Kuli English Podcast

037 Christmas and Santa Claus

• Season 1 • Episode 37

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In this episode, we talk about Christmas and many details about Santa Claus!


Bookmark Chapters:

00:00 Start

01:21 Who is Santa?

08:47 Stockings and Chimneys

12:41 The Real Santa

18:00 KFC in Japan

20:51 Culture has no right/wrong

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Kuli English Podcast. It's me, your host, Chris. So this episode is going to be number 37, episode number 37. 

And it's also releasing right next to Christmas. So this episode is releasing on Tuesday, December 23rd, because this podcast always releases new episodes on Tuesday. And Christmas is just two days after that on December 25th. 

And Christmas is always on the same day every year, the 25th of December. It's really close to the end of the year. It's really close to New Year's. It's also really close to my birthday.

But I'm going to be telling you about Christmas in this episode and a bunch of Christmas culture things like Christmas food, presents, and a lot about Santa Claus, who's like the biggest character of Christmas. And so let's go and get started with that. 

But let's first take a short little music break.

All right. So I'm really excited to tell you about Santa Claus.

So like Christmas kind of has one main character, one main face of the whole thing, and that's Santa Claus. And Santa Claus is, you know, not a real person, but Santa Claus actually comes from a name that was a real person. And the original name was Saint Nicholas.

And of course, if you pronounce it a certain way from other languages, then it sounds a bit different. It'd be a Saint Nicholaas, so Santa Claus. 

Santa Claus is like the American version, or actually it probably came from just even before the US was a country. But the real Saint Nicholas, like he was a real person and he was like rich and he helped people by giving money and presents and stuff, especially children. Like he was really nice to children.

But I'm not going to talk about like the history of that because I want to talk about Santa Claus. Santa Claus, like the fake magical Santa Claus, he has like so many magical details about his life that like this whole section here is going to be really hard. So even though, you know, I'm talking about stuff that's like fake and it's not real. 

Actually, that's why it's harder. Because a lot of these things, you don't hear about them in everyday conversations. Like you don't hear about riding a sleigh. 

You don't hear about like reindeer carrying a sleigh through the sky. You don't really hear about like putting coal in stockings. These are like phrases and words that are really related to Christmas, but not really anything else.

So anyways, let me go ahead and say like all these things a little bit slower. So first of all, let me explain. Santa Claus, he has a job, okay? And his job, and I don't really know why he does it, but maybe he's just a nice guy, but he delivers presents to everyone in the world. Like that's his job. And he only delivers the presents on Christmas. 

So when I say Christmas, you know, technically it's like Christmas Eve, which is the 24th. Christmas Day is the 25th. But Christmas Eve, the night of the Eve, is when the presents come to you. 

And it gets a little bit complicated because, you know, like the time in the US and the time in Japan is actually different due to like time zones. But, you know, Santa Claus is magic. So, you know, don't worry about that. 

He just always delivers to everybody at the same time and it just works. And so Santa Claus, let me tell you about where he lives. So Santa Claus lives in the North Pole. 

So if you don't know what the North Pole is, well, that makes sense because nobody's heard of the North Pole except where does Santa Claus live? In the North Pole. So maybe you've heard like, hello, like I'm Chris, I'm from the US. Or if you've met like someone else, then maybe they'll say like, hello, I'm from another country. Hello, I'm from Japan. Hello, I'm from Europe. 

Santa Claus would be, hello, I'm from the North Pole. And the North Pole is the most northern part of the whole world. So, for example, like the US is in the west, Japan's in the east, Australia is a little bit in like the southern part of the world or South America. 

But the North Pole is like the most northern part of the world. And it's really, really cold there. So I don't know how Santa Claus is like, you know, fine because it's really cold.

It seems like it's not that nice. But Santa Claus is fine, okay? He's magic and he's always very happy. By the way, the South Pole is like the most southern part of the world.

So anyways, Santa Claus lives in the North Pole and he's got a job. And at the North Pole, to do his job, he has like a factory. He has a giant toy factory where he makes a lot of toys.

And these toys are the presents that he's going to deliver to everybody. Of course, you know, it doesn't really make that much sense if you think about it. But don't think about it too much because Santa Claus is magic. 

So Santa Claus has a toy factory and he's going to deliver all these toys like magically. And not only that, but while he's delivering the stuff, he's riding a magic sleigh. So a sleigh is, by the way, sleigh is not the same as like to slay an enemy. 

To slay an enemy means to like to kill an enemy. And that's like S-L-A-Y. Use that in like games, maybe board games or video games. 

But sleigh, which is the same pronunciation, it actually means like a small little, it's kind of like a sled. So a sled is like something that you ride down like a snow mountain and it just like slides on the ice and slides on the snow. And then Santa Claus rides magic sleigh and he doesn't slide on snow. 

He flies through the air because it's a flying sleigh. And the sleigh is pulled by magic flying reindeer. So the reindeer, I guess they're just like deer. 

But if someone knows more about this, I'm sorry. Maybe there's going to be a comment somewhere that's like, oh, there's actually a difference between reindeer and deer. But to me, they're kind of the same except a reindeer is like, it's like a Christmas deer. 

I'm sorry if this information is not accurate. But this also shows that even for me, having grown up in the US, I don't actually know the difference between like a deer and a reindeer. A reindeer is like a Christmas deer. 

It's like when you see a deer and it's Christmas. But anyways, the reindeer that Santa has, he's got eight reindeer. So not one, not two. 

He got eight of them and they're all magic. And then they all have names too. So a lot of people who grew up in the US, they might know the song. 

It's like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose. And then even that one, like before that starts, they name all the reindeer, you know, Dasher. And actually, maybe I forgot. 

I haven't really sung that in a long time. Well, if I think about it, I could probably remember. But anyways, he's got a bunch of magic reindeer. 

He's got like a toy factory. He's got a lot of elves working at the toy factory. If you don't know what elves are, elves are like little people kind of, but they're not, they're not really human. 

They have pointy ears. Elves are like humans, but they're not really humans. And they have pointy ears and they're short and they work at the toy factory and they make toys all the time. 

So that's Santa Claus. And let me tell you more about his job. So his job is to deliver presents to everyone in the world, right? So everyone who lives like at home and everyone who lives like on a boat or everyone who lives, I don't know, out on the street, everyone gets a present according to, you know, the magical story of Santa Claus. 

So he rides his sleigh, his magical little sled thing that's carried by reindeer, magical flying reindeer. And then he delivers presents like, bam, you get a present. Bam, you get a present. Bam, you get a present. 

He delivers it to everyone in the world and does that all in one night, which is the night of Christmas Eve.

So then in the morning on Christmas morning, the 25th Christmas morning, you open the presents and you're like, Oh wow, Santa Claus gave me this.

And there's a little bit more to this, but let's take a short little break here and then we'll continue that.

Okay. So let's continue talking about the legendary Santa Claus.

So Santa Claus, you know, like during his job, he delivers presents to everybody and he always goes down the chimney. So what is the chimney? The chimney is something that you don't really use in everyday conversation, but the chimney is like the part of a house that's above the fireplace. There is a place called the fireplace where you light a fire. 

And then when you light a fire, a bunch of smoke comes out. Right. So the chimney is like a special smoke only area. 

And then like smoke goes up and then it goes outside the house and then the fire continues to warm the inside of the house. But like this chimney is like this tube that houses have for like, you know, routing smoke so that you can send smoke outside. And the Santa comes down the chimney. 

Okay. So this is according to the legends, like legend has it, legend has it means according to the legend, legend has it that Santa Claus goes down the chimney of every house. So the chimney, you're not supposed to go down, it's like very dangerous. You're not even supposed to go in there because it's for the fire stuff and it's for like the smoke of the fire. But Santa Claus like, you know, parks the sled like on the roof of the house and then the reindeer are all waiting there. 

And then Santa Claus comes down the chimney and then he, number one, he delivers the presents. And then number two, if there are milk or cookies and sometimes like people, so not Santa Claus, but people leave out like milk and cookies on the night of Christmas Eve. And so when Santa Claus comes, then he leaves the presents and he eats the, eats the milk and cookies. 

So, you know, well, technically he eats the cookies and he drinks the milk, but whatever anyways. So Santa Claus does that. And then the presents, he kind of puts them underneath the Christmas tree. 

If there's a Christmas tree or if there are stockings by the fireplace. And by the way, stockings just really mean socks. But if there are socks next to the fireplace, then he puts the presents in the socks.

But, you know, of course, if the present doesn't fit, then, you know, he's got to do something. But anyways, that is the story of Santa Claus and, you know, like his job. So he does this for everybody. 

So everybody in the world, he gives that to, but, but he only gives it to the good kids. So if you were a bad kid this year, then the legend has it, according to the legend, you did not get a present. You just get a lump of coal. 

So what is a lump of coal? A lump is like a small piece. And then a coal, a coal is like, it's like a material that people use. It's kind of like fire wood. 

You, you burn coal and then you use it. It's not really useful, but it's not very valuable, I guess. So if you're a bad kid, then you get coal. 

And if you're a good kid, you get a present. And that, that is the end of Santa Claus. So let's go ahead and pause there.

So Santa Claus, you know, of course, Santa Claus is magic and all that. But if you think about it too much, you're going to realize like, wait a minute, how does he reach every single home, like in the whole world? How does he give presents to every single person in the whole world? Like that must be a lot of stuff. Or like, it's actually going to take a lot of time too, because, you know, to go down the chimney and then deliver the presents and then, you know, eat the milk and cookies and then, I don't know, admire people's homes and go ho ho ho, because, you know, he needs to say ho ho ho. 

That's going to take a lot of time. And there are so many people in the world that, you know, even if he goes to each house and he spends just one second to go down the chimney, drop the presents, eat the milk and cookies and go up, like it's definitely going to take more than a couple seconds. But if he does it in one second, it's still not enough time to like, you know, reach everyone in the world. 

But anyways, let's not think too much about that. We just know that Santa Claus is magical.

And the truth is, it's really like the parents that do the job of Santa Claus. 

So, you know, the kids will say like, oh, mommy, daddy, we got to put out milk and cookies so that Santa Claus can eat them. And then this is like, you know, part of the story, part of the legend. And the parents are, they're kind of like, okay, yeah, we got to do that. 

So then they like, you know, leave out milk and cookies. And then when the kids go to bed, then the parents bring out the presents, which are maybe hidden in the closet or like hidden in the car or something like that. They do all that stuff. 

They put the, you know, the presents in the socks, they put like the coal or something. And then they also eat the milk and cookies that they probably prepared themselves. So anyways, that is like the legend of Santa Claus and like what he does on Christmas.

And there are also like other complaints that people might have where it's like, oh, well, how does he carry so many toys? And how does he make so many toys? How does he get the newest toy? And well, some of this is answered by, oh, it's Santa Claus's magic. But some of it actually has specific answers where he says like, Santa Claus keeps a list. Okay, he's got a list of who's naughty and who's nice. 

So naughty means like not nice and nice means nice. So if you are a kid and you are nice, you go on the nice list. Okay, so Chris was nice this year. 

I go on the nice list. I get a present that year. Thank you, Santa. 

But if I did something really bad, okay, so maybe I like, you know, took my friend and then I like went to his house and then I broke his like vase or something. And then I told his parents that he did. I was like, I didn't do it. 

He did it. And then I blame someone else. It's called framing someone. 

I make it look like someone else did the bad thing that actually I did. But anyways, that's a bad thing to do. So that's not nice.

So I'm not on the nice list. I go on Santa's naughty list. Naughty means not nice. 

So then if that happens, then I don't get a present that year. I either get no present or maybe I get a coal. And coal is kind of like a bad present. 

Like nobody wants that. So that's like the little review of Christmas and Santa Claus's job delivering presents. And there's also some more stuff about Christmas. 

Maybe I could take a pause here, but I think let's go ahead and just keep going. But so like Christmas is not just about Santa Claus. There are like other things too. 

So there's like food stuff for Christmas. And I looked it up and I just reviewed a couple things. And yeah, Christmas food is kind of like there's not that much strong an image. 

It's not a super strong image for like Christmas as it is for like Thanksgiving. So Thanksgiving, like a turkey is a huge thing at Thanksgiving. And like Easter, well, there's Easter eggs. 

And then well, the Easter eggs, maybe you don't eat them. Maybe you just decorate them and you don't eat them. But sometimes you eat eggs anyways. 

But you know, Christmas, well, maybe there's like a cake. Maybe there's like a turkey or like some kind of ham, some kind of big strong meat, big hearty meat. And then so one thing that I'm definitely thinking of is eggnog. 

So eggnog is kind of like, it's just like a sweet drink. It's like a vanilla custard yogurt sweet drink. It's a little hard to describe. 

But imagine it to be like really like it's like drinkable pudding. It's actually really sweet. But eggnog is a seasonal thing. 

So you know, that's kind of it gets more popular in the US around Christmas season. And there's also stuff during Christmas where like people do like Christmas lights and Christmas trees and stuff. And that's just like, I don't know, like decoration stuff. 

For example, like Halloween, which is October 31. Halloween has a lot of like decoration stuff too, people set up spooky things. So people set up like a scary, like ghost picture somewhere, or like, maybe they set up like fake spiderwebs somewhere. 

But you know, for Christmas, it's kind of like Christmas lights is the big thing. And definitely like Christmas lights. Christmas decorations are the ones where I think people go like all out. 

So some neighborhoods in the US, they're like famous for taking Christmas decorations very seriously. So they do a really good job with like Christmas decorations. So I remember as a kid, like my family would like, you know, drive through like certain neighborhoods, probably like rich neighborhoods, or like just areas that people know to be like really serious about Christmas decorations. 

And you like drive through the area. And then you see like a bunch of Christmas lights. And it's like, oh, wow, that's really pretty. 

And sometimes you set it up at home yourself. And you know, that always takes time and effort. But I guess it's part of the tradition or like the culture. 

So if you like it, you can do it. If you don't like it, you you don't have to do it. You can always just go see it elsewhere.

And in Japan, it's actually pretty interesting, because Christmas is kind of celebrated. But it's a little bit more, it's a little bit different. 

Like Christmas in the US is I think more about like, you know, family and presents. And yeah like presents, I guess. And then in Japan, something that was really interesting is I heard about KFC. 

So KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken is like a chain that's from the US. Like Kentucky is the name of a state in the US. It's not that big of a state, you know, like the big states are like, you know, California, Washington, New York. 

And then you also have like Kentucky, which is famous for not really anything, but Kentucky Fried Chicken uses the name. So anyways, KFC in Japan, they like advertise to people and told a lot of people, hey, if you really love your girlfriend and your boyfriend, then you have to eat KFC on Christmas. And then so there's like some kind of like cultural thing. 

And it's not that everybody does it, but it is a thing and people know about it. So so like KFC is related to Christmas, Christmas is related to KFC. And it's kind of crazy because this is just like an advertisement, like a count- a company, not a country. A company, KFC, like made this advertisement and it actually like circulated. 

So, so then like, I'm thinking about Christmas. And the main things on my mind are like, oh, wow, Santa Claus, oh, well presents. And then I'm also thinking, oh, wow, KFC. 

And then like, I take a step back and think, oh, wait a minute, why? Why is there the name of a company when I say Christmas? Oh, that's interesting. And it's because culture like all this stuff, it's, it's really mixed up. Okay, so, so some of these are based on like real things, like Santa Claus is based on a real person named St. Nicholas. 

And he actually gave a bunch of stuff to people. And that's like real. 

And then, and then there's the part where like Santa Claus rides a magic sleigh. And it's carried by magic reindeer. And he slides down the chimney and he eats milk and cookies from everybody's house. And he delivers presents. 

And it's like, okay, that that one, I don't know where it came from. But it's definitely not true. So at some point, it was true. 

Like there's a rich person, and he's helping poor people. And then at some point, it becomes just magical Santa Claus, sliding down the chimney. And then like, you know, eating milk and cookies at the speed of light, at the speed of light meaning like, really fast. 

So, so, you know, that's really just culture, I guess. Culture has, like no explanation for why it's just, it's just how it is, because it, it was, it used to be like this. So that's how it is now. 

So that's like tradition. And then sometimes it's like, oh, well, KFC paid a lot of money to advertise. So now KFC is famously associated with Christmas in Japan. 

But in the US, absolutely no one knows anything about KFC for Christmas. So anyways, let's take a short little break here. And then we'll continue with our last section. 

Okay, so first, let's go ahead and review a little bit about the stuff that we talked about. So in the very beginning, I talked about Christmas and how Christmas is on December 25. But Christmas Eve, which is like, you know, the the more the more important day is the December 24, the day before Christmas. 

And we also talked about Santa Claus. And we talked a lot about Santa Claus. I told you about where he lives, who he lives with. 

He lives with his wife, whose name is Mrs. Claus. We don't actually know, like her first name. Her name is just Mrs. Claus.

And we also talked about how he has like a toy factory. And he has a lot of elves working at the toy factory to make toys. And just a lot of random details about Santa Claus. 

He's, you know, he rides his magical sleigh. And then the magical sleigh is pulled by magical reindeer. And he goes to each house and he goes down the chimney. 

And then he delivers the presents, he puts them somewhere, he puts them underneath the Christmas tree. Or maybe he puts them inside some stockings, which is just socks. He eats like milk and cookies. 

Like this is for every single house that he visits. It's a lot of milk. It's a lot of cookies. 

So anyways, yeah, we talked about Santa Claus stuff. We also talked about like Christmas tradition things. For example, Christmas lights, or maybe decorating a Christmas tree, stuff like that. 

But I just, you know, I want to mention that a lot of the stuff, because I'm talking about like general cultural things, sometimes there's like a right answer. For example, you know, when is Christmas? Well, Christmas is December 25th. And then sometimes people be like, well, technically, technically, Christmas, the big day, like the day when most people do stuff is Christmas Eve, the night of Christmas Eve. 

That's when it happens. So then it's like, okay, okay, okay. So maybe Christmas is not actually December 25th. 

Maybe it's like December 25th and December 24th. Okay, okay. So in this case, like surely that was the right answer, right? But then sometimes like stuff, there like aren't really any good reasons for why it is. 

For example, Santa Claus, why do you live in the North Pole? And then, you know, like, I don't know, like people could make up a reason. I could make up a reason. I could guess. 

I could think, oh, well, maybe Santa Claus went to the North Pole because he needed a lot of space so that he can make toys. And he wanted a place that, you know, was like easier to like fly to the US and to fly to Europe and to fly to Japan. And then people will be like, oh, okay, okay, okay. 

That makes sense. But why the North Pole? Why didn't you just like pick some place that's warmer or like maybe just someplace in Europe? There's probably some space there. It's like, I don't know the answer. 

I just made it up. And so if we actually go further, so not just Christmas stuff, not just cultural stuff, but even language things, a lot of the times the answer for why something is the case is just because that's just how it is and it is because it was. And so what I mean by that is like, if you've always done something a certain way, then the next time someone asks you, hey, why do you do it that way? Then the answer is like, oh, that's because I used to do it before.

And then someone might ask, well, why did you first do that? And in the case of languages, they ask like, why is that now a word? Why is that slang now? And it's like, yeah, I don't know. It's just, I heard other people use it and I don't know who first heard it. I don't know who first made it up, but that's just how it is. 

For example, the word clutch. So the clutch, the word clutch, it means something in driving, but you don't have to know what it is. The way that people use it in slang now is like, oh, that's like a super saver, it's like super useful. 

So for example, like, let's say I was shopping and then like, I bought this really big thing and I'm like carrying it. And then suddenly my friend randomly calls me and he's like, hey dude, like how about I drive you somewhere? And then afterwards we go eat some tacos or something. 

And then I, and I feel very lucky, right? Because I'm carrying this kind of heavy thing and I don't want to carry it anymore. If my friend like comes and picks me up and like drives me that I don't have to carry it anymore. I can just sit in the car. 

It's really nice. So it's like, oh, that's, that's really clutch. That came in clutch. 

Like you use it like that. And why is it that you have to use it that way? You can't say, oh, that was very clutchy of him. You can't say clutchy. 

Like that's not a real thing. And it's just because the answer is that's just how it was like for slang. It's because it started getting popular. 

And then because it became popular, then it became like valid. It became, that's just how it is. So a lot of cultural things, a lot of them just come from not like, you know, because someone said, okay, let's invent the idea of Santa Claus.

Santa Claus lives in the North pole and this kind of stuff. Uh, it's just probably someone had that version somewhere, and then some other people heard it and then changed it. And then it got popular. 

And once it gets popular, then that is the real definition. So the word clutch is used in my, in like, you know, normal English slang. You can use it. 

For example, that was very clutch. Let's say you're cooking something and then you drop something and then you caught it at the last second. It's like, oh, wow, that was very clutch. That was surprisingly wonderful. That saved a lot of bad things from happening. It was really good.

Uh, so anyways, uh, maybe that's enough for today. Um, well, I had some more things to talk about, but we can talk about them in another time.

I don't know, maybe next year, but anyways, let me go ahead and wrap up this episode. But, uh, again, this was the Christmas episode. It was episode number 37 and I'm your host, Chris.

So thanks so much for listening until the end of the episode. This is Kuli English podcast. And if you want to, you know, subscribe, or if you want to share this episode, maybe with someone who you think would find it funny or someone who you think would find it useful, then definitely feel free to do so. 

Uh, but you don't have to, if you don't want to. Uh, and with that, thank you so much. And we'll see you next time on Kuli English.