Christmas hasn’t always been Christmas. Over the centuries Christmas has gone from a nearly month long celebration to almost being wiped out. Christmas Historian Dr. Michael Foley joins to talk how Christmas has changed over the years, the introduction of Santa and the Christmas Tree and why there’s so many ghost stories centered around Christmas. Then, we countdown a special Christmas Themed Top 5.
Dr. Michael Foley: 01:17
Pointless:27:59
Top 5 Worst Things About Christmas: 45:15
Interview with Christmas Historian Dr. Michael Foley
Nick VinZant 0:00
Nick, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode Christmas,
Dr. Michael Foley 0:18
and Christmas, oh my goodness, by the time you get to the Middle Ages, the 12 days of Christmas were 12 days of unbroken merriment. The Puritans in Boston, they hated the Irish celebrating Christmas, so they would even have the factories start their shift extra early in the morning so that the Irish could not attend Christmas mass. For example, one of the big surprises was the prevalence of Christmas ghouls. I
Nick VinZant 0:53
want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance subscribe, leave us a rating or a review. We really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a long time listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So I want to get right to our first guest. This is Christmas historian, dr, Michael Foley, so when did Christmas become Christmas like we kind of think of it today,
Dr. Michael Foley 1:22
if you mean, like the full tree and Santa Claus, that wouldn't be until the 1800s the Christmas tree goes back to the Middle Ages, and the celebration of Christmas goes back to the three hundreds, celebrating, you know, the Nativity of of Jesus Christ. So we've been celebrating it for a very long time, but we've certainly added a lot of customs along the way.
Nick VinZant 1:46
If I were to kind of go back in a time machine from right now 2024 when would I be like, Oh, this Christmas looks like my Christmas. I
Dr. Michael Foley 1:56
would say, actually, probably around the Civil War, because you have both the Christmas tree and Santa Claus by that time, and and you also have that kind of sentimentality, uh, warm feelings, that was actually promoted by the North during the Civil War to sort of counteract the doldrums and the depression of the war
Nick VinZant 2:24
was, is Christmas uniquely American in any way?
Dr. Michael Foley 2:28
America has done a great deal to shape the modern Christmas. Santa Claus was an American invention. It was New York poets that transformed Saint Nicholas into Santa Claus. The Christmas tree was German, but we certainly made a big deal about it, and it's because of America that the Christmas tree is now popular in countries where it wasn't popular before.
Nick VinZant 2:55
So kind of backtracking so we can go forward, so to speak. Was Christmas a thing that somebody planned like somebody somewhere said, we're gonna have Christmas? Or was this a thing that just kind of happened in society and evolved into what we know today?
Dr. Michael Foley 3:16
It absolutely evolved. There was no central planning at all. Anytime there was central planning, it was attempts to suppress Christmas, which has happened several times. The Puritans, for example, hated Christmas with a fiery passion, and factories and schools would be open on Christmas day in order to keep you from celebrating Christmas.
Nick VinZant 3:41
Why? Why did? Why were they so against Christmas? Like
Dr. Michael Foley 3:45
it was Papist. It was way too Catholic. And so the the Puritans in Boston, they hated the Irish celebrating Christmas, so they would even have the factories start their shift extra early in the morning, so that the Irish could not attend Christmas mass. So
Nick VinZant 4:08
when we look at kind of the first Christmas, I believe you said around the year 300 what would that have looked like?
Dr. Michael Foley 4:16
It would have been a purely religious celebration. You would have had mass on december 25 it would have been a very big deal, a high ranking feast in the church calendar for really big days, they have what is called an octave, where you celebrate it for eight days. And so they would have had an octave from between December 25 to January 1. I don't know about gift giving. So the Romans used to exchange gifts on January 1, the start of the Civic New Year. And I imagine Christian Romans just continued that custom. But they need to. To say, in some parts that moved to December 25
Nick VinZant 5:05
what was kind of the original intent behind it? Was it to celebrate the birth of of Jesus, or was it more than that? Or what was kind of the original intent?
Dr. Michael Foley 5:16
It was very much to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and then it also coincided, or coincided, but was around the time of the feast of the Epiphany on January 6, and that was also considered a very important feast day, because that's when the Magi, you know, the three kings, visited Jesus. And that's considered a very big deal, because the Magi were not Jewish, they were Persian, and so this signified that Gentiles and not just Jews, could be part of the new covenant.
Nick VinZant 5:53
Has it always been december 25 or has that evolved over time in
Dr. Michael Foley 5:58
the West? The Latin speaking West, December 25 was always the day for celebrating Christmas. In the Greek speaking east, they celebrated Christmas and epiphany at the same time on January 6, but then they eventually followed the Roman custom and moved the birth of Jesus to December 25 and then kept the epiphany at January 6. What do
Nick VinZant 6:27
you know why they moved it like, the thing that I've always heard is that December 25 was originally a pagan holiday, but that's the kind of thing that like, Okay, I've never actually, like, looked this up in any way. Well, it
Dr. Michael Foley 6:39
gets really complicated. So here's what we know. The Romans celebrated a feast of the unconquered sun, S U N, sometime in the three hundreds. And then 40 years later, Christians started celebrating december 25 as the birth of the Son of God, s o n. So the theory was, oh, well, they believe they were just co opting a pagan holiday. Here's the problem with that theory. Another 40 years before the Romans instituted that feast, we have written evidence that Christians in Rome believed that Jesus was born on December 25 they didn't celebrate it as a feast then, but we know they thought he was born on December 25 before the Romans instituted that pagan feast.
Nick VinZant 7:30
Is it a little bit six of one, half a dozen of the other, chicken and the egg kind of thing? Like, somehow these two things came together? We're not entirely sure how.
Dr. Michael Foley 7:40
It could be a pure coincidence, but the other fascinating possibility is not that the Christians were co opting the Romans, but that the Romans were trying to co opt the Christians.
Nick VinZant 7:51
Why is that? Why is there a difference? I guess
Dr. Michael Foley 7:54
so. In other words, there's the possibility that the pagan Romans felt threatened by the growing number of Christians, and to steal their thunder, they slap on this feast of the unconquered sun on the date when the Christians believe that Jesus, their Messiah, was born.
Nick VinZant 8:13
Is this a hotly debated subject amongst experts like yourself, or is this kind of like look, we do and we don't know. There
Dr. Michael Foley 8:22
is absolutely no consensus that there are a number of different theories. We just don't know.
Nick VinZant 8:30
When we kind of look back at it, like, to me, personally, religious or not, Christmas is like, that's the holiday. That's the big holiday by a long stretch. Was it a big deal back then? I don't know
Dr. Michael Foley 8:46
how big it started, but it quickly grew to be big. So for example, I mentioned they probably celebrated in the three hundreds and octave, eight days of celebration by the five hundreds, they're celebrating the 12 days of Christmas. They've extended the merriment from december 25 to January 6, feast of the Epiphany.
Nick VinZant 9:13
How come we lost all those days like I want those days back? Oh
Dr. Michael Foley 9:16
my goodness, by the time you get to the Middle Ages, the 12 days of Christmas were 12 days of unbroken merriment. Shops would be closed, law courts would be closed. You made sure that you had all the firewood you needed, all the meat you needed prior to Christmas, even your farm animals were supposed to get off the 12 days of Christmas, it was like the greatest period of leisure in the entire year. What happened? The Reformation didn't help, because there were some like the Puritans, who were anti Christmas, and they suppressed it in England and in America and in. And then I think, yeah, industrial society, modern work schedules, I think that undermined it as well.
Nick VinZant 10:06
Man, we used to have like, two weeks. That'd be amazing. Now we got, like, an hour.
Dr. Michael Foley 10:11
And then the other problem is we have what's called Christmas creep, where every year the Christmas season start seems to start earlier and earlier. You know, like, I, I, I went to my local hardware store in late September. They had Halloween decorations up next to Christmas decorations. They already had, like Santa Claus and skeletons, cheap to jowl. It was really weird. Um, so when you do that, when you start the commercial season earlier and earlier. By the time you get to Christmas day, you're practically sick of it, yeah. So I don't think that's a healthy model either. You know, they used to celebrate Advent, which was this period of joy, but restraint and and then when Christmas came, you pulled out all stops.
Nick VinZant 10:59
So as we kind of move forward, right? Okay, we got 300 Christmases kind of getting established. When would you say, like, it really starts to spread around
Dr. Michael Foley 11:08
the world? Definitely the 19th century. Because you've got the Americans bringing together Santa Claus and the Christmas tree, and then on the other side of the ocean, you've got Dickens. Charles Dickens did a great deal to revivify and expand upon Christmas cheer, Christmas coziness. He added a lot of warmth to the the holiday. So you can put those two together and you get our modern Christmas
Nick VinZant 11:42
looking between 1500 and the 19th century. Is there big changes in Christmas, or is it just kind of incrementally inching forward?
Dr. Michael Foley 11:53
The big change that really happened in that period is that it shifted from being more of a time of adult merriment to being more child centered, like we always think of, you know, Santa Claus and gifts primarily for children, but when we were doing the 12 days of Christmas, it was basically 12 Days of the adults partying. And so it did become more sort of child centered in the 19th century.
Nick VinZant 12:26
So how does Santa get involved? Santa was
Dr. Michael Foley 12:30
invented in New York City. There had been a custom of St Nicholas giving gifts to children on his feast day, which is December 6, and that feast, that custom was in New York City, because of the Dutch. The Dutch had a very deep devotion to St Nicholas, and they were the ones, of course, who founded the city. It was New Amsterdam. When the English took over, the Dutch continued this custom, and the English kids started to get jealous, because every December 6, the Dutch kids were getting presents and the English kids weren't. So the English but they didn't want to, like, do Saint Nicholas, that again, a saint that's too Catholic. So eventually what happened was they moved the gift giver from December 6 to December 25 and then they made Saint Nicholas Santa
Nick VinZant 13:28
Claus. Can you kind of trace these changes back to one person?
Dr. Michael Foley 13:36
Probably the biggest influence was Gosh uh, Clement Moore, the author of Twas the Night Before Christmas. He's the one who made Santa, you know, come down the chimney. Uh, have eight tiny reindeer. Rudolph was added only in 1939 thanks to a poem by an a guy who worked at Montgomery Ward. So yeah, Clement Moore would be the big guy.
Nick VinZant 14:08
He would be the kind of one. The other changes that around it, though, were those kind of like societal shifts that, like we just kind of edged away at this, so to speak,
Dr. Michael Foley 14:18
honestly, I would say it was probably three New York City authors, plus an artist named Thomas Nast, who was one of the first people to draw pictures of Santa Claus, and his version is still the version that sticks in our mind. When
Nick VinZant 14:39
would you kind of looking at it. When would you say commercialization hit
Dr. Michael Foley 14:44
early 20th century. Vendors realized, Oh, we're giving gifts now. We'll buy our stuff in order to give gifts. And another big influence for. Commercialization was Coca Cola. If you remember those ads they had from the early 20th century, they loved showing Santa with a bottle of Coke, because Santa's colors are red and white, and guess whose colors are also red and white?
Nick VinZant 15:17
Did the Do you feel like did the commercialization change people's attitudes. Have we moved away from the fundamental thing that this was supposed to be?
Dr. Michael Foley 15:29
Oh, there's always that danger. And what's interesting as is that this is not a new worry. As soon as things got more commercialized in the early 20th century, you already had, like editorials, worrying that the season was getting too commercial. So the worries about commercialization are as old as commercialization itself. And of course it is. It's a genuine worry, but maybe if we keep worrying about it, it won't turn into a bigger danger, yeah,
Nick VinZant 16:01
that makes sense. I remember the kind of war on Christmas period. Have things like that, if you can kind of remind the audience, okay, what is the war on Christmas? And then have things like that happened in the past. There
Dr. Michael Foley 16:15
has been a war on Christmas since the very first Christmas. You know, King Herod tried to suppress the first Christmas, and I mentioned the Puritans in the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries. The more recent war on Christmas is a sort of attempt to secularize the holidays. So the war took the shape of, you shouldn't say Merry Christmas. You should say happy holidays. And you you should have public displays of, you know, the nativity, that sort of thing. But I think that's kind of died down.
Nick VinZant 16:55
Are you ready for some harder slash? Listener submitted questions. Go for it. Are there other kind of, more unique Christmas traditions that have come out? Like, what are some of the Christmas traditions you've found?
Dr. Michael Foley 17:09
Oh, well, one of the fun things in researching my book on Christmas is noting realizing how much diversity there actually is. So we're we, of course, are used to our modern Christmas, but historically, there are all kinds of other customs and beliefs. For example, one of the big surprises was the prevalence of Christmas ghouls like you know, when Dickens writes A Christmas Carol, and Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts. That's not an isolated incident. He was actually drawing from a very long tradition of ghost stories around Christmas time, and there were goblins, witches, werewolves, all kinds of menacing spirits around Christmas time, and I think they were there to, in a sense, make the brightness of the holiday even brighter. You know, the the the weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful. Christmas coziness, in a sense, needs to have an enemy, right? It has to have frightful weather or frightful ghouls in order to ramp up that, that warm, fuzzy feeling you're you're feeling inside,
Nick VinZant 18:29
were those American traditions, or were those kind of traditions that came over from other parts of Europe and the West and the East, yeah, other
Dr. Michael Foley 18:39
parts of Europe. And, you know, different European countries had different ghouls, but the idea, but it's still an American thing. You know, the the song, it's the most wonderful time of the year. That's what 1961 of the one of the verses is, there will be scary ghost stories. So that's in the American drinking water. I
Nick VinZant 19:03
never really noticed that, but now that I you mentioned, it's like, oh yeah, the weather. That's like, there are things that are associated with scariness in there. And isn't there, Krampus is the big one that I've always heard, heard of. Are there other ones like Krampus?
Dr. Michael Foley 19:18
There are, indeed, different countries or different regions had had different boogeymen. Krampus is one. There's a devil in the Czech Republic called chert, who's similar to Krampus. There is a child eating scarecrow in parts of France called Hans trap. Uh, yeah, they're, they're all kinds of weird boogeymen.
Nick VinZant 19:47
Was that kind of, was that there from the beginning too, or is that something that kind of evolved over time?
Dr. Michael Foley 19:53
Some of these ghouls could have been pre Christian. I. Uh, pre Christian superstitions that were then, uh, put to use for the Christian Christmas story.
Nick VinZant 20:08
What would you say was kind of the low point of Christmas? Like, where did you like, oh, we almost lost it, or as close as we came to almost losing it,
Dr. Michael Foley 20:18
the 19th century Puritan Boston, they, they suppressed the holiday. And then in England, when they had their revolution and the monarchy was toppled, this is in the 1600s Oliver Cromwell, I think, took over. They, they suppressed Christmas, and the police would literally walk through the streets on Christmas Day, and if they smelled a Christmas goose being cooked, they would bang on the door, arrest the family and throw them into jail.
Nick VinZant 20:56
How did they do that? I mean, that's like throwing the whole city into jail at the end of it. Oh my gosh.
Dr. Michael Foley 21:01
The English hated it. The the Puritans eventually held up. But Oh the the mayor of Canterbury tried to enforce the law, and the townspeople were so furious that, according to the report, every window in his house and every bone in his body was broken.
Nick VinZant 21:24
Oh, my God, they did. They kill him.
Dr. Michael Foley 21:26
He lived. What
Nick VinZant 21:28
do you think the future is?
Dr. Michael Foley 21:30
I do not anticipate any huge developments for the future. I think we will continue with the current modern features, gift giving, Santa Claus, eggnog, Christmas tree. I just don't see any of those things going away soon. Do
Nick VinZant 21:56
you think anything could be added? Is there anything that you see is like an up and comer like, oh, that could make its way into our new Christmas traditions. Well, here's
Dr. Michael Foley 22:05
an interesting question for you. So Nick, have you ever heard of the Christmas pickle?
Nick VinZant 22:12
I feel like, I feel like, yes, but I have to say, no. If that makes any sense, like That sounds familiar, but I can't associate anything with it.
Dr. Michael Foley 22:22
So I like to ask people this question, because I never heard of a Christmas pickle growing up and no, and only when I was writing the book did I hear about this Christmas pickle. So it's, it's a glass ornament pickle that you put in the you hide it in the Christmas tree, and the first person who finds it, they either get good luck for the whole year, or they get a special extra present. It started in the Midwest about 100 years ago. We think it may be German immigrants who started it, even though there's no custom of it in Germany. So anyway, it appears to be growing in popularity. So now, when I ask people, they either have kind of heard of it, or they started doing it maybe 20 years ago, 10 years ago. So anyways, it's interesting question to ask people, do you know about the Christmas pickle? Do you practice the Christmas pickle? Because it does seem to be growing in popularity. Is
Nick VinZant 23:25
elf? Does Elf on the Shelf count? Like, I feel like Elf on the Shelf is making a big run for the new Christmas tradition.
Dr. Michael Foley 23:31
You're absolutely right. Yeah, that. So there are little things like that. So yeah, they'll grow in popularity. But notice we're adding things, and none of these things is a game changer. What's now?
Nick VinZant 23:45
How did the tree make it in?
Dr. Michael Foley 23:49
A lot of people will tell you that it was baptizing a pagan custom of the Yule tree in Germany. But what is interesting is that that is not true. We actually know for a fact that it is 100% Christian. It the Christmas tree is actually the paradise tree, which is the tree? It's a combined tree of the two trees from the Garden of Eden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. That's why the red balls are the apples on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the sweets we put on the tree are the sweets of the tree of life. The tree was put up on Christmas Eve because that's the unofficial feast of Adam and Eve. And we would we commemorate Adam and Eve on december 24 to remind us why Jesus becomes man and is born on December 25 it's to save us from the sin of Adam. And so the. Uh, so the Tree has everything to do with these Christian beliefs.
Nick VinZant 25:05
Why do we kiss under the mistletoe?
Dr. Michael Foley 25:08
That too is Christian. Uh, kissing is a sign of peace. And for the Druids, mistletoe was an herb of peace. If, if you greeted someone under the mistletoe, you would you would disarm and greet each other. And Christians took that and they added their signature greeting, which is the kiss of peace. Is that
Nick VinZant 25:31
this may be out of the bounds necessarily so feel free if it, if it is, is that unique to Christmas that we have different religions and different beliefs and practices kind of merging a little bit into one holiday. Is that unique to Christmas? Or is this the kind of thing like this kind of happens with everything? Oh,
Dr. Michael Foley 25:51
you know, Saint Paul says, Whatever you see is good in a culture, adopt it. And so Christianity has done a very good job. The term is enculturating. So it it will, when it evangelizes a society, it will try to take what is best from that society, and then, you know, prune what is is not good in that society.
Nick VinZant 26:18
Has Santa gone through changes? Or is Santa always kind of in Santa?
Dr. Michael Foley 26:24
Besides the transformation from St Nicholas into Santa, the big transformation is when you read Clement Moore's poem towards the night before Christmas. Santa is not an employer of elves. Santa is an elf. He's called a right jolly old elf. And if you look at the earliest pictures of Santa, he is small. He's no bigger than he they he was dwarf sized. And remember eight tiny reindeer, according to Clement Moore. So everything was in miniature. So that's the way it started in 1803, but if you look at all the pictures of Santa in the 19th century, by the time you get to the end of the 19th century, he has achieved full human stature.
Nick VinZant 27:13
That's pretty much all the questions I got. Is there anything you think that we missed?
Dr. Michael Foley 27:17
I think we're good if people kind
Nick VinZant 27:20
of want to work and they find the book, if they find the book if they want to know more about
Dr. Michael Foley 27:23
Christmas, why we kiss under the mistletoe is available on Amazon and at all fine bookstores.
Nick VinZant 27:32
I want to thank Dr Michael, so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media sites. We're Profoundly Pointless on tick tock, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included his information in the episode description. And if you want to see some of the characters and more of the interview, the YouTube version of this episode will be live on December 19, at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of the show. When would you say that you like get in the Christmas spirit, that you start to feel like it's Christmas time?
Speaker 1 28:12
I don't actually get in the spirit of Christmas. I don't think. I don't feel that I have the time to truly appreciate Christmas.
Nick VinZant 28:21
I can understand that I do feel you and I are both parents, that you just get so busy getting ready for Christmas, and then it's like 20 minutes, and then it's over. I
Speaker 1 28:33
do feel like when you have a family, say, you go to like a Christmas tree lighting, like a city's Christmas tree lighting, right? You can't really enjoy it, because you're with your kids, like, you know, you go to a holiday party like, there's always something on your mind that prevents you from truly enjoying something. I feel,
Nick VinZant 28:51
I don't know if you feel like this, but I think that a lot of people feel like this, that as a dad, you're kind of always on so I would say that even though I enjoy things much more because of my children, I also don't enjoy them because you're kind of always on at the same time. Like, you never really get a chance to sit back and just like, take it easy a little bit. But I
Speaker 1 29:15
do have moments like, you know, Michigan, the part of Michigan where I live, got like, four inches of snow this past week. It's nice. I got okay, just
Nick VinZant 29:23
for the record, it's two minutes and 40 seconds into the show. John has bought up brought up weather. You brought up weather already? No two minutes and 40 seconds you brought up the weather. It's in
Speaker 1 29:32
relation to the question. I was able to for like, five minutes look out into my front yard with the Christmas lights gleaming off the newly fallen snow. But then I have to go out and shovel it so all of it's ruined. You know what? I mean? Then I have to go to work and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, so you Yeah, the spirit is ruined then. So I have glimpses of Christmas spirit.
Nick VinZant 29:53
I think you need to kind of focus on making life what it is, right? Like, it's only wasted time if you're wasting it. Like you can look at. That is like, Oh, I gotta go and do this pain in the ass thing, shoveling the snow. Or you can think like, oh, this is part of Christmas. I can get some exercise and do two things at once. I think you gotta adjust your mindset and be more positive and take advantage of your time, not wasted.
Speaker 1 30:14
You know what? As long as the the Christmas eggnog keeps flowing. I've actually never had eggnog. Have you had eggnog?
Nick VinZant 30:21
It's disgusting. I've tried to get drunk off of eggnog, and that was probably one of the worst day afters of my life.
Unknown Speaker 30:27
That just sounds terrible.
Nick VinZant 30:30
It's awful. That's one of those things that there's no way you can have more than, like, one glass of, that it's just to everything like, Oh, I feel disgusted. Eggnog, fruitcake, terrible things. Terrible things. I will say terrible things about Christmas, like
Speaker 1 30:46
I will say that in my neighborhood, it does seem like Christmas spirit is flowing. There are, there seems to be an exorbitant amount of people, big word alert, uh, that have decorated for the holiday. So good. Good on them. You know, good on
Nick VinZant 31:02
my neighborhood had more people who decorated for Halloween. There was a lot of people who decorated for Halloween. And I don't know what they're doing for Christmas, but their stuff's not
Speaker 1 31:11
up yet. Did I even get a chance to tell you last week the curve ball my wife threw me regarding our inflatables?
Nick VinZant 31:19
Just go ahead and tell me, I this is one of those conversations that like, if I'm curious, but I also have no interest in knowing. Well,
Speaker 1 31:27
for those of you that have followed the podcast, you know the saga with my father in law, who comes up here and puts up inflatables in my front yard. This year, he put up 27 and we're sitting there one night at dinner, looking out in the front yard, and my wife looks at me, and she goes, I'd like you to take them all down, please.
Nick VinZant 31:47
Oh, you need to put a foot down, either with him or with her, like you can't just keep playing pinball back and forth like that. I was
Speaker 1 31:56
thankful. I think she's finally starting to see how terrible 27 inflatables, from a teenage mutant ninja turtle to Woody from Toy Story that has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, can look in your front yard.
Nick VinZant 32:14
I agree. I don't think you should have so many inflatables. I mean, 27 is a ridiculous amount, two to three tops. If you live on a mansion, a palatial estate, I'll give you seven, but 27 is ridiculous. You don't even have room to walk in your yard.
Speaker 1 32:31
No, it was it was nuts. It was nuts. Here's a question for you. Holiday related scenes were kind of on the topic. If you have a big enough house, two Christmas trees, okay? Or only one Christmas tree. One
Nick VinZant 32:45
Christmas tree. What do you need? Two Christmas trees for people waste their money on crap like, I don't care how big your house is. I don't care if you live in the biggest house in the world. You need one Christmas tree, because really, you're just dividing up the celebration. It should be one focal point. People buy too much stuff, man,
Speaker 1 33:06
I think I'm okay with it. I think if you have a big enough estate upstairs, downstairs, you know, tri level, I'm okay with multiple Christmas trees on the different floors. I'm not deck obviously, you have to have one Christmas tree. That is the Christmas tree, but decorative Christmas trees I'm okay with as well.
Nick VinZant 33:24
I'm against waste in all its forms.
Speaker 1 33:28
Did you? Did you eat everything you Oh, hey, by the way, nice pancakes this week, I have to give you a shout out. You. They're actually pancakes. They actually look edible, which is good for you. So congratulations.
Nick VinZant 33:39
What is it like knowing that even though that you've spent years cultivating your craft of smoking meat, and no matter how much meat you smoke, you'll never be as good as making pancakes as I am, that you'll never be the chef that I am.
Speaker 1 33:54
Just so everybody knows when you see those posts on our social media, that is not me. That is Nick all day long. If I were to post food pictures, which I would love to do, side by side someday, we could let the people decide what looks better on appearance alone.
Nick VinZant 34:10
I've seen your brisket. It looked burnt and tough. I
Speaker 1 34:14
mean, I have made briskets that are burnt and tough, yes, but
Nick VinZant 34:17
I don't mess up pancakes. So there we go. You can't mess up pancakes. You can't. Yes, you can. Okay, this is my rant about breakfast food. Since now we've somehow gone down this road. Breakfast food is very hard to mess up but very hard to do well, like, it's really hard to find good eggs or good pancakes or good waffles, but they're all like, alright, that's okay.
Speaker 1 34:42
All right, let's get some shout outs. Alessandro stacky, Frederick Showalter rally, Mills, don't see a lot of rallies.
Nick VinZant 34:51
I don't know if I know a single rally, or is it Raleigh? I
Speaker 1 34:55
think it's rap Rowley, like the capital of North. Carolina, Raleigh. Yeah, Raleigh, not Raleigh. Raleigh. Anyways. Hilda Lemke, oh, boy. I was really picking out some interesting ones because you don't see a lot of Hilda's. No,
Nick VinZant 35:10
that's an old timey name. I wonder if old timey names are coming back.
Unknown Speaker 35:15
Glenda. Fidel, Glenda,
Nick VinZant 35:17
Hilda, Glenda, you got a Barbara in there
Unknown Speaker 35:22
anymore. Wait for this one. Leonard,
Nick VinZant 35:24
that's an old timing, old timing. Names must be coming back. Leonard,
Speaker 1 35:29
bechtelar, Felicity Harris, Monty Sanford, asta, Crimean and Zora Abbott. I
Nick VinZant 35:38
don't think I know a single Monty Montgomery. But no, I don't know Montgomery either. Lot of I don't know. I don't know a lot of people named that
Speaker 1 35:49
well. I mean, they're all taken from our social accounts, so apparently we draw older people name. I guess
Nick VinZant 35:57
we just have a lot of people with old names.
Speaker 1 36:01
Oh, Nick, all right. Anyone ever call you st Nick? Probably not all the
Nick VinZant 36:06
time. I always had to be freaking Santa Claus at every Christmas place I was going to was Christmas because my name was Nick. And everybody would say the same thing during Christmas season. It was like, Hey, Nick, you're st, Nick, you want to be Santa Claus. Hey, we got a nick like, God, dang it, I'm like, a de facto person who has to go to the tree in front of the family and pick out the presents because my name is Nick, hated it. God,
Unknown Speaker 36:30
I wish I could have been there for that
Nick VinZant 36:32
same joke all the time.
Speaker 1 36:35
We probably worked on Christmas together, but I don't remember ever working with you on
Nick VinZant 36:39
Christmas. Yeah, this around adults. Man,
Speaker 1 36:44
alright, I don't know how to bring this up, but it's definitely the largest viral story of the week. Okay, that has been what the hell is going on with our social media is growing blowing up with these UFO sightings or drone sighting like what I and I say that, and I'm not, I would not classify myself a conspiracy theorist at all, and if you are great for you, but I'm not. But there has to be a logical reasoning behind this, because clearly, they're drones. There. They are happening. They are out there, but I can't find a single effing reason as to why they're there.
Nick VinZant 37:24
The thing that I don't understand about is it's obviously some kind of secretive thing, right? Like, it's not aliens, it's not anything like that. It's either some kind of secret department of defense thing or some company testing something secret. But what I don't understand is, like, if you're gonna do that, how do you not know that everybody's gonna wonder what's going on. Like, how do you just be like, No, nothing's happening. You're flying a giant thing over major cities. Like, why don't you go test that in the middle of the ocean somewhere, or people where people aren't gonna see it, like, so what it's it's amazing to me, the thought process of, like, we're gonna do something really secretive and not tell anybody about it. Where are you going to do it? We're going to fly it right over the top of New York City. Well, shouldn't you do it somewhere else? For
Speaker 1 38:07
those of you that maybe don't pay attention to social media or the news at all, and I don't blame you. I mean, look it up. It's interesting. It definitely seems like some kind of secretive Department of Defense, something, just the way that the drones are. I guess one of them crashed too, or something. I don't know, but I heard maybe the most reasonable thing for this is that they're going to be for inauguration. They're going to do like a drone parade for Donald Trump. I mean, I don't know, but then again, I don't know why you would test that at night, and I don't know why you wouldn't tell people you're doing that.
Nick VinZant 38:44
Like, why would you do it in the most obvious place at the most obvious time?
Speaker 1 38:48
Yeah, I mean, it just, I don't know that makes no sense, but it's definitely, I mean, yes, it's not aliens because it was Aliens. We'd be fucked because we'd already be dead. They're not just going to hover for for two weeks. I am
Nick VinZant 39:01
constantly fascinated by how groups of people make decisions. Like, if you have a group of people, they will somehow make the exact wrong decision. Like every person, individually will know that this is a bad idea, but the group all together will make the worst possible decision. It's like, how do we all dry ourselves off from the rain? Go in the ocean? Like, yeah, no, like a group of people will make the exact opposite decision than they should.
Speaker 1 39:32
Uh, alright, so Christmas lights. Quick question to you about Christmas lights, um, do they have say? Do you, first off? Do you put up Christmas lights? Yes. Are you one of those kind of people that have to have the same kind of light, or are you going to mix and match? Maybe, you know, get the bigger bulbs and have the shorter bulbs. Are you going to? Are you going to, is it all going to be uniform? Is it going to be one like strand of lights that you're going. To use. If I'm going
Nick VinZant 40:01
to do something, I'm going to do it properly. I'm not going to have like, 10 different strains of lights out my house like some kind of idiot. Like, I understand if, like, Okay, if you're talking about you can't afford this. This is that I get it. Totally get that. But if you're going to try to put on a thing, like, you can't be making a decision without financial reasons to be like, You know what? I'm going to get white lights here, and I'm going to get colored lights on the next strand, and then no uniform. You got to be organized in life, man. Well, that's
Speaker 1 40:31
kind of how my my wife almost said my mother in law, that's how my wife was like, I don't want these inflatables in my yard anymore because it's not organized. Looks not very well. I
Nick VinZant 40:43
don't know if I've ever seen people do different strands of lights or different sizes of lights within the kind of same framing structure. You can have one size of lights in the bushes and one size of lights in the house or on the house, but you can't have, oh no, no, keep it right.
Speaker 1 41:00
You should. I mean, you're going on vacation soon, you should fly by my house. You can see it. Thank you. Rick, um,
Nick VinZant 41:08
stop blaming him, because this is it your house or is it his house? So Whose house is it yours or his?
Unknown Speaker 41:15
Listen, Nick, my mother in law is coming in for two weeks.
Nick VinZant 41:18
Okay, so Whose house is it? Is it your house or is it his house? Whose house is the house I'm in your own home. Do you just go through life letting everybody tell you what to do all the time with no backbone to stand up for the things that you want? Is that the kind of person that you're going to be, are you going to stand up and say, No, we're doing what I want to do in my house. I'm
Unknown Speaker 41:39
going to move on from that he's gonna get
Nick VinZant 41:41
trampled, right? Just let people walk all over you all your life. John,
Speaker 1 41:45
I want to give, I don't think that's necessarily true, but I want to give a random little little kid and his father a shout out this week. Okay, my youngest had a Christmas concert, which was probably the biggest sham I've ever been a part of
Nick VinZant 42:02
little kid? Chris, it's not going to be Shakespeare. Man,
Speaker 1 42:05
it was one song that was a minute 30, and it took up two hours of an evening for that. But the best part of it was other guests, other than seeing my daughter enjoy herself, was there was a kid there with a with a shirt that said it's a Butte Clark. And he had no idea this kid was five, right? But just seeing that little boy with that shirt like I looked around, I was like, I don't know who your dad is, but well done, young man, well done. But it got me thinking, is that one of the most iconic Christmas characters? I
Nick VinZant 42:40
don't even know who you're talking about,
Speaker 1 42:44
the uncle from natural Lampoon's Christmas,
Nick VinZant 42:51
Jesus. So the answer would be no, like shitters,
Speaker 1 42:54
fool, nothing. Okay, shitters full, I'm familiar. Yeah, right, that's the same it's the same guy. It's the same character. No
Nick VinZant 43:01
man like Santa is the most iconic character from Christmas.
Speaker 1 43:04
No, I said one of I didn't say the most. No, I wouldn't put
Nick VinZant 43:08
him in the top 10 even. All right. I mean, you go Santa, you go Rudolph, you go frosty, you go the Grinch, you go. Clark Griswold, like No, he's not in the top 10, maybe not in the top 20,
Speaker 1 43:22
it's uncle Eddie man. Um, alright. Last thing here, do you so it's obviously the holiday season. If you're out to eat, do you tip more because it's a holiday season, or do you just give the regular, you know, whatever you're going to give?
Nick VinZant 43:37
No, I stay pretty standard throughout the year. Now. I'll tip people, or I'll give people a present, like the post people and the garbage people. Like, I'll give them something on Christmas, but I'm not going any higher on tips. Like, I stay right at 20% Nice. All right. What do you do? Do you get in the holiday spirit? Yeah, I
Speaker 1 43:57
do. I mean, you know, obviously I'm not going out the way that I used to. I don't think any of us are as you get older, but, you know, I'll, unless I'm not tipping like $100 you know, on a $30 bill, but I'll try to give a little more maybe, right? It's a nice note, you know, I don't know. It kind of all depends on the situation, but, but, yeah, you know, unlike used to be in this situation, you know news people, you know emergency responders, like everyone's working through the holidays. So even the slightest, smallest kind gesture can can kind of uplift somebody's spirits. So,
Nick VinZant 44:33
yeah, I'll let somebody else do it. I just, I try to maintain, I try to maintain, like, a slightly above average level. I don't usually go in for things big or anything like that.
Speaker 1 44:44
Well, you're not used to big things. I get it
Nick VinZant 44:47
not at all. Can't take big things. Never been able to take a big one, little ones. I can take those all day long. Give me all the little ones, but you get a big old rocker in there that's too much for me to
Speaker 1 44:59
hand. All. I've known you long enough. I know. I know. Luckily, I don't really
Nick VinZant 45:03
know anybody who's got big things. Are you ready for our top five? Or do you got more stuff?
Unknown Speaker 45:10
We should just move on. That's a good that's good segue. No
Nick VinZant 45:13
top five. Okay. Okay, so our top five is top five. Worst things about Christmas. What's your number five?
Speaker 1 45:22
Uh, financial worries? I'd say,
Nick VinZant 45:25
um, oh, yeah, hey, man, if you're gonna bring that, you put that at five. I would have, yeah, I could see that as number one. Honestly, absolutely,
Speaker 1 45:34
I didn't want to, like, have that as my number one, though. But yeah, it makes sense. But yeah, definitely find out, you know, because I feel like there's a lot of people parents that feel that they have to do something for their children, or whoever. So they may open up a credit card, they may put more, you know, like they just spend, they they go above their means, and yeah, and it's, you know, it can quickly turn into a holiday of fun and excitement, into like, oh shit. January's here, and I have three credit card bills that I can't pay. That's tough
Nick VinZant 46:04
when 2025 is coming, it's not on my list, but like, oh, the New Year's coming, and like, all the repercussions of all this joy and merriment is about to hit you. That has to be tough for parents, I would think, or for people that like, Okay, I don't have the financial means to do this, but I also want to have fun and be a part of the celebration. That's gotta be a huge push and pull. So, yeah, that's a kind of a serious thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1 46:26
that was, yeah, financial worries. That's my number five. My
Nick VinZant 46:31
number five is family. I like seeing my family. I also like when they leave,
Speaker 1 46:39
seeing that. I would think that could be higher on the list, to be honest with you, yeah, I do
Nick VinZant 46:46
enjoy it. I don't know if it's the family or so much the break of the routine, because it's a bunch of people who kind of really know who you are and also don't know who you are at the same time, like they really know you because they knew you growing up, but they don't know you as the person that you are now. And I think that those two things kind of conflict with each other a
Speaker 1 47:08
little bit. I mean, listen, if, if you got families that want to celebrate, I say, you know, celebrate, because some people don't, don't have family get togethers. I haven't had a family get together in a decade.
Nick VinZant 47:19
Oh, man, well, let's leave that alone. Yeah, anyways,
Speaker 1 47:24
okay, this is, I have a feeling this is gonna be really uplifting. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 47:27
you're making this way too sad.
Unknown Speaker 47:31
Wait for my number four. It's just
Nick VinZant 47:35
number one. That's the next one, so I don't have to wait too long. Just
Speaker 1 47:38
ugly, ugly Christmas sweaters. Like, people that go out of their way to dress for Christmas and like, like, I just, just don't care. Like, I just just, you know, the or like, especially the people that wear, like, the the reindeer, you know, had bands and things and like, I just, I don't know, just just, it's just not, not for me, okay? I mean, I mean,
Nick VinZant 48:00
I can understand a little bit of Christmas cheer there. Grinch, I don't think that you need to be lashing out at people who wear reindeers or Santa hats. I love it when people put those things on their cars. That always brightens my day a little bit. But I can't believe the ugly Christmas sweater thing is still going like we're still doing that. That's been 20 years almost.
Speaker 1 48:19
I actually just said to my wife the other night, we were driving and I got cut off by somebody that had the reindeer antlers on their cars, and I said, I'm about to be a fucking bull and run them into a ditch. So,
Nick VinZant 48:33
wow, that's aggressive. That
Speaker 1 48:34
was aggressive. I apologize for that. I did not do that, obviously, much, but so I am not a fan of people who decorate their cars right now.
Nick VinZant 48:44
Okay, all right. I mean, if you know what, if somebody does something on a scale of one to 10, that's a two to you. You don't have to go nine man. You can just be like, you can just punk at them or flip them the bird. You don't have to, like, run them off to death.
Speaker 1 48:56
You know me, well, I just put them in the it doesn't matter what's your number four, the
Nick VinZant 49:00
dead zone, but after Thanksgiving, where you really, like, you're mentally checked out. You're totally mentally checked out. Pretty much the week before Thanksgiving, you're pretty mentally checked out for the rest of the year, but then you still gotta, like, slog through two or three more weeks of effort. Like, we this whole time? Should we just be done this whole time? See,
Speaker 1 49:25
I don't agree with that. I think, I think that's, think that's an old, traditional way of thinking. I think most people, like you can't go into the slog. Like, my work is busier than ever right now. Like, it's, I can't slow down, and I'm working extra days, extra hours, like, which adds to the stress of the whole holiday season. Sounds
Nick VinZant 49:45
like you got a new job? So, well, I mean, yeah, get another job. Alright, what's your number three?
Speaker 1 49:52
Uh, so I this where I have family at just in in terms of, you know, like, maybe the forced holiday. Gathering where, like, you're only going because maybe aunt Jean asked you to be there, so you feel bad if you won't go. You know, you haven't seen her in 20 years, you know. Or you have to drive three hours for a two hour event, you know, just, oh yeah, just, you know, it's if you have families in in that love each other and get together, great, but it's like the other families that try to come together and that you don't talk to all year. That's kind of what I mean. Do
Nick VinZant 50:28
you actually know any family the way you would say, they all get along, like all of them get along. I don't know a single one.
Speaker 1 50:36
I will say, what a you know, I have a couple of good friends that they no matter what happens, they get together on Christmas and Thanksgiving with their with their close families, but they don't get along with everybody all the time.
Nick VinZant 50:50
Yeah, I go back and forth on if it's better to stay connected or if it's better to bail. I if, like, whatever somebody's decision is, I can go both ways. Uh, my number three is lines. I detest all of the lines. I don't like to wait in any lines. Everything seems to take a little bit longer on Christmas.
Speaker 1 51:09
I so I put, I put it on my my honorable mention, but I had, like, going, just going to the grocery store just to buy groceries. This is going to take you an extra half an hour right
Nick VinZant 51:19
now. Oh yeah, it's going to be forever. It's number two,
Speaker 1 51:23
uh, just being lonely. Like, if you are just have noone to to share the holiday with, or, you know, maybe you lost a loved one, you know, around this time. Like, just, just loneliness. Nobody should be lonely during the holiday season.
Nick VinZant 51:37
So sad.
Unknown Speaker 51:41
I mean worst things about Christmas. I mean, that's, you know, that's
Nick VinZant 51:43
you can throw, like, climate change in there. Like, what else you get, anything else negative you could find.
Speaker 1 51:49
I mean, these are bad things about Christmas, yeah, but I mean,
Nick VinZant 51:53
they're kind of bad things about all the times really well. I think that Christmas makes you think about it a little bit more. But my
Speaker 1 51:59
number one is, is, is not. It's serious, but it's, it's jovial.
Nick VinZant 52:04
So, oh, okay, are we at my number two? Is that your number two? Your number two breaking down boxes. I hate breaking down boxes and all the cleanup that comes with it. Hate it.
Speaker 1 52:18
See, I don't mind. I get it. I get it, I feel like 95% of the rest of parents would understand that I actually recycle the boxes for my eBay store that I do so I'm okay with it.
Nick VinZant 52:30
Well, you've plugged for your eBay store. I didn't I have been doing this. We have been doing this together for six years. I have known you since 2013 2011 didn't know you had an eBay store.
Speaker 1 52:43
It's not very big, but, you know, it's, it's there, you know, selling,
Nick VinZant 52:47
but he's selling candles, uh, trading
Speaker 1 52:50
cards, figures, books, steins. I've, you know, all kinds of, all kinds of things. What's your
Nick VinZant 52:58
number one? Except for our family, so we don't want to see
Unknown Speaker 53:02
fake ass Santas.
Nick VinZant 53:05
What's wrong with fake Santa? Alright,
Speaker 1 53:08
so I'm gonna, I'm gonna give one quick example for 30 seconds. Took my kids to an event. Didn't know Santa was gonna be there. Santa was there. It was a man who probably weighed 150 pounds with a suit that was about a 5x and His beard was falling off his face, and he had a super dark mustache, and one of the little girls called him out, and then he got all flustered, and we never saw him again. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 53:40
if you're 150 pounds, don't be Santa. Like, if you don't look the part, don't play the part. I don't, but he should have hired him, shouldn't? I
Speaker 1 53:48
don't. My kids see Santa. So I'm kind of a hypocrite in saying this, but I do feel like ma Santas and other Santas are it's kind of weird. It's kind of weird. It's a weird tradition that I've never truly understood, to have your kids sit on Santa's lap and tell and tell him what you want.
Nick VinZant 54:11
It is a little odd that we spend years lying to the to our children, like, just keep this lie going well,
Speaker 1 54:19
and then when they find out that he isn't real, it's like, you're the asshole, right? Like it's your fault.
Nick VinZant 54:24
I don't remember ever, like finding out as a kid. I don't remember like, a moment of, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1 54:33
do. I have the exact I could, I could detail it like in in excess. So do you
Nick VinZant 54:41
want me to ask you the question I'm laughing about?
Speaker 1 54:44
No, maybe Sure. What are you laughing about? What do
Nick VinZant 54:48
you remember more? Um, finding out that Santa wasn't real, or seeing your parents have sex.
Speaker 1 54:57
Fuck. Uh, that's like, that's a tough one, because I'm kind of, well, I that more scarred, my more scarred from my parents than you know, yeah, dude, you grow up from the scene of Santa. I mean, obviously, but at the time, Santa was probably a bigger deal,
Nick VinZant 55:14
oh yeah, because you didn't know what they were doing. Then now looking back on it, like, I wonder when my kids are going to figure out that. Like, why do mom and dad sometimes go downstairs on Saturday afternoon? Like, what are they doing? Why did like, one day they'll figure it out? Like, what's this candy that dad eats on Fridays and Saturday nights? Like, how come? How come? He's the only one who eats that
Speaker 1 55:39
living my life. It's, yeah, it's trauma, trauma, man, trauma all over for all of our kids and ourselves. No,
Nick VinZant 55:46
it's part of life. Uh, my number one is that it's just over, like, it's just over. And I would say that Christmas is honestly kind of over by two o'clock, like, it's just over. Like, you'd have all of this build up, and then it's just over in like, 30 minutes or a couple of hours, and then you're like, Okay, wait for another year for that, for people to be happy again. I mean, I
Speaker 1 56:11
don't know I I mean, I say it's probably over, like, around eight o'clock that night, seven, eight o'clock that night. I
Nick VinZant 56:19
feel like it's over by the afternoon, and at two o'clock is the time I would put on it. If
Speaker 1 56:24
you live in a cold state, I feel like as soon as that gets into the 26th you're like, well, mother effer. Now I have three months of nothing to look forward to except 10 degree weather.
Nick VinZant 56:37
Yeah, the that's the that's What's bad is, I feel like the time after Christmas, until basically March, is the hardest part of the year. So it's kind of like you just, you did all this thing, and then the year just crushes you right afterwards, like you hit a high note, and then you're brought immediately back down to his the worst. And then you gotta, like, go back around.
Speaker 1 57:01
Some could say that's life, though. It never lets you get too high.
Nick VinZant 57:05
No, it doesn't. We'll check every time. What's in your honorable mention. Do you have anything? Yeah, I
Speaker 1 57:08
got so food. And by when I say the worst part of Christmas can be the food is, I mean, there's so many examples of like, just family members making Bundt cake, or those stupid, what was the jelly with the fruit in it? What do they call those things? I couldn't remember.
Nick VinZant 57:26
Oh, that's not a fruitcake, but that's something else. It's like a gel mold or something, yeah,
Speaker 1 57:31
fair enough, you know. Or, just like, you know, candy canes. I don't do candy canes, so the food can be a little, a little much. Also, I put down cold weather. But basically, like, if you want to go do something outside, go look at Christmas lights, blah, blah, blah, it's usually freaking cold as hell, which is never fun. And then just, you know, I just put kind of down, like relationships in general. Seems that they can get more strain than usual during the holiday season. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 57:59
I can see that. I when I do see family, I try to separate it out a little bit like, I like to see one group of family and one group of family, but not mix the whole family together. That's, I think, where you run into some issues. Um, yeah, I don't really have anything in my honorable mention. I mean, I don't like stuff like eggnog, and I don't like stuff like fruitcake. So some of the food I can understand with That's annoying. I hate having to fake like I like a gift. I hate having to fake like I like a gift.
Speaker 1 58:35
Yeah, I don't. You know one thing, there's a family member of mine that loves to go to the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar and buy, like, 20 bucks worth of crap and give it to you. I don't want that. And it's like, I yeah, I would have just rather taken the $20 bill, if that's what you wanted to do, and I would go spend it on liquor. You know what I mean? I'd much
Nick VinZant 58:56
rather just give me money or give me a lottery ticket.
Unknown Speaker 58:58
Yeah, that's Adam's gonna
Nick VinZant 59:01
do I'm gonna get some lottery tickets. Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate. It really helps us out and let us know what you think are the worst things about Christmas Overall, I really enjoy the time, but there's definitely things that make you go like,
Unknown Speaker 59:30
Oh, for
Nick VinZant 59:32
me, it's just that it ends like it's just over.