Welcome to the end of 2024 and our annual Christmas Extravaganza episode, brought to you ad-free for you listening pleasure. Please pour a hot toddy and enjoy around the fir tree of your choosing.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's trying to come, but she's had car trouble. I guess either way, she's here in spirit, the Christmas spirit, and this is the stuff you should know.
That's right, the Holiday spectacular and a couple of traditions here is that this episode has brought to you ad free and also no one exactly by us. And then also we have managed to work it out. I don't know about every year, but it seems like every year where this is the last episode that we record of our recording year, and it's so great and so fun wind it down this way.
It's such a special tradition. And Chuck, I'm really excited about this particular one because this is a good a good combination, a good assemblage of stuff. I guess you could say, but like add some hally to that.
Yeah, And I also realize when you sent your stuff over, I was like, hey, we kind of have a theme for one of yours and one of mine, yeah, which is you know, like sugary confections from different parts of the world, right, so those are kind of fun. Maybe we should do those back to back.
Okay, yeah, I think that's a good idea. And then also we have another theme movies, oh yeah, or Christmas specials. I don't know however you want to put it.
That's right. Where should we start this year?
Do you want to start with the cocktail so you can get cracked while we do this?
Uh? Sure?
Okay, well I think you should announce what's going on to everybody.
Yeah, So what's happening is we usually try and source some sort of a holiday cocktail and tell you how to make it. Sometimes we make it and have it on our own. And this year we had someone send in a holiday cocktail. A few months ago, we got an email from somebody named Holly Iten Miller.
I think you nailed it.
And this is a drink that Holly invented called hang on your hats here Grandma's Christmas Breath.
That's so great. One thing I've noticed when you look around and read Christmas stuff and try to find Christmas stuff, Grandma is almost invariably portrayed as a drunk.
Oh I didn't really, I wasn't sure what the breath would be, but I guess boozy breath. That makes sense.
Boozy breath. Yeah, Like I found a recipe for something or other. It's like Grandma's version has like whiskey and roam in it. Yeah, everybody's grandma gets drunk. Apparently on Christmas.
Well, our deer departed Grandma Mary, Emily's grandmother who was the senior general in the this stuff you shoot an army who passed away at the ripled age of one hundred and one when she was in her nineties, Like around Christmas, she would have a little Bailey's in her coffee.
Oh yeah, just a little touch every now and then, a little Christmas I ree.
Yeah, So I guess Christmas time, I don't know equals drug grandparents.
Yeah, that's how I'm taking I mean, Holly ititen Miller's the name of her recipe just says it all I think.
Yeah. So I asked Holly if there was a story behind it, but I did not hear back by recording time, so.
She doesn't want to talk about it.
Yeah. You know what I'll do, I'll through the magic of editing. I'll pause and go get some ice. Oh okay, and then I'll be right back. But to your ears. I'll be back in like one second.
Okay, hold on, do.
You okay, I'm back everybody. I have my shaker with ice. Josh, why don't you read out the ingredients and I'll pour them up.
Okay you ready? Yeah, prepare chuck. One shot of Captain Morgan gingerbread rum.
Okay, So the story here is this stuff is really hard to find and I had to, oh yeah, get like a delivery service because I literally couldn't find it anywhere.
Do you remember I tried to get liquor delivered to you as a condolence like a year ago, and it just did not work out. I tried like five different services and none of it worked.
I don't remember that, but yeah, you know what I gave up. That's the thought that counts.
I kept texting you like, are you gonna be home at six pm? Are you gonna be home at three am tomorrow? Are you gonna be home at noon today?
Oh? No? Yeah? All right, So the gingerbread rum just went in. I took a little sniff and it smells cloyingly sweet.
Oh it sounds delicious, but I could I could see that, all right?
What's next?
I also, I just want to make a little note here, A shot is very ambiguous. You could make a court size shot. You could make a little tiny shot like A shot is another way of putting one part.
Uh yeah, I mean I I just use a standard bar jigger. So whatever the big side.
Is, the big side is usually two ounce. Okay, all right, all right, this is gonna be quite a Christmas episode. The second ingredient, chuck, is one shot of Grand Marnier.
Yeah, I think you just heard the cork pop, the infamous.
Well hear it? Well, yeah, there's definitely two ounces.
I'm not saying I'm gonna drink all of this, all right, what's next?
As much orange juice as you wish. I would strongly recommend fresh squeezed. Anytime you're using citrus in a cocktail. Just do yourself a favor and squeeze at yourself. It's not that hard.
All right. Well, can we pause so I can go to the grocery store. Yes, now, I'm gonna open up the old tropic anna that I just bought. Yeah, and I bought it a convenience store, or I would have gotten an orange. I'm just gonna do one shot of that. Okay, just go one one one. Okay, I think that's a great idea. And then do you have any ice on hand or do we need to wait around.
For that too?
That's what I got in the shaker.
Okay, that Chuck's doing the next thing. Everybody shaking Grandma's Christmas press together.
Should have this upper on the rocks. Probably on the rocks, I don't know.
It sounds like you got enough ice in there and this is boozy enough to go up.
All right, I'll go up.
Then we'll see and then we're going to all wait around here to see what Chuck thinks of this. And also I want to say I'm not drinking booze right now, but I'm putting away a most of a quart of eggnog as we speak.
Yeah, it's uh. I mean, the only reason I'm doing this is because I just felt like somebody should try this out on the air. And so here we go. Everybody a post production drum.
Roll, didn't.
Uh?
Okay?
Ope, poor Hollie. She her Christmas dreams have just been dashed.
No, it's not bad. I mean it is orange because the Gramona and the orange juice obviously, and it's not bad, you know. I mean, it's it's definitely like a festive holiday drink. I don't I would not recommend more than one of them.
Oh is it pretty boozy?
I mean it's pretty pretty, just sort of sweet. I got on your tolerance for sweet drinks.
Is that room really coming through or is it getting missed in the orange?
It could probably come through a little bit more so. I could probably add a little less orange juice if there were to be a next time.
Or you could add more room.
Well, let's let's not get carried away here.
Okay, Well I say we move on. Speaking of carried away, let's carry ourselves away to the next segment. And as per Christmas tradition holiday show tradition, Jerry's going to add some really nice Christmas y intersticial music. So take it away, Jerry. All right, Chuck, how are you feeling good?
And big thanks to Holly again for this for this drink.
Yeah, So we're gonna teach everybody how to play dirty Santa next. We're doing that with an assist from Nella Bailey McGoff. I'm pretty sure I'll tell you say her last name from Southern Living, who wrote a pretty top notch article on how to play this why to play it, And they even turned up what the origin of the name, because it's got a bunch of different names. White Elephant, apparently in the South were the ones who typically call it dirty Santa.
Never heard of that.
You've never heard of dirty Santa, That's all I've ever heard it. Well, aside from white.
Elephant, I've only heard white elephant in what.
About Yankee swap? That one's new to me.
No, I've never heard that. One only heard white elephant when it comes to this kind of game.
Okay, well, I've heard Dirty Sanna and white elephant, but regardless, the white Elephant name seems to be the traditional name for this, which is it's kind of like it's a party game. You would play it like your holiday party, and in the spirit basically of Secret Sanna, where everybody gives somebody else a gift anonymously and then the person tries to guess who gave it to him. It's very nice and sweet. This is not well, it's not supposed to be mean or anything like that, but there's a lot there's some twists to it that make it dirty.
That's right, because it involves the trading of gifts, which we'll get to the rules in a second, it can well, I'll mention that when we get to the trading part. But okay, yeah, the origins is interesting because I never knew this. As far as the white elephant name, supposedly it came from what is now Thailand, what was Siam back in the day, and the king of Siam was if he was annoyed, he might give someone an albino elephant if he didn't like them very much.
Right, yes, But the key here was to the cordier who received this gift. I mean, this is a lavish gift, but it was a lavish gift that cost a lot and took a lot of effort to keep healthy and happy. So although it seemed like you would really gain the king's favor, the king was giving you a real problem to deal with for the rest of the elephant's life. So it's a pretty sharp little idea that Jil Brenner came up with. And that's where the name came from, White Elephant, right, yeah, okay, So getting onto the modern incarnation of it, I did not see who invented this. I guess the King of Siam did, but the modern incarnation I don't know where that came from. But there are basically wherever you look up rules for the white Elephant game, there's some that are just tried and true. They're just you're going to find them in any set of rules. One of the big ones is set a dollar limit. Yeah, you don't want some person just showing off their Christmas bonus by you know, they show up with a bunch of bang on olafs and speakers or something like that. You know, by setting a limit at like twenty bucks, you're making the people get kind of creative.
Yeah, And the whole idea here is to have fun. So yeah, twenty bucks, I feel like is I mean, you can set it according to whatever you know, financial pool you're swimming in, but I feel like twenty dollars is a pretty good round number.
Great. But yes, the cheaper, the lower the price limit, the more creative the people have to be to come up with something.
Yeah, exactly. They give some tips here in this article which is kind of fun, which is to try and fool the unwrapper by wrapping it wrapping perhaps a small thing and some big elaborate package, or by if you get really creative, if you can even reshape something as far as the wrapping goes to where it looks like something else, like maybe a bottle of wine, when it in fact is just like a folded up whoopy cushion.
Yes, oh that's a good one. Yeah, that's a great, great white elephant kid.
Yeah, those are probably only like five dollars.
Right, so you well not in twenty twenty four, pal, Yeah, so you want to in your invitation specify, yes, wrap it, get creative when you're wrapping, but do not put it to or from thing. This is all anonymous. And then everybody comes on the day of the party and they bring their gift wrapped and they put it in a pile the pool as some people call it. Yeah, and Nella Bailey McGoff specifies, do not put this area near your own family's real presence, because you don't want to mix up like that. And then once the everybody's assembled, and you're usually sitting around in a circle or something so everybody can see everybody else, you draw numbers from a hat, and the numbers in the hat number from one to the number of people playing, and everybody draws.
A number that's right. So once you've drawn your number and are thus ordered in opening order number one. It's gonna grab a gift. They're gonna open it, they're gonna show everybody what it is. Oh my god, it's for whoopy cushions because they're well probably three these days, to hit that twenty dollars mark, right, and that's it. They got their gift. Everyone gets a good laugh. Next up is person number two, and this is when it gets interesting because person number two has a choice. They can pick a new gift from the pile, or they can go ahead and just steal that first gift if that is something that they actually want.
Yeah, there's also an alternate set of rules that say everyone picks a gift first and then the stealing starts. But most of the time you can steal on that second turn. There's this is where it gets a little hazy. So let's say that you're five people into this, right, So person number five, it's their turn. If they go and steal person number four's gift. Now it's time for person number four to go steal somebody else's gifts, say person number two. Now person number two has to steal a gift, and this can just keep going on ad infinitum. So usually it's the third the third time a gift is stolen, the last person has to just go take a new gift from the pile. They don't get to stealer else and just keep going on and on and on. Right, And then there's some other restrictions on how many times a gift can be stolen or a person can be stolen from too, right, Yeah, I.
Mean you can do house rules, of course or regional rules, but generally a gift can not be can be stolen no more than three times. If a gift is pronounced dead, that means you can't steal it anymore, and that that's after it's been stolen right three times? Oh oh after right, duh, after the three times it can no longer be stolen.
Yeah, And usually a person can only be stolen from three times as well. And then whatever gift they're holding on the last time that gets whatever gift they go steal from somebody else or pick, that's their gift to keep. So you can play strategically here. There's actually a gift there that you want, Like you really want that whoopee cushion. You can choose it as your last gift after you're dead, essentially.
Yeah, if your gift is stolen, you can't steal it right back. You have to steal another gift or choose from the pile. And is there are there any other variations?
Yeah, essentially, once all of this continues on, Once this goes around and everybody say, you have fifteen people playing. After person fifteen's turn, you're back to person one because they had no choice. They had to choose a gift from the pile. Now it's their turn to decide to steal. And if they decide to keep their gift, and the game's over if they steal. It keeps going on until you finally reach somebody who goes, I'm good, I really love my whoope cushion. I'm keeping my gift. They the party's essentially over at that point because the excitement has been so charged that there's nothing you could possibly do to top it. After that.
I don't know, you got those whoope cushions. I say, the party is just getting started.
That's true, that's true. I mean I was thinking you could drink like gallons of Grandma's Christmas breath in it still wouldn't bring about the thrill that the White Elephant game can.
Yeah, Well, two quick things one thing I wanted to mention earlier on is I have seen this game go badly, Like if somebody really wants to keep something and it gets stolen, they get their feelings hurt. Boy, try and park that attitude at the door. Yeah, this is supposed to be fun. And if all of a sudden you're really getting mad because you didn't get that Whoopee cushion, then you know, do some self reflection on what you're bringing to the table.
Yeah, for sure. I mean you can go buy a Whoopee cushion if you really need it.
That's right. And the second thing I want to say, since you said gallons of this drink as I was drinking it, I think this would be really good as a punch. Like throw it in the punch bowl with some like cinnamon sticks and sliced oranges and some other like a bunch of ice, a bunch of ice and stuff like that, and I think it would make like a pretty pretty decent party punch.
Actually, would you add soda water to it?
I don't know. How does that hold up in a punch bowl?
Well? Very well. I mean there's like a whole sprite high Sea punch camp that is like crazy for that stuff. Yeah, it's carbonated.
All right, then I say, for four leaders of Topuchico in there.
Okay, all right, that sounds good. All right, Actually that sounds terrible. That'd be mineral water mixed with it. You just want plain club soda.
Yeah, and what's like a red tinting like a high sea I guess so? But what's something that's not super sweet like campari? Would that change the taste a lot?
Yes, yeah, definitely would. I have no idea what that would taste like after that.
Point it would. It would be a little more festive as a punch. I think if it was red or.
Green, yes, for sure. I get what you're saying. I guess it's kind of brown right now.
I mean it's more orange.
Oh it is actually orange.
Okay, yeah, it looks like orange juice.
Okay, well that's it for a white elephant. There is one one quote I wanted to read from Nella Bailey McGoff, boy, you know the do you know the one?
I'm pretty sure? Go ahead.
They say that the mixture of gag gifts and gifts people actually want combined to make the nitro that fuels this amazing game. And I guess that Nella Bailey McGoff would be a really fun person to play White Elephant.
Totally. I love it.
Hey, let's hit the interstitial Christmas music again as we mosey on over to the next segment.
All right, I'd say we move on to let's go ahead knock out our our two confections.
Oh, okay, which one do you want to do first?
You know what, Let's start with Italy because this is also the thing that a listener sent in, which is really great. People are starting to help program the show because it gets really really hard to find new short Christmas stuff after all these years. But Carl with a K Hardin sent in a suggestion to do a short stuff on Pizzel pizze or pizzelle Pizzelle.
I thought pizzello, Yeah, you just say it like that.
Yeah, it's an Italian cookie that is enjoyed, you know, at different times of the air weddings and things, but really known as a Christmas or Easter cookie.
Yeah, I know them as Christmas. I didn't realize they were Easter, but yeah, they're super Italian and they're so Italian that it shares a word with pizza. Yeah, PiZZ which means round and flat, which is pretty impressive that they fit round and flat into just one word.
Yeah, that's true.
The L in pizzel means small and the ah in pizza means personal pan Right.
Oh man, well done. That was pre thought of, I know, but it was still great, great delivery. Nothing wrong with writing a joke, my friend? All right, so such a fraud, No, not at all. Traditionally, black licorice or anise is the traditional flavor, but that's sort of the old world stuff. These days, you can flavor it with whatever you want. A lot of chocolate one's vanilla lemon's a very popular flavor.
Gingerbread.
Oh sure, I could dip it in this punch.
Yeah, sounds good. I also saw a savory one lemon dill. I'm not crazy about that, but that was the most exotic one I found.
Yeah, I saw an Elk one, but that feels a little gamey for real.
An Elk one? No, okay, because I was gonna say maybe it was a recipe from the Elks.
Oh sure, sure, I get you. So.
It's also really simple to make too. It's just like sugar, eggs, flour, maybe butter, maybe olive oil. If you really want to get Italian and then, like you said, some of those flavorings and then you make it essentially like an old timey waffle where you have a like two irons that usually have some sort of like like what is it boss relief emblem or symbol or shape or something like that. Yeah, that the dough cooks into, so it transfers as the shape to the dough as you're cooking.
Yeah, like the old world way. And I imagine a lot of just sort of traditional Italian family still do it this way. I mean they make machines like a waffle iron that you could do this in. But is the old school two cast iron plates like you said, that have those decorative designs and a lot of times it's a snowflake. For Christmas. Back in the old days, you could get like a family like a family plate made with your whatever about you, like your family cress maybe or a special date in your family or anything meaningful to your family.
Yeah, picture of your grandma drunk at Christmas.
Yeah, sure, and then you can eat that drunk face. And then you cook those over an open flame, you know, like turning it over, you know, each side, each side. Let that thing cool off, and then you can do a lot of things with it. You can roll it up like a cone and put stuff in it. You can just sprinkle it with a little powdered sugar. You can saw one where you can use it as a like ice cream sandwich layer.
Yeah, the I don't know where you got this, but there's a nutella ice cream pizzel sandwich. I don't even know if this is a recipe, but you just alternate layers of pizzel, natella and whatever flavor ice cream you want. To stack it as high as you can get your mouth around, and there you go.
It sounds delicious.
Plus also, I mean, like a fresh pizzelle out of some hot iron sounds really really good. I mean even a stale pizzel is still kind of good.
I don't think i've ever had one.
Oh really, you should order some. They're everywhere.
Yeah, I figure this time of year.
Huh, yeah, I would. I would treat yourself and do you in a nice one, the traditional kind. It's actually surprisingly good. I'm not crazy about a nie, but it's it's good in this context. Okay, and then gets something else that you know you're gonna like, like lemon or something.
Yeah, I'm gonna see if there's a good Italian bakery in Atlanta.
I'm sure you go. But I mean even if there's not, I guarantee you can find these that like TJ Max if you want to.
Like they're everywhere, right behind the blouse aisle.
Yeah, sometimes mixed in with the blouses.
Oh all right, so that's the pizzel. Should we move on to your le bouch de noel?
Yes, I did not expect you to say it like that, but nicely done.
How would you say it? What's the correct way? In other words?
I mean you basically had it.
I think it's bouche.
I think so, But I know that bousch also is is a mouth?
No? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm pretty sure. So I could be miss miss saying it. It could be butchy.
Okay, okay, butchy noel.
Right, and it's a yule log, but it's an edible yule log, and it's a really closely identified with France.
Yeah, it is, uh, and it was not something you would eat in the old school tradition in France. What happened. It dates back to medieval times and you would get a real log of wood, usually a fruit tree or many times a fruit tree, and you would do that to let's say you wanted like a good apple harvest for the year to come, so you would use like an apple branch or log. You bring it home, you put that thing in the hearth, and the hearth is sort of where the family hung out, so it's just sort of the centerpiece there.
Yeah, and then there were I think this actually is like a pagan right even that they would they would light this and it was supposed to last from Christmas through the New Year, so at least three days. If it didn't burn for three days, you did it wrong and your next year is going to suck. But if you could at least make it three days, yeah, you were probably going to choke to death on an apple the following year if it didn't make it three days. But if it makes it three days or longer, great, And so to kind of game the system. Usually your mule log would be like damp, like very green and very large, because that wouldn't be the only thing you were burning, like, you needed to cook, you needed to keep warm, so you had fires going this whole time. So you keep this log going for at least three days it had to be of a certain type.
Yeah, and I'm not sure if we mentioned you lighted on Christmas Eve, if you've really done your job well and you picked out the perfect log, maybe soaked it a little bit and gain the system. Like you said, that thing might burn to the new year, and I would guess the whole family just celebrates that that happens.
Yeah, and the ashes even are were thought to prevent lightning strikes, so you'd want to cover yourself in it anytime you went out in a rainstorm. I'm guessing they would use the coal and like medicinal preparations, all sorts of stuff. Right, it was a big deal. The problem is and our friend, well, I guess our online friend, this person that whose article we came across, Lucy Rose beyond brosche Brioche on frenchly dot com wrote a great article about this, and Lucy Rose said that eventually, over time, hearths just kind of started to disappear, Like so the center of the house where the mule log used to kind of do its thing at the end of the year, lost its setting. So people still kind of followed this tradition, but they would just set a log on the dinner table and and just look at it. They didn't set it on fire, so it lost a little something. And then eventually somebody was like, hey, why don't we eat that thing. Let's make an edible version of this and eat it. And that's where the bouche de noel came from.
That's right. That happened sometime in the late eighteen hundreds. Apparently a gentleman named Pierre la Com published the first recipe for that in eighteen ninety, and it started spreading around to other cultures, other cultures that either spoke French or just dug what the French were into. And you know, you make it like a jelly roll cake, but you've got butter cream instead of the jelly, and you roll it up and you frost it with a ganache of some kind, and then you try to make it look like bark, like use a fork and kind of scrape along the outside to make it look a little more like a log.
Yeah. And sometimes, like the more modern ones, they'll come in all sorts of colors or whatever, and they look very sleek, like a Swiss cake roll essentially. But the traditional bouche de noel is like you can really kind of go to town with it, not just making that bark effect, but you could make additional smaller jelly roll cakes that you roll up and make us like branches coming off of it. Some people go to the trouble of making meringue or marzipan mushrooms like little toadstools growing out of it.
Cute.
Yeah, it is super cute, Like a really well done bouch to noel is adorable, so much so that you don't really want to eat it, but from the description of the ingredients, I would eat it anyway.
Yeah, for sure.
And there's actually it's not that hard to make. And there's some recipes that Lucy Rose recommends. There's one from a leg grun Wheel, which is a legendary French restaurant in New York. They had one published in the New York Times in nineteen eighty two. Then the other one she recommended came from Jacques Pepin. His classic bouche to.
Noel doesn't get any better than jacqu papin.
No And while you're out at those bakeries looking for pizzelle, try a French bakery and see if they have a bouche to noel. And if they don't, but you really want to try it. They saw them online too.
Yeah, boy, I'm looking at some of these online. These are really lovely.
Yeah, they really are. Don't they look cool? Like do you see any with the toadstools?
I see the toadstools, I see the little forked bark. Those look nice. But I see someone who somehow managed to make it look like real pine bark. That looks really great.
Yeah, I mean, somebody with the right kind of fork could really go to So let's move on. Huh.
All right? So those, yeah, those are the two confections. And so we're gonna hop in our slate we're gonna ride around up in the stratosphere atmosphere. Where are we up there?
I think the stratosphere right along the edge of space.
Okay, perfect, And we will be right back after a little Christmas.
Chuir, okay, Chuck, So we're talking. I think now we're gonna move on to a segment on Christmas trees in the White House. That's right, those of you who don't live in the United States, the White House is where the president lives.
That's right, And generally the president's family lives there, depending on like how all the kids are and stuff like that, for sure, But there are a lot of traditions over the years. We're not you know, you can go to White House dot gov under the Christmas stuff if you want to look at all these. But I feel like we should maybe concentrate on a few of the more fun ones.
Okay.
The first Christmas tree in the White House that anyone knows about was in the second floor Oval Room, which was a family parlor and library in eighteen eighty nine, which was the Benjamin Harrison administration, and they used real candles to delight the grandchildren.
Yeah, apparently, so that was eighteen eighty nine. And I think electricity was brought to the lighthouse two years later. The lighthouse yet, Yeah, I said the White House, didn't.
I you said lighthouse. But I love that it made it light.
Well, white is a light like Keler. It's the absence of color, actually so. But electricity was brought to the White House in eighteen ninety one, and yeah, thirty plus forty something years later, Fdr Franklin Delano Roosevelt still celebrated with a Christmas tree lit with candles.
Yeah, despite the danger, I think, like you said, eighteen ninety one, was electricity, and three years later Grover Cleveland had the first electrically lit tree. But you know, Teddy Roosevelt, that guy was old school. If he was nothing.
Else, well that was Franklin Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt has his own interesting story.
Oh Franklin, of course he's an older school Yeah. But yeah, Teddy supposedly banned Christmas trees. That is a bit of a I think it's just been twisted a bit over the years. I don't think he banned them. He just it was not a part of their family tradition to have a tree, so he did not.
Yeah, that was I mean, that's it. There's apparently a huge misunderstanding over the years that he was such a conservationist. I guess historians retroactively reasoned that the reason there wasn't Christmas trees during his administration was because he didn't want them cut down. But the answer is they just didn't celebrate with the Christmas tree. That wasn't their jam, which is pretty typical at the time. I mean, people having a Christmas tree in your house, you know, when you celebrate Christmases. Fairly modern, certainly way more modern than the turn of the last century.
Yeah, So it wasn't like everybody was doing it. Although in nineteen oh two Archie Roosevelt did sneak a little small tree, hid it in the closet upstairs, even decorated it and showed his family and Teddy Roosevelt did not say get that infernal thing out of here. Apparently he liked it and said, all right, well the tree can stay.
Yes, which is sweet, you know.
Sure.
And then there was also a record that was set by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the fifties, I think in nineteen fifty nine for the greatest number of Christmas trees in the White House at one time, and he really macked it out with twenty six Christmas trees in the White House. And for years and years and years, no one even tried to beat Eisenhower's record until I think, what was it nineteen ninety when the George W. Bush administration blew it out of the water.
Yeah, he was like, I'm going to take down that record, read my lips hey, great impression, it was so.
So, But how many trees did he have?
He brought in forty seven, just bleue Eisenhower out of the water. The Clintons had thirty two, also beating Eisenhower in ninety five, and the younger Bush said, I'm going to beat Daddy.
He did.
He brought in two more trees than Dad.
Yeah, and the Obama said, nice, try watch us beer. Yeah, sixty two trees in twenty fifteen. And if you look at all of these different, different competing numbers of trees, these records just being broken and beaten and tossed and dashed over the rocks. They all had themes. I think Clinton's had. It was the night before Christmas. The first Bush had a nutcracker ballet theme. The Obamas had timeless tradition, the second Bush head home for the holidays. They all had themes, and they were actually following in a tradition set by Jackie Kennedy back in nineteen sixty one, who created the first theme Christmas that the Christmas trees were decorated with, again, nutcracker.
Yeah, that's fine, but it was the first one, so technically I guess she started the nutcracker theme. Sure, as all themes, but that wasn't the first tree in the Blue Room, that is traditionally where the official tree is now in the Blue Room. That started in nineteen twelve when Robert Helen and Charlie Taft, the children of William Howard, put that very first tree in the Blue Room, and they have a competition now internationally, you have to win the state competition first to qualify to see if your tree can be the tree in the Blue Room. And we're just going to go over a few of these leading states now because far and away, well not that far and away, but North Carolina has had the most trees since nineteen sixty one in the Blue Room with thirteen.
Yeah. I don't know how recent this stat is, but I know that North Carolina was chosen again kind of as a nod to the battering by Hurricane Helene. This year, President Biden, I think chose one from western North Carolina Cartner's Tree Farm in Newland, North Carolina was the one who is sending the White House Christmas tree this year.
That's right, and surely not a sympathy pick, because like I said, North Carolina pumps out some great trees as they are in the lead. Pennsylvania's in second with eleven. Then you have with Wisconsin with eight, to Washington State with seven, West Virginia with four, and then basically other states with two or one.
Yeah, there was one that was anonymously donated from New England. It sounds suspicious.
And if you're wondering what kinds of trees, far and away fur trees lead with fifty two, there have been seven spruces and one pine.
That's the one that's coming out of Cartner's this year too, a Fraser fur.
Oh first, so it'll be I guess that'll be the fifty third.
Yeah, white House dot gov needs to get on this.
Yeah, that's right, update your side already.
So yeah, that's it for White House Christmas trees. Huh. I think that that was a pleasant little journey, thank you, through a political minefield. That's right, Okay, Chuck, it's next, next up. I'm pretty psyched we're gonna do another two first segment, aren't we.
Uh yeah, we're gonna hit these Christmas movies.
Yes, but first, how about some more jolly music from our friend Jerry.
All right, everyone, we're back and we're gonna finish up with a couple of Christmas movies. Well, one a TV special on one not just a Christmas movie, but the er Christmas movie. Yeah, you are right, I don't know how you spell it?
You do? You are? It's like a reference to a city in Sumeri or Mesopotamia or something like that, like one of the first cities.
Oh look at you, mister smarty pants er. Yeah, we're talking about the first Christmas movies. Shocking stat here, Over one hundred and fifty new holiday movies are produced annually.
Yet ninety eight percent of them from Hallmark.
Probably so or that may be a real stat. Actually knows it is.
They shoot two a days, is what they call them. They complete two films from scratch in a day.
They should just re dress people and recast them and just be like, all right, your Bill the local sheriff in this one, and you're Johnny the local diner owner in this one.
Right Wait, I thought I was Johnny in this one. No, just shut up, wear this.
But if you're thinking like, oh, it's a wonderful life, no no, no, that's the forties. If you're thinking, all right, March of the Wooden Soldiers, no no, that's nineteen thirty four. Sure you have to go all the way back to the very earliest days of putting anything on film to find the inspiration that would lead to the first Christmas movie.
Yeah, it turns out that we're going all the way back to the eighteen nineties, but we should go back a little before then in France. France, apparently, I didn't know this was like the er center of filmmaking. Did you know that that that's where it originally kind of came out of.
Sure, the Lumire Brothers.
Yeah, so them. There was a guy named Louis Le Prince who is considered as having filmed the first serve for the oldest surviving motion picture, which you've probably seen before. I know you have. I'm saying you the listener. It's a horse running and it almost looks like a flip book. It's that primitive. Yeah, and it's referenced. Actually, have you seen that movie? Nope?
Oh yeah, sure, remember.
When they when they show up on the set, they kind of give that spiel about their family and the horses, and they say that that was their an sister. That's what they're talking about, is that it's just a two second long shot of a horse running a person with a jockey on it.
I'd like to see that again.
Nope, or that two second long shot?
No, wait, all right, I just watched the horse thing again, No, I'd like to see Nope again. I saw that in the theater, but I haven't seen it since, and I quite enjoyed it.
Yeah, it was pretty good, all right.
So that two and two point one second horse running first thing. A lot of films that followed didn't have a narrative yet. They were just literally people were amazed that they could just see something moving on film. Hm. The Lamaher Brothers very famously, and they ten ninety six had a fifty second clip of a train coming right toward the screen, probably the first and last time a train didn't go through a tunnel to indicate intercourse.
Right, Yeah, they hadn't figured that out quite yet. That was the next year probably.
That's right. But then the first Christmas movie came just a few years later, right, just.
Two years later after that fifty second clip was called the Arrival of a Train. It really gets across what you're watching. But it's just two years after that a guy named George Albert Smith became the creator of the very first Christmas movie uncontested, No when it ever made a Christmas movie before until George Albert Smith came along and put seventy six seconds of goodness on film.
That's right, it's called Santa Claus. It's a pretty groundbreaking film at the time. I guess almost anything you did would be groundbreaking at the time.
Yeah, but this he was showing off almost.
No, I agree, had some pretty decent special effects. It's the story of Santa, a very simple story, obviously seventy six seconds, but it's Santa visiting the home of two kids on Christmas Eve. You can watch it on YouTube. It only takes seventy six seconds plus some dumb ad but you see two kids checking the chimney for Santa before the either mom or the nanny or somebody puts them to bed. They turn off the lights and then the room is dark, and then all of a sudden pops up. The first little special effect is on the right side of the screen, a little circular image of the rooftop, like an insert almost within the film frame itself, where you see Santa climbing down a chimney but really just walking down some stairs disguised as a chimney.
Yeah, right, And then like once he gets into the chimney or out of that additional shot that's showing him on the rooftop, all of a sudden he's in the kid's room, and it's like an editing cut, but also it was edited just a little early, are a little late, so that you can see him coming through the black curtain. Yeah, that he's suddenly appearing from. But again, we're talking eighteen ninety eight, and people were just amazed by this kind of stuff. And then Santa while the kids are sleeping, he puts little little goodies in their stocking and he waves goodbye, and then all of a sudden, poof, he's gone again. And I mean, like, even watching it now, I'm like, that was pretty cool. I can't imagine being alive in eighteen ninety eight and seeing that and just being like, oh my god.
Yeah, I can't wait.
Till Polar Express comes out.
Movie I still haven't seen.
I haven't either.
Oh, let's let's keep it that way. Let's promise, let's do a blood oath. Let's see that.
I think we also we talked about that in the Uncanny Valley episode.
Oh sure we had to have.
Yeah.
I will say this about Santa Claus the seventy six second film, given that most movies from this era look pretty creepy, and given that every Santa from this era looks really creepy. Yeah, this Santa creeping through the room over these children. I was ready for this thing to just make my hair stand on end. And it wasn't that bad. A little bit of creep but it was actually had a little sweetness to it.
Yeah, he was a little slim for a Santa. I think that that added to the creepiness. But yeah, no, he was nowhere near the creepiest Santa of his time. But we don't know who this guy is, right, No, he was uncredited. So the first Santa Claus on screen, the first person to play Santa Claus on screen, No one knows. We probably never know.
It's not Tim Allen. I know that.
No, and shout out to Justin Childress on edgelnd today who helped us with this, did some great research and made a nice little article.
All right, how are we going to wrap it up?
Oh?
Wait, we need to get in our sleigh first.
Oh okay, all right, here we go up.
In the old sled and let's go.
Okay, Chuck, did do do do do do do do?
Do?
Did it work?
Josh has been giving me the earworm for sixteen years on the rag.
It just it works really well.
All right, So now I'm annoyed. So let's talk about the sweetest Christmas special of all time.
It is sweetest and it did you watch it?
Of course?
Okay, So in nineteen eighty two, Christmas Time nineteen eighty two, it was a there was a cavalcade of familiar characters who made their debut in Christmas specials. Right. You had pac Man with the classic Christmas Comes to pack Land. Yeah, so I think, good, this Murf Christmas special, which actually is quite good, I.
Was too ultra Smurf.
So I went back and watched it like last week or a couple of days ago, and I was like, this is pretty good.
Pretty good, all right?
And then far and away the best of the bunch that came out in nineteen eighty two, and among the top ever Christmas TV specials, if you ask me, was Ziggy's Gift, which is, like you said, incredibly sweet.
That's right. Ziggy is the comic strip character Ziggy, the little short bald. How old is Ziggy?
That was one of my question timeless ageless?
I mean, is it supposed to be a grown up? Though?
Yeah, yeah, he's not a kid.
Okay. I couldn't tell because I wasn't into Ziggy, But did you know some Ziggy research and looked back at some of the comics, and you know, Ziggy was beloved because Ziggy was great, and Ziggy was sweet, and Ziggy was joyful, and Ziggy was not cynical. Uh, Ziggy lived with a dog and a parrot. And you might find a Ziggy comic strip that was just a little rye joke, or you might find a Ziggy comic that is literally just Ziggy smiling and looking at you and say hello.
Yeah. And so he was like indefatigable even though basically his entire life went wrong at every turn. Yeah, and he like he could be affected by that. He was put off, he was mad. He wasn't like he was some sort of smiling automaton. But he returned back to his like upbeat outlook on life very quickly, like that was his default setting. And just reading Ziggy cartoons, it's like it does it to you, you know, it really brings it out.
Yeah.
And so Ziggy had been around since I think in the paper since nineteen seventy and it built up like a pretty good audience by nineteen eighty two, so it's a big deal. When Ziggy was coming to TV, Tom Wilson, the creator of Ziggy, did a bunch of interviews with different newspapers and everybody was quite excited that Ziggy was having his own Christmas special.
Yeah, for sure, and he really pulled out all the stops because not only is it a Christmas Special and animated Christmas special, but it was one that really took the time with the artistry to just knock it out of the park. A typical half hour animated special at the time I had about thirty five thousand drawings. Ziggy's Gift had close to one hundred and forty thousand drawings. They usually have about fifty rough sketches to sort of map out the story. There were twelve hundred per Ziggy's Gift. And for all of this effort, a you got an animated special that for the time again when you look back now, really good, smooth, outstanding animation. And it won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program that year.
Yeah beat Garfield beat.
The Smurfs, Take that Smurfs.
Yeah, it beat Charlie Brown twice, two different Charlie Brown specials.
Good grief, there was just no.
Chance that anybody was going to beat Ziggy's gift that year. Yeah. And also not just the animation, I mean, like people like animation busts are like this is a classic masterpiece of animation. But the plot too was really good. Like the thing seems longer than twenty two minutes, not like it drags. They just packed a lot into this twenty two minutes, even though it just kind of takes its own time. That's great. It's pretty funny in a lot of places, it's sweet throughout, and all this kind of came together and formed this perfect, sweet, little twenty two minute Christmas special.
Yeah. Absolutely. When it came time to make the special, they were like, what do we do with Ziggy's voice? Like, how do we cast this iconic silent character, because you can really ruin, like a comic strip character come to life if you don't get the voice right. Yeah, and so they decided not to use a voice at all, which was brilliant. And apparently that came from Wilson's daughter Hugh, who a few years before said that the reason it's hard to find a voice for Ziggy is because when you read Ziggy, you hear your own voice.
Out of the mouths of babes, you know.
Amazing. She was thirty two at the time.
But that's great. So yeah, the whole thing came together to make this really great Christmas special. But what's puzzling about it is it didn't become an enduring classic, Like the latest I could see on good old newspapers dot Com was nineteen eighty six. That's when the TV listings for Ziggy's Gift around December just dried up. But the great thing about it, and the reason why we're doing this we're covering Ziggy's Gift is there's like a couple of generations out there who don't even know this exists, Yeah, and are going to be so happy to find this sweet little Christmas special that I hope everybody who's listening who's never seen it really enjoys. And if you have seen it, it's been a little while, if it's been a day, doesn't matter, go watch it again because it just gets you every time.
Yeah, and get your what would Ziggy Do? T? Shirt printed up.
Yeah, that's another thing too. You could really get into Ziggy after watching that. And there's a lot of great like vintage Ziggy stuff like stickers of Ziggy catching a rainbow in a butterfly, that kind of stuff.
Yeah, and you could, you know, get ziggy with it.
Very nice. There's no way to end this better than that choke.
It's my last bad joke of the year.
So let's get a little more Christmas music in and then we'll wish everybody Merry Christmas and happy holidays. How about that.
Let's do it all right? Well, that is it for the Christmas Special this year. We want to wish everyone a very merry Christmas or marry and happy holiday of your choice, however you choose to celebrate. Yeah, we're Christmas guys, so that's what we do around here, and I'm wishing you and Umi and Momo a very merry Christmas, and Jerry and Dave and Libya and Dave and Kyle and who else Ben.
Yeah, the whole crew, and back at you too. Merry Christmas to you and Ruby and Emily for sure.
Yeah, thanks man, and of course with Jerry her lovely wife and daughter as well.
Yep, So merry Christmas to all of you, Happy Holidays to all of you from everybody here. It's stuff you should know. We hope. It's a great one for you and go watch Siggy's gift and feel love. Merry Christmas, Everybody.
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