From Santa and gingerbread cookies to Christmas trees and the colors of red and green, Dr. Katherine Walker studies the history of our favorite Christmas traditions.
We talk the real origin of Santa Claus, the scandalous history of gingerbread cookies and the time we nearly lost Christmas.
Then, we unveil a new Candle of the Month and countdown the Top 5 Best Christmas Themed Foods.
Dr. Katherine Walker: 01:16
Pointless: 31:37
Candle of the Month:49:19
Top 5 Christmas Foods: 59:26
Interview with Christmas Expert Dr. Katherine Walker
Nick VinZant 0:11
Nick, welcome to profoundly pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode, Christmas rituals and Christmas food.
Dr. Katherine Walker 0:21
Why did the Western Church land on December 25 that's an interesting story, because, essentially, we were competing with other religions and other practices at the time. There was, there was a huge amount of social stigma around celebrating Christmas. It was viewed as, even, potentially, you know, sinful, suddenly these businesses realize there's money to be made from making Christmas this kind of giant commercial affair.
Nick VinZant 0:50
I 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. So I want to get right to our first guest, because she studies the Christmas rituals that so many of us do, where they're going and where they came from. This is Christmas ritual expert, Dr Catherine Walker, so is Christmas always been a big deal, or is this a more recent thing.
Dr. Katherine Walker 1:20
So it's not always been a big deal, in part because we don't actually know when Jesus was born. We don't actually know his birthday. So if you read the New Testament, only two of the Gospels mention the nativity story, and neither of those stories give us a precise date. So in, you know, early Christian history, it wasn't until about 200 300 ad, that bishop started wanting to pin down a specific date for the birth of of Christ. So with that right, there was a big gap in early Christian history where we, in fact, did not celebrate Christmas at all because we didn't know when Christmas was.
Nick VinZant 2:06
So when it was first celebrated, was it celebrated at a kind of a different time of the year? Or when did it become December 25 there
Dr. Katherine Walker 2:14
was a lot of negotiation around what specific date to actually celebrate it. So a lot of the Eastern churches, for example, those in, you know, Greece and now Russia, they celebrate, or they celebrated Christmas on the kind of traditional day for epiphany, which is January 6. Now, why did we land? You know, why did the Western Church land on December 25 that's an interesting story, because essentially, we were competing with other religions and other practices at the time. So the big one of the period was the Roman Saturnalia, which was this kind of large, multi day, sometimes week long, celebration of essentially just the winter solstice and the kind of turning to a new season. So, you know, the early church leaders, Christian church leaders, thought, Okay, well, this is a this is a big party, and we want to convert more Romans. We want to convert more people into the Christian religion. So they co opted a lot of the elements of the Saturnalia, which did take place essentially, kind of the week before what we now term Christmas, right? And they decided, okay, we're going to have Christmas, kind of tacked on to Saturnalia. And so through kind of a process of morphing, we landed on the 25th as a very convenient date, because back in the kind of old calendar system that was the precise Winter Solstice date, but it was also coinciding with these Roman parties, which, honestly, at the time period, were a lot more fun than traditional Christmas celebrations. So why not kind of use that energy around the Saturnalia to to the early church's benefit.
Nick VinZant 4:02
When did you sit? When would you say that Christmas became the Christmas that we kind of know today?
Dr. Katherine Walker 4:08
That's It's a hard one to pin down, because it's gone through so many different iterations. So just to give you one example, in the medieval and Renaissance periods, right? So the the 15 and 1600s they did have Christmas, and it was a more muted celebration. It wasn't this kind of month long extravaganza that we now have, and so they had this celebration, but it was, it was part of, kind of the new year. It was part of the fact that, you know, there wasn't much going on at the time, right? But they didn't have a lot of the traditions that we now have. So really we have, you know, the Christmas tree and the Christmas ornaments and the feasting. We should really point to the Victorians as establishing those traditions. And part of that is. Really that the Victorians had this new emphasis on the family, right? You had Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who had far too many children. And so there's this kind of new celebration of the nuclear family. And that's then where we get this emphasis on not going to socialize as much during Christmas, right, but instead to stay home, to gather around the hearth, and that's where we get this kind of insular tradition that now, I think, has been picked up. And that's really our our version of Christmas to this day,
Nick VinZant 5:33
was there. Has there ever been a point where it really kind of almost died out?
Dr. Katherine Walker 5:37
I would say the in the early Americas, when, when the primary population is Puritan. Here, there was, there was a huge amount of social stigma around celebrating Christmas. It was viewed as even, potentially, you know, sinful right to take off of work to celebrate a period associated with, not necessarily the birth of Christ, but the problem was that, you know, there were all these other traditions attached to Christmas, like St Nicholas, for example, which we'll talk about in a moment, I'm sure. But there was, there was a kind of movement to to restrict, or even to do away with Christmas during America's early years. And it's really only because we're a nation that has immigrants from, you know, Germany and Ireland and other places like that, that they brought their Christmas, Christmas traditions over. And then we, you know, throughout the 1800s had Christmas kind of revived, right? But, yeah, there was a good at least 100 years where Christmas was a very, very quiet, perhaps not even acknowledged affair in our particular nation that
Nick VinZant 6:51
seems so unimaginable, even today. Yeah, when does kind of commercialization take over?
Dr. Katherine Walker 6:59
Oh, it's, it's really the Victorian period, again, where you first have so the Christmas tree, interestingly enough, used to fit on that on a table. It used to not be a giant tree. And the reason we've moved to the giant tree is because we have been putting more presents under it, right? So it used to be that you would fit tiny, homemade gifts upon this Christmas tree that sat on a table in your living room, right? So, so Christmas and gift giving in the 1800s was very much a I knitted you this, you know, pair of socks, and that's really all you got. But during, you know, the 1800s where you suddenly have mass produced items. So you have factories now you can make clothing items, but also things like wrapping paper and Christmas cards and these kind of cheaper toys, right? Suddenly, these businesses realize there's money to be made from making Christmas this kind of giant commercial affair. And that continues in America. And once it gets started, it does not stop. So one of my favorite stories is the fact that the reason we have Black Friday, the reason we have this kind of extended holiday, is that FDR wanted to have more time for Christmas shopping. He wanted to help businesses, and he and this was, you know, partly to get us out of the Depression, and partly just to kind of acknowledge that workers were overworked during the Christmas season. But it's certainly true that he moved Thanksgiving up a week. So it's the fourth Thursday of November, not the very last. So sometimes Thanksgiving comes early, sometimes late, but that was because FDR wanted to give us more time for Christmas shopping. And you know, again, the forces of commercialization just have snowballed since.
Nick VinZant 8:56
Do you think that we have fundamentally lost what Christmas was supposed to be about even if you take kind of aside the religious angle, right? Like, even if we kind of skip the religious part of
Dr. Katherine Walker 9:07
it, I don't think so. I think I'm so. I'm an optimist at heart. And I think that ultimately, yes, we spend far too much money we worry far too much about, you know, do I have the right decorations, or do I have the matching pajamas and and, you know, we attach way too much to Christmas, but at the end of the day, we still gather, right? We still celebrate something communal about Christmas.
Nick VinZant 9:34
You want to get into some specific kind of rituals? Sure? Absolutely. Santa Claus.
Dr. Katherine Walker 9:41
St Nick is such an interesting figure in some ways. He makes absolutely no sense, and I love that about him. I love the kind of the playful conglomeration that St Nicholas has become for us, because he was a real person. He he was. This holy saint who lived in what is now Turkey, and he was, you know, he was a great guy, Saint Nick. He gave to the poor. He was particularly conscious of, you know, the plights of children. But also his legend has accrued throughout the centuries, where Saint Nick is also associated with merchants and sailors and other groups of people who are kind of associated with business. But my favorite story about st Nick is that he was walking by and there was an open window and he heard a young woman crying because she couldn't afford her dowry, the money she needed to get married. So he, you know, very anonymously, just kind of threw some money in at the window. But she happened to be drying her socks over the fireplace at the time, and so the money landed in the in the stockings. And so that's where we get that kind of tradition of the stockings that you hang and the little gifts, right? That are in those throughout the centuries, he becomes kind of morphed with the figure of winter, right? So the Father Christmas and Saint Nicholas were initially two different traditions. You know, the the figure of winter is an older man. He's he wears kind of berries or evergreens, uh, initially, St Nicholas was just wearing a bishop's robe. So you know, throughout the centuries, these two figures morph into one, but there's still quite a bit of time before we figure out what we really want Santa Claus to be. So if you get to the 1800s when Christmas cards start to be produced, you have many, many versions of Saint Nicholas. Sometimes he's short in stature, so he's, you know, more like an elf. And in fact, the night before Christmas poem describes him as an elf, right? And that's also from the 1800s he's also, you know, not necessarily rotund. He's not necessarily the kind of Jolly figure that we associate with Santa so it's really strange, and I recommend you do this. Go look at some pictures of Santa Claus. You know, very trim, very fit, Santa Claus from the 1800s he swole. He's been out. He's been at the gym, so But eventually, you know, he becomes more standardized, right through, through, I mean, really the rise of marketing. But also, of course, we get early Christmas films where we have representations of Santa, and you know that that becomes, you know, Miracle on 34th Street, right then we get the real image, or not the real image, but the created image of St Nicholas, but he's, he's gone through some really fascinating, and I would say, very idiosyncratic transformations throughout the years
Nick VinZant 13:02
is that stalking story real?
Dr. Katherine Walker 13:06
I want it to be real. I doubt it's actually. I mean, it's a very convenient story right now, there's a lot of questions like, like, why was your window open on a winter's night? And you know, why? Why were you hanging socks over a fire that does not seem safe. I want it to be real, though. I really do. I think that there's something magical about the coincidence, right? And then that becomes this kind of larger communal practice associated with Christmas. Christmas trees, you know, they're evergreens. They're a sign of life in the middle of winter. And so you can see why, kind of naturally the human instinct would be, let's have something in the home that reminds us that these days of darkness and cold are going to end. So why not this plant that is, that is promising, right? That doesn't, doesn't change, and gives us a sense of of spring or the seasons changing coming around, right? But these weren't popular in the early 19th century. It's not until really, you know, the kind of German tradition of not only having these small plants in the home, but also adorning them with ornaments came about that the English in particular picked it up. So there's a particular Christmas card, or I should say, Christmas engraving of Queen Victoria, her children and Prince Albert around a Christmas tree. So so that was unusual at the time, but that that image becomes very popular, and people print the image and have it hanging on their walls. And then within a few years, everyone in England starts having these small evergreens or pines within their home. Initially, ornaments were mostly fruit, actually, so you would hang apples to remind you of the. Story of Adam and Eve, but also to remind you of, you know, growth and the promise of spring again, and, of course, oranges and things like that. But of course, eventually those became plastic toys or glass ornaments, right? So it shifted. But initially, Christmas trees were these small affairs where you would just hang a few items of fruit on them, and it would just be a reminder that spring will arrive again.
Nick VinZant 15:26
Christmas colors. Where do we get the red and the green? The Christmas colors, red and green and silver? Is there another one?
Dr. Katherine Walker 15:36
Silver is often intermixed in there. So, so the the green comes, I think, from the the Christmas tree, the Evergreen, the red comes from Holly, because it's one of those few plants that flowers in the or, you know, produces fruit in the winter. So it's this unusual combination, where the landscape is covered in snow, but you suddenly see a plant that is both green and red, those are also really rich colors, and they have a lot of associations, for example, with religion. So often, for example, the Virgin Mary would be dressed in either blue or red, but, but red is a very strong colored and so green and red kind of make a natural combo for Christmas, and then silver, I think, came in with the snow and that association with winter, and so we get this kind of color combo that is really interesting, because you can't really do anything else now with green and red together. I mean, if you in July wear a green and red sweater, somebody is going to say, Oh, Christmas in July, right? So it's becoming printed in our imagination in really interesting ways.
Nick VinZant 16:47
Was there any other colors that were in the running and dropped out?
Dr. Katherine Walker 16:50
I think, I mean, I think blue was certainly there. It used to be, especially in the Renaissance that, you know, Christmas was more carnivalesque, right? It was more kind of like what our Mardi Gras is like today, where, again, it's this communal feasting. It's this, you know, gathering where you've got, you know, carols and things like that. So there was less of a less of a dress code, because you could treat it more like a holiday that you didn't have to follow any rules. Fruitcake, this is, this is actually very smart fruitcake makes sense, because when you didn't have a fridge, right? When you didn't have ways to keep food fresh all year long, you had leftovers by the time you got to December 25 you certainly had fruit that you had preserved, but it's not fresh fruit, right? And so what you would do is you would take the kind of leftover fruits that you had and you would pack those into bread, because you're also running low on fresh grain and things like that. And so that's why fruit Crake is very dense, but it's also not very sweet, because sugar used to be a very expensive commodity that you would use only for, you know, like very, very elite occasions. So with that, fruitcake was a more accessible and more kind of democratic dessert that still had some of the sweetness from the preserved fruit that's packed in there, but not enough to make it more like the desserts that we're used to, right? So fruitcake became this kind of everyone had fruitcake right at the time period. And that's that's starting in the medieval period on upward. So so to this day, yes, I have, unfortunately, exposure to fruitcake every Christmas. And I do take an obligatory bite because I feel like I have to honor, you know, all the folks who worked so hard to bring us this food, we have to be grateful for the food, right? But it's not my favorite
Nick VinZant 18:54
staying kind of with the feed food theme gingerbread.
Dr. Katherine Walker 18:57
Gingerbread is, is I'm a little bit more on board with Gingerbread. Yeah, so ginger. Gingerbread is a common cookie or bread base if you watch, you know, Great British Bake Off that that has been around since medieval period and before, we've had ginger for a very long time, and again, it's a substitute for the fact that we have not had sugar and other spices and kind of ready quantities as much. But I love this story, and we can't prove it. It might be anecdotal. It might be completely made up, but Queen Elizabeth celebrated. She kind of threw a big bash around both Christmas and New Year's, right? She had a big celebration, and one year, to be kind of cheeky, she made her cooks produce gingerbread in the shape of her favorite courtiers. So this would have been Sir Walter, Raleigh, and, you know, Essex and people like that. And so she gave out as a kind of mocking joke, these these forms of gingerbread. Cakes in, you know, her favorite, basically, the men who flirted with her the most got to become gingerbread men. And so, of course, that that became something that people started talking about and replicating. And so we have to thank, you know, Queen Elizabeth the first and royalty for the fact that we now have gingerbread men and even gingerbread houses, right? It became this tradition that, you know, could, you could replicate quite easily, even if you weren't of the, you know, royal or courtier class at the time.
Nick VinZant 20:32
Was that scandalous? I feel like that would have been scandalous at the time, like she's just making cookies out of all the guys that are coming after, yeah.
Dr. Katherine Walker 20:40
I mean, well, she's Queen Elizabeth. She can do whatever, because
Nick VinZant 20:43
she's the queen, right? She can do what she wants, okay? She's the queen.
Dr. Katherine Walker 20:48
But it is, it is a little, I would say it would, it would be scandalous, because she is leading a Protestant, slash Puritan nation. So any kind of hints at idolatry or at skin, you know, things that are flirtatious. Certainly, it toes the line, right? But it's a holiday, so she can be a little bit more, I guess again, scandalous or flirtatious during Christmas than perhaps she could certainly during, like the Linton season or during Easter.
Nick VinZant 21:20
Well, Rudolph is from the song, right? Rudolph is
Dr. Katherine Walker 21:23
from a massive marketing campaign. We're talking 1920s 30s. So initially, this guy who works for one of the major department stores, writes a pamphlet, and this is something they give out for free to children around Christmas, especially as they're waiting in line for the toys and for, you know, the department stores to open up. And in that story, you get the introduction of Rudolph as the initial reindeer added to to the set, right? So he's the ninth. We get the other eight, really, from the poem Twas the Night Before Christmas, right? Moore's famous poem named those eight reindeer. But this, this guy who, you know, roughly 70 years later, comes up with this story becomes this huge. It basically comes this huge thing for children as they're waiting for toys, as they're waiting to participate in the Christmas festivities, they suddenly, you know, become attached to this ninth reindeer with the glowing nose. And then somebody, in response to the pamphlet, again, for the for the department store in particular, writes the song Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer. And that again, spirals to where we now have the movie, and we have multiple kind of adaptations and all of that, but it comes from, you know, how do we keep children entertained while they're waiting in line for hours for these department stores to open so their parents can spend all their money, right?
Nick VinZant 22:56
Man, it's always the money. It's
Dr. Katherine Walker 22:58
always the money coal. Coal comes from Krampus. So Krampus is the, he's the evil. He's the, you know, the evil version of Santa. And this is a very Germanic tradition that the English in particular have not adopted as much, though, certainly you can go see horror films with with Krampus and things like that, right? But Krampus is this figure who accompanies st Nick on his nightly ride. And he's the devious punisher of st Nick. He serves that purpose of, you know, kind of keeping track of children who are who have not behaved well, right? Eventually that becomes all of Santa's job right, to track who's naughty or nice. But initially those roles were segregated. So so Krampus is the one who initially it wasn't even Cole he would leave children, and this is terrible with with branches to remind them that they're going to get spankings, right for us, punishment for being naughty. Thank God we changed that to coal as something that is, as you know, it's not exciting for children. It's it's something that marks their bodies, right? So if you handle coal, it marks your hands and to remind them you know that you have to behave better next year. And so thankfully, we've done away with, you know, corporal punishment as a threat here, but it is a, it is a kind of interesting element of Christmas that we also have this disciplinarian kind of reminder, right, that you have to behave because, you know, Santa sees everything it used to be. And this is much more horrifying that Krampus saw everything. And we still have Krampus in different ways. So not only horror films, but there are races run by, you know, hundreds of people dressing up as Krampus each year. And it's something we've kept in, you know, we've modified it, but we still have Krampus a bit. It.
Nick VinZant 25:00
Are you ready for some harder slash, listener submitted questions,
Dr. Katherine Walker 25:04
sure. Let's see if I can do it. Are there
Nick VinZant 25:06
any traditions that have died out?
Dr. Katherine Walker 25:09
That's a great question. Are there any that have died out so so caroling, I think, is experiencing its last gasp, right? This used to be called wasailing, and it's where you would go around and you would knock on neighbors doors, and you would sing songs that used to, especially in the Renaissance, involve a lot more alcohol than it does today. Right?
Nick VinZant 25:30
Carolers used to imagine, right?
Dr. Katherine Walker 25:34
They used to be completely wasted, and so it was viewed as this kind of nuisance, right? Was sailing, was, was you were, you were a young man or woman, and you would go around the neighborhood, and you would potentially wake up your neighbors, and you would sing these songs. And that became Christmas caroling, which is a much more it's a gentler form, though there's still, you know, usually eggnog or something spiked involved, right? But I do think that that tradition is just going away. And I think part of it again is that we're so kind of overloaded with the other things to do that I think caroling is is a dying art, right? You really have to be in certain kind of Christmas towns, you know, like these towns that kind of market themselves as as hubs for Christmas celebration, to get the caroling, I'll say that, you know, I live in Las Vegas, and I've lived here for six years. I've never seen carolers. So maybe, you know, maybe there's a Vegas version. Maybe there's an Elvis caroler out there. I have yet to find him, right? So I think that's our tradition, that that we're losing.
Nick VinZant 26:44
I've never seen one either. I've never, I lived in Kansas, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Missouri, Arkansas, and never, never seen a caroler. Yes, I'm okay. I don't really want people coming to my house and singing to me, okay.
Dr. Katherine Walker 27:01
I don't either, and I don't want to be a person who goes out and goes out in the cold and sing songs that's just, that's not my my thing.
Nick VinZant 27:08
Yeah, nobody wants either side of this. So I can see how it's kind of on the flip side of that. Though, are there new traditions that seem to be forming?
Dr. Katherine Walker 27:16
I think there are. I think, you know, the the popularity, for example, of the Grinch right the film, but also the various adaptations that have arisen with that. There's now, I think, a kind of whole Grinch mess thing that has arisen. So folks dress up as the Grinch they watch the films. Grinch mess has become its own little kind of version of Christmas, if you will. Tacked on to that, there's the and I have not done this, but, you know, I have friends who have the elf on the shelf that gets increasingly elaborate right as you as you come up with ways in which he has caused chaos in the house each night.
Nick VinZant 27:59
This is controversial. This is controversial, or could be controversial. Bigger influence on Christmas, religion or money.
Dr. Katherine Walker 28:08
I Okay. I hate to say it. I think today money. I think the origins religion, absolutely. I think we started with religion. It's been driven by the Christian the Christian church, absolutely. And of course, services and things like that are still really important. But given how secular Christmas is now, you don't need to be religious or even from a kind of Western Christian background to celebrate Christmas at all. I think it's more about money right now. I think it's about community. And I think there's, you know, really lovely things about Christmas. I'm going to continue to cherish a lot of different elements of Christmas. But again, I think we're in a world where, you know, I think I read a statistic where something like 70% of Americans go into debt during the Christmas season, right? They accrue more debt because there's so many expectations built around this particular holiday. Yeah, so, so now it's, it's money, I hate to say it, but it's money,
Nick VinZant 29:14
yeah, I think that's, like, controversial, but not at the same time. Like, yeah, everybody would agree. I agree. Um, that's really all the questions I got. Is there anything that you think that we missed, or anything like that?
Dr. Katherine Walker 29:25
I guess perhaps you know, like, one big thing that I am not an expert on, so I'm happy to skip, is simply the kind of movie industry around Christmas, right? The hallmark movies I'm interested in, those from a an English literature professor perspective. And what I mean by that is they have such a kind of formulaic narrative. They're so, you know, the Hallmark movies are, they're so comforting because it's, you know, girl in big city goes to small town, finds, you know, former or new boyfriend. That is, you know, very kind of stuck in that town. What do you do, right? That's the kind of conflict. And I think that there's something kind of delightful about the fact that we keep coming back to that narrative. And I don't have an answer, though, for why, except that the very predictability around these Hallmark films is that's their appeal, right? Is that they they're not going to shock us with, you know, a lack of a marriage, right? And I think that that's, it's very Shakespearean in a way, because you would go to a Shakespearean comedy, and you would know that the definition of a comedy is that it ends in marriage. And you go to a Hallmark movie, and you say, this ends in marriage, and there's going to be mistletoe, right? So, I mean, that's, that's the only answer I have so far. But I in future research, what I want to do is, I want to study, why has this become such a big thing? And you know, what does this say about our culture, that we are, that we love these narratives, that are, that are repetitive, but are, you know, so comforting, right? They speak to something emotional. And you know, unfortunately, that means I'm gonna have to watch a few of these Hallmark movies.
Nick VinZant 31:06
That's what I was like who's watching these things.
Dr. Katherine Walker 31:09
Oh, I know folks who are obsessed.
Nick VinZant 31:13
I want to thank Dr Walker so much for joining us. If you want to connect with her, we have linked to her on our social media sites. Were profoundly pointless on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included her information in the episode description. And if you want to see some of these rituals in action, the YouTube version of this interview is now live. Okay, now let's bring in John Scholl and get to the pointless part of the show. What color car would you not buy?
John Shull 31:45
I actually just bought a car of the color that I say would never buy, and that is white.
Nick VinZant 31:52
What's wrong with white? That's like a super standard, basic color.
Speaker 2 31:56
Dirty is too easy. I guess I
Nick VinZant 31:59
don't really care about cars enough that, like, Okay, if the car's dirty, yeah, it's outside all the time. Why wouldn't it be dirty? I've never, I could care less what condition my car is in.
John Shull 32:08
I mean, I've also actually never been I've never taken my car through a car wash before.
Nick VinZant 32:15
What about, like, power washing it?
John Shull 32:18
I've sprayed it down with a hose, but I've never gone to an actual car wash.
Nick VinZant 32:23
If I get a free coupon when you get, like, your oil change, then I'll do it. But otherwise, I would never just, I'm gonna wash my car. I would never do that.
John Shull 32:32
I still know there's so many car washes in Metro Detroit, and I keep thinking, like, how do they really make any money? They can't make that much money.
Nick VinZant 32:41
It's maybe it's kind of cheap. I know that my father has some sort of VIP Car Wash pass, and he gets his car washed like three times a week. But he's also 80, and I don't think he has anything else to do. So he's like, I'm just gonna get the car washed for the fourth time this week. Do you
John Shull 32:59
think he, like, looks forward to it. It's like a
Nick VinZant 33:02
joy for him. I don't know if he looks forward to it, but I would say that he probably puts it on like, things that he's gonna do today. It's the kind of thing that like, Oh, that's a responsibility. Now, I feel like, if you do something like that too much that now, like, Oh, I gotta wash the car today. When you don't need to wash the car at all, you washed it two days ago and you haven't driven it.
John Shull 33:25
What color would be for? What would you not choose?
Nick VinZant 33:30
I don't think that I would ever get a yellow car or a brown car. I don't know if, I don't know if I could handle getting a red one. I don't know if I'm a red car guy.
John Shull 33:40
I mean, I'm probably about as vanilla as possible in terms of colors, so it would either be usually blue or black for me. Anything else is myth. Wow.
Nick VinZant 33:53
But if you're so vanilla, then I would think that White would be the perfect car for you.
John Shull 33:58
You would think, but no, it's not. Can't, can't do it, won't do it. Okay.
Nick VinZant 34:04
Could you get, could you see yourself getting a red car? Do you feel like, Oh, I'm a red car guy?
John Shull 34:11
No, even though isn't that what they wasn't an ad that I think Ferrari used that well, they their color is red, but I think they use that as a marketing tool. You want to go fast drive a Ferrari.
Nick VinZant 34:25
They're red. I know what you're really trying to do with this. You're trying to make Ferrari into a segue to Formula One. And I'm not going to do it.
Unknown Speaker 34:33
You brought it up. I I didn't bring it up.
Nick VinZant 34:36
You know what you're trying? I know what you're trying to do. You want to talk about Formula One? She like, Oh, I'm gonna throw Ferrari in there. I know that's what you're trying to do.
John Shull 34:44
Actually, what I need to say is you called the door behind me a cabinet. This is actually a closet in my basement. My okay,
Nick VinZant 34:53
you have a closet door. That's a fancy door. Okay, good job. I didn't realize your closet was so nice over there. And you're talking about. Ferraris, you got a closet in your basement. Wow. Do you get a raise at work? Are you better than other people now?
John Shull 35:07
No, no raise, no. Raise, not yet. Anyways, maybe soon.
Nick VinZant 35:11
Okay, all right, and you got a new sweatshirt, buttons, fancy, wow. Why don't you just look down on everybody? Because now you talk about Ferraris. You got a closet in your basement. You got a new little sweatshirt thing, whatever that is with buttons on it. You obviously paid for more money for it than I would have paid for this. It's 1299,
John Shull 35:34
listen, I want to talk about me and my wife are going over Christmas ideas for each other the other day, and all that I could come up with for myself was slippers.
Nick VinZant 35:44
I can't think of a single gift that I want
John Shull 35:48
like I just I feel lame as hell like slippers, but like slippers are important to me.
Nick VinZant 35:57
I really think that once you pass the age of 27 you're kind of out. No, I would say, once you're past the age of 16, you're done with all the cool Christmas gifts.
John Shull 36:15
But I don't think you have I mean, six, I feel like, especially in today's society, at least in America, you know, I would say 26 is probably the, you know, 27 like you said, I think it would be a good line to draw,
Nick VinZant 36:30
yeah, but like, you're out of the toys. Once you're out of, like, the good toy range, I don't think Christmas like you just not getting any good Christmas gifts anymore. You can get something you really want, but you're not getting something to like cool. You got to have something to play with on Christmas.
John Shull 36:49
Is there a Christmas gift? Do you remember getting that is, was your favorite Christmas gift?
Nick VinZant 36:54
Super New, Super Nintendo. I got a Super Nintendo, and I was like, my parents were really against that kind of thing. And so I got a Super Nintendo, I think, like, once they had already moved to the Nintendo Wii, that's what it felt like. I was about 10 years behind everybody else that I knew. And I got a Super Nintendo, and I was thought I was so cool. It's like, I can't wait to see that. I want to play the Super Nintendo. And then they were like, you can play for 10 minutes a day. Okay, all right, so you're never gonna get a white car, even though you bought a white car. I would never personally see myself in a red car. I don't think I'm I don't think I could do it.
John Shull 37:30
No, uh, definitely. The I one color that I would love to get is, like the luminescent or color, or what's it called Bio lesson, where it changes color with the sun?
Nick VinZant 37:42
Oh, I'd have no idea what that's called, but I don't you would get that. You would get a car that changes colors all the time.
John Shull 37:50
I would, I think that'd be pretty awesome, pretty cool. But how
Nick VinZant 37:53
do you think you would have more trouble finding it in a parking lot? Because what if it's a different color, then you park? What if you parked in your car was blue, and you got back and it was yellow, and then you didn't, you couldn't find your car.
John Shull 38:08
I mean, if you lose your car that way, you there's some problems. There's more there's more of a problem than you finding your car.
Nick VinZant 38:16
Have you ever not been able to find your car in a parking area like, I don't know where I parked,
John Shull 38:23
no, but it's because I don't park near anybody.
Nick VinZant 38:28
Hmm, I can go to airport parking, be gone for like, a week, not take a picture, and still remember where my car is parked.
John Shull 38:38
I mean, for instance, the other day, I was on time dropping my kids off at school, and it was either pull into a spot that was too tight or go around and see if someone's backing out. So instead of trying to risk it, I just went around and then my kids were almost late to school.
Nick VinZant 38:57
How often I seem I get I feel a pattern that your kids are late to school a lot,
John Shull 39:03
not at all. Actually, they have never been tardy with me. Their mom, maybe, but not me. Okay.
Nick VinZant 39:10
Okay. I mean, I'm sure it's very few times, but I'm not going to believe that
John Shull 39:15
never they have. I I'm very punctual with them because they have to learn. Taught, you know, time management somewhere,
Nick VinZant 39:23
learn them good. That's what I always say.
John Shull 39:26
Learn them good. Learn them good. Okay, all right, let's give some shout outs here. We're gonna start. I picked up mostly women on this list. I'm noticing, and I'm not really sure why, just kind of happens, Margaret, Tapia, Christine Turner, Sarah Sandoval, Clark or miles Dickerson, Blaine spears, so wells, Sarah Sandoval, Sheila Davidson, Christy Hoffman and Jalen Gallagher.
Nick VinZant 40:00
Hmm, Clark, or I don't believe that's a woman. I do not, I do not know a lot of women named Clark.
John Shull 40:11
She's a Butte Clark. That's all I know. It's just from
Nick VinZant 40:14
Nice save, Nice save. Well done, well done. I'll move on.
John Shull 40:19
I mean, alright, let's see. Don't have a ton of on the list this week, but this is random question for you. What is your thoughts on Jack Black?
Nick VinZant 40:36
Wait, which one's Jack Black? I get him slightly confused with the guy who's the singer for the white stripes, isn't he? There's that Jack White. Geez, dude, Jack Black is he's he's
John Shull 40:51
an actor. He's pudgy.
Nick VinZant 40:53
Oh, I know who you're talking about. I think he's good in small doses. I think he does a good job in a in small doses, but like, I don't know if I would really want to be like, friends with him. That'd be a lot like, always on. He's always on.
John Shull 41:11
The reason I ask is, over the weekend, we went to a birthday party of one of my kids friends, and we went to a movie theater, and they had rented out the movie theater and they played the movie. Oh, my God, mind, mind blocks, nope. What's the video game? The popular
Nick VinZant 41:32
I know exactly what you're talking about, but I'm not going to help you out at all. I'm going to watch and see how long this goes.
John Shull 41:37
I can't remember the name of the movie either way. He was the main character. My gosh, thank you Minecraft. And he's, he was the main character. And I just, the whole time I'm sitting there thinking, like, he's not funny, and I just, I don't find him enjoyable at all. And I don't know how people do
Nick VinZant 41:59
Oh, he's a little bit of a caricature of himself, like, he's a caricature of a real person. But I think that he does it well. He certainly pulls it off more than other people who are caricatures of
John Shull 42:12
themselves, like, like, it got me thinking. So, you know, he's always Jack Black to me, right? Like, he's not, like, even when he's like, playing characters, Jack Black, Jim Carrey, was always Jim Carrey, to me, like he never could become another character.
Nick VinZant 42:29
Oh, he was a good The Truman Show. He was good
John Shull 42:32
Al Pacino. He's always Al Pacino. To me,
Nick VinZant 42:36
well, I think that some I think once you're in a certain amount of movies, you just become a caricature of yourself. The only person you could make that argument's not necessarily true is like Tom Hanks, maybe Denzel Washington, that they aren't caricatures of themselves. I feel like you just have a little bit of think you got a personal issue with Jack Black and you just don't like him. I feel the same way about Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't. I just don't. I don't get it.
John Shull 43:04
Oh, I see I would, I would even say Matt Damon is one of those actors that can, you know, you don't, you don't realize, is Matt Damon sometimes, because he does such a good job. Okay? Ben Affleck,
Nick VinZant 43:19
also, that movie came out a long time ago. They rented out a whole movie to show them. They rented out a whole movie theater to show a movie that came out a year ago. I'm not spending more than $100 on some kids birthday party. No way am I doing that. I got two boys like, here's 50 bucks. We can see what. You can go to the park and get a birthday cake.
John Shull 43:39
I mean, I think it's, I think an average birthday party now for a child is starts at two, 300 bucks. It's not cheap anymore,
Nick VinZant 43:46
man, not if you go to the park, it's free. We're gonna go to the park and you can play on this playground with your friends, and maybe I'll get you a birthday cake and a card.
John Shull 43:56
We did that one year. We went, we showed up to a pavilion and basically just had her own party. Didn't pay for the pavilion, nothing. And guess what? Nothing happened. It was one of the best birthday parties ever.
Nick VinZant 44:10
Oh yeah, man, simple is always better. I went
John Shull 44:13
roller skating for the first time,
Nick VinZant 44:16
and over the weekend, I could not see you roller skating.
John Shull 44:20
I mean, I can ice skate and it so it's not that that different, but my thighs and back were sore as hell after, I mean, back,
Nick VinZant 44:29
was you falling down? Okay? Did you fall on your back? It doesn't seem like you should. Your back should be sore.
John Shull 44:37
Yeah, I'm not sure why my back, sir, but I was quite surprised. My wife is a very good skater. And I was like, Where did this come from? My entire life?
Nick VinZant 44:47
She just showing you up. Was she on the dance floor, like, limbo and under stuff, and you're over there, just like, going half a mile an hour, and the kids are wondering, What's wrong with you?
John Shull 44:56
I'm like, doing the skating, where you step to skate, you know, like you're not gliding, like you're some.
Nick VinZant 45:00
Yeah, you don't just walking. Yeah, what you're talking about.
John Shull 45:05
But it was, it was it was, it's fine. I don't know if I'll, if I would do it more, but it was fine for a one off.
Nick VinZant 45:14
I have also been roller skating recently in the last couple of years, and it's definitely one of those things that like, all right, that was fun, but I'm not going to do that again. I If I would say, if
John Shull 45:24
I would say, it was fun to be honest?
Nick VinZant 45:28
Well, yeah, I mean, you're just rolling around. That's why I never understood people who are like, they I'm going to go on the go karts. You're just driving. Like, what's fun about the Go Karts you drove here.
John Shull 45:42
I mean, that does go karts are pretty fun. It's just driving.
Nick VinZant 45:46
I don't get it if you can and like, if you've got somebody who's working the ride and doesn't mind if you crash into people, then that can be fun. But otherwise, like, let's get on the go karts and drive. I can do that in real life, man, I don't like to do it. Then why would I want to pay more money to do this?
John Shull 46:09
Let's see. I have one Thanksgiving recap question for
Nick VinZant 46:12
you. Okay, okay,
John Shull 46:13
okay, okay, what do you what's more of your thoughts? Actually? What do you think about this new creation, where, basically you combine all the pies into one and serve like a three layered cake pie at Thanksgiving, so you get a little bit of pecan pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie. Is that blasphemy? Should you just serve one type of pie. Are you okay with, you know, the one pie with many varieties in it?
Nick VinZant 46:45
Just, just to clarify, now, is it just somebody made three pies and then decided to stack them all on top of each other? Or it's one pie like, layered like lasagna?
Unknown Speaker 46:56
Yeah, layered like lasagna. That's
Nick VinZant 46:59
too much effort. It better be. I mean, is it good? Is it better than the individual pies? Because I think that some things in combination can be better. But once you pass a certain level, which I would set, it normally three, now you're just making a mess. You just now. You're just now, you're just being jackass. I'm again. It you're gonna what? I'm again, it, I'm not for it, I'm again. It, you can be fur, or you can be again. I'm again, 6767, you know what? How do you feel about six seven?
John Shull 47:36
I mean, I don't understand it, but I'm not. No one's been able to explain it to me, other than this random kid on my kids playground telling me it's from a song.
Nick VinZant 47:46
It's from something I have no idea what it's from. Both of my boys say it. I thought it was really stupid at first, and then I realized that our generation was fascinated by the number 69 like, oh, six, seven, so stupid. And then we're like, 69 I mean,
John Shull 48:03
at least that had some kind of meaning. It be sexually or not, you know, it
Nick VinZant 48:09
has some meaning to them. And if you don't get it, that's the point. They don't want you to get it, man, the kids don't want you to be cool. If you understood it, then it wouldn't be cool to them.
John Shull 48:21
All right. Last Last thing here I found a I found a new football player for that should be your hero.
Nick VinZant 48:28
Oh, good, good, good. Who's he gonna be? His
John Shull 48:30
name's Harrison. Me this, and his nickname is The thicker kicker.
Nick VinZant 48:36
Oh, my God, I love it. For people who are not go ahead
John Shull 48:41
six foot two, and he's about 250 pounds as a kicker, which is very big for a kicker.
Nick VinZant 48:47
But does he have a borderline drinking problem and get into fights all the time at bars like my former hero, Sebastian Janikowski?
John Shull 48:56
No, I didn't come across any of that.
Nick VinZant 49:00
He's not ready, then he's not ready to be a true sports icon. If he's not, not only just like smoking a cigarette while walking out on the field, he can't just be a problem on the field for the other team. He has to be a problem off the field.
Unknown Speaker 49:16
That's pretty funny. Well, Nick,
Nick VinZant 49:21
are you ready? I'm ready. Are you because I always know you can always tell, for people who are listening at home, you can always tell when it is a candle of the month episode, because John pays no attention and puts no effort into anything besides candle of the month, like he completely phones it in until he gets to candle on all you can think about
John Shull 49:44
Yeah, but I wouldn't say phone it in. I put at least six minutes of effort into today's episode.
Nick VinZant 49:50
You the percentage goes down. If you're putting 90% effort, effort into most episodes, if it's a candle of the month episode, you're down to 70% you. I don't know, would you disagree with that?
John Shull 50:03
I mean, if we could just do a podcast on candles, let's you know, maybe we,
Nick VinZant 50:07
I don't know why you haven't started one, we could have, like you could talk about your candles.
John Shull 50:15
I mean, I don't know. I feel like I do. I should trademark the candle connoisseur, even if I do nothing with it just to have the trademark,
Nick VinZant 50:24
I don't even know how to do something like that.
John Shull 50:27
Listen, can we stop blabber mouthing and Okay, okay,
Nick VinZant 50:35
it's time the outlaw candle connoisseur Rides Again, candle of the month.
John Shull 50:45
So this one is special to me. This is my favorite candle of all, time
Nick VinZant 50:52
of all time
John Shull 50:55
that, yes, that I have gotten to experience, that I that I have, that I've had. I have probably had 30 to 50 of these candles in the last 10 years alone, a month. I mean, this would, this would be a top this would be a top five list. You know, a number one, number two, forever for me. So anyways, head over to Bath and Body Works. I think I've talked about this before, but you just never know when you know it may be the last candle of the month. So I had to get this one in, because who knows what the future holds, but it's three weeks. Oh, and it's, it's like, gonna be like 25 bucks, but it's worth it. It's Christmas themed. Obviously, it's December. It's smells like, like fruity spices, like, you're in the middle of a forest with snow coming down maybe two to three inches. You're walking through, you're going to Grandma's house to have some cranberry sauce out of a can.
Nick VinZant 52:03
Lot of people do that this time of year. Walk through the woods to grandma's house. Still very common. I think lots of
John Shull 52:09
places think so she's a nice fire going, uh, this can of the month is tis the season? Oh, okay. I love it. Love it. I I can't, I can't even it just brings me so much joy, just to think about this candle. It's, I'm not gonna lie. We went to, there's one larger mall left in Metro Detroit, and we went there, I don't know, Wednesday or Thursday, Friday last week, and I literally just walked in the bath and body works and just stood in front of this candle and just smelt it, just just took it in five seconds. It's that good. So tis the season Bath and Body Works. Get it for your get two for yourself and three for your friends, and you won't regret it.
Nick VinZant 53:04
Now, will you burn this candle outside of the Christmas season?
John Shull 53:08
I will. Now, you know, it's not a summer candle, it's definitely a cold weather candle. But okay, okay, you know, obviously, where I live, you can burn it from October to May. So, boy,
Nick VinZant 53:19
there's the weather mention, very good you got about 20 minutes into the show, messaging, weather, could you like, Oh, this is my big question. What do you think you're going to want to talk about more moving forward, the weather, or candles?
John Shull 53:38
I mean, the Candle. Candle candle is easy. I don't have to talk about the weather. I didn't really even talk about the weather. You just weather now, yeah, because you asked me a
Nick VinZant 53:47
question, I What temperature Do you Do you ever check the temperature in other cities?
John Shull 53:54
I do? I have, uh, six or seven on my phone, actually,
Nick VinZant 53:58
what other cities do you have? What other cities do you check the weather in, as if you need to know.
John Shull 54:03
So I have Antarctica,
Nick VinZant 54:06
okay, who doesn't? Why wouldn't you? I have London, okay, all right. Also, why wouldn't you
Unknown Speaker 54:15
i Munich,
Nick VinZant 54:17
yeah, very relevant to your life. In Detroit,
John Shull 54:21
I have Brisbane, Australia, okay? I Los Angeles, the West Coast, getting the west coast in there.
Nick VinZant 54:29
Okay, I understand that a little bit. That's, that's the first one that I would say, okay, that makes, makes a little bit sense.
John Shull 54:36
There's only, there's only two more. There's another, there's another city in America. But I won't make you guess it, but it's Bangor Maine, why? West Coast, East Coast, that's about one of the, one of the largest cities, like on the Eastern Seaboard, and it's not large at all. It's just far north.
Nick VinZant 54:58
Bangor Maine, like I got. Understand why you would have a city on the East Coast. I don't understand why you would pick Bangor Maine. Like, you know what? Maine? Why not New York, Philadelphia, Boston, any of those I feel like, make more sense? Could you even point? I don't even know. If somebody handed me a blank map. I couldn't point to Bangor Maine. I could point to Maine, but I have no idea where Bangor Maine is.
Unknown Speaker 55:23
I mean, yeah, I could do it.
Nick VinZant 55:25
Okay, all right. Any others, any other cities?
Unknown Speaker 55:28
Yes, one more. Bob, never
Nick VinZant 55:32
mind. No, I don't have any more. No, no. What is it?
John Shull 55:37
It's in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's the capital there, Brazzaville,
Nick VinZant 55:45
did you? But why, like, why did you pick these cities?
John Shull 55:51
I just like to see what the weather is like around the world. I just, I don't know. It's not like I wake up every morning and go through every city, but you know, like on Christmas, you know, around Christmas. Tell me, like, oh, what's, you know, what's the weather like in, you know, blah, blah, blah, just to see, just to see, I don't know, it's nothing. I don't think it's that weird.
Nick VinZant 56:11
Do you actually feel your body aging when you look through all of the cities? Like, can you start looking at the first city, which I would assume is Detroit or the Detroit Metro. Like, by the time you get to the last city, if you start looking at the cities at 37 do you finish and be 45 like, does it add a year of your life for every additional city that you look at?
John Shull 56:36
You asked the question. I just answered it. I just didn't
Nick VinZant 56:39
think you were gonna have I mean, I totally get it. I get it right. Like it's interesting to know the weather in different places. Would I have put them on my phone? Would I have chose those cities that that's what's interesting to me, but if you that's what you like, that's what you like.
Unknown Speaker 56:57
Thank you. Don't judge me. Nick,
Nick VinZant 57:00
that's what's what I'm doing this. That's all I do is judge you. I know it's there's just so many things to judge. There's so many things that need to be judged, that not need to be judged, that need to be explained. I just want to know what you're thinking, what's going on in there. Well, just want to know, like, what's happening when John is like, I need to know what the weather is in Nick
Unknown Speaker 57:25
there's not a whole lot of thought.
Nick VinZant 57:27
What do you do when you look at it like when you see it, you're like, Whoa.
John Shull 57:31
Well, I actually, I have this cool see now, You done fucked up? Yeah. No, I know. I want to, I want to hear I have this really cool iPhone background that shows me the world.
Nick VinZant 57:42
Okay, okay. And
John Shull 57:44
if I It eats my battery, but if I turn on the weather option, like, it'll show me weather patterns, like current, real time around the world. If I, if I want, what? What are you gonna say?
Nick VinZant 58:00
It's like, that's pretty cool. I have an app that I have an app that, if you pointed at a phone that's our planet, pointed at a plane that's flying overhead, it will tell you where that plane is going, which I'm endlessly fascinated by. This, since you're showing your phone, this is what I think about mine. The dog ate it, and it's actually so old it no longer gets any app updates from any of the apps, so they don't work. All I can do is make phone calls and text people, and you know what, I don't get to check the weather, and I'm perfectly fine with that, so I don't know what the weather is in Lisbon portable right now, or Bangor Maine,
John Shull 58:35
okay, so those of you that didn't see that your dog ate a corner of your phone.
Unknown Speaker 58:41
Yeah, it still works.
Unknown Speaker 58:44
I What? What kind of dog do you have? A
Nick VinZant 58:46
wolf? No, it's a Bernie's mountain dog. It's a puppy. It's like, seven months old. It just took a couple of bites of it. I mean, it's a 70 pound dog. Like, it doesn't take a lot. Well, when you have those chomping down, it still works like I put
Unknown Speaker 59:02
dog under control over there. What are you doing?
Nick VinZant 59:04
It's a puppy. You can't control a puppy. You can only try and teach it lessons. I got tape on it. It works damn fine. I don't need to know the weather in Australia.
John Shull 59:18
You're gonna give me shit. Your phone looks like it's been through Desert Storm.
Nick VinZant 59:22
It was probably still works, right? I get attached to things. Are you ready for our top five? Or do you have more on your candle? Or the weather?
Unknown Speaker 59:32
What others tis the season? Go pick it up. This is awesome.
Nick VinZant 59:37
It sounds like a good candle. So our top five is top five. Christmas, food and drink has to be almost exclusively Christmas related. There's some stuff that like you. I mean, you have other times a year. But anyway, top five Christmas food and drink. It's your number five.
John Shull 59:55
My number five are gingerbread men. Okay?
Nick VinZant 59:59
I. Okay, I could see that being a little bit higher on the list. I want to see what else you're gonna have up there, but that's all right, okay.
John Shull 1:00:06
And then I got to think though, are there gingerbread women like or am I being sexist?
Nick VinZant 1:00:14
Yes, shit. I'm just thinking like, you fucking piece of shit. Why is
John Shull 1:00:21
it only gingerbread men like what? You know, should there be women too?
Nick VinZant 1:00:25
I feel like that is a crusade that you should start in champion, and I will support you from afar. No, I'm sure there's gingerbread men. Gingerbread people.
John Shull 1:00:37
Yes, thank you. Gingerbread people. That sounds better.
Nick VinZant 1:00:41
I think mostly this is call them gingerbread cookies now, which, honestly, they're not that great.
John Shull 1:00:50
I think I mean, I make a really good gingerbread cookie,
Nick VinZant 1:00:55
I'm sure even if you make a really good gingerbread cookie, I would still think to myself, Wow, I wish this was chocolate, or I wish this was something else. It's like a good caramel, like, Oh, thanks. I just wish this was candy.
John Shull 1:01:08
The key to a great gingerbread cookie is it can't be too dry, and there has to be a certain amount of, you know, spices in it, nutmeg, cinnamon, stuff like that.
Nick VinZant 1:01:20
I'm just saying the best gingerbread cookie is still your average chocolate chip.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:29
I don't know, I don't know about that one,
Nick VinZant 1:01:32
my number five is Eggnog. Eggnog is good, but you can only have like, one or two sips. The first two or three sips of eggnog is good. After that, it'd be like, Oh, no, I don't want anything to do with this. But it is good at first.
John Shull 1:01:51
I mean, it's fine if you don't think about it, I guess. I mean, the thought of drinking eggnog and what it is is kind of gross, if you really think about it.
Nick VinZant 1:02:04
Oh, yeah, I wouldn't want to drink it, but I would want to kind of sip it. Yeah.
John Shull 1:02:10
I mean, I agree with you. The first couple SIPs are the best. And then after that, it's just like, I don't really want this anymore.
Nick VinZant 1:02:16
Yeah, you don't. You don't really want to have more than like, a shot of it. And people who get like wasted off eggnog. That's I did that one time as one of the worst next days of my life.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:27
My life very
Nick VinZant 1:02:31
What's the weather in Kansas right now? I
Speaker 2 1:02:34
don't know. Dorothy, how about you fly there?
Nick VinZant 1:02:36
Oh, Dorothy, couldn't fly. Sure. Which flew Dorothy.
John Shull 1:02:42
Hey, I've seen I saw the new wicked All right, I know what happened.
Nick VinZant 1:02:45
Did you I never saw that show, but I've been to the play. I thought it was good. What's your number four?
John Shull 1:02:51
So I have a couple of obscure ones that are my personal favorite. So I'm hoping that maybe I'll open some people's eyes
Nick VinZant 1:02:58
up, just for everybody's to brace themselves. John is a notorious poser as a chef. He thinks that he is a chef. He goes on about it endlessly. He has 12 different pairs of tongs, but when you see his cooking, it looks dry and flavorless.
John Shull 1:03:14
So are you done? Because some people that are listening to this right now are like, Man Nick, you are not correct. We love his cooking.
Nick VinZant 1:03:23
Oh, yeah, they're just humoring you. Has anyone told you you should start a restaurant? If someone has not said you should think about starting a restaurant, then your cooking is not
John Shull 1:03:35
that good. No, no one's ever told me that. Exactly. Okay, thank you. My number four is a cranberry walnut cheese log, all right? Or just a cheese log in general,
Nick VinZant 1:03:45
okay, those are good. I got nothing to say like
John Shull 1:03:50
my the key to a good cheese log is there needs to be some kind of nuts in it or on it, in the kind of cracker that you use or have with it is also vitally important.
Nick VinZant 1:04:02
Okay, I will write that down, people, thank you. My, my number four is a candy cane.
Speaker 2 1:04:10
God damn it. Your list sucks so far.
Nick VinZant 1:04:14
Oh, because it's not, it's a real list. It's not a poser list. It's not like, oh, oh, that's your list. That cheese isn't Havarti,
John Shull 1:04:23
you're snow, eggnog and candy canes. Those are, yeah, those are additional Christmas.
Nick VinZant 1:04:29
There's a traditional Christmas things. I'm not just making stuff up, stuff up either. How many pairs of tongs do you have right now? What?
John Shull 1:04:38
Why? Why? Because I, actually, I actually had to retire one. Thank you very much.
Nick VinZant 1:04:46
Are you down to 11?
John Shull 1:04:49
I know we I think I'm at like five or six.
Nick VinZant 1:04:52
Still I have, why would you know what I use my hands like a man. Grab it out of the oven. Keep your tongs. I got these. Calluses. I'm making a cranberry cheese long with a slight bit of prosciutto.
John Shull 1:05:08
Yeah, dude, okay. I still, still understand why you why you are like the way you are,
Nick VinZant 1:05:18
for no other reason than to annoy you. No other reason.
John Shull 1:05:23
My number three is hot chocolate. Okay?
Nick VinZant 1:05:28
Hot chocolate, to me is a little bit like eggnog, where I like the first couple of sips, and then afterwards you're like, man.
John Shull 1:05:35
I mean hot chocolate. I there. It really is delicious. Like, if you're outside and it's 20 degrees outside, like, it really is awesome.
Nick VinZant 1:05:45
Yeah, I would agree with that. I just think that hot chocolate is, to me a lot like breakfast food, where it's really hard to screw up, where it's not going to be good, but it's really hard to make it good. Like, Oh, that's good.
John Shull 1:06:00
The key to a good Oh, my God. What hot chocolate? I don't know why. I just had a brain fart there. It's using, like, real cocoa powder.
Nick VinZant 1:06:12
Oh, does it have to be from Belize? Can you only get it at, like, during certain times of the year at Trader Joe's,
John Shull 1:06:22
no just get but you get, like, 100% cocoa powder. Okay, whatever.
Nick VinZant 1:06:31
Snubbery, what is my number three? My number three is chocolate. Budge and you got to say it like that.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:39
But no man,
Nick VinZant 1:06:43
you're, oh, what's wrong with chocolate
Unknown Speaker 1:06:47
fudge? Why are you saying fudge like that?
Nick VinZant 1:06:49
That's how you say fudge. You don't just say fudge. You guys say,
John Shull 1:06:53
I mean chocolate. I have, I have crit. I have, like, Christmas pudding on my honorable mention.
Nick VinZant 1:07:00
Okay, well, pudding is not fudge, dude, you got kind of in the same category. I would think that you would love chocolate fudge because it's like snobbery. It's different. It's not just like a ice cream sandwich or something normal people get. It's fudge. It's made from the souls of departed cocoa beans, whatever. I don't know how you make fudge. I don't really even know what I don't I don't
John Shull 1:07:27
even think, all right, my number two is in you're probably gonna give me shit for this. But pigs and blankets.
Nick VinZant 1:07:38
Oh, that's a Christmas thing.
John Shull 1:07:41
I mean, it's, I have I have it. I make them. You have them at Christmas parties, it's a very simple appetizer, you know, you can get festive with them, like I was at one party where the the role was Santa's belly and the hot dog was something else, you know, like R rated,
Nick VinZant 1:08:01
oh, I don't Oh, that disgusts me. I don't like food shaped like body parts. That's gross to me. My number two is stuffing. Stuffing is also a Christmas thing. Let's not forget, let's not let Thanksgiving take all of the credit for stuffing. Christmas also deserves some credit for stuffing.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:24
I can't agree with you on that, but, okay,
Nick VinZant 1:08:27
you can't agree with me that Christmas is also a stuffing time of year.
John Shull 1:08:32
I mean, it is, but I don't think of Christmas in stuffing together. That's the Thanksgiving food.
Nick VinZant 1:08:39
Okay? I think of it as stuffing. I think stuffing should be year round. That's how I good. I think it is. But I'm a man of the people, and you're a man of the snobs. Is that pinky up? Yeah, it's pinky up. Okay, what's your number one?
John Shull 1:08:55
I mean, there really should be no other number one, and it's the Reese's Peanut Butter trees.
Nick VinZant 1:09:04
Oh, yeah. I mean, they're delicious. I love them. Don't, don't get in between me and some races.
John Shull 1:09:13
So good man. Like, I would other than, like, a really good protein. Like, like,
Nick VinZant 1:09:21
I know I did, but you did what. You did it,
John Shull 1:09:24
but I'm done for the for your sanity. I'm going with Reese's Peanut Butter trees.
Nick VinZant 1:09:31
Okay, they're great. I love them. I don't really think that they taste any different than regular Reese's, to be honest with you, I think they're just the same thing as Reese's, but that's just me. They're Christmas trees. They're Christmas Oh, that's all you need sometimes, right? Like, imagine that marketing meeting, like, we need to sell more Reese's make them into a tree, and these idiots will love it. Yeah? Fucking love it. Yeah. It doesn't really take much. It really doesn't take much. That's the truth. My number one is Hawaiian bread rolls. You. I mean, once again, I love bread, I would just be perfectly happy eating bread. I could survive off bread and diet soda.
John Shull 1:10:09
I know I know what you're doing, and I appreciate that, but your one and two are Thanksgiving food.
Nick VinZant 1:10:16
Hawaiian rolls are Christmas. You're not having Hawaiian roles at Thanksgiving. I did Christmas thing.
John Shull 1:10:24
I did have Hawaiian rolls at Thanksgiving. Well, you're doing it wrong.
Nick VinZant 1:10:31
That's all I have. You're doing it incorrect. It is. I looked it up on Wikipedia. It was specifically listed as a Christmas food
John Shull 1:10:39
die hard at Christmas movie, because now I feel like we're getting to that territory.
Nick VinZant 1:10:43
Oh, yeah. I mean, it is, I don't know why there's still such a big debate about that, like it's pretty clearly a Christmas movie. I mean, it's themed around Christmas, which
John Shull 1:10:52
answer this question definitively as a society before Bruce Willis dies,
Nick VinZant 1:10:56
I think that we have already,
John Shull 1:10:59
I mean, it should. It's a Christmas movie. It is, no, I agree. I don't know why people debate it. It's stupid. It's a dumb debate.
Nick VinZant 1:11:08
I think that's one of those things that's like a fake thing in society, that people that the argument is settled, but people just keep bringing it up anyway. Like, I think that multiple people from the movie have come out and say that it was a Christmas movie, and people just keep bringing it up.
John Shull 1:11:24
I mean, people love to just bring up BS. That's all they do.
Nick VinZant 1:11:28
They do. They're not talking about important things like the top five Christmas themed food and drink. They're not talking about candle of the month. They're not talking about what color car you would never buy. These idiots. They wish they could. They wish they could. They wish they were as smart as us that we are learning.
John Shull 1:11:49
Learned I tell you what. I'm the smartest guy in the wrong room.
Nick VinZant 1:11:54
Oh, that was good. I didn't hear what. You can never go wrong with a story that says, I tell you what. Tell you what. I tell you, what? Well, I'm going to be listening. That's what I'm going to be doing. Do you have anything in your honorable mention?
John Shull 1:12:08
I said chocolate pudding or pudding? I should say peppermint milk shakes.
Nick VinZant 1:12:15
Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:20
That's pretty much it,
Nick VinZant 1:12:22
yeah, I don't have anything else, mostly because I wrote it down on a piece on, like a on, like a tablet thing, and the battery died and I forgot what my top five was.
John Shull 1:12:31
Wow, you did a good job remembering. Did your dog eat it?
Nick VinZant 1:12:35
No, no. I was trying to come up with something in the wells dry. Wells dry. I spent all my sarcasm on the weather thing, and there's no more left. 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 best Christmas foods or drinks I got, and that's it. Yeah, I thought I else had something else that was gonna say, and then I realized, like, no, that's pretty much it.