one to one simple syrup. And since this is the Caribbean, you probably want to just go with demorera that raw brown, not brown sugar, but brownish in color. But de Moorera sugar is probably a good one to use. But you make a simple syrup, not a complicated syrup. No, a simple syrup. You get yourself some good amber rum. Yeah, I would recommend getting the good stuff because this is Christmas, guys.
That one's a year.
And then you add for you, you take the tea that you've let steep for four hours or overnight, and you strain out the ingredients in there, so you just have the tea and then you add to it the simple syrup in the rum, stir it up little darling nice and then and then you add some ice cubes and then garnished with lime and orange slices.
All right, So as far as the amounts, we're talking a couple of ounces of the sorrel flower. We already said that. The how much ginger? Three whole cloves, five and three quarters cups of water, three quarters cups of sugar for your syrup, one and a half cups of amber rum, a little more if you're you know, yeah, to taste and then you know garnish at will Yep, sounds delicious. I might have to make that this year.
I cannot wait, man, I have the sorrel ordered.
Oh you do already? All right, Well I'm making it up, all right. Maybe you can bring it to our our holiday sauna party.
You got it. I'll bring I'll have added rue to it, some flour, flour and butter. It's just floating in clumps and.
The man, that sounds good. Yeah, all right, so let's hop back in the sleigh. It's cooled off a bit because that took longer than I've thought. Yeah, so let's heat this sucker back up and head over to another part of the internet. All right, so we're back. We're out of the sleigh and into the frying pan. Actually that's not true, because that made it sound like we're about to cook something.
You are in a silly mood today, aren't you.
I am. I think I've I think I'm mentally gone on vacation.
You're giddy with delirium.
I am totally.
I like it. Man, you should mentally go on vacation a lot. It's a good fit.
So we're gonna talk a little about missus claws. It sort of occurred to me when we were putting this together. I was like, you know what, you hear about Saint Nick all the time and nowadays you see his wife in the photo some but where did she come from? Who is this woman? And I didn't know, but she has not been around the entire time. Sanna used to be very much the batch.
Yeah, I didn't realize that either. This article puts it as kind of a loaner, which is funny. Yeah, but yeah, he was given a wife finally for the first time in eighteen forty nine. And there's an American author named James Reese. And apparently there's an author named James Reese that's working today. Oh and he's hogged up all of the Google search engine patches. Cannot find any mention of
the other one. But there was apparently an author named James Rees who wrote a short story entitled The Christmas Legend, and it was published in eighteen forty nine.
Yeah, I wonder what gave him the right. Don't get me wrong, I love it, But why did he get to say, like, you know what, I'm going to just write in a missus clause?
I guess literary license yeah.
Yeah, so is it canon? Did this get approval from I guess George Lucas.
I think that just gets worked out over time, you know.
Yeah, I guess so probably huh if enough people buy into it.
Yeah, although it sounds like she was kind of a device that he used because he out of necessity, because in the story, mister and Missus Claws are like delivering presents to a family, right, And it turns out that there is no mister and Missus Claus. It was really a friendly couple that the family was friends with who had dressed up as mister and Missus Claws.
Yeah, the burn bombs, right, So.
The guy turns out to have no imagination whatsoever for a short story writer.
Yes, but she did stick a little bit, and then she really started sticking in later years. She started kind of popping up more and more in magazines and stories, and then she showed up in a big way in a picture book by Catherine Lee Bates, And this is when she really took hold and everyone was like, Hey, I love Sanna having a wife. She's super cool. She's a strong lady that she is the woman behind the man in the backbone of that whole operation. Right, And who can argue with that?
Nobody, I mean, everybody liked the fact that Sanna had finally settled down.
He wasn't just sewing his oats across the world in Chimney's all over the world.
Seriously, baby, I'll give you a riding my sleigh. You know something that struck me that I hadn't really realized, Chuck, missus Claus does not have an official first name.
Well, I looked into that, did you No, did you find one? Apparently with artistic license, you can just name or whatever you.
Want, right, Okay, that's what I found as well.
And they're like, you know, Monica, Erica, Martha.
Yeah, Matha, which apparently is a typo.
Was it?
I don't know.
Maybe I wasn't sure. I didn't know if that was just a variation.
No, I'm sure it was a variation now, but at the time it was probably a type.
It was like a printer didn't have an R.
So they were just right, exactly fine, just forget the R. It's the nineteen twenties.
No one cares Sandra that Sandra Claus. That sort of rings a little bit. Who would you pick? What's your favorite? Probably Rita that's what I was gonna go with. Yeah, or Mary Mary Claus. Yeah, but because I mean also you could.
Say Mary like emy r r y oh sure. The one I do not agree with, I should say. The two I do not agree with are Monica and Jessica. Those are not missus Clau's names.
Monica Claus.
Yeah, it's weird, it's a little odd. Nothing nothing against the name Monica, but just for missus Claus. Come on, even Monica's can agree with that one?
Yeah, I think so.
And then Jessica, that's just too. It's Jessica Rabbit's name that has no business being part of missus Claus.
Agreed, Charles, mm hmm.
You found something else great on the internet that I just found very heartening. It is a it's a way oh.
Ingle dingle jingle. Yes, parents, you may not want your kids to hear this part. It is not dirty and filthy or weird in any way. But depending how you run Christmas in your household, if you know what I'm saying, we just want to give you fair warning. So we'll give you Let's just do a little Christmas music for like five seconds. Oh good, gokay, okay.
All right, hopefully you are not a psychopath, and you got rid of any little kids who still believe.
Yes, and hopefully Jerry inserted the music from the movie Psycho instead of Christmas music.
That would be wonderful, Yeah, because people would be like, what are they?
What happened?
And understand it until we came back.
All right? So I found this This is actually new this year on the social medis. This lady named Charity Hutchinson had a Facebook post that has really taken off. Last I looked earlier that was gez had about thirty thousand likes and has been shared quite a few times. And she had a solution in her family on what the conundrum parents face by lying to their children bald face lying for years about the existence of a real human Santa Claus as a person.
Right, So she, I guess tried this with her oldest her firstborn recently, and they've both in the last couple of years.
Yeah.
Yeah, they fell for her client's sinker. And in a way, it's a really great thing to do. But at the same time, you're basically you're getting out of one lie by creating another different lie.
Right, Oh not really?
Okay, All right, well, let's let everybody judge for themselves. Let's describe this, okay, So Charity says that you start off by taking your kid out for coffee. I didn't realize that was the thing that you do with kids these days, but apparently it is. So you take your kid out for coffee or whatever, maybe a milk. Sure, yeah,
we'll let's go with one of those too. But you take your kid out and you just basically say, hey, you know what, I've noticed you doing a lot of really great, kind, compassionate things this year, for example, this and that, and the time you beat up that bully who pushed down that smaller kid, that kind of thing, the time you laid on that bird who had no
chance of surviving without his mother. Just some nice stuff, right, And you say, you know, son or daughter, I think you have become compassionate enough and old enough to become a Santa Claus.
And you drop your mic right, and you leave your kid in Starbucks and you just walk down the street feeling good about yourself.
You get your car, you drive off to California to start a new life with a new name.
So no, you say, I want you, you're old not to become Santa Claus. And then your kid is like what yeah, and you say, get ready for your mind to be blown, kid, because guess what. Here's the deal with Sanna. Sanna is a construct sort of basically is what you're trying to do is say you can become Santa because Sanna is someone who just very kindly and unselfishly gives something to others anonymously.
Yeah, it's a it's being Santa is anybody could be Santa. As long as you want to give to people just for the sheer joy of making other people happy exactly is Santa. And anybody who does that can be Santa. And so hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you try starting starting it out this year, Like, just pick somebody that you know and like and say, find out without them knowing what's going on, something that they really want, and then go get it for him and wrap it
up and leave it for him. But here's the key. You have to say that it's from Santa on the little card or tag and you can never tell them.
That it was you.
That's pretty great, Yeah, And she backs it up by making the point that being sand is not about getting credit, it's about just giving for the joy of giving and making other people happy. So yeah, just never tell so that in that way you become Santa.
Yeah, and it gives the kid all these lessons, you know, understanding about what's going on around the world in their own neighborhood. Maybe this article says it gives some providence over their own innocence. It's a great point. I think she said that it works so great with her older kid. Now that kid is in on it, yep, trying to help the the new batch about to lose their innocence. Yeah.
Yeah, the thing is chuck and and I don't maybe you know and I don't, But is there some standard way that besides this that people recommend breaking the news to kids.
Or well, I don't know about a standard, but there's lots of different opinions on that. I put up a Facebook post tangentially tangentially related to this, and people were just kind of throwing out their ideas, and one of them I think they got the most likes was this guy that was like he does has never described Santa as a person, he said, he has always from the beginning described Santa as a like I said, as a construct.
Is that you don't say construct. You're three year old, but you as just a part of the Christmas spirit. It's a thing and not a person. Yeah, who literally comes to your house. And he was like, I can't tell any difference, Like they'd love that just as much as I did, thinking it was a real guy. And he said, you know, they see the Christmas specials and they get that it's a made up thing, but it's just a part of the whole idea of Christmas. Right, So he was just kind of kind of truthful about
the whole thing. Yeah, and they're still delighted with Sanna and when they see Santa and the mall, they aren't like, you're a construct, although that would be great.
It would be you did some part of you would be pretty proud of your kid for that.
Yeah. I think is interesting though. I mean I don't know what I'm gonna do yet, so I got to think this over.
Yeah, because I mean there's probably parents listening right now they're like, oh man, yeah, I don't want to do this, but this is a pretty good out. So everybody give Charity Hutchinson a pat on the back. Oh all right, Chuck, it's almost time for soul punch.
That's right, we're gonna wrap it up here. We crowdsource some Facebook traditions from our listeners, and I asked for specifically unusual traditions, and I wedded through, waded through the ninety percent that were not unusual in any way, and managed to find some pretty interesting things. Yeah.
Oh yeah, so I was I don't know what percentage I didn't see what percentage of the actual ideas submitted this is, but some people have some pretty cool little traditions that I just love. Agreed, So you want to start?
Yeah, So Victoria krum she says that on her father's side of the family, he was I think he was Polish, his Polish roots, and so in order to honor their Polish roots, every year, their father makes a paupers meal for Christmas Eve. Instead of you know, some big lavish, extravagant thing. They made sour out soup and Parochi's and the most reasonable priced cold water fish available.
Yeah, because it kind of honors like the humble roots that their family has.
Yeah, that's great. So Victoria Kroum, good on you for that one.
Nice. So how about Emily Ruth Vander.
Arks, Yes, this is actually a lot of people had this, So this is a thing.
So her mom hides a pickle ornament on the Christmas tree somewhere right, and on Christmas Morning, everybody tries to find it. Whoever finds it first gets a gift. And Emily said that it started out just being like, oh, hey, here's a piece of chocolate. Yeah, and the person would just be like, just throw it to the ground. But she said that it's gotten better over the years, so now it's like up to like a Starbucks gift card.
Whoa yeah, yeah, I saw a lot of people with this pickle thing though, so obviously it's a thing, and she said it's regionalized.
She said that her husband is a master ace at finding the pickle. Yeah, and he wins it every year. So Champ pickle Finder, Emily's husband, Emily's husband, So thanks, Emily. Ruth vander Ark. That's a great name.
Yep. Jessica Evans Totin Tautan, this is pretty good. I love weird dads. After my parents got divorced, my dad was in charge of getting and wrapping his own Christmas presents for me and my three older sisters, and he had a hard time knowing what to get us, so he made a tradition of buying us a Barbie doll every year along with a gift receipt, and he called it a creative gift card. I just love that, basically, like, I know you're going to take this back, but here, here's something at least.
And he also has a really fun time rejecting traditional Christmas wrapping, right, So yeah, he would just put it in a garbage bag for him this and then apparently in his older years he's like, I can do better than this, So now he goes to like thrift stores in ventedge shops and finds old carpet or old briefcases. That's awesome, and puts them in there. Yeah, which is super eighties, like delivering a Barbie doll in a briefcase.
Yeah, and he's still doing it. They still get the barbie. They're well into adulthood now, she points out, and he still gets them the barbie every year. So I think that's a really cool thing. And mister Evans, if that is your name, sir, I salute you. Yep.
So Catherine Joy Figley, Yeah, this is a good one. She said that her husband's family wraps presence. They also reject traditional Christmas paper wrapping paper, so they they kind of have like a friendly competition or theme going where they find the weirdest thing they can wrap it in.
Yeah, my favorite is the unused diaper. Yeah that's good.
My favorite birthday wrapping paper?
Oh yeah, I like it. Subversive.
It is extremely saying like, yeah, I'm gonna use wrapping paper. I'm just not gonna it for this particular holiday.
Yeah, I like it. So that's from Catherine Joy Figley. Keep that going, all right. Check.
There's this cat named Nick Meller who has a great Christmas Morning tradition with his mom, who he calls his mom. So he probably spells color with a you.
I think it's a lady too, Nick.
Oh, it could be Nicole, I guess yeah.
I think she's from Australia.
Yeah, okay, well every Christmas morning, this would actually make a lot of sense that she would be from Australia. Every Christmas morning, her mom and she get up very early and they go to the beach and this is where the Australian clue it kicks in before the hordes of people get there. The says are not very popular in the Northern Hemisphere in Christmas time. But she says that they grab a bottle of champagne and a huge bucket of cherries and that's what they have for breakfast.
Yeah, that's so neat.
Great Christmas tradition.
Let me see this one. I love, Tanya floyd Ellis. Growing up, my mom and father in law, my grandpa, would pass to each other a ba humbug can. They both relish, disgusting and just sorry and disguising the can. Don't worry, it gets disgusting to make it unrecognizable as a rat present. And some of the more memorable additions to the can, like you put junk in It was a year's worth of Grandpa's tonios in there. That was very nice. Pile of dog poop gathered in January and
left to cure until the next December. A clump of ketchup packets held together by one broken packet now acting as glue. I love that, Thank you, Tania floyd Ellis.
That's a good one, all right. So how about Sarah Flora Monte's Christmas tradition. Yes, so every year on Christmas Eve, her whole family has an ice cream eating contest with all of her cousins. Yeah, so whoever can finish a half a gallon of ice cream within an hour. And here's the key without throwing it up. When's a substantial amount of cash? She says, She doesn't say how much,
she does use the word substantial. So she says that it's nearly impossible to do this, and it's only been done three times before out of probably one hundred attempts. I'm thinking that they haven't been doing this for a century. But just if you take the number of people who've tried it over the years, yeah, you come up with a hundred.
She means, yeah, I think so.
She says that a lot of people can finish but not hold it down, and that's where that key comes in. So there's a lot of vomiting going on at Sarah Flora Monte's house on Christmas Eve.
Yeah, and she posted pictures too. She posted a couple one of the entire family sitting around with each with a gallon half gallon of ice cream in front of them, and then one of a couple of people doing that with her her grandmother just like bitter and staring at them.
She said, her grandmother hates it, so they're going to do it as long as she's around.
It's very nice. Here's one from Norma Mullen that's really really neat. This is not gross or anything. Our family has a tablecloth that goes on the Christmas dinner table every year and everyone signs it with a fabric pen. And they've been doing this since nineteen ninety four, so they use the same tablecloth and they're able to look back every year and look at all these memories and along with obviously people they've lost over the years and people that they've gained over the years. So that is
just super cool. It's older than most of her cousins, and she can see how much their family has grown year by year.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
That's really nice.
And then how about Ryan Bradfields.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Ryan Bradfield's mom's family, who says it's a large Sicilian bunch. They have a wind up et toy that they got in the eighties and somehow it just became family tradition for them to dress up the et doll as different character and then they use it as a Christmas tree topper for their grandparents tree.
Yeah that's pretty great.
So ET's been like Elvis, NBA player, Dolly parton your favorite Yeah a show girl, And it turns out obviously weirdly, but one of Bradfield's cousins married a member of the or a friend I guess of this Spielberg family. So they're trying to get them pictures of the et dressed up. Over the years.
I'm sure no one's ever tried to get Steven Spielberg a funny et picture, right. This one is very sweet. This is from Holly Henderson of Portland. She and her husband bought their first house four years ago just outside of Portland, and the very first night there, on Christmas Eve, they spent the night in a mattress on the floor next to the Christmas tree. And she says, now we
do that every year. We bring that mattress back in the living room on Christmas Eve and sleep on the mattress by the tree.
It's very sweet, lovely. And then the last one, Chuck, how about Chelsea Alan Lindsay's.
Oh yeah, the Christmas route Bega, Yeah, I love weird families.
So her family puts a Christmas Rutebiga out in the living room along with the tree every year. And the whole thing started from a car trip when they were living in the UK, and she says that her grandma, parents and her aunt had come to visit one Christmas time. They were all in the car and everything was just going nuts and crazy, and apparently Chelsea's mom started calling the whole thing rude. Bega's on parade. Yeah, and I
love her mom. She bought a rudabaga and put it on the dashboard of the car for the rest of the trip, and then when she got home she made a face for it out of clothes, put clothes, put a wreath on it, and then it became a Christmas root to Bega, Yeah, this is not just weird dad's weird. Moms are great too.
Sure you know. I got one more, Okay, because I forgot Michelle Greenwald. I want to be in her family because they have a holiday they invented called Pajamaica's. Oh yeah, and I think I see you. I'll see where this is going. It's the day before Christmas Eve even and she said it was necessary since we were traveling for Christmas Day and didn't have a day that was dedicated just to the four of us in our family. So
Pajamaicus goes down like this. It's immediate family. They get each other pajamas and change into the pajamas all together. Well they're all wearing the pajamas in other words. And then they watch Christmas movies and eat breakfast for dinner, which is one of my favorite things.
And it's like a no holds barred breakfast for dinner.
Yes, yeah, she says. They cook all day and have a huge breakfast spread like Latcus waffles, poached eggs, briosh, you name it.
Yeah, whatever you want you get to have. Yeah for dinner.
I don't know where the green walls are, but I want to come over for pajamakas. Yeah, it sounds pretty great to just invite me and I'll be there. Get me pajamas with feet good. I got nothing else?
So oh okay, well I guess this is the outro then huh yeah, wow, this is great, Chuck. I mean, it's it's officially now Christmas time.
For us, that's right, and other wonderful year of stuff you should know. Twenty sixteen. We're going to close the books on this one and thank everyone, as we do every year, for your support, because without you, there would be no us. We really really don't take that for granted, and actually a very special birthday shout out. I know people that are born around Christmas always get jipped off in the birthday department, but one of our most delightful
and oldest, most supportive fans, Miss Gail Coots. It's her birthday on Christmas Eve, and her husband Mark was kind enough to email me because he knows what a big fan she is and Gail is wonderful. So happy birthday, Gail from Ohio. You're the best. I hope we can all meet up someday and sounds.
Good right yep. So happy holidays to everybody. Merry Christmas, Happy Honikah, Happy Kwanza, tip top tet all that jazz. You guys have yourselves a wonderful holiday season from all of us here at Stuff you Should Know.
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