Peel back the layers of Christmas with us, Adam Richardson and Joe Haslam, as we journey through time and tradition to understand the holiday's true meaning and relevance today. This isn't just your typical tinsel-covered banter; we're here to unpack the complexities of a celebration that's evolved from Christian sacrament to consumer spectacle, and everything in between. We'll share our candid experiences and tackle the evolution of Santa Claus, all while providing a hearty dose of laughter and the occasional groan-worthy holiday pun.
Wrestling with the commercial frenzy of the season, we ponder if it's outshone the essence of Christmas. Join us as we explore the "12 Days of Christmas" - not just a melody to hum while hustling through crowded malls, but a narrative rich with historical significance and symbolism. With each gift revealing a facet of Christian faith, we'll navigate the historical journey from the Council of Tours to the partridge in a pear tree, reconnecting with the holiday's message of human connection and compassion that resonates across faiths and cultures.
And who could forget the man in red? We trace the historical voyage of the venerable St. Nicholas, from the saintly Bishop of Myra to the cherished Santa Claus adorning modern mantelpieces. We'll dissect the influences of Sinterklaas and the Christkind on our contemporary jolly figure and how storytelling, from C.S. Lewis to J.R.R. Tolkien, has kept the narratives of Christmas alive and meaningful. As we wrap up (pun intended), remember to keep your wits as sharp as your candy canes and join us on this festive romp through the wonder, whimsy, and wisdom of Christmas. #Christmas #SantaClaus
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/holidays/the-12-days-of-christmas-lyrics-meaning.html
Peel back the layers of Christmas with us, Adam Richardson and Joe Haslam, as we journey through time and tradition to understand the holiday's true meaning and relevance today. This isn't just your typical tinsel-covered banter; we're here to unpack the complexities of a celebration that's evolved from Christian sacrament to consumer spectacle, and everything in between. We'll share our candid experiences and tackle the evolution of Santa Claus, all while providing a hearty dose of laughter and the occasional groan-worthy holiday pun.
Wrestling with the commercial frenzy of the season, we ponder if it's outshone the essence of Christmas. Join us as we explore the "12 Days of Christmas" - not just a melody to hum while hustling through crowded malls, but a narrative rich with historical significance and symbolism. With each gift revealing a facet of Christian faith, we'll navigate the historical journey from the Council of Tours to the partridge in a pear tree, reconnecting with the holiday's message of human connection and compassion that resonates across faiths and cultures.
And who could forget the man in red? We trace the historical voyage of the venerable St. Nicholas, from the saintly Bishop of Myra to the cherished Santa Claus adorning modern mantelpieces. We'll dissect the influences of Sinterklaas and the Christkind on our contemporary jolly figure and how storytelling, from C.S. Lewis to J.R.R. Tolkien, has kept the narratives of Christmas alive and meaningful. As we wrap up (pun intended), remember to keep your wits as sharp as your candy canes and join us on this festive romp through the wonder, whimsy, and wisdom of Christmas. #Christmas #SantaClaus
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/holidays/the-12-days-of-christmas-lyrics-meaning.html
Today on the Idiot's Guide we are talking about. Do you even Christmas, bro? St Nicholas, chris Kringle, father Christmas, center class and Santa Claus what have we done to Christmas? And food fights are loads of fun Really they really are. That is until someone is assaulted by a burrito bowl to the face. I'm your host, adam Richardson, aka the Profit Hacker, and I'm joined by the man in charge, Mr Joe Haslam. Welcome to the Idiot's Guide. All right, so one of the things that I you know. You and I had a conversation the other day and it's kind of grown over the last little bit. We both have stacks of paper in front of us. Honestly, my stack is bigger than your stack, joe, but you also brought your phone, so I don't know how many 80 pages you have in there.
Speaker 2:I was afraid of printing out too many papers, and so I printed out the big ones on the paper, and then I've got my electrical next up. Save the trees.
Speaker 1:Well, I went old-fashioned. I felt like my computer was a little too large to be in camera views, so I need like a little. I need my tablet, but my tablet's too old and it's slow, so I'll be like, okay, hold on, I'm waiting for the point to come up. Hold on a second. I just swiped, that's all I did. So I've been no wait, wait, wait processing. So anyway, the point of this is that you know, for Christmas this year I'm looking for a new tablet that's faster and better, you know. So hopefully Cinter Kloss will come and bring me great gifts of joy and happiness. That's at least the only joy and happiness that I will be looking for.
Speaker 2:Oh, there you go. Does that mean, you have in-laws coming?
Speaker 1:Sorry, to be honest, I'm going to them, so You're making a film. So Christmas, christmas is a wonderful time of year, at least the movies say so. I'm kind of usually a pretty big scrooge when it comes to Christmas and I use scrooge for the reason that you know there's, you know, spoiler alert but scrooge ends up being happy and joyful at the end of the show, of any version that you watch. But throughout the holiday season I just feel like we've missed it and we missed it because of so many things that Christmas is meant for. That don't I mean, unless you really look, you really don't see it anymore. It's not there and I have, like I want to be a Karen about that Nice, you know, like it just bothers me. It's something that you know.
Speaker 1:Over the years I've been involved with churches. We do Christmas performances and concerts and just coming out my ears with this stuff and you know and it's all like you know you have the most recent, I'm a guitarist. So you're like, do you play like the Mannheim steamroller stuff? I was like that's a synthesizer, first and foremost. There's no electric guitar. But then they have what's the other one, the?
Speaker 2:Trans-Hyberian, oh, trans-hyberian or Christaura.
Speaker 1:So that one's like shredding guitars, you know, and then I'm like no, I'm not a lead guitarist, so I'm more like, you know, like a blues guitarist sort of thing. So if you see, like a blues Christmas, I'll have a blue Christmas without you. So I've been the performing artist, I get you know, but I've never gotten caught up in the Christmas season as it is here. It seems like it's something that I just don't. I don't, I can't really get along with, because it's not, you know, christmas. I grew up, you know, doing Christmas because of a reason, because of a person, and I feel like we've gotten farther and farther and continue to get farther and farther away to where you go, like man, christmas is about what? And if I walk down the street, am I going to even get that answer? Yeah, by asking 50 people, you know, I hope I do. Yeah, I don't know. What do you think, joe?
Speaker 2:You know for me now I think I've mentioned this in the past that I am both Christian and Buddhist, which is an odd mix, but it works for me. So from that perspective it's a little.
Speaker 1:Maybe one day we'll break that down. There you go. It makes a little bit more sense because you and I have talked about it and I understand yeah.
Speaker 2:So we definitely do celebrate Christmas in our household, but on the Buddhist side, I mean, there's really nothing about Christmas or and really the idea of major celebrations and things like that. It's all about balance, and so you don't have these. There are still festivals, there are still things that you seek out, but it's just not that big thing like Christmas is for in the Christian community. But even within that and there are a lot of non-Christians who celebrate Christmas they just take the Christian side out of it. So they're definitely looking at Santa Claus and all those kinds of traditions. So they've lessened the Christianity in it, which I mean, there's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with that. You know they're celebrating, and as we get into all this, we'll be talking about where Christmas came from, where the traditions were, and so you know. But one thing that I do try to do, so we have. I have one tradition that I make sure that we follow in our household and that is watching a Christmas Carol, and the one that we watch is Like the animated version.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:You know, with Santa comes on a train. Just kidding, huh? No.
Speaker 2:No, we watch what is, in my opinion, the scariest one. It's the George C Scott version and it is. They do a really, really good job in that version. Now, we watch this on Christmas Eve and my wife insists that we have to watch the Muppet version on the night before Christmas Eve, but on Christmas Eve we watch this because it really depicts.
Speaker 1:It's like a Charlie Brown Christmas Come on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we watch. We have, I think, just about every Christmas movie made, and so we watch all of them throughout the month of December.
Speaker 1:Die Hard is a Christmas movie, just so you know.
Speaker 2:There's debate on that, but my wife also says that while you were sleeping is a Christmas movie, and so she makes sure that she adds that one to the Christmas movie panel. They've already watched that one for this season, but we watch that one because it is such a great depiction of really looking out for what is humanity's role.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And Jacob Marley in this version. Other versions kind of overshadow this with some fun lightheartedness, but in this version it really hits home that humanity is our business, and that is so important to remember before as we're going into a new year, as we're doing anything. That is what any religion that you look at, whether you're talking about Buddhism, whether you're talking about Christianity, whether you're talking about Islam or Judaism, any religion out there, even Satanism these ideas that humanity is our business is fundamental. We are supposed to care for each other, and that only by caring for each other are we able to succeed and move forward. And so that is the idea of Christmas to me Is this is a time of remembrance for what we need to do for the next year. Now it's hard every day because life sucks, but this is an opportunity to remember those things, and so that, to me, is what Christmas means, and I think that transcends Any kind of religious boundaries.
Speaker 1:on the holiday, yeah, I Think you know Just just kind of the, the story or the folklore of Christmas. You know there's a lot of the stuff that I in doing my research so it's like it goes way back. I mean it's it's really far back there, but some of the things that, like we can recognize to this day we still use it. I went to my son's performance last night and you know they have a Christmas concert and that kind of stuff and the, the music teacher, put together the 12 days of Percussion so they have a whole percussion band, like different things. My favorite job in the percussion band was this little twirly, clicky thing that just went every single time it did something and I was just like that's, that's all, yet he just he would just shake it once and then stop and it was like every eight measures it was like just, and I'm counting, I'm counting, I'm counting, grrr, and then you'd count again and you just like you, like you probably do that four times and that's your job, like I want that job. But 12 days of Christmas okay, one of the Recognizable things there's. It's covered from lots of different bands and lots of different versions and and even like there's 12 days of all sorts of inappropriate things that you could imagine.
Speaker 1:This song has just been completely mutilated into all sorts of things, but when it came from, how it started? The song didn't originate here, but the 12 days of Christmas originated by something called the Council of Tours. It's a 567 CE, basically the 12 days from Christmas Day to Epiphany, and Maybe we'll elaborate a little bit more about those days specifically. But but as we know it, to this day, christmas Day is December 25th. Our Culture here practices it as December 25th. So from there to the 5th of January, or technically the 6th of January is what they call epiphany. That was determined of 567 and what it was meant to do was, over that period of time, each day a, a process of rededication was happening. So there was a French songwriter in the 1700, 1780 abouts, that wrote the original 12 days of Christmas, and I'm gonna go through them real fast, if that's okay, because it kind of talks a little bit about this, but it's, it's a lot of. This is saying, like man, you aren't gonna hear anything about Santa Claus in this at all, okay, but yet. But yet we incorporate this and be like, wow, how do you fit that in a pine tree when you you know a Christmas tree and Whatever it is like. Okay, so I'll give a brief description of each one and I'm gonna try to go through this as fast as I possibly can.
Speaker 1:All right, well, so number one on the first day of Christmas, my tree love gave to me a Partridge in a pear tree. Okay, a partridge in a pear tree represents none other than Jesus, son of God, whose birthday we celebrate on the first day of Christmas. Christ is symbolically represented as a mother partridge. Not necessarily that Jesus is a female, but a Partridge is the only bird that will die to protect its young. It will do anything it can. On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. These twin birds represent the old and new testaments. So In this gift, the singer finds the complete story of the Christian faith and God's plan for the world. The doves are the biblical roadmap that is available to everyone. All right, on the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me I'm singing this to you, joe.
Speaker 2:Thank you Originally. Actually, this is gonna get really awkward at some point.
Speaker 1:Day three was three French hens and these represent faith, hope and love. Basically, first, corinthians 13, it's the love chapter in the Bible, and also it represents Holy Trinity the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Number four is for calling birds, one of the easiest facets of the song's code To figure out. These fowl are the four gospels, so Matthew, mark, luke and John, the four calling birds. Calling birds like they sing a song about the great news of Of Jesus, the gospels. Number five, five golden rings. The gift of the rings represents the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, and that is Genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers and Deuteronomy traditionally called the law?
Speaker 2:Is it the Pentateuch?
Speaker 1:or Pentateuch, I think it's.
Speaker 2:Pentateuch, pentateuch, at least that's how we pronounce it in the US, so are the way that I've always heard it Pentateuch. So, and when I say commonly, called the law. So if you read the New Testament, when Jesus has asked which of all the commandments is the most important, and he states Love one another, and he says upon this hangs the law and the prophets. And so the law is the first five books and the prophets are all of the books of the new or of the Old Testament after that.
Speaker 1:Number six is Six Geese-a-Lay-in. Now. These lyrics can be traced back to the first story found in the Bible. Each egg is a day in creation when God hatched or formed the world.
Speaker 2:Now are these the reasons why this writer put all these words together. Was this his In?
Speaker 1:his 1780? Yeah, yeah. So this is the depiction of what this represents. And the reason why they did this is, you know, like if I kind of take a side note here is this was something that the Catholic Church really enforced on the believing body and made sure that you have to do this, you must do this, you know, and really made it quite arduous to be obedient. And so this idea of remembrance is like it's not technically, it's a remembrance, it's not a gift, like what am I getting? So this idea, my true love, my true love, gave to me a partridge in a pear tree. Is my true love, is Jesus, my relationship with Jesus. Then you have this, you know, gave to me a partridge in a, gave to me him, gave to me five golden rings, six geese-a-laying, so it's.
Speaker 1:Each one of these incrementally reminds me and this isn't to do, it doesn't necessarily have to do with actually what Christmas to epiphany, is that those 12 days? I actually didn't, I didn't, I just realized I didn't write those 12 days down. I don't know if you did, but they are actually commemorative days. Each day is a particular thing that is thought about. This is similar, but it's not what it is for the 12 days. And so, anyway, the seven swans of swimming are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:So prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading and compassion. Eight maids of milking as Christ came to. This one was weird to me, but it made sense as Christ came to save even the lowest of the low. This gift represents the one who receives his word and, like the ones who receive his word and accept his grace, being a milkmaid during this time was the worst job you could have in England during the period. This could you know. This code conveyed that Jesus cared as much about the servants as he did those of royal blood, the eight maids of milking. So what it's talking about is representing the Beatitudes in the Bible in Matthew, chapter five, three through 10. And then nine ladies dancing. These nine dancers were really the gifts known as the fruit of the spirit, fruits of the spirit, including love, joy, peace, patient, kindness. Yeah, I can't remember the rest of those. I was interrupted when I was writing them down. I was doing my studies and Joe was like hey, we, yeah, stop, you have way too much material.
Speaker 2:So we've got a lot here.
Speaker 1:We are like this is in true tradition.
Speaker 2:I think our listeners can guess who came up with this idea, as is, you know, tradition for my ideas. They end up taking too long.
Speaker 1:It's true. All right, 10, 10, lords of Leaping, this one's probably the most. If you were to try to think, all of these are biblically founded, you know, biblically referencing. So what do we have that 10 represents and 10 represents the 10 commandments. Okay, the Lords of Leaping, you know, 11 is 11. Piper's piping Now, this one was kind of interesting to me because, you know, obviously in 1780, that's, you know, 1780 years later, you know, but you talk about the 12.
Speaker 1:Apostles, and out of the 12, one of the disciples, or disciples, one of the disciples betrayed and left, gone Right. He was later replaced by Matthias. I think my, yeah, I think it's Matthias, but but this was and I don't necessarily this is always a big, I'm going to be careful how I say this Judas betrayed Jesus. There's another part of this that it says what he did, and that's the always debated situation about how he dispatched. Only 11 men carried out the gospel message. So therefore, the 11 pipers piping, you're out there sharing the message. Okay, number 12 is the 12 drummers drumming. The final gift is tied directly to the Catholic Church. The drummers are the 12 points of the doctrine in the Apostles Creed.
Speaker 1:I grew up reciting the Apostles Creed. It is one of the oldest creeds in history as far as this, and it's a declarative statement to speak about your belief. If you were to ask, what do you believe in, you recite the Apostles Creed because it talks about I believe in God, the Father, maker of heaven and earth, and you know, and so on and so forth, how he died and rose again on the third day, and just it's. It's. It's really really cool. If you guys have never read the Apostles Creed, it's a really cool thing. I did it more like it became just kind of a rote resuscitation, but it was a resuscitation Resuscitation. I'm not like, yeah, that's resuscitation.
Speaker 2:Stay alive? Yeah, I've never. I had never even heard of the Apostles Creed until just now.
Speaker 1:Really, oh man, yeah, and the the oldest known Creed, a declarative statement about your belief.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:Presumed to be written from the Apostles themselves collected. It wasn't written until, like, I want to say like 120 or 130 AD or C, but it was. It was around that time that they collectively found this parchment of statement that said this is what we believe. And so they're like okay, yeah, so that's, that's the 12 days of Christmas. That really honestly, I don't think anybody recognizes what they're doing when you're just humming along to the Reliant K version where they they do this really super fast and poppy and punky and yay, you know, you're just like that was entertaining, cool, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then you realize the depth and meaning of every single one of these has passage and lineage all the way back to creation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some other history when it comes to the 12 days of Christmas, not the music, but the actual part of it, so, or the celebration, I guess. So it started in the early Middle Ages, when epiphany was much more important than Christmas Day. Mm, hmm, and so it was. It started out as the 40 days before Christmas became the 40 days of Saint Martin, and he was Saint Martin of tours, which is where you got the Council of Tours later on. And then it, and then that became known as Advent. Yes, and so our Advent calendars and all those things. And then in Italy, saturn alien or Saturn alia traditions started to be applied to Advent. So Saturn alia was the winter festival, so celebrating the closing of an old year, the beginning of a new year, the change in the sun Fewer hours, to start going into more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the solstice, and then in the 12th centuries, those traditions were transferred to the 12 days of Christmas, and so it was in 5, I think, 567,. Yeah, the Council of Tours created the 12 days of Christmas and then, slowly, over time, it's about 700 years when that turned into these traditional ideas, and then, 500 years after that, or 600 years after that, it turned into this music that we're hearing now.
Speaker 2:And so it really is an evolutionary process of something that was a tradition and slowly is added upon to. I guess, heighten the tradition, give meaning to it so that it reaches more people Because, remember, I think a lot of people forget that during these times people didn't read. The priests were the only ones who actually could read, or the upper class, and so the common people didn't read, and so, without reading the Bible, without understanding all this, they were just relying on the priests to give them the information, and if they wanted to have new traditions, the easiest thing to do is establish these traditional celebrations, add some meaning to it. So, as you're going through it, it's verbalizing what these ideas are because, again, they didn't read. Literacy wasn't a thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's also why the church, the early Catholic church, was all in Latin, was also because they couldn't read, and they couldn't, they could only understand the Latin, so they had to take the priests' words for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we're not going to get into the implications of priests and sharing the information, but this was why, trust me, they were sharing this information so that there was a meaning to it, because we do this with kids all the time. That's how we teach them is we give them principles or ideas, not necessarily the definitions, and then once they get older, then they start to learn more, understand more, all that, and so it's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 1:So each day actually represents in the Catholic tradition. They represent different feast days basically, and I have the list of them. I'll go through them really super fast. But it's day one, christmas day. Obviously we know why Christmas day is there. Day two, st Stephen's Day, and so that one's talking about like service to the poor. Day three is St John the Apostle Day, writer of the fourth gospel, st or sorry. Day four is Feast of the Holy it's or sorry, feast of the Holy Innocence. Those are memorializing, like infants that King Herod ordered to be killed as he searched in fear of the Christ child. So talking about when Jesus, before Jesus, was born and Herod put out that you will go and find children and kill them. Day five is St Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury and was killed in the 12th century challenging King Henry. The day six is St Egwin of Worcester. Is it Worcester, worcester, worcester?
Speaker 2:Worcester, worcester, worcester.
Speaker 1:Worcester, worcester, worcester, worcester, worcester, worcester, worcester. Benedictine Monk, known as the judicious protector of orphans and widowed, and the widowed Day, seven, new Year's Eve, honoring Sylvester, the first, earliest pope, basically.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, so not Stallone.
Speaker 1:Serving fourth century.
Speaker 2:So not Stallone.
Speaker 1:No, no, I was from St Louis, probably related, got it. Day eight, new Year's Day, the day of feasting dedicated to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Day nine, st Gregory and St Basile, two pivotal fourth century church leaders. Day ten, feast of the holy name of Jesus. I'll let you guess what that one's for. Day 11, originally celebrating Saint Simon's stylists, basically, who lived atop a small pillar for 37 years, wow, okay. Now dedicated to Saint Elizabeth and Seton, the first American Saint who lived in the late 1800s and early 19th century, or 18th and 19th century. Day 12 is the eve of the epiphany, also known as the 12th night, and so that's where you get. By January 5th, you have day 12, the next day is epiphany.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and for everyone listening. So sometimes this is brand new information to us. As is the case on the idiot's guide, we do not know all we do the research, we look into this stuff because this is important stuff to know. I mean, when we talk about how do we celebrate Christmas, how do we celebrate the holiday season. It's important to know where all this information comes from, because a lot of times we just do blind tradition.
Speaker 1:And, honestly, how cool do you sound if you're just talking over the nog with some? You know some, some really crazy facts about what you're doing that day.
Speaker 2:You know so yeah, so we're trying to find this information.
Speaker 1:That's why I get talking over the nog as a thing. There you go talking over the nog.
Speaker 2:We like learning this stuff because learning is great and passing that information along is I mean, that's how everyone learns is passing on new information. So that's why we may not be able to pronounce these words as easily as we could be if we were more versed in these traditions. But we're just sharing the information. We want everyone to know where a lot of the history comes from, because I think it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm going to throw a curveball at this, because we've talked a little bit about tradition right here, and I love it. That's the lane I live in. That's that's how I like this. I mean, like some people are, like you're a fundamentalist. I was like no, I just don't like what we've done to Christmas.
Speaker 2:But Santa really shifting gears. What, okay, I'm advent to Santa, or from epiphany to Santa.
Speaker 1:Oh no, there's correlation, so okay, here we go. So the idea of Santa is is kind of interesting, but it's not Santa. His name is St Nicholas. Like of all tradition, you can route it back to one name, st Nicholas, and he lived somewhere around Turkey in the year 280.
Speaker 2:No. So, 280 or 280 280.
Speaker 1:Okay, C or 80, whatever you want to call it. You know, I don't know. The days like now, like those ADC change or the change of AD to CE, yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 2:Well, the reason they changed from AD to CE is because AD, on your domino, is the advent of our Lord. So when he came to earth, right, I don't know the direct translation, that's the rough translation. And then BC is before Christ. So everything is based upon a Christ centered calendar. Yeah and so, but that doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. And even modern science says that there's some variation on when we look back at the calendars and you know, running the numbers and everything, because of changes in the way we count time and a lot of different things. That Jesus's birth wasn't until roughly six or seven AD, based on the number of years since that, and so that year would correlate to what historically or biblically we would see as zero AD, but it's in modern reckoning of time and calendar. It's a little bit off, which kind of makes sense after 2000 years. So does that?
Speaker 1:mean I'm six years younger than I actually am.
Speaker 2:No darn it, Because it's about the passage of time as well, and so, in order to make it easier and more generic to everyone, it is the current era and BCE before the current era. Okay, so that's the only difference between AD and BC to CE and BCE.
Speaker 1:So technically we went from Latin to English. Essentially, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it really doesn't change anything their equivalent times, but that way it's more generic, I guess, for everyone.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So they mean the same thing. So we'll go back and forth on both of those, because we grew up in the age yes, you know, we that's, that's what we were raised on.
Speaker 1:I mean it was probably only in the last, probably like five years that I've really seen the shift like dramatically to it's been about 1520 years that they've shifted over to CE.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, maybe I was also out of school. Unless I pursued historical education, which I did, but but yeah, I mean general acceptance may have been more recently, but okay, so back to the very, very important question that I was talking.
Speaker 1:Talking about the topic is St Nicholas. He was born in 8280 or CE in Patara in Asia Minor, which later is became. He later became Bishop of Myra in modern day Turkey. So he was basically he was born in the third century to wealthy Christian parents in Petara, a harbor city in modern day Turkey, it is probable, so the guess is, that Nicholas's parents they could trace their spiritual heritage, so basically becoming believers all the way to apostle Paul, because it was, you know. So Paul, on one of his third missionary journey, journeyed through Petara 200 years earlier, so that would have been directly correlated to the conversion of Christianity in Turkey at the time. So what that has to do with anything, nothing other than the fact that St Nicholas had Christian parents, grew up Christian, was in a wealthy community, but not long after that his parents died. They got sick, struck by a plague, and he. So his parents both died and though he, you know his parents were wealthy and that kind of stuff, like he still survived and was well taken care of. Essentially, he grew up without having his parents, and so and he was still a young boy at that point, maybe like a young teenager. What that basically did is kind of this, and I think this is a little bit more dramatization to it is just kind of giving him that tender heart for the suffering.
Speaker 1:But St Nicholas and Christmas what does it have to do with anything, christmas? So the story about St Nicholas is massive. It goes way, way down the line. But to keep the story very, very short, roughly his death was on December 6th and his heart of generosity, his caring for the community, his caring for everything about that, was commemorated by gift giving because he was that generous heart as a leader in his community. And so that's where he became this St status, essentially caring over the community as a Christian leader and gift giving and providing for the poor. So from there, december 6th was this day of gift giving, and it was during the Advent season. It was now, granted, you don't have the tourist stuff, so you don't have epiphany yet. You still have what, and we'll get to Christmas actually, but you still have this process that existed during that timeframe. That still was there.
Speaker 1:But St Nicholas died before Constantine was even emperor and became legalized Christianity when he converted, and so that's another story in and of itself, but if you can think of the tumultuous time that he was in being a Christian leader, influencing what was going on, carrying on that line from even Apostle Paul, in the thought of how this came about and him walking that path, of what Christian leadership you would look for, these people respected this individual as a very, very great impact and positive influence in a lot of people's lives. So that was originally St Nicholas. Over the years you get to Dutch, you get to German, you get to, I mean, all over the world there's different things and that's why, at the very beginning, I mentioned Chris Kringle is one of those words which Chris Kringle is actually a correlation word about Christ child and so they use that. It isn't Chris Kringle, that's not the word. I can't remember the word, but it's a German name for Christ child.
Speaker 2:Actually, yeah, I don't have I would imagine it's something like Christ Kinder Probably so. Kinder is generally child, which is where we get kindergarten from.
Speaker 1:So and then you have, like Father Christmas and things like that, that the English took that and instead of making it like Christ child, you see this kind of removing the Christ out of it and moving it towards Santa as the culture goes, so much so that you start seeing this division between what Christmas is in what Santa represented. And so the Santa of today technically is not St Nicholas, but there's a linear path to it. So it's strange to see that, like you have the church rejecting itself in its lineage because Santa is a byproduct of its distortion, and it's like, oh, just terrible.
Speaker 2:Now just remember, these kinds of distortions, these kinds of changes happen. Yes, that's, I mean you look at our own language here in the United States. I just mentioned the word kindergarten. I mean, we all know what kindergarten is. It's the pre or it's the first level of elementary school for many people. Not all states require kindergarten, but it's the first level of school. But it's a German word. A lot of our words come from other nations that have just been changed or altered or whatever over time.
Speaker 2:I think we've talked about on previous ones I know you and I have talked about this meditation. The idea of meditation is an ancient Indian concept and yet over thousands of years it has been corrupted and changed and altered to be what we see as mainstream meditation or mindfulness today, and it has really nothing to do with the ancient practice of meditation, but everyone thinks it does. So these kinds of things are not unique just to Santa Claus or center Claus, center Claus. It's just it happens over time. It's just things change and the problem is is that we assume that what is today has always been and that it hasn't ever changed.
Speaker 2:And Santa Claus was St Nicholas and they mean the same thing Really they don't, and recognition of that helps us to understand the traditions of today and how best to celebrate these traditions in our day.
Speaker 1:I would say that going from the American Santa or coming from St Nicholas to landing with the American version of Santa, I would blame the Dutch. The Dutch, basically, they have. Their bishops would wear vests that are red with white fluff on them, and so you have this like okay, all right, I get that. Bearded, white bearded, that kind of stuff. They're. Bearded cleric, tall, like that, was typically what St Nicholas depicted as in Dutch tradition middle age was this tall, thin, bearded cleric and then, yeah, their bishops would wear those kinds of vests, the Dutch center Claus. But the chubby and plump looking Santa that we know of today wasn't really adopted until the 19th century, in 1800s, when the poem was Twas the Night Before Christmas was written and then became this depiction of Santa as this chubby, fat man who somehow miraculously fit down chimneys and delivered presents to everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when it came to American settlers, the Puritans were still very, very, very much against Christmas, Very much against Christmas. It wasn't even really recognized in areas like Boston until the mid 19th century. And so these other areas Pennsylvania was one of the big ones, which is the Pennsylvania Dutch where they really enthusiastically celebrated Christmas and it was very much a bright and joyous season, perhaps sometimes a little too joyous, but that's where the idea of Santa Claus came from. The American version of Santa Claus is it was really that culture war between the Pennsylvania Dutch and other groups like that celebrating Christmas against the Puritans who were very much against Christmas.
Speaker 1:You also have like this idea that Santa, what he represented over the years in regards to Christmas, was. You know, I don't know if there's a correlation between the Dutch and the night before Christmas poem, but the goal behind the poem was to really kind of smooth out this. Hey guys, you don't need to be afraid of this guy, because Santa was literally like over the years. Was this authority to help remember all of these things about what we do, what Christmas is for? Remember, he's a Christian leader in the community. Yes, he was a giving heart, but the celebration was his death day, on December 6th. It wasn't Christmas day, that was in commemoration of St Nicholas. So getting it to jump all the way to the 25th and it become something where we are just covered in gifts and it's Santa who's delivering those, that, honestly, is so new of a concept. It wasn't until the 1800s where that happened. Before then it was a time of remembrance. It wasn't this pile of presents under a Christmas tree and Puritans wouldn't allow any of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know yeah, the traditions of Christmas have really really changed a lot over the centuries and you know different depending on where the where the culture was at the time. You know what outreach there was and I mean there were so many different changes to the idea of Christmas over time. It just it's. It's really really astounding to look back and see how it's changed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you can go to like Martin Luther and and his his fight against Christmas and basically a Santa Claus and his addressing of Santa Claus he used, because the reason why was because it was starting to blend together. This December 6th, date of gift giving, and December 25th of Christmas Day started to blend together so much that they're like, guys, we're losing sight of the Christ's child, what we actually are here for and so that, kinder, that you were talking about, that's where that comes from is that Martin Luther was German and his emphasis on making sure that we don't forget about what Christmas is for. And then don't, not not to dishonor Saint Nicholas, but to say, guys, they are not the same thing. Right, they are a holiday, just like we commemorate other saints, but we don't want to blend this so much that you don't remember that this holiday is for nothing to do with saying with Saint Nicholas. And then later, though, I think what what's really good is?
Speaker 1:There's a couple writers. There's JRR Tolkien, so you guys aren't familiar with that person. You should be shame on you if you're not Lord of the Rings writer and the Hobbit writer. The books, not the movies.
Speaker 2:We won't talk about the movies.
Speaker 1:And he's really good friends with another gentleman and fine writer named Mr CS Lewis. One of them had kids and one of the things that I think the the the twas the night before Christmas poem did for this is kids learn best when it comes to this kind of magic to it or fantasy. So it's not necessarily that you know you want them to just stay there, but you and I we're going to sit here and be like give me the points, give me the facts. I want it dry, I want to have to drink water because it's too dry. You know like, give it to me straight.
Speaker 1:But a kid? It's like oh, man comes in on a sleigh with bells ringing and it's pulled by reindeer and he's singing. Oh, big belly laugh, oh and joy is just like. A stream of joy is following behind him, he's giving gifts and these kids is just representing that. So in Tolkien he used to write letters to his kids talking about this, but but letting him know that he was there to spread the news of Jesus. Yeah, yes, louis did it. In one of his most famous books, book series, is the Chronicles of Narnia, and in that series there's a, there's a moment where they're saying Aslan is coming and Santa comes into the scene and he's, he's Father Christmas, huh.
Speaker 2:Father Christmas, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 1:Father Christmas and he's there to share the news of Aslan. Aslan is this representation of God or Jesus, and? And that the white witch is losing, you know? And so this, these, in one sense, it's what? Is it Allegorical or is it, you know? And then the other one, it's just kind of continuing to not lose sight of what Christmas is for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, a lot of times we like getting our facts, you know, just handed to us. But realistically, the best way even adults learn is through storytelling. And so when we look back at Christianity, jesus taught through parables. When we want to illustrate a point, we make analogies, we use similes and metaphors and we want to teach someone something. It is a lot easier if there is an exaggerated image that expresses the points. Now that's much more exaggerated with young people.
Speaker 2:So you look, if you watch any kids show, you know from age maybe one to five, these are hard to watch because they're so exaggerated. And then the exaggeration slowly goes away. But even teen shows, everything is just so exaggerated because it's trying to. That's how they're learning is through that exaggerated point and then it slowly becomes muted over time. But even as adults. You know, one of the most popular TV shows ever was Mythbusters. I've actually been going back and rewatching those, but it's kind of cool because you know, you see, there they're sharing these myths. You know how all these things come about, but they show you how it isn't true or if it is confirmed or anything like this. And so even us as adults, learn best when we are seeing exaggerated forms of the education, and so the same idea with Christmas is a lot of it is exaggeration, but that's how we learn.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, even as adults, when we're celebrating these things, yeah, that's, that's how we learn. Now, eventually, you know, we as adults start to move away from some of the more traditional ideas of Christmas, but we still I still, like I said, we watch the Christmas Carol to make sure that we remember those things. But again, these are exaggerated stories that help to teach us what it is we need to learn.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so another one, a thousand and one nights, or Arabian nights where Shahir Azad shares a thousand and one stories, or I think it's a thousand stories, and it helps the Sultan to learn and get that perspective. And so this is not just a Christian thing, it's not just a, you know, adult or child, it's everyone. Everyone learns through storytelling. I think that's an important part of it is we can't discount the storytelling part of Christmas, but we also can't solely focus on just the storytelling part of Christmas.
Speaker 1:Well, it like the point of the story being that it alludes to something rather than it being the literal meaning. You know, if you just take it at face value, then you lose the entirety of the story. You know, and, honestly, if you do that through life in general, you're missing a whole lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no yeah, no doubt. All right. So we are actually going to be splitting this up. I know, I know I said we're going to talk about Christmas and we kind of have, but we didn't, and the reason why is because there's so much to talk about about this. So we decided we're going to split this into, and I think that this is, unless you have more you want to talk about, I think we're going to split this because the next episode we are going to dive headfirst into Christmas, the day of the things that around it that's some amount to it why it exists in the first place, you know, and and maybe even talk about its origin story. I don't know, you know, who knows. But, ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned. As always, I want to let you guys know we have reached the end of this part of the of the show and life's too short, so keep laughing and keep learning and remember idiots have way more fun.
Speaker 2:Check your shoes yeah.