The Art of Manliness - The Unexpected Origins of Our Christmas Traditions

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:10.820 with christmas coming up you're likely in the full holiday swing of things

00:00:14.540 decorating your tree eating certain foods listening to particular music and buying and

00:00:19.460 wrapping gifts but do you ever stop to think about why it is you're taking part in the slate

00:00:23.840 of often weird but wonderful traditions brian earl has traced the backstories of our christmas

00:00:28.080 traditions in his podcast and book called christmas past today on the show he shares some of those

00:00:32.820 backstories with us and explains how many of our seemingly faded and timeless traditions actually

00:00:37.420 came about in fluky and fortuitous ways and are a lot more recent than we think he first unpacks how

00:00:42.600 christmas went from being a small religious observance to a huge cultural celebration and

00:00:47.180 how our idea of santa claus evolved over time with our current conception of old saint nick being less

00:00:51.860 than a century old we then discuss how it is we ended up taking evergreen trees inside our house

00:00:56.120 and decorating them the origins of the most recorded christmas song in history why fruit

00:01:00.400 cape became the butt of jokes and why hardly anyone roast chestnuts anymore on an open fire or

00:01:05.180 otherwise brian shares what new christmas traditions he's seen emerge and which classic ones are going

00:01:10.320 away and i offer an important psa to future parents about elf on the shelf we enter conversation with

00:01:16.300 brian's tips for getting into the christmas spirit if you haven't been feeling it after show's over

00:01:20.800 check out our show notes at aom.is slash christmas

00:01:23.360 all right brian earl welcome to the show hi thanks for having me so you host a podcast called

00:01:43.300 christmas past and uh you just published a book by the same name and in your book and on your podcast

00:01:49.820 you explore how the ways we currently celebrate christmas and how our you know most cherished

00:01:56.380 christmas traditions came to be so let's talk about sort of christmas in general because i think a lot

00:02:03.040 of times when you know people in the 21st century think about christmas they think that it's been a

00:02:08.420 big holiday for centuries because it's a big holiday now and they think it's it's been a big holiday for

00:02:12.860 a long time because that's the day christendom celebrates the birth of christ and a lot of the

00:02:17.240 population is christian in the world but one of the first things you point out in your book is that

00:02:21.500 christmas wasn't really a big deal in the west or even the united states until fairly recently so tell

00:02:27.800 us what was christmas like in the western world say before the 19th century yeah i mean if you

00:02:33.980 celebrated it at all it would be a very small observance just like any other of those days on the

00:02:40.380 church calendar that was you know the feast of saint so and so and part of the reason for that is that

00:02:45.360 for a religious figure like jesus the his birth wouldn't be the main celebration i mean in

00:02:50.160 christianity and in some brands of christianity today it's still easter is the main celebration

00:02:56.060 that's the really what the religion is is based on so the birthday it wasn't even until i'm gonna

00:03:02.520 mess up the date but it was centuries after his death that the roman catholic church settled on

00:03:07.380 december 25th as even being his birthday right there was some debate around that there were other

00:03:12.240 thinkers who had said oh maybe it's sometime in november maybe sometime in early december so

00:03:17.160 people weren't even really sure when to celebrate the birth or whether to celebrate the birth

00:03:21.280 it was much much later and it was mostly after it became less of a religious celebration and more of a

00:03:27.880 cultural celebration that we see more and more people taking part and the other thing you point

00:03:32.900 out when people did celebrate it well i thought it was interesting in the united states it really wasn't a

00:03:37.160 big deal until like the 1800s like people didn't really celebrate it in the 1700s yeah i mean we

00:03:44.480 signed the declaration of independence in 1776 and a christmas became a national holiday in 1870 nearly

00:03:51.660 100 years later it just wasn't a big deal it's not to say that nobody celebrated it but it was also

00:03:57.880 true that depending on where you lived in the country if you celebrated it at all it would just be

00:04:03.980 very different from what you know one or two states over would look like think about in the west where

00:04:08.520 most people worked in mines and also during the winter time there'd be the crazy blizzards and just

00:04:14.080 really dangerous winds coming through the plains a lot of operations would just shut down in the

00:04:19.200 winter to avoid the worst of the weather so people would be at home with their families so that's

00:04:23.740 one of the things you need to have a good christmas but they wouldn't have any money now christmas

00:04:27.520 hadn't yet become a really big gift-giving holiday but what it meant is also that they couldn't really

00:04:32.220 celebrate it with a feast right i mean if nothing else christmas is all of these other things this

00:04:37.440 big commercial racket etc but at its fundamentals it's a it's a feast it's a wintertime feast and

00:04:44.120 if you had no money you wouldn't even be able to have that now it's not to say it didn't exist at all

00:04:48.220 and laura ingalls wilder writes about this to some extent about the kinds of foods that you would

00:04:52.300 serve you know dried fruits and salt cured meats and things like that but that would be very very

00:04:57.680 different from what people might observe in say new england where in massachusetts bay colony christmas

00:05:03.720 was literally banned in 1659 by the puritanical government the ban was lifted in 1681 but christmas

00:05:10.500 it took a while for it to kind of work its way back into the culture just because the ban was lifted it

00:05:15.280 didn't mean there weren't a lot of puritans who still were against it so very very different cultures

00:05:20.740 and different ways of of celebrating and different means with which to celebrate well that you pointed out

00:05:26.340 in america sometimes there's states where they didn't close schools on christmas like banks didn't

00:05:30.800 close like it was just like another day and then also we typically think of christmas as very

00:05:35.920 domesticated like i'm gonna be with family and it's warm and fuzzy but in the west for a lot of time

00:05:41.620 christmas was like it was a party time it was like you get drunk and have fun right oh absolutely and

00:05:48.080 one of your earlier points about how schools and banks or whatever would be open on christmas

00:05:52.000 that was even true into the early 20th century in certain parts of the northeast even in boston

00:05:57.040 schools and banks would be open on christmas day into the early 20th century but to your point about

00:06:02.900 the ways that it was celebrated it's really surprising to most people now to think of christmas as anything

00:06:09.240 other than this thing that you celebrate with your family in the home the the other holidays we could

00:06:15.080 compare that to would be say you know easter or mother's day you know that's a domestic holiday

00:06:20.180 as opposed to something more like oh halloween or fourth of july or mardi gras that's something that

00:06:26.360 communities celebrate in the streets and the pubs and the sporting arenas that kind of thing

00:06:30.960 and christmas had become something like that up until about the middle of the 19th century

00:06:37.260 and so there were all kinds of little traditions associated with that style of celebrating one was

00:06:44.380 known as calathumpian music calathumpians from the greek meaning beautiful but i rest assured this was

00:06:49.820 not beautiful music this was drunk people just making a big racket in the streets and that was

00:06:54.900 one of the reasons why the victorians were are really credited as the ones who transitioned christmas

00:07:01.340 from what it had become to what it is now which is to say a domestic holiday a time for homecoming

00:07:08.120 a time for a celebration of a middle-class lifestyle which was kind of a new thing back then

00:07:13.420 and then also a commercial holiday all of that was the result of this fairly rapid transition

00:07:20.500 toward the middle of the 19th century and it's the result of a bunch of factors coming into being at

00:07:26.320 roughly the same time advances in transportation when rail travel came along all of a sudden christmas

00:07:32.660 could be a time for homecomings before that you didn't see your family unless they were really

00:07:37.700 nearby there was no other way to do it christmas became a time for communicating across long

00:07:42.820 distances through the mail before the penny post was introduced in england before postal rates were

00:07:48.480 normalized before literacy rates rose communicating across long distances was just not a normal part

00:07:54.360 of life nor were christmas cards which hadn't been invented yet and there's something that we take

00:07:58.780 for granted but these little tokens or artifacts of our affection for one another and christmas cheer

00:08:04.920 were a new thing at the time and they quickly became a part of the culture of christmas

00:08:09.320 and then of course we have this rise in industrialization if we go across the pond now to america

00:08:14.980 prior to the civil war one in every three americans was a farmer of some sort then after that we all

00:08:21.180 started working in more industrial style jobs which meant that buying things made in factories being

00:08:27.000 consumers of prepackaged goods was just more a part of life and with the changing economy more of us had

00:08:32.760 more means to enjoy those kinds of things and then the the one thing that sits on top of all of this

00:08:38.720 is the explosion of print media so i said before that if you celebrated christmas in the west it was one

00:08:44.920 way in the east it was another part of that is regional differences but another huge part of that

00:08:49.920 is that you really wouldn't know what people in the west were doing how would you there was no

00:08:54.880 efficient means of communicating all that stuff on a broad scale but then at the end of the 19th early 20th

00:09:01.760 century the number of newspapers in america tripled within a couple of decades and very quickly america

00:09:08.300 was producing half of all of the daily newspapers in the world and now you had a means to do a couple

00:09:13.780 of things really quickly number one present new avenues for merchants to advertise their wares and

00:09:20.020 rebrand christmas as a gift-giving holiday but also to propagate a specific image of christmas far and

00:09:27.600 why so that we all had a shared understanding of what christmas is how we should understand it and

00:09:32.760 how we should celebrate it well it's going back to victorian england so this is a time where the

00:09:37.120 middle class was kind of coming to its own there was emphasis on family domesticity and that's when

00:09:42.640 christmas started morphing in england from the sort of raucous get drunk holiday to like we're going to

00:09:47.420 spend time with family and etc and speaking of that idea of print media sort of unifying what people

00:09:53.460 thought about christmas there was a guy who had a big role in shaping what we think of christmas

00:09:59.140 today that right there in victorian england that's charles dickens with his story of christmas carol

00:10:03.700 yeah that was really the the presentation of the the family celebration where we see the

00:10:10.080 cratchits how they're all getting together where we it's showing christmas as something that this

00:10:15.960 family is celebrating in the home and it was highly influential in creating the shared

00:10:21.800 understanding of what christmas is supposed to be like and feel like and then roughly around the

00:10:26.800 same time over on our side of the atlantic clement clark moore wrote a visit from saint nicholas which

00:10:32.060 was also hugely influential in shaping how we understand what this character of santa claus is how he

00:10:38.840 operates when he visits believe it or not there have been other famous works including one by

00:10:44.100 washington irving where santa claus visits homes on new year's eve and he rides a sleigh being pulled

00:10:49.960 by a horse so all of these things that are very familiar to us they had to start somewhere and

00:10:54.860 they were usually the decisions of one or two creators so yeah charles dickens hugely influential

00:11:00.100 in terms of the domestic feel of christmas and then other literary works too yeah the the americans took

00:11:06.640 that victorian idea of christmas and they just added their spin on it and then you'd see stuff from

00:11:10.340 america get re-imported back to the united kingdom so let's dig in some of the details of the evolution

00:11:16.200 of some of our most cherished christmas traditions so you mentioned santa claus i think when most people

00:11:20.800 hear the word santa claus they think fat guy in a red suit white beard sitting in a sleigh pulled by

00:11:25.860 reindeer but as you mentioned there's been different versions of santa and the idea that we have a santa

00:11:31.160 today it's relatively new you know maybe maybe a century old can so walk us through the evolution

00:11:36.680 of santa claus like what was his origin and then how did we end up with the santa claus we have today

00:11:40.900 yeah this is a really dramatic evolution because we're talking about a character based on a real

00:11:48.640 man right nicholas of mira he's an actual saint in the roman catholic church uh he's lived in the

00:11:54.480 300s very little is known about him i mean just because there wasn't a lot of records keeping back

00:11:58.840 then but of what there is we know that he was a bishop he was born to wealthy parents who died in the

00:12:04.780 plague and he had a lot of money that he had no use for and so he was known for his generosity and

00:12:09.280 that's part of where we get his reputation as a gift giver but after he died a lot of communities

00:12:16.220 celebrated saint nicholas day on december 6th now that's still true in a lot of different parts of

00:12:20.660 the world except america we don't really seem to celebrate saint nicholas day after his death he took

00:12:26.720 on a reputation as some kind of a protector there are all kinds of legends about him doing some pretty

00:12:32.800 biblical sounding things like resurrecting the dead like multiplying stockpiles of grain like

00:12:38.600 rescuing condemned men just moments before they're about to be executed he was the patron saint of

00:12:44.640 seafarers and pawnbrokers and brewers and even today on a lot of ships you'll see a little statue of saint

00:12:51.680 nicholas somewhere as some kind of totem of protection as christianity spread across europe

00:12:58.480 so too did the legend of saint nicholas and in the 12th century we see these french nuns who on

00:13:05.520 saint nicholas day would leave gifts outside the doors of poor children or poor families and that may

00:13:11.000 be one of the first instances of giving gifts in the name of saint nicholas now again at this point

00:13:16.780 saint nicholas has no special connection to christmas and he's not santa claus he's a religious figure

00:13:22.540 and as he starts to become connected with christmas uh you know because it's roughly the same season

00:13:28.940 during the protestant reformation one of the things that they were protesting was the catholics

00:13:34.500 devotion to saints they said all of this pageantry and all these images of saints seems a little too

00:13:42.480 close to idolatry for our taste so we're going to do away with all of that but the problem is people

00:13:47.040 loved saint nicholas so much that they were really unwilling to give it up so what some people did is

00:13:52.800 said why don't we suggest that saint nicholas be connected with the christmas holiday he can go

00:13:57.460 around with the christkindle on christmas and that's how the connection formed and by the way if you say

00:14:03.180 christkindle over and over again while thinking about saint nicholas it'll eventually start to sound

00:14:07.360 like kris kringle which is where that comes from the dutch had a legend of sinter klaus which is not

00:14:14.900 santa claus not santa claus and not saint nicholas it's kind of like a character based on saint nicholas

00:14:20.800 still has bishop's robes but there's a more of a story around who this guy is and how he operates

00:14:28.080 he lives in spain for example and he comes by boat every year and that tradition came with the dutch

00:14:35.340 settlers to new york only once it comes to america and we're talking about the middle of the 19th century

00:14:41.920 does it start to evolve into what we recognize as santa claus and the thing that did it again the print

00:14:47.720 media the media is responsible for most of what you experience as christmas responsible for shaping it

00:14:53.560 anyway so in the late 19th century an artist named thomas nast did illustrations for harper's weekly

00:15:00.280 which is starting to bring santa claus into the image that we know today if you look at some of them

00:15:07.300 though he's still very short there's one famous one where he's standing next to a young lady and

00:15:11.760 he's at maybe about chest height suggesting that he's maybe three and a half four feet tall also in

00:15:17.600 1823 clement clark moore wrote a visit from saint nicholas and it's the kind of thing you grow up with

00:15:23.240 the poem you hear it a hundred times so you maybe not even really notice that they say he rides a

00:15:27.880 miniature sleigh with a tiny reindeer he has a little round belly he's an elf and in fact in the first

00:15:35.280 illustrated version published by houghton mifflin in 1912 you can see he's barely tall enough to reach

00:15:40.960 the top of the the mantle when he's filling the stockings that's why he can fit down the chimney

00:15:46.840 so as the image evolves the santa claus character it's not always clear is he fully human is he some

00:15:55.220 kind of like gnome-like creature is he some fairy like fairy tale-like character once we get into the

00:16:01.780 early 1920s we have two very influential artists one is jc liendecker and the other is norman rockwell

00:16:09.300 and both of them are producing these wonderful painted covers for the saturday evening post

00:16:15.000 they were kind of artistic and competitive rivals so they were always you know raising the game with

00:16:20.980 these images that they were doing and if you look at some of those images they're very famous and easy

00:16:25.840 to find online we're really starting to bring santa claus into the modern one that we all recognize

00:16:32.160 meaning nothing elfin or gnome-like about him he doesn't have pointy ears he's just this six foot

00:16:38.000 fat guy who looks like he could be your grandfather it was hadden sunblom who came around in the mid-1930s

00:16:45.480 who was a commercial artist same guy who did the quaker oats man did some work for aunt jemima and look a lot

00:16:50.880 you know famous packaging design started producing yearly paintings for coca-cola and this is sort of

00:16:58.580 a corollary to the influence of the print media you know a company like coca-cola which had a massive

00:17:04.420 budget for you know putting these advertisements and billboards and posters out could really socialize

00:17:09.560 a single image of santa claus far and wide and over and over again this is sort of where we stopped

00:17:16.040 evolving this image this image that evolved for thousands of years we've stopped evolving it in the

00:17:21.960 1930s and what that means is that the image that you will recognize as santa claus is is barely 90 years

00:17:28.580 old i mean there are people alive today who are older than santa claus himself this human santa claus

00:17:36.180 the norman rockwell and the hadden sunblom santa claus like my grandfather didn't grow up with that

00:17:40.840 and this is really really new let's say that's interesting so you see it starts out religious and then

00:17:45.960 it moves to sort of folklore and then advertising came in and put the finishing touches and that i

00:17:50.960 think that's the sort of the trajectory you see with a lot of these christmas traditions

00:17:53.960 yeah no absolutely i think the once christmas becomes a commercial holiday primarily about gift

00:18:03.480 giving which is you know exchanging gifts on christmas isn't exactly new but i think the main

00:18:09.480 focus is more of a product of the late 19th century then you really see the influence of all

00:18:15.000 different kinds of advertising media print media content production like the movies and television

00:18:20.740 shows and books and songs written that really really shape our understanding of all of these

00:18:26.080 traditions so uh rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is the most famous of santa's reindeer but you point

00:18:31.720 out in the book he didn't come on the scene until 1939 so again not very old so how did the reindeer

00:18:38.000 that went down in history come into existence what i love about this story is that it's a good example

00:18:44.120 of how so many of our christmas traditions are basically the result of these chance occurrences

00:18:49.540 or fateful decisions that no one thought would be fateful at the time so the montgomery ward department

00:18:55.820 store in chicago for years had had this little tradition around christmas time where they would

00:19:02.040 give out a storybook to parents who came in shopping with their kids keep the kids busy while they do

00:19:07.080 shopping that was the idea and for years and years they had outsourced this they just bought

00:19:11.720 these books from a third party but in 1939 they wanted to reduce their costs and they said okay

00:19:17.980 we're going to bring this job in house we're going to grab one of our catalog copywriters to have him

00:19:22.880 write a story we'll produce it ourselves and we'll do it that way so that catalog copywriter was a guy

00:19:28.140 named robert l may and he was he went to school with dr seuss he saw a lot of his classmates go on to

00:19:35.280 become pretty successful and here he was you know kind of a workaday guy writing descriptions of men's

00:19:41.260 sweaters things like that and unfortunately at the time his wife was also dying of cancer and he had a

00:19:47.960 young daughter to raise his daughter's still alive today by the way so anyway the montgomery ward

00:19:52.160 management said okay look here's what we want you to do we want you to write this story and as some

00:19:58.060 inspiration we like that story ferdinand the bull so come up with something like that have it be about

00:20:02.880 an animal and so his daughter really liked the reindeer display at the zoo and legend has it that

00:20:09.440 one day he was driving home from work and it was foggy and he put two and two together he said okay

00:20:13.920 it's going to be about a reindeer and the fog somehow so he comes up with a story takes it to management

00:20:19.560 and they said we don't really like it we don't like the red nose and part of that is because wc fields

00:20:25.740 was a household name at the time and a big red nose was kind of associated with a a drunken kind of

00:20:31.920 character and they didn't really want that association and so you know again may just had

00:20:36.900 a lot on his plate otherwise in his life and he said i i think they just they're not seeing the

00:20:40.840 potential so i'm going to go to one of the commercial artists at the company and have them

00:20:45.860 just do a mock-up like show some illustrations to go with the story i'm going to take it back to

00:20:50.900 management so we did that and then they said oh okay cool well now sure we'll run with that now

00:20:56.180 again this was just going to be an other one of these yearly handouts just you know gone you know

00:21:01.840 it happens and then it goes away and then no one ever thinks about it again and so there's conflicting

00:21:06.880 theories on why the next thing that happened happened but montgomery ward gave robert may the

00:21:14.220 rights to the character and some people say the reason they did that was again because this thing came

00:21:20.080 and went they didn't think there was any potential with it they didn't care and so they had no reason

00:21:26.280 not to other people think that it was because they did see the potential and they were trying to give

00:21:32.200 may a leg up because you know his his family situation was rough anyway he gets the rights to

00:21:38.940 the character and the first thing he does is he goes to disney and says you know do you guys want

00:21:42.940 this and they said no we don't but his brother-in-law happened to be johnny marks and johnny

00:21:49.900 marks is the guy who wrote rocking around the christmas tree he wrote holly jolly christmas he

00:21:53.920 wrote silver and gold i mean this guy not only has a reputation for writing hit songs but hit christmas

00:21:58.580 songs so johnny marks wrote the song rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and then a few years later gene

00:22:04.380 autry sang that very famous version that we're all familiar with and then rudolph the red-nosed

00:22:09.400 reindeer became a sensation and then the the book itself the what was formerly the giveaway leaflet

00:22:14.700 became a book that you could buy and then in the 60s we had that animated special which is the

00:22:19.760 longest continuously running christmas special in history it's run every single year first on nbc now

00:22:25.840 on cbs and so it's a happy ending for may his his wife did die of cancer so that part wasn't happy

00:22:31.420 but you know at the end of the day he died a very rich man and created a christmas legend but

00:22:36.240 were it not for that fateful decision from montgomery wart to just hand him over the rights to the

00:22:41.020 character we may never have even heard of rudolph the red-nosed reindeer we're gonna take a quick

00:22:45.280 break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show oh let's talk about christmas trees so

00:22:57.140 every time i put up and decorate a christmas tree with my family i always think this is a weird thing

00:23:02.020 we do every year like we cut down a tree we're gonna bring it inside we're gonna put lights and

00:23:06.820 tchotchke ornaments all over it and we're just gonna keep it up there for a month so how did we end up

00:23:12.420 with this weird but wonderful tradition of christmas trees it's a lot of different influences coming

00:23:18.280 together at different times in history so the idea of bringing greenery into the house during the winter

00:23:23.940 is pretty old and the christmas tree wasn't the first example of it and as a matter of fact at least

00:23:29.100 in america christmas trees are kind of new most like a post-civil war thing and before that it

00:23:34.780 would be holly and ivy that you bring into your house and holly and ivy and conifer trees what

00:23:41.360 makes them special is that during the winter they don't die they're evergreens and all kinds of

00:23:45.640 assumptions were made about well there must be something special about those if they don't die

00:23:49.920 maybe they have medicinal properties maybe they can bring good luck or ward off evil or things like

00:23:54.900 that and so or if nothing else they just look nice in the home while everything else is so bleak

00:23:59.200 and bare so for a number of reasons bringing greenery into the home at winter time became

00:24:03.760 a thing so that that's one piece let's park that for now now there's also in a lot of pre-christian

00:24:10.580 cultures there was a notion of what's called tree veneration this was the idea that a tree might

00:24:17.140 contain a spirit a hamadryad was the actual word for it and some trees would even be associated with

00:24:23.200 gods and the oak tree for example was associated with thor and there's a story about saint boniface

00:24:30.460 there's a real guy so part of the story is probably true who was going through the germanic tribes of

00:24:35.460 the frankish empire converting them over to christianity and one of these communities that

00:24:41.340 he came across had a thunder oak this oak that represented thor and part of what this community

00:24:47.300 did was human sacrifice and so this is this part of the story is almost certainly just legend

00:24:52.460 where he interrupted one of these sacrifices in progress chopped down the thunder oak and standing

00:24:58.140 behind it was a fir tree and he said okay you guys you want a tree that will be your symbol look at

00:25:04.420 that one look how it kind of looks like it's pointing you know conifer trees kind of uh have a tapered top

00:25:09.880 so it looks like it's pointing specifically at the sky and this will be your tree of the christ

00:25:15.100 child so this has no special connection with christmas it was just you know look if you want a tree to

00:25:20.160 rally behind let's make it this fir tree so as christianity continues to spread through europe

00:25:26.320 a lot of these pre-christian traditions just you know it's not a clean break they just kind of get

00:25:32.180 rolled along with things and so this idea of greenery in the home just kind of sticks around

00:25:37.680 but when it becomes a christmas tradition is probably around the protestant reformation and again

00:25:44.400 they didn't like the catholics devotion to saints and idolatry and things like that and so they wanted

00:25:51.380 to have a symbol for christmas but they wanted it to be a neutral one and so martin luther specifically

00:25:56.560 said oh okay what about this fir tree and the interesting thing is most people would say that

00:26:01.120 the very first christmas tree was in stroudsburg cathedral which was unusual because you typically

00:26:07.000 did not see a christmas tree in a cathedral you would almost always see them outside again they

00:26:12.320 weren't supposed to be a religious symbol they'd be in the county square in the town square something

00:26:16.940 like that now there's another thread to this which is the idea of decorating the tree some of the

00:26:23.340 earliest examples might have been what they call a paradise play these are these old plays that were put

00:26:28.620 on to tell the nativity story and on the stage of these plays would be a tree that was decorated with

00:26:34.400 apples and some people make the argument that this is kind of an early prototype of the christmas tree

00:26:40.660 decorating a tree there's a lot of reasons people have done that throughout history another example is

00:26:46.100 what they called the rag tree and this is where people would write prayers on little pieces of cloth

00:26:52.120 and then tie them around the branches of a tree as kind of a way of solidifying their prayer and even

00:26:58.040 people who were illiterate would still just tie a rag with nothing written on it around the branches

00:27:03.300 of a tree thinking well you know if i can't write the prayer down at least attaching the cloth might do

00:27:07.820 something so you put it all together and you get this what eventually became the tradition a german

00:27:14.420 tradition of the tannenbaum the the fir tree specifically a fir tree that you would decorate and bring into the

00:27:19.760 home around christmas time this works its way into christmas mostly through the royal family germans

00:27:27.980 marrying into the british royal family is how how we start to see it spread beyond german tradition so queen

00:27:34.660 catherine married king george brought the christmas tree with her it didn't become popular then because the

00:27:40.360 royal family just wasn't popular themselves at the time but then along came queen victoria who also married

00:27:46.780 a german who also brought the christmas tree and in 1849 godey's women's magazine published this illustration

00:27:54.540 of victoria and prince albert and their kids standing around a christmas tree and the next thing the next christmas

00:28:01.420 the christmas tree just became the must-have if you were anybody who was anybody you had a christmas tree

00:28:06.780 and that very same year over on the side of the atlantic franklin pierce was our president

00:28:11.380 and he had the very first white house christmas tree just because the christmas tree became

00:28:17.420 a thing around that time they didn't become especially common until a couple decades later

00:28:21.900 and part of that is you know again it takes a while for a trend to pick up but the other part of it is

00:28:26.120 that they couldn't really be the kind of thing where everybody has one in their living room

00:28:29.580 until you could produce them as a commercial crop because otherwise the only alternative was

00:28:34.600 would be like every person goes into the forest and cuts down a tree which is obviously not feasible

00:28:39.000 so that's toward the end of the 19th century where you see christmas tree farms and people selling

00:28:44.700 christmas trees at a commercial christmas tree lot the first one that we know of is in the late 19th

00:28:50.040 century in uh washington square in new york city and then we get the first artificial trees not too long

00:28:56.780 after that believe it or not and now here we are well the other thing too about early christmas

00:29:01.120 trees they kind of made it hard for them to take off was that you'd put candles on them and that

00:29:06.340 required you to be very vigilant about your trees you got fire on a tree that's kind of dying and

00:29:13.180 they could just drive and just burst in the flames and it really wasn't until i think you talk about

00:29:17.180 this in the book like electric lights made christmas trees even more poppies you had that so you had

00:29:21.800 the combination of christmas tree farms and then electric lights where it's like oh we can have

00:29:26.120 this great looking tree and not to worry too much about the tree catching on fire because we're not

00:29:30.300 using candles anymore yeah the good news is if you have a freshly cut tree and you are standing by

00:29:37.440 because it's not like you know nowadays you turn on the christmas tree you can leave the house and not

00:29:41.740 worry about it if you had candles on the tree you're you're standing near the tree nevertheless it is true

00:29:47.700 that certain insurance companies actually wrote clauses in their policies that look if your house

00:29:53.200 catches on fire because of a christmas tree we're not going to cover that but in 1882 the first string

00:29:58.280 of electric christmas lights came along and widespread electrification of homes didn't really start until

00:30:03.460 around 1880 in america which means that electric christmas lights were among the first practical

00:30:09.260 applications of home electricity however when they first came out the first strings had about eight lights

00:30:15.440 on them and then you know the the next big innovation was there was all of 16 lights and even still they

00:30:22.060 were just something for very wealthy people they were status symbols they would have cost you you know

00:30:27.380 like a month's salary if you were a normal work-a-day person so it took a couple decades until an average

00:30:33.960 person could afford a string of lights and and that the string was large enough to fit all the way around

00:30:38.840 the christmas tree so we're really talking about into the early 20th century where the the average person

00:30:44.460 could have a nice freshly cut christmas tree and decorated with a nice string of lights uh what's

00:30:49.500 the state of the christmas tree in 2022 is it still going strong believe it or not things are dying

00:30:55.760 down the pew research study a pew research center did a study in 2013 about all kinds of christmas

00:31:00.940 traditions of people who've been around for a while and so they said well how are things different from

00:31:05.100 when you were a kid versus now the number of people who responded to the survey who put up a christmas

00:31:10.840 tree is down by double digits which shocked the heck out of me i i couldn't believe that

00:31:15.880 however the the christmas tree as a tradition continues to evolve and i think social media

00:31:21.780 is playing a part in this and i think a lot of these online sellers of special trees are helping to shape

00:31:26.860 it too every year they say these black christmas trees or rainbow colored you know ones with just

00:31:33.380 really unnatural colors five years ago hanging upside down christmas trees was a big trend

00:31:38.760 so i think as long as social media is a thing uh sharing different ideas or fun ways to have a

00:31:44.400 christmas tree are going to continue to to be there but i i really couldn't believe that fewer and fewer

00:31:49.960 of us are even bothering to put up a christmas tree okay let's talk about christmas music that's some of

00:31:54.480 the some of the most great thing about christmas is christmas music well i mean okay some people

00:31:58.800 really love christmas music some people hate christmas music i love christmas music let's talk about some of

00:32:03.980 the origins of our favorite christmas songs silent night right i didn't know about this what this is

00:32:09.280 really interesting what's the origin of silent night this is another one almost like rudolph where

00:32:14.740 if things had gone slightly differently you would have never even heard of silent night

00:32:19.500 this was in vienna when a really small chapel run by this priest named joseph moore or a church

00:32:28.760 the organ was broken and there's different accounts on why there's some story and i don't

00:32:34.620 even know why this story came about was that mice got into the organ and chewed up the bellows

00:32:39.900 there's no reason to think that's true it is almost certainly that the nearby river flooded

00:32:44.660 and and just ruined the organ anyway they didn't have an organ for their christmas eve service

00:32:50.320 so joseph moore went to franz gruber who was the the organist and choir master and said okay we need

00:32:56.980 a workaround we have to have some music for christmas eve so i have this poem that i wrote

00:33:02.560 and moore wrote a lot of poems so we just had one that happened to be about the nativity story

00:33:07.600 because as a quick aside a christmas carol if we're being sticklers is a christmas song that tells

00:33:13.000 the nativity story right white christmas is not a christmas carol it's a christmas song

00:33:16.940 so he said okay we have to work quickly can you set this to music and so we did one of the really

00:33:23.440 interesting things about the first time that silent night was performed on christmas eve

00:33:27.700 was that the musical accompaniment had to come from a guitar and at that time a guitar was something

00:33:35.000 it's something you'd hear in a pub it's something a street musician used it really was not the kind of

00:33:42.020 vaunted instrument worthy of a christmas eve song at a church right so it plays into the narrative of

00:33:49.660 this song coming about under very very humble beginnings so it was sung on christmas eve and

00:33:54.960 that was that and so now how do you and i know about this song and how did it become the most

00:33:59.460 recorded christmas song in history well again there are differing accounts but what most people will

00:34:04.600 tell you is that after christmas someone came along to repair the organ and you know these are traveling

00:34:12.200 repair people who probably he probably heard the song and then took it with him on his along his route

00:34:17.820 and helped to spread the song that way it was also true back in those days that troops of traveling

00:34:23.640 folk musicians would kind of roll into town they'd sing some songs they'd learn some of the local

00:34:27.780 songs and then take them with them there was a famous group called the reiners they were these

00:34:32.000 singing glove makers which is a thing apparently and they helped to popularize the song but it was

00:34:37.240 really i mean literally word of mouth that got this song out of where it originated and then

00:34:42.460 eventually over to america and again like i said there's no other christmas song that's been

00:34:46.660 recorded more times in history from these really just it was a fire drill it was we don't know what

00:34:52.780 we're going to do what can we do to have a song on christmas and the next thing you know we have a

00:34:56.500 classic i'm curious like what's your favorite christmas song do you have one well of the carols

00:35:03.980 again the ones that tell the nativity story uh silent night of the ones from the classic 1940s era

00:35:10.760 which is sort of the next great epoch of christmas music um is another nativity story

00:35:15.780 and it's nat king cole's a cradle in bethlehem oh yeah and it's right on his main christmas album

00:35:21.220 although it's i think it's toward the end it's kind of just hiding there but of all the things that

00:35:25.940 make that 40s christmas sound what it is all the jazzy you know chord changes and the orchestration and

00:35:33.580 the the oohing and aahing chorus in the background that just does all of those elements it melds all of

00:35:39.160 them perfectly and then for modern pop christmas songs i'd have to say kelly clarkson's underneath

00:35:45.000 the tree i think again that really harkens back to that classic 60s sound in the same way that all

00:35:50.380 they want for christmas is you does but i think it also makes it feel a little more modern and

00:35:55.040 recognizable i think it's a fantastic song i'd say my favorite christmas carol would be oh holy

00:35:59.920 night and then uh just talking about christmas songs not even a christmas song it's sleigh ride

00:36:04.600 done by like the boston pops that version oh yeah for somebody that just gets me in

00:36:09.100 the christmas the christmas spirit talk about least favorite christmas song do you have a

00:36:13.120 least favorite one where like if it comes up on the radio like oh my gosh i gotta get no we're not

00:36:16.840 doing that let's see there are a handful that i dislike equally uh i'm not a fan of dominic the donkey

00:36:23.300 and it's not that i don't like felice navidad it's just that on my radio station it's like every

00:36:29.760 fifth song is felice navidad it's perfectly fine but i'd be happy to hear it just once or twice in the

00:36:34.200 season yeah i'd say my would be santa baby i i turned that thing off the other one is all i want

00:36:41.080 for christmas is my two front teeth when they got when it has like the annoying kid singing it

00:36:44.900 there i think there's a nat king cole version that's actually pretty good but when it's like

00:36:49.820 the annoying kid it's like okay i don't want to do that i can't it's going away or even this is

00:36:54.180 kind of this is gonna make i'm gonna i'm gonna sound like a grinch for saying this but when they play

00:36:57.480 um you're a mean one mr grinch i don't like that it's like no i don't like that song but that's

00:37:02.880 just me yeah no i could do without that most of the kids songs um surprisingly i want to hippopotamus

00:37:08.120 for christmas doesn't bother me even though by all accounts it should but most of the kids songs can

00:37:12.780 be a little i don't know annoying yeah all right let's talk about christmas food there's certain

00:37:17.600 foods we associate with christmas time but let's talk about fruitcake everyone makes jokes about

00:37:22.560 christmas fruitcakes how did first off let's talk about how did fruitcake become associated with christmas

00:37:27.080 and how did it end up being the butt of christmas jokes well the idea of baking some kind of cake

00:37:34.220 that was very rich and sweet and contained dried fruits it has been part of christmas forever

00:37:39.740 the question is when did this particular concoction of of ingredients come into what we would now call

00:37:48.620 fruitcake because think about you know there are other cakes with fruit in them that we eat even now

00:37:52.780 like panettone right that that is a cake with fruits technically speaking it is a fruitcake

00:37:57.600 but we're talking about this one particular kind of of fruitcake which as if you've had it you know

00:38:03.620 it's not really very cakey it doesn't have a light fluffy texture it's kind of dense and moist

00:38:07.760 and some version of that has been around since roman times as just more like portable calories to kind of

00:38:14.680 take with you when you're traveling or on the battlefield during medieval times is when we start to see it

00:38:20.080 turn into what we would recognize but again it kind of went through a bit of a of an evolution

00:38:24.680 there was even a time when it was banned for being quote-unquote sinfully sweet

00:38:29.380 it was the victorians who really put the finishing touches on it and part of the reason that that's true

00:38:36.440 is that they added one very specific touch which was alcohol either the fruit that was used in the

00:38:42.740 fruitcake had been soaked in alcohol or the entire cake was soaked in alcohol and they just couldn't get

00:38:48.040 enough of it however they didn't make it a christmas item again this was something that

00:38:53.300 you would eat at christmas time but you would also eat it anytime you wanted to celebrate any rich and

00:38:57.940 indulgent food would be served and especially if you had money at a wedding for example or at you know

00:39:03.620 the special occasion so queen victoria had fruitcake served at her wedding she very famously kept a slice

00:39:10.360 of it uh and then didn't eat it she was famous for her her self-restraint and that was an emblem of her

00:39:16.460 self-restraint was that she didn't eat her piece of wedding fruitcake then we get to there's an

00:39:21.640 anecdote uh in the 18th century where someone had sent a fruitcake to george washington but he refused

00:39:27.800 it with a letter written back saying oh it's against you know presidential comportment to accept any gift

00:39:33.660 weighing more than 80 pounds apparently as some kind of a dig against the fruitcake or maybe the person

00:39:38.580 who sent it but fruitcake was you know popular enough and the interesting thing is it remains popular

00:39:45.120 enough we all like to dunk on it we all like to pretend that we hate it but you know you we still

00:39:49.980 make it we still buy it gethsemane farm still sells a ton of them and the vermont country store still

00:39:55.760 sells a ton of them so it's part of christmas culture even though it's one of those things that

00:40:00.160 a good portion of us love to hate it was really probably mostly a late 19th early 20th century thing

00:40:07.920 that it disappeared outside the christmas season and became almost exclusively connected with christmas

00:40:13.500 and it was also during that time where you started to see mass production commercial bakeries making

00:40:19.600 christmas fruitcake the thing that with all kinds of preservatives or with all kinds of maybe less

00:40:24.840 expensive ingredients something that was meant to ship long distances or meant to sit on store shelves

00:40:29.880 for weeks on end and that's right around the time where people started to say yeah i'm not really big

00:40:35.340 on fruitcakes and what a couple people i've interviewed have told me is maybe the kicker was sometime in

00:40:41.040 the 1980s when johnny carson made this famous joke that oh there's only just one fruitcake in the world

00:40:46.180 and everyone just keeps passing it around because nobody wants it that's really when it entered popular

00:40:51.440 culture it became almost fashionable to joke about hating fruitcake and now we have at least one

00:40:57.460 generation who's grown up sort of thinking that you're supposed to hate it and if they tried one

00:41:02.920 one of these commercially produced ones they probably would hate it and so my argument is that

00:41:07.600 there's no such thing as someone who doesn't like fruitcake there's just someone who's never had a

00:41:11.420 good one if you have a good one you'll change your tune real quick another christmas food that you

00:41:16.940 hear a lot about in songs because of the christmas song is chestnuts you know chestnuts roasting on

00:41:22.720 open fire but i i think hardly anyone roasts chestnuts over an open fire or otherwise so why is

00:41:29.260 that why we why do we associate chestnuts with christmas but no one's eaten roasted chestnuts

00:41:34.600 yeah i mean roasting nuts is just something that goes way way back i mean you see it in in england

00:41:40.180 and you would buy chestnuts on the street in the same way they buy pretzels on the corner in new york

00:41:44.660 in victorian london and then you still do see it in the northeast a little bit i know a lot of people

00:41:50.580 in new york city will see roasted chestnuts philadelphia a lot of chestnuts grew there naturally

00:41:55.160 the problem was around the beginning of the 20th century people were importing asian chestnut trees

00:42:03.040 which they didn't know at the time had a fungal blight and so in the 1940s when mel torme and bob

00:42:10.620 wells wrote the famous song their opening line was chestnuts roasting on an open fire what could be

00:42:16.360 more christmassy this image that we'd all recognize of chestnuts you know roasting and popping and it's

00:42:23.020 not the only song right there's though as we watch the chestnuts pop pop pop pop it's part of christmas

00:42:28.100 music and culture and then when nat king cole released his song i want to say it was 1940s

00:42:35.560 in the early 1940s two years later almost all american chestnuts were totally wiped out and just like

00:42:43.120 that the the tradition basically died and so even now we're in a position for it to make a comeback

00:42:48.780 you know there's enough chestnuts grown in america or available through import that anyone who wants

00:42:54.560 to have chestnuts on christmas certainly can but i think it's one of those things that it came and

00:42:59.140 went and if it's going to make a comeback it'll be fairly slow going i've had roasted chestnuts many

00:43:04.060 times i love them they have a really nice sweet texture to them you can use roasted chestnuts to

00:43:09.660 make all kinds of recipes uh chestnut bread is delicious but i i think we may have lost that one

00:43:15.260 i think that may have been from a bygone era so let's talk we've been talking about you know the role of

00:43:19.940 commerce in shaping christmas i'm curious after you've looked at all this stuff right the history

00:43:26.760 of christmas traditions was charlie brown right is christmas just a big commercial racket when people

00:43:33.500 say that christmas has become more commercial my response is it would be shocking if it had if it

00:43:40.540 didn't become more commercial i mean steven nissenbaum talks about this in his book the battle for christmas

00:43:45.620 where christmas is just it's just us doing the things that we do i mean we it's a reflection of

00:43:51.300 who we are as we become a more secular society christmas becomes a more secular celebration as we

00:43:56.640 become more industrial christmas becomes more industrial as we most all of our shopping habits

00:44:02.000 become online all of our christmas habits shopping habits become online so of course christmas is has

00:44:08.380 become more commercial because we've become more commercial has it become too commercial well that really

00:44:15.480 depends on uh your you know where you are in in all that i mean i don't do a lot of christmas

00:44:22.440 shopping you know my wife and i keep our gift exchange pretty small i have a two-year-old so

00:44:26.900 we're not really getting him a lot like you can kind of pick and choose how commercially you want to

00:44:32.540 participate in the holiday it is a gift-giving holiday and it has been for centuries i don't know if

00:44:38.280 the last generation or so has made it more so i think it we've just sort of solidified its status as a

00:44:44.400 major gift-giving holiday but here's the interesting thing though there are a lot of christmas commercials

00:44:49.380 that make me feel nostalgic like there's ones from my childhood i think about it or if i

00:44:54.840 you know i'll watch like a youtube video of it and just takes me back are there like any iconic christmas

00:45:00.240 ad spots that you know it's weird because it's like well it's a commercial thing but it makes you feel

00:45:04.040 nostalgic well yeah and i think part of the reason for that is you know i grew up in the mid 70s through

00:45:09.700 the mid 80s and that's back when those commercials were really meant you know they'd have characters

00:45:15.420 in them you know like they're back in the 80s you'd have a a toy that had a cartoon that had a

00:45:20.060 breakfast cereal it was all part of these things that little kids couldn't differentiate between the

00:45:25.100 product and the ad and the entertainment and so the ones that i grew up with were of that family

00:45:30.240 where you'd have that classic commercial for fruity pebbles which of course was tied in with

00:45:35.440 the flintstones and you know you would think that you were watching an episode of the flintstones

00:45:39.660 because there'd be christmas music and barney would be singing ho ho ho i'm hungry um and so

00:45:44.380 that's gone down as this kind of iconic christmas commercial that you know you're right people have

00:45:48.820 packaged these up into youtube montages that people actually watch as a form of entertainment

00:45:53.940 another big one is that ronald mcdonald commercial where these kids are ice skating but there's one little

00:46:00.440 kid who's too small and he can't skate with the other kids and then ronald mcdonald skates

00:46:05.080 just with him and then uh skates away and then it just you know you get the mcdonald's logo

00:46:09.900 and there's just tons of those ones with you know m&ms or hershey's kisses norelco razors for some

00:46:16.900 reason are coming to mind i saw a lot of norelco razor commercials growing up so i'm curious as to

00:46:22.780 what you see in the future for christmas traditions because we've been talking about older ones that came

00:46:27.820 about decades or centuries ago but are there's some new ones you see coming on the scene one that comes

00:46:33.800 to mind is the elf on the shelf and part of the reason i i waver on this one a little bit is

00:46:38.680 because it's this one product made by this one company which is really owned by one family

00:46:43.220 and that's a lot to pin the hopes of a single christmas tradition on but a couple things are

00:46:48.380 true the elf on the shelf has been around for long enough now that there are people who maybe grew up

00:46:53.640 with it as they were you know in in later childhood who are just at the point now where they you know in

00:46:58.660 a few years will be starting their own families and then it's something they might give to their

00:47:03.000 kids in which case it now becomes a true tradition handed down from one generation to another and you

00:47:08.100 also have to think that a lot of other things that we consider christmas traditions like say rudolph

00:47:12.920 is you know we're interacting with a brand property owned by a company right all of the christmas songs

00:47:18.900 you know are copyright or trademark of one company so the argument that it can't become a christmas

00:47:24.900 tradition because its grasp on christmas is too tenuous what if the company goes out of business

00:47:28.820 i don't really see that happening i think we're also moving into this new storytelling era of

00:47:36.400 christmas where we really really want to hear the same story over and over again which is the story of

00:47:42.880 a couple coming together during the christmas season christmas romances are nothing new but we've

00:47:49.140 just entered this whole new phase where they're inescapable if you google christmas and google

00:47:55.820 news half the stories you see are going to be who's in this christmas movie this year you know

00:48:00.740 like oh nicky delos just signed a new contract with hallmark it is dominating christmas news and

00:48:07.240 christmas culture not only all of the christmas movies themselves but all of the behind the scenes

00:48:11.820 workings of it it's become so much a part of christmas culture it'll be interesting to see whether

00:48:18.000 we're ushering in this new era of this form of christmas entertainment or if it's going to come

00:48:23.880 and go i think fam jams are something that we're seeing i think in the last like five years or so

00:48:29.160 maybe a little bit more the idea of families wearing matching pajamas on christmas eve or christmas

00:48:34.100 day and of course a lot of this is fueled by a combination of commerce and social media you know

00:48:39.820 people want to share their photos of them and their fam jams and their you know christmas cards or

00:48:43.900 with a hashtag or something like that and then something i think we're starting to see get

00:48:47.980 imported from england is what over there is called a christmas hamper it's kind of like a christmas care

00:48:53.440 package you can buy these at department stores they can be very ritzy or very pedestrian but it's just

00:48:59.880 a box filled with christmasy goodies that you give to somebody over here we're seeing them uh branded as

00:49:06.020 christmas eve boxes mostly something that you give a child it might contain a book some snacks some

00:49:11.340 slippers and some pajamas something like that but over the last five-ish years we're starting to see those

00:49:16.480 pick up around here so i think those are some of the things that we're noticing as being changes

00:49:21.860 that we're living through well in regards to elf on the shelf this is a psa from from me and my wife

00:49:28.180 kate if you're a future parent don't start elf on the shelf it's one no one of the things one of the

00:49:34.380 things we regret and it was weird because like yeah we didn't none of us like elf on the shelf wasn't a

00:49:39.000 thing when we were kids but then our kids heard about friends who had else on the shelf and they're

00:49:43.800 like we want one of those and we're like yeah well i think someone ended up giving us an elf on the

00:49:47.480 shelf it's like oh great we got this elf on the shelf it's annoying you you're in the middle of

00:49:50.880 the night and you're like oh my gosh you asked your wife did did you did you did you move the elf and

00:49:54.920 it's there's been a few times where we've we've missed missed moving the elf and we had to explain

00:49:59.760 oh i don't know what happened there i don't know so it's something you got to think about and remember

00:50:04.100 every single night so it's annoying so yeah don't do it i'm hoping we can avoid it we started

00:50:09.020 something with my baby dash he's two years old so he just understands christmas now we have the

00:50:13.680 christmas goose which was something i just made up off the top of my head leaves a package in the

00:50:17.880 tree every night containing an ornament so we decorate the tree one ornament in one day at a

00:50:24.020 time through these little packages left by the christmas goose i i really i don't like the elf on

00:50:28.480 the shelf i want to avoid it i i fear that we won't be able to but i'm going to try as hard as i can

00:50:33.260 are there any traditions you see going away so we mentioned kind of christmas trees are kind of fading are

00:50:37.060 any other ones you're seeing like that's not gonna that might not be a thing in 20 or 30 years

00:50:40.980 almost certainly christmas caroling is going to go away that large study that the pew research center

00:50:46.600 did found that there was you know a double digit decrease in the number of people who went caroling

00:50:51.080 which which is another way of saying that a couple decades ago it was actually pretty common i mean i did

00:50:55.460 it when i was a kid my boy scout troop would go around but i mean i can't remember the last time i even

00:51:00.820 heard of people caroling unless it's you know you hire carolers for some kind of event we know that

00:51:06.640 going to church on or around christmas is going down makes sense i mean just church attendance in

00:51:12.380 general is down like as a culture i was trying to think there are other things from that survey that

00:51:17.880 were pretty surprising but they're all basically in the same camp like just roughly those kinds of

00:51:22.820 things like going to cut down your own tree giving to charity unfortunately is something we're seeing

00:51:28.420 less of so i'm curious as someone who's really into christmas do you have any tips for making the

00:51:34.160 season merry and bright for folks who might have you know lost their holiday mojo and aren't feeling

00:51:38.820 the christmas spirit these days i think part of the reason you lose your holiday mojo among others

00:51:44.600 is that it's the same thing every year right especially as you get into adulthood you know as you grow up

00:51:51.120 your relationship with christmas changes and it changes pretty quickly it really changes year by year

00:51:55.100 you know as you're a kid it's mostly about getting all the gifts you can and then very quickly it

00:51:59.440 becomes about nostalgia and family and then you know you get to a certain point where it's just

00:52:03.780 the same thing and you put up the christmas tree and it feels like you just took it down a couple

00:52:06.780 weeks ago and the cure for all of that is to introduce new experiences make it new try a recipe

00:52:13.980 that you haven't tried before create a tradition it's a contradiction in terms right it's not a

00:52:18.620 tradition until it's handed down from one generation to another but you know you get the idea try to

00:52:23.160 create something for yourself or try something you never tried before giving to charity is really good for

00:52:29.080 the soul my wife and i when we lived in boston used to sponsor a family every year through this

00:52:35.440 program called boston cares you can look it up if you want to it's a great organization we would even

00:52:40.160 go around delivering the care packages that were that were gathered up by this charity there's so

00:52:45.340 many ways to plug in but i feel like one of the big things that's changed about christmas that we

00:52:49.980 didn't totally touch on even though it's obvious is that because most of our shopping is online

00:52:55.160 we freed up a lot of time and in a lot of ways that's a good thing right we have more time but in

00:53:00.660 a lot of ways what we've really done is insulated ourselves with that extra time where you could be

00:53:05.040 using that time to get out more go to more events connect with people more uh and just try

00:53:10.340 new things well brian this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about

00:53:14.260 the book in your work best place to go is christmaspastpodcast.com fantastic well brian earl thanks

00:53:21.740 for your time it's been a pleasure my pleasure and merry christmas merry christmas to you my

00:53:27.120 guest today was brian earl he's the author of the book christmas past it's available on amazon.com

00:53:31.500 also check out his podcast christmas past it's available on your favorite podcast player also

00:53:35.780 he's got a website christmaspastpodcast.com check that out also check out our show notes at

00:53:40.600 aom.is slash christmas where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:53:44.840 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast and another year of the aom podcast

00:53:57.160 like take this time to thank a lot of people first my wife kate mckay she edits and produces the podcast

00:54:02.200 works really hard every week getting two episodes out every week so thank you kate for all the hard

00:54:07.280 work you do also like to thank creative audio lab here in tulsa oklahoma there are sound engineers

00:54:12.300 they work hard to make sure the show sounds as good as it can so you guys have a good pleasant

00:54:17.600 audio experience so thank you creative audio lab also a big thank you to you our listeners we know

00:54:23.240 there's a lot of podcasts you could be listening to so we appreciate that we're in your rotation

00:54:27.340 thanks for sharing the show with friends and family members and thanks for sending notes of

00:54:31.080 encouragement we get letters from you guys direct messages on instagram it really means a lot so thank

00:54:36.100 you all so much we're taking next week off for the holidays we'll be back with new episodes in 2023

00:54:41.360 merry christmas happy new year we'll see you in 2023

00:54:45.260 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

The Unexpected Origins of Our Christmas Traditions

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