FACTORALY - CHRISTMAS: DAY 10 - DECORATIONS

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Merry Christmas, Simon. Merry Christmas, Bruce. Welcome to Factorial, everyone. Yes, hello, everyone. This is a special because we are going to be giving you 12 in 12 days, because there are 12 days of Christmas. Indeed, instead of the usual one a week, you get one every single day for the whole 12 days of Christmas. But because it's one a day, they're obviously not as long as they normally are. Indeed. So these are going to be relatively short, relatively punchy, quick little snippets of festive, Christmassy, informative fun.

Yeah, of course we're going to take a subject every day. Yes. But the subjects will be Christmas relevant. Indeed. So that's the plot. Let's get on with it. Off we go. So Simon, what's today's subject? Today we're going to be talking about Christmas decorations. Oh, I used to love Christmas decorations.

Used to? Yeah, well, when I was younger, we used to make paper chains, like licking those bits of paper and sticking them together and making a paper chain. Yeah. And then there were those like concertina type things where you kind of open it up and it's like a lacework a very thin paper yes that would make a like a a huge long thing going across the across the room that's right sort of in the shape of snowflakes or whatever exactly and and then i think it's an older tradition than i did but but i then started putting string across the windows

and then putting christmas cards on on yes across the windows yes then putting Christmas cards on the string across the windows. Yes. But these days you get so few Christmas cards. Yes, that's true. It would look very bare. You can't hang all your emails on a string, can you? Well, you could technically print out your emails, but it wouldn't do much good. It would sort of defeat the object, wouldn't it? Yes.

Christmas decorations are so commonplace that it's hard to think of any of them having a particular origin or that they represent anything or whatever. They're just always there. Yes. I had a quick look at Christmas wreaths that you hang on your front door. On the front door, yes. Apparently, these go back to around the 16th century after people had cut the tree and sort of trimmed it and made it a little bit more symmetrical and pretty and so on, there were lots of trimmings on the floor. And they would gather all of these up together and tie them into a wreath to make another decoration.

And the circular shape of it represents eternal life. Oh, that's sweet. And then they hung those on their door as a symbol and an emblem of good health and continuing good fortune. Well, again, it's that greenery thing, isn't it? Yeah. So you have like holly and ivy. Yeah.

Mistletoe. You often hang a sprig of mistletoe in a certain part of the house or whatever. Mistletoe I find interesting. This stuff that you often see growing high up in a tree, it looks like a ball a sort of a spherical shape um this stuff is is propagated by virtue of a bird called the missile thrush eating mistletoe berries it then poops the seeds out onto the branch that it's been sitting on yeah and that grows a new cluster of mistletoe which is why mistletoe grows high up in trees because it's where the birds perch yes um the name mistletoe comes from an old english uh mistletan which literally translates as dung on a twig yes isn't that great would you like to kiss

underneath the dung on a twig how romantic oh i'm gonna do that this year but then you've got to decorate the tree. Of course, you have. And one of the ways that people used to do that was with tinsel. Yes. And tinsel used to be made of silver. Did it? So if you had a tree decorated in tinsel, you had a lot of money.

Yes. And you wouldn't throw the tinsel away afterwards. Yeah. of money yes and you wouldn't throw the tinsel away afterwards yeah so just sort of threads or strands or strips of of silver reflecting the candlelight it's like silver foil but like cut up wow quite literally silver foil yes gosh that would have been amazing yeah tinsel has been made out of various different metals over the years it It was at one point made out of copper. Then they started using tin. Then they started using lead,

which turned out to be poisonous. Yes. So they decided not to do that. Then they started using aluminium, which was cheaper and easier and more flexible, but ever so slightly flammable. So they stopped doing that. Nowadays, it's made out of shiny PVC.

Oh, OK. Which you can't really do too much harm with. Well, except it's plastic and therefore doesn't ever disappear. Well, yes, but isn't that the same for all Christmas decorations? We just use them every year. Well, yes, I have a stack of decorations that I put on my tree. In fact, Simon helped me decorate my tree last year. I did.

It was great fun. Yeah. Hanging all your baubles and popping a star on top. Very nice. And lots of the baubles that I have remind me of holidays and events and places. Yes, absolutely. It's lovely. Yeah.

And then, of course, you put the lights on. And you have Thomas Edison to thank for that. He invented Christmas tree lights back in 1880. Did he really? Yeah. Huh. But he had, like, individual lights. Oh, OK.

And then Edward Johnson, who worked for him, worked out a way of making a string of Christmas tree lights in 1882. Gosh, as early as that? Yeah. Wow. There was a report I read that said approximately, this is from the USA, approximately 14,500 people visit hospitals every year due to specifically holiday-related decorating accidents,

which for the Christmas season is roughly 240 injuries per day. The most common incidents involve falling off step ladders, trying to hang things up. Putting a fairy on the top of the tree. That sort of thing, yeah. Cuts, bruises, sprains, back strains and the occasional fracture. And electrocutions. That wasn't mentioned, but I wouldn't be surprised.

It's getting bits of glass caught in your finger from when you were trying to change the lamps. Wow. And then, of course, somewhere on a windowsill, there'll be a poinsettia. Oh, yes, of course they will. Which was introduced to the US from Mexico. The US minister to Mexico was a chap called Joel R. Poinsett. Oh, really? And so the poinsettia is named after this minister to Mexico. Right. What was it called before? I imagine it had a Mexican name and the Americans couldn't pronounce it, so they called them poinsettias. Brilliant. Yeah, that's a very Christmassy plant, isn't it?

Very. I always get those confused with amaryllis. That's a song. Show me the way to Amaryllis. Well, thank you for listening to this Christmas special. Indeed. Thank you very much for coming along. We hope you'll join us again next time for another fun-filled episode of Factually. Bye-bye.