FACTORALY - CHRISTMAS: DAY 7 - PRESENTS

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

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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 Bruce, what Christmassy factual topic are we going to be talking about today? Well, I've got a present for you. Oh, have you?

No, actually I haven't. Oh, that's a shame. But let's talk about presents anyway. Let's. The first time I heard of the character the Ghost of Christmas Present in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol, I thought, oh lovely, he's the ghost that's going to come along and give Christmas presents. Didn't realise it was that kind of present. Never mind.

So where does the tradition of giving Christmas presents begin? I suspect it begins with a few lads turning up with gold frankincense and myrrh. Oh, those guys, yes. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Except we don't know how many lads, really. No, it's a little, it's vague, isn't it? I think the biblical reference says some people turned up with these three gifts,

and the assumption was they were carrying one each, and therefore we have these three guys, and that's that. Yes. I mean, if it's gold, I would expect it to be for more than one person. Yes. Depending on how much there was. Yeah. Gift-giving, well, gift gift giving is as old as as humans

are really we we like to give gifts to each other it's a nice thing to do they used to give gifts in ancient rome during the saturnalia festival at the winter solstice now you see use the word gift there's a difference between a gift and a present oh is there can you work it out i think up until recent years, I would have thought the word gift was quite an Americanization. I think as a kid, I used to give Christmas presents.

Now, I think I give Christmas gifts. Presents are generally given on occasions, whereas gifts are given any time. So, you know, you give a Christmas present, a birthday present, an Easter present. They're at an occasion. So, you know, you give a Christmas present, a birthday present, an Easter present. They're like at an occasion. Right, okay. As opposed to a gift is,

hey, I was at the shops and I bought you a bottle of whiskey. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Or darling, here's a ring. Sure, yes. Get those all the time. This has obviously been a thing for quite a long time um christmas in its in its current format

being celebrated on the 25th of december uh was established in 336 a.d that's when we first started doing this whole thing of celebrating the birth of jesus on that particular date and christmas presents not gifts have been part of that ever since then, really. It was there right off the bat. St. Nicholas showed up with a nicely wrapped box at the conference when they decided that it was going to be the 25th of December. Yes, absolutely. Early rulers across Christendom interpreted this whole thing as being, oh, well, in that case, the peasants all ought to

come to my court and give me lots of presents and money and tithes and things at Christmas. Well, you see, this is it. You see, if the wise men show up and give a present to the king. Yes. Does that set a precedent? Yes. So it's the lower giving a present to the higher. Yes, exactly. Yes. An act of homage. Yes. So technically, us giving shed loads of money to billion higher. Yes, exactly. Yes. An act of homage. Yes. So technically, us giving shed loads of money to billionaires is... It's carrying on the tradition. Oh, you're welcome, Jeff Bezos.

If you're of the particular religious ilk that celebrates the 12 days of Christmas, which after all is what we're doing here with our 12 facts. Exactly. Tradition used to have it that you would give someone a gift on each of those 12 days, which is why we get the song on the 12th day of Christmas, etc., etc., somebody giving someone a gift every single day. Well, that sort of mirrors the Hanukkah tradition of giving a present for every day of Hanukkah as well. Oh, is that right? Okay.

There's a thing called Hanukkah gelt, which is like money that you get on every day of Hanukkah. Ah, right. Good tradition. I used to like that when I was a child. I read something that said that the idea of buying Christmas presents has sort of come and gone and fluctuated, you know, depending on the economy and the popular style at the time. But up until the 1970s, apparently in this country at least, the six weeks before Christmas accounted for 80% of the toy sales over the whole year. And book sales. Oh, and books as well. Yeah.

It's an easy present. Yes, it is, yeah. It's much easier than, say, clothing. You know, a pair of socks or a tie or something. But that's a standard. That's a given. You have to get some novelty socks at Christmas. It is a standard. About 35% of presents given at Christmas are clothing.

Really? But also 43% of all clothing presents are unwanted. Oh boy. Half of them go to charity or are re-gifted or given away to somebody else. Oh, what a shame. I know. The most popular gift

is, as always, you know that Christmas card that you got from your granny that had a nice crisp note in it yes money is is is the most popular most popular christmas how sad how unimaginative i know what's the biggest christmas present that you've ever got that i've ever got um oh I believe circa 1986 I received um a model of uh Castle Greyskull from He-Man oh right a couple of feet high yeah it was good how about 30 meters high no it wasn't that big you haven't had anything that big no because we do uh in London right we get a 30 meter high

four-ton Christmas tree every year oh i see from from the norwegians to say thank you very much for what you did in the second world war yes yes and they've been doing that since 1947 not really that long yeah i i saw a photo of um of the tree this year there were there were several comments saying hmm it's not quite as good as last year's present is it they did that last year as well. It's a way of saying they don't like the fact that we are disengaging with other countries. In a few years' time, it'll just be a little shrub. Yes.

I mean, you know, there are better presents that people have given Britain to say thank you for the Second World War. Are there? What else have we received? Carlsberg Special Brew. Okay. So Carlsberg specially made Special Brew as a present for Winston Churchill to say thank you for what you did in the Second World War. No way. Yeah. Wow. I bet he thought that was probably the best Christmas present in the world. I read a report from the University of Nevada saying that if you receive a poorly wrapped

Christmas present, it generally gets a better reaction because beautifully, neatly, pristinely wrapped presents get you really excited and raise your expectations and then the contents turn out to be a bit naff. If you get a shoddy, badly wrapped present, your expectations aren't that high in the first place and therefore you're happier when you open it up. That makes sense. I quite like it. That does make sense. I like that as well. I mean, you can use a lot of wrapping paper.

I bet. I mean, in the UK, we use about 227,000 miles of wrapping paper at Christmas. 227,000 miles? Yes. That's phenomenal. It is. And7,000 miles? Yes. That's phenomenal. It is. And it's all wasted or recycled. I mean, the other thing I like to do, I occasionally spend Christmas where I have an open fire.

I love an open fire at Christmas. So do I. But wrapping paper, especially the metallic wrapping paper, if you burn it, you get the wonderful colours off it. Oh, yes. The metallic properties in the paper burn different colours, don't they? Yes. You get greens and purples in the flames. Exactly.

It's very, very nice to watch. I remember that. I mean, not very green. Not very green. I read that on the few days in the run-up to Christmas, Amazon receives 47 orders per second. 47 a second? Wow. So we do quite a lot of online shopping these days. That is a lot.

Isn't it? Yeah. I mean, one of the most popular presents these days is mobile devices, like a phone or a tablet or something. And apparently 6.8 million new phones and tablets are activated on Christmas Day. Good grief. Imagine everyone suddenly putting all those devices on to charge. There'd be a blackout. Good grief. There was a present once, which was a Tibetan mastiff puppy that cost $1.5 million. Wow.

I mean, I know prices went up during the pandemic. But still. But that's a lot. Why? I think it's an unusual dog and it was quite rare. Gosh. But I mean, can you imagine if you've got a 1.5 million pound would you ever tie it up outside a shop i suppose it depends on the disposable income of the person

in question that might have just been a drop in the ocean wow 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 Fact or Lame. Bye-bye. Au revoir.