SYSK's 2025 Holiday Extravaganza Christmas Special

Deck your tidings and get your halls nice and gladded because it’s time for maybe the best episode of the year, where SYSK loosens our ties, puts on our smoking jackets and Santa hats and create holiday nostalgia in real time. Happy holidays, everybody! See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 0:22Josh Clark?

  And welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, somewhere in spirit. She may be haunting somebody right now as a ghost of Christmas past. I'm not sure.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:32Josh Clark?

  And this is our annual Stuff You Should Know holiday special, huh Chuck?

• 0:37Speaker 02

  That's right. I tell you what, it's one of, if not our favorite, episodes of the year. Uh, I will say it's getting harder and harder to come up with stuff. Uh, we're delving further out into the world and further back in time.

• 0:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah, this is our Anglo-American edition, I guess.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. European listeners are going to be pretty stoked. And also, we like to point out, uh, this is one of two episodes of the year where we draw a line in the sand and say, sales, take the day off, no ads for this one.

• 1:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because Christmas is commercial enough. Am I right?

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, man, we're not going to sell these.

• 1:11Josh Clark?

  No. These belong to you guys, the people. They're our gifts.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  That's right. And by the way, if you hear the tinkle, tinkle of ice, uh, it's because Josh talked me into making, uh, the drink that we're gonna, you know, sometimes we have a little Christmas drink that we put out as a part of this episode and we're doing that again this year. And so I'm having, uh, what we call here in the South, a noon-er.

• 1:32Josh Clark?

  I didn't have to try very hard.

• 1:35Josh Clark?

  What do you want to start with Chuck? And also hats off to Jerry for doing all of the wonderful sound design that makes this Christmas episode so special every year.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  That's right. Uh, as usual, we're flying by the seat of our pants. What do you say? We start with, uh, one of your picks on the Moravians, who we've talked about before on a Christmas episode, I believe.

• 1:54Josh Clark?

  I don't remember that.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  We definitely did.

• 1:57Josh Clark?

  It, it makes sense because they are definitely associated with Christmas in the United States. And I would guess the Czech Republic too. At the time, the Moravians made the move over to North America in the 18th century, the Czech Republic was still called Bohemia. And the Moravians first settled in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania and they were a very devout group, still are. And that's why Pennsylvania has towns named Nazareth and Bethlehem, for example.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, never knew that until yesterday.

• 2:27Josh Clark?

  So they brought a lot of Christmas traditions with them. The Moravian cookies.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  That might have been it.

• 2:31Josh Clark?

  Ziny, gingery, molasses heavy.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34Josh Clark?

  Flat.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34Josh Clark?

  Crispy.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:35Josh Clark?

  Delicious.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, those cookies came from these people. They also brought the seeds of miniature Christmas villages that people put up around the holidays, too.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  That's right. Uh, if you look back in the Middle Ages in Europe, well, there's a bunch of awful things going on. But one of the fun things was a trend of creating nativity scenes. Uh, they were called, I guess, crutches. And you know what a nativity scene is? They're little dioramas of the, of the scene of the birth of, uh, Jesus in a manger. And

• 3:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  The Moravians saw those and they were like, hold my molasses cookie. Cause we're gonna kick this up a notch. And they kicked it up such a notch that the Germans created a, a term, basically, for that notch, uh, of these crutches, these Moravian crutches called a putz. Uh, it means to put out or decorate and putzing was the act of doing this. Nothing to do with the Yiddish term, you're a putz or putzing about.

• 3:31Josh Clark?

  No. Oh, really? I thought putzing probably came from that because you're going from house to house, as we'll find out.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  No, because a putz is sort of a fool and putzing about is kind of doing foolish things.

• 3:43Josh Clark?

  I see. I heard a putz was something else entirely that we would not be able to mention on the episode. Is that not true?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  That's the original, uh, that's the OG meaning. Yes, you are correct.

• 3:53Josh Clark?

  Okay. So, um, Moravians, like you said, they kind of took this, this medieval tradition to like a whole new level. Um, the putzes that they created, um, just started getting bigger and bigger. They started out with those nativity scenes, the crush, but they started adding new figures like the shepherd's dog. Well, shepherd's dog, from what I understand, doesn't appear in any biblical description of the nativity scene, which was the birth of Jesus, right?

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:21Josh Clark?

  But you still want to include the shepherd's dog because you're starting to make a better and better diorama. Eventually, there were too many characters to fit in the manger, so they started hanging out outside the manger.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're like, where am I going to put the manger repair guy? They had no spot, so they created, they just expanded the, the natural scene around the, I guess, the barn. They created fields, of course. All of a sudden, you had lakes, you had cliffs, you had rivers, you had buildings, you had more buildings. And before you know it, a putz, or a puts, rather, it's probably puts. It could take up an entire room, like they would clear out a room and dedicate it to their puts.

• 5:02Josh Clark?

  Right, and so there is a tradition that kind of grew up around this where that room would usually be closed off to the kids of the family.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Got to do that.

• 5:10Josh Clark?

  And the adults would go in there and putz around their puts. Then on Christmas Eve, they would unveil the puts, the family puts to the kids. And I'm sure it was just a great, a great time for everybody.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  That's right, and now I digress very briefly to tell you of a little natural diorama I made at my camp. On a stump, on a big old tree stump that I brought up there from a neighbor's front yard.

• 5:39Josh Clark?

  You brought your own stump?

• 5:40Speaker 02

  I brought my own stump, which is a whole story in itself, which I won't get into. But the stump is now located near the fire, and I created a whole scene there where we display the rocks that we paint when we go up there. And then I brought it a step forward, and I made a whole nature scene featuring little plastic animals of all the animals that I've called in the camp cam.

• 5:59Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  And I mention this only because while I was doing it, it was a weekend with a lot of the kids there, a bunch of neighbors and friends went up and, and families.

• 6:07Josh Clark?

  Were they invited?

• 6:08Speaker 02

  They were not. Every time they came over there to try and arrange things, I kind of very gently said, this is Mr. Chuck's project.

• 6:16Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that wasn't so much fun, but it reminded me of the Moravian saying, kids, get out of here.

• 6:22Josh Clark?

  Right. Did you unveil it to the children's delight, though, on Christmas Eve?

• 6:28Speaker 02

  No, I unveiled it later that evening, and they said, buzz off, turkey, I wasn't a part of it.

• 6:33Josh Clark?

  So there are people who got so good at it that they became known for their putzes or pootzes. One, probably the most famous Moravian pootz artist, I guess,

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:43Josh Clark?

  would be, was named Jenny Train. She was working in, I guess, about the mid 20th century. And her putzes were so great that some of the museums in the Lehigh Valley hold them in their collections and display them at certain times of the year.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  That's right. And the non-Moravians got into it at a certain point, so much so that they were like, we don't even need this nativity scene any longer. Let's just create a Christmas village. You can buy these things if you want, but it's a lot more fun if you sort of collect things piece by piece and set up your own. Obviously, electricity came along and you could have, you know, Christmas lights. You could have little, little ski lifts that take people up tiny mountains. They do that.

• 7:22Josh Clark?

  So cute, yeah, for sure. Apparently, Lomax is probably, from what I could tell, the leader in miniature Christmas village manufacturing.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, you want me to tell you some more about them?

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Please.

• 7:36Josh Clark?

  So they have different themes. Like you said, you can buy these whole kits like wholesale, but they also, I think, sell each piece individually. Because if you know, so here's a little Christmas tip. If you know somebody who sets up Christmas villages around Christmas,

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:50Josh Clark?

  that is a guaranteed home run gift to get them another piece for their collection. They will not be mad about it.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. But if you choose to buy a whole kit, you can get, you know, themes. You can get like a Norman Rockwell thing or like a Victorian age thing. That'd be kind of a fun one, I think.

• 8:06Josh Clark?

  That seems to be, that and like Swiss village seems to be like a pretty common theme, but there's also, I've seen one for the 50s. Somebody's really heavy into doo-wop, I guess that would be their kind. There's also Santa's Wonderland, you know, like where it's at Santa's actual village. That seems pretty good, thematically speaking.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. And we want to thank listener Robert Paulson, who's been listening forever.

• 8:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Cause he always sends in Christmas ideas and I believe he sent this one in under the guise of trains around the tree. And that led to this because it seems that the origin of the trains around the tree came from this tradition of creating these villages. They eventually added trains. And once Lionel came along with their electric train sets. Sometimes the village went away and it just became a train around a tree.

• 8:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And then people who had those trains around their trees grew up. They got nostalgic for them. They started setting them up for their kids. And it became a Christmas tradition, thanks to our Moravian friends.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  That's right. And that is the story of the Moravian Tiny Villages.

• 9:09Josh Clark?

  And a scene.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  What do you want to do next?

• 9:22Josh Clark?

  Do you want to tell everybody about your drink so they can possibly press pause and make one? And then come back for the rest of it?

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, why not?

• 9:29Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  This year, the drink that we're going to talk about is Chuck's special Pumpkin Spice Old Fashioned.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Been drinking these lately because when fall rolls around here in Georgia, that's when the whiskey and the bourbon kind of becomes a little more to my taste.

• 9:46Josh Clark?

  Definitely.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  And this year, I heard about a Pumpkin Spice Old Fashioned and I thought, you know what? I've never made my own syrups and stuff, so I'm going to make my own Pumpkin Spice syrup from scratch. And I did, and it's great.

• 9:57Josh Clark?

  I have some questions about your recipe. I may have some suggestions.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  I'm not surprised.

• 10:02Josh Clark?

  And you tell me, you tell me if you think that they would be incorporatable.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Okay, I mean, you can, you can do it however you want to, so.

• 10:11Josh Clark?

  All right. Well, listen, so you start with five cups of water, right?

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I'm not an exact guy when it comes to recipes. So I had a really hard time coming with measurements because I'm just, I fly by the seat of my pants when it comes to cooking and things.

• 10:24Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, so you got that. You've got one and a half cups light brown sugar, another half a cup turbinado, which is like the granular minimally processed sugar.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's sort of like the pre-brown sugars. It's got that same molasses flavor.

• 10:40Josh Clark?

  Okay. And then do you like your syrup very sweet?

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I mean, in this case, you know, you know, I actually don't think I measured the water. What I think I did was, um, I got an old bourbon bottle and cleaned that out really good and filled that up because I wanted it to fill that bottle. So I guess it's, what is that bottle? Like, is that a liter?

• 11:00Josh Clark?

  The 750.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got a 750. So whatever that equates to cup wise.

• 11:05Josh Clark?

  Although I guess it could be a liter.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  No, no, no, the liter's the big guy, right?

• 11:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  No, this is the 750. So however much water that is.

• 11:13Josh Clark?

  So you can, depending on how sweet you want your syrup to be, you can make it a two to one ratio, um, two cups of water to one cup of sugar, or a one to one ratio, if you really like it sweet, one cup of sugar to one cup of water. And then you expand it from there depending on how much you've got in your whiskey bottle, right?

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, that sounds about right.

• 11:31Josh Clark?

  And then you gotta make your spice mix though yourself. Chuck here is showing off everybody in his recipe. He says, "It's best if you grind and powder your own."

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 11:40Josh Clark?

  What do you have?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Well, uh, classic pumpkin spice. It can vary depending on who you are, but I did about a tablespoon of cinnamon, uh, about a half a tablespoon of nutmeg. And then you go a little bit lighter, um, maybe a teaspoon or two of ginger, about a teaspoon of allspice and about a half a teaspoon of clove because clove is, you know, pretty, can overpower.

• 12:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Uh, but again, it depends on how you like your pumpkin spice, but you know, you mix those all up. Uh, you throw it all, uh, you know, you boil that water and then throw in the sugar and that pumpkin spice mix. And you just stir it until you get to the consistency that you like, which, you know, the longer you boil, the kind of thicker it's gonna get.

• 12:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And the clearer it'll get, the more you boil, I think, right? It'll eventually just go whoop and turn clear.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  No, no, no. This is a very dark brown syrup.

• 12:26Josh Clark?

  Right. So sorry, not clear. I mean translucent, but still dark brown.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  I don't even know what translucent means then.

• 12:32Josh Clark?

  It means like, uh, it goes from cloudy to where you could see through it, even though you're seeing through like brown.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  I don't know if you can see through this stuff.

• 12:40Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, then this is some thick syrup.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it it looks sort of like a Coke in a bottle.

• 12:46Josh Clark?

  Okay, great. So I do have one, one thing to add.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 12:52Josh Clark?

  If you, so if you take cinnamon, it does not like water. It's Hydro Haiti. I can't remember which, which, what it's called, but it does not like to mix. Do you ever have trouble mixing it in with the, with the boiling water?

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Nope, mixed up just fine.

• 13:05Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, I've found that if you mix something like cinnamon, and I would guess all of the spices, with sugar ahead of time, it binds to the sugar and it allows it to dissolve more easily.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Good tip.

• 13:17Josh Clark?

  That was my only other tip.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  I love it. That sounds pretty good. The other thing I did was Emily dehydrates fruits as bar garnishes. So I, she had a big mess of orange peel that she had dehydrated. So I kind of chopped those up and threw that in the bottle as well, because, you know, an Old Fashioned has those orange notes.

• 13:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  And if you want to make the Old Fashioned, and I have to say, you can put this in your coffee. You can drizzle it on a cheesecake. It's just a pumpkin spice sweet syrup. So you can really, it doesn't have to be an alcoholic drink, but if you're gonna make the Old Fashioned, I do two ounces of bourbon. You can use rye if you want, a little shake of that Angostura bitters. I do a little shake of orange bitters on top. Then I love this El Guapo chicory pecan or pecan bitters.

• 14:05Josh Clark?

  They're local, right?

• 14:07Speaker 02

  I don't know if they are or not, but you know, if you can find a chicory pecan or any kind of like walnut or pecan bitters, I think it really adds a nice touch.

• 14:14Josh Clark?

  It does sound very nice. And then, of course, the coup de grâce, the death blow, which is the pumpkin spice syrup.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it depends on how sweet you like these things. You can just put just a little bit if you don't like it too sweet and you're still gonna get that flavor.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  And, you know, all of this stuff, you can make it less boozy if you want. The one I made for today, since it's a noon-er, I just made a little happy. So I just did one ounce of bourbon.

• 14:38Josh Clark?

  Very smart. So you take that, you make sure everything is at room temperature. You put it in a glass and you drink it and say, "Guh."

• 14:46Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no. What I do, I mean, you can just put it straight over ice and mix it with a spoon or something, but if you really want to do it right, put that stuff in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake it really, really good, and then get a nice heavyweight cocktail glass, add a, add a cocktail cherry to the bottom of that thing. Pour it over a giant square ice cube or a giant round ice cube if you want to really be fancy. And then here's the key, as you know, Josh, you gotta get that, that orange peel, right?

• 15:13Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. You want a nice wide swath of orange peel, no pith, no white on the bottom, or as minimal as possible.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:20Josh Clark?

  And you twist it, you twist it over the top of the drink. And if you look closely, you can see a spray come out. And then all of a sudden, there's a little oil slick on, on top of the drink. And you, friend, have just expressed the essential oils from that orange into your old fashioned.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  That's right. And just a quick PSA for all the bartenders out there. When you make a martini or anything with like a lemon or orange, make it a big, wide, you know, they have those, the little peelers that, you know, like a cocktail peeler. You can get the kind that does the little tiny pigtail curly cue. Those are annoying. They, they curl them up, they hang it on the outside of the glass. But the whole point of that peel is to get that, that essential oil. And you can't do that with those little, little skinny things. So bartenders, for the love of Pete, give the customer a big, wide peel. So they can express that thing themselves.

• 16:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Our listeners named Pete just said, yeah.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 16:19Josh Clark?

  What's the last little bit, if you really want to show off though, Chuck?

• 16:22Speaker 02

  Uh, oh, if you want to, if you have a zester, like the little, the little grater, get a cinnamon stick and just, just grate a little fresh cinnamon on top.

• 16:32Josh Clark?

  Just a little bit, just a touch.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 16:35Josh Clark?

  And people will be like, this is the best Christmas I've ever had.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Or you can stick that cinnamon stick right in the drink if you really want to get crazy.

• 16:43Josh Clark?

  One other thing that we should probably say though, off the bat is when you make the syrup, you want to make it ahead because it needs to cool and then go in the fridge, right?

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Keep that thing in the fridge. And like I said, I use an old liquor bottle because it has a cork on top. Or if you have those fancy bottles with the little clasp on top with the cork, like, that's great. When I went to my brother's Thanksgiving this year, I got one of Emily's little tiny, like, you know, four or five ounce bottles and poured some in there and brought it along. It's a nice, nice thing to give as a gift.

• 17:14Josh Clark?

  That is classy, buddy.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 17:17Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, I guess we should probably let everybody pause. Go make the pumpkin spice syrup, wait a couple of days and then come back and we'll start the next segment. How about that?

• 17:27Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 17:36Josh Clark?

  What do you want to do next Chuck?

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Uh, well, I mean, let's go back to one of yours. Um, should we do the, the frozen fair?

• 17:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we're going to go back in time, way back.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  Frozen fair, the Friars Fair.

• 17:50Josh Clark?

  The Frost Fairs.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  I didn't get it once, did I?

• 17:55Josh Clark?

  Featuring the Friars.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 17:58Josh Clark?

  So we're talking about a series of basically impromptu winter festivals that happened to London over the course of a few hundred years. Uh, and hat tip to the BBC, London Museum, History Jar, Honest History, and the podcast Tales of History and Imagination.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 18:17Josh Clark?

  And what we're talking about is they're called the Frost Fairs, and we should give you a little background first because the bridge that's now London Bridge was, uh, built in the 60s. The bridge before that was built in 1831, and that 1831 bridge was disassembled and reassembled in Lake Havasu, Arizona, which is where it stands today. And that little gift from London to Lake Havasu gave rise to a really great, uh, 1995 TV movie starring David Hasselhoff.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Really?

• 18:48Josh Clark?

  Called Terror at London Bridge.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 18:50Josh Clark?

  Definitely worth watching. But the problem is the 1831 Bridge and the 1960s Bridge put an end to this, uh, like impromptu winter tradition in London forever.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  That's right. That New London Bridge has five arches.

• 19:05Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Uh, the one previous to that from 1831 had 19 arches, but they were closer together. They were pretty narrow and water didn't flow through those things very well. Uh, and it was also a time when, uh, the Thames was shallower and, uh, was it narrower or wider?

• 19:23Josh Clark?

  Wider, wider and shallower.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, wider and shallower. So all of this sort of added up to, uh, because of a strange weather phenomenon that Josh is going to describe, uh, a time when the Thames would actually freeze over.

• 19:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the Little Ice Age was going on too. From the mid 1300s to the mid 1800s, this period of about 500 years, there was some really weird, extra cold weather. Global temperatures dropped. And that means ultimately, for our purposes with this story, that winters in London were way colder during that 500-year period than they are today. So you put that together, the design of the bridge with way more narrow arches, the Little Ice Age and the wider, shallower Thames. That meant that the Thames could freeze over sometimes like it can't today.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  That's right, and that happened in 1564, when it froze over and people in London were like, hey, that's pretty cool. Let's go out and get drunk and walk around and play on that thing.

• 20:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, apparently even Queen Elizabeth I was like, that looks fun, let's go.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  She packed up her corgis and slipped around on the ice for a little while. It froze again in 1607, 08. And this time they were like, aye, blimey, this thing's frozen again. Let's get drunk and sell some things.

• 20:43Josh Clark?

  That was Australian.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Australian. Oh, man.

• 20:47Josh Clark?

  The thing is, is like, a lot of people made their money by shipping and moving stuff up and down the Thames. They suddenly couldn't, so some of those people just set up stalls to try to make up whatever they could. That was the first time anyone used the term frost fair for these things.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Or frozen friar, or whatever the heck I said.

• 21:03Josh Clark?

  Right, frozen friar, frost fair. It wasn't until, though, I think 1683, 84, that it really became like a full-blown thing, though.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that was a couple of months of frozen Thames. And this time, it was like a real, like a Christmas market, basically. Everybody is selling their wares. Like you said, people that normally sold stuff on the side of the river were all set up down there. They had so many rows of booths that they formed a literal avenue down the middle of the Thames. And you could do everything. You could have a sit-down restaurant meal under a huge tent made of boat sails that are propped up by rowing oars.

• 21:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it was apparently quite a party because there was a writer of the time, John Evelyn. He wrote that that frost fair was a Bacchanalian triumph, a carnival on the water.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:54Josh Clark?

  That's saying quite a bit. This is again, this is like, people aren't like, okay, the 1683 Frost Fairs coming up, we better start planning. These were all generally impromptu. That was pretty cool. That 1683 one lasted two months. And Tales of History and Imagination, the podcast I thanked earlier, they turned up a fact that some guy bet some other guy that he could build a three-story house, spend a night in it, and take it down before the Thames thawed. And it's a great story, even despite the fact that neither we nor Tales of History and Imagination could find out the outcome of the bet.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  That sounds like a good show.

• 22:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is. There's a lot of great episodes that I saw when I was looking for that. I'm not sure how I stumbled across it. I guess I just came across some of their Christmas content.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  I love it. I'm gonna check it out. So, big thanks to them. There were a couple of more Frost Fairs, not Friars, in 1716, and again in 1739. So there, I mean, I don't know if anyone's doing the math, there are large, large gaps between all this stuff.

• 22:59Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  And it's not like, you know, they went on the internet and were like, hey, the last time they did all this. So, people are, you know, I guess, word gets passed down, you know, like, hey, here's, this is a thing to do when the, when the Thames freezes. But sadly, the last Frost Fair was in 1814.

• 23:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And you know that somebody at the 1716 Frost Fair was like, this Frost Fair sucks compared to 84.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Sold out.

• 23:25Josh Clark?

  84 rocked, man.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:27Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, the last one was 1814, and the BBC talked about it in one of their articles, and they interviewed a food historian named Ivan Day. And he said that the 1814 Frost Fair was basically food and drink and people getting wasted. He said that there was this one drink... Called Pearl. It was, it was wormwood wine. It's kind of like vermouth.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:51Josh Clark?

  Gin together. So it was hot. It was like a hot, super potent martini that he said, quote, "You'd get absolutely wrecked on it." There was a spiky beer that has a lot of spices in it called Mum, which is what you'd probably call like a winter ale today.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that.

• 24:07Josh Clark?

  And then of course, this regular gin. There was also other stuff too. There's tea, coffee, hot chocolate. And there was plenty of food to eat, particularly the roast ox, right?

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Uh, yeah. I don't even like saying those words together. Uh, but this Ivan Day, this food historian, he replicates cooking techniques from back then. And for this roast ox, he said it would take basically a day, over 24 hours to roast this thing in front of a fire. And buddy, I don't know if these numbers are right, but he said that that ox could feed 800 people.

• 24:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah. And he's a food historian, so he would probably know.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  I mean, I guess you're just getting a, like an amuse, ox, amuse bouche.

• 24:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  It's not a plate full of ox for 800. There's no way.

• 24:54Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I mean, maybe their oxes were way bigger during the Little Ice Age.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  I think it's oxen, my friend.

• 24:59Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. Thank you for correcting me on that one.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Uh, what else? Were they served mutton?

• 25:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, sure. Which is kind of like, um, it's almost like a sheep-like meat.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  I think it is sheep, isn't it? Like a, a grown sheep?

• 25:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:14Josh Clark?

  And you don't want that. Nobody wants mutton, really.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  I don't want mutton. So Jerry Seinfeld certainly doesn't want mutton.

• 25:20Josh Clark?

  So, uh, what does that one mean?

• 25:22Speaker 02

  That was from Seinfeld. Remember? He had a, a girlfriend that, uh, he, he was spitting out food and putting it in his jacket and she was serving mutton?

• 25:31Josh Clark?

  Vaguely.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  He would wrap it in his napkin, stuff it in his pocket, and eventually Elaine borrowed his coat and got attacked by a dog.

• 25:39Josh Clark?

  Man, that was a great show.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Sure was.

• 25:43Josh Clark?

  So, the reason why the 1814 one was the last one is because, like you said, the newer, better, I guess, versions of the London Bridge have wider spans. So, the water can't back up behind the little narrow arches and freeze. It just isn't gonna happen, everybody. So, the last Frost Fair was 1814, but parts of the Thames can freeze from time to time. And the BBC turned up one from 1962. The winter in that year was called the Big Freeze in London. And someone spotted a man riding a bicycle on the Thames, probably thinking to himself, "You know what? A frozen Friar Fair would be great right now."

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I hope it was a penny farthing.

• 26:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  That'd be fantastic.

• 26:26Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  All right, so that's the frozen Frost Fire Fair.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Where are we going next, my friend, as we load up the sleigh and prepare to take off?

• 26:35Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I feel like... I don't know. What do you want to do? You pick one.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Let's do our tribute to Vince Guaraldi.

• 26:44Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  I came up with this one. I know in one episode, we certainly talked about the Charlie Brown Christmas special and kind of dabbled in this, but I wanted to just sort of do a little tribute to the man himself because, boy, oh, boy, for my money, there's no better Christmas music than the Charlie Brown Christmas special Vince Guaraldi Jazz Trio.

• 27:18Josh Clark?

  I'm protective of that. I keep it at bay because I don't ever want to get sick of it.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Okay. I don't get sick of it, but I do appreciate that because we both certainly cherish it.

• 27:30Josh Clark?

  Like, I can't even listen to Journey anymore because I've heard their songs too many times. I don't want the Charlie Brown Christmas to become the new Journey.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, who wants that?

• 27:40Josh Clark?

  Right. So let's talk about Vince Guaraldi, though, because if you know of him from the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, you essentially are familiar with the vast majority of Vince Guaraldi's work.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, and a big thanks to The New Yorker, specifically an article from Ethan Iverson, I think from 2017-ish. PianoWithJohnny.com, that's J-O-N-N-Y. And Unconservatory.org, who all had little bits and pieces about the great Vince Guaraldi, who was born Vincent Anthony Delaglio in 1928 in San Francisco.

• 28:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, his mom Carmela divorced his biological father, Vincenzo Delagio, and married a guy named Tony Guaraldi. Tony Guaraldi adopted him, and as a head tip and a thank you to Tony, Vince said, "Let's change my last name, shall we, guys?"

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, is there ever more Italian name than Vincenzo Delagio?

• 28:36Josh Clark?

  No, there really isn't.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Maybe Tony Soprano.

• 28:39Josh Clark?

  So he ended up, he actually wasn't very musically inclined. I think he took some piano lessons, but it never really got under his skin when he was a kid. His uncles introduced him to jazz, and he was like, meh. And he didn't really start playing until he went to San Francisco State University for a little while. And then there was an interlude between that and him really getting going, playing The Korean War, where he served as a cook in the army.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  That's right. He went to the war, he came back, and like you said, sort of started playing around a little jazz, clearly a talented guy. And he started going to these jazz clubs in San Francisco, started playing wherever he could, little, sort of, I guess not open mic, but open key nights, or whatever you would call those. And eventually got his first real gig, playing the intermissions during Art Tatum shows at a club called The Black Hawk.

• 29:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Art Tatum, he was actually from Toledo. He was a self-taught piano virtuoso who was nearly blind.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  He's great.

• 29:38Josh Clark?

  And he was so, his talent was so intimidating that Vince Guaraldi later said, "Working with him was more than scary. I came close to giving up the instrument, and I wouldn't have been the first after working around Tatum."

• 29:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty intimidating.

• 29:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So he did not give up the instrument, fortunately. He went on to play with the likes of Cal Jader, who, he was a vibraphone player who was into Latin inflected jazz.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's awesome, by the way. If you're into that sort of Latin jazz thing, he's probably the most famous non-Latin Latin jazz guy. And the vibraphone is just, it's, it's, well, it's a vibe. It really is.

• 30:17Josh Clark?

  I love a good vibraphone jazz trio.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, same.

• 30:21Josh Clark?

  He formed his own trio, I think, in 1955 with a couple of friends, Eddie Duran and Dean Riley. Now, was that the all-time Vince Guaraldi Trio?

• 30:31Speaker 02

  I don't know, because they're not the guys who played on the Charlie Brown, so.

• 30:35Josh Clark?

  Oh, then no.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  I think there were iterations of the Vince Guaraldi Trio over the years.

• 30:40Josh Clark?

  Gotcha. So as he's starting to kind of pick up steam in the 50s, he played the Hungry Eye in San Francisco. He played with the big bandleader Woody Herman, got back together with Carl Jader for a little while. And he was basically the leader of several different jazz groups. The thing is, he would probably be a name among jazz cats and hep cats in San Francisco still today. But it would probably be about the extent of his career, had he not created this one particular song called Cast Your Fate to the Wind. It's the other song that he's known for, just a little three-ish minute jazz song from 1962 that he buried at the end of a very odd album that he came up with.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, there was a movie in 1959, a French film called Black Orpheus. And what he did was offer some sort of jazz arrangements of Brazilian music from that movie. And it was called Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus. And like you said, he stuck Cast Your Fate to the Wind here at the end. It is, I'm sure you know this song, right? It is an amazing jazz tune. And the, the bones of everything you know about the Charlie Brown Christmas special music is in Cast Your Fate to the Wind. It's just this, I mean, I think, who was it that called it A Breath of Fresh Air? I think that was the ultimate producer of the Charlie Brown Christmas special, Lee Mendelson.

• 32:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so this is where fate really steps in because there was a San Francisco jazz show hosted by Al Jasbo Collins. Man, what a great nickname. And on this show on KSFO, he would play Vince Guaraldi's stuff because by this time, the early 60s, Vince Guaraldi was pretty well-known around San Francisco. And Lee Mendelson, who was starting a documentary project on Charles Schultz that would ultimately be called A Boy Named Charlie Brown, and he was looking for somebody to compose the music for it, and he heard Cast Your Fate to the Wind and was like, I think this might be it.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was it. He said, hey, man, you want to compose some music for this documentary? He said, because they were both Bay Area guys, and he said, sure, I'll do it. And he created an entire original piece called Linus and Lucy that was the theme, and that is the, you know, the very famous sort of Charlie Brown theme song that we all know and love.

• 32:59Josh Clark?

  Can you do a little measure or two of it?

• 33:01Speaker 02

  (singing) Oh, wait, I gotta do my hand.

• 33:05Josh Clark?

  (singing) I'm dancing like my arms in the air and then down and then up while I'm moving my feet.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Now you're supposed to come in.

• 33:15Josh Clark?

  That's how the live version is. Very nice.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  I can't keep doing that. People are about to tune out.

• 33:21Josh Clark?

  I think that was a great one. I'm sure everyone who's ever heard that song is like, oh, yeah, that one. A lot of people probably don't know it as Linus and Lucy. I don't think of it. I just think of it as like the Peanuts theme.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so he made Linus and Lucy. The documentary went over, and then Coca-Cola came around and they said, we want to do this Christmas special, Charlie Brown Christmas in spring 65. And so Guaraldi was an obvious choice to come back and record music, so he recycled Linus and Lucy and also wrote Skating and Christmas Time is Here. Iconic.

• 33:51Josh Clark?

  Skating is one of the most beautiful songs of all time.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 33:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and like you said, when you hear "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," if you aren't familiar with that, you would immediately be like, "That sounds a lot like the Peanuts guy." He had a style that was all his own, that was instantly recognizable. And Charles Schultz even said, "Hey, his music is really to be credited in a large part for the success of the Charlie Brown Christmas specials." If you've heard "Christmas Time Is Here Too," there's an instrumental version that's all Garaldi, and then there's a, well, another Garaldi version, but it has lyrics of the little kids singing. And I guess Lee Mendelson basically did what a producer does when he couldn't find a lyricist, he just took the reins and did it himself.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, apparently, he was having trouble, and he said he wrote it in about 15 minutes on the back of an envelope. Pretty simple lyrics, but Vince Garaldi never went on to be known for a lot after this. His output after that wasn't super famous. But, you know, I think it was Ethan Irsen from that New Yorker article made a great point. He was like, "You know, he shouldn't be cast aside in the history of jazz. He should very much be remembered because his really, his effective and efficient techniques on the piano..." He called Charlie Brown Christmas like a gateway drug for people who were never into jazz before, and I think that kind of says it best.

• 35:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and he didn't have much time to grow as a jazz musician after the Charlie Brown success, because he died 10 years later, in 1976, at age 47.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:25Josh Clark?

  But his music lives on. The Charlie Brown Christmas album was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2007. The only travesty with that is that it took so long. And it's part of the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry of culturally, historically, or aesthetically important American sound recordings.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  That's right. I wish we could play all of that music today, but we can't, because we don't want to get sued.

• 35:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you're probably already going to get sued just by humming.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  Oh, I doubt it. They said, "The judge would say, 'No, that was not recognizable as the work at hand. Dismissed.'"

• 36:00Josh Clark?

  Let's have a little jingle interlude of our own making, or that's in the public domain, and we will head on over to "The Dark of Night in Wales." How about that?

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 36:24Josh Clark?

  Okay Chuck, we're in Wales. It's dark, it's cold, it's one of the 12 days of Christmas, somewhere in there. And we want to thank Alexandra Stock, who has sent in plenty of ideas before. She's sent this one in. We also want to thank Museum Wales, Sky News, and Wales.com for all the info about what's known as the Maori Lloyd, which is not spelled like it sounds, at least not the second part. It's L W Y D. And that is Welsh. It's Welsh as Welsh gets. And it's a Christmas tradition that clearly dates back to Celtic tradition, but the purpose, the point, all that stuff has been kind of lost to history. But it's peculiar to Wales.

• 37:07Josh Clark?

  You can't find this anywhere else. And even in most parts of Wales, you're not going to find it these days, but it still survives. And for good reason, because it's actually a pretty cool little Christmas tradition.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  For sure. And here's how it goes down. On a certain night, the Maori Lloyd, which is a ghost horse, very pale ghost horse, rides from house to house, kind of looking to be let in, looking for hospitality for people that are in there enjoying their pumpkin spice old fashions and their apple ciders by the fireplace. But how it plays out is it's a hobby horse. These men get together, it's a broomstick, and they get covered in a white sheet to form the body of the horse. They have these colorful ribbons from the neck to form the neck and the mane. And then here's the most disturbing part is, I think sometimes it would be like papier-mache or wood or something like that with like a hinged jaw, so it looks like a horse's head.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  But in the olden days, traditionally, it was a real horse's skull.

• 38:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it's frightening looking. If you see some old timey Maori Lloyds, that's they're scary. And one of the reasons why they're scary is they're supposed to represent like death and spirits and

• 38:20Josh Clark?

  Being out in the cold, in the dark in winter, right? But, as scary as that sounds, it's not like a Krampus tradition where Mari Lloyd's gonna come get you.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:32Josh Clark?

  Like, take you away and leave you coal or something like that. It's in the tradition of mummering where caroling also came from, going from house to house, getting as drunk as you possibly can and engaging in this kind of Christmas tradition, which is, again, this is fairly peculiar, but the whole thing takes place when the Mari Lloyd, they're processing through the town, essentially a parade, and they go from house to house. When they show up on the doorstep of a house, they start singing verse. And they, through the closed door, and on the other side of the door, the family starts singing verse back. And essentially, a verse battle goes back and forth between the two.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a rap battle. The weirdest thing about this is the door is closed.

• 39:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  But I guess the whole point of this thing is, they go back and forth. Sometimes it could take like an hour until one side finally gives up. I guess they can, you know, they can't come up with a new next line. Or they're too drunk to, and they say, alright, you guys win. So the reason the door is closed is because if there is a victory by the Mari Lloyd crew, and they usually won, the whole point was to be invited in after that. So that's why the door is shut.

• 39:47Josh Clark?

  Right, but again, the Mari Lloyd is scary, it's death, that kind of thing. That's why the family's trying to keep them out. But when they come in, they're like, here's some wassail, here's some Ritz crackers with olive on it, you know? They welcome them in, and the Mari Lloyds, like, role at that point is to run around and like nip at the children and scare them and maybe knock some stuff over. They might put the fire out in the family's house. Just general mischief and revelry, right? There's a BBC like five, six minute documentary showing a Maori Lloyd. Well, it's called a Ponca, PWNCO, that verse battle take place. And it's the most staid presentation you can ever find.

• 40:31Josh Clark?

  Like, if you just saw that, you'd be like, the Maori Lloyd is, seems like a very serious thing. It's not. It was, again, drunken revelry, going from house to house, basically spreading the Christmas spirit. And in return for letting the Maori Lloyd in, you, your house would be blessed with good luck for the new year.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  That's right. We're the Maori Lloyds and we came to say, we came to bring you luck in the usual way.

• 40:56Josh Clark?

  I love fruity pebbles in a major way.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. So in the end, it turns out to be a good party. I guess your home might get slightly wrecked, but you got good luck. There are a couple of theories about what that name actually means. One translation is Gray Mary, and it's a legend linking Maori Lloyd to the nativity story and that it was a pregnant horse that was in the stables where Mary is said to have had Jesus. So they're like, we need some room in here to have this very special baby. So I know you're pregnant as well, horse, but hit the road.

• 41:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the horse is like, um, I was here first.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I'm also pregnant, by the way.

• 41:34Josh Clark?

  And apparently the horse spent days trying to find a place to have her foal. It's a very sad story.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:42Josh Clark?

  But it's Christian in origin. And a lot of people are like, this is not a Christian tradition. This is pagan as it gets. And there's the other translation of it, the Gray Mare. And in Celtic and British mythology, the Gray Mare or pale horse was a venerated, I guess, animal that could kind of cross over from this world to the underworld fairly easily, which really kind of gets across the whole horse skull and explains all that kind of stuff.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, you know what they say about the Gray Mare.

• 42:15Josh Clark?

  She's not what she used to be.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  No, she ain't.

• 42:18Josh Clark?

  So this is a very old tradition, probably, but it saw its hating in the 19th century and in the most delicious way, right?

• 42:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, but ironically, in trying to decry this thing, there was a Christian scholar saying like, you know, we can't do this. It, you know, like all things, like the Streisand effect, it brought more attention. They didn't call it that then.

• 42:37Josh Clark?

  No.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  But it brought more attention to it and all of a sudden, like, how to manuals sprung up.

• 42:43Josh Clark?

  Right. And so finally, though, that heyday in the 19th century kind of died off. By the 1960s, it was totally gone, they think. Like, they don't think anyone was celebrating it anymore. But some groups of merry makers found out about it or revived it. And it still goes on today in a few different places. And apparently, it's when they do it, it's pretty big and pretty fun and pretty rowdy and just colorful and not really scary at all.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 43:11Josh Clark?

  Me too. Hats off Wales.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Hats off Wales, hats off, uh, Tom Jones?

• 43:18Josh Clark?

  Hmm, is he Welsh?

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, wasn't that his name? The singer with the Elvis hips?

• 43:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he was Welsh, huh?

• 43:25Speaker 02

  He's Welsh, baby.

• 43:26Josh Clark?

  Okay, great.

• 43:39Josh Clark?

  All right, Chuck, we've arrived at the last piece, which I love. You found it. And I think it's very helpful and I love how it adds some like good advice to this episode.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  That's right, because everyone loves putting up, if you celebrate Christmas and you celebrate with a Christmas tree, you love putting up those Christmas tree lights. But storing those things and then unveiling them the next year can be a real pain in the rump.

• 44:02Josh Clark?

  A real drag, right?

• 44:04Speaker 02

  That's right. So we're going to tell you at least some internet source tips on how to properly store those Christmas tree lights.

• 44:10Josh Clark?

  The first one, I like this one. It's complicated, but it's cool. So you take a wrapping tube, a Christmas paper wrapping tube, first unroll the paper on it and throw it away and just take the tube and you make a little notch in the end, one end of it, about an inch long. And you run the end of the Christmas lights through and you stick, you jam like the plug end into that notch so it can't come out. Okay?

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, not, I mean, the plug goes into the tube hole.

• 44:38Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  And then you just pull the electrical cord through that slit.

• 44:44Josh Clark?

  Okay, that's another way to do it. Sure.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:47Josh Clark?

  But then you take the lights and you start twisting them. Twist, twist, twist around the tube. Well, you twist the tube and the lights kind of diagonally go around the tube. And then you get to the other end, cut another slit, put the other plug end in. And there you go. You've got one way to store Christmas lights. That seems pretty great to me.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, depending on the length of your tube, you might have to go back over the other way, but the point is it's not getting wrapped and wrapped and wrapped around each other. Maybe just like one overlap.

• 45:20Josh Clark?

  Okay, that's one way. What about another way?

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Well, this is, I mean, these are all fairly similar. In this case, though, you're going to cut a rectangular piece of cardboard from a box. You know, depending on how big you want it, maybe 18 inches by nine inches.

• 45:33Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  And this time you cut little square notches about an inch from each end on both sides. And those notches are going to do the same thing that that slit did. They're going to secure that plug. And then you just wrap it around that, that section of cardboard box.

• 45:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like if you've ever done any plumbing work or something, sometimes whatever piece you're replacing, it'll come with a little thing of Teflon tape. And it's the exact same thing in miniature that we're talking about.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 46:03Josh Clark?

  I like that one. That's probably the one I would try of all these.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 46:08Josh Clark?

  This one sounds really not super helpful. The, you use one of those coffee caddies with the four little depressions for coffee. And you stick the plug in through one of the, you know, the each little hole or depression has some slits in it.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:25Josh Clark?

  You stick the plug in through that and you just start wrapping that guy over and over and over again. Wrap, wrap, wrap. And then when you reach the other plug in, you stick that through a hole too.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, not too bad. Uh, this way is maybe a little likelier to get tangled because you're wrapping it over itself through the center of that thing over and over.

• 46:44Josh Clark?

  Right. But what about, what do you do Chuck? I think that's what the people want to hear.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Well, the Chuck method is very lo-fi. I found that it works for me. May not work for you. I take the lights off the tree and then I lay them sort of out one at a time on the couch. Uh, cause the whole point of all of this is you don't want those tangles, you know? That's the biggest hassle of these things.

• 47:04Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  They're kind of unwieldy. And then I take that, one of those little plastic grocery bags that I'm about to go recycle. And instead, I just sort of bunch up that individual cord and stick it in the bag. Each one gets its own bag. Uh, as I said in this piece that I sent to you, it sounds super janky. But I found that it doesn't really tangle when you take them back out. And they pack really nice, you know, much nicer than these big, long tubes. Cause you can just sort of flat pack them in a bin. And as long as they're each one, the whole point is just to do one per bag and to keep them separate. And when I unveil them, they don't really get that tangly.

• 47:42Josh Clark?

  That's amazing. There's got to be some sort of fluid dynamics or something at play that somebody could explain. But I don't get how that works, but that's cool.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  What's your method?

• 47:52Josh Clark?

  Well, first of all, I want to say you didn't say super janky in the piece you sent. It says janky AF.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  That's right, cause I'm a hip kid.

• 48:00Josh Clark?

  Uh, my method is I follow two different methods. One, you can just leave the lights up throughout the year and just don't turn them on till Christmas.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  On the tree?

• 48:08Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:10Josh Clark?

  The second, uh, what I actually really do is I just do that method where you have your, you stick your arm up at the elbow at a 90 degree angle. And you just kind of wrap from between your thumb and forefinger across your palm, through your elbow, palm, elbow, palm, elbow. You have to say that out loud while you're doing it over and over again. It helps if people are watching you while you say that too. And then before you get to the end, maybe about six inches left, you wrap that around the, the middle of that cord.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 48:40Josh Clark?

  And then that-

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Like a, like a extension cord style?

• 48:42Josh Clark?

  Precisely. As a matter of fact, that's probably the best thing to call it. Extension cord style is what I do.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  All right. I bet that works pretty good, huh?

• 48:50Josh Clark?

  It does, but I want to try yours. It sounds fun.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, like I said, it's pretty janky. Um, you can also, you know, we should point out that they obviously sell all sorts of contraptions and storage devices for these now, but I don't know, just be a little more fun. Come up with your own method. Don't buy some other dumb thing.

• 49:08Josh Clark?

  No, as anyone who's ever done the holidays really knows, that's cheating.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 49:14Josh Clark?

  And that's it, everybody. That's the 2025 Stuff You Should Know Holiday Extravaganza special of all time.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  That's right. And as we say every year, you know, whatever, however you choose to celebrate your holiday this year, we hope you're doing it right. We hope you're surrounded by friends and loved ones. And it sounds trite to say that if you're lonely this holiday season, that we're thinking about you, but we truly, truly are because this can be a rough time of the year for some folks. And so, you know, we really think a lot about those situations this time of year.

• 49:49Josh Clark?

  That was very sweet, Chuck.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:51Josh Clark?

  And everybody out there, we hope you guys have a happy holidays, that it's safe, that it's merry and bright and all that jazz. And from us and Jerry and the whole Stuff You Should Know crew, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.