Historically High - History of Christmas Folklore

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the Shoe-Dio, AG and Chris  discussed something beautiful. Three Holiday tales from folklore are told, but not before someone packs a tight bowl. Look we get it, the Holidays are stressful, even more reason to take a little time for yourself, bake yourself like a warm oatmeal raisin cookie (yes they're the superior cookie) and tuck in with us for some Holiday Folklore that makes Santa look like a basic bitch. Sinterklass and the questionable Black Pete or Gryla and the Yule Lads, we've got something for everyone. Support the show Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Time that he fucking does it had to be that drive. They're not, here's the deal, though, man. They're not making the playoffs. The thing that I'm most upset about is the fact that they won three in a row. And so it actually, like, I didn't want to pay a lot of attention. I was like, oh, three in a row. And then all of a sudden you start hearing like, hey, you know the playoffs are possible if that streak stays hot. And then you start to think you're like, oh, yeah, maybe that'll happen.

And then watching this game, I actually, like, during that last drive, had like, an elevated heart rate, could actually feel my heart like pounding. Yeah. And then started to kind of feel like anxious as I'm watching it. I'm like, oh, yeah, I forgot I hate feeling like this. That's why I had to stop watching this shit all the time. Because it was just all of the games that they lost this year. They've lost four games where they gave up a 13 point lead.

And it was all like right after halftime. All of it was after halftime. So I got to assume a fourth quarter collapse is better than a halftime collapse, right? Like, there's improvement. No, because no, no, because if it's a collapse, lapse it happens during the fourth quarter, it hits you in a very, it's all hitting you at once in a smaller segment of time. Like that, that whole thing happened in five minutes. And up until that point of the game, the entire, you know, 55 minutes that had occurred up to that point,

it was all we're going to, like, you know when ESPN has the probability thing and it goes up and down, it was literally Raiders up top. And then as soon as it was 13 to 16 as the game got more wrapped up, it got to 98% probability that they were going to win, and then it showed the graphic, and it just shot straight fucking down to 100% on the Rams. The only reason they made that stat anymore is just to torture people, like just to torture fans. Yeah, and not even that.

It's just because you very rarely ever see it unless... How much do you hate that in fantasy? Yeah. The fucking win probability on you're sitting here like, this isn't necessary. I remember thinking that was cool for like the first three weeks that they showed it, and then it was like, no, because the projections and the factoring all this

doesn't factor in like potential for huge games like it's just literally flow and momentum. What you think and then you check the stats and it's like they're going to have 78 yards and 0.6 touchdowns. Like what the fuck do you mean 0.6 touchdown? They're either going to have a touchdown or they're not going to have a fucking touchdown.

Yeah, it's just like it's more probable than not that'll happen. What I was getting at with the Friday energy thing is like I felt like as soon as I got off work, driving home. I was like, hell yeah. I'm like, we're podcasting tonight. Like, Friday's my favorite night to do it because you have that energy going into the weekend. I felt like sometimes when you do it on Sundays, you're like, this is like the last fun thing to do during the weekend. Yeah, that is a tough feeling. Yeah. And you still get excited about it. You're like, but after we do

this, then it's just kind of getting ready to go to work. Sunday scary's kicking and you just don't want to be there. But Friday, it's just everything's so full of possibility. And I had energy and then literally within an hour of getting home, my child just literally energy vampire the shit out of me. Well, that's why when you're like, I'll give you a second to decompress, it would be like, I can't

because if like I sit down and I get stoned or I have a drink or anything like that, my willpower, my motivation is just going to be gone. That's true. And luckily this is kind of like podcasting, it's kind of like a boner pill for excitement. Like it, it'll always ramp you up

even when you're not feeling super high on it, but did you mean super high like big high or do you mean super high like your mood? Just my mood. Like it's this has probably been like one of the worst weeks of postal life that I've had

but at the same time like coming home I was like, okay, I got the tough part of the day over and that was what I just kept focusing on. It's like, this has to be the tough part of the day, we'll get to here, then we'll get to here, and as soon as we get back to the office, I didn't even do like 90% of the shit that I usually have to do with the office. I tossed all my parcel markers in, like, through the raw mail, the stuff that I picked up and the thing, threw all my, like, notification cards in, just like, fuck it, I'll touch

it tomorrow, I'll handle it tomorrow. What's got it going on? You know, when you take a draw, and you actually can feel it, like, penetrate your fucking brain. Yeah. And then it feels like it's set up shop in your lungs even though you breathe it all out. So I might stay on topic here. I might not.

I don't know. With this? Yeah. I don't really. I mean, it's going to be fairly easy because it's not like we have to follow a historical like timeline. I,

every time. Can you imagine if there was like some type of like, like badass legend behind this guy? behind the one we know like the modern behind like St. Nick behind the more American murder? Like it was based on like

the legend was based on can you imagine if it was like St. Nicholas before he was a saint he was a gladiator in the Roman arena who won his freedom by like defeating everyone and then he wanted to live a life of nonviolence and pacifism so he became a Catholic priest

then he became a saint Saint Nick and then for atonement for all of the lives that he took and all the blood that he shed. He decided he would travel the world, spreading joy and cheer, bringing presents to children. He used to have to torture kids and he hated it. But then one day.

Someone kidnaps someone that he loves. And old St. Nick's going to have to pick up the sword and shield again. He turns into not racist Liam Neeson, saves his own daughter's life. I like the idea of Santa. I just, when it gets into like, when you really hear, like, St. Nicholas was a real person and he was a patron save of children and all that shit, I don't want that. It's just a dumb backstory that could be true, could be not true. It's rooted in religion, and that kind of bugs me. Like, just a standalone story, man.

That's all I want. The best, like, what do you call, like, a story from a country? Is there a more, like, a fable? Yeah. Fable is good. But what's, I'm trying to think what the term would be for like, it's like, it's kind of lore, but I think lore is, I don't know, whatever you call these. I like that, I like the word lore for this. I love to.

Because it's kind of a, like you say. Your lore, it sounds like a word from yesteryear. And it comes out of culture. That's true. When you have countries that, I feel like we always go back to this of countries that have had a long, long culture. that, you know, you're able to draw, like, fables and lore and legends and myths from, man, they get all the fucking cool, albeit kind of, like, kind of scary sometimes aspects of it, like of, like, the Santa Claus type character or the guy that, you know, is supposed to be there yearly.

What do you, Santa's like a judge in a lot of situations to determine if someone's been naughty or nice. He's got a list. He does. I see checks in it twice. And some of these people ain't getting coal that Santa is kind of drawn from. But then I think we did we just talk about this during Pearl Harbor episode where we were like, America takes a whole bunch of like other shit that we see the country does really well. And we just try to do it like a lot of it.

And I think that's kind of what Santa Claus ended up happening is modern Santa Claus that we know in America vastly differs from Santa Claus. whoever the Santa type figure is throughout the rest of the world. Yeah, in some of Europe, there's like in England, it's like Father Christmas, but even he is pretty different than Santa Claus. Wildly different. But I think what we did is

we took aspects of a lot of these different people, and we were just like, let's just put them in a fucking red suit, make him fat, give him a white beard, and shove his ass down a chimney. And then we coddled the children. Did you ever know, like a kid when you were growing up that ever actually

got coal and they're stalking? No. I mean, there were kids that I hoped I would come back and I'd be like, did that motherfucker get cold? I hope that motherfucker got coal. But that was the thing was they never did it. No. That was the one. You got nothing sometimes. If your kid pissed you off like the five days before Christmas, that was your chance to just be like, maybe I show this little fucker. Maybe I just give him coal.

In theory, yes. I like being able to have a counterpoint to this. Because were I not to have a child, I would fully agree with you. it's not just about the it's almost like like doing something that you're excited for your kid to do or like to see it's almost like part of it's for you

as selfish as that is like if I like get my kid something really cool part of me or he gets into something that like is I like or something that I got him that to me is a win for me I'm like I picked the winner and that's and he likes this so man yeah

because I've even had him be a little asshole on like the day of his birthday and you're sitting there and it's the threat of we can cancel your party you're not picking up that fucking phone and like sending everybody back and everything you're just hoping that your kid stops acting

like an asshole and sometimes they do sometimes they don't and you just fucking got to like take them and talk to him every hour about it but trying to take like the gift because like you usually give it a lot of thought and everything, but man, that's hard to do. They'd have to be really an asshole to, you might do the gift later on Christmas Day and be like, oh, you know what, Santa stopped

by. Him and I had to talk. Yep. And I told him that we, we have an understanding that you're going to start being good. He said, he didn't want to do this for you. I had to talk. Yeah. This is me. This is me talking to Santa. And I said, Santa, listen, here's what we're going to do. You're going to loan us this. And at any point, he's not being good. I'll go ahead and call you. You can pick it right up. Deal?

And Santa said, deal. And I look at him. I say, you owe me one. Would that be just the most... It sounds fucked up when I think about it. But it sounds like it would be extremely funny, too. Like, all the presents that require batteries, like you just give them every single thing that requires batteries. they're just like, oh no, I think Santa forgot your batteries.

We don't have any in the house. You're not going to be able to play with any of this stuff. And then be like, oh, maybe he put them in your stocking. Go check your stocking. And he walks over there and it's just fucking coal in his stocking. He's like, yep, guess we're going to have to wait to go get some batteries. Like, you can't play this. Everything's closed on Christmas.

At this point, too, kids don't even know that's a thing anymore. It's not coal anymore. I don't know what it is, but like any Christmas, like kids shit that I've had to watch, it's never about like cold and it's almost not even really it tries to shy away a little bit from like a ton of fucking presence to set you know unrealistic expectations but like even that is kind of getting pushed to the wayside so I guess like you know traditions do have to change but it's just so crazy how our traditions they're just they're kind of vanilla compared to the rest of the world which has like fucking cool characters and like cool like stories behind them. and frankly some of it can terrify children, which maybe that's where we also went wrong. It's like you said, we kind of like, we neutered Santa. Yeah, it's, I'm glad that we're kind of getting away from the commercialized Christmas.

It's not getting away from it because it almost feels like it's being commercialized in other ways. But as far as like you're talking about with kids movies where they're not focusing on presents and all that kind of stuff as much, that's great to hear because you want to try to teach like the core tenets of Christmas. which not being a very big Christmas guy. I mean, it's being around family, being nice to each other, like seeing somebody who may have less than you and you try to help them out. Like, it's more about the giving of the season.

I didn't know there were four tenants of Christmas. Huh? I didn't know there were four tenants of Christmas. Core. I didn't know there were four. Core, C-O-R. They said four core tenants? No, okay, gotcha.

Well, I didn't know there were core tenants of Christmas. Essentially set rules. You don't think. that there are? Just like be nice to other people. Oh like unspoken agreements about Christmas? Yeah. Of course. They changes you. It's insane how those

tenants change as you like get older. Like you go from being a kid and it's just like about when do you think you really realize that like I mean I guess it depends on how you're raised when it's not Santa and then there's probably

a space there where after you realize it there's no Santa, you probably don't revisit those previous Christmases for a while to realize that it was never a Santa. It's not like as soon as you found out there was no Santa, there's no more presents from Santa going forward and all those other ones still existed.

When do you like think, I know we're kind of going off the rails on this, but it's all Christmas talk, so I'm going to... We'll cut something we won't. Sorry. When do you think as a kid for you, when you realized there was no Santa Claus, what do you think

that gap was until you realized that like, you kept getting present? and stuff, and even the ones you got in the past, you're like, oh, this was always my parents. And, like, realize what that probably took for them to do that kind of stuff. Well, we, our Christmas set up, I've come to learn through relationships and friendships. We just always do Christmas weird because our tradition on Christmas is we open all the presents from family on Christmas Eve. And then we have to wait.

until Santa shows up and then we just have Santa presents on Christmas. Okay. So. You're talking when you were younger? Hey, even still today. Okay. Like,

it's just a separation. When we knew that Santa wasn't real, that was just how we did things. Okay. Our parents would still go down and set up shit at night, and then we'd just come down in the morning. So the Santa thing,

even though they knew Santa wasn't real, it became a tradition, regardless of what it was. It was just a funny wink-wink thing. And that to me seems more of what Christmas should be is not necessarily gift giving, but just the traditions that you keep kind of following. And it's almost more of like a feeling of familiarity with the holiday than it is about really anything else. Yeah.

Mine has changed a lot over the years. And it's weird how like present you are during certain years with like family for Christmas and everything. And I have years where like I would. was like there but I was I was just like when can I fucking get out of here and it was just like okay it came a visit I saw a view like I'm going back like even the hour drive and everything and then you know time now where it's it's not even about like me like Christmas is all about the kid so like we have well it's not even just about your kid it's about your kid your dad well what I'm saying is it's about the kid and

And we're basically a shuttle service for the kid to get him to different Christmas destinations, which is great because he gets to go have fun at all these different houses and places. But it's like for like mom and dad, it's just a series of trips and like gas and getting on the road and making sure we get places. So it's also though being the shuttle service, you're continuing the bridge of his childhood with your dad. And I'm not saying any of this. This is like tongue and cheese. Like, I'm not saying any of this. This is just like, ah, ha, ha, ha, like, I'm not complaining.

I'm just kind of saying, like, that's the primary focus. I still love going and seeing, you know, we go and Christmas Eve is going to be at our house this year. It's usually, I think, at Katie's moms. But it's our house this year. And so her brother and sister, mom, her sister, all of those people, not cousins or anything. We all just are going to meet at our house. do opening presents there. Thankfully, I don't have to travel anywhere there.

And then the morning after, we'll drive the hour. That's kind of a nice split then. Yeah, it's not bad. Everybody gets involved. And the holiday weekend is always longer. Because, like, I feel like having to go visit on the weekends. One full day is dedicated to that. You're not going to drive an hour just to spend two hours someplace and then drive

an hour back. But I like that, like, I do it now, like, for him, too, because it's fun for him to do. it's just weird what I'm getting at basically is how it just like evolves like you're kind of how you view the holiday itself yeah I view it more now is like there it's a weird realization when you come to grips with like Christmas just not being about you anymore and then once you finally battle with that long enough and then you're like oh well this is just more time to spend with my family my family's getting older you kind of feel like there's less togetherness so those times yeah meetings and yeah so the more time that you get to spend with the people that you care about

and just kind of even though it's still not necessarily about you because you'll potentially still have a lot of Christmases but there may not be a lot of other Christmases for somebody else so it's almost like it's more for them and being family close with them to make them enjoy

however many they have left that is that's something to think about too like kind of like you're saying not only is it about like us doing something for like our kid but also like how much like my dad and you know my stepmom and enjoy seeing him and like oh yeah spoiling him and everything like that yeah being a grandparent so being a grandparent sounds pretty awesome i i can't imagine this step getting there. It's fun, but you have no idea how hard grandparents

can make it to be a parent. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm sure, because if you say no 50 times and they say yes, once. Yeah, there's no rules with them. There's no, there's no restraints. They've earned that, though. I'm not saying they

haven't, because I'm going to do the exact same thing like looking forward in the future. You know, if we get to that point, I'm going to do the exact same thing if I have great kids because I'm going to know that that's my job that's my role I it's not even to pay it forward in like a gratitude type way it's like oh yeah it's the it's the job of the grandparent to say yes to everything and let the parent deal with the fallout you had to say no enough times in your life to where now that time is over I don't yeah I have no obligation to say no

it's not yeah I have disposable income I'm retired I got nothing but time and money to by kids shit. All right. So kind of actually getting to I guess what's going to now be the main meat

of our episode is going to be different um folklore is what I was trying to figure out that's the word folklore. Yeah. I swear to God we use

both of those words and never put them together. Maybe. We used lore enough that it should have clicked. Folklore. Okay. Different folklore from different parts

of the world that had inspirations or I guess iterations of like Santa Claus. Yeah, to me it's just fun shit. Like this is, it's so cool to learn about other cultures. And we spent a little bit of time beginning talking about how it is for us and how we feel. This is completely different in these other sections of the world where it's less of a, like, we spent time talking about family shit.

These people, it was not only families, but it was like the community. It was everybody in the area, all the celebrations that happen, the parades and everything that there's such a sense of community in both of these stories and it's just so awesome Well this is what I was texting you about When I was like

When I travel like if I ever go to any of these like places Like Scandinavian Norwegian type of countries Things like that or like Even countries in Europe that have these crazy like Stories and like celebrations It's got to be traveling at Christmas That just to experience what that's like around there Yeah

Yeah Christmas, I would probably say, is the ultimate one everywhere. But how cool would, like, carnival be? Yeah. And even to a lesser extent in this country, like Fat Tuesday down in Mardi Gras, down in Louisiana, that shit's got to be awesome. Yeah, you're talking like South America Gulf area. Of course they're going to have fucking awesome warm weather, like holidays.

I'm talking about like Christmas, like snowy shit. October Fest in Germany? Yes. Got to be sweet. All great. Listen, I'm not pigeonholing us for we're going to take these hypothetical imaginary trips. We just don't have that No

We don't have any Like fun months or anything like that That happens because we got July We fucking make the sky Explode One day Where we actually try to set gun on fire Is it getting hot up there Lord?

Yeah We're still down here Just want you to know Maybe send some good shit our way Maybe set making it so fucking hot and dry Case you forgot All the fires around the country That's the best.

We killed a lot of people for this day. Can you just maybe give us a little bit of gratitude back? Okay. Which should we want to start with? We want to start with. Which one do you think is the most interesting? Let's save that one for the... Yeah, probably the second one on the board there.

Cincercloss and his buddy Black Pete can probably go second. I feel like that's going to be a lot more conversation. Okay. So how do you pronounce that? Grila. Grila. Grila and the Yule Lads. An Icelandic tale of folklore that, to me, when I texted you and I said, we don't threaten

kids enough, this is what I'm talking about. I know. This is the shit that I love. And I love Centrocloths and everything for different reasons. This is Christmas steaks. This is good and bad stakes. Like, Sant, it's like, you're going to get coal. So, like, that's the thing is you're going to get nothing.

You're going to get a rotten potato in your shoe. That's all you're not any worse. You're just not gaining anything. So that was your punishment if you're an asshole. What are our punishments if we're assholes with guerrilla and the yuleads? So Grela was mentioned in the 13th century as a part of Norse mythology. Like it was something called the Prozetta that was just like a collection of stories from Norse legend. Folklore.

Folklore, yeah. And she wasn't really associated with Christmas until the 17th century. So she had like 400 years in folklore where it was like she was a large troll. She was building their resume. Yeah, yeah, exactly like you were talking about with Santa Claus. Like if he had a sweet origin story, Grila's story in the beginning was just her being troll. She started in the mailroom.

She's working her way up. So once Grila comes to fame in the Christmas. time culture in Iceland, they start to use her and she has 13 children. Her husband, Leppi-Lu, I'm not even going to try to say it. She had a husband, he was a lazy piece of shit. They had 13 children together, so they had 13 little trolls that they were called Yule Lads. The Yule Lads, to me, just reading over them, just to give you kind of a brief synopsis of all 13 of the Yule lads. Every one of them has like a different mischievous thing that they kind of...

So like seven dwarfs type shit. Sleepy. Yeah. And that's honestly what a lot of these are. So one of the first one is... And these happen over 13 days that these Yule lads come down from Grila's cave. Oh yeah, because she lives on the side of a volcano. Yeah. Yeah. There's old Icelandic stories that were written down. There was one that I listened to. Very cool story. It was about a brother and sister

that end up getting trapped by Grela. And they escape, they escape in a crack in the cave. They realize it's getting hotter and hotter. And then as soon as they pop out, they realize that they're in lava fields and it was the volcanic mountain that was right near their village.

So she lives on the side of a mountain. Turns out she lives in the side of a volcano. know and her children come down one by one. This starts December 12th every year. First guy that comes down. Wait, so it's, okay, so, but it's based, this is interesting. Because when I was researching this kind of stuff, I found there was a lot of like, a lot of it was in December. But there was a lot of stuff between different, like, no, this happens December 6th.

Yeah. Yeah. So it also was something with, of course, it's all based on solstices and that kind of stuff. Like, because most of these were adapted. The Sinterklaas was adapted. from paganism. Okay. So you're going to have winter solstice instead of the day Jesus is born.

But what I'm saying is so for the grela, we're getting some type of, uh, some type of, like cohesion with like the 25th of December now. A little bit is what it feels like. Okay. And I think Christianity had probably made it to Iceland pretty well at this point because it's, I mean, we talked about this in the Viking episode, but once the Vikings took over England and they kind of push Christianity on to the Viking culture, then it was brought back to Iceland. The flip side of that, which would lead the same result would be if it was one of those

things where it was previously an established day of celebration was January or, sorry, December 25th, and then Christianity molded with that to make it palatable. Be like, our holiday also falls on that and it celebrates this, which you will now celebrate. Yeah, spoiler alert for American Christmas lovers. We don't know when Jesus was born. And it's just a nice rough guesstimate. that he was born in December on the 25th. That's not fact. We don't have any sort of record of that or anything, that he could have been born in fucking March.

But they use it as the holiday around a pagan winter solstice in order to draw the pagans into Christianity. Spoonful of medicine makes it go down. Always happens that way. That's not how it goes. A spoonful of medicine makes... No, it's spoonful of sugar makes a medicine go down. This feels like a spoon in the butt.

It had sugar on it. Yeah. Um, so these fellas start kicking off right around December 12th is when the first comes down. Uh, the first guy is sheep caught clawed and he harasses sheep, but is... Sheep caught clawed? Sheep caught clawed. Okay. He harasses sheep, but is impaired by a stiff peg leg.

Kind of funny, a little bit gross. Uh, second one comes down December 13th. His name's gully gock. What, really quick? What are they, are they just coming down like to like scout? To fuck with it. the people in the village. Okay. Do they fuck with like, do you start getting fucked with if you're like one of the, on like the good list?

No, if you've done bad things, if you were a naughty, mischievous person or a kid, they would come down. So you can start getting fucked with like 12 days before like the main event. Very early. This is psychologically. Yeah. Very interesting. So gully gawk comes down on the 13th. He hides in gullies, obviously gully gawk.

And he waits for the opportunity to sneak into a cow shed and steal milk. So they're coming down to. rob your cows of the milk. Stubby comes down on the 14th. We have no milk because of you yawn. Because you are naughty boy. Milk is gone. Not that your dad got shit-faced and went out and just milk the hell out of the cow

the night before. There's a lot of these, when you hear them, like stubby 14th, kind of a pass. But the next one, December 15th, spoon liquor. He steals and licks wooden spoons and is extremely thin due to malnourishment. So basically, parents would use spoon liquor as a way. to tell kids that they needed to clean off their plates and to lick their spoons clean

and to put their dishes away because if they didn't put their dishes away, spoon liquor was coming down to lick all your stuff. You sometimes answer questions as I'm having them in my head and that was a how many of these are going to be, are going to just happen to coincide with something the parents are trying to do to like fuck with their kids get them to do something. Oh yeah. And that's what most of these are. Following spoon liquor, you got pot scraper.

He steals the leftovers from pot. so if you don't eat all your food, it's going to go to a guy named Potscraper that's coming down to terrorize you. We have no food now, young Potscraper, took it all, you bastard. Bowl liquor on the 17th. Hides under beds waiting for someone to put down their bowl. One of these the fucking Charlie and the Chocolate Factory people, just living in one bed? And just like sitting, you know what? That's really rude to say because thinking back on a time when I would be eating cereal in bed

and turned and set a bowl down because I didn't have a bed frame. Yeah, okay. And it's not going directly out into the sink too. There was no room, but in my defense, there was no room for bowl liquor because my bed sat on the ground. Well, even setting it down anywhere, if it's not going directly back into the kitchen to be cleaned, it might sit around for a day or two. So you're trying to teach your kids to put your shit away immediately. Door slammer comes on the 18th.

He likes to slam doors, especially during the night. night to wake people up and to cause mischief. So if you're a kid that gets mad at your parents and slams your bedroom door, anything like that, you're going to be terrorized by a little yule lad that comes down and slams the door in the middle of night to scare the shit out of you. Trying to do math in my head right now to figure out psychologically how much of a foothold Santa Claus has in my child's head right now. You think you could bait and switch him into this? Yeah, what I'm thinking is each of these is sounding like something that would be much more proactive in the shaping of a child's manners.

I might have to try to fit Grilla and the Yule Lads as like, I'm trying to think here, like, is a spinoff of Christmas. I had just a Christmas book to read to him. I bet I could go on Amazon and find a Griland. Oh, I guarantee you. This Icelandic culture is so, so deep into that. I feel like you're going to keep getting better, too. Yeah, some of these get a little weird.

December 19th, Skier Gobbler comes down. Skear gobbler? Skear. If you think that's bad, the next one's really going to get you. Skear is like an Icelandic yogurt. Okay. So I'm not really sure where that would fit into something for children. Don't put your yogurt down because skier gobbler will eat it.

December 20th, this guy could be in most pride parades probably, but his name is sausage swiper. he hides in the rafters it's self-explanatory you don't need to tell me what he does this one could be though because it says he hides in the rafters and he snatches sausage that are being smoked so maybe if your kid because in iceland they have to smoke most of their meats because they have to try to preserve them for the long winter times and all so maybe there are kids that sneak into the smokehouse and try to steal the sausages before they're done something like that you open the door at all if you've ever opened the door of that smoke house so maybe the that's where that comes in. Probably the most perverted of the Yule Leds window peeper.

He's a snoop who looks through windows and search things of steel. Again, self-explanatory. Probably for children to be like, hey, maybe don't go peek in the neighbor's windows. Don't be a little pervert. Doorway sniffer, not really sure where this one falls in. He is an abnormally large nose and acute sense of smell, which he uses to locate leaf bread. I thought it was going to be like to find like crusty. socks or something shit.

They might not have had socks back then. What would they have had? I think they had stockings. Yeah. Sox stockings. Meat hook comes on the 23rd and he used the hook to steal meat. And then we round out with just the most basic one,

candle stealer. He follows children in order to steal their candles that were once made of tallow, which tallow is beef fat. I'm going to pose you a counter argument to this teaching, it does teach a lesson to the kids, but I think what this might be is this might be an excuse for parents to kind of go

a little wild around the holidays on food. Because what it sounds like is, you know, yes, they could leave the food there if the kids are being good, but those parents get a little hungry, have a little too much meat, get them, you know, you get those drunk hungers. And who knows what they're, you know, this is Scandinavia. They're smoking, leaves to Odin and everything, but like imagine around this time of year, you start

wanting to put on a little bit of weight. It's cold outside. You want to eat a little bit more. You're still working hard. You need more calories. I think this kind of stuff is just to explain why the parents are eating this shit at night. Like, oh, sausage dealer must have fucking shown up. That's why we don't have any more sausage. He's like, but we're hungry.

You fuckers, this is your fault. Drunk Dad slams the door like door slammer in the middle of the night. He's like one of them like, Mead Steeler? Yeah. Or like beer swiper. Well, too, you wake up the next morning and dad just hung over his shit and the tallow beef fat candle is half eaten.

Your wife comes here. Like, what happened last day? He's like, man, I don't know. It looked good. We're getting so close to Christmas. I start blacking out when we get this close. The candle smelled like beef, okay? So I ate it.

Oh, my God. We've already gone through all our sausage. We've already gone through. Meat hooks been here. Okay. What was the like third and second and everything? Did you get through them all? Yeah, that was all 13 of them.

Okay. On the flip side of all this mischievousness and the bad shit that they did, they would also leave small gifts in children's shoes. I'm not sure what the infatuation in both of these stories is with shoes, because it seems like that is always what is left out. They would leave gifts in shoes. They would leave gifts on windowsills. and it was just like little things every night.

So I'm sure the kids that weren't shitheads probably got these little gifts. Like their doors probably weren't getting slammed, but the next day when door slam were supposed to come, there was something like maybe sitting in the door. I'm guessing that there were some pretty, there were probably some pretty well-behaved. I mean, we're going to get more into like Grilla,

and that's going to explain some stuff too. But I think that this system was set up for maximum effectiveness in a very short period of time. You go through one year of this of your kid being an asshole, I don't think your kid makes it the full 13 days before they have an epiphany. An attitude change.

Yes. So I think that what this is made for is like, hey, we're going to go a little extreme, but we're going to knock out this naughty shit real fucking early. And maybe that's why some of them towards the end kind of seem like they mellowed out. Like door sniffer probably wasn't

as big a threat as like pot liquor or anything like that. I'm trying to figure out what. what's up with door sniffer? Like, what could that be? Like, help me, help me, like, help me connect the dots here. Hand sniffer and door sniffer

probably, it's not, it's got to be something about being, like, unclean, or, like, pissing your bed, and it could,

or something like that. Like, quit pissing your fucking bed, door sniffer. Bedwitter could have been a great replacement for that, though. I could think of a few of them. Like,

pants shitter would be a very funny one. Maybe that's door sniffer. door outhouse. Oh yeah, could be. So tell me about Greila. Tell me, you've given me a 15-course meal

or appetizers. Platter. Give me the main dish. Grela was a, I'm just going to go with Iz, because if we're going to follow the whole Christmas tradition of like this shit being real here, this is real over here too.

I would much rather believe in this than like the stuff that we get fed. This is longer standing. This has, precedence. Yeah, okay. This is as real,

yeah, this is as real as anything else. Um, so Greala is a... She lives in the side of a volcano. There are actual volcanoes. Yeah.

Our guy lives at the fucking North Pole. In a village with elves that work all the time and build all the electronic shit. Slave labor. Yes. Just, a disgusting story. At least she's living in a cave in a volcano. I mean,

there's caves in volcanoes. Yeah, it's, she's a, a fun lady. As a giant troll herself, she has a huge nose, she has giant boils all over her face,

very just a homely looking woman. And her favorite meal is a soup made of the flesh of naughty children, which any way that you could think of eating a person, probably soup's gross. Ooh, when do they serve that at the Olive Garden? Never ending soup and pasta. there's a lot of asshole kids out there

they could probably yeah she could go on forever and ever and supposedly her deal is that she could smell the children's naughtiness from her perch atop the volcano and then would come down at night

into this town like if my if my 13 yule lads which that's got to be the name of like a fucking soccer firm right like the ones that fight the um the lads yeah what am what am i hooligans we just fucking talked about this um yeah

the yule lads especially being in that part there's got to be a group of who okay if not and there's anyone here who also happens to be in a firm maybe change your firm uh form your own put it to a vote yeah put it to a vote okay anyway so her deal seems to be you know she eats the flesh of naughty kids She's got a fucking cat who apparently eats people. Oh, so yeah, this is one of the other things.

I completely forgot about this, but talk about a lesson. So the Yule cat eats people who didn't get new clothes to wear before Christmas. So Christmas Eve, you're usually getting your clothes. What would a kid bitch about more than anything as a gift? Well, what did you bitch about that you would give from your grandma? Fucking underwear and socks underwear? fucking sweatshirt that you'll never fucking wear because it's a god-awful color

or the kid is horrible. You can't play with any of those things, so you're probably going to bitch about it. I truly think that the Yule Cat was installed for every one of those kids that didn't want to get clothing for Christmas. They're like, well, I bought your clothing this year. If you're not wearing it before Christmas, all of a sudden your ass is going to get attacked by the

Yule Cat and then drag back up to Grila. You know how long? It took me to stitch this out of animal fucking hide. Yeah. They made all these clothes. Like there wasn't, you couldn't go to like shop co and pick shit up. Your old shit is stiff as a fucking board and it doesn't fit you. I like it. I like it. Nope.

Fine. Fine. Wear it. See what happens when the fucking cat shows up. I like that the addition of the cat. The addition of the cat seems like it was a very pointed message to just be happy with whatever you get. The stakes keep getting raised. This is genius. It's all of the guys

leading up to it and like by the, if there was a kid who got to all got through all the Yule lads and there was I don't think there was a kid to play chicken enough to get to the cat That kid was sitting there On the night the cat was supposed to show up

wearing his new shit And The smile on his goddamn face Going through the checklist In their mind of everything That Grilla could come down and get them for That they just wish that they hadn't done But they wanted to atone for it

So Grela sweeps through the town in this story that I had read, it was a naughty brother who was basically given up by his sister and he ends up seeing window peeper

in the night peeping through his window so he knew that he had really fucked up and done something bad. Tells his sister, hey. So if window peeper was looking through his window, does that mean he had peeped on people? Because it seems like what you're doing is the one that's going to find you.

So maybe he was a peeper. It sounded in the story like he had just been mean to his sister So it didn't sound like he was a He didn't keep it on his sister They live in the same room But They were so scared that night That his sister just tells him like

Hey We got to be quiet Because Greeley can hear us And if she hears us She's going to be able to smell us And if she's able to smell us She's going to take us Night comes

Soaps on Yep soups on Night comes Kid swings his legs out of the bed Because he hears Door slamming who had shown back up with Greala goes to check that out and Greala's long serpentine tongue shoots out from underneath his bed wraps around both of his ankles, sucks him under the bed,

sister tries to save him. They try to run away out to the smokehouse to be safe out there. Wait, so she gets him out from underneath the bed? She yanks him out of Greala's tongue, which a fantastical story. Just the way that she kind of works as like the, monster under the bed at the same kind of time. You're already probably freaked out about that. I'm sure monsters under the bed have been a thing. She's super natural. Yeah.

Monsters under the bed have probably been a thing since beds were invented, right? Oh, yeah. So. Well, like, think of it. Like, there were always, like, rats under the floorboards and making those noises and you would associate it. Like, well, I guess I can't really say, like, there's cartoons like monsters ink, but my kid doesn't like sleeping with his closet open.

And I don't know where that came from. And I was like, why not? He's like monsters. And I was like, yeah. there's nothing. Like, I don't know where, but I've also probably watched some questionable stuff in front of my child. I don't think.

Or I'd allow my child to watch some more adult skewed cartoons than you probably should. So, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, I'm figuring this out as I talk about it. Do you still have any of that? Like, do you ever, sometimes when I'm at night and I've partaking in the smoke quite a bit, there will be a little bit of paranoia that's in, like, if I have to walk back out to the kitchen to fill up my water or something like that, I'll kind of start to feel like, eh,

this is a little bit shady. Not in a monster sense, but yeah, I get that. Somebody's peeking in the window that I don't know. Yeah, or if the house makes a noise that it normally, you know, you know it makes a different noise sometimes or if something clicks on, it normally doesn't click on. Oh, yeah, definitely.

Like when I have my fireplace turned on, after I turn off, it does that popping thing where the metal is kind of, you know, cooling again, it's cooling down and everything. So it'll make those popping noises. Sometimes it'll make them for 10 minutes. Sometimes it'll be 25 minutes. And so I'll be upstairs and all,

sudden I'll get a big pop. I'll be like, was that? That was it. And I'll fucking walk downstairs. You just, sometimes you got to try to rationalize that shit in your mind. Yeah, so I don't think that that ever leaves you, and that's that childlike fear of having something that you don't know

going on inside of your house. So they run to the smokehouse. Grela ends up capturing both of them, and when the sister wakes up, she wakes up in like a spidery, sticky sack. that is super big because Grela is a giant, so it's a giant sack.

The threads are big enough to where the girl can grab them. She looks out. She doesn't see anything to her left. She looks to the right. She sees a big ass pot that's sitting there boiling away. She looks over to see Grela at the cutting board. As Grela reaches down, she pulls out a sack, and she thinks, oh, no, maybe that's my brother. Sure enough, Grillo opens up the sack, and it's her brother and her brother's naughty,

best friend that he had been hanging out with. Luckily, the brother is spared and put back in the bag. The other kid, literally this is like a kid's book, gets chopped up on the cutting board right in front of the girl. And it described it in decent detail.

I don't know if that was just for the audio book or what, but it was... The effectiveness. Yeah, very effective. And girl ends up getting out of the sack, obviously goes and saves her brother. Greela sees what's going on, tries to catch them, they escape out.

Just an ultimate, like, child scary story that was, I'm sure, very effective. So is it, like, they get away, they get back, and then they're good for the rest of the kids? Always good children after that. They tell all of their friends that this is real. They get back to town. The kids missing. They got chopped up.

See, that and the brilliance of that, and I'm, you know, I'm not pro-cooking children. No. What I'm saying is the brilliance of that is it has the same. mistakes of the characters having a redeemable path, the brother and the sister survived, but the other little fucker, he dies. So you do know that it happens. It's really, yeah.

Because then if you think about that, it's like it seemed pretty easy to get away from Greela. I mean, not all of us. Yeah, no kidding. So that sort of wraps up Greil and you, lads. I just, when we talk about in the beginning, like talking about where this

mythology and where this folklore comes from, I wonder what Christmas would look like if we embrace the Native American culture. Like I wonder, because they would have to have something too. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, man. I think, you know what I think the whole thing with... Okay, so the one we adopted was one that was more... English.

I'm trying to think of the, yeah, what I'm trying to think of the word, when people were more settled, had like settlements and stuff where he could come to a home. And I think that's because that's how our country was set up where, you know, we had cities and homes and everything like that. That that's part of why we took the part of like Father Christmas, St. Nicholas and everything, like being able to come around and give gifts. I think that's why that one was what's kind of used and copied more so. and maybe us bringing it from our homeland it just would be split and divided Oh yeah definitely I mean if you have something already

kind of precedence already said or some folklore already in place you might change it and adapt it a little bit like that But you're not going to skew so far away from it That you go and adopt what maybe the Native Americans were doing At that point they wouldn't listen anyway Even if they'd have the coolest fucking thing Yeah it just seems like it would be more magical

I don't know I guess maybe people Dubai into what we have now. Here's the other thing too, is these kind of only pop up. If we're thinking about it from like an actual like I'm thinking about it more logically, winter was probably a time in which survival was pretty much the primary thing.

People were dying of, you know, freezing and, oh yeah. So I think that the whole idea of like an incentive-vised creature, Christmas-type celebration thing only happened when there was a high likelihood of like survival there wasn't a lot of worry about survival they had more time to burn when it was it was like something to celebrate when it was cold outside to do yeah but

probably when hope was at its darkest too yeah so center clause which wow we didn't get far from that did we what center claw it was we didn't even try to like get far from that for ours santa claus center claw let come on oh you mean now And yeah, well, I mean, we're talking about, again, like we were sort of talking about with the, with Christianity sneaking into Iceland and all that, the Netherlands and Denmark and these areas where this takes place. I mean, it's all pretty religious there too. And Centriclaus himself is based on St. Nicholas. So the patron saint of children, just, I don't know what that means. It was cool.

It was an easy sell. it was easy to transition to make, like, we're going to make the guy that's now going to be in charge of judging the kids is going to be the patron saint of children. But what was he? Was he real? Like, it was St. Nicholas actually a dude? I don't know. It depends on who you ask. It's like saying, is Jesus real?

Was Jesus a real guy? Yeah, I guess he would have had to have been. But as the patron saint of children, um, Cinter Claus Fest, Centroclos Feast is celebrated on December 6th. So like we were talking about, the timeline's a little bit different. And when he's celebrated, it's so much more of like a cultural, like you're just there in the community. You have a very big feast.

You take care of the poor in your community. You make sure that they're fed. Children get gifts. Anybody that's more vulnerable is sort of celebrated and taken care of that day. At the same time, it's a big ass party. Like you're dressing up in costumes, there's music, there's dancing, there's me being poured. Does this still get kind of, I know it's not to this degree, of course, and everything, but does this still get more pageantry than Christmas does around here?

Oh, I would imagine it would have to be. The way it all works, and we'll talk about it a little bit, but when Santa Claus and when Sinterklaus and Black Pete come to town, they ride in on a fucking steamboat. Like, it's, they're received by the people of the community. What if you're landlocked? You don't, you're like, oh, is it a flying steamboat? It's, it has to be a magic.

It's obviously a fucking magical steamboat, right? Yeah. Is there an explanation to this? Yeah, there was, and it's just escaping me at this point. I don't remember how they did it, but they still, even landlocked places have the same deal. Sort of the downfall of Sinterklaus is his helper. slave black peat so part of cintrecloss's

lore is that he traveled down to Spain to bring oranges back to the children for gifts and I guess oranges weren't that widely distributed yet they were like a a rarity yeah like a super special street which makes sense I mean we take so much of that stuff for granted because of our transportation systems that like there were people that had no idea like throughout their entire lifetime said there were such

things as lemons and oranges. And a pineapple has to be a relatively new thing in a lot of places. God, can you imagine that? Just the burst of taste and flavor in your mouth, it's like, I've never fucking had anything like this before in my entire life. Do you think like, oh, well, diabetes wasn't really a problem back then? If you're eating so much fucking pineapple.

It's all natural sugars, though. Don't you usually get diabetes from like sweeteners and other chemicals? I'm not sure But as Sinter Claus was down in Spain He procures He acquires

Acquires A financial transaction A gentleman named Black Pete Now Black Pete Get his name I The way that people Try to pass it off as

Black Pete is a Sot-covered man who shimmies down the chimney for Sinter Claus to drop off presents, do certain things in the house. Get on there, Pete. Yeah, he's his guy. Cinter Claus flies in on a horse.

Black Pete crawls up the side of the house. A little bit different transportations. And Black Pete, sometimes there's one, other variations of them. There's like six to eight. There's just like more Black Peeters than like a Black on Black Gang Bang. Are you talking about the number of Peets? Yeah. There's multiple black peats.

In some renditions of it, like, he'll be the toy maker. The one I saw, and the one that, like, the main one that pulls up if you search Black Pete, you might Wikipedia Black Pete, and that's the one that shows up. It's literally the most, like, the most white guy facial structure with just full black makeup. And, like, he wore a really bright red lipstick or something. And he's almost dressed in, like, uh, trying to think of how to describe it. Is it friend? No, it was Spanish, I guess, but it's very like the puffy shoulders and like the kind of the big puffy hat and everything.

But the whole point of like Black Pete that they went way fucking overboard with is they like he's completely blackfaced. Like there's not even, it's not like even soot. Like you know how soot would smear on your face a little bit? Well, and the hands were black too. Like it was like you blackface your entire body. I mean, it's soot. It's gonna get it. But the fact that it wasn't smears like you would get so on it like a chimney sweep.

Like the fucking chimney suite from Mary Poppins. That guy was not black. and he worked a goddamn chimneys all day. Black Pete looks like he swam in just soot. Yes. The other striking features of him that make me think that there may be a little bit more behind this. Bright red lipstick. Mm-hmm.

To make the lips obviously look bigger and more of a large facial feature. Pop, I think is. Pop and yeah, okay. Pop, gold hoop earrings. That seems like we may be leaning. Interesting choice. Interesting. Odd cost and choice.

Odd how you got there. And maybe this had something. Explain to me how you got there. Maybe this had something to do with the heat inside of chimneys. But Black Pete also has a relatively large afro. Which is hair indicative of a certain culture. I don't know what Spanish hair looks like. It doesn't get, I've never been inside an active chimney before while I was going.

I don't think it would be humid in there. There's not a lot of stuff. to suggest humidity in there to really make a hair get frizzy in an unnatural way. I think we get where you're, listen, this is colonial, wait, where is this stuff all based? The Netherlands. Countries that are not friendly to African Americans. They're not in, they don't consider those people in high standing. And if I could just be honest for a second between me and you,

And everyone listening to this? I, yeah, yeah, sure. You guys are all in on this. The 23 people listening to this. Maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from with this. I kind of love Black Pete. I, the outfit terrible, terrible racism, disgusting.

But he's kind of a cool dude. And his character seems like the guy that I would want to hang out. Like, he sounds like a lot of fun. Oh, well, I'm willing to entertain your cell on, your pitch. on this. I wish that they could, and I think they have taken steps to make it a little bit more. They've done to what it should be. He, I think Black Pete now is portrayed essentially. It can be portrayed. The whole point that like someone is on the face, that's the whole black face. That's the whole thing that portrays being Black Pete. And so they have people of different nationalities

playing back Black Pete. So they still have that kind of in there. One thing that kind of made it mainstream about Black Pete that a lot of people might be able to remember is I can't remember what season of the office it was, but it's the one where Dwight dresses up like... You're not going to be able to find it now. Belchnickle. Oh, you can't. That's right. They took it down. You can YouTube it probably. You think they'll have Yeah, because they don't have... I don't know, because they could just take it down for copy.

I bet enough of... It gets uploaded enough and before it gets taken down it, you could probably find it if you search hard. But anyway, Dwight dresses up like Belchnickle, which Belchnichel is an actual real. I think it's where Dwight's family is supposed to be from in Germany. It's a German in event Santa Claus, basically,

and the whole thing that Dwight does about, like, what is it, it's, uh, were you impish or insulin? God, what, I can't remember what it was. Impish and, yeah. Anyway, he would smack you with, like, a bundle of reeds. Or you would get, like, a fucking nutcracker or something like that if you were good. I can't remember, it's going to kill me that I can't remember what the question it was. But anyway, the guy that worked for Dwight, like, as a building manager,

I'm trying to remember what his name was. His brother? No, it wasn't. That's not who dressed up as Black Pete. It was the dude from the warehouse that worked down there. I'm trying to remember what his name was. That's not Craig Ferguson. No.

Or, no, it's the guy that I'm trying, I can't remember his name. He's the guy that is in the office and he tries to be like, Gums got mint here lately. He's really socially awkward. He's not like a main character at all. Anyway, so he dresses up like Black Pete. And as soon as, like, he shows up or something like that, he, like, Dwight, like, shoes him away or something like that. But it gets, yeah, it's gotten taken off.

Like, you can't stream it anymore for that part they took out. But, okay, sell me on, sell me the positives of Black Pete here. Now that I got Black Pete, as it's looked at now as a sooty, non-national, non-specific national or race person, someone who's just a hard work in chimney sweep. Yeah, he's an awesome dude This catchphrase thing Is fucking killing me What Dwight says It's impish or something else

Fuck it, whatever Impish or admirable Yeah, that could be it Impish or admirable Because impish was bad Admiral admirable was good So like we said Centric Claus rides in on a horse

Black Pete is the one that goes into the houses primarily they leave them some fun stuff. Does he get a horse? Huh? I wouldn't imagine he would get a horse. No, Black Pete doesn't get a horse. He's running on the ground. He's climbing buildings. That's not, it's an unfortunate non-surprise. Yeah.

So some of the fun stuff that they do is, like you said, they bring Cintra Claus and Black Pete in on a steamboat from Madrid every single year, so they're always coming back from Spain. You just said he comes in on a horse. When they ride into town. Oh.

Oh, the steamboat shows up. Yeah, for their big parade celebration. I like this idea of like a magical floating steamboat. Kind of cool. Yeah. Kind of a sweet idea. As they come in, Black Pete's in charge of throwing out candy and gingerbread cookies to all the kids and everybody that's sitting there waiting for them. So he's given immediately and he's doing the legwork.

Sinter Claus is taking all the pictures and kissing all the babies. he's black peat's feeding all the kids candy getting them all juiced up and ready to go for the parties just like in iceland the kids leave their shoes out and when they leave their shoes out by the fireplace obviously so it's the easiest to get to make sure that they're there um cintra claus and black peat well explain the shoe thing is it's a stocking type thing no like actual like they would set their clogs i'm assuming okay what was the point of that right next to the fireplace so they wouldn't be miss. What were they going to do with the clogs? They fill them with candy.

And presents. Did you say that? Yeah. Oh, okay. So, Sinter Claus, Black Pete, fill the kid's shoes up with candy and with toys, presents, all that kind of good stuff. So that was kind of like instead of having your tree, they would just look for the shoes. They would fill the shoes up with things.

Some of the presents that are left out for Sinter Claus, he gets coffee and he gets poetry. Poetry, I'm not really sure what that move is, but it's just maybe parents doing an activity with their kids. There were some looking through, I don't know if any of, I don't think any of them are up here, but did you see kind of what different countries leave out for Santa?

I didn't look and see. There were some baller ones that you can tell have definitely been like. Parents wanting a nice snack. So a couple of them like the UK, Scotland, Ireland in that area, they leave out. Germany, they leave out beer. And then, like, some of them will leave out, like, cookies or something, some other things that are

supposed to, like, provide, like, fuel for Santa Father, or whatever. A lot of houses to go to. It needs a lot of sugar. But, yeah, it just... That sounds like a customized parent move. Oh, yeah. Like, we can leave out milk and cookies. Well, and the parents were used to benefits twice here.

Do you think that's something that we're made fun of? Like, Americans They can't even go on night without sweets. They make the Santa Claus leave out milk and cookies. No wonder Santa is so fat. He has to throw all his American houses. How does he get down the chimney?

Oh, you silly Americans. Centroclos coffee poetry, that's what he gets. They leave out hay and carrots for Central Claus's horse. And this one is definitely a parent, two-for-one on this. Do the kids write the poetry? I'm sure they do. The parents do something with poetry. tree that's also very fun.

We'll get to that here a little bit, but they also, not to leave Black Pete out, they leave alcohol for Black Pete. So, parents get coffees, they get poetry, which I'm sure they toss immediately, and they get alcohol.

So, Black Pete's a guy that they're leaving the booze out for it. I don't feel like, and I'm imagining Black Pete, this is all real. He's a good time. No, he's a good time, but what I feel like is Black Pete doesn't get that beer or alcohol.

I feel like this is a ploy by fucking center clause here. And he's like, I don't want to come across as the bad guy. But I'm pretty fucking lazy. And I probably do have a drinking problem. So, hey, you don't get any of that. Pete's the fall guy for center clause. He's out here working his fucking ass off. Just funny that parents come up twice because if you're not drinking the coffee,

you're definitely drinking the booze. Or both. I well and there again You wake up in the morning Dad had too much Black Pete had a few too many He stumbled around the kitchen Broke a couple things

Black Pete was just looking for more booze Oh yeah That's what was happening Wasn't dad wasn't the guy with the splitting headache in the corner God forbid it was center class No not a chance He's hyper alert He's drinking coffee the whole time

So We kind of talked about how Black Pete is the one That heads down the chimney and leaves the presence. He's not, but also, what's the name that he's known as? Zwarte Piet. Zwartte Piet. So he gets a fun little Dutch name with Zwartte.

What the parents do with poetry, and I truly, truly love this. This might be my favorite thing about the whole thing. So Sinterklaus leaves poetry written for the children, and it is literally just the parents shitting on their kids, for all the bad things that they had done during the year that Sinterklaz is like the Festivus airing of Oh yes I think this is sort of where Festivus kind of has its roots Because they write these notes these poems from Sinterklaas about their children that are all just very mean like you were mean to me Or you were mean to your parents the other day you were a dickhead I saw that I didn't appreciate that

Like shake the fuck up or this didn't happen in next year yeah what it also has to probably do is it's got to probably fuck with the kids head and be like oh they notice everything. Like he's always watching. Because kids will fuck around. And like one thing I've learned is like if a kid is focused on something, you can sit there and watch them do some dumb shit. And you could be standing within almost their field of vision and be watching them. And if they're just hyper focused on it, they'll do it.

And so like, no matter what comes out of your mouth, they've already made up their mind. That decision's already pre-determined. I love my child. I'm just. Anybody with children knows that. feeling. I get it. I don't have children and I get it. But just the fact that the parents could do this under like the guys of Santa Claus is so funny to me that they could just be like, I saw you fucking pee on your dad's, uh, fucking bath towel the other day. Not cool, bro. Can you just imagine like the parents like, if this is still a tradition, which I hope in some degree it might be if the when the parents sit down at the table and they're just like, okay, what do they do this year? And the parents just

go back and forth. They're like, remember when that little fucker did this? And they're like, just bouncing ideas off of each other. And be like, okay, I'm forgetting what happened? What did he do to my favorite jacket? Oh, yeah, remember he burnt it.

Just try to remember all the fucking messed up shit they did the entire year. And they just get it off their chest. The parents kind of get to wipe the slate clean. They know that I know that Sinter Claus knows what happened. This is a reinforcement of all the shit that I yelled at him about, which.

Now go eat your fucking candy. Great move, yeah. Seems a little backwards because they're doing it. The kids are still usually probably getting something. But I wonder also if the amount of candy is dependent on the contents of the letter. So the kids like, why did I only get like half the amount of candies last year? Let us go to the letter. Your poem's six pages long.

That's why you only got four pieces of candy this year. Centriclaw is very famous. You were busy this year. very famous for the oranges. Manderan oranges are traditionally always handed out to kids on Sinter Claus Feast. Speculos also, great taste on this man. You know what Speculos is? I don't.

Cookie butter. So, you know, cookie butter. What the fuck? What's the brand of the cookies? Like Toll House? No. The stuff that they make cookie butter from. I don't know.

I don't know what I don't know. It's red and gold packaging. Biscotti? Yeah, Biscoff. Biskoff. Biscoff. Biscoff cookies are what gets crushed up to make speculose. Okay. So a delicious treat on pretty much anything that you put along and on a spoon.

I only eat them when I'm flying. I don't fly that often, but that's, I guess, why it's such a treat you're like, oh, I haven't seen you in a while, little friend. And you get to spread that on whatever you want. I'm going to eat water with this. Those kids are probably just like dunking their oranges and speculose. It's just awesome gifts. So Sinter Claus as a whole gets a thumbs up from me. I like it.

I'm not crazy about what he does to Pete and how he portrays Pete. He's awesome though. Pete's a great dude. Is Pete the redeeming quality then in Centro Claus? If it's just Centro Claus, he's... He's kind of a business man. Okay, here's what I take out of this. I was thinking about this when you're describing it. Pete is basically Sam, Sam-wise.

Yes. And yes. Center Claus is Frodo. Yeah, Centra Claus is doing some stuff, but like, you really want to go back on it. Like, Santa Claus ain't making it far without, without Pete. No, he's got the main goal in mind, and that's it. Santa Claus wouldn't have made it far without Pete. Without Pete being there to head down those chimneys and bring him back up the coffee and the poetry and the alcohol that he's got to toss up the booze first.

I hope Black Pete's taking a pull off of every one of those. I spilled it. I'm sorry. Centra Claus. This is like the fifth house you spilled it at. They went cheap when you're going to see it. I'm sorry. I feel like more are going to keep getting spilled. They only left you half a bottle is weird. That's crazy. Okay. I feel like... What is Kelso say in the 70s show? What he gives him a five pack of beer?

He's like, yeah, store I had a five pack of beer. How crazy is that? All right. What do you feel like are some, like, redeeming? Well, hold on a second. There were a couple other ones. that I had pulled up some information on, that just kind of getting back to more like worldwide folklore, there was a lot of like corporal punishment, it seemed like, with like the rods of reeds and stuff like that. Weird dude, weird deal.

Not really sure what I like about crampus. Very odd character, it seems like. He's like the anti-hero, like the devil's version of Santa Claus is kind of what I gleaned. But he's also been folded. it into some stuff with Santa Claus. Like he's the bad Santa. I don't know. They do crampus runs I've heard where everybody just gets dressed

up and shit-faced and runs down the streets and will literally smack people with reads. He's been on a host streak recently comparatively to what his popularity has been throughout his existence. Isn't he in a movie? They made like several

crampus movies. People do cosplays, crampus, all kinds of stuff. But he's basically He's Christmas Satan is what he is And his arch enemy Appears to be St. Nicholas dressed like the Pope In his traditional Pope Garbage.

I wouldn't be shocked if there was Some type of weird crampus porn. Oh, it has to be. Right now, but I already know there is. He's, and isn't he like, he's got one normal foot, One goat foot, some shit like that? He looks like a lot goat, but I can't really see down here

What the feet are looking like. Some pictures are lurking. normal others are looking like hoves. But the big thing too is he would wear like, a lot of them would wear like chains that can make noise and stuff like that. And it kind of goes back to the yule lads, being able to make noise and that kind of stuff when the kids are sleeping. And so things like with crampus basically looks kind of like a devil goat dude

and wears a cloth sack and chains on his back and ankles. And so basically when you can like hear the rattling of chains, just think of being able to do that. Your kid, you can hear them upstairs. you put him to bed. You can hear him thumping around, fucking around. You just reach down. Grab a handful of chain,

get that thing up fucking hard, just rattle, and then just hear that shit go quiet. Silence. Dead silence. How long do you think, what do you think the statute of limitations on that is? Like, how many months in advance of Christmas can you do that and how far after?

Like, does it take crampus a while to get out of town? Does he hang around a bit? Like, there's some chains rattling, like, January 15th. Yeah, like, Santa does his shit. you know, Santa you kind of can maybe do the whole year. A lot of people don't start using Santa as the thing until probably around October for like, you know, telling your kid to knock that shit off. When does that elf on the shelf thing come out traditionally? I don't know, man, because you only really, I mean, people that probably had kids earlier on knew about it.

I don't know. We started doing it last year. But I mean, like, is it day after Thanksgiving when the decorations were up? I think when the Chris, as soon he, the elf on the shelf is supposed to come with all the holiday decorations around the house. Man, you know what? If you're an elf on the shelf people, good for you. Being able to move that and put it in cool positions and everything. I would forget.

It sounds like it sucks. I think the whole procedure and the note writing and the moving and you have to fucking buy a $20 special glove for the children to be able to pick it up or else. No, no, no. The kids, no, the whole point is, is not No, they're not supposed to be able to move it. If they touch it, it loses its magic. That's the whole point. That's what I mean. They actually sell a special glove that you... They're just... Okay, so that's a money

grab. Yeah, that's all that... They sell clothes for them now? Yeah. Can you imagine? Like, that's such a, like, it's so dumb, but so genius. Oh, to make money, it's very... Yes. Very much so. No, no. The concept in itself to do that, it was all it was.

was like, can you imagine if you just told, like, think of this. All I'm going to tell you is this. I'm going to pitch you it. Yeah, so it's basically this little elf that you can turn into positions and it, you put it in different places in your house and you tell your kids that the elf is watching them, bleeding up to Christmas. But they can't touch the elf or else it loses his magic and it can't, you know, you don't get Christmas or anything like that.

And people are like, sold. How much does it cost to make? It doesn't cost it. Like, it's a fucking such a simple. idea based on trying to get your kids to quit fucking up. We're going to make this for a buck and a half. We're going to sell it for $25. I think it might be more because it comes with the book and its little case and everything.

And guess what? We're going to come out with all different fucking clothes for it and a special glove. You have to use stuff about that. So I've got a pitch for you then. Okay. Instead of Elf on the shelf, we go like chains for gains, something like that. You do the same thing. That comes out with the Christmas decorations.

And as soon as that kid starts acting up, Grab the chain, shake them around, the crampus. Does it come with like the crampus book? Because that's how the kids know about the legend of the off on the shelf. That's how they know they can't touch it and what happens and how it reports to Santa. And any time one of those kids starts fucking up, you just either have like a little thing in your pocket or something like that, and you just start shaking it and they hear it.

Start looking around. I love the idea. I'm not going to lie to you. I think it's a genius idea, actually. Where I'm worried is basically the copycat. how people are able to make this their own. Now the book, if we can somehow copyright the book, that's where we're going to go ahead and make our money

because then we pair the chains with the book. But I feel like, honestly, like, I can stop by Home Depot on the way home. And maybe, and the cramp, I'm not going to show my fucking three and I feel the cramp is really, but just anyway. But yeah, a lot of the other cultures, Santa type figures, yeah, a lot of them either

had a, um, like a dark counterpart that did like punishment or it was like, Grela, it was just basically like, don't fuck off because this thing's coming after you. Like there, it wasn't like a

happy go lucky, like festive like jolly like Jolly like Jolly St. Nick. No. It was there was a dark. The juxtaposition of good and evil, God and the devil. We're not fucking around here. Yeah, there's always going to be somebody going back. Winter lass. for six months here.

We're not fucking around when it comes to the midpoint of winter. The kids have been fucking around too long. We're going to keep trying to push this. There was so much fear and love, it seems like, in a lot of these. Like, this is how I know

that I'd probably be a bad ruler or like a bad, yeah, bad ruler. I would rule so much out of fear just thinking about the way that this happens and the way that it sounds to me. Like, definitely like to have a lot, little bit of fear. That's why I don't know if I would be a great parent because that's, there would be a lot of fear that I would want to rule out of. Not necessarily like, you do have

to rule out of fear. Physical violence, but just like these stories, if I had a child, I'd absolutely tell them about the Yule lads like you were talking about. That would be something that we would lead off with every single year just to impose that little bit of fear. Then watch him go to school and try to explain that to his teachers and then all of a sudden I got to go have a meeting with them because I'm explaining what door sniffer is. Not good. You can just say you can trace your, it'll be like, I'm Norwegian. Oh, yeah.

If they see, just be like, yeah, I still, I mean. This red beer gets me a lot of passes. I would look at them and be like, sit down. Give me 15 minutes and you're going to be teaching your own kids about clearly. You know, lads. I'm about to fucking. Just bring extra books. I'm about to change your fucking world.

Teachers walk out of there, think, I really appreciate it. Hey, if you could just email me those details, I'd like to get on this right away. What do you think are some? I mean, what do you think of some? some of our fun tradition. I mean, it's,

I'm not gonna say that like, we don't have fun traditions, but man, our shit has been like so fucking commercialized and everything that there's, it seems to,

it doesn't seem like there's any like, folklore to it. There's nothing we can trace it, like, really back to. No, we kind of have our own little fun,

kind of the fun things of it, the way that it has been portrayed. Like the, I was listening to something today. like the actual drawings and renderings of Santa Claus were done by a guy that worked at like the Chicago Tribune and he actually drew the pictures to put in the newspaper and that's where we kind of get like the general idea of like the red and the white

I want to say there was also like other drafts it's like when they try to like draw storyboards for characters and movies they have a bunch of different renderings so like I want that one I think they just like I can even imagine them like can you which Santa is the most appealing to you well that one's too fat that one's kind of threatening. That one's just fat enough. I like that one.

Okay, we're going to go with that fatness. Throw some rosy red cheeks on him, not too rosy. Can he get a beard? Can he be older? You think of the fun things too. Like, when I think of it, not only just Santa Claus, but like you see polar bears immediately you think Coke, but it's because you grew up seeing commercials

of the polar bears. And they'll eat your fucking face off. Yeah. And then wash you down with a fucking Coke. But you kind of get that, what do they call that? They call that the, anapomorphic

some it's something where you like how people like you get teddy bears and so people see real bears like that are just like meandering through the woods and everything like oh you know smoky the bear friendly and everything and then you fucking swipe to the next fucking clip and it's two grizzly bears tearing

each other apart or ripping apart a baby deer elk or something like oh my god you assign emotions to an animal or they're friendly or something like that I so what are some of your what are some of the ones that like if you had to name just a couple what are some of the traditions we have here that you feel like are solid if you had to keep a few Christmas traditions that were you know they got locked in and they never got to be lost or go anywhere what would they be that we have um the first one sounds a little odd but just because they I think induce a little bit of anxiety and pretty much everybody but but I love the fact that they have the Salvation Army bell ringers out for Christmas.

Okay. I love the thought of the charity that they could do. I don't know where the Salvation Army is on like charitable organizations and how much they pocket or whatever. And that's just the jaded asshole in me that can't look past that kind of stuff. But the thought of doing good, like if everybody put a quarter in or if everybody wanted to give, when you go to the grocery store and they always ask you like, would you like to donate a $5, $20, anything like that.

There's a time when... I don't get asked. Do you get asked still? Really? Yeah. I mean, I like, I don't know if I look cheap. You see it pop up on the card read or something like that.

And I used to... Oh, oh, oh. I thought you meant like the, when you're walking in. I feel like the people when you're walking in are just kind of like, they're ringing it, but they're kind of like zoned out as they... Sometimes... But then sometimes in your mind, if you don't have any change or anything like that on you... Do you have to be stoned to do that?

Sometimes, yeah, you almost feel like when you're walking in, do you make a move to like pat your pockets to make it look like you're looking for change? Is the bell ringing just a little bit louder as you're going to closer? I'm going to propose something to you. You know how there's those people that can play the different bells in their head and do different songs and pitches and everything? I know people are already given their time to do this for the Salvation Army. Very thankful for that. You want some pageantry? No, just listen, though.

if someone started playing me some Christmas music as I'm walking in I realize that's a little bit more work but I mean you're gonna fill that red bucket a lot faster Yeah, pizzazz Even if someone had that single bell and was maybe doing A little bit of the electric slide or something like that I'd be like I can't not walk in and not give you money

And in fact I'm gonna have to get cash back Just so I can give you something on the way out So I can catch you on the way out if I don't have anything in the beginning Like fucking brav I'm hitting you both ways just the thought that that's still like something that we do though that obviously has to have some sort of a benefit to it and to know that there are people out there that are still willing to be that good-hearted

to stand out there in the fucking cold and ring bells just to try to provide for somebody else like that's a very cool thought can your second one not be something that sounds like benevolent can it just be cheap and selfish because I feel like the situation I'm glad they're people doing good, ringing the bells. That's just kind of what Christmas is to me, though. I know it is.

I know it is. I just need, because of mine that I'm thinking of, I need you to go a little, a little selfish. Oh, okay. Or just, or not even selfish, but it could be just like, like, it doesn't have any substance to it. NBA on Christmas Day. Love it. It would be what? NBA on Christmas Day.

You get, you're supposed to be spending time with your family. You get like six NBA games, and I think this year we get two, NFL games? Is that what I I think it is? I think we're getting NFL and NBA. I think they started doing two games. So this sweet time of spending time with your family, like you have so much basketball and so much football

on the TV that that's kind of what the main focus takes. That's such a good goddamn. That's such a good goddamn pick. And you're laying on the couch or your kickback in the recliner and a game ends and you flip over to the other channel to catch the next one. It's like just they line them up in such a way where you

have like 15 minutes like get up piss grab another drink grab grab grab grab some snacks and you're in pajamas and you can be in pajamas all days you never have to change if your food should already be taken care of at that point you're already taking care of as far as god that is fucking perfect and you have dessert still in between games that you can sneak in grab a little piece of pie grab some while you're watching the game you fiddle around with whatever you got for christmas or play around with shit oh man solid solid feeling i and that's my traditions. I like that idea for a tradition. Like, just always having

the TV on sports playing. Mine fucking suck now. You told me to go selfish. Yeah. I'm glad I did. First one, Christmas Lights. And I know this isn't exclusive to United States

or anything like that, but I feel like that's one of those things that it's the Clark Griswold thing. Like, if we do it, we're going to do it more. And it's fun to just see there's still like Christmas lights displays that I look at it I'm just like God damn I think more so now like as an adult I'm looking I'm like I know that costs a lot of money to do and I know that that was a lot of fucking work to do like after having hung lights myself

sucks it sucks but then you look at it and you see a display that's just but you also appreciate the ones that the lights are tight have you noticed the ones the lights are nice and tight and they're those bright clean LEDs and you're just like fuck me every individual light on the big ones. I've never thought I'd be sexually aroused by a light display before, but when there's those LEDs and they're just popping. You get a little music in there, you throw some inflatables

in the mix. It's a wonderful thing to see a house just completely lit up. I don't know, do you think they do it overseas the same way where it like almost becomes a competition in neighborhoods to have like... Yeah, two degree. I bet like they have the best of like, best of Britain's lights and all that kind

of stuff, but I don't think they do it like they do here. Especially with like the light shows that people do now with like to the music and the talking house and all that kind of shit yeah the the other part of it too that i think i've come to appreciate more so is it's very like so like i'll go and i'll pick up um i'll pick up my kid on my way home from or sometimes i'll pick him up on my way and from work and so one of the cool things that katy also does when she picks him up is she'll just turn like down on the way home down into a random subdivision and literally drive two streets in a random subdivision and just him be

known to look at like the lights it's just like this weird like like boost to his day that takes no effort at all well he's got nothing to look forward to at home so just being able to drive around and see a bunch of the shit's gonna get him pumped well yeah and it's just the his standard drive from like but it's a special time of year where like his drive from you know nene's house to home you know it's usually like hey how's your day buddy and we'll talk and stuff like that but now it's like check this out let's go look at something cool and then see something like whoa and then you know he'll find his favorite colors and he'll shout it out and he'll see my favorite colors and he'll shout him out so that's got a that's got to hang around i like that you think there's

a correlation between the guys that do the big fireworks displays and the guys that decorate their houses got to be right you spend yeah thousand dollars on fireworks and water's and shit you have to i mean i'm sure there are some that don't do the, but I mean, there's, there's going to be some correlation between that, definitely. And then the second one, and I obviously didn't give this very, very much thought. I've gotten to the point where I really, oh, that's what it was. I was going to text you this, but I didn't want to discuss it and ruin it. That's what it was.

There's something that's like very, I don't know, just very either peaceful or, I don't know. So like when you have your Christmas tree in the same room where you have like your TV and your fireplace, I know that's very specific, but you actually have it too. There's something about the TV being on watching something that you know, a familiar show that you should come from with, the lights from the tree and the fireplace, all of it combining together. It's just this weird, simple, weirdly like peaceful, perfect moment. I don't know if that's, is that corny? Yeah, there's like an ambiance in the house when you see the decorations all together. And are you guys real or fake tree? Fake.

That we had to, we had to do, and it's not, I've always been a real tree person for the longest time. It just got to the point when it had to be fake, when you have, when you have like a really small kid, all of the fucking needles and shit like that, you kind of, you're like, okay, we'll just get a fake tree for for now. and then also if you have dogs, sometimes the smell of the tree can make them piss on the tree. And so that was kind of an issue. Once you go to a fake tree, I'm not going to lie to you, though, it's very hard to go back. And I feel like I will eventually have to get one just to kind of show my kid that this is like, this is what it's like to get like a real tree and have that smell.

You got to water it. We've got to get it centered perfect and everything. There's something like, you know, very cool because that's how I, grew up going to pick out a tree that was something like even when me and Katie first got together like we had real trees. We didn't get a fake one until we had a kid

and just going to pick out the tree. There was something cool about that. Like it never felt like a chore. It felt like a chore when they fucking charged you for it like Jesus. It's exciting. That's one thing I think I'm just, I'm always going to have to be a real tree guy and I understand kind of what you're saying as far as like

the pitfall. of it. I'm rooting for you. I hope you are always a real tree guy. It's it might be too late for me. I hope it's not too late for you. Stick to your guns. I'll remind you if you ever have a, if you ever ask me, hey, what brand do you guys

use? And if you ask me that, I'm going to say, hey, let's meet up. What are you doing? There just seems to be something. Check the tape. Yeah. There just seems to be something like, out of all the holiday traditions that come with Christmas, to me that's just like the one that I think of like it's I I hate selling out and commercializing things so that seems to be that'll be my last bastion like if I'm

paying 200 bucks for a real tree eventually one day because all the drought and everything like that it's just going to have to be a sunk cost for me to try to keep money that's part of the that's part of the commitment to the to Christmas I'll tell you what I do and I know it's no substitute I have a like cedar spray yeah like pine spray that when it's my turn, when I get the living room to myself at night and everything, this is when I'm the most at peace, dude. And I'm not going to lie to you, I was editing one of the podcasts, and I had the laptop open in front of me,

glow from the tree to my left, fireplace right next to it, and just the laptop. And I just sat there listening to us. It's weird to sit there and just listen to us talk, especially when we're texting. So it's like I'm listening to your voice, but I'm talking to you via text. But I was like, this is just weirdly like, I don't know.

The tree makes it somehow just feel like a special time of the year. it's the one time of year that you you chop something down you bring it inside your house it's still alive and you try to keep it alive like it's like having a big plant yeah and you do it for as long as you can some years it doesn't work out well

some years it doesn't live to Christmas but you gave it the old college tribe there's gonna be a day or two that you're probably gonna forget to water it that's when you gotta hope that you overwatered it the days before you have to hope also that like the regardless of how much you fill up the dog's water you know that at some point they're gonna go drink that fucking tree water. There's something about that

delicious tree water that's different. It's got a you know what it is? It's like a goddamn when you put mint in goddamn water. It's putting spruce needles inside of... This is fancy. This is nice. We always try to keep something that's nice and thick at the bottom so Hout can't get to it. Yeah. But I will say

one thing that he does love, he absolutely loves to feel the needles against him. Like he will go up and rub himself all the way over the side of tree. You've got to keep those things supple. Yeah. You can probably tell there's probably a patch of tree that you can tell if it's getting too dry. It's just fucking ornaments don't stick there anymore and

everything. That's the other thing, dude. I'll say a third thing that I like. And this isn't it's not like, I don't know if it's traditional Christmas or not. We've gotten to the point where almost all of our ornaments

except for a few fillers are all ornaments that we've picked up for like specific reasons or like that's the way to go. Designer trees are bullshit. When people look at like pattern to wrap like garland in a certain way and they buy like all the same thing that to me feels fake well what i mean though is like you know how you can go and you can buy a 50 pack of just the ornaments and everything we almost don't even need any of those because we have so many individually purchased that we've

gotten and it's almost cool to like and i know that a ton of people do this and i probably sound like i'm like oh welcome to the fucking welcome to the party rector um but like i've i've also been high when i've been doing this but i've just kind of stood in front of the tree and I could pick out like parts of my life based upon the ornament like there was an ornament from the ultrasound and I was like fuck I'm like that ornament is like fucking four years old and then there's like an ornament that we got in Disneyland that has the year on it with the Mickey Mouse here

so I'm like that was from fucking 2016 and then there's things that we got when Landon was that said like mom dad and baby so I knew he was still a baby then there were our names on him and everything And we've got ones for him that there's like a Batman and a Spider-Man, and now I'm getting to the point of all this whole thing, is if you get your child an ornament that looks like their favorite hero, that they do not understand the concept of the construction difference,

structurally material-wise of the difference between an ornament and a toy. Not made to last. No. And I'm not even shit in you. every one of his ornaments that are for him have hot glue somewhere glue and a limb back on I finally had to like

I think I finally made it stick and he also helped make it stick so he has an ornament that almost looks identical to one of his toys but he insists on having them both what's better than one I understand that what I'm saying though is it gave me an opportunity

to take the ornament I understand this is boring as shit. And then the toy that articulated, and I was like, here's the best example I can give you, buddy. It's like, see how the arms move, the legs move. Now, what I want you to do is I want you to squeeze it. It'll see how it bends a little bit, and I want you to drop it above your head. See how nothing to happen to it?

Nothing broke. Yeah. And I was like, if you do that with this one, how he doesn't move, he's made of like porcelain or whatever they make. There's no articulation in this. I'm like, he will break. We need to put him back on the tree. And he's like, okay, he's like, I'll be careful.

I shit you not. Two minutes later, I hear this little crack. And Katie was in with him, and I hear him immediately start to cry. And I walked in, and I wasn't, I didn't say anything, but I had, I felt smug in a kind of guilty way. I walked up and I looked down, I go, Spider-Man break. And Katie was trying to calm down. she's like, yeah, he broke. Well, we're going to fix him.

And I kind of look down and I go, yep. I go, we should probably leave him on the tree now. How, buddy? He just looked at me and he was like, yeah. I was like, all right, my work here is done. I couldn't have, I couldn't have timed it. I don't know if the lesson would have stuck. But none of the ornaments have left the tree since.

You're coming into the golden age of parenting Christmas ornaments, too. because as soon as he hit school and every single year when they like make stars out of like milk cartons to bring home for ornaments. It's already started. What do you think him and Neyne? That's true.

I'm not even shitting you. You brought that up. That's what they did today. You color plastic solo cups. Yeah. You put them in the oven on broil apparently. I'm not even shitting you. They flattened down.

You get them out as soon as they flattened down and they turn into ornaments and then you hot glue string to it. What about all the chemicals that burned off? Nothing. Nothing catches. I think you're saying this right now. I'm going to recommend they don't do this again.

Yeah. We have the orderments. What I'm saying, though, is it's already, it's already begun. There's like nine of them. And this is where you also, here's a move here. I'll tickle there. You know who would love these, all the people that aren't here at our house. So let's go ahead and send a couple of these to your aunt and uncle.

Yeah. brother and uncle, you know who would love about four of these, Bon, Grandma. So we're going to take those. We left, I told him, I go, pick your favorite. He picks his favorite, I'm like, that one stays. The rest of them, we're fucking shipping out. Everybody gets an ornament made by the boy with their Christmas card this year.

As much as, I don't know, I think it's a lot of it is like, you know, finding your own kind of like self-made traditions and the things that are positive. And, you know, there's a ton of positivity about, not bashed on Christmas or anything. I think this is more of just a comparison that if our Christmas is good, there's some great fucking Christmas folklore out there. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't really think that it's appropriation or anything like that to bring some of these traditions into your families. I think it, if I were to figure out like we were Norwegian, or something like that. I think it would be kind of cool

to try to connect back to ancestors that way and just these funny little things like not like if I'm Scottish dressing up to kill. This 23 and me thing. Never do it. I said that you gotta find a workaround. Yeah.

You're gonna have to go to like an actual like lab and be like, listen, I know there's this 23 and me bullshit flowing around but I'm gonna need this on the hush, hush. I gotta find out if I got any Viking DNA so I can start claim to some shit. I don't want the government to know. I don't want this on file.

What's the surcharge for you guys not to share this information? Yeah. Can we do this under the table? Yeah. All right, man. You got anything else? No, I think we're good. Everybody have a fun, Merry Christmas.

Happy holidays. I know we didn't discuss Hanukkah, but if there are any of our Jewish listeners, Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanza. Yeah, and this is just the first Christmas one. I'm sure we'll get into talking about, you know, maybe the Passover and stuff like that because it's all fun, interesting history too.

It's our first year. We're keeping it simple. All right. With Gorilla and the fucking Yule lads. Yeah. If you've learned anything from this, maybe look at your kids and weigh that option to do it to them. There you go. All right, guys, stay safe.

Peace. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us for another episode. If you like what you heard, hit that subscribe and like button. Follow us. If you didn't like what you heard, still hit that anyway, because we'll, probably cover something in the future that you do like. Please follow us on our social media. Adam, hit them with it.

Our Instagram is Historically High Pod, historically high POD, and we are on Twitter at Historically High. That's Historically H-I. All right. And if you guys want to send in any feedback suggestions, hit us up on those two, or you can even do it on Gmail. It's historically high podcast at gmail.com. Thanks again.

Peace.