Citation Needed - Christmas Observances

Episode Date: December 25, 2019

The observance of Christmas around the world varies by country. The day of Christmas, and in some cases the day before and the day after, are recognized by many national governments and cultures worldwide, including in areas where Christianity is a minority religion. In some non-Christian areas, periods of former colonial rule introduced the celebration (e.g. Hong Kong); in others, Christian minorities or foreign cultural influences have led populations to observe the holiday. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Yota does not regenerate like a Phoenix. I'm just saying we don't know for sure. You don't know. Hey guys. Oh Jesus. Heath, get the shades. We got a code black. On it.

Yep, already on it. Eli, for the last time, the white version of the Wiz is the Wizard of Oz. You have to stop doing this. And Tom, I expected a lot better you. Really? Why? We had a whole meeting about letting him dress like this. No, guys, it's not the Wizard thing. Relax, this is for this week's show about Christmas traditions.

I am Black Pete and Tom is Krampus. Oh. Yeah, there's actually some really weird Christmas stuff out there. I hate to say it, but these outfits are kind of appropriate, at least for this episode. Okay, Eale, I get, but Tom really,

are you that in the spirit? Oh, I had Tom at you get to hit kids. No, I'm excited. Of course. I brought my own bag. He did. He did, Stix. You did. And Chains. Hello and welcome to Psych Nation Needed! The podcast where we choose a subject read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend

we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Santa Claus and I'll be dropping this bit after the intro. But I'll need some little helpers. First up, two men on neither little nor helpers. Keep an end to us. That's fair. Yeah, I fit into that sleigh about as well as a coach seat on Ryan air. Santa may be by two seat on Ryan air. Yeah. Santa maybe by two seats on this line.

I help. I help myself all the time, just not within a thousand yards of a school again. That's a lot. And also joining us tonight, two little boys who knew Santa was fake before it was cool. Noah and Cecil. All right, I'm not going to confess to anything, but every gift I received was proof that who knew Santa was fake before it was cool. Noah and Cecil. All right, I'm not gonna confess to anything, but every gift I received was proof

that nobody was making a list, little shaggy at twice. It wasn't that big of discovery. Santa's beard had more beer on it than the VFW floor. That's what I'm talking about. All right, that voice is giving me a headache. So before we begin tonight, we'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. These good little children are so good.

Santa's going to bring them a coupon for outfit stuff. That's right. Outfit stuff. And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, count out. Be sure to stick around to the end of the show. And we'll tell you how to stuff our stocking. And with that, I'm going'm gonna make a group on thing They all have to use it and they all have to do out of it stuff on the same night and with that out of the way

Tell us Tom what person place thing concept phenomenon or events will we be talking about today? Well, I'm very excited about all the beatings in this one today We're gonna be talking about Christmas traditions from around the world and Keith accurate you couldn't be bothered to include Chanaka because you're a bigot gonna be talking about Christmas traditions from around the world. And Heath. That's accurate. You couldn't be bothered to include Chonika because you're a bigot. Are you ready to lay up the cookies and milk of knowledge?

Okay, you think doing an episode about Hanukkah traditions would make the show sound less bigot? No, doing eight episodes about the Hanukkah traditions. So, tell us, Heath, what are some Christmas traditions? Yeah, I mean, those are both complicated words. So, let's take them one at a time for Eli. Christmas is the annual celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, celebrated on December 25th, when Jesus was definitely not born.

Yeah, right. There's actually a giant argument among scholars of religious history and also among extremely angry idiots on Wikipedia. It's pretty amazing. And angry smart people on Wikipedia too, have to argue with the idiots, have to argue with somebody else. So lots of the article about Christmas is a rapidly escalating, yelling fight with increasing numbers of terrible citations, mostly to the blog posts of the same angry idiots involved in the fight.

And traditions Eli are established customs. So there you go. Yeah, but there's always a first guy. I'm a trend center is what I'm saying. I'm a trend center. As extremely angry idiots aren't bound to Wikipedia. Some of them make your laws, people. Yes.

Yeah. And not the ones that you've elected, interestingly enough, they just received them. Yep. Even when you vote out Matt Bevin, he like, pardons 8,000 rapists. Oh, my God. Oh my God.

Oh my God. God damn it. Yeah. So, um, check out those crazy people arguing on Wikipedia because it's fun, it's good stuff. Or you know what, or take out your nicotrain withdrawal on them, your choice,

and why do you lot of stuff you can do? I gotta check it again. I'm very excited to see what you've done. But here's the thing, most historians, at least the ones who won't have a meltdown based on the correct answer. They agree. So none of them.

They agree that the actual birth date of Jesus was in the spring or summer of the Northern Hemisphere. And that forces at least some of the panicky Wikipedia Christians to make herumphic concessions. One of them almost exact quote was like, all right, fine, it's in the fucking spring. But believing that God came into the world in the form of man to atone for the sins of humanity, uh, it's that rather

than knowing the exact birthday. That's the primary purpose of celebrating Christmas. Uh, on the date we made up your dick, your dick, because it'd be a dick. There's 19 footnotes about your being dick. Oh my God, there are so many goddamn footnotes on every one of those art things. It's amazing. Everything that's correct has 31 gossips, citations. And then there'll be a thing that says, more citations.

Yeah. This whole thing seems like an argument about the exact time code on an old David Copperfield DVD. Like, can we all disagree that this was a good trick that didn't actually happen? Like, yeah, we cannot. And just for the record, the arguments between actual historians

and hot committed evangelical historians in pieces of scholarly writing and alleged scholarly writing. Those arguments are just as ridiculous. Lots of Christian historians point to a politics of Rome as the earliest source of evidence on the birthday, and a politician said it was December 25th. But everybody else points out that he got there by just

picking March 25th and adding nine months to that. Yeah. This will point out that every day is exactly nine months from another day. And then one guy is like, well, the crown actually talks about Mary shaking a ripe date from a date tree around the time of the birth and dates ripen in the summer. And, uh, and then everyone yells at that guy for being a terrorist. It's a fun argument. I love the Joseph when Mary was nine months pregnant.

It was like, well, you want a fucking day? Go shake it. Goddamn tree. What am I? You fucking buntler. Actually, Cecil, I can confirm that being a butler and pretending not to smell her farts are the chief duties of a father of the beam Didn't even have to get pregnant for that all I'm saying is if Jesus was born on the 25th Those shepherds that the angel showed up to were fucking right like the only reason they would be keeping their flocks out the field in the middle of the night and Late December

The angel shows up and they're like, we were watching over the sheep. What were you doing? And low set at the shepherd, I just can't quit with you. So we would write a much better Bible as what I'm saying. Gospel according to Tom would be awesome. New goal. No, probably not going to get there.

So one major theory from mainstream historians is that Christmas was introduced around the same time as Saturnalia, the pagan holiday that coincides with the winter solstice. And this just made sense with a Roman population making a transition from paganism to Christianity. And it also made Jesus into a symbol of a new beginning, you know, like a shining light. It would bring love and humility to a jaded world of which is a Jewish people and that beautiful beacon of light. That's why we all spend trillions of dollars every year on a bunch of closet stuffers and January garbage.

So here comes get ready everybody Marie condo over here isn't gonna understand what it means to love things or people. Okay. In addition to the obnoxious Cosby sweaters and the exaltation of capitalism and the family gatherings that happen way too fucking soon after Thanksgiving. You got to spread that out. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We need to move Thanksgiving to June or something. I don't know. Well, in addition to all that stupid, horrible shit, the world is full of way more other absurd, terrible Christmas traditions. And we're going to get into those in a minute. But first, I wanna mention some stats about this holiday, starting with some spending numbers.

Here in the US, we spend about $700 a person on gifts at Christmas time. She's our, we some stingy fox really? Most of us get away. We're at, yeah. Gen X spends the most with an average of $782. Because we're the Xers. We're the best, right?

Gotcha. There you go. Millennials are in second place at $609. And, you know, of course, boomers are the lowest spending about $576 because they ruin literally everything. What the hell do you expect from a group of people who ask, is 7% enough of a tip for this or is that? It's not that not half of a tip.

God, it's not half. It's like at best a third, Jesus Christ. All right, and here's a few other stats that I found. We spend $2.2 billion a year on Christmas trees. We're a grand total of about 400 million total trees. What? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

What? If that's correct, the average tree costs about $5.50. What? And it is extremely sad. It's just this little super shit tree. You'd be there. Whatever the guy tells me that Christmas tree is gonna cost, I'm paying.

What am I gonna do? Fucking shop around and all the other Christmas tree places? No, fine. Here, here's your $85 only Christmas tree place for a night of steaks. I get those numbers, he was so goddamn bizarre to me because that's like, 400, that's more than two trees for every home

and business in this nation. You're gonna get it. Jeff Bezos just has like eight million trees for yourself. Yeah, right. Yeah. Asshole. Yeah. I also found out that retailers lose more than $3 billion

a year due to return fraud with the majority of that being the return of stolen merchandise. That's nice of him. Also a good amount of that is the cost of security to deal with an accountless screaming idiots who try to return shirts with giant stains made of eggnog vomit. I'm not going to keep the shirt after you've obin on it. He's like, I can't do that. I can't like this. You put

blantins bourbon in eggnog. You deserve this. So you wasted that bourbon. That is on you. You did. Not on you. You both wasted the eggnog. You can't waste eggnog. There's literally no way to waste eggnog. So in terms of popularity, chocolate is the most common gift for adults. And for teenagers, the top gifts are money and books. So for teens, the best and worst ideas of the time. Yeah, for fucking real, what the fuck is even happening? My kids can't even fucking read a book. They would linch me if I gave them a walk. Okay, well, I'm not anti books, but even teenage book nerds would rather just have the fucking money every single time, just give them the money and they can pick a book. In fact, according to an article from readers digest called tips for giving your loved ones

truly meaningful gifts. According to science, you should be doing two super obvious things that people aren't doing. First of all, I already said it, just give money. It's the hand jobs principle. Everyone is so much better at buying stuff for themselves than you are at buying for them. And the second major tip was to just listen to what the person said. If they asked you for something, my wife is listening to this fucking.

It's so simple. If somebody directly asks you for something, if you're lucky enough to have somebody in your life who has the courage to just be like, I want this fucking by that thing. Buy them that thing. Don't try to make some genius tangential move that they didn't think of.

They wanted the thing they wanted. That's what science says. All right. So now we know about Christmas, we know some stats, we know some science about gift giving. Now it's time for some of the world's craziest traditions. Okay. For the record, listening to the same songs over and over again every year wins and we only don't realize it because it's just always fucking been there.

All right, so I'm going to start us off in Japan where Christmas isn't even a national holiday, but American capitalism knows no boundaries. So we found a way to jam Christmas into their culture because the Marshall plan. Yeah, we have a Marshall plan for this because fuck them. Jesus equals America. That's in the Bible. Read some David Barton. So certainly Kentucky Fried Chicken didn't like the way Japan had, you know, their own culture. So KFC started a giant marketing campaign in 1974 to force Japan into compliance. They called it Kentucky for Christmas exclamation.

And they convinced everyone that you're supposed to eat terrible fried chicken to celebrate the birth of the Messiah. And it worked. Families all over Japan are still to this day heading to KFC on Christmas Eve for a traditional Christian bucket of food. Yeah. You're fucking surprised at the home of the sweet bean paste flavored Kit Kat fucked up in American tradition.

We moving over now to Venezuela. This is one of my favorites. Venezuela, you know, the hotbed of Islam that need to be part of our Muslim ban. In their capital city of Kharakis, huge crowds of people go to mass on Christmas morning via roller skates. And yeah, not even roller blades. I'm talking about the old timey like square formation wheels of roller skates, like roller derby roller skates. And most of the city streets in Caracas actually get shut down to make this happen. And according to their tradition, kids go to sleep on Christmas Eve with one of their skate laces tied around their toe and the other lace dangling out their window so that their friends can wake them up by pulling them, I guess, out the window by the top.

All right, next up, aopropov, nothing is Ukraine. And I actually like this one, in Ukraine, instead of decorating the tree with tinsel and glass balls that shatter on the floor next to a bunch of presents for kids, they have something different, which is probably good. They deck out the tree with spider webs.

I'm guessing most of them are artificial webs, and they're made to look like when a real spider web is out there in the sun, you know, like shining with dew, which is a beautiful image. This is a good one. And the tradition is based on a folktale about a poor widow who couldn't afford to get decorations, but it all worked out for her

because the local spiders felt bad. That's pretty good. The old ladies, you know, sad $5.50 tree. And they felt bad about the Biden family crashing the economy. So the spiders spun a bunch of webs on the tree to make all the kids happy. And apparently spider webs are considered good luck in Ukrainian culture.

So, cool one. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense to me for Ukrainians, right? Like, they see spider webs, they think, all right. No nuclear meltdowns have taken out the arachnids and no forced ourvation is forced to peasantry to compete with the spiders for food. Good time. We're killing it better than we expected.

The worst things they really expected. Feel like that's cheating. Oh, and did I mention in America, childhood obesity is good. I love that no one in fairy tales is like, send in spiders. Get my flame thrower because that's like a natural reaction there. Next up, we have an amazing tradition out of Iceland. According to their legend, at Christmas time,

there's a giant cat, not like a lion, like an old-sized house cat that prowls around the countryside looking for shitty people to eat. It's called the eulcat. And apparently farmers would tell their staff that the hard workers would get a new set of clothes for Christmas, but the lazy ones would get devoured by the giant eulcat. And that's why it's customary for people in Iceland to get new clothing as a gift so they don't get eaten, which is, hey, not how it works according to their own thing. No, that's backwards. And B, it makes it sound like people in Iceland have one clothing. Like they have an annual onesie that they switch out every December. Or it sounds

like they just wear all their clothes all year and then start over again. And based on Bjork, that kind of tracks. Yeah. So there you go. That's the giant you will cat of Iceland. Based on my experience, I feel like a really big Christmas tree or a really big shoe box would pretty much put you in the clear in this situation. Ha ha ha ha. Alright, well, we have just barely begun to jingle the bells and deck the halls, so we'll take a quick nogg break for a little something I like to call this second council of Nicaea to order.

And a quick reminder, based on the last time, there's no hitting. Absolutely none. No hitting, okay? I'm looking at you, Nicholas. You got that? Nicholas? Fuck you. Classic. Classic, Nicholas. You're gonna be a TV figure for children. I'm what now? Great, excellent. So, the subject of today's meeting is we... Okay. One of the subjects of today's meeting is that we need to decide on how Jesus was born. We've got, well, okay, you know, we've got regular born, that's one idea.

We've also got two versions where he just appears out of the desert. Okay, just please save it till we're done with all the options. I'm going to go through all of them. Yeah. And then, of course, we also have Virgin birth as foretold in Daniel. Kind of foretold. I mean, it will be when we're done with it. Exactly. Yes. Thank you, positive. So how many in favor of the Virgin Birth thing? Hands up. Okay. Okay. And how many in favor of the just appearing

from the desert, Jesus thing? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,rees with me on this. Nick, well, I will. I know you will. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ And we're back. While we were on break, I was picturing sugar plums twerking. And now you are too. Can you tell us some more about some more Christmases. Christmains, Christmai.

Okay. Oh, by the way, what is a sugar plum? I don't know how that is. I had no idea. That was just thinking the same thing. I can't picture them twerking no matter how hard I try. Does anybody know what a sugar plum is? Yes.

I'm not sure I need to know it is still picture something twerking. I'm still like that. I'm okay with that. Is it an actual, if twerking. I'm still like that's I'm okay It's like naturally sugared. It's a piece of drake your hard candy made of heart and sugar in a small round or oval shape Heath. Okay, looking stuff up. So you were you were totally pictures of wrong thing Tom Who says all right? That is adorable. All right, so we're gonna move over to Scandinavia next. You mean if Trump is reelected or regardless? I.

Yes. Okay. First up, we have the mythical country of Finland where they have a sauna-based Christmas tradition. So apparently houses in Finland all come standard with a wooden sauna and it's a sacred space for communing with your ancestors. Which makes sense. Whenever I think about my dead grandparents, I think about getting naked and

sweaty. So perfect. And on Christmas Eve, it's customary for the family to all get naked and have a nice, drippy steam together. That's all I know. That's what. Also, the sauna is where they sauna elf lives. So, that's a plus. Fun fact, the sauna elf is the old guy who thinks pouring water on the rocks doesn't just break the machine these days. It's not cold-powered, sir.

Relax. Relax. Tell us, tell us how you think cold-powered things work. Do you think the water comes into contact with the coal? Who's ever been in a coal powered sauna anyway? And more importantly, where the fuck else would the sauna elf live? All right, you decide.

Good work, Finland, good stuff. I like the sound of thing. Next up, we have the you goat tradition of Sweden. You can already tell this is going to suck compared to having a sauna in your house. Yeah. Yeah. This one's not as cool. This dates back to the 11th century when St. Nicholas teamed up with a man-sized goat thing who had the power to control Satan, the Prince of Darkness, and this led to a custom in which men would dress up as a goat demon. They'd go around pulling off wacky pranks, and then they'd demand gifts from the people

they pranked, which seems like the opposite again of how it would work. More recently though, they realized that custom was extremely upsetting for little kids. So instead, the goat became a standard ornament for the tree. And also for just big displays. Swedish cities actually build enormous versions of the goat out of straw and red ribbons. And then they display them out in public.

Unfortunately, I also just described with the straw and the red ribbons and then they display them out in public. Unfortunately, I also just described with the straw and the red ribbons, I just described the first step in major public arson, which is what happens to these things all the time. Apparently there's a serious problem with arson on those and they haven't figured out how to fix it yet. Well, I mean, there's a group of people that took centuries to piece together unexpected goat monster frighten his children. So I wouldn't be holding my breath that is right around the corner. And that brings us over to Norway, where a big part of Christmas Eve is the large coven of witches who fly around on brooms doing witch stuff. And that's obviously problematic.

So Norwegian families all make sure to hide all their stick-based leading supplies. While most of the world is, you know, singing Christmas carols and having hot cocoa, Norwegians are like, all right, kids, let's all hide our weirdly large collection of brooms that we have. But apparently this actually works and the witches are no longer an issue. I just I mean, they're flying around on brooms, looking for brooms. And speaking of evil sorceress themed Christmas stuff, Italy

has something similar going on, but it's not on December 25. Thanks to Italy being the epicenter for lots of the Wikipedia blood feud about the actual birthday of the savior. They have a whole bunch of stuff happening on the night of January 5th, or a Piphany Eve. I've almost got it.

So they celebrate on December 25th, too. They also celebrate standard Christmas, but the feast of the Epiphany on December 25th, too. You know, they also celebrate standard Christmas, but the feast of the epiphany on January 6th is a big deal. And it's supposed to fall on the day that the Magi brought gifts for baby Jesus. And on the night before that, an old lady named Bethana the Witch flies around similar to Santa.

She comes down through your chimney and fills up stockings with gifts for the children Because Italy is fucking amazing the kids usually get local food delicacies and wine Picture in baby Heath with a prosciutto in one hand bottle of malback in the other and bottle a mouth back in the other. Must, recommend, ever. Ah! Ah! Ah!

Food delicacies, just squeezing cold carbonara out of the end of a stocking, like a pastry bag right in your mouth. Ah! Ah! Get out of my head, Cecil. Ah! Next up, we have a tradition out of Germany

involving the very festive pickle. What? It's customary for German parents to hide a pickle inside the branches of their Christmas tree. Getting a little uncomfortable. And then give a gift to whichever kid is able to find it. Nope, nope, nope. Yep, they play a game called hide the pickle with kids. No, I look at show, I'm gone.

Later guys, nope. I'm a lot of the 1000 yards of the show anymore. So I mean, I get that it's a pickle. It's kind of camouflage in terms of color inside of Christmas tree. But still at its core, you're having children go on a competitive hunt to find a briny, sour, spiny vegetable that's shaped like a dick. There's really going around. that's what's happened. Oh, the other.

And the backstory is actually from Spain on this one. So that means Germany intentionally imported this. According to the legends, two young boys were held prisoner inside a pickle barrel. What? Why a bad guy with very specific tastes. And then sent a rescue those boys back to life. And Germany heard about this legend and had to fucking have it. So there's an amazing how much of German history is just them

turning to the rest of the world and going, what? This is weird. Sex thing. I had no idea. Crazy. You fuck with this. Oh, okay. Now you had pickle. From delightful, delightful Germany, we're going to move over to Austria and also a handful of other countries in central Europe where they have a Christmas character named Krampus. And this is another

one of my favorites. Oh, yeah. Oh, Krampus. Absolutely. He seems to be a terrifying combination of just the most upsetting stuff in all the traditions that we've already mentioned, just combined together. He's basically Bizarro Santa. He's usually described as half goat, half demon with fangs and a crazy long tongue. And instead of giving gifts to good kids, he shows up in December to terrorize bad kids. I love him already and I'm booking a ticket to Austria. Let's go to Austria.

I like this one a lot. So usually this involves whipping kids with his chain that he has beating the kids with a bundle of birch sticks. And of course stuffing the kids in a kidnapping bag. No, you lost me at the kidnapping bag. I was there. You were in the back room. Yeah.

So he beats him up, chains, sticks, they're in the bag, and then he brings him down to the underworld for some enhanced interrogation, I guess. I used to be obsessed with this folklore as a kid. I had a whole mural of pictures of it on my wall. It was a collage campus. Oh, there you go. Collage.

Oh, there you go. That's hilarious. The origin of campus is the horned God of the witches from pre-Christian Alpine folklore. He's the embodiment of literally the hardcore BDSM that was built into the witchcraft rituals of this region. It's adorable what you think is hardcore. It's upsetting what you think isn't Eli. Jesus. Kids, it's automatically Ida was correct usage. So when Kramas has a bottle up his ass. A broken bottle. Talking to you Eli. So the Birch sticks are both a symbol of the penis.

Apparently the punitive penis, which is very upsetting. And they're also a symbol of the initiation rights of these witch covens that involved binding and scorching as a form of mock death. So that also explains Kampus' chain that he uses to tie down his victims, which just to reiterate our children at fucking Kampus' time. Ah, yes. Oh great.

Now based on last week episode, Noah's gonna get all preachy about not chemically castrating crampus. Oh shit. Do that, man. Well, it'd be the name of he'd be a gilding half-court. Forget to go one. Weather, that's horse, whatever.

Sheep. All right, so that brings us to the Netherlands and also Belgium and Luxembourg, where they managed to find a Christmas character that was even more crazy and offensive than the BDSM goat demon who kidnaps children. But before we get to that guy, they have another little tradition here that needs to be mentioned. On the days leading up to December 5th, which is called Cinter Kosivond or St. Nicholas Eve. In the Netherlands, kids leave their shoes next to the fire, hoping that a white horse named Amerigo, who travels

with Santa or Cinter Clos, will leave them treats inside their shoes. The good kids get carrots. That's their prize. And even Dumber, the bad kids get potatoes. And that's so dumb because potatoes are awesome and so much better than carrots. Well, at best, it's a fucking tie. Believe it to the Netherlands to have fucking epicurean Christmas traditions. I don't know that that's a tie. Like potato trumps fucking carrot every time. Yeah, order loaded carrot skins. No.

So the carrots and the potatoes thing is one of the dumber fuck ups of carrot and stick. But that is nothing compared to this other Christmas character that we're about to talk about, named Zwarta Pete. Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo. I'll start by saying that his name means black Peter in Dutch, I believe. The word Zwarta translates to a person with dark skin

who comes from African ancestry. And the synonyms listed, I'm not making this up. Synonyms were more followed by a pretty long list of Dutch and words. Apparently they have a bunch of those. This guy is very literally blackface Pete, not just because of the word. People literally dress up in blackface with frizzy wigs and bright red lipstick to cosplay blackface peep. According to the tradition, he shows up by boat from Spain. What?

Because that's where Moors come from. And he entertains all the Dutch white kids. And he gives out special, Mo morish treats, which from the pictures I saw looked like rabbit food trail mix combined very strangely with, you know, those terrible Valentine's Day heart candies that have stupid phrases. Oh, you know, they clearly modeled it after all those black people named Pete, right? That's where so Rodney Pete and I fell quarterback nailed it. So just to be fair, I will mention that the people of the Netherlands and Luxembourg and Belgium, at least some of them are now at least somewhat aware that blackface is a negative thing. It's pretty late on that though.

They're brand new to this concept that that might be a negative thing, but some of them are aware now. So they've been coming up with a few different ways to ease back from the full Blackface character that they were celebrating, but not enough, not easing back anywhere near enough. One technique is to call the guy,

Suddy, there he is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, big sixes. Yeah, Suddy Pete, he's just got smudges of soot instead of all black makeup and bright red lipstick. Still not great. Another example was when Nickelodeon of the Netherlands they did a zwart to Pete TV special

using several pizza, some of whom were black people. No, again, didn't hit it. Didn't hit it. No, didn't nail it. They said, somebody said nailed it in Dutch, but they did not. The woke, city pizza didn't quite nail it. Yeah, in a couple of years, he's gonna be that friend who got way to tan and you can't talk about it

because they're obviously embarrassed. Pete. Yeah. I wonder if and when just not doing that might occur to that, right? Will not. Yeah, and just in case you thought they did fix the problem, you're weird, but here's a terrifying stat for you, just in case you thought they did fix the problem, you're weird, but here's a terrifying stat

for you just in case you're in that group. A survey from 2018 shows that about 85% of Dutch people do not think the original zwart to Pete with the full on blackface is racist. 85% don't think that's racist. And they've been having pro blackface Pete versus anti blackface Pete demonstrations for years, including this year. Right now they're doing pro blackface Dutchman drives his ergonomic bicycle into one of the protests.

You're just that error guys. You're upstairs. Wow. Wow. And speaking of the Moors, no, you can't go. No, you can't go. No, I guess not. Well, speaking of the next thing I'm gonna say, I saved my favorite Christmas tradition for last. And it comes out of Spain, the home of the Moors. It's called Tio de Nadal, or the Christmas log. And spoiler, it's a shit log. This will make sense. Never. But I'm going to try to explain anyway. It's

customary for kids in Spain, especially in Catalonia and Arragon to build these homemade Christmas dolls out of a small hollow log with little sticks for the legs and with a smiley face on the front. And every night between December 8th and Christmas Eve, the kids feed the log little treats and also water wash them down. And then they leave him under a blanket to keep him warm. And once Christmas Eve finally arrives, the kids start beating the log with sticks and

singing a shit song. Yup. And assuming the kids perform the beating and the shit song correctly, the log will poop out a bunch of presents and candy. This cannot be right. And this is 100% real. And once that's done, Mr. Shit log is considered useless at that point, so they throw them in the fire and burn them.

You need to Google these shit logs right now. They are adorable and literally everything he's saying is accurate. I swear to God, this is real. This is insane. Real. If I had been Spanish, my childhood would have been much less traumatizing. Well, I would have been more culturally appropriately trauma. Yeah, there you go. That's just also beating these things until goodies pop out and then you throw it on the fires,

what we should do to billionaires. I'm just saying that's what you should do to billionaires. It's such a relief. I did get you the right thing for Christmastice. You got me, Jesus. You should now. I got you, you should now. You should now. You'd be, you'd be amazed.

Two days on the delivery. You should. One more thing before we wrap it up, I need to share with you the greatest thing that I've ever learned. This is the greatest piece of material that's ever crossed my face. It's pretty good.

These are the real, swear to God, the real lyrics to the pooping log Christmas song. Exactly. Shit log, shit nougat's, hazel nuts and cheese. That's a song. The children say in like adorable Spanish like you. Shit log shit. No, it's the best. It's totally real. Here's one more.

It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. It's like you. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, shit log, shit, no, it's the best.

It's totally real. Here's one more version. Again, exact quote. Apparently there's a big argument about, you know, those lyrics were ridiculous. Here's a more refined version of the song. Shit log, shit nuggets made from almonds or pine nuts. Don't shit, Sardans. They're too salty.

Shit, Nuggets. They're better. Shit, log. Shit, Nuggets. If you don't shit, well, I'll hit you with a stick. They both end strong. So yeah. And if you had to summarize when you've won one sentence, see what would it be? I Guess Eli needs a Catalonian child to be his gastroenterologist And are you ready for Christmas? Game on all right, so I could have pulled from any part of your essay obviously I'm going with poop log jokes. What are some other fun poop based

holidays that they celebrate in Spain? A, excellent. Farty, Grah. B, Groundlog Day. C, shove out. I didn't want to leave out our Jewish listeners or D, Mahas Shitarati. I didn't want to leave that our head end listeners either. Hi, Tulsi. Tulsi Gabbard's actually a big listener. Yeah, yeah, big fan. I'm going with secret answer. E they have a keyster bunny. That is correct. All right, Heath, I've never actually liked Christmas very much, but I feel like I have a lot more options now.

So which of the following traditions am I incorporating into my celebrations to get into that festive holiday spirit? Hmm. Hey, beating the kids. Be literally anything else. Be what's being. Wrong being wrong beating the kids? No, no, Eli's the host. So he gets to decide that you were right.

That's right. It's correct. The second most correct. What? Okay. I don't know man. We don't do the system anymore. Skipping along here.

He's what's the best thing to eat that falls out of a Christmas log? I'm gonna go along here, Heath. What's the best thing to eat that falls out of a Christmas log? A, ban bao, B, black forest cake, C, sticky buns, or D, a shrub waist sandwich. Again, I believe it's secret answer, E, duck confesis. Oh, All right. And go with poo there. I want to stick.

All right. Well, see so many grown up. The first person to go. So he wins because it's Christmas. Oh, ho, ho, ho. Let's choose no. All right. You guys just let me do the castration one, but okay.

If you want to trust me with the range one more time You got to do something with new years. I don't know cut enough tits or something Already did that all right well for no I'm thinking you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then I say no, huh? We'll be an expert on something else I will be back next week and by then. I know what I say. No, uh, we'll be an expert on something else.

Do you know, and then I'll be spending Christmas trying to distract my in-laws from giving my wife an anxiety attack? Tom, it seems like it's a cool grown-up Christmas stuff like steaming a turkey and going to Reykjavik. No, we'll try his very best not to punch his family and he will try his very best not to punch me. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod.

Or leave us a five star review every where you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes, be sure to check out citation pod.com. And remember, don't shit sardines, or I'll hit you with a stick Okay, so it's agreed he is a man, but he's also a ghost as well and He's God and God, okay, we're landed. Is that okay? Yeah? One of my nuns has epilepsy, so we make it canon that the stuff she sees while seizing, well that's hell, is that could be?

That's hell, yes, we can do that. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure.