Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Why is holly a holiday thing?

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Holly is waxy and super sharp, not exactly the kind of thing you'd want all over your house. Yet it happens every holiday season. Today we dig in to discover why.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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until all seven are out. Go to audible.ca slash HP1 and start listening now. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link.

But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and it's Ho Ho Short Stuff.

You're on Short Stuff. That's right. We're stealing one potential thing from our Christmas episode just to do a Christmas style shorty to get in the spirit of things. And we're going to be talking about Holly today. like, you know, the plant. It's a shrub. It can be a tree. It's in North America.

It's in Asia. It's in Europe. There are a lot of different species. And like I said, some can be little shorty shrubs. Some can be big old trees. But everyone knows Holly for those waxy leaves that will draw blood and those little crimson berries that grow on them. Yeah, but there's something about Holly that I did not know until I was studying was that they bloom in the spring and early summer. Have you ever seen a holly plant bloom white flowers? I don't know.

My dirty secret is I don't love holly just because it's so pointy and sharp. It's almost like a thornbush, you know? Yeah. I have a big old holly tree outside the house. Oh, yeah. It was getting a little thin, so I've started to fertilize it twice a year, and it is not fun to get under there and fertilize the holly. Yeah, that's no good. But it is pretty, and I love all the berries, and I love I love the birds coming to eat the berries, and I love that the birds love that I love the birds coming to eat the berries, and so on and so forth. So I do have a special place in my heart for Holly. Well, we'll go over the most boring part of this all, which is root words. Holly, it's a Christmas thing, obviously, but it didn't come from the word holy, which you may be surprised about.

I wasn't. Old English will translate it as Holgen. Nice. Old Norse. Holfer. Nice. Dutch, holst? Nice.

French, what would that be, Frenchie? How? How? Nice. Sound like you're from Philly. Heggy. And then Welsh is Sallien and German. I don't think that's how you say that, but that's how you spell it.

I have no idea. There's only like 10 people who can pronounce Welsh. German, I know this one is Stekphalma. Yeah, I like that one. But it all probably comes from proto-Indo-European language. at the base, which is Q-E-L, which means prickly or to prick. Yeah. There you go.

End of root word segment. Yeah. Wake up, everyone. So one thing I didn't know is apparently in long-standing tradition, because this is, Holly's another great example of how you associate with Christmas. Christians have kind of adopted it with their own kind of symbolism associated with it, but it goes back way further than that. And it's kind of from all over the place because Holly grows in not just Europe, not just North America, but Asia as well.

It's a really well-traveled, well-trod shrub that because it stands out so much in winter, it's usually evergreen. Those leaves are unmistakable. The berries are just so bright red against like a snowy background. It does make a lot of sense that cultures from around the world and over the course of time would have been like that. I'm going to drape a bunch of symbolism on that plant. Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of times it's associated through ancient cultures with good luck. In this case, good luck for men specifically, because for good luck for women, Ivy is that counterpart. And if you've ever heard the English Christmas Carol, the holly, and the ivy, that's what they're talking about. Okay. Yeah. It is, again, a sacred plant from the druids. A lot of cultures thought it was like good luck to put it in your house because it's hearty and strong.

Again, those bright red colors when it's harsh outside means it's got to be good luck to put it on your house. But it gets even more specific sometimes that it'll ward off lightning in a lightning storm. It'll protect your house. If you were in Rome, they would associate it with Saturn. So it obviously came about during their Saturnalia festival a lot. Which has a huge influence on Christmas. That was the Romans mid to late December winter festival. Yeah.

So they used Holly. When the Christians came around, the Romans were like, you're not allowed to use Holly for your Christmas celebration, whatever that is. Yeah. It was banned, apparently, at least at first. And then, like you said, the druids also had their own thing going on, too. So this is all happening at different times. I mean, the Romans would have been celebrating Saturnalia, while the druids would have been celebrating their own thing. I don't know that one influenced the other.

Yeah. I know that they were connected via Rome at one point in time, but I feel like the druid's celebration and use of hollia. in the wintertime was contemporaneous and not influenced by the Romans. I could be wrong, though. All right. I bet someone knows. Yeah, I'd love to know. You did mention some Christian symbolism.

You know, anytime you see anything red, generally, in Christianity, that's going to symbolize the blood of Christ from the crucifixion. The legend was that those berries were white, but then Christ's blood stained them red as a reminder. And then the pointed, you know, the pointy points that I hate so much symbolize the crown of thorns during the crucifixion. And in fact, in German, it is known as Christorne or Christthorn. So that's pretty obvious. Sure. Should we take a break? Yeah, we should. All right. Enough of that. Let's talk after the break about the plant itself right after this.

Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game.

This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Dr. Lori Santos from the Happiness Lab here. It's the season of giving, which is why my podcast is partnering with Give Directly, a nonprofit that provides people in extreme poverty with the cash they need.

This year, we're taking part in the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. And it's not just the Happiness Lab. Some of my favorite podcasters are also taking part. Think Jay Shetty from On Purpose, Dan Harris from 10% House, happier, and Dave Desteno from How God Works and more. Our goal this year is to raise $1 million, which will help over 700 families in Rwanda living in extreme poverty. Here's how it works. You donate to give directly, and they put that cash directly into the hands of families in need, because those families know best what they need, whether it's buying livestock to fertilize their

farm, paying school fees, or starting a small business. With that support, families can invest in their future and build lasting change. So join me and your favorite podcasters in the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. Head to give directly.org slash happiness lab to learn more and make a contribution. And if you're a first time donor, giving multiplier will even match your gift. That's give directly.org slash happiness lab to donate. Okay, Chuck, you made a lot of big promises about talking about the holly plant itself before the break, and I feel like we have to deliver on them.

Yeah, I mean, it's generally an evergreen, but not always. It can also be deciduous, which is kind of cool. So weird. Yeah. Oh, is that it? Yeah, that's all I got. The most of them are evergreen, though, like I said, around the world, which is why people are, like, Like, I really like that plant in wintertime.

I guess that they are good in shade. They're good in sunlight. They do like well-drained soil. And they are either a male plant or a female plant, which means they're dioecious. Yeah. Yeah, dioecious. I nailed it. And the male plants and the female plants, both flower, which is how they pollinate, but only the female plants are the ones that produce berries.

That's right. And, you know, they need to be close to one another. obviously, for that production to occur. So the male plant has to be near enough to a female plant. Sure. That pollination happens thanks to our little bee friends. And also, as it turns out, well, not cross-pollination, but as far as spreading that seed,

that's thanks mostly to birds, obviously. Well, yeah, the birds like to eat the berries with the four-seeds in them, and they go poop them out, and the new holly plant grows. Have you ever looked down and seen a little holly plant sticking up out of the ground? Yeah. Me too. I stomp that thing out. That means they had a bird poop there at some point.

Yeah, I'd never thought of it that way, but I can only think of it that way from now on, though. Yeah. I mean, it's true. There's really no other way to look at it. You know, who doesn't like to eat those red berries? Who? Humans, because it's no good for you. It's toxic to us. I mean, I don't know if it could kill you. You'd probably have to eat a ton of those, and you'd probably be vomiting long before you died. such that you would say, hey, maybe don't eat those. But, yeah, nausea, bad, bad stomach aches, so don't eat those red berries, which is, you know, big for kids.

Because when you see that red berry in your kid, it looks like something you should pick off and eat. It does for sure. Yeah. There's an old Druid legend that if you eat a holly berry, it'll upset your stomach. Pretty good. There's also, I had not heard of this, but there's something called bird lime that you can make by boiling the bark of a holly tree specifically. And it makes this sticky substance that you can then take and, like, paint onto the limbs of, say, a holly tree or any tree. And it's so sticky. It'll trap small birds that alight on those limbs.

I guess the only reason you would want to do this is if you want to capture a bird, which you shouldn't be doing anyway. But if you don't get to the bird in time, the bird will starve to death. It's that sticky and holds that fast. So it's illegal, actually, in some country. So please don't start making bird lime. because you heard about it on this episode. No, don't do that. But what you could do, if you're into carving things,

apparently Holly's wood is very hard, great for carving, and a lot of chess pieces can be made out of Hollywood, because Hollywood, which I think is kind of cool because I, my friend, have started playing chess for the first time since probably high school because Ruby is in chess club and she's asked me to play chess with her. So we've been playing every night, and it's having a ball playing chess with her. Is that why you pick this episode?

No, it's not why, but it's pretty interesting because I was, I played, I dabbled in chess in high school. I was never good or learned any strategy or technique or took any classes or clubs. So it's all just intuition. And so I'm basically at the point where she is at 10 years old. Neat. And her, you know, kind of learning strategy a little bit. And so we're like pretty evenly matched And it's just a lot of fun

Like I'm it's opening brain pathways that I did like strategic pathways that aren't tapped into very much for me And so I'm really digging it And for Christmas I already threw down And like a really nice hand-carb chess set for us is a little surprise That's cool How'd she get into chess? Just chess club at school

She signed up for I have no idea why Probably some boy was in it that she had a crush on would be my guess Has she yeah she's like this is going to make a bow tie spin when I joined I think so. Has she seen the Queen's Gambit yet? No. I don't know how much you get into that yet. I bet searching for Bobby Fisher could be a good one, though, for her.

Okay. All right, we'll start with that. Make sure she sees the Queen's Gambit at some point. All right. One other thing you can do with Hollywood because it's so dense and sturdy is to create a walking stick out of it. Oh. And if you carve a walking stick out of Hollywood and there's not a druid on the end, throw it away and start over because you did it wrong. That sounds great.

You got anything else? I got nothing else. Oh, everybody then. That means this happy holiday edition of Short Stuff is out. Stuff You Should Know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts to My Heart Radio, visit the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.