Stuff You Should Know - Josh and Chuck's Warm and Cozy Christmas Extravaganza 2013

Episode Date: December 24, 2013

It's finally here, the best episode of the year! It's time to settle in by a nice fire, wrap up in a blanket, heat up a toddy and gather your loved ones around the mp3 player to hear Chuck and Josh talk about all of the things that make Christmas so merry and bright. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Shatigler, and it turns out, astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe.

You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me, and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes, because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the all-new 2014 Toyota Corolla. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast, the very special podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles Bryant, Jerry Rowling,

and we're here. The gang's all here. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh. That was hearty. Yeah, man, this is one of my favorite episodes of the year. This is Halloween. Yeah.

Typically, we're recording this one a little early, I feel like, but it's okay. Are you sure we can postpone? No, that's okay. All right, well, let's do it. Yeah. I'm excited about this. I think this is a good way.

This is not July. This is it, we're in December. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, at least we waited until December. Yeah, this is a good way to kick off the season for us. Agreed. So we have like a whole month to just feel great. That's right.

That's what this is all about, Chuck. Feeling great? Yeah, that's the Christmas spirit, feeling great. Drinking hot butter drum. Yeah, that's, man, I'll tell you what, that put me in a mood for it. I've never had one. I haven't either.

Well, I am going to this year. I think I will be joining you. I didn't know you actually put butter in a drink. Yeah. I just thought it was called that was like buttery or something. Like a buttery nipple. Yeah, yeah.

That didn't have butter in it. It sure doesn't. All right, but that's coming up. Yeah, let's not get ahead of ourselves. No, no, we don't want to spoil the hot butter drum segment. Yeah, we just wanted to say welcome to the Christmas extravaganza 2013. That's right.

So Chuck, let's kick it all off. Yeah. Have you ever heard of a little ditty called Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer? Did he have a very shiny nose? Yes, he did. And if you saw it, you might even say it glows. I think that you could probably say that

and people would, they would, they'd agree. Yeah, I definitely have heard of this. Okay, then you might not know that that's actually based on a little poem from just a few decades ago. It's not that old. You know, so much of Christmas stuff is very, very old. Sure.

My friends over at Snopes got to the bottom of the origin story of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Yeah, well, we helped, we used their material, but they didn't get to the bottom of it. This is a real story that is well known. Oh, okay. Well. It's not like they cracked the case.

Merry Christmas, Snopes. Yeah. All right, so Rudolph, we're being coy. I know all about this story. But the reason. I had no idea. Did you really? Yeah.

Huh, okay. I didn't know all the details, but I knew that it was, I knew it was not the version, and this is why we use Snopes, because a lot of people have heard the story that it was written by someone to provide comfort to his daughter as her mother was dying of cancer.

Yeah. And then they sold it to a department store chain. And cashed in. That's right. Not true. No, some of the facts are there, like the man's wife was dying of cancer. True.

He did run it by his daughter. True. But. And there was a department store involved. Exactly. But, it was just a little off. Yeah. So let's talk about this.

There was a man named Robert May, and he worked for a company called Montgomery Ward, Chicago, Illinois based department store. That's right. It's people from the midnight fair, the glorious dawn of old. And every year, Montgomery Ward used to give out coloring books,

Christmas themed coloring books to kids. Yeah, they'd buy them and just give them out as a little promo gimmick. Right. And the head of the copywriting division said, you know what? We could save a lot of money if we just made our own coloring book.

But, how are we gonna do this? What will the story be? Robert May. You're very good at this kind of thing of writing rhyming couplets for children. Why don't you get to work on this? That's right. And he stamped out a cigarette

and threw down his last glass of scotch because it was 1939 and he was at work. Right. You know? At Montgomery Ward. That's right. And he said, sure, I'll take a stab at this. And he kind of nicked a little bit

from the tale of the ugly duckling and nicked a little bit from his own childhood because apparently he was a bit of a small, shy child on the outskirts, let's say, of the popular crowd. The fringe. The fringe. And he said, you know what?

I think I can use this for a story about a little reindeer who's also on the outside and on the fringe. But what's the name, Chuck? Well, this was, I think we should use an alliterative name is what he thought. Yeah. Because reindeer.

Sure. So the first name has to be, it began with an R. Rallo. No. He tried Rallo. Yeah. And they said, you know what?

That's a little too carefree. Then they went with Reginald. And he said, that's a little too British. Yeah. So let's just go full German with Rudolph. Yeah. In 1939, why not? Yeah.

I thought that was a little odd that he turned down a German name in favor of, or a British name in favor of German names. Yeah. No, anyway. I'm sure British friends find it odd too. That's right. So then he went on and wrote the story

in rhyming couplets and did read it to his four-year-old daughter, Barbara. Who loved it. I think it's funny that there were four-year-olds named Barbara back in the day. Such an old lady name. Yeah, she loved it. And his boss was like, I like it.

But this whole red nose thing, is this a drunk reindeer? Because, you know, the old gin blossom, I don't know if that's Christmas appropriate. Right. And he said, I don't have a problem with it. But our customers might. And Robert May suspected that it was really the guy's reservations.

So he grabbed one of his buddies in the copyrighting department, an artist, an illustrator, and took him to the zoo and said, see those deer? Make them cute and with a red nose. Yeah, I bet his first reaction too was like, you've got to be kidding me. No one's going to think this reindeer is drunk. You jerk.

Right, exactly. So with these drawings in hand, these illustrations of a cute little reindeer with a red nose and a normally red nose, Robert May got the sign off to go ahead with this. And he produced this little coloring booklet called Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. And it was an instant success. Yeah, by the end of 1946, they had given out a total of six

million copies. And then, of course, licensing started to poke their red nose in there and say, hey, we'd love to license Rudolph. Because this is a great story. Kids love it. And the creator was like, that's awesome, except I don't own it because I work for a company. And anything I create is owned by the company.

Even though I created it, I'm not going to see any money from it. That must be terrible. And so he went along his saddened way and then thought, you know what? Maybe I'm going to, for once in my life, stand up for myself. I'm in deep, deep crushing debt because of the bills that I had to pay to try to keep my wife alive who died of cancer.

It's been seven years of living under this debt. It's just me and my daughter. I created Rudolph. Let me go ask. And he went to the head of Montgomery Ward, Sewell Avery. And in what proves there are Christmas miracles, Sewell Avery said, you know what? We're going to sign the copyright over to you.

And he did. Yeah, it's remarkable to think that a company would revert rights to a successful thing created by a person. It's awesome. But I can't identify with how that's possible. I think it was a different day and age, I guess. Right. But I think also, Chuck, we look back at Rudolph and think

it's just this cultural icon. Sure. I think in 1946 or 47, it hadn't blown up like that yet. It was still popular. But it wasn't until after Robert May secured the copyright that the song that we now know and love was recorded. Yeah, written by his brother-in-law, Johnny Marx, just happened to know how to do that kind of thing.

That's right. And Johnny Marx actually rewrote a lot of the story, a lot of the details of the story, same with the 1965 stop-motion animation. Yeah, that was the Burl Eives Narrated Show. It's still one of the greatest Christmas specials ever. It's so great. And they did take some liberties, though,

which I thought this is probably one of the more interesting parts of the story. The original story, the Rudolph wasn't one of Santa's reindeer. No, not at all. He didn't live in the North Pole. He wasn't part of that whole clan. And he wasn't a kid of any of the reindeer, of Santa's reindeer. Nothing to do with them.

His parents weren't embarrassed by his abnormality. No. As a matter of fact, it says in this article that he was raised in a very healthy environment. He had a positive self-attitude. Yeah, he wasn't in the cartoon or in the stop-motion man. He's just like a sad sack because he's such a freak. Right.

And the original Rudolph was totally fine with himself. Sure. Yeah. And the other big difference is Santa discovers Rudolph by accident. Yeah, he's just delivering gifts on Christmas night and spots Rudolph in his room from the red glow. And it happens to be a foggy night. So he's like, hey, I think I can use this kid to complete my rounds tonight.

And he did. And when they got back, Santa had some words for Rudolph in the original poem. By you, last night's journey was actually bossed. Without you, I'm certain we'd all been lost. And the great news is that May lived the rest of his life quite successful and even went back to work at Montgomery Ward and seemed like he had a really good life after that. He didn't have to work anymore, but he loved what he did, so he went back to work. Good for him.

Yeah. And that's the story of Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer. Chuck, we mentioned Christmas miracles in the Rudolph part. There was something that happened last year in 2012, Christmas 2012, that a lot of people said was a Christmas miracle. At the very least, it was a sweet Christmas thing. There's a little girl named Mia, or Maya, I'm not sure, MIA. And she was seven at the time, and she lived in New York City, and we're going to call

her Maya. Okay. Maya, no, we're going to call her Mia. Mia had a dog named Marley, who was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, which are very cute, adorable, sweet dogs. And Maya, did I say Maya or Mia? I think you said Maya. I think I said Mia ultimately.

Okay. Mia and her mom were shopping for Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, and they left Marley tied up outside of the store they were in, and when they came out, he was gone. That's right. And thanks to video surveillance, another Christmas miracle, they saw that this jerk stole the dog. Stole the dog. Did you see the surveillance?

Yeah, he picked it up and walked away with it. Yeah, the dog was clearly not happy to be manhandled by this guy, but it's like, I'm a King Charles Spaniel. What can I do? That's right. So this sounds like not a Christmas miracle, Josh, but it sounds like the worst Christmas story ever. Yeah, it was Christmas Eve that this happened.

The girl said that she couldn't sleep that night. It was just too hard, she said, which is so sad. She'd lost her best friend. All she wanted for Christmas was her dog back, and she got it. And her two front teeth. Right. And she's that kind of kid. Exactly.

So she got her dog back thanks to a very nice lady who that same day that the dog was stolen was walking through Union Square, walking her own two dogs when she noticed a man with a shivering little dog, King Charles Spaniel, and she just thought they didn't go together. The guy was on drugs, and this King Charles Spaniel looked like it was too good for him, basically. Well, and it was for sale on Christmas. So she inquired. She inquired after the dog, and the guy said, I've had this dog for years.

I just need some money, and I hate to part with it, but well, I will if you give me some money. Liar. So the lady actually coughed up $220 cash right there on the spot and bought this dog from the guy, which is pretty sweet in and of itself, but she took it a step further. That's right. She took it to the vet. The dog was microchipped, and she got it back to their owner.

Yeah, the vet called the family and said, we have your dog on Christmas Day. It's a Christmas miracle, and within a few minutes, Mia and her mom went and were reunited with Marley. Yep. And the jerk was arrested. Brandon Bacon. Yeah. That is a dog stealing Grinch's name if I've ever heard of it.

Brandon Bacon. Yeah. And that is the story, unless you have anything else, of the returned King Charles Spaniel. On Christmas. Oh, right. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road.

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by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. And so tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Attention, bachelor nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new tell all podcast, the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny.

We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all. And now he's sharing the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward and letting everybody hear from me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out.

I have not spoken publicly for two years about this and I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day, truly every day of my life. I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey dude, now we're to an interesting part of the show where we're going to talk about modern day mall sanas. I grew up with what I think was the best mall Santa of all time.

Oh yeah, that's a pretty weighty statement. The dude at North to Cab Mall in the 1970s, I can't remember his name, was the most realistic looking Santa I've ever seen. He was amazing. He was my Santa. And I will try and find some photos to post when we release this of this dude. He was great. I didn't have a Santa.

He's departed now. But he really... Were you like friends of this guy's family or something? No, but they did like a big article on him when he died because he was like... Oh, he was that good, huh? Yeah, he was known as like the best Santa, the best fake Santa in all the land. Yeah. And he really, he looked apart.

I mean, really, really looked like Santa. Not creepy, all natural with the beard and hair, like there was no fake, fakeery going on. That is nice. Yeah. And that's a job and you can make some decent money doing it. You certainly can. And you can also cough up a little money trying to get there.

Yeah. Depending on how much you want to create the illusion that you are Santa himself, you're going to have to spend some dough. A Santa suit, a good one is going to run you about two grand. The boots themselves are going to be about 800 bucks. Yeah. The gloves, the white ones, 300 bucks, don't think that hat is free. White leather gloves.

Wait, what Santa have you ever seen that wears leather gloves? That's creepy. Really? You've never seen Santa wearing supple white cap skin gloves? Oh, man. They wear like the little white cotton gloves. Yeah, that's what I've seen too. And that's mainly to prevent germs, I think too.

Which I didn't know. But it's also to make your hands very visible at all times from what I understand. Oh, really? Yeah, it's a lot of leather. Oh, yeah. Gotcha. Where Santa's hand, it's right here. See?

Yeah. Interesting. The white really stands out against the red. Yeah. I never thought about that. I didn't think about it either. I read it elsewhere. Yeah.

Interesting. All right. So you've laid down some serious cash. If you want a really good theatrical beard, let's say you like that white one. That one in the corner made out of a yak hair. Yeah. Because I mean, if you want a good Santa beard, you have to go to the yaks. It's going to be about a grand to $12,000.

Or maybe you can grow your own big beard. It's still going to cost you a little money to keep it like perfectly white. Yes. You don't want to see any red in there. No. No salt and pepper. No. You want to have a strictly white beard and that'll cost you a little bit of money too.

Yeah. 600 bucks. I mean, think about it. If you're coloring, right, and you want to go to a good colorist, white's probably the hardest thing to color hair. Yeah. And this is all, if you just want one of each of these things, you're going to be spending that money.

But as a Santa, you need backup wardrobe. Some of these guys have like five or six of these outfits. Yeah. Apparently, according to a poll by the Kringle Group, which is basically a trade industry for Santas, the 20% of mall Santas have five or six whole suits tucked away in case of emergency. Yeah. So that's like upwards of 20 grand or more in investment to be a Santa.

And they said in the same poll that most Santas have two at least. At least two. Sure. Yeah. Because, you know, you get peed on at noon, you got to go change so you can get peed on again at three. Yeah. If the Kringle Group does anything, they conduct polls of Santa.

And they found that a third, a third of mall Santas have had a child pee on their lap. I would think that happens once a year. At least. Sure. Don't you think? Oh yeah. I was surprised. It seemed a little low to me too.

I thought so. But it's not just pee. Like there's all sorts of ways that kids spread their germs. Yeah. It's the Kringle Group said 75% of Santas get sneezed on at least once and 44% are sneezed on or coughed on up to 15 times a day. 15. I'll bet that's an accurate amount too because I'll bet you count every time.

Well, it's number 14. Yeah. Well, and there's no parent that the kid is like really sick and like, well, we just won't do that this year. The parent's like, nope. Right. We're going. Yeah.

Happy or not. Get out of bed. The kid also may not only pee on you, cough on you, sneeze on you, he may scream and tear on you. And we actually have a pretty great slide show on our website called 23 Photos of Terrified Little Kids on Santa Claus' Lap. Yeah. If you go to stuffyoushouldknow.com.

Yeah. I've got one. I need to add to that. Okay. I'm going to go to Santa Claus and scan it, but there is one verified picture of me classic case screaming bloody murder on Santa's lap. Yeah. I'd like to see that.

It's good. You might also, if you want to be a Santa, you might want to go to Santa school. There are many, not many, there are a handful, but the Charles W. Howard School in Albion, New York, opened in 1937 and it is the Harvard of Santa schools. It was opened by the guy who played Santa in the Macy's Parade for years and years in your, Charles Howard. Yeah. And he did open it in Albion, but it was later on taken over and moved to Midland, Michigan,

which is where it is now. Oh yeah. And it is the most adorable thing you've ever seen in your life. Is it? It really is. Okay. Like the houses on campus. Like Santa Village?

Yes. Yeah, yeah. All of the Santas there refer to one another as like Santa Chuck and Santa Josh and they all have like personalized vanity plates like Ho Ho Wan and sure things like that. See the gloves. They also learn quite a bit of stuff. Like how does like Christmas terms in sign language. Yeah.

The history of Christmas. Just so you can be acquainted with like the real story. History of Santa Claus. Sure. History of Saint Nick. Apparently kids ask Santa how old he is a lot and Saint Nick was born 1700 years ago. So you got to be quick on your feet. Did they say that?

I guess some of them do. Others are asked whether reindeer or boys or girls. That's something kids always want to know. Is that a boy or a girl? Right. And it turns out the reindeer should all be girls because only female reindeer have antlers around Christmas time. Yeah.

And Santa has to describe that to the children. Yes. And Santa learns that at the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Midland, Michigan. Awesome. I just saw a story I'm going to have to dig that up for next year about these two warring Santa. Where was that? It was two Santas basically that were I think vying for the presidency of that group you

were talking about. The Kringle group. Yeah. I think you got really ugly. That's terrible. Yeah. It was a great story that I read a few years ago. I'm going to find that and save it for next year.

So what does this all mean in terms of return on your investment? ROI as I like to say here. That's what Santa cares about. Yeah. Like can you get rich playing Santa? Are you asking me? Yeah. I will answer that.

No. But you can make a decent enough living, especially if you're just working for two or three months. Four months these days with the Christmas season starting earlier and earlier and earlier. But just for this amount of time that you're kind of putting into it, you can make some Santas make up to 80 grand, more make somewhere between eight grand and 12, 20, 50 grand. Yeah. In your bigger cities that you're nicer malls, you're obviously going to find your better Santas that make the top dollar.

If you live out in the middle of Kansas and you have a hasty mall, you might have kind of a crappy looking Santa that makes like 20 bucks an hour. But hey, you got your Santa and good for you, they all need to be supported in Piedon with equal vigor. Chuck, yes, we've now reached the point where we talk about hot-boated rum, which is pretty exciting. It is. And it's all of the hills.

It is all of the hills and this is something that taught me a lot about our history in this country because I did not know that the United States was a huge rum producer back in the day. Yeah, to prohibition. Yep. There's something called Medford rum, which was the pride of New England. Sure. There's a distiller that's like reaching the end of the distillation process as we speak.

Yeah, I saw that. Who's about to release some Medford rum. Yeah, for the first time in a while, right? Well, yeah, it's like defunct and it's been defunct, basically since prohibition. But at one time, it was basically the heart and soul of the colonial economy and some people make the case that were it not for Medford rum, the colonists might not have had enough dough to fund the revolution. Wow.

Yeah. And I didn't know either, if you, back in the day, if you went north of New Jersey and New York, that was like the house drink, you went to a pub and it was rum. Yeah. And it was dark and kind of funky, apparently. The rum was not the taverns. No, well, they were probably dark and funky too. But yeah, the rum was, well, we'll get to that, but it was definitely dark rum.

It would get ahead of ourselves here. Chuck, first let's talk about the difference between a toddy and a sling. One's hot and one's cold. Pretty much. Yeah. I think a hot toddy, you're using a redundant term. Yeah. Toddy's hot.

Yeah. But you're not even really describing it well when you're talking about whiskey, a little sugar, lemon and bourbon. That's maybe a bourbon toddy. Oh, there's all kinds of toddies. But a, yeah. And hot butter rum is a kind of toddy. A toddy is the predecessor to the cocktail and basically it's booze, water and sugar.

And if it's hot, it's a toddy. If it's cold, it's a sling. Like a Singapore sling. Exactly. Let's say. So hot buttered rum is in fact a toddy. And it's obviously was a hit back then and still today because it was cold. And back then in New England, you know, you didn't have the insulation we had today and

you would, you would want something to warm the belly, something maybe make you a little sleepy so you could fall asleep. And so what better to include in that toddy than a little fat, a little bit of butter. Yeah. They had plenty of cows. So you're like, Hey, we got these churns. We got this butter laying around. It's really good stuff.

We got a bunch of rum, got a bunch of tons of rum and we have these hot searing pokers in the fire, which I did not know about until this. That's pretty awesome. And I'd love to make one like that. Yeah. You know, the original way, which we'll get to in a second. And they said, let's throw all these in a, in a glass and drink it. And it turns out it's delicious and buttery and puts you to sleep with a smile on your

face. Right. Yeah. They have no idea who the first person was to put all of it together. But by the mid 18th century, it was apparently all over New England. It was pretty much everywhere in the colonies. George Washington loved the stuff. Yeah.

And, um, over time, people have decided to kind of make it a little more fru fru than the original version. Sure. So there's, there's a very widespread hot buttered rum recipe that includes basically like a spiced sweet batter where you whip butter together with nutmeg, cinnamon, all that stuff and some sugar and you replace the butter with that. Um, apparently David Wondrich, who's a cocktail historian over at Esquire magazine, um, says that if you do something like that in parts of Maine, you'll be labeled a communist.

So he's anti batter. Yes. He is a straight up a purist. Right. Okay. But we're going to tell you how to make these things, but first we should talk about the ingredients. Yeah.

You want to use unsalted butter. That's a big one. And you want to use good butter, quality butter, not margarine or some shed spread. Right. You want to use like real butter, real nice unsalted butter. Yeah. And you want to, the more milk fat, the better. And, um, there was a guy who wrote the, uh, gun club drink book, his name is Charles Brown,

and he suggested that in the hot buttered rum, the butter was there merely to lubricate the mustache. That's pretty funny. The author of the article we read said, no, that's not the case. The butter is an integral part of this drink. So use the, as the best butter you can put your hands on. Yeah. Use the, the corners, the rough edges of this rum apparently.

Yeah. Uh, some people include, uh, cider, an apple cider in their drink, which can be done, but the purists point out that's just another drink altogether. Yeah. Don't call it a hot buttered rum. No. It's something else. It's a hot cider rum.

Right. With butter. So if you are a purist and you want to make an original OG enjoyed by George Washington hot buttered rum, how do you make it? Well, you want to get dark rum. Yeah. That's the, that is the key. Yeah.

Good butter is very important, but rum is really important. And you were saying that it was a little dark, a little funky back in the day. And luckily people are still making those kinds of rum today. You want some brown rum. Yeah. Apparently he says the, uh, Demerara rums from Guyana are really a nice way to go. They sure are. Have you ever had that?

Oh yeah. I had a big rum guy. I had a bad experience with it about 18 years ago. Oh, and you never recovered, huh? I haven't really done it near it since. There's a, I would though for, you know, it's been long enough. The kinds of rum that this guy's talking about, um, like anything from Guyana is like you could drink it neat.

It's very good, you know. Yeah. I used to, you know, worked at Mexicali Grill in college and, um, not recommending this people because it's not right to drink on the job, but we all drank on the job. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. We drank, uh, Roman Cokes and, uh, that was where I drank a lot of my rum.

You went one toco over the line there? No, we were, we were good. We, we, we, it was a college. When you work at a college bar, you need to drink in while you're right. Well, what was your, what was your bad experience then? I don't know. It wasn't from that. That was from some Myers rum in New Jersey.

Oh, gotcha. Yeah. Well, Myers will work. It's a dark rum. Yeah. You don't have to spend 50 bucks on rum. Um, but if you want to, hot buttered rum, isn't necessarily something you're drinking every night.

No. So maybe this year, spring for some decent rum, you'll have it around for a while. It doesn't really go bad. All right. So what's the recipe? The recipe is as follows, Chuck, you want two ounces of good rum, dark rum. You want three to four ounces of hot water, one teaspoon of raw sugar. You know that, uh, sugar in the raw stuff.

Yeah. You want some marrera. Oh, okay. And then you want some really good unsalted butter softened. Yeah. Then what do you do? Um, well, there's a couple of ways. If you want to go super old school, you're going to, uh, heat up your mug a little bit

with some hot water. Just go ahead and get the mug nice and chilled or a nice and warm. Nice and chilled. You don't want it chilled. Uh, you're going to add your rum sugar and water and, um, about two tablespoons of that butter. That's a lot of butter. Yeah.

Um, but you want to take a hot poker from the fire and plunge it into your mixture until it starts bubbling. Yeah. Be very careful when doing this. Yeah. And don't use your like fire poker cause it's covered in ash. Yeah. I don't, I don't understand it.

Like what poker are you going to use? Well, your, your rum poker, you would have something strictly for this. Just for rum. Yeah. But let's get real. That's dangerous. Yeah. This is the modern days.

So if you want to make one that's slightly less colonial, meaning it doesn't use a red hot poker to, um, heat everything. Yeah. Get your tea kettle on. Pretty much. Yeah. Again, you warm like a heat proof mug with some water, hot water. And then, uh, you dump that out and you pour an ounce of water and some sugar and you

stir it to dissolve. Yeah. Boiling water. Right. Sure. After that, you add the rum, the rest of the water and, uh, that butter, two tablespoons. Man. That's a lot of butter.

I'd like to try this. And on both of them, uh, you want to, you want to grate some fresh nutmeg on top. Yeah. And there's your hot buttered rum. If you want to be a communist and, and main and make your batter, uh, you make, you basically you make your spice, butter, sugar, batter, and that's sort of like just your base and you can scoop that out and add it to each drink. Right.

It stands in for the butter. Yeah. It's about, uh, let's say if you want to make eight servings, a cup of brown sugar. Man. That's a lot. Eight servings? One. Sure.

There's not a zero missing. Seriously. Uh, one, the four ounce stick of unsalted butter, softened one teaspoon of ground cinnamon, one and a half teaspoons of ground nutmeg and one quarter teaspoon of clove. Mix that all together in a mixing bowl. And supposedly that is eight servings of your batter, but, um, sounds like it could go, could go a little further. Yeah.

That'll keep you up. Yeah. Maybe. I've seen use ice cream in their batter. Oh yeah. Yeah. We just, I don't know. Even I'm like, that's too far.

Some might say two tablespoons of butter in a drink is too far. Some may. And I think that's the point. This holiday season, when you're enjoying a hot butter rum, if your age is 21 or older, um, you should adjust it however you like and make it your own so that it gives you a happy holiday season. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough

or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God.

Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step

by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. And so tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Attention, bachelor nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new tell all podcast, the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny.

We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all. And now he's sharing the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward, and letting everybody hear from me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out.

I have not spoken publicly for two years about this and I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day, truly every day of my life. I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, buddy, it's time to round out the Christmas episode with a reading and we did this last year, what do we do, the shoemaker or something, little kids in the shoes. We did some story about some magical shoes that were made overnight or something.

Oh, about clothing elves. Yeah. I can't remember the name of it. It's a classic Christmas story, as is the gift of the Magi by O'Henry. Who is one of my favorite authors of all time. Yeah, really? Yeah. He makes a great candy bar too.

He does. So now folks, Merry Christmas 2013, a reading from Josh and Chuck, The Gift of the Magi. One dollar and 87 cents, that was all, and 60 cents of it was in pennies. Penny saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man in the butcher until one's cheeks burned with a silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it, one dollar and 87 cents, and the next day would be Christmas. There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl, so Della did it.

Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating. While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home, a furnished flat at eight dollars per week, did not exactly beg for a description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad. In the vestibule below is a letter box into which no letter would go and an electric button for which no mortal finger could coax a ring, also appertaining Theron II, was a card bearing

the name Mr. James Dillingham Young. The Dillingham had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid thirty dollars per week. Now when the income was shrunk to twenty dollars, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D, but whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above, he was called Jim, and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della, which is all very good. Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag.

She stood by the window and looked out, dully, at a gray cat walking a gray fence and a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only one dollar and eighty-seven cents, with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months with the result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go too far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are.

Only one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Any happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him, something fine and rare and sterling, something just a little bit nearer to being worthy of the honor being owed by Jim, though as a peer-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a peer-glass and an eight-dollar flat, a very thin and agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks.

Della, being slender, had mastered the art. Only she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length. Now there are two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair.

Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the air shaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry, just to depreciate her majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon bid the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck it as beard from envy. So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her.

And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet. On went her old brown jacket, on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkles still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street. Where she stopped the sign read, Madam Sofranie, hair goods of all kinds. One flight up Della ran and collected herself panting.

Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the sofranie. Will you buy my hair? asked Della. I buy hair, said Madame. Take your hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it. Down rippled the brown cascade. Twenty dollars, said Madame, lifting the mask with a practiced hand. Give it to me quick, said Della.

Oh, in the next two hours, tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hash metaphor, she was ransacking the stores for Jim's present. She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain, simple and chased in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meritricious ornamentation, as all good things should do. It was even worthy of the watch.

As soon as she saw it, she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him, quietness and value, the description applied to both. Even when dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the eighty-seven cents. With that chain on his watch, Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of the chain. When Della reached home, her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason.

She got her curling irons out and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love, which is always a tremendous task, dear friends, a mammoth task. Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully and critically. If Jim doesn't kill me, she said to herself. Before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl.

But what could I do? Oh, what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents? With seven o'clock the coffee was made and the frying pan was back on the stove, hot and ready to cook the chops. Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard a step on the stair, away, down on the first flight, and she turned white

for just a moment. She had a habit for saying a little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered, please, God, make him think I'm still pretty. She cut her hair off, right, to make money to buy this gift. Okay. Got twenty dollars for it. So she looks like Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables. Yes.

All right. But with curly hair. The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two and about to be burdened with a family. He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves. Jim stopped inside the door as immovable as a setter at the scent of a quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read

and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of these sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her, fixily, with a peculiar expression on his face. Della wriggled off the table and went for him. Jim, darling, she cried, don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present.

It'll grow out again. You won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say, Merry Christmas, Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice, beautiful, nice gift I've got for you. You've cut off your hair, asked Jim. Laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent, fact, yet even after the hardest mental

labor, cut it off and sold it, said Della. Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?" Jim looked around the room, curiously. You say your hair is gone? He said, with an air almost of idiocy. You'd needn't look for it, said Della. It's sold.

I tell you, sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered. She went on with sudden serious sweetness. But nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim? Out of his trance, Jim seemed quickly to wake.

He enfolded his Della, for ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year, what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on. Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table. Don't make any mistake, Della, he said, about me.

I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package, you may see why you had me going a while at first. White fingers nimble tore at the string and paper, and then an ecstatic scream of joy, and then alas, quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the Lord of the Flat. For there lay the combs. The set of combs, side and back that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window.

Beautiful combs, pure tortoiseshell with jeweled rims, just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now they were hers. But the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone. But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and smile and say, My hair grows so fast, Jim.

And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, Oh, oh! Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with the reflection of her bright and ardent spirit. Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch.

I want to see how it looks on you. Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled. Dell, said he, Let's put our Christmas presents away and keep them awhile. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on. The magi, as you know, were wise men, wonderfully wise men, who brought gifts to the babe in

the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here, I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in the last word to the wise of these days, let it be said, that of all who give

gifts these two were the wisest. Oh, all who give and receive gifts such as they are wisest. Where they are wisest, they are the magi. What did you think of that? I think it was one of the great ironic stories of all time. Well, that's so Henry. He's the master of the ironic twist. Yeah.

And it's not lame at all. No. He says lame lady in, but that's one of those words. It's a little different now. He's self deprecating. Yeah. I get it. Yeah.

So, yeah, man. How about that? Combs? He sold the watch. Yeah. The chops. When I was reading that, I was like, chops sound pretty good. Yeah.

It sounds real good. Yeah. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas. It's for another great year, buddy, and Jerry. Yeah.

Merry Christmas, Chuck. Merry Christmas, Jerry. Jerry says, Merry Christmas, too. And to all a good night. To all a good night. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Brought to you by the all new 2014 Toyota Corolla. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the

cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe.

You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me, and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.