Hey folks welcome to episode 8 of a pebble in a pond podcast
Merry Christmas everybody and
Happy holidays if you know if you don't celebrate Christmas
And whatever else you do celebrate happy that or marry that or whatever it may be
Just in general. I hope you're doing well
We're gonna start this episode off a little bit differently than really any episode probably
I'm gonna go ahead and as as many of you know, I usually do quotes and things like that throughout the episode
We're gonna start this one with a pretty long one
We'll just go ahead and
We'll start it with one of the most Christmas things you can do. This is perhaps the most famous Christmas poem of all time
It's a little long, but it's worth it
Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care and hopes that st. Nicholas soon would be there
The children were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of sugar plums
danced in their heads and
Mama and her kerchief and I and my cap had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter. I spring from my bed to see what was the matter
Away to the window. I flew like a flash tore open the shutters and threw up the sash
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave the luster of midday to objects below
When what to my wandering eyes did appear but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer
With a little old driver so lively and quick. I knew in a moment. It must be st. Nick
More rapid than eagles his corsers they came and he whistled and shouted and called them by name
Now Dasher now Dancer now Prancer and Vixen on Comet on Cubid on Donner and Blitzen
To the top of the porch to the top of the wall now dash away dash away dash away all
Dash away all as dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly
When they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky
So up to the housetop the corsers they flew with the sleigh full of toys and st. Nicholas, too
Then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
the prancing and pawing of each little hoof as
I drew in my head and was turning around down the chimney st. Nicholas came with a bound
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot a
Bundle of toys he had flung on his back and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack
His eyes how they twinkled his dimples how merry his cheeks were like roses his nose like a cherry
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow and the beard of his chin was as white as the snow
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth and the smoke and encircled his head like a wreath
He had a broad face and a round little belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly
He was chubby and plump a right jolly old elf and I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself a wink of his
Eye and a twist of his head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread
He spoke not a word but went straight to work and filled all the stockings
Then turned with a jerk and laying his finger a side of his nose
Giving a nod up the chimney he rose he sprang to his sleigh
To his team gave a whistle and away they all flew like the down of a thistle
But I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night
for those of you that don't know me that well and
have just found me either on tik-tok or on
any of the socials or on
just on the podcast I
feel like I should give a
warning for the rest of this episode and
For full transparency. I am NOT as they would say jolly
I'm not somebody who necessarily
enjoys everything about this holiday
that being said I
have tried very very hard for the past week to
Build up to where I can make this episode enjoyable and fun
We are gonna touch on some of the bad stuff. We are I
Promise I know I've said that in a few of my other things
We are gonna touch on a little bit of it just because I want people to understand what the holiday means to everybody
in terms of that
But I promise you
It's not gonna be all depressing and stuff. I just just give it a listen and give me a chance
As far as that poem goes I
Can't think of anything more Christmas than that and for me. I can't think of any other any better way to start this episode
So without further ado
Here's the music
So we're gonna start this episode with a story of my youth my childhood
I will preface the story by saying I am NOT
It is one of those stories when you look back and you realize is how silly you were how stupid you were as a kid
but I
Don't know a lot of people who are
I haven't heard a lot of people tell this story before so I guess it's not a universal childhood Christmas story
but I
Don't I really don't remember how old I was I want to say I
Was probably about seven or eight when this happened. I was let's put this way
I was old enough to know better
But I was I apparently didn't this is also a story just so that we this is like the start of my super villain arc
right here, so
When I was a kid
You know my my parents especially my dad at that time
My dad was the kind of dad that
enjoyed buying toys and
That that transaction was a little bit of a pain in the ass
I was a little bit of a pain in the ass
I enjoyed buying toys and that that transferred to me. He enjoyed going out and buying me toys
It was because he got to play with them right like it was that was fun for him
And so it was one of those things where Christmas
I mean our Christmases even though we weren't like a rich family or anything like that. My parents really went all out like
The tree was you know beautiful for a whole month and we had a whole living room
that was full of presents and and every every Christmas morning we would walk downstairs and there would be a
You know the whole room would be full of toys and things like that it was
it was a
Fantastical I mean it was it was insane now that I think back on it
And now you know when I when I say those things
it
It makes it sound like we were really well off
We really weren't my my parents like basically spent the year paying off credit card debt so that they could then spend
up their credit cards on on Christmas and
It wasn't it wasn't the most financially
Responsible way of handling Christmas, but I think that
The the joy and wonder that they saw in me and my sister when we walked down those stairs
It was worth it for them. I really do believe that and as a father myself. I can I can definitely understand it
And there were you know we had multiple Christmases where it was
it was it really was it was like walking into a fantasy land walking down the stairs and
The way that our house was set up is you would walk down the stairs and you would turn to the right and
that was our our family room slash living room, whatever you want to call it and
it was a you know, it was a decent sized room and it was
it was you know where we would sit and listen to music and things like that and and that's where the Christmas tree was and
When I tell you it was like you couldn't walk in the room some Christmases because there were just presents everywhere now
They weren't just they weren't all presents from my parents
They were presents from family members and things like that as well, but it was a fantasy world. It was it was crazy
Anyway the the point of that was not to you know explain how spoiled rotten I was as a child
It was to explain that Christmas had a very special significance to my parents and to our family for a long time
I didn't I didn't become the Grinchy Grinch that I am now
By any any
Anything my parents did my parents definitely tried to instill in me how great Christmas was and
You know, I had a relatively I
guess average upbringing in that sense like
It wasn't it wasn't Christmas was never didn't have any negative connotations for me
I didn't really it wasn't really until I got older and became a
Parent and realized just how difficult it was that I started to really kind of get a kind of a bad feeling about it
Anyway, we'll get to that in a little bit though
So this particular Christmas, like I said, I think I was seven or eight my parents had
Gone out and been shopping. You know, I don't know how long they shopped for I never really
Knew anything about that, but I assumed they had been shopping
for a while now the reason why I say I was seven or eight
Was because this had to be
Well, maybe I was maybe I was six yeah
Maybe I was it was six or seven not seven or eight because this was shortly after
Empire Strikes Back had come out probably probably probably a year or so after Empire Strikes Strikes Back came out and the reason I know that
is because
Well, I'll explain in a second. Oh, so I had I
Had found I had discovered through my explorations in the house
some
hidden
gift stashes if you will see my mom would
Oftentimes we would you know, they would go shopping and then they would come back and my mom would you know spend an hour or whatever?
Wrapping the presents right away. She didn't she didn't
Leave, you know presents unwrapped. She wrapped them all and
then as
We would find out
Me and my sister would find out my mom and my dad had
multiple little places that they would stash gifts so that we wouldn't see them until Christmas morning and
I think I think you know, I don't know if it was my sister that started it or me, but
It became kind of a challenge to like find all the little stashes
so I
Was I was I want to say I was six or seven. Yeah, I had to be
I'm sorry. I'm really trying to remember I
This is a part part of the story that I was like, I don't need to research that it happened to me
But I really don't I don't remember my own life that well apparently
Anyway, so I was I was about that age and I had come home from school and
at this point in time there was like a
There was a real fever like, you know, Chris we knew Christmas was coming
We knew that you know, we knew what we had asked for we knew what there was, you know
and so there was this kind of
Well, you know, it's important to understand when me and my sister would find these
Gift stashes we would spend you know, we didn't like linger on them
But we would spend a few minutes looking and say, you know, okay that could be this or this good
What is that? You know, we wouldn't shake him or anything because we didn't want to make a mistake
You know, we wouldn't shake him or anything. So we didn't want to mess him up, but
We would we would poke around a little bit, right and we didn't always find all the stashes
they my parents definitely knew more about the house and where they could hide stuff than that we did but
Anyway, my dad
Had apparently or my mom I guess had used my dad's closet as a as a
stash spot
and I had come home from
I had to come home from school early, you know now that I think about it though now that I said that out loud
I don't think I did come home from school early
I think that school was actually out because this was shortly before Christmas. I think we had actually started our
Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we had started our
Our Christmas break. This was like the first day or the second day of our Christmas break from school
And my parents had gone to work
and
So I was there
Basically alone. I don't know where my sister was. I don't remember either way the way this story goes is
Basically, I find the stash. I know where the stash is I go to my I
Go to my dad's closet and I'm I'm poking around and I'm really poking around
I'm like digging in there trying to see what's all in there and there's some really big boxes and stuff like that
They're all wrapped
so
once again, I was very young so in my
youthful exuberance I
I
Start to think well I could just peel I could just pull a little bit of this right here
I just see what it is. You know what I mean, you know, the the the anticipation was killing me the the fact that I you know
I'm not really good with surprises. I really wanted to know what it was
So I start, you know kind of peeling a little tape here
and now here's something that else is very important for this my mother is a
like
Gift-wrapping savant she's like, you know, this stuff is like locked down tight
She's it's a beautiful like the every box is like perfect. She's bows are perfect and everything. She's she's really really good at it. So
It's not exactly easy to get into these packages
It's not exactly like even when you like even when you're just trying to rip them
it's not really that easy because she's you know, the corners are all like really good like she's she's got this down and
So I'm
I'm really trying I'm genuinely trying like looking looking
Picking up each one of these packages shaking it, you know, I'm at this point in time. I'm kind of
And not I'm not really thinking about where anybody is or how the you know, nothing nothing's going through my head
But what's in these packages?
so I end up
I'm just thinking about it and I'm so embarrassed even tell the story
I'm so embarrassed even tell the story. Yeah, my mom's gonna love this
So I'm sitting there and I'm I don't remember what it was exactly
but I was kind of looking at it and I was feeling like I was rubbing my hand along the side of the package to try
to feel for like
You know how I don't know. Maybe you guys don't really know what I'm talking about
But there's like when you feel a certain packaging you can feel like oh
Well, there's a piece of plastic here and there's cardboard here and I can it was really scientific at the time
So I was trying to figure out what this particular box was and as I'm rubbing my hand along it
My finger just goes through the wrapping paper and I I just think just rip right into it
And I don't remember what it was now. I don't remember it was a Star Wars toy. I know that I don't know what it was
In particular, but my finger just goes right through the wrapper and I like rip it right across the front and I'm like, oh no
and I
Panicked I didn't know what to do. So I
I
Turned that I turn it around and I put it back in the closet and I start putting everything back in and I'm just I'm
completely and totally panicked
so I
Put everything back. I put everything, you know, I do my best of like and
I go about I go about my day
My parents come home the day goes by nobody says anything. So I'm thinking oh
Man, I got it. I like there I'm slick now. They there's no way they're catching on to me. I
Thought that I had I think what I did is actually put a piece of tape now
I'd put a piece of tape across it
Now the reality was is that they just didn't look at it, right?
Like why would they look at it? It was hidden in the closet and they didn't think I would
so I just taken a piece of tape and like put it across where I'd ripped it and I thought I
Thought that they were coming home and like checking everything right?
I thought that you know they were and that they had just skipped over that one or missed that one and I thought that I
Had I had pulled one over on them
so the next day I
Get back into the stash and
This time I just lost control. I just I just started opening gifts. I'm not gonna lie
I just was like, okay, and I'm and the whole time I'm thinking
Well, the tape thing worked so I can I'll just I'll just rewrap them all
I'll just open them up and then I'll rewrap them
Well, I don't know if that worked out the best way I possibly could have so I
I opened up and it was basically just like
it was like
six Star Wars toys and I remember there being a bunch of action figures and I was I mean I was like I
Was the happiest person you could imagine and I was like I'm getting all this stuff for Christmas
Like it was all for me, right? I knew what it was. And and so I was so excited that I
Didn't really think about step two of the plan
so I end up having this big pile of
wrapping paper now
Keep in mind. My mom like I said is a wrapping savant. So this is like I
Had I had undone like an hour worth of wrapping work that she had she had done and there was just wrapping paper everywhere
so I
Pick up as much as I can I take it out and I put it in the outside trash so that nobody will know
Where it is and and I'm I put all the toys back in the closet
Think I don't know what I was thinking
Maybe I was thinking that like she just like they just wouldn't notice that they were on right maybe that maybe oh she's he's wrapping
Again, she just forgot. I don't I really honestly don't know what I was thinking
But I put all the stuff back in the closet
And I was just you know, I was I knew the secret. I was just so excited. I knew the secret and
So stupid I was just so so stupid
And I think I did try to wrap some of them
But then I quickly gave up on that when I realized that there's no possible way because I didn't have any wrapping paper
What I had was the ripped up wrapping paper that I'd already taken off the toys
So
My parents come home my mom comes home and she is
panicked
She sees she sees I when I had when I had carried the wrapping paper out
I had literally left like a trail of wrapping paper and
I guess I guess I'm just was just not that bright. I don't know but
My mom thought that somebody had broken into the house
And had stolen the gifts out of
Like had taken stuff
Because there was just this like line of wrapping paper all through the house
There was just like and it what it was was I just had little hands and I couldn't carry it all so I was I was
Dropping it and I didn't think to go back and pick up the little pieces because I didn't notice them
So my mom thought that somebody come in and stolen our gifts
So she's freaks out and I don't know if she called my dad or my dad was on his way home or what the hell
was but my dad gets home and it turns into this whole thing where
obviously they you know, they figure out that it was me and I
I have to fess up to it and I get in trouble and
well, the story doesn't really have a happy ending because all the toys that I
I had I
Had it sneaked and looked at
Ended up. I actually I think my dad took back like most of them
To the store like he took them all back and returned them
So I ended up getting a few of them, but my my Christmas that year since I had spoiled it for them
They kind of spoiled it for me. I did not get all of those toys. I did not get all of those things
And it really sucked it really did suck but it did teach me the lesson
Obviously, like I knew I knew at that point in time that I had done something wrong
but I
I remember that
Christmas very well because first of all, I'm reminded of it by all of them on a regular basis and second of all
remember it being the first time
that I
Really was like because the gifts all were labeled to
Blank from Santa and I thought that was weird
Because literally up until that point in time. I would have fought you if you told me that Santa wasn't real and
I was wondering why my
Why my parents had all these gifts that were from Santa why they had them already did Santa already dropped them off
and I think that maybe that that maybe played into
why I did what I did because I
Santa was magical right like he he could easily like do it again. Like it wasn't that big a deal and he wouldn't mind
I don't know. I really don't I can't put myself in that in that mindset anymore
I don't know why I did what I did, but I did ruin Christmas. I that was the first my first Grinch moment
I literally stole the gifts from from my family
and
Anyway, so that's that's my that's my strongest childhood
Christmas story and don't get me wrong. There was like I said at the beginning
There was a lot of really really good
Christmas memories from when I was a young child that I I
I hold mostly those moments of wonder and seeing the look on my parents face
When I would come around the corner and they were so happy. They were tired. They'd been up all night, but they were happy
You know, they got to see us in these these this moment of just sheer wonder and joy and it was
It was nice. It was it was really nice
So moving on
After that that tale of woe
I'm gonna I'm gonna throw in another quote here that I think is though important for this next section that I wanted to get to
Everybody everybody has their favorite Christmas song everybody has their favorite Christmas tradition things like that
but
I asked a few people what their favorite Christmas song was
And it was interesting because for me
My favorite has always been a little drummer boy, and I don't know why I think I think I just like them the message
But for a lot of people
It's white Christmas
And I actually asked my girlfriend of what hers was she said white Christmas and then she said anything by Bing Crosby
and I thought that was funny because
I had actually been researching this episode and it was funny to say researching a Christmas episode
but I really had been and
And I had come across a quote from Bing Crosby
Where he said unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings all the snow in Alaska will make it white
And I just thought that was funny that you know people people don't tend to think about the fact that
Well, I guess I should say people look past the fact that
Christmas has a specific meaning to a lot of people and that meaning is
You know not necessarily going out and buying a thousand dollars worth of gifts for a child or
You know going out and it's it's taking care of people
It's you know the reason we give gifts and the reason that we we
You know have feasts and things like that is not just so that we can keep it to ourselves
All right, that's the whole point of this
And and just to just to nip this in the bud when I say that's not the whole point of this or any of that
I'm not gonna get into the whole reason for the season kind of thing
I'm not this isn't about the religious aspects of Christmas and I understand that that may be offensive to some people
I understand
You know, I understand that
I totally understand but that's not that's not what we're talking about here
I mean people people that aren't Christians can celebrate Christmas and can get
Just as much out of it and and enjoy the holiday just as much as as a Christian can so I want to make sure that's clear
I'm not I'm not disparaging anybody. I'm not trying to take away from anybody
I'm not I'm not saying that it doesn't mean this or it doesn't mean that what I'm saying is that it can mean all of us
Things right like Christmas doesn't just mean one thing to one person and and just because they said it
Everybody else has to follow suit Christmas means so much to so many people and
That's in a good and a bad way and that's what we're talking about right now
We're talking about the the few good things and some of the bad things that come from these different ways of looking at the holiday
But I think in general something that we can all agree on we don't all practice it keep that in mind is that
We should be taking care of
those less fortunate
around Christmas time and and really looking out for
People that maybe can't look out for themselves. I think that that's maybe one of those lessons that is kind of lost
in in the ultra consumerism that comes with Christmas people get so caught up in the tradition and the
The buying of gifts and you know, oh I gotta get something for this person. Oh, I gotta get something for that person
Oh, I gotta get something and really
And this I mean this from the bottom of my heart like
Sometimes you just want to hear from that person
Sometimes that would mean more than all of the gifts all of the money all of the you know, sometimes it would just be nice to
Know that that person's thinking of you and if possible spend a little bit of time with that person
That's what Christmas is is supposed to be about it's supposed to be about family and friends and appreciating
It almost is like a
Thanksgiving 2.0, right? Like like we think of Thanksgiving as long as you're not indigenous you think of Thanksgiving is a time for
Celebrating your family and friends, right? It's the same basic thing
And I think that the Christmas is you know, a much more universal much more widely accepted version of that
Obviously, there's more there's obviously more more common sense
But at the end of the day it comes down to appreciating and spending time with your family your friends and then helping those less fortunate
I
Remember reading an interesting take on this
I think it was by Craig Ferguson the comedian and I don't I don't have the quote here
I don't remember exactly the context of it
But I think he said something about
Commercialism and capitalism being really good for the holiday being really good for Christmas because the more we inject
Those those aspects into the the holiday
the more spiritual
He becomes about it and I thought that was funny because you know
That's kind of how it's been for me for me for me for me for me for me for me for me for me for me for me
I've cared about it and I thought that was funny because you know, that's kind of how it's been for me the more
The more I've felt pressured to go out and buy and spend and you know
Put put stuff on credit cards and the more I've felt the pressure to do those things over time
The the less I've cared about it and the let the more I've cared about the the ideas that are really important in my opinion
To Christmas and that is you know showing showing the people in your life that that you value them and that you love them
And that you want to spend time with them and you care about them
And I think that that really you know when you think about the time of year, it's cold outside
You know you the whole in every song that talks about that, you know, it's about huddling close together and staying warm by the fire and then all of these things that
You know in today's modern world, we tend to forget where a lot of this sentiment comes from
But you know, we forget that to our own detriment. We forget that to our own folly.
And instead we focus on the the ultra flashy brand new make sure you get this thing. Make sure you got that thing.
And that's really not what this is all about. That's really never been what this is about.
And trust me when I say that it's very difficult because I feel the pressure and I feel the pain.
This Christmas in particular has been is going to be very difficult for me because of all of the life changes I've recently gone through and the losing people in my life.
And so on and so forth. It's been it's been a really, really tough for me because like I said, you know, as time has gone on, I've moved away from the forcibly
But I've moved away from the pretty, you know, capitalism and commercialism of the holiday and it's become more about the people.
And so when you come to the holiday and you realize that you're down some people, right?
Like and that goes for, you know, anybody really like we go into these holidays and we celebrate.
But we are then forced to remember the people that have have gone, whether it be, you know, passed on or have just left your life.
It's it's really difficult. It's really, really tough.
And what that does is it is it makes you feel alone.
You'd be in a room full of people and you'll still feel alone because a lot of times we tend to focus on what we don't have in spite of what we have.
You know, we look at we look at and, you know, even as a as a child, people tend to do that, even as children, we do that.
You know, we think of, you know, think about how many Christmases you would go you would have and somebody down the street would get whatever toy or whatever thing.
And everybody would be like, oh, you know, they'd all be jealous of that thing that they didn't get while also receiving, you know, 10 toys or whatever it may be.
You know, you get you get however many gifts and they're all great and you love them.
And then you walk outside and see what somebody else has and you're like, oh, I wanted that. And then you get that jealousy.
But the reality is, is that, you know, it was a blessing.
You were you were blessed to get the things you were good and you are lucky to get those things and you should appreciate those things.
And and that includes time with your family members and appreciating your loved ones.
You know, we're not none of us are immortal. And it's important to remember that as you come through these holidays and you really want to stay present and appreciate
the time that you have with the people in your life because you never know where they're going to be or, you know, if they're going to be there again, we take that for granted.
We genuinely take that for granted.
And it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that we do that because it's people people come and go in your life.
And you really don't understand the impact that they have or that they have had until they're gone.
And it takes a lot of being present and mindful to, you know, focus on that when they're there because you always assume they're always going to be there and they're not.
So consider this if you're listening, consider this a reminder.
Hug the people that you're with on this holiday.
Call the people that you need to call.
Send the love that you need to send to make these people in your life appreciate and understand how important they are and how much you truly care about them because this is the time to do that.
That's what this holiday should be about.
And just because you don't know somebody doesn't mean that you can't reach out.
You know, doesn't mean that you can't when you're walking down the street, when you're going to the store, when you're doing whatever you're doing, you know, when you walk outside on Christmas morning and you see your neighbor, make sure you wave.
Make sure you wish them a good holiday and don't do it in a, you know, a fake way where you're like, oh, happy holiday, Steve.
Like, you don't need to do that. Just go out there and genuinely, you know, care for them.
If you made some cookies, go take them some cookies.
If you, you know, whatever it may be, you just, just take a few seconds out of your day and really genuinely wish somebody a good holiday, a Merry Christmas.
There's no amount of joy that you could bring into the world around this time that isn't going to be appreciated.
The sorrow, the loneliness and the, the feeling, the feeling of loss that so many people feel around this time of year, myself included, almost every year I go through severe depression because of this holiday.
And it is very, very difficult.
So if you can reach out, if you can take the time, if you can, you know, have a kind word, give a hug. Oh dear Lord, give a hug if you can.
It means so much. It means so, so much. A hug. A hug is everything on Christmas.
It is, it is, it is what Christmas is for me. Hugging my mom, hugging my family. That's what it's all about.
I don't, that's what, that's what brings tears to my eyes is hugs.
I had, I had thought a lot last week when I was thinking about this episode and how I wanted it to go.
I thought a lot about, you know, what I wanted to include and, and how I wanted it to go.
And what I decided was I'm going to try to keep this short.
I just did like an hour and almost 30 minutes in the last episode. So I don't want to take too much of people's time away from celebrating the holiday.
So what I want to do now is I'm just going to run through a few things that I mean, some, a lot of people know these things.
I'm just going to run through a few things really fast just to, you know, kind of throw out some little lesser known facts maybe about the, about the holiday.
And then I do have something I want to say before I end the, end this episode.
So just stay with me for a few more minutes while we go through this.
I thought this, I thought some of these were kind of interesting. So I don't know, maybe they aren't.
But I thought that it was interesting, for instance, that Jingle Bells, the song Jingle Bells was not actually written as a Christmas song.
Now it's synonymous with Christmas, but it was originally written as a Thanksgiving song.
And I thought that was interesting. It was a Jingle Bells was actually written by a man named James Lord Piermont in 1857.
And it was for a Thanksgiving church concert. And I thought that was, that was interesting.
Something, you know, when you think about the words and things like that, you know, it doesn't specifically say Christmas.
So I just thought it was interesting.
Another, another interesting fact that I actually knew this.
And actually I knew a friend that actually confirmed this for me. He was Japanese.
And I thought this is funny. You know, we here in America, we do, we do all sorts of things that are, you know, kind of weird and things like that for Christmas.
We have different traditions, but we in Japan, many, many, many families celebrate Christmas with KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken.
They actually, this has been around since the 70s, 70s or 80s.
And it all started with the marketing campaign by KFC and it worked so well that it is now considered a tradition in Japan to,
and they, they, they do the same thing as like, like Popeyes does when you order like Thanksgiving chickens from them or whatever.
They do like the Cajun chickens. You can order them in advance.
People literally go to KFC and order in advance for their Christmas feasts and they'll have big, big giant Christmas buckets of chicken and tenders and things like that.
I just thought that was funny. I know that some people know that already. If you know any Japanese people, you may already know that.
But I actually, I just think that that's hilarious that, you know, we go through, like I'm going to be making a big, a big brisket and I'm going to be making some chickens and all this stuff.
I'm putting all this effort into making this stuff and, and if you're Japanese, you just, you know, buy KFC.
But one of the things, one of these, some of these facts that I saw, what I found was interesting about them was that, you know, a lot of the traditions that we have around Christmas aren't actually,
like they, they, they came along way outside of Christmas, like the things that we do, the way that we celebrate, like, like for instance, Christmas stockings.
They didn't actually, like, like, I guess it's impossible to really say like the first Christmas, you know, but, but the, the custom of hanging Christmas stockings actually didn't come around until the, you know, early 19th century, like the 1800s.
So that was actually a pretty late addition if you think about everything. And supposedly, supposedly it comes from this like legend of St. Nick putting gold coins into the stockings of these three poor sisters.
They couldn't, they couldn't afford anything and he would just drop these gold coins or he dropped, not, he'd do it all the time, but he would drop gold coins into their stockings so that they could, you know, they weren't poor anymore basically.
Well, they weren't poor, but you know, they could afford something.
Now, I don't know, I didn't, I actually didn't go into that whole background. I was, I was really just looking for some, some little morsels and I came across that one. I thought, well, that's kind of, that's kind of cool. You know, things like stockings and like, like Christmas trees.
That's not something that's always been there. And actually, one of, like one of the most famous Christmas trees in the world is the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, you know, the giant tree that they put out in the middle of New York and, and it's, you know, world famous now.
People literally travel to see it being lit. And what's interesting about that is that the first one, it wasn't a big tree. We've, we've completely like, you know, created that, like that's just something that we made up because, you know, we just like in America, we just like things being bigger and bigger, I guess.
But the first, the first tree that was ever put there was just put there by some construction workers in 1931 and it wasn't even decorated. It was just a Christmas tree that they put in the middle of the center and people just liked it so much that actually it's kind of a funny story.
It was undecorated and it just sat there and people would literally come up and put ornaments on it. They would just, you know, come up and hang stuff on it. And that, that happened over the course of years, like people just started putting stuff on the tree until they were like, hey, people really like this.
And then the tree started to buckle because of all the stuff people would put on it. I just thought that was an interesting thing. And also a statement to like what community does, right? Like it's kind of cool that people would just start putting stuff on it because they wanted it to be pretty for the holiday.
And then the other part of the tree thing is that's Germany. The Christmas tree tradition comes from Germany from, I can't remember if it was the 15th or 16th century. I think it was the 16th century.
They used to be, you know, you would go cut down a live tree and then you would decorate it with these small actual like lit candles. So the lights that would be on your tree would be candles at the end of, you know, the boughs of the tree and then the branches.
I just thought that was interesting. Like imagine that today. Imagine how many houses would burn down in America if we started putting candles in our trees.
There's another interesting little tidbit that I thought, a lot of people know this already, but I've always thought it was really funny. It was, you know, I started this episode with Twas the Night Before Christmas. Well, another name for that poem is A Visit from St. Nicholas.
That poem was the basis of a marketing campaign by Coca-Cola in 1931. And that marketing campaign was so successful and became such an important part of American history that if you go out and you ask most people what Santa Claus looks like,
they will describe to you that Santa Claus. And when I say that Santa Claus, I mean the one from the Coca-Cola marketing campaign. Like that's literally the imagery that people have in their head is the Santa Claus from a Coca-Cola ad.
Before that Coca-Cola ad, if you went out and you asked people in 1930 or 1929, there would be a varied opinion on what St. Nick would look like and what Santa Claus looked like.
But after that kind of marketing campaign, it kind of unified the vision of what this character looked like to people. And I just thought that was funny, you know.
You want to talk about the power of marketing, Santa Claus is the perfect example of that.
And the last little tidbit I have before I go into this next segment, and the reason I'm using this is because it feeds to my next segment, is I hope that many of you have seen the Christmas classic movie Miracle on 34th Street.
It is pretty much a must watch. And the original one. I mean the remakes are fine I guess. I don't know, I haven't watched all of those, but the original one.
Well in that movie, there's a young girl in the movie, and that young girl is played by Natalie Wood.
Well Natalie Wood is a famous legendary actress in Hollywood now, but when she was playing that little girl, she was still very much a believer in Santa Claus.
And the actor who played Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street, his name was Edmund Gwynn, and he would show up to work early and get into full makeup.
The man didn't have a beard, but he would go to makeup and he would put the beard on, and they would, you know, he would fold Santa Claus himself out and go on to set.
And one of the reasons that he did that was because Natalie Wood believed in Santa Claus.
And so this actor would show up three hours early, four hours early, and get into full makeup and then go play Santa Claus on set.
And she didn't know. She had no idea. She thought that Santa Claus was working on the movie with her.
And I thought that was a really sweet story. Like it wasn't until they did a cast party and Edmund Gwynn showed up with no beard on that she, even for a moment, thought that he was an actor.
She spent her entire childhood making this movie, or a portion of her childhood making this movie, and really thought she was working with Santa Claus the whole time.
Well the reason why I say that feeds into this next segment that I wanted to do, and this will be the last thing that we talk about today.
I wanted to talk about Santa Claus. And I wanted to talk about Santa Claus because for me, there's a, I don't know, it's tough for me because I am somebody who values honesty, painful honesty, most of the time in my life.
And Santa Claus is one of those times where I have found myself kind of going back and forth.
Now if there's any children listening to this, I want you to know that what I'm about to say could be upsetting.
So I think that I will get back to where the message that we should have here, or at least that I have here, and I think that it's a good one.
And so I'm not going, if you are somebody who is open minded about what your children understand about this world, then let them listen.
For many, many people in this world, mostly adults, Santa Claus is not real.
I went through a long period of time where I didn't believe in Santa Claus.
And I would, like I said earlier when I was telling that story, when I was younger, I would have punched you in the face if you told me Santa Claus wasn't real.
But as time went on and I grew a little older, got my teenage years and started to be a shitty kid, I started to see the cracks in the case, if you will.
I started to see that there were holes in the whole story.
And it didn't really bother me. It was just another one of those things that, you know, well, parents are lying about it.
So I didn't really think twice about it. I just accepted the fact that there was no Santa Claus.
And that went on. That went on for a long time.
I just didn't care at all about the legend or the story or the feeling or anything like that.
And I can honestly tell you, as I sit here right now on Christmas Eve, finishing this episode, that I didn't care at all until my son, when he was probably four years old, said, there's no such thing as Santa Claus.
And that hurt me in a way that I didn't, I never would have expected it to.
I was still pretty young. I mean, I was a young father. So I want to say I was probably 25 when he said that. Maybe 24. I don't know.
But it hurt. It hurt to know that I hadn't been able to kind of carry on that tradition from my parents.
They worked so hard to really make, my mom especially, to kind of instill that wonder of the holiday and that legendary feeling of Santa Claus and him coming down the chimney and all this stuff.
And I had lost that. I had lost the ability to transfer that into my children.
And it really bothered me.
It was one of those traditions that I never really thought about valuing ever once until it was gone and I couldn't do it anymore.
Now, what I'm going to say here is probably not what most people would expect somebody like me to say.
But I genuinely feel this. And this is as honest as I can be.
Santa Claus is at once not real, a complete fabrication, and one of the most real things I've ever, I could ever even begin to understand.
Now, let me explain that.
The Santa Claus that we all know, the Santa Claus that is sold to us in the Coca-Cola marketing campaigns, and the Santa Claus that we like to focus on and think of, or even the Santa Claus that some people want to point out, oh, well, it's pagan and this and that comes from this and all that.
None of that's real.
Right? Like it's all just a made up concept that people want to push on you and they want to sell this and they want to use this. And in general, even if you are somebody that really appreciates those things, some part of you has to agree with reality that this is not a real character.
This is not a real person.
But, and this is a big but, I don't believe that's the end of the story.
I don't believe that the idea of Santa Claus is fake.
And what I mean by that is, you know, parents throughout this world, spend so much time, so much money, and so much energy, trying to push this, you know, what some people would consider a lie onto children.
Why?
Why do we do that?
What is the point of it?
And I, like I said before, I never would have understood it until my four year old told me he didn't, you know, he knew the Santa Claus wasn't real.
And then I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What do you mean Santa Claus isn't real?
See, we put so much time and energy into it because the idea of Santa Claus, the idea of this, this mythical figure that
goes from house to house spreading joy and goodwill and happiness and, you know, gifts, gifts that bring those things to you, you know, they make you feel special.
You know, he has everybody's name.
He knows if you've been good or bad, you know, all of these things make you feel special.
They make you feel important.
Santa came to your house.
You know, this, this, this character from myth and legend cared enough about you to bring you that toy or to bring you that those toys, whatever it may be.
And there's something about that when you're a kid.
There's something about that when you're an adult.
We all want to feel special and we all want to feel remembered and we all want to feel like we matter.
And on this day, this around this holiday is one of those times where we can do that for each other.
And so is the Santa Claus that we push on children and that we have in all of our marketing and things like that, is that Santa Claus that's real?
No, no, he's not.
But the Santa Claus and the spirit of this holiday and the spirit of this Christmas holiday is is very much real and very much alive and very, very important.
And so when my kids for years, even now, even now, and they're all 20 plus now, even now, when they say, you know, Santa Claus is real, all this stuff, I'm like, well, why'd you buy this stuff then?
Why do we have, why are we giving these gifts to each other?
Just because that guy isn't coming down the chimney doesn't mean he's not real.
Santa Claus is me.
Santa Claus is you.
Santa Claus is all of us.
Santa Claus is the spirit of this of this holiday season of gift giving, of of showing the people around you how special they truly are.
That's what Santa Claus is to me.
And so when people tell me they don't believe in Santa Claus, well, I imagine they're just talking about the marketing campaign.
But I hope every time I hear that, I hope that it's not that they just don't believe in the spirit of this holiday, because let me say this.
And I can't there's no way you can't see my face.
You don't you don't understand how important this is for me.
You don't know you don't you can't necessarily read my emotion through the audio.
But the spirit of this holiday is exactly what I'm trying to capture.
It's the exactly what I'm trying to bring into this world.
It's what the the pebble in a pond is all about.
The idea that we can make these special these one little special changes these these little these little moments.
Think about that.
Think about how one gift, one moment, one hug, one look on this holiday on this day can change the course of somebody's life.
Think about how important it is that you are able to reach out and hold the people close to you one more time on this holiday before before they're gone, before you don't see them again.
Think about all the time that you spend, you know, in watching movies and trying to get yourself in the mood for the holiday and trying to bring yourself up and, you know, trying to fight the depression and trying to all the things that we do to try to make this special.
All of that is Santa Claus.
And I know that that's kind of, you know, kind of out there for some people.
And I know that some people might disagree with that because they want to be literal about it.
But I'm telling you, we are all part of the legend of St. Nick.
All of us.
We are all here to be that person.
We are all here to spread that joy.
And we are all here to push this world into that moment.
The little bit of happiness that we can we can bring to others.
It's it's everything.
My favorite my favorite Christmas movie and the I guess Christmas moment in a Christmas movie for me is the end of the movie Scrooge with Bill Murray.
And every year I watch it.
I usually watch it alone, but sometimes I'll watch it with others.
But there's the end of the end of the movie where he says it's not too late on Christmas Eve to have fun.
You can call people that you haven't seen.
You can call a college roommate.
You can call an old army buddy.
We can reach out to people.
And then he goes in and he's you know, Frank Cross, the main character, he starts talking about, you know, you can do this and you can do that.
And you can start singing Christmas carols.
And he says, how did that happen?
He says it happened because it was Christmas Eve.
It's Christmas Eve.
It's the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer.
We smile a little easier.
We cheer a little more for a couple hours out of the whole year.
We are the people we always hoped we would be.
It's a miracle.
It's really sort of a miracle because it happens every Christmas Eve.
And if you waste that miracle, you're going to burn for it.
I know what I'm talking about.
You have to do something.
You have to take a chance.
You have to get involved.
There are people that are having trouble making their miracle happen.
There are people out there that don't have enough to eat.
There are people that are cold.
You can go out and you can say hello.
You can, to these people, you can take an old blanket out of the closet.
You can say here.
You can make them a sandwich and say, by the way, here.
I get it now.
And if you give, then it can happen to you.
The miracle can happen to you.
It's not just the poor and the hungry.
It's everybody who's got to have this miracle.
And it can happen tonight for all of you.
If you believe in this spirit thing, the miracle will happen.
And then you'll want it.
You'll want it to happen again tomorrow.
And you won't be one of these bastards who says Christmas is once a year and it's a fraud.
It's not.
It can happen every day.
You've just got to want that feeling.
If you like it and you want it, you'll get greedy for it.
You want it every day of your life.
And it can happen to you.
I believe in it now.
I believe it's going to happen to me now and I'm ready for it.
And it's great.
That's a good feeling.
It's really better than I felt in a long time.
I'm ready.
Have a Merry Christmas, everybody.
I'm not going to lie.
I didn't really intend to do a whole scene there.
But it really is a special scene for me, especially this year.
I'm 48 years old.
And this is the first year that I've felt that to my core.
So I'm going to leave you all folks with that moment of pure thespianism.
I did not mean to do that, but it's on tape now.
So I hope everybody has a good holiday.
I hope you all have a Merry Christmas.
Next episode, we're going to talk about, shockingly enough, the fact that it's going to be New Year's.
And what that means.
As much as I may have a dislike for certain holidays, Christmas being one of them usually,
there isn't a holiday that I hate more than New Year's.
So don't expect a lot of really happy thoughts about New Year's.
But we will talk about the idea, and not just about New Year's, but about the idea of, you know, the fresh start, the renewal, the starting again.
And we're going to go through and we're going to talk about, you know, what that means for a lot of people.
So that'll be our episode nine.
Shockingly enough, I've done this nine times now.
Well, I will be doing it nine times.
And I really do appreciate all of you coming along for the ride.
Make sure that if you haven't followed me on TikTok, that you get a chance to get over there,
because I've been putting out two to three videos every day, trying as hard as I can to stay up on it and get as much positivity and love and light as I can into this world.
I'm going to keep working on this.
I'm going to keep trying to build this up.
And I hope that everybody that's listening understands that, you know, this isn't a flash in the pan for me.
This is what I want in my life now.
And I want people to really start to feel the change in themselves.
And you might as well do that this holiday.
You might as well do it now.
So thank you again.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
And I'll talk to you soon.
Bye.