Stuff You Should Know - How Christmas Worked

Episode Date: December 24, 2009

On Christmas eve, Josh and Chuck decide to take that ineffable Stuff You Should Know approach to the celebration known as Christmas. Join the guys as they unravel the mysterious historical roots of the holiday's evolution in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's gate the number one travel dot com. Once again, use promo code HEART20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Ho, ho, ho, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark. With me is always is Charles W. Chuck I. Hart Christmas Time Brian. Oh, oh, oh. Yours is way better than mine. Mine sounded like an Irish priest. Yeah, a leprechaun. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah.

Terrible. Hey, Chuck. Talk to the mornin' to ya. How's it going? Great. Happy Easter. Yeah, this should be coming out right at Christmas. Yeah, well we're gonna plan for that.

So if it is, to all of you listening out there in podcast land, we hope you're having a great holiday season. Yeah. Yeah. And safe and well and with family and we wish you all a Merry Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and whatever you choose to celebrate. Tet. What's that?

I think it's a Buddhist New Year. Oh, okay. There's all sorts of stuff going on this time of year. Yeah, big time. Yeah, but we chose to talk about Christmas. Chuck was brought a Baptist. I was raised Catholic. It's what we know.

And it's a pretty interesting story too. And if you're Jewish and you hate Christmas, you're gonna stick around because you're gonna love this one. Right. Yeah. And you know what? Next year we'll do one on that Hanukkah. Okay.

Deal. Yeah. I actually know a significant amount about Hanukkah. Well, let's do it next year. Okay. 2010. All right. Book it.

And we'll eventually do Kwanzaa too? Yeah, we'll do that in 2011 maybe. Or maybe we'll do it like a holiday extravaganza. Buddy, if we're still around in 2011, then we're either doing something right or something wrong. Okay. I haven't decided which. Okay.

All right, Josh. Okay. Is that what we're calling it? No. Christmas. Okay. So Chuck, have you ever engaged in Christmas? Yes.

Josh, once a year. I've engaged in 38 of them. Wow. That's pretty nice. Thank you. That was my intro. All right. Let's talk about this, man.

It's so ubiquitous. There's people who are usually drunk dressed up as Santa Claus, ringing bells, asking for donations. Sure. There's little kids like screeching in the middle of aisles in toy stores. I want. I want. There are parents like elbowing one another in the face to get to that last one.

That's mine. Exactly. Give me that beanie baby. And then there's people who are punching Walmart greeters in the stomach for saying happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas. It's the most contentious time of the year. Do you know where I am? Where?

I'm at home and I am shopping online. Dude, it is the way to go. Never again. And you know what? We go to Ohio. I just had the gifts shipped straight to my in-laws house. Very smart. No must no fuss.

Yeah. As long as you order early enough to make sure you're not spending the last week biting your nails hoping they arrive in time, I can tell you by experience that people are very forgiving if their gifts aren't there. All you do is you get a little card, you write it inside like you're getting this or you print out a picture of it. Right. Right.

It's like it's coming. I promise. And a coupon for a free back rub. I did do coupons once. That's one year. I was so broke. I had a friend take a picture of me, stand there with my pockets turned out and me going like, eh?

Just last year? No, it wasn't last year. It was like five years ago. And that was that. Like everybody kept it. No one turned it in. They just liked their tickets so much. That's sweet.

I made birdhouses one year when I was broke. That's awesome. They were good too. Sure, I bet. They're nice. All right. So let's talk about Christmas. How did this jam get started?

Well, Josh, the roots of Christmas are varied to say the least. You cannot write. You cannot be varied. You cannot point to one single thing and say, Christmas was born out of this. Jesus' birthday on December 25th. You can't even point to the aspects of Christmas and say that each one is born out of this. No, you can't. Basically, Christmas is a bunch of different groups that are from antiquity brought together.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Like most of these early versions of Christmas, I guess if you even want to call it that, there were festivals that marked the winter solstice in Europe mainly. And Rome. Yeah. True.

Rome had a big one called Statenalia. German pagans. They honored Odin, who was a god who flew over settlements at night, blessing some houses, and cursing others. Sounds like coal and switches or treats to me. So that was a pagan god. Yeah. Norse.

Yeah. And then also you have the Druids who like to contribute things like garland and holly to the whole mix, kissing under the mistletoe, actually is apparently a euphemism for some of the sexual practices that went on during the druidic winter solstice festivals. People probably didn't think they were going to hear those words in the Christmas podcast. Yeah. It's true though. Oh, yeah.

There was a rife with sexuality and one could even say perversion early on. Drinking and just crazy parties in some cases. You're talking about Rome? Yeah. The Druids were big into it too apparently. The Celts. Oh, right. Yeah.

But in Rome they celebrated the pretty raucous festival called the Statenalia from December 17th to 24th. Is that not how you pronounce it? No, it is. Okay. Thought you were going to correct me. Huh. And that honors Saturn, the god of agriculture, and they had a big carnival and they feasted

and gambled and gave gifts and corrals and got drunk. Wasted. Yeah. For days. This is Rome. Yeah. No one partied like they did. They also apparently loved to stuff Jews with food until they were so full that they

could barely move and then make them race each other naked through the streets for everyone else's enjoyment. So there's Christmas. These are the roots of it. And then of course you have Christianity which effectively took it over in the 4th century AD. Yeah. They say we need our own holiday to rival all these winter solstice shenanigans.

Right. The 4th century AD really, or CE depending on who you are, really kind of changed things. This is when Christianity stepped it up a bit. That's when St. Augustine was supposedly issuing all these proclamations. Basically the church just made some moves and it worked. Yep. And they chose December 25th as the day of the Feast of the Nativity, is what it was originally called.

And since they said, hey, Pagans, you come over to our religion, we've got something over here, it celebrates the birth of our Savior and all that, but you can still throw down. Right. This is going to be the last date, much like that to Ash Wednesday. Right, right, right. That too, Mardi Gras leads up to Ash Wednesday and the party stops on Ash Wednesday, but they go crazy ahead of time, very much the same thing.

And it continued like this for many, many centuries. Yeah. I mean, it still wasn't the Big Daddy, I mean, Easter and Good Friday still ruled. Sure. And the Feast of the Nativity was kind of the lesser of the three. And the Puritans had some problems with this, though. They did. Pretty much any group that was very doer about religion and were Christians outlawed or banned

Christmas festivities. Oliver Cromwell banned it. Yeah, he did when he took over. He stopped Christmas in 1645. And the Puritans in New England outlawed it, what, from 1659 to 1681 in Boston? Yeah. No Christmas. None.

And actually Cromwell had soldiers patrolling the streets to make sure there was no revelry whatsoever. And we're told to arrest anybody they found celebrating Christmas when he outlawed it. And still today, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christians, Christian sect, don't celebrate Christmas because they clearly see it as, or they see it as a clearly pagan holiday. And that all of these roots have, all these pagan roots have come together and just got a Christian stamp of approval, but it ain't, it's really just pagan. Right.

Yeah. So let's move forward a little bit in our time machine to the 18th and 19th century. This is when things start to calm down a little bit. Okay. And it becomes a little bit more like the Christmas we know and love, including 1846 when Queen Victoria's German husband, Albert, Prince Albert, he introduced a Christmas tree to the castle and they essentially got their picture made in front of it. It was an engraving at the time, of course.

They had to stand there for four weeks. Yeah. But it was their children in them in front of the tree and that's kind of may have been the first Christmas card like we do today. That's nice. Do you send Christmas cards? No. I don't need them.

I'm such a slacker. I've never sent Christmas cards. Yeah. I've never defended friends who, none of my friends listen to this, but when I don't send Christmas cards, I just don't do it. I haven't done it. I'll do that one day. Okay.

So Chuck, let's talk about gift giving. Okay. In 2007, Consumer Reports said that they issued an article in November of 2007 that said 12 million Americans were still paying off Christmas from the year prior. Wow. Almost a year later, 12 million Americans were still making payments on their credit card gifts. Yeah.

In addition to hearing, is that Santa's sleigh and jingle bells I hear in touch? Flying overhead? I think you're hallucinating. Am I? I don't hear anything. In addition to that, do you know what I hear? What? It's the sound of credit card machines being, well, you know, that's old, but yeah, the

swipe of the credit card. Over and over. Thank you. That's what I hear. Yeah. It is decidedly commercial now. And one of the reasons why people are still paying it off is we spend an assload of money on Christmas presents and decorations, $8 billion on lights alone.

Nuts. Listen to this, dude. In 1998, the National Retail Federation, which likes to come out with their annual forecast of how much Americans are going to spend on holiday gifts and just anything that has to do with the holidays, they forecasted $173 billion in 1998. Wow. This is, this is the height of the dot com bubble. Yeah.

Everybody was rich back then. That's true. Everybody. Everybody. You weren't rich either. Shut up. 2009 this year, the National Retail Federation projects that we will spend $437.6 billion Wow.

In a recession. That's nuts. Yeah. I don't drop that much on Christmas. We're going to spend half a trillion dollars on Christmas in a recession. I know. That's a bad year. I know.

And you know what? In recessions, even sometimes you go out of your way to make Christmas special because you've pinched all your long. So that might have something to do with it. You've done what? Because you've pinched your pennies all your long. Pinched all year long. Yes.

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Once again, use promo code HEART20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip. But gift giving, Josh. What is this? Where did it come from? Well, like I said, a lot of these pagan rituals, they gave gifts, but the roots, they almost all of them did. Yeah.

Strangelina. But the roots are generally traced to the Bible and Jesus being born and the three kings, the Magi that traveled to Bethlehem with their three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And usually Eastern Orthodox Christians tend to celebrate Three Kings Day in January 6th, which is the day they think that the Magi arrived with their gifts. Yeah. Okay.

It took them a while. Sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Everybody's writing mules back then, man. It took forever. So things kind of progressed like this for a while. And then in 1820, do you know what first appeared, Josh?

Stores began placing Christmas-themed ads in newspapers and magazines for the first time. And before then, though, Macy's stayed open, I think, for the first time until midnight on Christmas Eve in 1867. Yeah. That was after that. But yeah. I thought you said 1920. 1820.

Oh, 18. I'm sorry. I'm losing my mind here. But yeah, in 1867, they stayed open for those last-minute Christmas shoppers. Yeah. So by 1867, it was already a frenzy. Yeah. Should we talk about Boxing Day real quick?

Sure. Just cover that for all the Brits out there. Let's get the sidebar out of the way. If you're in England, Australia, Canada, or New Zealand, Christmas does not end on the 25th. No. It continues on to the 26th called Boxing Day. So what is that, Josh?

Well, apparently, it grew out of a tradition where servants who had to work on Christmas all day serving the rich families of New England or New Zealand, Australia, and Great Britain and Canada, they were given the next day off. On the 26th, they have their own Christmas, their own servant version of Christmas. And apparently, that was taken over by the rich fat cats as well. Right. So there's a Boxing Day and Christmas, I take it, in those countries. That's the way I understand it.

Wow. Chuck. Josh. Let's keep going on with this origin stuff. This stuff is very interesting. It is. Can we talk about St. Nick for a second? Yeah.

So you know there really was a St. Nick, right? I do now. Yes, you do. School me. He was actually canonized in the, I think, 19th century. But he was born in 270 CE in Turkey. He was a Mediterranean dude. Really?

Uh-huh. Turkish, was he? He was Turkish. And I think he died in 340 CE, so he was old. He was worshiped by a group of sailors who formed a cult around him, the St. Nicholas cult, or the Nicholas cult before he was canonized. A group of sailors? Right.

A group of sailors just idolized this guy, like literally. Right. So these sailors actually, I guess, sailed to Turkey and said, we're going to take St. Nick's bones. They're being kept in a shrine in Turkey. Bring his bones out. Exactly. Okay.

Or they went in and got them themselves, one of the two. Right. And then they take the bones back to Italy and place them in a shrine. When they do so, they displace this pagan idol known as the grandmother. Right. That's T capital G. The grandmother had a reputation for placing gifts in children's stockings. Oh.

Uh-huh. That's sweet. St. Nick, who was a real person, was a Christian martyr, I believe, takes over this lady's shrine and the association with gifts and him giving gifts and even gifts and stockings, her reputation goes to him. Wow. So it originally started with a woman. Uh-huh.

Wow. That's when the sailors went, we're not done yet here, my friend. Okay. Santa Claus has a very long and circuitous route, but it's amazing how it all comes together. I'm roasting chestnuts, by the way, while I'm listening to this. So because the Nicholas cult gave each other gifts, all right, and since they were known for giving gifts, they were one of the more popular cults around.

So when they spread north, people were like, hey, you're kind of cool. Let's hang out. And they converted. They were a very powerful cult. Right. So when they moved into Germany or the Germanic areas, Odin, remember you mentioned him earlier? Yeah. Yeah.

Long white beards. Sure. He flew over houses. Right? Mm-hmm. Santa Claus, as we know it today, is the collision of Odin and St. Nick. Wow. And the grandmother, technically.

I knew I had something to do with Germany. Right. I remember hearing that once. So Santa Claus was, I think, a Dutch word for this conception, but it wasn't until 1809 that Washington Irving wrote a satire of Dutch culture and said, he used the name Santa Claus, the Dutch name, which introduced the name to the English. A few decades after that, a guy named Thomas Nast, an illustrator, starts drawing his conception of Santa Claus, adds the north pole, the elves, the workshop, all that stuff.

And then finally, Santa Claus, who we know and love today, the jolly fat man with the red coat and the white trimming, all of these things have accumulated up to this point. And then our image, our iconic image of Santa Claus, was thanks to an illustrator who was contracted by the Coca-Cola Company in 1931. And scene. There's Santa Claus. Wow. Isn't that crazy?

That is crazy. Yeah. What a cool history. I think so, too. And slightly disappointing. A little bit. Where's the magic? Yeah.

There's no magic. There's way too much for now. I guess we should talk about trees a little bit. Yeah. Evergreen trees and garlands were used to decorate symbols of eternal life by everyone from ancient Chinese to Hebrews and Egyptians. And European pagans even worship these trees. Yeah.

Remember, we talked about the Druids and the sexual proclivities. All right. So fast forward a little bit when Western Germans used fir trees to represent the tree of paradise and plays about Adam and Eve. Yeah. They decorated these trees with apples and wafers and stuff, and that got more and more popular until they were introduced in North America in the 17th century. And then people started decorating them with mistletoe and holly and stuff like that.

And like you said, they really took off thanks to Prince Albert and that engraving. Yeah. And Christmas lights, clearly, which were introduced in 1890 or in the 1890s. And also, as I understand it, gingerbread men. Yeah. That is based on a Saturnalia tradition from the ancient Romans where they would eat human shaped biscuits. Human shaped biscuits.

Yeah. Think about it. It's what a gingerbread man is. Yeah. I love ginger cookies. Do you like those? Yeah. Are you with us?

Uh-huh. Okay, good. I'm having trouble enunciating during this one. I know. It's strange. So Chuck, I think we've reached the big finish, the finale. It was Jesus born on December 25th. Uh-huh.

Is that what we're going to talk about? And also, do you want to pop in two quick facts? Yeah, let's hear it. So where does the word Christmas come from? It comes from Mars. It comes from an old English word or term Christ's mass. Right. Right?

Or put together Christmas. And do you know where Xmas came from? Saturn. No. X was the standard abbreviation of capital X was the standard abbreviation to represent Christ. Really, it's not taking Christ out of Christmas when you say Xmas, it's an abbreviated version of Christ's mass.

I did not know that because a lot of people take offense when you write Xmas. People get really riled up about this stuff. Yeah, they do. They just need to drink a little eggnog, right? Yeah, with rum. Right. Delicious rum. So Josh, let's talk about December 25th and was Jesus really born on December 25th?

There is a 1 in 365 or 1 in 366 chance, depending on whether or not it was leap year, that he was born on December 25th. Yeah, because the Bible doesn't say that Jesus was born on December 25th. No. One thing I learned from this wonderful article written by our colleague, Sarah Dowdy, who hosts Stuff You Missed in History class, is that the early church didn't care much about the nativity about Jesus being born. There was no celebration, didn't pick up like we said until the 4th century AD, right?

So yeah, there wasn't a lot of effort made to really date his birth early on. Yeah. There's some clues though that it was probably not on December 25th. In the chapter of Luke, they say that the shepherds are keeping watch over their flock by night. Day and night. Well, no, it just says their flock by night in the Bible. Whatever.

Don't challenge me on the Bible, buddy, I know my Bible. 2023 is already well underway, everybody, so don't wait any longer to level up your small business. And the way you can do that is by joining up with Stamps.com. That's right, because with Stamps.com, you're going to be able to print your own postage and shipping labels right there from your home or office or home office. And you know, it's ready to go in minutes. You can get back to running your business sooner than later.

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But this suggests that it may have been actually in the spring during spring lambing because that is the only time of year where they do keep watch day and night. Right. Otherwise it's just during the day. So day and night. In that case, yes. Okay. And you're waiting on that.

So there's one Bible scholar. His first name was Dionysus. I can't remember his last name. He calculated that I think he was the one that calculated December 25th. Yes, Josh. Chronographers. Here's another theory here that chronographers reckon that the world was created on the spring equinox and then four days later on March 25th light was created because the earth

was created. I think I created light according to the Bible and Genesis. And since the existence of Jesus signaled the beginning of a new era of Christianity or creation, the chronographers assume that Jesus' conception would have fallen on March 25th, which nine months after that would be bing bing December 25th, which would be his birthday. So there's a modern Bible scholar who has gone a little broader trying to hammer out the actual year.

And by his reckoning, thanks to the presence of Herod, King Herod was still alive. He dated it back and figured out that Jesus was probably born in four BCE. Four BCE. Gotcha. So not too far off as far as the year goes. Not bad. And again, we should remind people that this December 25th thing was largely an attempt to steal the winter solstice from the pagans to convert them over to Christianity.

So no one knows when Jesus was born. Yeah. And you know, we're not saying all this to poo poo Christmas or the fact that Jesus may or may not have been born on December 25th, none of that matters. No. The origin doesn't matter. What matters is, is that is the day that we celebrate it. And all over the world, there are different traditions, some people open their gifts on

Christmas Eve, some people do a Christmas day. Some people don't do Christmas at all. Some people don't celebrate it at all. You know, there's other religions out there. Oh yeah, of course. Have you heard about these? Yeah. And we're going to cover these at some other point, but this one is about Christmas.

Yeah. And if you think about it from the true origins of Christmas, all of these disparate cultures being brought together and molded into this, sure, you know, it was done a surreptitious honestly, and a little sneakily, but it kind of reminds you or at the very least it explains how this whole season that's based around Christmas in the United States kind of touches everybody. Sure. So that's Christmas Chuck.

Do we have any listener mail today? Oh yeah. If you want to know more about Christmas, you can type in the handy search bar at howstuffworks.com, which then I guess leads us to listener mail. Indeed, Josh, we have a couple of requests, which we don't often honor here on the show. Right. But we're going to this year. We'd love turning down people's requests because I feel bad for people that are born

right around Christmas. I do, because that just stinks. So hey, Josh, Chuck and Jerry, Chucker and Jerry, I have a sad Christmas story followed by a huge favor. My story starts almost 24 years ago, the day after Christmas, 26, 1985. That was the day my husband, Ian, was born. The unfortunate timing of his birth has caused a ton of bitterness over the years. With all the gloom that comes after the presents are open, we are faced with the fact that Christmas

is gone for a whole year and then it's his birthday. What a let down. Right. He absolutely hates his birthday as a result and often refers to it as the most disappointing day of the year. That's awful. He is constantly plagued by the yearly Christmas birthday present, of course, having his birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper, just last year he received a birthday gift with a candy

cane taped to the front of it. That's awful. And he's never even had a birthday party in his whole life because no one ever wants to go out the day after Christmas. He's a complete afterthought. So here's my huge favor. He is a huge fan of you guys and I mean huge. He watches your live video cast every week.

He must be a big fan then. He watches the webcast. And listens to the podcast every Tuesday and Thursday and he also does his best to spread the word of stuff you should know to everyone, including me. So by the way, now I'm plagued is what she says. So I'm hoping you could make this the best birthday ever from Ashley, the birthday fairy. Ashley, we're going to give your husband a huge happy birthday here. Happy birthday, Ian.

Happy birthday, Ian. We're sorry you were born on the 26th. Yeah. Be glad you were born at all. That's what I say. But I'm sorry, dude, that stinks and we're sending you like a t-shirt or something. She wanted a signed t-shirt. But cut it with a candy cane tape to it.

Yeah, we should totally do that. Yeah, we should. So Ian, you got something coming your way, but it's not going to be there by the 26th. But happy birthday anyway, Ian. Josh, we have another one. Okay. This is from Karen. I just wanted to ask for a huge favor.

My partner Tristan is a big fan of your show. In fact, thanks to you guys, he now has opinions on a range of subjects and it drives me crazy. He turns 30 on Christmas Eve and that is today, if I'm not mistaken. Oh yeah. And I'm trying to make it a little special by surprising him with 30 gifts. And it would freak him out if he was listening to your podcast and you wished him a happy birthday. Could you help me out?

That would be awesome. So Tristan, today actually is your birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Tristan. Are you freaked out? 30 gifts. I know. 30 lucky dons.

I know. Yeah. I'm freaked out there in Australia, Tristan. Tristan. We're talking about you right now, Tristan. And Josh, beyond that, do you want to say a few words here? I do, actually. I want to wish my darling five foot, one and a half inch, half Okinawan girlfriend, you

me. Is that how tall she is? Uh-huh. Happy birthday too. Her birthday is December 30th, so she's one of those poor, afflicted people born around Christmas time. Happy birthday, Shortcake. Yeah.

Happy birthday, you me. Do you call her Shortcake? I call her Sugar Loaf. That's sweet. Yeah. So Josh, here we are, close to the end of the year, and we'll go ahead and say our salutations here on Christmas Eve to everyone. We raise a toast of eggnog, stuff you should know, aren't we?

Yeah. We're proud of you guys. We're proud of each other. Jerry, we had a great year. It's been awesome. Great response. Yeah, it has been a really big year. It has.

It's been huge. Awesome. And we feel awesome about the stuff you should know, Army coming together and being so involved and donating to Kiva. We appreciate it. Tens of thousands of dollars to donate to Kiva. That's good stuff. Yeah, as Josh says on the Kiva thing, what the finest people that have never met.

That's close. That's what I feel like we are. Yeah. Well, thanks to all of you out there in SYSK Land. We hope that your Sugar Plum dreams are all fulfilled. Yes. You're all tucked in tight in your warm beds with somebody you love and who loves you and we'll see you in 2010 after two more episodes.

And we will see to it that we keep you as informed and entertained in 2010 as we did in 2009. We ain't going nowhere. Exactly. Happy holidays. Is that it? Is that how we're going to end this? Is that heartfelt enough?

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? You're ready to travel in 2023 and since 1981, Gate One Travel has been providing more of the world for less.

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The South Dakota Stories, Volume 3. It was my first time traveling alone, packed my car with hiking boots, a camera, and my dog Randy. I don't know what I was searching for. Maybe it was something new, with adventure. Maybe it was the idea of vacation I would never expect, filled with wildlife, national parks, rivers, whatever it was I set out to find, it was all there and more. Because there's so much South Dakota.

No little time.