The SYSK Holiday Spectacular

that's Halloween all right? All right, yeah, I don't know how many of this is, but we've been podcasting for almost twelve years now. It'll be twelve this next year, right, yes, like summer Rich, did we release a Christmas this episode the first year? I don't know. I'll have to go back and do our homework ourselves. I'm sure someone knows this stuff, but as usual, not that we're tooting our own horn, but we just want to remind everyone that we release this ad free every year. So our Christmas

episode is without taint. That's pretty great. Uh, it's untainted too, well, you know, it always just felt weird to slap an at in the middle of the Christmas themed show. Who advertises around Christmas. Yeah, exactly, so anyway, this is uh, we're all pleased with that. We are pra Please just punch Jerry's especially please look at her. So, Jerry, do

you know it's Christmas? Yeah? Jerry so grumpy, So Chuck, Yes, I feel like we should start this one off in our usual tradition, um by a little bit of music to play us into the next The first segment fantastic. That's nice, it really is. Jerry is good at this sets the mood. Um. I think that was true Siberian Orchestra. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't We'll find out before we

get started with this episode, Chuck. We should we have in the future concluded that here in the past we should issue a c o A. I know who would have thought our Christmas episode might not be appropriate for kids, but we're us. So this first story has to deal with magic mushrooms in Santa Claus and it's all legit. But if you don't want your kids listen to that, then don't listen to it. Okay, well, let's get on with it. Let's do so. Um. I dug something up

years back, and we've talked about it before. At least in passing. But the more I jumped into it, the more I was like, this is nuts. I don't even know which order we're going in. You see, I have my papers all over, So I'm excited. I'm gonna I'm along for the ride, just like the listener. I'm gonna direct to hear the first Yeah you're directing, Okay, I'm I'm this is This is really a lot of pressure all of a sudden places everyone that's what you gotta

doesn't expect this. Let me put my shoulder or back the one. Let me put my sweater over my shoulders and get out your old school megaphone. Uh okay, Chuck, please stand right there. Ry keep doing what you're doing, Chuck. We're gonna talk about Santa Claus as a possible psychedelic mushroom. Alright. I was hoping we'd start with that one. Okay. So, like I said, we've talked about this before. I don't remember what episode. I know we have, Yeah, we have,

but never this in depth. No, And I also want to point out that the uh i'm annita Muscaria is that the full name this mushroom? The very famous red and White Christmas see looking mushroom, the one that anytime you think of a gnome that's like the toadstool they live around. That's right. I saw some of these just a few weeks ago in the woods. Wow. Yeah, and you come down yet. Well, the person I was with said, I think those are magic mushrooms. I said, no, those

only grow and cow poop. And they were nick, No, I think those are two. There's different kinds. Yeah, and uh we went back to little research and it turns out they are. We did not touch them or pick them. We left them to grow. Well. Yeah, they apparently they're also very toxic. Sure, I imagine, um, but there's ways, there's things you can do to them to remove the toxicity,

especially if you live around rain deer. That's right. But that plays a part in this story because this great article you sent Santa Claus and the Santa Claus, the Magic Mushroom and the Psychedelic Origins of Christmas by Melanie Zulu. That's what I'm going with. X x U l U. That's a great name. Uh. And what publication was this move? What a great rag. Yeah, So Melanie Zulu basically UM did some research on this idea. UM that Santa Claus

was inspired by those psychedelic mushrooms, the fly a Garrick mushroom. Yeah, And I gotta say, when all of this stuff is read together, there's a lot of pretty heavy coincidence. It really is. You know else, whenever you whenever you read about something like this where something might have been based on their speculation or whatever, you're like, that's a couple of those are kind of convincing from start to finish. This is so absolutely convincing them, Like this is this

is the answer everybody. That's right. Magic mushrooms maybe so. Um. On the very far end of the spectrum of the speculation that Santa Claus is based on a psychedelic mushroom, you'll find Jack Harror, who's a very famous pot activists, um so so famous in fact, I believe he has his own strain of pot, if not like brand like Willie We'd basically or whatever Snoop Doggs brands are right. Um, And Jack Harris said, not only was Santa Claus based

on a mushroom, Santa Claus was the mushroom. That's where they got it from. It was like this is they used to basically eat these mushrooms and call them Santa Claus. Okay, most people, most people don't don't agree with that. Instead they say, no, we think that there is something to the idea that Santa Claus was inspired by the rituals around this, this mushroom in particular, though. That's right. Uh. Notably, there's a professor, professor named John Rush at Sierra College

in California, and it's pretty neat. There are like legit Christmas scholars out there that you can get expert, you know, takes on and he's one of those guys. And he said, his quota is up until a few hundred years ago. Uh, these practicing shaman and we're talking about shaman in uh the lapland, yeah, in northern Finland, Northern Finland. He said,

are these priests they connected to older traditions. They would collect these mushrooms, dry them up and give them as as gifts and the winter solstice, so the stage is set. We know this for sure. They would collect these mushrooms and they would give them out for people to eat and get high. Right, But exactly what they were doing when they did that really kind of drives the Santa idea home a lot. Yeah, notably what they wore. Okay, well, let's first start with that fly, a garrick mushroom. When

you saw it, you were out in the woods. I'll bet you they were growing at the foot of a fir tree. They were a pine tree, some sort of evergreen right, correct. Okay, that's almost exclusively where they grow. I feel like I'm on the witness stand, right, would you recall um? And then the other thing about it is, um, they grow at least up in the northern climbs around

the winter solstice. So you've got the winter solstice, which happens to inside pretty nicely with Christmas, and you have the emergence of these mushrooms around fur trees, evergreen trees around that time. Right. Then you have the Siberian shaman or shaman's seems like it should be shaman plural even, but it's not. Uh. They would dress up to look like those mushrooms. So you think, all right, those red

and white mushrooms. Interesting. Um, So all of a sudden, you've got a shaman with black boots, a red felt hat, white fur red coat. Does that sound like anyone? Yeah, it's pretty surprising. And if that were the long and short of it, I'd be like, that's a bit of a stretch, but let's continue, shall we. Yes, Okay, those same shaman they would give these flying garrick toadstools out as gifts around Christmas. But they would because by the

time we winter Solstice rolled around, there would be snow everywhere. Um, they couldn't get through the door of their friends and loved ones, you're so they would enter through the smoke hole, the chimney you might call it, to deliver these gifts, like smoke hole better. Yeah, I'm gonna start calling my chimney. Actually, I don't have a chimney anymore. No, you could, though, if you wanted to have a chimney. Now we got rid of our Chimney's punch a hole in the roof,

a smoke hole. Yeah. So they would climb down wearing the red coat, the white fur, the black boots, climb down a chimney and deliver uh, these magic mushrooms as gifts, as gifts, and then they would hang them in front of the fire the people who received the gifts. Yes, they would hang them to dry in front of a fire, sometimes in hanging them in a stocking, perhaps in front

of a fire. This is all true stuff. Yeah, this is this really went on and it just up until a couple of hundred years ago in Siberia among the Sami people in northern Finland, and just as an aside northern Finland, the Lapland happens to be where the geographical location where Santa lives is. Yes, and we should add one final little note to this. They would when they're picking these mushrooms, they want to dry them out, so they would put them on the tree boughs, these fur trees,

hang them to dry in the sun. So now they're hanging I don't know, ornaments, yeah maybe yeah, on trees that's right, under which presents tend to grow. These presents that are these mushrooms that are given as presents. So if you step back and take all this stuff and put it together, you have based on this, these rituals among the shaman of the Sami and in Siberia um the idea of harvesting mushrooms that grow under fir trees.

Fur trees that people bring into their homes and put gifts under and hang ornaments on in order to celebrate Santa Claus coming down the chimney wearing Santa suit with a bag of gifts, sometimes filling up stockings with those gifts. That's right. When you add all this stuff up, it's really really convincing. Yeah, and then there's a little cherry on top, which is apparently reindeer really love to eat these mushrooms. Yeah. Remember how I said that they're toxic,

but there's things you can do to detoxify them. Well, yeah, you can drink the urine of a reindeer who has eaten this, and that is a way to detoxify it. It is the reindeer metabolized the the toxic parts, but they they don't metabolize all of the hallucinogenic parts, so you can boil their urine and drink the urine and not be um uh sick. Yes, but still, twig, Should we have had a c o A at the top of this Maybe, probably, so we'll have to go back

and record it one. Okay, Well that's it for that one. Huh. Yeah. So should we throw our bag of magic mushrooms in the sleigh? Yeah, and take off for the next house. Quite a gift, okay, Chuck. So uh, behind the scenes, I've done a little directing. That's right, and we have determined I should say I've determined that we're going to do uh this one about It's a Wonderful Life a movie I still have not seen? What for real? Yeah, there's a lot of the old Christmas classics I haven't seen.

I haven't seen Santa Claus is coming to Town, Miracle into Street. I haven't seen this. Wow, you haven't seen the the stop motion Santa Claus Is coming to town. No, I've seen that. What are you talking about? Man? And I think I just made up a movie that doesn't exist. That's a song and it's a stop motion movie. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard and seen both those things. You could have just stopped with, um, it's a wonderful life. Yeah, you should see a Miracle on thirty four three. That's just wonderful.

I don't know. To me, there are three Christmas movies and that's all I see. Oh, there's a lot more than that. There's Elf, there's wait a minute, there's Christmas Vacation and there's a Christmas story. Okay, you're putting Elf above Miracle on thirty four Street. Your brain is broke. I am putting it light years ahead of it. And I haven't even seen it. Everyone I know to see it says It's a Wonderful Life is boring. No, no, I haven't seen that, but it sounds boring. It's great.

It's a wonderful movie, and it beats elf just terribly. I will watch that just so I can come back and argue, please do I'll wait. I would argue that they're so different, like why compare them? Well, you can compare them because Miracle on thirty four Stree is so better? Do you laugh? Four times? Probably four and fifty? Oh I didn't know it was a comedy. Well I'm just

lying right now. But you don't know that. Let's talk about this Mental Floss writer J. Saraphine, great name who put out and we still love Mental Flaws as much as we always did. Yeah, it's one of our favorite favorite publications. We even know the guys who founded it. I know their colleagues, so we can do this right. But you don't know if he wrote a great article called how It's a Wonderful Life went from box office to accidental Christmas tradition. Yeah, I should say this kicks

off what really? This is the Intellectual Property Um Law edition of our Christmas episodes. Yeah, good point. It's a weird thread. It just keeps popping up. So this movie from directed by Frank Capra, tells the story of George Bailey. I can't believe you haven't seen this movie. And it's I've just heard it so boring. It's not no desire, it's not It's a classic wonderful movie. Like it's not one of those things where it's like, oh, you have

to see it's just like life changing movie. It's just it's a good, sweet movie with great themes, well acted, well directed. Everything about it is It's just a good movie. You should really see it. You have to see it. I demand that you see it. I'll watch Elf again. Do you not like Elf? Or is fine? It's a good movie. I'll watch it just a couple of times over the Christmas season. I got problems with Elf. But don't not see It's a Wonderful Life because you like Elf? Okay, okay, okay,

So I'm not going to see it despite you. So in when it was released, the critics and the audiences didn't like it. Imagine that, uh, And it was a big box office flop for Frank Capra's brand new production

company Liberty Films. Yeah, it was so. Um Capra was a pretty famous director in the thirties and he went off to um head up the propaganda film division for the US government during World War Two, and then after that he and some other director friends of his got together and said, let's start our own production company, and they did. They started Liberty Films, and the first project from Liberty Films was It's a Wonderful Life, and it

was a mess. It was a mess. It actually as much as It's a just a holiday classic for every single person on earth except for you. Um. It was a huge dud, like you were saying, uh, early on in its life, so much so that it actually it wiped their company out because it turned out to be

a really big bet. It had a two million dollar budget initially, which is something like twenty six million dollars today, still pretty modest, but back then, if you were a new fledgling production company, that was a big first feature, and it actually ended up being like a three point seven million dollar film. It went that far over. Yeah, it almost doubled its budget because it had a what

the they referred to as a bloated shooting schedule. Uh. They were rewriting the script over and over and over. It was it sounded like just a nightmare production, which is pretty funny when you think about it. Yeah, and they kept rewriting the script despite the fact that it was based on a short story. It wasn't just an original story. That might have been the problem. But maybe sometimes a short story is difficult. Yeah, I can see that.

So regardless, this over budgeted. Uh, I think they turned it in late. Even um movie was released, the public didn't like it, the critics didn't like it. Uh, and it was basically headed for the dustbin of history if not for the fact that in ninety four the movie entered the public domain because the copyright holder forgot to file for renewal. I saw forgot to. I also saw that they just didn't bother. Okay, they imagine that that, like they knew the copyright was it was coming up,

and they just said, forget it. It's this literally isn't worth our time and effort. But yes, either way, In nine entered the public domain, and it went from this schlocky flop because that was one of the other things too, this is an audience. In ninth, they thought that this was just too corny um, and they rejected it the wholesale. But by the time the seventies came around, people were a lot more jaded um, and they kind of wanted that that corny home spun kind of nostalgia from the forties.

That wasn't George Bailey, you haven't even seen the movie, and that was you know who Jimmy Stewart is. So um. They they like every TV station that wanted it, got its hands on its free for the free. They could show this movie over and over and over again, and they did the idea of running a Christmas movie marathon the same movie, like they do with a Christmas Story today.

That was apparently founded in the mid seventies by It's a Wonderful Life entering the public domain, and that was a tradition up until when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled and Stuart v. Abend And that's Jimmy Stewart, by the way. But it's another movie, Rear Window, right, which is a certified great movie and a classic, and critics love that one and so did the public. That was a movie, uh that established a precedent that allowed

republic pictures. Republic pictures who originally owned the film's copyright, to regain ownership because they own the copyright on that short story that you mentioned and the score of the movie. So there, like you on the score, you on that short story, you basically on the movie. Yeah. Their argument was you cannot show this movie without the story or without the score, so like, that's this is our movie. And and the Supreme Court or the the whatever court

ruled on it said, yeah, you're right, that's right. So NBC stepped in and said, well, we've got a bunch of cash here, we're flushed from friends making us a trillion dollars. We're going to spend some of this on the rights to U A Wonderful Life. And they locked it down. And that's why you don't see twenty four hour marathon. So it's a wonderful life anymore. And that's

why you don't see it on f x X anymore. Right, But if you happen to be listening to this in the United States on Christmas Eve, the day that this comes out, it's on tonight on NBC, I will not be watching Do Do Do Okay, Chuck. So we're going to spend the rest of the episode with me convincing you to watch It's a wonderful life. I can't. I'm so agitated right now, I can barely sit. It's my

gift to you. Um, where do you want to go next? Mr? Director? Well, let's keep the intellectual property law thread going, okay, And we're gonna talk about a song, a little ditty and it is called Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. That's it's a fake movie that you made up that you've never seen, that no one's ever seen. But it's also that classic animated film Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. I think it's ranking bass, isn't it. Yeah, And it's also a song that goes a little something like this

one handed to song redacted. That was good, Chuck, You like that? Oh? That was better than Bruce Springsteen and the Jackson Five put together. Because we can't afford to pay for that. No, they say that it's one of the richest songs ever written because seven number seven, richest song of all time written by a man. And I got this original article in k y Man wrote Santa Claus Is Coming to Town by Jeff Seuss. I think they mean northern Kentucky. Yeah, sure, for those of you

who live outside the n K Y region. Well, it's interesting when you see it. Do you think, is that say New York City. Nope, that does not Northern Kentucky. That's what they wanted to think. A couple of years ago from Cincinnata dot Com and Jeff Suice, and they were championing one of their own lyricist. Haven Gillespie is a Kentuckian and he actually worked for one day at the Cincinnati Enchoirer, which is the paper that owns Cincinnati dot Com. That's right, so he was really one of

their own. He was born in born in February. Uh, worked as a type setter in Cincinnata and Chicago and became a really famous lyricist. But this is kind of a neat little side note. Even though he got very famous as a songwriter, whenever he was in Cincinnati, apparently he would do some shifts at a newspaper print shop just to keep up his union status. Healthcare pretty interesting. Yeah, so, um, he wrote a few songs. Actually, he wrote one of what I think is one of the best songs ever written.

You go to My Head. Do you know that song? Uh? I don't know. You'll have to listen to because like this song redacted, but there's a Marlene Dietrich version of it. It's amazing. It's a great song as it is, but Marlene Dietrich singing it just does something to it that's really something. I think it's Marlena, right or is this her sister Marlene? Is it Marlena? I think so, didn't it? I don't care anyway? Um Ms Dietrich does a really great rendition of it. Did I say her last name correctly?

I think it's Frau Dietrich yet so um. Haven Gillespie wrote this song, and he had a couple of like songs, and then he finally wrote a hit, and this is in the Tim pan Alley era, right, Um. He finally wrote a hit called Breezing along with the Breeze, which is the dumbest name anyone's ever given to a song. But people liked it, and he moved to New York and he really started writing for Tim pan Alley and Earnest. But it wasn't until Santa claus Is coming to town

that he was on a easy street. That's right. A publisher at Leo Piss named Edgar Bittner came forward and said, here's a composer, Mr J. Fred Coots, don't you get together and right a children's Christmas song? Coots and Gillespie. That's right and heat. This was I don't know whether he took this as an insult or not, but he said he wrote it as a favor for a friendly publisher who said, I had a vocabulary children could understand.

Maybe that's a sweet sentiment, who knows. But he basically said, hey, dumb dumb write a dumb dumb Christmas song. Do it? And he did it very quickly, something like fifteen minutes. He said, on the back of an envelope. Isn't it like of all classic songs, minutes on the back of an envelope? Yeah, that's fishy. Including the police is do do do no Die Die die. Uh. Publishers thought the song was corny. Um. The very first person to sing it, Uh,

Eddie Cantor originally rejected it. But his wife was like, come on, honey, is there any day that a wife hasn't saved like she saved this song from obscurity because any Cannery. He was huge at the time. Yeah, he had a radio show and on Thanksgiving Day she said, sing it for the love of God, and he did and it blew up. And if you listen to Tin pan Alley, you know that what happens when a song blows up means sheet music is selling because it's not

recorded music yet. And I don't normally go use Wikipedia for work. I'll use it in my personal life. But I couldn't help but come across an article on this They said that it's sold half a million UM sheet music. Yes, in a day. Wow, that's how big it blew up. Man, that's incredible. It really is incredible. And by the way, Wikipedia is hitting everybody up right now, and I contributed twenty dollars. I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, because I think it's good that it exists in the world and I

think we need it. So no, I love it. Read Wikipedia, give him a few bucks. Yeah, we've never used it as source material. Um. Half of our Internet review think we do, right, But that's why we don't do. It's because we want to prove them wrong every day of the week. That's right. But uh, this song skyrocketed. I guess would you say a half million? Yeah, that's what Wikipedia said. That's pretty amazing. I can't believe I just said that, Um the first time it was recorded, and

I said they didn't have recorded music. Of course they did. October twenty four four was when Harry Reusser's orchestra recorded it. Um. Gillespie died in nineteen seventy five, having written more than a thousand songs and as a Songwriting Hall of Fame member. Uh. And like you said, it's one of the seven richest

songs ever, it really is. So Um. There's some really interesting stuff about that that pertains to copyright law, because if it's one of the richest songs ever, if you own the rights to that song, you want to hang on to those rights big time. You know, you want that birthday, happy birthday to you money? Right, So um,

which doesn't exist any longer, right, Um. But the the airs of Coots, the guy who wrote the music, UM, they entered into a contract with E. M. I, which is the huge giant music publisher UM back in nineteen fifty one, and then again in nineteen eighty one and in nineteen seventy six. Get this, I didn't know this these I think this is the Supreme Court ruled that if you had a publishing agreement with somebody after thirty five years, you could say it's enough, it's done. I

want the rights back no matter what. As long as this this agreement was entered into after nineteen seventy eight, So the Coots family again had in nineteen fifty one agreement and in nineteen eighty one agreement. Well e m I said, no Coots tried to file a termination order on this um and for this nine one agreement. And even though this is the contract we have with them, is the agreement we're really going to say it's the nineteen agreement, So the family can't issue this termination. A

circuit court judge said, am I, you're wrong. Your agreement with the Coots family, UH is based on this agreement which came after which means it wasn't grandfather, which means that thirty five years after one, the rights to Santa Claus Is coming to town reverted to the Coots family for an extended UH copyright protection period going to that's right.

Isn't that fascinating? That is? And UH, if you wondered why I wasn't talking much during that segment everyone, because on the way in the room, I said, you know, all that stuff I sent about dense copyright law. Who's just so boring, let's not do it. But Josh is directing this episode, so you got it in there? Yeah? I love it. It was. I think it's really interesting, especially considering this is like the family this guy's errors

got it back in two thousand and sixteen. They got the rights back to one of the richest songs ever. That's right, and they're rolling in it now. Yeah. Do you know what they're called as a unit, the Little It's that's that's the court ruled in favor of the Little Coots. Isn't that the name of the Chucky Cheese animatronic band? I think so, Chuck E Cheese and the Little Coots. What was Showbiz Pizza's band name? M man,

did you ever see that documentary? No? Oh, dude, there's a documentary on show biz about the animatronic band from show Biziness, the guy who invented it, the people who collect them and keep them in their house. I'd like to see that. It's one of the better ones ever. I didn't go to show Biz a lot because there was two near us. There was a Chuck E Cheese and there was a local I don't know if it was a chain called Sergeant Singers Pizza Circus. Did Sergeant

Singer work there? Because if so, that was local? Uh? Yeah, he asked me to call him Serge and then he later appeared on six ft under Sergey. Nice nice ref But I want to see that documentary. All right? So shall we load up the sleigh though? Are we done talking about Santa claus is coming to town? I think so unless you have some more copy right long you want to go first, Let's leave the courtroom behind for the rest of the episode. All right, we've got what

do we got? Two more segments here? We do? Well, let's have a little music plays into the next mention? All right, all right, chuck? And then there were two giddy with anticipation. Are you about which one we're gonna do? Ohh, I haven't told you yet. Well, we're gonna go back to our friends Mental Floss again. We're gonna go in particular to uh an article for Mental Floss by a

guy named Tate Williams, and it's about Christmas tree flocking. Yes, And my only criticism here, Mr Tate Williams, because he did not title this what the flock is flocking? Yeah, you really missed an opportunity there, well, so staring you in the face. With most pub occasions, usually it's the editor that comes up with headlines. So Tape probably suggested that the editor was like, no, I'm in a bad

mood today and and shot that down. So now it's titled what exactly as Christmas Tree flocking, very straight ahead, right, that's right. But what is flocking? Well, flock well, flocking In particular, Chuck is adding texture, fiber texture, Well, what's flocking something In this particular instance, flock is fake snow, right,

And there's a whole like there's a whole movement. Maybe I don't know if that's the right word, but there's a subculture of people who like to make it look like it's snowed in very particular parts of their house, inside their house. Yeah. And the only I've never been into this stuff because it just looks like a nightmare to clean, and especially with animals, like my tree is already being destroyed on day one by my my terrible cats.

But uh, I worked in the movie industry, as you know, and I worked in TV commercials as you know, and so I know both of this. Every like September or October, I would work on these you know those car commercials where it's a very happy couple and there's a big bow on a car. They're wearing sweaters. They're wearing sweaters and they're throwing snow. That's all on the back lot in l A. And it's a ton of fake snow

and it's awful to work with that. Flocking is terrible. Okay, So if you're working with it under those circumstances, yes, I could see it being terrible. But there are people out there that are like, no, we don't get snow here. And I like the idea of it looking like there's snow on my tree, but it's hot outside. I live in Arizona or New Mexico or um Nevada or um you know the southern part or Texas where some parts of it are very hot, although it snows in Texas

as well. Have you ever been where at Christmas time somewhere where it's really hot, It's not it's weird. I used to think it was weird. Now I've gotten used to it. I like it, really, Yeah, l A was, I mean part of what happens. And I don't know if this is true for wherever you were but um, in l A, people would really go over the top, I think to combat the fact that it's just l A. So you would get some really nice decorations and people

really went the extra mile. But uh, I just always had a hard time getting in the Christmas spirit there. I know what you mean, and that's what I thought too. But I've I've been in Florida for a couple of Christmas is and yeah, it's actually kind of pleasant. Yeah yeah, all right, yeah, because I've you seen the movie Bad Sand. It's set in Arizona, I think was it, I don't remember, and it really kind of plays up that thing where it's just like weird desert and Christmas juxtaposition. It's not

a good fit. Yeah, but I find Florida Christmas time is very nice. Okay, fair enough, I know what you mean. That is what I'm trying to say in the spirit of the season. Well, people for a long time, they have been trying to get that look, um all the way back to the eighteen hundreds, using things like cotton or flower. Apparently in the popular mechanics in that was a recipe with cornstarch, uh, silicate mineral mica and varnish.

I don't want to use like silica and varnish. I mean, all of this sounds like if you add one more thing, it's a bomb, right, you know, but silica you can inhale and get silicosis. Did you know that? Like people who work with granite countertops are susceptible to It's really bad news. Yeah. And there's there's been long been kits that you can buy make your own. Yeah, there was one that General Mills put out called snow Flock s

n O hyphen fl Okay. They're like, let's take out any sensibleness to this name, and that's what we'll call it. There's an ad for it, it's so cute. There's like a General Mills blog or there used to be, and there's like a newspaper ad for the snow flock thing where it was like a canister filled flock that you would hook up to your vacuum cleaner and I guess somehow reverse the polarity and use it to blow the flow. Yeah, you reverse the plarity on the flux capacitor. Well, very nice.

It uh. It seems like there's one big shot company now called Peak Seasons in Riverside, California, at least they're the only one that Mr Tate Williams recognizes. Yeah, I mean they seem like they're the heavyweight player here. Uh. And they make and sell a lot of this stuff. And they start with um, something that they like into toilet paper, just a big role that you feed into a machine and it comes out the other side. They liken it to baby powder. Yeah, it's like a very

white powdery substance. Yeah. And some of them are um. Some of the flock comes in uh, like colors. And if you have a colored flock like royal blue or purple or gold or something that you have to add cotton to like hold the die. But for the most part they produced this stuff um with some corn starts, I believe, the paper and then borre on um all together makes this flock that they say all in bags.

And they ship these bags out to like Christmas tree farms, where you can go to a Christmas tree farm and say, I want that tree, but I want it flocked. Make it, so take that tree and flock it. And what they're doing, right, what they're doing is they're adding some peak seasons flock bag of flock to their flock gun and they shoot

it out. They shoot this mixture that Peak season sells them, and at the end of this gun it mixes with a mist of water and it turns into this kind of slurry that sprays onto the tree and she's like stop stop, and um, that's when you know it's done. That's right. But here's the deal with this flocking process. Um, it's got to look good or else you're kind of screwed because you can't reflock. You can't spray it again. That tree can't get wet a second time because it

won't dry once it's been flocked. You can never go buck right, nicely done, terrible And we are on fire in this episode with the dad Buns. Yeah, anything else on fly. Yes. You can also not contribute to Big Flock. If you don't want to. You can make it yourself. Um. There's a video by a person called Mama Flock, you know in the Flock Tones something Mama Yeah really, Mama from Scratch. I think they got into your head subconsciously. Mama from Scratch had a recipe that consisted of barber salt,

corn starch, and white glue. Whip it into a froth and then you painted on and apparently when it dries, it puffs up and you've got some nice flocking, so you can make it yourself at home too. Here's my Christmas tree tip for the year. Don't allow them to stuff it into netting. Why because it's harder to get it back to Christmas tree shaped. Really Yeah, I mean you want that tree for those bowels to fall, and

that's a struggle anyway. When they wrap it up tight and a net and strap it to your car, it's just, uh, it's harder to unfurl. Maybe you need heavier ornaments. No, I don't need anything. I need to not have that net. See, I have a pickup truck, so I just throw it in the back. No one's strapping anything to my car. Yeah, but doesn't it doesn't get wind burned on the way back? Where am I Alaska? Well? No, I mean at high speeds,

driving on a high speed really really fast. Now that I get my trees locally, okay, right, yeah, thought in the back of the truck, it's all great. What if you don't have a truck, what do you recommend, Well, you can strap it to the top, But I don't see the need for that netting. I don't I don't. I don't know why they do that. I think it's to prevent windburn. I'm not kidding. Well, it's not a sock,

it's you're still getting wind blown on it. Yeah, I mean some, but I think it's so compressed that it's I don't know what's the most part. Okay, all right, all right, all right. Now that we settled that the last I don't know if it was actually settled. Well, I just want to finish so I can go watch. It's a wonderful life. I'm so happy. I'm gonna do it today. It's the miracle of the season that just happened,

miracle on at Pond City Market. So um check. I think we should finish then on this sweet little thing that they do over in Finland, in particular in Turku, Finland,

which is the oldest city in the whole country. It was founded in the twelfth century, the thirteenth century, and since the hundreds, about a century after it was founded, they've been reading this Declaration of Christmas Peace every year, almost every single year since, that's right, And it sounds like a really sweet thing, and it is with the tinge of menace because what they do every year is the bells of the Turku Cathedral real toll in the

midday on Christmas Eve, the chief of administration goes out to a balcony. Uh there in the old square in town. There's a lot of fanfare and reads this declaration and really brings out the people. Even in the worst of weather. They said there could be like ten thousand people out there, yeah, the square, tons of people. Uh. The exact wording over the years from the original declaration have been lost to time.

But the long and short of it is this is, hey, everyone be cool, everyone be harmonious, Everyone be peaceful and love your neighbor or else, or else you're going to be punished. That's pretty much it. And not with coal with monetary fines. Yeah, and I would look this up. So basically, the local administrator of like a town during the medieval era um was beholden to the local representative of the church to keep everything nice and orderly around Christmas,

this holiest season for the church. And they were basically saying, if you make me look bad to the church, I'm going to really bring down the hammer on you. So they've lost the wording, like you said, on some of the older versions, but they've been reading the same one since nineteen o three and apparently back in the old days. Uh, and still the gist of it today is that any war, any violence, it ceases on Christmas. You got a bone to pick with your neighbor. If you're a Hatfield or McCoy,

cut it out. Stop for Christmas season and Christmas season. By the way, this starts at noon on Christmas Eve. Did you say that, Yeah, I was at midday, Okay. Um, So from that point on until the end of Christmas, you're expected to just live peacefully at least avoid one another if you're in a feud like you're that's part. That's the first part. Well, yeah, the next part is you you can't work, which is that's great. You can feed your cows and things. Yeah, why should the cows

suffer because you're hanging out on Christmas? Right, but don't work? And uh, you can't even have guests apparently unless you have permission from the authorities. Right, and then that's great. Back in the day, if you were punished, if you were found in violation of this, you could be fined so severely that it says that you could be in debt for the rest of your life. So they took it very seriously, and it wasn't until the nineteen seventies

that they actually removed punishment from the law books in Finland. Amazing. So now seventies right, so now there's no real punishment to this, but they still read this proclamation every year. Um, there's other towns that do it, but but as far as anyone knows, Turkus is the oldest and the longest continuous, one great tradition. I'd like to close this episode with this, if you're okay with that, So before we split, I want to say Mary, Mary Christmas to everybody. Happy Holidays, um,

happy Hanukah. I hope it was a good one, um happy everything. Yeah, however you choose to celebrate this year, or even if you don't at all, we h we hope you're having a good time with your friends and family. And as we always say every year, this season could be very tough for other people, and so just keep that in mind and show some kindness, show some compassion and reach out to someone if you think they may

be uh, they need that hand. Be kind everybody. That's great, l You'll be fined, right, So everyone, to end this Uh, this Christmas spectacular, We're going to finish with the declaration of Christmas Peace. Tomorrow, God willing is the graceful celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, and thus is declared a peaceful Christmas time to all by advising

devotion and to behave otherwise quietly and peacefully. Because he who breaks this peace and violates the peace of Christmas by any illegal or improper behavior, shall, under aggravating circumstances, be guilty and punished according to what the law and statutes prescribe for each and every offense separately. Finally, a joy's Christmas Feast is wish to all inhabitants of the city, and by city we mean world. Happy Holidays everyone. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How

Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.