The Misery Machine - Holiday Special: Unique Christmas Traditions from Around the World

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Happy Holidays from The Misery Machine! We hope this holiday season find you safe and well. This week, Drewby and Yergy take a break from true crime to discuss some of the more unique holiday traditions from around the globe - some fun and quirky, others more macabre and spooky. Who's having KFC and strawberry shortcake on Christmas Eve? Listen and find out! A very special thank you to Levi for supporting our show as our highest tier patron! Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #podcast #themiserymachine #truecrime  Source Material: https://www.wanderlust.co.uk/content/worlds-weirdest-christmas-traditions/ https://www.holidayextras.com/travel-blog/wanderlust/unusual-christmas-traditions.html https://www.thetravel.com/weird-christmas-traditions-around-the-world-done-in-america/ https://www.thedailymeal.com/holidays/weird-christmas-traditions-around-world-gallery/slide-13 https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/13-quirky-christmas-traditions-from-around-the-world/ https://acis.com/blog/international-holiday-traditions-la-quema-del-diablo-guatemala/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Christmas_Spider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pickle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kallikantzaros https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari_Lwyd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_goat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisse_(folklore)

Hi, the Misery Machine. I'm Yergy. And I'm Drewby. And this week, we're taking a one week break from true crime to cover some Christmas traditions, weirder ones. Weirder ones. From around the world. They're pretty good, though.

Yeah, they're pretty enjoyable. So hopefully there'll be some that you recognize for where you live or, you know, if not, mention yours in the comment section. Yeah, let us know down below. And Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Whatever you celebrate. And if you're listening to on YouTube, please hit like and subscribe.

We just crossed 2,500 subscribers. Thank you so much for all that. And hitting like and subscribe goes a long way to helping us as a small channel. So without further ado? Weird Christmas traditions. So I have been so excited all week to do this. Yeah. I mean, I looked at the notes and I listened to some of these traditions.

And I was like, you know, we haven't done something like this in a very long time. And when I say something, I just don't mean Christmas. I mean something that isn't true crime. Right. So the last time we did something like this was last year and we did Icelandic Yule Traditions. Yes. So we covered the Yule Lads.

We covered Gorilla Lepaluti, the Yule Cat. In fact, today, I'll update you. Today's Yule Lad that has come down at the date of recording. Is it meet Hook Marty? It is not Meet Hook Marty. So today we're recording it is December 17th. Today's bowl liquor. Bowl liquor.

I like bowl liquor. But isn't bowl liquor and there's also a spoon liquor? Yes. So like what's the difference between the two, just their choice of licking? So here's the interesting part. Yesterday was pot scraper. He steals leftovers from pots. I like these because you should lick your plates clean.

You should and Drewby does. Yes. So bowl liquor hides under beds waiting for someone to put down their asker, which is a type of bowl with a lid and they're very ornate, usually made of wood or stone. And he steals them. So really, these are kind of the same guy, but not really. So you go to bed with your food, you just sit it on the floor, like a chamber pot. Yeah.

So I bet he actually is like looking for chamber pots. He flags yellow. He probably does black yellow and brown. So the day before on the 15th was spoon liquor. He steals and licks wooden spoons and is extremely thin due to malnutrition. See, I don't like to do that because, I don't know, licking a wooden spoon gives me the goosebumps. It really does. It's not a comfortable mouth feel.

Yeah, it's like licking foam except really hard foam. That's the best way I can describe it. And I'm very excited for the 19th and the 20th because we get Skear Gobbler. Yes, love Skier. And sausage swiper. Sausage Swiper. Oh, God. He's the scariest one of them all.

He hangs out with Meat Hook Marty. He hangs out with Meat Hook Marty. The pajama party. Okay, so. So we're not going to get into Iceland anymore. If you want to know more about that, we did a whole episode about this last year and it is available for you to listen to. I really do like it. Me too. Figured we'd touch on some other lesser known Christmas traditions in other countries. And if you're from another country,

because I know we have a lot of overseas listeners, we might not be saying anything new to you. In fact, maybe some of these were getting completely wrong. Maybe you want to let us know what's what. And this is not an all-inclusive list. We need to leave some for next year. Yes, but we do have quite a bit here. So let's start with Japan. Absolutely. Japan has KFC for Christmas. Christmas, that's their big things. As you may or may not know, Christianity, Catholicism, all that stuff, not that popular in Japan. The biggest religions, probably Shintoism, I think, if to, like, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but a good portion of Japanese are just atheist. So what does Christmas really mean to them? Well, nothing, really. I should start with this. So Christmas is really just any old day. They just work, but the day that means more to them is Christmas Eve, actually. Yes. This is a big. date night for couples actually. It's a day where you go and you find romance and love. People talk about, oh, I don't have a date for Christmas Eve. So the clubs are packed and love hotels are packed on Christmas Eve. This is just basically a time where you go and you hook up. But what they do celebrate is KFC for

Christmas. So from I understand, Turkey, not as easy to get there. Chicken is turkey is not. A lot of Japanese people in Japan haven't had turkey. That's more of an American thing. So because of this back in 1974, Takeshi Okawara, manager of the first KFC restaurant in Japan, released a festive marketing campaign with a slogan. You do it. Uh, Khrisu Masu, Niwa, Kentucky. It's basically Krizu Masu, I'm assuming is Christmas. Like, if you ever see Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, like, Christmas, like, it's kind of like that. I'm assuming this translates to Kentucky for Christmas. Kentucky is Kentucky. Oh, it is translation. we have it in the notes. Yes, it's Kentucky for Christmas. I got it right. Okay, so yeah, that's basically what the slogan is. I'll try to find a clip of that to play, but I haven't found one so far. So this spawned a national tradition that still thrives to this day. Families from all over the country head to their local KFC for a special Christmas Eve meal. A KFC Christmas dinner clocks in about 3,306 yen, which is roughly $32.7. U.S.D., which is kind of a lot for KFC. Can't you

get it for like 15 bucks or something around here? It really depends and it's really interesting around the world how much a KFC bucket cost. So right now it's been a really, really long time since I've been over to KFC, but I'm pretty sure like a bucket meal is like 20 bucks. Yeah. It might be a little bit more. But you get a lot of chicken in there, don't you? I don't know. I can't eat at KFC because allergic. It's been a really, really long time since I've been to a KFC. But this is a special like kind of Christmas meal. Yeah, I know in Iceland is extremely expensive. Yeah. All fast food is. Yeah. So this is a very special. kind of meal. This isn't your average KFC meal. So it's got Kosslaw in it, which is your average KFC meal, but you also got shrimp grotton, triple berry tiramazoo cake. Okay, so you'd never see that a KFC around here. No. And of course, fried chicken. So as of 2019 in Japan, Christmas sales of KFC made around Christmas Eve account for nearly 5% of annual revenue. That's huge. You know, something that is expensive in Japan, though, I have to really say, is pizza. And people like to go get pizza.

around Christmas because it's like their yearly treat because your average large pizza in Japanese money would come about $40 US, which is insane when the right night of the week you can get two large pizzas for like $7 or something crazy. And it's something that I really don't understand because the ingredients to make pizza, it's like a dime a dozen. Yeah, it's not like they don't have access to wheat flour over there. They put wheat in everything. It's very cheap to make pizza. So it's very interesting to me that it's so expensive. But that is what. it is. Another interesting tradition that they have there is cake. So you always get this little cake on Christmas, or for them it's really Christmas Eve, and most of the time it's strawberry shortcake. But there's other types of cakes you can get to, like berry cakes and things like that, but strawberry shortcake is probably the most iconic. I would really like to go there. So Hokkaido, the ice sculpture festival they have every year. I really want to go during that time, as well as something else we forgot to mention that Japan does Christmas lights instead of putting them all of your house or your apartment or what have you. The cities will just put lights all over everything, these big lights displays

and they're really cool looking. I'm friends with a couple people on Snapchat that live in Japan and they have sent some of the lighting displays and they're really cool. Not something you'd see around here. No, it's really elaborate. Yeah, they are. So our next one brings us to Caracas, Venezuela and this was one I had no idea about but they'd like to in the morning skate to church. I mean, this isn't unheard of compared to the stuff people used to do in Maine. People would ride their snowmobiles to school and stuff like that. Yeah, but this is like a little different. So in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, city dwellers make their way in mass on roller skates. Oh, that type of skating. Yes. I was thinking I bet in winter people would ice skate to school if we could. Yes, but this is

Venezuela. So they're on roller skates and roller blades. And every Christmas morning, they go to church. This tradition is so well established that many of the city streets are closed to traffic from 8 a.m. on that day to whenever mask gets done. So the skating congregation can get to church safely. So I didn't see any pictures of this. So is it just regular old people skating or do you see any skater gangs? Like are people going jet set radio to their church? So I have some pictures that are included in our YouTube display. I could find a ton of stuff. I found a bunch of girls who were dressed in Sienna outfits.

Okay. All on roller blades together and it looked like some sort of parade. But I couldn't find a whole bunch of just people doing their thing on roller skates. It has even said that children will sleep with one lace from their skates tied around their toe. The other skate dangling from the window so their friends can wake them up with a friendly tug on the lace. You know, I would think this would dislocate your big toe. Yeah. It seems a little crazy.

So next one is Catalonia in Spain. So these ones, we got two from Catalonia. They have some fun traditions. How do you say this? You're the Spanish expert here. Kagio. Okay. So isn't Tio mean uncle?

It does, but not in this case. Okay. So the Tio de Nidal is a character in Catalan mythology relating to Christmas tradition, widespread in Catalonia in some regions of Aragon. Yes. They say Aragon. Yeah. Is that a dragon from?

that book. This is Aragorn without the art. Yeah, the form of the T.O. Nadel, found in many Aragonese and Catalan homes during the holiday season, is a hollow log about a foot long. Recently, the T.O. has come to stand up on two legs or four stick legs with a broad, smiling face painted on the higher end. So it's also enhanced with a little red sock hat and has like a 3D nose. We'll also have pictures of this, because it's better just to see it.

Okay, so beginning with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, one gives the T.O. a little bit to eat every night and usually covers him with a blanket so he won't be cold. Oh, this is kind of cute. Yeah. The story goes that in the days preceding Christmas, children must take good care of the log, keeping it warm and feeding it so that it will defecate presents on Christmas Day or Eve. This is where people turn off our podcast. On Christmas Day or in some households on Christmas Eve, one puts the T.O. partly into the fireplace. and orders it to defecate. The fire part of this tradition is no longer as widespread as it was, since many modern homes do not have a fireplace. To make it defecate, one beats the Tio with the sticks while singing various songs of the Tio did in a doll. And I just picture this thing looking like Mr. Hanky, the Christmas poo, and somebody hitting it with a stick and saying in Spanish, shit, shit.

How do you say that? How would you tell something to shit in Spanish? Oh, I have a song later. I have a song later. Okay. All right. So the tradition says that before beating the Tio, all the kids have to leave the room and go to another place of the house to pray, asking the Tio to shit a lot of presents. Nowadays, the praying tradition has been left behind. Not the shitting tradition. Still children go to a different room, usually the kitchen, to warm their stick next to a fire. This makes the perfect excuse for the relatives to do the trick and put the presents under the blanket while the kids are praying or warming their sticks. The Tio does not drop larger objects, as those are considered to be brought by the three Wisemen. It does leave candies, nuts, figs, and small toys.

What comes out of the Tio is communal rather than individual gifts, and it's therefore shared by everyone. The Tio is often popularly called Cogatio or Shitting Log. This derives from the many songs of the Tio Dana doll that begin with this phrase. The use of this expression as a name is not believed to be part of the ancient tradition. Oh, God. A song sung during this celebration. Oh, my gosh. A song is sung during the celebration.

After hitting the Tio softly with a stick during the song, it is hit harder on the words, Cagatio. Then somebody puts their hand under the blanket and takes a gift. The gift is opened, and then the song begins. There are many different songs. The following are some examples. Shit, log, shit Nuggets. Hazelnuts and mutto cheese.

If you don't shit well, I'll hit you with a stick shit log. I think it's more like I'll hit you with a stick. Shit log. Yeah. What is this? You have this in Spanish. I'd love to hear this in Spanish.

I can find it in Spanish. But shit log is Kagatio. So it's probably the verb Kag. If I'm doing this wrong, please let me know with the comments section. Why do you have to start with the shit ones? People are going to shut us off. There's more shit ones coming up for you. All right.

You do this next one. So also in Catalonia, Spain, we have the Kaganer. I'm probably saying, Kaganeer. So a Kaganeer is a figurine depicted in the act of defecation appearing in nativity scenes in Catalonia. The name El Kaganair literally means the pooper or the shitter. Traditionally, the figurine is depicted as a peasant wearing the traditional Catalan red cap

with his trousers down, showing a bare backside and defecating. Oh, geez. The exact origin of the Kaganer is unknown, but the tradition has existed since it least the 18th century. According to the society called Friends of the Caganair, it is believed to have entered the nativity scene by the late 17th or 18th century during the Baroque period. The Caganer, Caganer, Caginare, is a particular and highly popular feature of modern Catalan nativity scenes. Accompanying Mary Joseph Jesus and the Shepherds and Company, the Cogonair is often tucked away in the corner of the model. Typically, you know,

nowhere near the manger scene. A tradition in Catalonia is to have children find this hidden figure. So it's kind of like the Christmas pickle, which we'll talk about later. Christmas pickle. Okay, continue. So in Guatemala, we have La Camas del Diablo. So on December 7th, Guatemala celebrates a holiday called La Camas del Diablo, or Burning the Devil, a preparatory holiday in anticipation for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. This tradition originating in the 18th century

burns away all the evil from the previous year, serving to purify the conceiving of Jesus as he is to be free of all evil. They're not into celebrating Jesus. They're just into killing the devil. Why can't we just do more cool stuff like that? They do some cool stuff. This sounds more badass.

So the tradition began in Antigua during colonial times when monasteries would burn a figure of the devil and light fireworks on the day of the rosary in October. It was later moved to December when there was a push to celebrate Mary's triumph over evil. What was Mary's triumph over evil? I don't know any of this. I don't know. I'm like the worst Catholic in the world.

I mean, I can do, I can go to a Catholic funeral and do all the rights. I can do that. I can't even do that. I'm horrible. Locals create paper machet or wooden devils and collect old trash and goods they no longer needed before gathering in the street amongst street vendors and food carts and volunteer firefighters who ensure the flames don't get out of control. The devils are doused and gathers.

gasoline and set ablaze at 6 p.m. sharp as all the bad experiences, negative feelings and jealousies of the year are reduced to ashes. As the Guatemalan people honor their patron saint and watch the negativity burn away, they vibrantly celebrate through song and dance, celebrating Lakima del Diablo as their official kickoff to the Christmas season. That is badass. We are going to get raked over the coals for pronunciation in the YouTube comments, I am sure. Feel free to do this. But guess what? We're native English speakers. We're so sorry. We are trying. Yeah. So we were not fluent in a million languages. I apologize. That does sound pretty cool, though. I'm there for lighting things on fire and the food trucks.

We need to do more things like that around here, for sure. So in the Ukraine, Germany, Poland, that region there, we have the legend of the Christmas spider. I like this one. I've never heard of this. So this is dedicated to our patrons, Serena and Holly, because they both like spiders like I do. So the legend of the Christmas spider is an Eastern European folktale, which explains the origin of tinsel on Christmas trees. It is most prevalent in western Ukraine where small ornaments in the shape of spiders are traditionally part of Christmas decorations. So according to legend, a poor but hardworking widow once lived in a small hut with her children. One summer day, a pine cone fell to the earthen floor of the hut and took root.

The widow's children cared for the tree, excited at the prospect of having their own Christmas tree by winter. The tree grew, but when Christmas Eve arrived, they could not afford to decorate it. The children sadly went to bed and fell asleep, and early the next morning, they awoke and saw the tree covered with cobwebs. When they opened the window, the first rays of sun touched the webs and turned them into golden silver. The widow and her children were overjoyed. From then on, they never lived in poverty again. The sunlight, it turns our meager possessions into gold. Be nice. This is sweet.

I mean, it is just, it seems kind of ridiculous. I like it. Maybe one day I open the window and the sun comes in and everything we have turns to gold. But it's like the curse of Midas. So like your cat starts turning into gold, your legs start turning into gold. All these things become gold that you can't even use. What? I like it.

I mean, it is sweet. The origins of the folk tale are unknown, but it's believed to have come from Germany or the Ukraine. In Germany, Poland and the Ukraine, finding a spider or a spider's web on a Christmas tree is considered good luck. Well, gee, when it's that cold, I bet that is very rare. Ukrainians also create small Christmas tree ornaments in the shape of a spider known as... Pavutski. Pavutski literally translates to little spiders, and they're usually made a paper and wire. They also decorate Christmas trees with artificial spider webs.

The tradition of using tinsel is also said to be used because of the story. So our next story comes out of Italy, and it's about Le Befana. It's La Befana. Yeah, La Befana. excuse me. So in Italian folklore, La Befana is an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve in a similar way to St. Nicholas or Santa Claus. What is Epiphany Eve? Is that like Christmas Eve? It's a Christian thing. So it's the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi. The Gentiles. Yes. And that's on January 6th. That's actual Epiphany. So it would be January 5th. So a lot of people actually celebrate this. A lot of people will keep their Christmas tree.

up from Black Friday to Epiphany. It's a religious thing. I mean, people keep their Christmas tree up year round here, but that's for different reasons. I don't know. I like our Christmas tree. I mean, if you have a really nice Christmas tree, I don't hate it, you know, as long as it doesn't look too trashy. I don't know.

I know someone who does every single season and will even create holidays to decorate. And I just like things like that. Yeah, I like pretty trees. So in popular folklore, La Befana visits the children of Italy on the eve of the Feast of Epiphany to fill their socks with candy and presents if they are good, or a lump of coal or dark candy if they are bad. That's not a bad thing. I'd love some dark chocolate.

Oh, I'd be like, I'd love some coal. In many poorer parts of Italy, and particularly rural Sicily, a stick in a stocking was placed instead of coal. I guess coal is upper class. It's a little more expensive than a stick. Being a good housekeeper, many say she will sweep the floor before she leaves. To some, the sweeping meant the sweep. sweeping away of the problems of the year.

The child's family typically leaves a small glass of wine and a plate with a few morsels of food, often regional or local for Labifana. She is usually portrayed as a hag riding a broomstick through the air, wearing a black shawl, and is covered in soot because she enters the children's house through the chimney. She is often smiling and carries a bag or hamper

filled with candy, gifts, or both. So this one's in Scandinavia. It's, how do you say that? Nissy. I'm not sure. I didn't find a pronunciation. of it. N-I-S-E.

It's a mythical creature from Nordic folklore today typically associated with the winter solstice in the Christmas season. They are generally described as being short, having a long white beard,

and wearing a conical or knit cap in red or some other bright color. They often have an appearance somewhat similar to that of a garden gnome. So kind of like what we think of Christmas elves are.

Yeah, I'm thinking him as being like David the gnome. Yeah. So according to tradition, I'm going to just call them Nis, lives in houses and barns of the farmstead and secretly acts as their guardian. If treated well, they protect the family and animals from evil and misfortune and may also aid the chores and farmwork. However, they're known to be short-tempered, especially when offended. Once insulted, they will usually play tricks, steal items, and even maim or kill livestock. Well, I think that's a little bit too far.

These things are extreme. So they're often imagined as a small elderly man, often with a full beard, dressed in traditional farmer garb, consisting of a pullover woolen tunic, belted at the waist, knee breeches with stockings. However, there are folk tales where he's believed to be a shapeshifter able to take shape far larger than adult men, with other tales where he is believed to have a single cyclopean eye. Since they are thought to be skilled in illusions and sometimes able to make themselves invisible, one was unlikely to get more than brief glimpses of him no matter what he looked like. Norwegian folklore states that he has four fingers and sometimes with pointed ears and eyes reflecting light in the dark like that of a cat. The tradition with them is often associated with Christmas and is accompanied by another mythological creature, the Yule goat. The pair appear on Christmas Eve knocking on the doors of people's homes handing out presents.

They will deliver gifts at the door in accordance with modern day tradition of the visiting Santa Claus, entering homes to hand out presents. They are commonly seen with a pig, another popular Christmas symbol in Scandinavia, probably related to fertility and their role as guardians of the farmstead. It is customary to leave behind a bowl of porridge with butter for them in gratitude for the services rendered. So the Yule goat, that's something I've heard before. Let's talk about that one. Yeah, so this is related again to Scandinavia and Northern Europe. The yule goat is a Scandinavian Yule and Christmas symbol and tradition.

Modern representations of the Yule goat are typically made as straw. So the Yule Goat's origins go back to ancient pagan festivals. While a popular theory is the celebration of the goat is connected to the worship of the Norse god Thor, who rode the sky in a chariot drawn by two goats,

it goes back to common Indo-European beliefs. The function of the yule goat has differed throughout the ages and Scandinavian customs similar to the English tradition of Woscel, held at either Christmas or Epiphany, young men in costumes would walk between houses, singing songs, enacting plays, and performing pranks.

We will hear a lot about that later. Yeah, it seems to be a common thing. Yes. The tradition is known from the 17th century and still continues in certain areas. During the 19th century, the Yule Goats role all over Scandinavia shifted towards becoming the giver of Christmas gifts, with one of the men the family dressing up as the Yule Goat. In this, there might be a relation to Santa Claus

in the yule goat's origin in medieval celebrations of St. Nicholas. The modern version of the yule goat figuring is a decorative goat made out of straw and bound with red ribbons, a popular Christmas ornament often found under or on Christmas trees. Larger versions of this ornament are frequently erected in towns and cities around Christmas time. All right. So this one is probably one that Yergi should again speak about since it's German. So it's German-American. It actually isn't a German thing.

Even though it has a German name. Yes, even though people thought it was German. So that's the Christmas pickle, which we talked about a little bit earlier. So the Christmas pickle or Wine Knox Gurkha, so Christmas Night's pickle, is a lesser-known Christmas tradition for some Americans. A Christmas tree decoration in the shape of a pickle is hidden on the Christmas tree, with a finder receiving either a reward or good fortune to have in the next year. In the tradition, an ornamental pickle is placed on the Christmas tree, tree as one of the Christmas decorations.

On Christmas morning, the first person to find the pickle on the tree would receive an extra present from Santa Claus or would be said to have good fortune for the year. In Beryon Springs, Michigan, they have built themselves as the Christmas pickle capital of the world and have held a pickle parade from 1992 until about 2003. So you're going to see this a lot in areas where there's a lot of German-Americans. So you'll see that kind of in the Pennsylvania area, where you have a lot of German-Americans. folks and Scandinavian folks, you're going to see a lot of this stuff more. And now for one, from where my ancestors hail from, well, one of the countries anyways.

So this is the Marylude from Wales. They say that right, Marylude, Mary Lou Ed. I think it's L-E-D. Okay. It's spelled M-A-R-I, space, L-W-D, because, you know, the Welsh, they just don't believe in vowels. This is a strange custom. I really like it, though.

Found in southern Wales. So you use a hobby horse. like with a sackcloth and some little decorations on it, but the centerpiece of the Mary Lou Ed is an actual horse's skull mounted on a pole. And you might be thinking, wow, that might be hard to come by and a little inhumane. Well, apparently, they just got horse heads a plenty over in the UK. The custom was first recorded in the 1800s,

with subsequent accounts of it being produced into the early 20th century. According to these, the Mary Louad was a tradition performed at Christmas time, by groups of men who would accompany the horse on its travels around the local area. And although the makeup of such groups varied, they typically included an individual to carry the horse, a leader, and individuals dressed as stock characters. They would carry the Mary Lou Ed to local houses where they would request entry through a song. The householders would be expected to deny them entry again through song, and the two sides would continue their responses to one another in this manner.

So the Mary Louette crowd would sing a verse, and then the people in the house would sing a verse, and they would keep going. Back and forth for a while. For a long while. And then finally, if the householders relented, then the team would be permitted entry

and they'd be given food and drink. And then they would chase around the women of the house. And most... And most often, they would end up drunk from this and they'd end up in a ditch afterwards. But, like, really, there's videos of this online from old-timey times.

It's Welsh Gaelic's very interesting language, but the song was quite catchy. We kept humming it after we watched it. Yeah, we were, which got us that Vanessa Carlton song out of her head. Riding around the block, sipping this yak. Anyway. And I've been calling Cognac yak yak now, which I never knew was a nickname for it. And everything I've been carrying around in a bottle, it's my yak.

I'm like drinking this lemon sparkling water right now and you've been calling it my yak. A pluck it, kick it. Anyway, so apparently they're restarting this tradition today. I don't know to the extent there was a few documentaries on it, but I saw a comment on one of this group of Welsh Americans on YouTube. They're in Texas and apparently what they'll do is they'll make their own Mary Lou Ed and they'll go to bars and they'll sing songs and they'll talk about Welsh traditions and stuff like that. Because obviously you just walk up onto somebody's property, you can get shot in. Texas. I should know because I've known people have lived in Texas and have gotten shot at even for being near someone's property.

So it was very interesting. I was watching a documentary about this and it was by this doctor that has a whole bunch of different takes on different Celtic tales and Welsh history. And he was talking about the Mary Louad and cultural appropriation. It was a very interesting take that he didn't care if a bunch of Americans were doing it in America great. What he actually cared about was English people coming down into Wales and doing the Mary Louette. separate from the Welsh people and not trying to join in. Well, yeah, because the Brits have been hating on Wales for a lot. Even nowadays, people just hate on Wales so much. I remember watching, I remember watching British battle rap and the amount of Welsh jokes made were just insane. And it's just too bad, because I want to see Cardiff one day. Like, I want to go so bad. I think Wales gets a lot of hate, but this is a pretty, this is a pretty wacky tradition. I think it's really just a tradition to go get free food and drink and to, you know, hit women with

with a horse skull, but... Well, they say that it was, the whole idea might have been, like a fertility ritual. Aren't they all fertility rituals that come from paganism? Okay, what was the other one you looked up? That was Welsh as well,

that was supposedly a fertility ritual where they were, like, beating women in the legs with holly branches. Oh, yeah, you'd get, like, holly branches or something like that. You'd beat women in the legs with them, and it was supposed to promote fertility. I don't remember...

I don't remember. I wish I had written this down. It was interesting, though. We were watching some Mary Louette videos, and then we saw that. And I was like, what, what? Okay. Just all these things come from paganism. It's just whatever.

It is. But the last thing about this, I don't really understand St. Stephen's Day, but I know that they celebrate that in Wales. I had a friend to celebrate St. Stephen's Day, which I think is, is it 26. I'm not 100% sure. Yeah, boxing day. Well, boxing day is Canada. Yeah, but the same day is Boxing Day.

Yeah. Yeah, Yurgy's birthday as well. Yeah, you made a bunch of. of food for St. Stephen's Day and I'm curious what Welsh cuisine is. I really need to get back to my roots, at least that part of my roots. So take away for this. Let's look that up and try

to make some. Okay, I'd be down with that. I really would be. So next one is crampus. Which is more central to where my ancestors are from. So there's crampus knocked, right? Which is the night of crampus or something like that. In some places we'll call it Krampus Lauf, which I believe is just the

festival, but over here it's Krampis knocked. It's basically central European folklore, you're going to see Kramas is a half goat, half demon. He is in Austria, Vyveria, different parts of Germany, Croatia. There's even one that's in Greece, Czech Republic, Hungary, Northern Italy.

He's everywhere. Slovenia. It's very different depending on the country, right? Or slightly different. But they all really are this kind of half goat, half demon type of person with St. Nicholas or whoever you worship in your particular country. will come, usually around, I believe it's the 6th of December,

and he will punish children who have misbehaves. So you have St. Nicholas giving toys out, and he's being all sweet and loving like you know Santa to be. And then you have Crampus with a switch and a sack, and he's going to beach you and throw you in the sack. There's this famous picture I keep seeing come up where it shows Santa standing there with an open bag of toys, and then Crampus standing there with a stick and an open bag full of kids.

They do say that way back in the day, And I'm not even talking about crampas-knocked type of festivities that just young men out in the mountains and the Alps would go put on sheepskins, make these big masks, and get completely drunk and just start tormenting the village. You know, it sounds about right. When I was in a band in Seattle, I played in this band called The Requisite. They would call me of a few things, but one of my nicknames was off-season crampus. I never understood the origin of this, but he just insisted that I just look like somebody that is going to off-season. season, just hit kids over the head and stuff them in a bag. Oh my goodness. So that name stuck. So there are traditional parades all over the world. We do have them here in the Americas. You're mostly going to see it where there are a lot of German people. So Pennsylvania, we don't have any in Maine. It makes me really sad. We don't really have many Germans in Maine.

We don't have, like, I don't know many other Germans other than my family. So what is this? Frau percheche in Belchnicle. Okay, so these are other really cool German folklore characters that I just kind of wanted to touch on a little bit. So Frouperchta, I actually recently learned about her. She is a witch and she is one of the characters in German mythology. She is like a patron saint of spinning and she's really, really like a spin class like carrots on their bikes. No, like a spinning wheel and she's very big on housework. So if you're slacking on your spinning on your housework, she'll ruin your spinning. If you really make her mad, what she'll end up, doing is ripping out your guts and replacing them with trash.

It goes to these excreams, kind of like a little Danish gnome, like getting angry and, you know, maiming your wildlife. Yeah, it's like, oh, maybe I'll play a trick on you. Maybe I'll kill your cattle. I don't know. It depends on my mood. So Frout Perche is either going to ruin your spinning and you're weaving or she's going to gut you and put trash in you.

You keep saying spinning. I just think of all these 20 to 40 something white women on bicycles. just being the billy blanks of stationary bikes. I will never forget that night we drove through Yarmouth to go to your friend's house to watch that. To watch the Borat movie. And all of those women were on their bikes outside spinning. Yeah, the outside spin class.

That was pretty interesting. Like right by the highway. I'm like, okay. It wasn't even that warm out either. And it was dark. It was weird. It was a weird choice of time. But hey, you know, you do you.

I bet I could see how it was like when I was doing Moytaxie. in boxing, there was always a spin room nearby in the same gym. And just, man, some people love spin. They love it. They go crazy for it. They're really loud. They were louder than we were. We were hitting bags in each other and stuff.

So I don't know, man. I'll never understand it, but you do you. It looks like it's probably a decent workout. So, Belchnicle, now if you watch the office, you'll know who he is because Dwight dressed up as him. He's a lot like Crampus in the same way he's going to come with Father Christmas and he's going beat you with some hickory switches and throw you in a bag. Except he doesn't look like a demon.

He looks like a hobo. He looks like a hobo. All right. So this last one, despite writing for a Greek media blog, I have the hardest time saying Greek words. So I think it's Kali Kanzaros and they're Christmas Goblins. It's basically the Greek version of Crampus. But there's equivalence in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Bosnia, Cyprus, places like that.

Like the whole Mediterranean. This is Mediterranean crampus. So they dwell underground, but they come to the surface for the 12 days of Christmas, which is 25th through the 6th. They're believed to stay underground, sign at the world tree, if you're familiar with that belief, that there's a world tree in the earth. And they try to saw it so it will collapse along with the earth. However, when they're about to saw the final part, Christmas dawns, and they're able to come to the surface. So they forget the tree and come to bring trouble to mortals. apparently the tree must regrow at that point. So there's no standard description of them.

Their regional variations differ. They've been imagined with some animal parts, hairy bodies, horse legs, boar tusks. Sometimes they're huge. Sometimes they're tiny little things. They're always male. They're always male. Sometimes they're human size and they're characterized that they smell horrible.

And they have protruding sexual characteristics. Okay. Well, let's leave it at that. That's how we know their boys. So there are many Greeks imagine them as tall, black, hairy, burning red eyes, goats, donkeys' ears, monkeys' arms, tongues that hang out, and heads that are giant. You may have seen this characterized online. I've seen this before, just used in memes. I never knew that there were some Greek folklore.

They're mostly blind. They speak with a lisp. They love to eat frogs, which is awful. Don't eat frogs. Don't eat frogs. They're not a delicacy. They're friends. They're believed to be creatures of the night.

There are many ways you can protect yourself against them. One such method is to leave a colander on your doorstep to trick the visiting Cali-Conzaros is believed that since they could not count above two, three was believed to be a holy number, and by pronouncing it, the Colli-Consaros would supposedly kill itself. They would sit at the doorstep all night, counting each hole of the colander until sun rose and was forced to hide.

That is strange. I mean, there was very old mythology of vampires. You know the count from Sesame Street? Yes. That's not just made up. That was a thing that vampires, like really, Ye'Olin vampires are obsessive, compulsive in that way. When there's a lot of things, they would count.

So if you thought a vampire was going to rise from a graveyard, you're supposed to throw rice all over the graveyard. And the vampire would awake, and instead of terrorizing the town, they would come across all this rice, and they'd be compelled to count at all. So this is not the first time I've heard something. something like this. Another thing you can do is you can leave a fire burning in the fireplace all

night so that way they can't enter through it. So some people would burn their U-logs for 12 days straight and some people would throw foul-smelling shoes into the fire because they believe the stench would repel them. But if they smell bad, I don't know why they would have a problem with burning shoes. And I can't imagine like, can you imagine being in Greece for Christmas, you're in somebody's home and it smells like burning shoe leather. They'd just be awes. awful. I'm going to throw my stinky burk and stalks in there. You've burkinstocks? No, I wish I did.

I was so comfy. I was going to say, but nowadays people will just burn incense maybe, or they'll mark one's door with the black cross, you know, nothing out of the ordinary. Should we do that? Just to weird out the neighbors? You know, I like having decent relations with the neighbors, so

let's not. We can do this later on, or maybe if we have some real awful people move in. So according to legend, any child born during the 12 days of Christmas was in danger of transforming into a Cali-Consaros. Oh, no. So it was believed that the antidote to prevent this transformation was to bind the baby in tresses of garlic or straw or to singe to the child's toenails.

Seems humane. In another legend, anyone born on a Saturday could see and talk with a Cali-Conzaros. So, guys, if we don't see me anymore, I have transformed into a Cali-Cansaros. I'm born during the 12 days of Christmas. Yes, I is. Well, not male. that's why you haven't. Oh, okay, good. So where do they originate from? Well, some people connect them to actually the Roman winter festival of Bacchanalia. Bacchanalia. Bacanalia. That's today. And later,

the Greek Dionysia, basically Bacchus and Dionysus, which are basically the same person. I'm not sure why they would think these things to be related to Dionysus when anything Dionysian is getting drunk, having orgies, and stuff like that. I guess apparently, people think because like during the festival people wear masks people wear costumes of like beast shapes maybe because they're impish I mean maybe I just thought all this stuff is about just getting drunk and having rampant sex maybe because the cali-cantzaro's are very impish creatures maybe that's why maybe it's possible but yeah that's all we got I had fun with it I mean yes this was enjoyable I just stuck my finger in my ear while I was talking I always caused this is this pop sound

does that happen to you I've never tried it so don't do it. I like stick my finger in my ear, absentmindedly while talking, and then something pops within my ear. I don't know why this is. If somebody knows why this is, please explain to me. But anyway, yeah, I don't know. What are we doing for Christmas? Oh yeah, nothing because COVID. I know what we're doing. We are doing something and it's going to be fun. So we're either going to- get Chinese food. Yeah, we're going to get Chinese food or I'm going to make Chinese food and maybe watch films. I don't know. Watch some films. Watch some films and eat Chinese food. Like Polyculus Day Snuff.

Maybe not Polyculus day snuff. What a great Christmas tradition. I don't know. Our annual snuff film Christmas tradition. I don't know. I want to definitely go down to LLB in at night after everybody's going to see the tree. If it wasn't so crazy right now, I wonder if they're still doing reindeer this year. Christmas at LLBin was like a yearly great thing.

They would actually bring reindeer down. They get some dude who looks like Santa just hanging out watching the reindeer. And reindeer are pretty damn cute. And they'd have these warming yurts. with hot chocolate in them. Not that I can drink that, but it was just like a nice festive place to be. It really is nice.

Like the whole big grassy area out front, they get hundreds of trees in there, make this big forest and put lights on everything. And then there's a big pretty tree in the middle. And they play music. It's just such a wonderful time. Preport is gorgeous. Freeport at night during Christmas season is a very,

very nice place. But alas, I don't know what they're doing anymore due to COVID. Probably not anything. I guess you're going to drive around and look at people's Christmas lights or whatever. But yeah, not really much in the way for Christmas this year. No Christmas gatherings. New Zealand just reopened everything and their transmission is virtually zero. But you know what?

It's a hoax. It's definitely a hoax. Should it become New Zealanders? No. I mean, I'd like to visit there. But I think if I'm going to expatriate, I want to go someplace, I don't know, like Singapore or Thailand or something. I don't know. So in the comment section, let us know where we should move.

Yeah, let us know where we should move. I don't expect a lot of people to listen to all this because y'all hear for true crime. So if you made it this far, I extra appreciate you. You know, just around Christmas, we just want to do one break, one episode break. But then next week, we'll be right back into it. It's not like we're stopping content. We release content no matter what. Just one week break from true crime.

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