December 21, 2023 • 52 mins
Happy Holidays, friends! Tune in today to listen to our annual ad-free holiday extravaganza. There will be talk of merriment and joy!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hey, sorry, ho, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
There's Chuck. Jerry's here too. All the little elves are
around us, watching us, adoringly waiting for us to begin
this twenty twenty three holiday special episode of Stuff You
Should Know. Hooray, hooray Chuck. Indeed, it's our Christmas episode.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, our ad free Christmas episode, right, yes, it better
be for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We'll find out after we publish.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Oh goodness, boyd I mean did we even order these?
Should we just freewheel it?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Oh gosh, we're getting to it all, are you?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I wanted to kind of meander for a little bit,
but sure.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Now we give me ander. What do you want to
chat about?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I don't know. How's the family?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
They're doing great? You know. This is actually a I
don't want to say too much, but let me just
say that this is a there's a turning point for
my daughter this year at Christmas, A very big revelation.
Oh my, that's all I'm going to say. I always
wondered when it was going to happen, and it happened.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, it is everything.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Okay, I'm fine. Actually, Emily was a little more upset
than I was. Yeah, and I was just like, you know,
I mean, well, I'll talk to you offline, but everyone
knows what I'm talking about, right.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I think, so hopefully just everyone. Yeah, well, let's just
stop this right now.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It's still going to be a great Christmas regardless. I
all agreed on that.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Good and this is going to be a great Christmas
episode despite that beginning.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Okay, you know, let's start with I'm gonna go ahead
and call let's just take turns. How about that?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Okay, you're going to call an audible each time.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Wow, I'm going to call an audible each time on
my own picks.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Okay, well you go first. How about that? Because yes,
everybody in classic stuff you should know fashion. Chuck and
I each picked a few Christmas pieces to talk about, yea,
and then we sent them to one another and did
not discuss what order we should do them. And so
we're going to do that as we go along. That's
what Chuck's talking about right.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Now, That's right. And so the first thing I found,
and another fun thing about the Christmas episode is that
it allows us to get our sources, our sources become
a little more relaxed our rigor like where we get stuff,
because sometimes for Christmas stuff, you just get stuff from
some of the wackiest websites and that's fine. Yeah, this
(02:48):
one actually wasn't wacky. This was USA Today. That's legit, right,
it's a little wacky. This is from twenty twelve from
Craig Wilson. What are you doing on Christmas Day? Yeah,
depends on where you are. And this is just a
little survey they did because I was always curious about
different traditions and different parts of the United States and
(03:09):
how people do stuff. And this is a good little
poll they did eleven years ago.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yes, Civic Science did a poll. Well, they didn't do
a poll. They apparently found a bunch of other polls
that totaled ninety thousand responses of Americans responding to questions
roughly about what they're going to do around Christmas time,
and they released it. They put it all together and said, hey,
get this. It turns out depending on your region, each
(03:37):
region has a lot of different things that they do
or don't do around Christmas time. Let's rap about them.
And Craig Wilson said, yes, let's that's right.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
So we're going to go over some of the highlights here.
If you're in the Midwest, Oh, I don't know, let's
say Michigan or Ohio or what else is in the midwest, Chicago.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Iowa, Kansas, set Midwest. Yeah, Kansas is in the middle
of the country. It's Midwest for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
All right, we'll see what our Kansas friends have to
say about that. If you live in the Midwest, though,
then you are thirty five percent. You're more likely to
work between Christmas Day and New Year's Day than any
other part of the country. Thirty five percent of Midwesterners
say they work that time between the twenty fifth and
thirty first, which is terrible, so sad, very sad.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
They also are the least likely to have a work
Christmas party too. I mean, yeah, I don't know what's
going on up there, but they when they do go
to a party, they go to the big ones. Almost
half of Midwesterners who responded said that they're going to
go to a Christmas party that has ten or more people.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Not bad. And as far as gifts on Christmas Eve,
we always waited till Christmas Day. But Emily, when she
was a kid, opened some on Christmas Eve. And it
may be a Midwest thing because they're twenty five percent
more likely than the national average to open at least
some of the gifts on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
We did not when I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
That was for both Ohio.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, for sure, that's where I grew up. That's where
the Christmas gifts were open, was in Ohio, and we
did not do that on Christmas Eve. What about the Northeast,
the Northeast, including Wyoming and Maine, they apparently party all
the time. Thirty nine percent of people eat Christmas dinner
(05:30):
at a friend or family member's house. They're thirty percent
more likely than anyone else or any other region in
the country to go to a Christmas Eve party, forty
percent more holiday parties than people from the South or
the West. So they like to tie one on.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, they like to tie one on. And they also
get their shop and done early, or at least some
of them do. Thirty four percent said they have finished
their gift buying or at least most of it ten
days by the fifteenth I guess of December, which is
pretty good.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah. And then here in the South, people in the
South are most likely to host a Christmas dinner themselves,
but it's usually for fewer than ten people, and they
like to take car trips if they're going more than
one hundred miles away for Christmas. But also people in
the South, and I can attest to this, don't work
during Christmas and New year Like everything's basically shut down.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, twenty nine percent, I think work, and I guess
they just sort of have to. Although it's probably the
same for the Midwesterners. I don't know if they're volunteering
to work.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I don't know. Midwesterners are odd folk.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Christmas parties are big, though. Sixty four percent of Southerners
will go to an office party.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Which means something that means you are not at work,
but you go to work for the party. That's what
happens in the South.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
That's what we always did.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, I know, apparently it's the Southern thing.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, actually that's not true, because they don't work between
Christmas and New Year's. You're gonna have your office party
before Christmas?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Oh yeah, that's right. I just outed us as not
working long before Christmas.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Everyone knows we like to bragget about our month off.
It's great. But twenty nine percent they're a little lazier
with a gift buying. Only twenty nine percent had completed
their shopping ten days before the holiday. And what about Westerners, Well,
out West, you're going to get people that are maybe
a little more transient. They're more than twice as likely
(07:23):
to travel more than one hundred miles, and they also
are more likely to twice as likely to get Christmas
dinner at a restaurant or a club or something instead
of at someone's house.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yes, and I think thirty eight percent of them go
to see a movie in the theaters. So when you
hear about people going to see a movie on Christmas Day,
they're talking about California.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
All right, where are we headed next to my friend?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Oh jeez, it's my turn again? Or already? I guess.
Let's talk about Darlene Love Chuck.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Treasure.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But first let's do a little intercitial Christmas music.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I love that part.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Okay, thanks for that, Chuck, by the way, But we're
talking about Darlene Love, who was part of the Wall
of Sound, was one of Phil Spector's finds and someone
Phil Spector took advantage of two. But she's most well
known for her Christmas song Christmas and in parentheses, baby
(08:37):
Please Come Home.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
You know the song, right, it's a great, great song.
She might also if you see her face and you
did not know that she sang that song. As we'll
get to, I don't want to spoil and where she
did this every year, but you're like, I know that woman.
You might know her as Murtaw's wife from the Lethal
Weapon movies. Oh really, Yeah, she was Danny Lover's wife.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Oh okay, nice, that's a nice link. Another place you
might have noticed her is on Letterman because every year
from nineteen eighty six to twenty fourteen, when Letterman retired,
Darlene Love came out and sang her Christmas baby Please
Come Home Christmas song on the last show, last episode
of Letterman before Christmas every year.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, pretty amazing tradition. And Dave isn't one that had
like three decade traditions like this. Apparently was also a
little grumpy just about holiday music period. Paul Shaffer said
that you know, he wouldn't let us play Monster Mash
around Halloween. He just wasn't given to holiday novelty songs.
(09:45):
So the fact that darn Leed loves song is something
that he wanted back every year, and Paul says it
was his idea to begin with, but Dave's idea to
bring her back. It really means that Dave loved her
and loved that song.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, and we got this from our friends at far
mag and they mentioned that the thing that kept us
fresh every year. I mean, she belts it out and
it's a really great, great song to begin with, so
she gave it her best every year. But something that
kind of kept it fresh over those basically thirty years
twenty eight years was that the CBS Orchestra saxophonist Bruce Kapler,
(10:19):
who was in Paul Shaffer's band. When that saxophone solo
kicks off, he would come on stage in all sorts
of different hilarious ways that just like tore the roof
off the studio.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, it was always fun. I always loved like kind
of waiting to see how he's going to make his
entrance every year. I mean it started out fairly low key,
and then it kind of grew into something with that
huge I don't know if that's an actual bass saxophone
or just a baritone, but it's one of those gigantic
saxophones and he would come flying in on wire or
be in a snow globe and stuff like that, and
(10:52):
it was always just a lot of fun. The whole
segment is always great.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
He came out of a present once a giant president,
came in on a sleigh, stepped out of a fireplace
like it was really great. Everybody loved it. And apparently
this happened every year except for the Writer's Strike in
two thousand and seven, and then when Letterman retired in
twenty fourteen, Darlene Love took this tradition over to the
View of all places. I'm not sure why. I couldn't
(11:18):
find why, but now you can find her singing the
song on the View right around Christmas time every year.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I'm sure it's because if you called her up, probably
we'll pay you money for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, we really like this song. There's a bunch of
super cuts too on YouTube if you want to see it.
That just do a really good job of editing together
her Letterman performances over the years. It's fun, especially to
see Bruce Kapler coming in all the different ways.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, those are great. The Writer's strike here is a
little bit of a bummer because I think it was
just like three days after Christmas that year is when
Dave struck his own independent deal with the union to
bring the showback, So it was he was three days
late basically from being able to not have that streak
(12:06):
interrupted unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, and she's like, I could do a belated version.
He's like, no, not this year.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
All right, c you the music Magical Elves.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I'm so happy.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Alrighty, you know what, Let's go with the worst Christmas songs.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh boy, I'm pretty excited about this. I don't know
if you out there in holiday podcast land can hear
us shuffling our papers, But.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
That's what we're doing, rare paper shuffle.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
So you found a bunch of different worst Christmas songs.
Apparently it's a pretty fun poll for people to conduct
because people love to tell people what Christmas song they
hate the most at that moment.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah. I mean, we could have included a hundred bulls,
because there are that many or more, but we just
kind of picked through. I kind of went by year
of recent years. That was one in twenty twenty one
from the Today Show. I think it was you Gov America, Yeah,
who did this poll? And people responded And this shocks
(13:17):
me that Santa Baby was I think their least favorite
or most hated Christmas song.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
It shocks you. I'm in total agreement.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I don't mind. I don't love it, but I don't
hate it. I wouldn't rank that as the as my
most hated.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's the thing, Like, I think the Christmas song you
hate the most is the one you heard one too
many times this year, the most recently. That's the worst
Christmas song of all time to everybody, right, But I
think the problem with that song that people have, if
I'm projecting, it's like it's a sultry song about Santa.
It's just odd. It goes against everything we know about
(13:56):
Santa Claus. And I don't like it. It's not a good song.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Not great. No, no, no, I guess I'm with you. I
just don't know if that would be my most hated.
We went to Holland Sentinel dot com because we had
to get a poll out of West Michigan. And there's
a something called local Spins in Grand Rapids, and they
did a survey in twenty twenty, and this time, this
(14:20):
one really upsets me. I know you don't like it,
but I love it.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Paul McCart. Oh, I thought you didn't like it, Paul
McCartney's seventy nine Wonderful Christmas Time.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
If I said I didn't like it before, that means
that that was the one I did one too many times,
most recently, because I do like that song in general.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Okay, not the best song, but I do think it's
pretty good. But there is a B side to that
called Rudolph the Red Nose Reggae. Yeah, did you listen
to that?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I did. I didn't realize it was instrumental. I was
grateful for that.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
I I was due. And it's not even that reggae.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
No, it's got like the Dexys Midnight Runner violin kind
of playing through it as instead of the lyrics. That's
kind of what does the Yeah, what would you call it?
The harmony? Ah?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
This is the melody?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
The melody? Okay, but yeah it was. It wasn't that bad.
But I could see people hating Wonderful Christmas Time more.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
But what about the UK?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Wait, one more thing about Grand Rapids, Michigan. My family
used to go around Christmas time to Grand Rapids, Michigan
because they had a dinner theater there and they had
a puffey with frog's legs. And that's where I was
introduced to frog's legs, which I wouldn't eat in a
million years now, but used to love them around Christmas
time every year. From this dinner theater's buffet.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
It tastes like chicken.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It tasted a lot like chicken, froggy chicken.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, of course, what's next? We go to the UK
my friend far Out magazine, Boy, is that the second
time we've used them?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah? Thanks a lot, far Out.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
So they don't like Mariah Carey apparently because her terrific
in my opinion song All I Want for Christmas As
You was voted as the most annoying.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
That's the UK, that's not far Out opinion, right.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yeah, yeah, that's the UK as a whole.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, And far Up points out that you still have
to give Mariah Carey props because apparently that song was
written very quickly. She was like twenty two at the time,
and you can make a really good case that that
is the most recent, genuine, bona fide Christmas song that's
entered into the cannon. I can't think of that shit, Yeah, yeah,
I can't think of one that's made it more recently.
(16:21):
Than that, and this is like the mid nineties. I
was like thirty years ago, I think. But yeah, I
don't get that one either. I mean, it's not my
favorite song, but it's not terrible. And I think the
fact that it's in love actually too makes it even
more delightful.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I still haven't seen that. I mean, I'm no huge
morac Ary fan, but I love that song. I think
it's terrific.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Okay, good, what's next? We're gonna go over to Old
Street Solutions dot com. And this is a twenty twenty
two pole. I didn't see where the poll was, but
the clear winner, I mean, fifty three percent. That's really
saying something like, usually your most Christmas song is hitting
(17:01):
in like the thirty percent. Fifty three percent of people
pulled so that they hated Justin Bieber's Missiletoe song. Have
you heard that one?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Well? I have now I had to listen to it
for this.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
And I think we should read a portion of the lyrics,
can we?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I mean we're kind of have to.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I think, all right, here's the selection. This is called
Missletoe by Justin Biber. Everyone's gathering around the fire, chestnuts
roasting like a hot July. I should be chilling with
my folks, I know, but I'm aa be under the missletoe,
(17:45):
word on the street, Santa's Coming tonight, Reindeers flying through
the sky so high. I should be making a list,
I know, but I'm gonna be under the mistletoe with you,
shoddy with you, with you, shoddy with you.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
You're not gonna do the rest.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I can go. Wow, I think you know the rest.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
So yeah, And the whole thing is set to this
super lame Jack Johnson acoustic guitar beat. It's a really
bad song. Like, it's a bad song even as far
as Christmas songs go. It's just a genuinely bad song.
And I think Christopher Dunford from Old Street Solutions points out, like, yeah,
(18:27):
people like to hate on Justin Bieber, but that this
song is like objectively a bad song. So it definitely
does deserve that fifty three percent of votes. I think
anyone who's heard it would agree with that.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And this last bit we're gonna include is not a poll,
but Rolling Stone magazine put out their very snotty top
twenty Worst Christmas Songs list. Yeah, and I just wanted
to read a couple of selections from this because Rob
Sheffield of Rolling Stone really just brought the smarm to
a new level when he was dissing Jessica and Ashley
(18:59):
Simpson and little the Little drummer Boy version.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
He definitely did.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Here's a couple of lines from his review, you've heard
of the War on Christmas? Well, this song is the
sinking of the Lusitania. Not bad. No, each pump pum
is another drop in their musical waterboarding. And finally he
closes the review with Christmas you chose violence? Did you
(19:24):
listen to this one?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I did. It's it's not bad, but it's also not
good at all.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I mean it's a straight ahead version of that song,
which Rob Sheffield makes an argument that that song is
just not good. Sure, I don't hate that song, but
I do there is something about their parump pump pums
that are just grating. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's not just that, it's also the way they go
little baby. Yeah, it's pretty bad too. If you if
you're listening, if you're not listening to the song, you're
just it would come and go without you paying attention
or noticing. But if you focus in on that song
and the singing they're doing. It is not a great
song at all, for sure.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, there's some enunciation problems, I think.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah, I think it's surprising that he chose that as
the number one out of all the songs. I mean, again,
we're talking Justin Bieber put Missletoe out there, and this
is not worse than Missletoe, but yeah, it's not good.
What's your favorite? Going the other direction, what's your favorite
of all time? Or right now?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I should say I haven't got a ton. I mean
we've talked about this over the years here and there,
and I think I mentioned Tom Betty's song I love,
I really love Elton John's Step into Christmas. I love
the Wham song.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Oh it's a great one.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I like a lot of the waitresses. I love that song.
There's a bunch of them. I like Christmas music a lot.
Emily loves it and tries to start playing at the
day after Thanksgiving, but I try and make her wait
till December first at least, and then I have a
hard house rule that it stops at midnight on December
(20:57):
twenty fifth.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I'm sure I've asked you this before, but do you
guys listen to instrumental Christmas music at all.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, I like it all. I mean piano classics. I
found a good R and B soul playlist. That's great.
I like it all. What about you?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Okay, Well, I found something recently. I think I found
it a MetaFilter. Somebody posted eight hours of vintage department
store Christmas music, my music's competitor, custom music tapes, and
it is exactly what you think. It's really really good
background Christmas music. Good stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, I'll check that out. Sinatra, I love that one.
I like all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I think my favorite vocal Christmas music would be Johnny
mathis probably far and away, and then my favorite instrumental
Christmas music. I'm sure I've said this on every single
Christmas episode we've ever done is Faranti and Tiker and
they're dueling pianos. Although it's not really dueling. I would say,
what's the opposite of doing holding hand? Yeah, they're holding
(22:01):
hands pianos.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah. I think you should say that every year because
people drop in and listen and they should always get
their shout out.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, Fronte and Tiker definitely deserve their shout out every year.
Thanks for that, Chuck All.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Right, let's hop in that sled and get going.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Okay, Chuck, I am up, and I'm going to go
with Gosh is only my second pick so far, I think.
So well, let's have a nice little interlude in case
everybody wants to start getting buzzed at this point. Oh okay,
because we like to do a cocktail of some sort
of Christmas drink every year, and we blew through like
(22:45):
all of the famous ones pretty quickly, so we've had
to really kind of start looking around. And this year
we found what I think is a pretty good one
that I'd never heard before, and I think it's worth sharing.
It's from our friends at Olive Magazine, and it's they
call it a Christmas degrony, and it sounds pretty boss.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I'm all in on this. This sounds really good.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
We'll tell him about the spiced gin.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Well. I mean, that's the key to this thing, I think,
because otherwise you have a fairly traditional negroni, but you
have to spice that gin. My good friend Eddie, he
hasn't done a with gin yet, but every year he
makes his own little infused holiday boozes and it's a
really nice treat and he brings them around and gives
bottles out to people. But I'm going to request gin
(23:31):
from Eddie this year because this sounds great.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, So for the Christmas de grony from all of
magazine there're spiced gin is five hundred milileaders of gin.
That's right between a half pint and a pint, so
I guess three quarters of a No, it's between. It's
half of a leader, now that I think about it, Well, it.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Depends on how much genuine. You know, how many these
drinks you want. You can get any kind of bottle
of genu wint for sure.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
So let's just say you take half a lider of gin, okay,
and you put two centnamon sticks, two stars, four cloves,
four cardamom pop pods crushed, that's very important, two bay
leaves fresh if you got them, and two strips of
orange peel, and if you've got some cheese cloth. You
might want to put everything in there. It'll probably make
(24:15):
the whole thing a lot easier. But if not, don't
sweat it. You can put it all in that gin
in a big old mason jar, half liter mason jar
and leave it for about two days, maybe less than
two days, one to two and then you strain it
out and what you have there is your spice gin,
and like you said, that's kind of like the main
ingredient of this Christmas Negroni.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah. I mean from there you go fairly traditional negrony
with the campari and the sweet vermouth, but instead of
you can do your little orange twist, which I believe
is a traditional Negrony garnish. Yeah, but since you've spiced
it up, you can also add another cinnamon stick or
another little is it star annis or anise? I never
(24:59):
know how to say that.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I think both are fine, all.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Right, put both in there and that'll just add it
even a little more pop there at the end, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I mean, nothing says it's the Holidays better than handing
somebody a cocktail with a cinnamon stick sticking out of it.
That really drives the point.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Home, right, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
And also Negroni's are super easy to make. You just
pour equal parts of the gin, campari and sweet vermouth,
usually about three quarters of an ounce or twenty five milliliters,
and you just pour that over ice in the glass,
stir it up a little bit, and you've got a nigrotny.
And if you've ever had a negroni and you've been like,
this is all bit boozy for me. I found also
(25:41):
an alternative negroni I think also from all of magazine
that they suggest just take out the gin and put
in prosecco instead, and you've got yourself a much lighter
negroni that also would do really well with a nice
cinnamon stick sticking out of it.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah, I've seen. I've had quite a few cocktails over
the past year that have prosecco or a white wine
as the boozy ingredient to what would ordinarily be just
a cocktail, and it's interesting. I like it.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah. Same here. Also, I think I said on our
tomorrow episode that I was going to try Capelletti, which
was supposedly like a better version of Campari. Well I did,
and I'm here to tell you just use Kampari. It's
so much better, so much better.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I went into, Uh, there's an amazing spirit store here
in Atlanta, and I went in and asked for which one.
It is, the Elemental Spirits Company, and it is right
across from Buddies and Videodrome there at North Avenue. You
know where that is. Yeah, sure, next to Emmanuel's Tavern. Okay,
and it's great. They're they're very highly curated, really good,
(26:48):
good stuff like that you don't find in regular liquor stores.
But I went in and asked for an tomorrow. I said,
gimme a couple. I said, give me, gimme one really
accessible and give me the bitterest thing that you have.
Oh yeah, and I can't remember the name of it.
I'll have to post about it later. But this stuff
is it's almost like melort. It's so medicinal and.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Bitter, Like you say why after each sip.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I mean, I like it, but it's really like I've
leapt into the bitter zone and this one's testing my limits.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Okay, Well, if we're shouting out incredibly well curated liquor
stores in Atlanta, I definitely want to shout out Eah
and F Bottle Shop over by Peachtree Battle. It's so good.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Oh, we'll have to check that one out too.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
That's also the kind of place you could just walk
into and say I want to try something like this,
and they'll give it to you.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah. I love stores like that where you just sort
of trust in their expertise. Yeah, it's the best. I
also want to shout out if you are big on like,
you know, cocktail syrups and stuff like that to spice
up a drink. Sure, I bought one the other day
that I'd never heard of. It was a sweet potato
oh syrup, and it is so good with whiskey.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
That sounds good just to drink on its own.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It's great. It doesn't taste like, oh, like I'm drinking
a sweet potato. It just it makes it more, you know,
because there's other spices that just it's like a nice
holiday whiskey cocktail basically. Man, it's just really yummy.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Where'd you find that?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
This was a Decatur package on Clairemont, so like.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You can find it probably nationwide.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, I mean, you know, people are local. I think
it's a local one, so I wish I had a
bottle in front of me, But you know, locally, there's
probably all kinds of people in your urban center that
are making their own shrubs and bitters and syrups.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Well, I gotta find that one because it sounds pretty delish.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Yeah, maybe I'll send you some.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I'd love that, Chuck. I love pre presents from you,
especially around Christmas time. All Right, great drink great drink
agreed thanks to our friends of Olive Magazine. And here
we go, hopping along back in the sleigh, out in
the snow, putting on our white faux fur fringed frocks
and going on to the next section.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
I guess we'll go with how to make your Christmas
tree last longer. That this is a personal one, because
I have had bad luck to past couple of years
with our trees dying way too early. And I think
it's because I was sort of stuck on using the
Christmas tree stand I grew up with mm which, compared
to today's stands, had not much room for the tree
(29:33):
trunk itself and certainly didn't hold that much water. So
I finally my mom got me one of those gigantic
things that holds gallons of water. Yeah, and I think
it was the right choice because it's doing much much
better this year.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Well, that's definitely one of the keys that Better Homes
and Gardens recommends is getting a stand that fits.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Yeah, you got it. You gotta those old school ones
that hold like three cups of water.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
No good, no, because your tree is still alive even
though you've cut it down, so it drinks up the water.
And in addition to having a tree that holds a
bunch of water and that fits the trunk, you want
to keep that water level like basically high every day.
You want to check it basically every day because the
trunk needs to be pretty much submerged in water to
(30:20):
keep that tree going for the month of December.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah. And I always heard, you know, pour some sprite
or some sugar in there, and I never was sure
if that was true. But there are tree people who say,
if you put like a half a cup of granulated
sugar to about five gallons of water and a half
a cup of vinegar, yeah, then that's gonna nourish that tree.
It's going to preserve the sap, and that vinegar is
(30:45):
going to be a pH stabilizer that's gonna ward off
bacteria and rot.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, because that's the thing. You've got a reservoir of
water in your living room and your living room has
its heater on. That can be a bad combination. I've
also seen you can throw some pennies in there too
to help adjust the pH as well and keep bacteria
from growing.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
But you want to pennies?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Do you want to mix us all up? Five gallons
of water. Just so happens that those orange home depot
buckets are five gallons. You go out in your garage,
put five gallons of water in there, half a cup
of vinegar, half a cup of sugar. Mix it all
up and you use that to top off your Christmas
tree stand water every day.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I love it if you got a kid, assign them
that task because they are much more apt to be
able to crawl under that tree. And it's special and fun.
And they think they are helping. They think they're helping,
and they are helping.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
They definitely are helping. What else? Man like? A lot
of people also have ill fitting Christmas tree stands that
are too small, and they carve off some of the trunk.
They shave off some of the sides to make it fit.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Jam it in there right, No good, No, apparently you
need the sides of the trunk that helps it stay alive.
You do want to cut, you know there is something
too trimming some just off the bottom of the trunk.
They'll usually do that for you where you buy your
Christmas tree. If they say I love this article from
Better Homes and Garden says, shave off two centimeters like
(32:08):
that that's like it's barely the width of a chainsaw blade.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It's three quarters of an inch. I looked it up.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Oh okay, well I guess that's bigger than I thought.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yeah. No, I know, we're not super metric here everybody
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
But you do want to cut a little bit off
the trunk, not too much. But you know that sap
starts forming. It's like a scab almost right within hours
of cutting the tree down. It tries to form a
scab and that's gonna seal it up on the bottom.
So that's why they trim it up for you at
the Christmas tree place, because it's going to be much
easier to suck water up.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yes, Also, this is a great excuse for you to
buy a bow saw too and take that home, and
then you can cut the little two centimeters off the
bottom of the trunk yourself so it'll be as fresh
as possible. So the key is trim somem off the bottom,
but not off the sides of the bottom of the trunk,
because that bark is really good at sucking up water,
and you want to make sure this thing can take
(33:04):
as much water as possible so that it stays fresh
as long as possible.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Yeah, and also be discerning when you go to pick
out that tree to begin with. Don't don't just fall
for what looks the prettiest you got to You gotta
feel those branches a little bit. If it's getting crispy
at all in the lot, then you're in big trouble already.
So give it, you know, run your hand along it,
give a little hug, give a little feel, give a
little tug, and make sure everything smells really fresh, make
(33:31):
sure that bark is very smooth, and make sure that
you know the branches themselves feel not breakable but pliable
at that point exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
So, Also when you get at home, drying out the
tree is not good. You don't want to accelerate drying
it out. It's already getting dried enough being indoors, out
of any humidity that might be around, and then near
heat sources, so you want to not only just keep
it topped up with water, you want to keep it
away from heat as much as possible. And apparently even
(34:03):
going with led lights will have a substantial effect on
keeping the tree from drying out because they put out
so much less heat than traditional incandescent lights. Doe.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah, good idea, and most of them these days are
led I think.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And then yeah, they're definitely easy to come by at least,
and then chuck afterward, after the holidays have gone, after
the last ornaments put up, and the last piece of
tinsel that you're going to bother taking off has been
taken off, even though there's a few strands left. What
are you going to do with that tree to help
your local wildlife?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Well, your township or your county probably has a recycling
situation going on. That is certainly a great way to
dispose of your tree. But you can also if you
live in a wooded area, you can just put lean
that thing up against another tree in the woods and
that can become a little shelter or a home for wildlife.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
For sure. You don't even have to live in a
wooded area. You can throw it in your backyard on
that side, Yeah, and rabbits would be like, thank you
very much, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Or you can strip it, you can like trim off
the branches and lay those downs as mult at the
base of garden plants and stuff like that. Yeah, or
do what I do already gave myself away is that
my friends throw them all in the back of my
pickup truck and we let them dry to a crispy brown,
then throw them on campfires for quite a fireworks show.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Very nice, indeed, but do it safely, oh for sure,
And make sure you haven't already invited the rabbits in
to live there. You want to stomp the tree a
few times on the ground to shake out any rabbits
that might have taken up residence before you throw it
on the campfire. That's right, Okay, Well, I say it's
time to move on. We got a couple left. Both
(35:53):
of them are mine, it turns out, so I'm going
to share one with you. So you pick the last one. Okay, okay,
I'd be picking the last one for you by picking
the second to last.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
I was waiting for you to catch on here.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
But Chuck, let's get back in our sleigh and go
on to the next segment where we'll talk about an
alternative Christmas movie. Okay, Chuck, So there are plenty of
Christmas movies out there that are straight ahead Christmas movies.
(36:26):
The point is about Christmas, about maybe learning the spirit
of Christmas, about getting a toy, about running into Santa
who knows. But there's also alternative Christmas movies that take
place around Christmas and just Buy Proxy are technically Christmas movies,
and at least one of them is a classic horror movie,
which arguably gave us the slasher horror genre. Nineteen seventy
(36:51):
four's Black.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Christmas, Yeah, from Bob Clark, who has made three classic films,
Black Christmas, A Christmas Story, and Porky's.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah. He made two Christmas films. One of them was
a Christmas Story, the other was a slasher film called
Black Christmas.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Isn't that Nuts and Porkies?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah. I never saw Porky's. My mom would have died
before she let me see Porky's and I still have
never seen it.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
I saw it years later because I just felt I
had to to make up for my restricted childhood. And
it's not great. But what is pretty great is Black Christmas.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
It is It's subtle in a lot of ways, as
far as a slasher movie can go. It's about as
subtle as it can get. Bob Clark has said a
lot of people have written film crit on this, like
people consider Black Christmas a masterpiece an a plus. Some
people think it's their favorite movie of all time. And
the reason why is because rather than going with like
(37:49):
straight ahead gore and like traditional horror that would come
years later in the slasher genre, Bob Clark went with
more suggested stuff and eeriness, and he went with terror
over horror and building up dread and fear in like
legitimate ways. And what's more, one of the things he
(38:10):
did that really differentiated Black Christmas from the slasher films
to come is you never actually see the killer the
entire movie. You see his eye in one scene and
that's the most you see of them. And then even
more than that, he never gets caught. He's still around
at the end.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah, I mean, it's a I really liked it. I
covered this on movie Crush. It was either it was
either our like a horror movie roundtable with some of
our colleagues, or it may have been a Christmas episode.
But that's when I watched it. I hadn't seen it
before that, and it is It is really good. And
it was also sort of a landmark movie in that
(38:49):
it established a couple of things. I mean, first of all,
like you said, some people, you can make an argument
that it is one of if not the first slasher movie.
Some people say like Psycho and stuff like that, or
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was released weeks before this, But
(39:09):
you could you can make an argument that the kind
of prototypical slasher movie in that like one person dies
after another, you know, very slowly working his way through
a group of friends that you know, Black Christmas was
nineteen seventy four, and that was, you know, four years
before Halloween came out.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, So the premise of the movie is set in
a sorority house over Christmas break, So there's a limited
number of people not only at the sorority house but
on campus in general. And that's definitely part of the
eeriness that that Bob Clark uses, just that feeling for
anybody who's ever been on campus like during the summer
or during a holiday break. It's just strange how quiet
(39:48):
it is, and that's part of the whole thing. But
they're stalked by an unknown phone caller who's calling them
with like deeply obscene phone calls. Ye that they typically
like in typical seventies fashion, just kind of like like
laugh off or dismiss or like you know, they say
lude things back to the guy. H yeah, but slowly,
(40:09):
but surely they all start to be murdered one by
one in this house.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Yeah, and it was also speaking of those calls, it's
one of the other big landmark things is And I
hope I'm not wrong, but I think this was the
first movie where they said the call was coming from
inside the house.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah. I think the urban legend existed already, but this
was the first movie to do that.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the movies didn't invent that trope, but
the movies made use of the urban legend trope.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Yeah, far as I know, it was the first one.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I think so, because When a Stranger Calls was after this,
and that was the other big one where they said
that line.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Man that movie. Few movies have meandered more than a
When a Stranger Calls? Have you seen When a Stranger
Calls back? No, it's even more meandering than the first one.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
It's a good movie. Black Christmas is if you're interested
in a horror movie. And again, like the I don't
want to call them prank calls, the obscene phone calls
are very obscene, So don't watch this movie with your kids.
But if you're interested in something that is definitely set
around Christmas, and Christmas is kind of an extra character
in the movie. That's not your typical Christmas movie. And
(41:21):
you're into horror, this might be right up your alley.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Yeah, then seventy four version. There have been two remakes.
The two thousand and six one was very gory and terrible.
I didn't see it, but I did see the twenty nineteen.
I thought it was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Oh really, Okay, yeah, I haven't seen either. I've just
seen the original, And I said, some people say it's
their favorite movie. At least two pretty big celebrities counted
it as their favorite movie, didn't they. That's right, man, Yeah,
Elvis was one.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
You know. I actually around Grace Lamb man. Watch that
movie about those schrority girls is pretty good.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Wow, that was really good, Elvis. Can you do it
really good? Steve Martin? No, I can't either.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Steve Martin loves it though. That's pretty wild and crazy.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, Olivia Hussey's in it. Apparently he met her years later.
He's like, oh my god, you're in one of my
favorite movies of all time, and she thought he was
gonna tell her Romeo and Juliet like the nineteen sixties version.
He said, you're in Black Christmas and she was like, what, Yeah,
one of your favorite movies.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
So yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
So that's it, everybody, Black Christmas, and we're gonna get
in that sleigh one last time this episode for this
Christmas Spectacular and go on to the last segment, which
Chuck is going to pick for us.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Hey, thanks for driving. By the way, I've had a
couple of too many negronies. That infused gen has hitting
me hard, So thanks for taking the reins.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
That's all right. I don't mind being the DD. Sometimes
next year it's you though.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Yeah, you found this great thing about Christmas card etiquette
from the Merrily McKee Etiquette School. And we may have
talked about this before. I've never we have never sent
out a Christmas card as a family.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I don't remember you saying that.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, we just we never did it. I don't know why,
Probably because we're lazy. Emily was always her very very
busy during the holiday season with her business, for sure
the busiest time of the year, and so that would
have fallen to me, and I never have really had
much of an interest in doing it myself. But I
love getting them and I'm one of those people that
likes to display them.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Okay, So if you ever decided to start sending Christmas cards,
after you hear this Merrily McKee's Etiquette School's list of
Christmas Card etiquette, you will be well prepared for how
to navigate the travails of Christmas card sending.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Chuck, all right, get us going. When should we be
sending these things?
Speaker 2 (43:54):
So you want to send a Christmas card technically for
it to arrive by January fifth, because you have until
the end of the twelve days of Christmas for your
Christmas card to arrive in the twelve days of Christmas,
start on Christmas and go till January fifth, which is
three Kings day. That's the traditional way, like if you
were sending a card in nineteen oh three, that was
(44:17):
your time limit. Now it's like much more abbreviated because
people like you like to display Christmas cards. So you
want to get them to people by I think December fifth, fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Right, Yeah, if you're getting if you're purposely sending your
Christmas cards, so they go out by January fourth, everyone
that gets that Christmas card will say a little late huh.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Kind of January fifth, you know. I mean it's like
literally the next year.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, so that's sort of like you said the old school,
like by January fifth. They also say sort of back
in the day that you didn't typically send them to
your close friends and neighbors or colleagues that you will
see right over Christmas. It was sort of a way
to say like, Hi, I don't live near you and
we aren't in like regular touch, so here's our family.
(45:09):
But that certainly has gone away too, because you can
send Christmas cards to anybody at any nun at any time.
But sent them in July that would be really weird.
But send them to anybody. You can send them to
your next door neighbor and it's not like they'll think like,
well that's weird. I see them every day.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah. Merrily mckithays, these days it's not rude to give
anyone who celebrates Christmas a Christmas card, even if you
see that person regularly. And I would argue the people
you see regularly are the ones you would most want
to send a Christmas card to these days, because everybody's
so neurotic and insecure.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
I know, I well, I mean, would this make you insecure?
What if you get a Christmas card every year from us.
Let's say we were sending them to you and Momo
and you me, and all of a sudden we didn't.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
I okay, I'm just playing a part here because I
actually wouldn't do this. I would come to you and say, hey,
we didn't get a card this year? Is everything okay
between us? And what would you say in return? As
far as Merrily McKee's Etiquette school.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Suggests, well, I would say. I could say a number
of things, but one thing I could say is, well,
you know what, my friend money's little tighter this year.
We had to cut down and send about half as
many Christmas cards as usual.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
And I say, oh, okay, I was part of a
huge culling of people.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
I can live with that exactly. That's supposedly the nice
way if you want to drop someone from your list
is to not just drop one person, but you know
you're probably dropping a lot at once.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Well, I think if you read between the lines, Merrily
McKee's saying, even if you're just dropping one person, tell
them they were tell them like half the list that
you cut. So if somebody tells you are part of
half the list, now that you hear that, you'll know
that there's no telling whether you were half of the
list or not.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Yeah, kids, that's called a lie to spare someone's feelings,
and that can be Okay.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
That's right. So if you want to cut somebody from
your Christmas card list, how do you go about cutting them? Chuck, Like,
what decisions do you need to make?
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Well, I mean, I guess you wouldn't put their name
on an envelope.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Okay, how would you decide? I think is what I'm
trying to say?
Speaker 3 (47:18):
More specifically, Well, I mean I wouldn't do that to
any senior member of your extended network because oftentimes our
older friends maybe a little lonelier, and this card might
really be a big deal for them.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yeah. Merrily McKee makes a really great point that some
of your older adult friends or family members probably aren't
on social media, or there's a good chance they're not,
so getting a Christmas card in the mail is a
big deal to them. Yeah, and they're probably don't have
they probably don't have emails, so they're not going to
get an e card. So not only do you want
to keep the older people on your list, you also
(47:56):
want to add in their Christmas card like an extra
special note. Maybe, Yeah, Christmas drawing from your kid, because
it is going to mean a lot more to them
than you're you know, forty year old go go go, single,
childless executive brother is going to it's going to mean
to him.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
You maybe, you know, maybe if someone doesn't send you
a Christmas card and not as like a revenge, but
if you're just looking to cut back on the number,
maybe you don't want to do it to the people
who like every single year they send you one, but.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
You could do it as revenge too. I mean that works.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
I guess. There are no rules.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, so, I mean that's there's there's some If somebody
stops or if you send somebody a card also and
they don't send you a card in return for two
years in a row, they're off. They're done dead to
you for sure. You don't even talk to them when
you see them during the rest of the year. Yeah,
Because that's the thing that people don't realize is when
(48:56):
you take someone off your Christmas card list, you're not
allowed to talk to them any longer. So really you
need to decide pretty pretty you really need to give
us some thought, I guess is what I'm saying do
you want this person out of your life forever?
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
And you said earlier something very key that you can
send a Christmas card to anybody these days who celebrates Christmas,
And that is very key because unless you know that
your Jewish or Muslim friends really enjoy the Christmas card thing,
then probably don't send them a Christmas card. Maybe a
(49:33):
high how you're doing it's it's winter card.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Sure, Or you could send your Jewish friends a Hanika
card or your Muslim friends an idolph a tier card,
which is the last day of Ramadan. I'm probably not
pronouncing that correctly.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Yeah. Would they appreciate that? Or would they be like,
oh please?
Speaker 2 (49:51):
I think they would appreciate it. I think most people would.
Maybe your your cynical Jewish friends or your cynical Muslim
friends might might be like oh please, But I think
for the most part we'd be like, wow, that was
really thoughtful.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, Or maybe they think you're like, just oh, I
see what Chuck's doing here.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
He's buttering me up to hit me up for money.
In June.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Something's going on.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah, something's coming. So that's it for Christmas cards, and geez, Chuck,
I mean that's it for the whole holiday episode, isn't it.
I'm starting to talk slowly because I don't want it
to end.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
I know, and you know what, I am a little
worried about next year because the Christmas reservoir is genuinely
getting thin.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Well, we'll have to send an alert out to our
Christmas idea helper Elves Robert Paulson and Alex Stock, who
usually send us ideas they need to step it up
for this year.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Robert sennis one this year? Which one did he send it?
Did we use it?
Speaker 2 (50:47):
I didn't see one from him.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
No, Oh I may have used it. Oh, let me
look while you wind things down with glad tidings.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Oh okay, well everybody, well Chuck does that. I want
to say from all of us, it's if you should know,
from Chuck and me, from Jerry, from Dave, from Ben,
from everybody who's ever been involved with stuff, you should
know we wish you the happiest of holidays, The merriest
of Christmas is the happiest upon it because the happiest
(51:16):
of everything. We hope this is a wonderful season of
plaid tidings, joy, super boozy eggnog and just goodness in general,
even just for a few days around the Christmas time.
So thank you very much for joining us and sitting
with us. Hopefully this sets you off. I'm the greatest
(51:36):
Christmas ever.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
Boy, you did a great job killing time. Thanks Ma,
that's genuine. We actually did not use Robert's suggestion this year,
so we have one in the hip pocket for next year.
I'm not even gonna say what it is. Okay, it's
a pretty good one.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Well, I have a list too. I'll send you. If
you're really low, check it twice. I will, and I
know that you're nice, so you will get that list.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Happy Holidays, everybody. We love you.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yeah you guys, thank you so much for listening, and
we'll see you next year.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hey, sorry, ho, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
There's Chuck. Jerry's here too. All the little elves are
around us, watching us, adoringly waiting for us to begin
this twenty twenty three holiday special episode of Stuff You
Should Know. Hooray, hooray Chuck. Indeed, it's our Christmas episode.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, our ad free Christmas episode, right, yes, it better
be for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We'll find out after we publish.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Oh goodness, boyd I mean did we even order these?
Should we just freewheel it?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Oh gosh, we're getting to it all, are you?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I wanted to kind of meander for a little bit,
but sure.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Now we give me ander. What do you want to
chat about?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I don't know. How's the family?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
They're doing great? You know. This is actually a I
don't want to say too much, but let me just
say that this is a there's a turning point for
my daughter this year at Christmas, A very big revelation.
Oh my, that's all I'm going to say. I always
wondered when it was going to happen, and it happened.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, it is everything.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Okay, I'm fine. Actually, Emily was a little more upset
than I was. Yeah, and I was just like, you know,
I mean, well, I'll talk to you offline, but everyone
knows what I'm talking about, right.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I think, so hopefully just everyone. Yeah, well, let's just
stop this right now.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It's still going to be a great Christmas regardless. I
all agreed on that.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Good and this is going to be a great Christmas
episode despite that beginning.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Okay, you know, let's start with I'm gonna go ahead
and call let's just take turns. How about that?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Okay, you're going to call an audible each time.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Wow, I'm going to call an audible each time on
my own picks.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Okay, well you go first. How about that? Because yes,
everybody in classic stuff you should know fashion. Chuck and
I each picked a few Christmas pieces to talk about, yea,
and then we sent them to one another and did
not discuss what order we should do them. And so
we're going to do that as we go along. That's
what Chuck's talking about right.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Now, That's right. And so the first thing I found,
and another fun thing about the Christmas episode is that
it allows us to get our sources, our sources become
a little more relaxed our rigor like where we get stuff,
because sometimes for Christmas stuff, you just get stuff from
some of the wackiest websites and that's fine. Yeah, this
(02:48):
one actually wasn't wacky. This was USA Today. That's legit, right,
it's a little wacky. This is from twenty twelve from
Craig Wilson. What are you doing on Christmas Day? Yeah,
depends on where you are. And this is just a
little survey they did because I was always curious about
different traditions and different parts of the United States and
(03:09):
how people do stuff. And this is a good little
poll they did eleven years ago.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yes, Civic Science did a poll. Well, they didn't do
a poll. They apparently found a bunch of other polls
that totaled ninety thousand responses of Americans responding to questions
roughly about what they're going to do around Christmas time,
and they released it. They put it all together and said, hey,
get this. It turns out depending on your region, each
(03:37):
region has a lot of different things that they do
or don't do around Christmas time. Let's rap about them.
And Craig Wilson said, yes, let's that's right.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
So we're going to go over some of the highlights here.
If you're in the Midwest, Oh, I don't know, let's
say Michigan or Ohio or what else is in the midwest, Chicago.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Iowa, Kansas, set Midwest. Yeah, Kansas is in the middle
of the country. It's Midwest for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
All right, we'll see what our Kansas friends have to
say about that. If you live in the Midwest, though,
then you are thirty five percent. You're more likely to
work between Christmas Day and New Year's Day than any
other part of the country. Thirty five percent of Midwesterners
say they work that time between the twenty fifth and
thirty first, which is terrible, so sad, very sad.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
They also are the least likely to have a work
Christmas party too. I mean, yeah, I don't know what's
going on up there, but they when they do go
to a party, they go to the big ones. Almost
half of Midwesterners who responded said that they're going to
go to a Christmas party that has ten or more people.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Not bad. And as far as gifts on Christmas Eve,
we always waited till Christmas Day. But Emily, when she
was a kid, opened some on Christmas Eve. And it
may be a Midwest thing because they're twenty five percent
more likely than the national average to open at least
some of the gifts on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
We did not when I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
That was for both Ohio.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, for sure, that's where I grew up. That's where
the Christmas gifts were open, was in Ohio, and we
did not do that on Christmas Eve. What about the Northeast,
the Northeast, including Wyoming and Maine, they apparently party all
the time. Thirty nine percent of people eat Christmas dinner
(05:30):
at a friend or family member's house. They're thirty percent
more likely than anyone else or any other region in
the country to go to a Christmas Eve party, forty
percent more holiday parties than people from the South or
the West. So they like to tie one on.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, they like to tie one on. And they also
get their shop and done early, or at least some
of them do. Thirty four percent said they have finished
their gift buying or at least most of it ten
days by the fifteenth I guess of December, which is
pretty good.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah. And then here in the South, people in the
South are most likely to host a Christmas dinner themselves,
but it's usually for fewer than ten people, and they
like to take car trips if they're going more than
one hundred miles away for Christmas. But also people in
the South, and I can attest to this, don't work
during Christmas and New year Like everything's basically shut down.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, twenty nine percent, I think work, and I guess
they just sort of have to. Although it's probably the
same for the Midwesterners. I don't know if they're volunteering
to work.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I don't know. Midwesterners are odd folk.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Christmas parties are big, though. Sixty four percent of Southerners
will go to an office party.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Which means something that means you are not at work,
but you go to work for the party. That's what
happens in the South.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
That's what we always did.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, I know, apparently it's the Southern thing.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, actually that's not true, because they don't work between
Christmas and New Year's. You're gonna have your office party
before Christmas?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Oh yeah, that's right. I just outed us as not
working long before Christmas.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Everyone knows we like to bragget about our month off.
It's great. But twenty nine percent they're a little lazier
with a gift buying. Only twenty nine percent had completed
their shopping ten days before the holiday. And what about Westerners, Well,
out West, you're going to get people that are maybe
a little more transient. They're more than twice as likely
(07:23):
to travel more than one hundred miles, and they also
are more likely to twice as likely to get Christmas
dinner at a restaurant or a club or something instead
of at someone's house.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yes, and I think thirty eight percent of them go
to see a movie in the theaters. So when you
hear about people going to see a movie on Christmas Day,
they're talking about California.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
All right, where are we headed next to my friend?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Oh jeez, it's my turn again? Or already? I guess.
Let's talk about Darlene Love Chuck.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Treasure.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But first let's do a little intercitial Christmas music.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I love that part.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Okay, thanks for that, Chuck, by the way, But we're
talking about Darlene Love, who was part of the Wall
of Sound, was one of Phil Spector's finds and someone
Phil Spector took advantage of two. But she's most well
known for her Christmas song Christmas and in parentheses, baby
(08:37):
Please Come Home.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
You know the song, right, it's a great, great song.
She might also if you see her face and you
did not know that she sang that song. As we'll
get to, I don't want to spoil and where she
did this every year, but you're like, I know that woman.
You might know her as Murtaw's wife from the Lethal
Weapon movies. Oh really, Yeah, she was Danny Lover's wife.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Oh okay, nice, that's a nice link. Another place you
might have noticed her is on Letterman because every year
from nineteen eighty six to twenty fourteen, when Letterman retired,
Darlene Love came out and sang her Christmas baby Please
Come Home Christmas song on the last show, last episode
of Letterman before Christmas every year.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, pretty amazing tradition. And Dave isn't one that had
like three decade traditions like this. Apparently was also a
little grumpy just about holiday music period. Paul Shaffer said
that you know, he wouldn't let us play Monster Mash
around Halloween. He just wasn't given to holiday novelty songs.
(09:45):
So the fact that darn Leed loves song is something
that he wanted back every year, and Paul says it
was his idea to begin with, but Dave's idea to
bring her back. It really means that Dave loved her
and loved that song.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, and we got this from our friends at far
mag and they mentioned that the thing that kept us
fresh every year. I mean, she belts it out and
it's a really great, great song to begin with, so
she gave it her best every year. But something that
kind of kept it fresh over those basically thirty years
twenty eight years was that the CBS Orchestra saxophonist Bruce Kapler,
(10:19):
who was in Paul Shaffer's band. When that saxophone solo
kicks off, he would come on stage in all sorts
of different hilarious ways that just like tore the roof
off the studio.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, it was always fun. I always loved like kind
of waiting to see how he's going to make his
entrance every year. I mean it started out fairly low key,
and then it kind of grew into something with that
huge I don't know if that's an actual bass saxophone
or just a baritone, but it's one of those gigantic
saxophones and he would come flying in on wire or
be in a snow globe and stuff like that, and
(10:52):
it was always just a lot of fun. The whole
segment is always great.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
He came out of a present once a giant president,
came in on a sleigh, stepped out of a fireplace
like it was really great. Everybody loved it. And apparently
this happened every year except for the Writer's Strike in
two thousand and seven, and then when Letterman retired in
twenty fourteen, Darlene Love took this tradition over to the
View of all places. I'm not sure why. I couldn't
(11:18):
find why, but now you can find her singing the
song on the View right around Christmas time every year.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I'm sure it's because if you called her up, probably
we'll pay you money for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, we really like this song. There's a bunch of
super cuts too on YouTube if you want to see it.
That just do a really good job of editing together
her Letterman performances over the years. It's fun, especially to
see Bruce Kapler coming in all the different ways.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, those are great. The Writer's strike here is a
little bit of a bummer because I think it was
just like three days after Christmas that year is when
Dave struck his own independent deal with the union to
bring the showback, So it was he was three days
late basically from being able to not have that streak
(12:06):
interrupted unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, and she's like, I could do a belated version.
He's like, no, not this year.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
All right, c you the music Magical Elves.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I'm so happy.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Alrighty, you know what, Let's go with the worst Christmas songs.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh boy, I'm pretty excited about this. I don't know
if you out there in holiday podcast land can hear
us shuffling our papers, But.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
That's what we're doing, rare paper shuffle.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
So you found a bunch of different worst Christmas songs.
Apparently it's a pretty fun poll for people to conduct
because people love to tell people what Christmas song they
hate the most at that moment.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah. I mean, we could have included a hundred bulls,
because there are that many or more, but we just
kind of picked through. I kind of went by year
of recent years. That was one in twenty twenty one
from the Today Show. I think it was you Gov America, Yeah,
who did this poll? And people responded And this shocks
(13:17):
me that Santa Baby was I think their least favorite
or most hated Christmas song.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
It shocks you. I'm in total agreement.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I don't mind. I don't love it, but I don't
hate it. I wouldn't rank that as the as my
most hated.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's the thing, Like, I think the Christmas song you
hate the most is the one you heard one too
many times this year, the most recently. That's the worst
Christmas song of all time to everybody, right, But I
think the problem with that song that people have, if
I'm projecting, it's like it's a sultry song about Santa.
It's just odd. It goes against everything we know about
(13:56):
Santa Claus. And I don't like it. It's not a good song.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Not great. No, no, no, I guess I'm with you. I
just don't know if that would be my most hated.
We went to Holland Sentinel dot com because we had
to get a poll out of West Michigan. And there's
a something called local Spins in Grand Rapids, and they
did a survey in twenty twenty, and this time, this
(14:20):
one really upsets me. I know you don't like it,
but I love it.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Paul McCart. Oh, I thought you didn't like it, Paul
McCartney's seventy nine Wonderful Christmas Time.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
If I said I didn't like it before, that means
that that was the one I did one too many times,
most recently, because I do like that song in general.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Okay, not the best song, but I do think it's
pretty good. But there is a B side to that
called Rudolph the Red Nose Reggae. Yeah, did you listen
to that?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I did. I didn't realize it was instrumental. I was
grateful for that.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
I I was due. And it's not even that reggae.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
No, it's got like the Dexys Midnight Runner violin kind
of playing through it as instead of the lyrics. That's
kind of what does the Yeah, what would you call it?
The harmony? Ah?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
This is the melody?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
The melody? Okay, but yeah it was. It wasn't that bad.
But I could see people hating Wonderful Christmas Time more.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
But what about the UK?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Wait, one more thing about Grand Rapids, Michigan. My family
used to go around Christmas time to Grand Rapids, Michigan
because they had a dinner theater there and they had
a puffey with frog's legs. And that's where I was
introduced to frog's legs, which I wouldn't eat in a
million years now, but used to love them around Christmas
time every year. From this dinner theater's buffet.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
It tastes like chicken.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It tasted a lot like chicken, froggy chicken.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, of course, what's next? We go to the UK
my friend far Out magazine, Boy, is that the second
time we've used them?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah? Thanks a lot, far Out.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
So they don't like Mariah Carey apparently because her terrific
in my opinion song All I Want for Christmas As
You was voted as the most annoying.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
That's the UK, that's not far Out opinion, right.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yeah, yeah, that's the UK as a whole.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, And far Up points out that you still have
to give Mariah Carey props because apparently that song was
written very quickly. She was like twenty two at the time,
and you can make a really good case that that
is the most recent, genuine, bona fide Christmas song that's
entered into the cannon. I can't think of that shit, Yeah, yeah,
I can't think of one that's made it more recently.
(16:21):
Than that, and this is like the mid nineties. I
was like thirty years ago, I think. But yeah, I
don't get that one either. I mean, it's not my
favorite song, but it's not terrible. And I think the
fact that it's in love actually too makes it even
more delightful.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I still haven't seen that. I mean, I'm no huge
morac Ary fan, but I love that song. I think
it's terrific.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Okay, good, what's next? We're gonna go over to Old
Street Solutions dot com. And this is a twenty twenty
two pole. I didn't see where the poll was, but
the clear winner, I mean, fifty three percent. That's really
saying something like, usually your most Christmas song is hitting
(17:01):
in like the thirty percent. Fifty three percent of people
pulled so that they hated Justin Bieber's Missiletoe song. Have
you heard that one?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Well? I have now I had to listen to it
for this.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
And I think we should read a portion of the lyrics,
can we?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I mean we're kind of have to.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I think, all right, here's the selection. This is called
Missletoe by Justin Biber. Everyone's gathering around the fire, chestnuts
roasting like a hot July. I should be chilling with
my folks, I know, but I'm aa be under the missletoe,
(17:45):
word on the street, Santa's Coming tonight, Reindeers flying through
the sky so high. I should be making a list,
I know, but I'm gonna be under the mistletoe with you,
shoddy with you, with you, shoddy with you.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
You're not gonna do the rest.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I can go. Wow, I think you know the rest.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
So yeah, And the whole thing is set to this
super lame Jack Johnson acoustic guitar beat. It's a really
bad song. Like, it's a bad song even as far
as Christmas songs go. It's just a genuinely bad song.
And I think Christopher Dunford from Old Street Solutions points out, like, yeah,
(18:27):
people like to hate on Justin Bieber, but that this
song is like objectively a bad song. So it definitely
does deserve that fifty three percent of votes. I think
anyone who's heard it would agree with that.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And this last bit we're gonna include is not a poll,
but Rolling Stone magazine put out their very snotty top
twenty Worst Christmas Songs list. Yeah, and I just wanted
to read a couple of selections from this because Rob
Sheffield of Rolling Stone really just brought the smarm to
a new level when he was dissing Jessica and Ashley
(18:59):
Simpson and little the Little drummer Boy version.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
He definitely did.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Here's a couple of lines from his review, you've heard
of the War on Christmas? Well, this song is the
sinking of the Lusitania. Not bad. No, each pump pum
is another drop in their musical waterboarding. And finally he
closes the review with Christmas you chose violence? Did you
(19:24):
listen to this one?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I did. It's it's not bad, but it's also not
good at all.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I mean it's a straight ahead version of that song,
which Rob Sheffield makes an argument that that song is
just not good. Sure, I don't hate that song, but
I do there is something about their parump pump pums
that are just grating. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's not just that, it's also the way they go
little baby. Yeah, it's pretty bad too. If you if
you're listening, if you're not listening to the song, you're
just it would come and go without you paying attention
or noticing. But if you focus in on that song
and the singing they're doing. It is not a great
song at all, for sure.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, there's some enunciation problems, I think.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah, I think it's surprising that he chose that as
the number one out of all the songs. I mean, again,
we're talking Justin Bieber put Missletoe out there, and this
is not worse than Missletoe, but yeah, it's not good.
What's your favorite? Going the other direction, what's your favorite
of all time? Or right now?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I should say I haven't got a ton. I mean
we've talked about this over the years here and there,
and I think I mentioned Tom Betty's song I love,
I really love Elton John's Step into Christmas. I love
the Wham song.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Oh it's a great one.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I like a lot of the waitresses. I love that song.
There's a bunch of them. I like Christmas music a lot.
Emily loves it and tries to start playing at the
day after Thanksgiving, but I try and make her wait
till December first at least, and then I have a
hard house rule that it stops at midnight on December
(20:57):
twenty fifth.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I'm sure I've asked you this before, but do you
guys listen to instrumental Christmas music at all.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, I like it all. I mean piano classics. I
found a good R and B soul playlist. That's great.
I like it all. What about you?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Okay, Well, I found something recently. I think I found
it a MetaFilter. Somebody posted eight hours of vintage department
store Christmas music, my music's competitor, custom music tapes, and
it is exactly what you think. It's really really good
background Christmas music. Good stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, I'll check that out. Sinatra, I love that one.
I like all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I think my favorite vocal Christmas music would be Johnny
mathis probably far and away, and then my favorite instrumental
Christmas music. I'm sure I've said this on every single
Christmas episode we've ever done is Faranti and Tiker and
they're dueling pianos. Although it's not really dueling. I would say,
what's the opposite of doing holding hand? Yeah, they're holding
(22:01):
hands pianos.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah. I think you should say that every year because
people drop in and listen and they should always get
their shout out.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, Fronte and Tiker definitely deserve their shout out every year.
Thanks for that, Chuck All.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Right, let's hop in that sled and get going.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Okay, Chuck, I am up, and I'm going to go
with Gosh is only my second pick so far, I think.
So well, let's have a nice little interlude in case
everybody wants to start getting buzzed at this point. Oh okay,
because we like to do a cocktail of some sort
of Christmas drink every year, and we blew through like
(22:45):
all of the famous ones pretty quickly, so we've had
to really kind of start looking around. And this year
we found what I think is a pretty good one
that I'd never heard before, and I think it's worth sharing.
It's from our friends at Olive Magazine, and it's they
call it a Christmas degrony, and it sounds pretty boss.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I'm all in on this. This sounds really good.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
We'll tell him about the spiced gin.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Well. I mean, that's the key to this thing, I think,
because otherwise you have a fairly traditional negroni, but you
have to spice that gin. My good friend Eddie, he
hasn't done a with gin yet, but every year he
makes his own little infused holiday boozes and it's a
really nice treat and he brings them around and gives
bottles out to people. But I'm going to request gin
(23:31):
from Eddie this year because this sounds great.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, So for the Christmas de grony from all of
magazine there're spiced gin is five hundred milileaders of gin.
That's right between a half pint and a pint, so
I guess three quarters of a No, it's between. It's
half of a leader, now that I think about it, Well, it.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Depends on how much genuine. You know, how many these
drinks you want. You can get any kind of bottle
of genu wint for sure.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
So let's just say you take half a lider of gin, okay,
and you put two centnamon sticks, two stars, four cloves,
four cardamom pop pods crushed, that's very important, two bay
leaves fresh if you got them, and two strips of
orange peel, and if you've got some cheese cloth. You
might want to put everything in there. It'll probably make
(24:15):
the whole thing a lot easier. But if not, don't
sweat it. You can put it all in that gin
in a big old mason jar, half liter mason jar
and leave it for about two days, maybe less than
two days, one to two and then you strain it
out and what you have there is your spice gin,
and like you said, that's kind of like the main
ingredient of this Christmas Negroni.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah. I mean from there you go fairly traditional negrony
with the campari and the sweet vermouth, but instead of
you can do your little orange twist, which I believe
is a traditional Negrony garnish. Yeah, but since you've spiced
it up, you can also add another cinnamon stick or
another little is it star annis or anise? I never
(24:59):
know how to say that.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I think both are fine, all.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Right, put both in there and that'll just add it
even a little more pop there at the end, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I mean, nothing says it's the Holidays better than handing
somebody a cocktail with a cinnamon stick sticking out of it.
That really drives the point.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Home, right, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
And also Negroni's are super easy to make. You just
pour equal parts of the gin, campari and sweet vermouth,
usually about three quarters of an ounce or twenty five milliliters,
and you just pour that over ice in the glass,
stir it up a little bit, and you've got a nigrotny.
And if you've ever had a negroni and you've been like,
this is all bit boozy for me. I found also
(25:41):
an alternative negroni I think also from all of magazine
that they suggest just take out the gin and put
in prosecco instead, and you've got yourself a much lighter
negroni that also would do really well with a nice
cinnamon stick sticking out of it.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah, I've seen. I've had quite a few cocktails over
the past year that have prosecco or a white wine
as the boozy ingredient to what would ordinarily be just
a cocktail, and it's interesting. I like it.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah. Same here. Also, I think I said on our
tomorrow episode that I was going to try Capelletti, which
was supposedly like a better version of Campari. Well I did,
and I'm here to tell you just use Kampari. It's
so much better, so much better.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I went into, Uh, there's an amazing spirit store here
in Atlanta, and I went in and asked for which one.
It is, the Elemental Spirits Company, and it is right
across from Buddies and Videodrome there at North Avenue. You
know where that is. Yeah, sure, next to Emmanuel's Tavern. Okay,
and it's great. They're they're very highly curated, really good,
(26:48):
good stuff like that you don't find in regular liquor stores.
But I went in and asked for an tomorrow. I said,
gimme a couple. I said, give me, gimme one really
accessible and give me the bitterest thing that you have.
Oh yeah, and I can't remember the name of it.
I'll have to post about it later. But this stuff
is it's almost like melort. It's so medicinal and.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Bitter, Like you say why after each sip.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I mean, I like it, but it's really like I've
leapt into the bitter zone and this one's testing my limits.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Okay, Well, if we're shouting out incredibly well curated liquor
stores in Atlanta, I definitely want to shout out Eah
and F Bottle Shop over by Peachtree Battle. It's so good.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Oh, we'll have to check that one out too.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
That's also the kind of place you could just walk
into and say I want to try something like this,
and they'll give it to you.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah. I love stores like that where you just sort
of trust in their expertise. Yeah, it's the best. I
also want to shout out if you are big on like,
you know, cocktail syrups and stuff like that to spice
up a drink. Sure, I bought one the other day
that I'd never heard of. It was a sweet potato
oh syrup, and it is so good with whiskey.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
That sounds good just to drink on its own.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It's great. It doesn't taste like, oh, like I'm drinking
a sweet potato. It just it makes it more, you know,
because there's other spices that just it's like a nice
holiday whiskey cocktail basically. Man, it's just really yummy.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Where'd you find that?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
This was a Decatur package on Clairemont, so like.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You can find it probably nationwide.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, I mean, you know, people are local. I think
it's a local one, so I wish I had a
bottle in front of me, But you know, locally, there's
probably all kinds of people in your urban center that
are making their own shrubs and bitters and syrups.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Well, I gotta find that one because it sounds pretty delish.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Yeah, maybe I'll send you some.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I'd love that, Chuck. I love pre presents from you,
especially around Christmas time. All Right, great drink great drink
agreed thanks to our friends of Olive Magazine. And here
we go, hopping along back in the sleigh, out in
the snow, putting on our white faux fur fringed frocks
and going on to the next section.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
I guess we'll go with how to make your Christmas
tree last longer. That this is a personal one, because
I have had bad luck to past couple of years
with our trees dying way too early. And I think
it's because I was sort of stuck on using the
Christmas tree stand I grew up with mm which, compared
to today's stands, had not much room for the tree
(29:33):
trunk itself and certainly didn't hold that much water. So
I finally my mom got me one of those gigantic
things that holds gallons of water. Yeah, and I think
it was the right choice because it's doing much much
better this year.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Well, that's definitely one of the keys that Better Homes
and Gardens recommends is getting a stand that fits.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Yeah, you got it. You gotta those old school ones
that hold like three cups of water.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
No good, no, because your tree is still alive even
though you've cut it down, so it drinks up the water.
And in addition to having a tree that holds a
bunch of water and that fits the trunk, you want
to keep that water level like basically high every day.
You want to check it basically every day because the
trunk needs to be pretty much submerged in water to
(30:20):
keep that tree going for the month of December.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah. And I always heard, you know, pour some sprite
or some sugar in there, and I never was sure
if that was true. But there are tree people who say,
if you put like a half a cup of granulated
sugar to about five gallons of water and a half
a cup of vinegar, yeah, then that's gonna nourish that tree.
It's going to preserve the sap, and that vinegar is
(30:45):
going to be a pH stabilizer that's gonna ward off
bacteria and rot.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, because that's the thing. You've got a reservoir of
water in your living room and your living room has
its heater on. That can be a bad combination. I've
also seen you can throw some pennies in there too
to help adjust the pH as well and keep bacteria
from growing.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
But you want to pennies?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Do you want to mix us all up? Five gallons
of water. Just so happens that those orange home depot
buckets are five gallons. You go out in your garage,
put five gallons of water in there, half a cup
of vinegar, half a cup of sugar. Mix it all
up and you use that to top off your Christmas
tree stand water every day.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I love it if you got a kid, assign them
that task because they are much more apt to be
able to crawl under that tree. And it's special and fun.
And they think they are helping. They think they're helping,
and they are helping.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
They definitely are helping. What else? Man like? A lot
of people also have ill fitting Christmas tree stands that
are too small, and they carve off some of the trunk.
They shave off some of the sides to make it fit.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Jam it in there right, No good, No, apparently you
need the sides of the trunk that helps it stay alive.
You do want to cut, you know there is something
too trimming some just off the bottom of the trunk.
They'll usually do that for you where you buy your
Christmas tree. If they say I love this article from
Better Homes and Garden says, shave off two centimeters like
(32:08):
that that's like it's barely the width of a chainsaw blade.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It's three quarters of an inch. I looked it up.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Oh okay, well I guess that's bigger than I thought.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yeah. No, I know, we're not super metric here everybody
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
But you do want to cut a little bit off
the trunk, not too much. But you know that sap
starts forming. It's like a scab almost right within hours
of cutting the tree down. It tries to form a
scab and that's gonna seal it up on the bottom.
So that's why they trim it up for you at
the Christmas tree place, because it's going to be much
easier to suck water up.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yes, Also, this is a great excuse for you to
buy a bow saw too and take that home, and
then you can cut the little two centimeters off the
bottom of the trunk yourself so it'll be as fresh
as possible. So the key is trim somem off the bottom,
but not off the sides of the bottom of the trunk,
because that bark is really good at sucking up water,
and you want to make sure this thing can take
(33:04):
as much water as possible so that it stays fresh
as long as possible.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Yeah, and also be discerning when you go to pick
out that tree to begin with. Don't don't just fall
for what looks the prettiest you got to You gotta
feel those branches a little bit. If it's getting crispy
at all in the lot, then you're in big trouble already.
So give it, you know, run your hand along it,
give a little hug, give a little feel, give a
little tug, and make sure everything smells really fresh, make
(33:31):
sure that bark is very smooth, and make sure that
you know the branches themselves feel not breakable but pliable
at that point exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
So, Also when you get at home, drying out the
tree is not good. You don't want to accelerate drying
it out. It's already getting dried enough being indoors, out
of any humidity that might be around, and then near
heat sources, so you want to not only just keep
it topped up with water, you want to keep it
away from heat as much as possible. And apparently even
(34:03):
going with led lights will have a substantial effect on
keeping the tree from drying out because they put out
so much less heat than traditional incandescent lights. Doe.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah, good idea, and most of them these days are
led I think.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And then yeah, they're definitely easy to come by at least,
and then chuck afterward, after the holidays have gone, after
the last ornaments put up, and the last piece of
tinsel that you're going to bother taking off has been
taken off, even though there's a few strands left. What
are you going to do with that tree to help
your local wildlife?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Well, your township or your county probably has a recycling
situation going on. That is certainly a great way to
dispose of your tree. But you can also if you
live in a wooded area, you can just put lean
that thing up against another tree in the woods and
that can become a little shelter or a home for wildlife.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
For sure. You don't even have to live in a
wooded area. You can throw it in your backyard on
that side, Yeah, and rabbits would be like, thank you
very much, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Or you can strip it, you can like trim off
the branches and lay those downs as mult at the
base of garden plants and stuff like that. Yeah, or
do what I do already gave myself away is that
my friends throw them all in the back of my
pickup truck and we let them dry to a crispy brown,
then throw them on campfires for quite a fireworks show.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Very nice, indeed, but do it safely, oh for sure,
And make sure you haven't already invited the rabbits in
to live there. You want to stomp the tree a
few times on the ground to shake out any rabbits
that might have taken up residence before you throw it
on the campfire. That's right, Okay, Well, I say it's
time to move on. We got a couple left. Both
(35:53):
of them are mine, it turns out, so I'm going
to share one with you. So you pick the last one. Okay, okay,
I'd be picking the last one for you by picking
the second to last.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
I was waiting for you to catch on here.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
But Chuck, let's get back in our sleigh and go
on to the next segment where we'll talk about an
alternative Christmas movie. Okay, Chuck, So there are plenty of
Christmas movies out there that are straight ahead Christmas movies.
(36:26):
The point is about Christmas, about maybe learning the spirit
of Christmas, about getting a toy, about running into Santa
who knows. But there's also alternative Christmas movies that take
place around Christmas and just Buy Proxy are technically Christmas movies,
and at least one of them is a classic horror movie,
which arguably gave us the slasher horror genre. Nineteen seventy
(36:51):
four's Black.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Christmas, Yeah, from Bob Clark, who has made three classic films,
Black Christmas, A Christmas Story, and Porky's.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah. He made two Christmas films. One of them was
a Christmas Story, the other was a slasher film called
Black Christmas.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Isn't that Nuts and Porkies?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah. I never saw Porky's. My mom would have died
before she let me see Porky's and I still have
never seen it.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
I saw it years later because I just felt I
had to to make up for my restricted childhood. And
it's not great. But what is pretty great is Black Christmas.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
It is It's subtle in a lot of ways, as
far as a slasher movie can go. It's about as
subtle as it can get. Bob Clark has said a
lot of people have written film crit on this, like
people consider Black Christmas a masterpiece an a plus. Some
people think it's their favorite movie of all time. And
the reason why is because rather than going with like
(37:49):
straight ahead gore and like traditional horror that would come
years later in the slasher genre, Bob Clark went with
more suggested stuff and eeriness, and he went with terror
over horror and building up dread and fear in like
legitimate ways. And what's more, one of the things he
(38:10):
did that really differentiated Black Christmas from the slasher films
to come is you never actually see the killer the
entire movie. You see his eye in one scene and
that's the most you see of them. And then even
more than that, he never gets caught. He's still around
at the end.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah, I mean, it's a I really liked it. I
covered this on movie Crush. It was either it was
either our like a horror movie roundtable with some of
our colleagues, or it may have been a Christmas episode.
But that's when I watched it. I hadn't seen it
before that, and it is It is really good. And
it was also sort of a landmark movie in that
(38:49):
it established a couple of things. I mean, first of all,
like you said, some people, you can make an argument
that it is one of if not the first slasher movie.
Some people say like Psycho and stuff like that, or
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was released weeks before this, But
(39:09):
you could you can make an argument that the kind
of prototypical slasher movie in that like one person dies
after another, you know, very slowly working his way through
a group of friends that you know, Black Christmas was
nineteen seventy four, and that was, you know, four years
before Halloween came out.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, So the premise of the movie is set in
a sorority house over Christmas break, So there's a limited
number of people not only at the sorority house but
on campus in general. And that's definitely part of the
eeriness that that Bob Clark uses, just that feeling for
anybody who's ever been on campus like during the summer
or during a holiday break. It's just strange how quiet
(39:48):
it is, and that's part of the whole thing. But
they're stalked by an unknown phone caller who's calling them
with like deeply obscene phone calls. Ye that they typically
like in typical seventies fashion, just kind of like like
laugh off or dismiss or like you know, they say
lude things back to the guy. H yeah, but slowly,
(40:09):
but surely they all start to be murdered one by
one in this house.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Yeah, and it was also speaking of those calls, it's
one of the other big landmark things is And I
hope I'm not wrong, but I think this was the
first movie where they said the call was coming from
inside the house.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah. I think the urban legend existed already, but this
was the first movie to do that.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the movies didn't invent that trope, but
the movies made use of the urban legend trope.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Yeah, far as I know, it was the first one.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I think so, because When a Stranger Calls was after this,
and that was the other big one where they said
that line.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Man that movie. Few movies have meandered more than a
When a Stranger Calls? Have you seen When a Stranger
Calls back? No, it's even more meandering than the first one.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
It's a good movie. Black Christmas is if you're interested
in a horror movie. And again, like the I don't
want to call them prank calls, the obscene phone calls
are very obscene, So don't watch this movie with your kids.
But if you're interested in something that is definitely set
around Christmas, and Christmas is kind of an extra character
in the movie. That's not your typical Christmas movie. And
(41:21):
you're into horror, this might be right up your alley.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Yeah, then seventy four version. There have been two remakes.
The two thousand and six one was very gory and terrible.
I didn't see it, but I did see the twenty nineteen.
I thought it was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Oh really, Okay, yeah, I haven't seen either. I've just
seen the original, And I said, some people say it's
their favorite movie. At least two pretty big celebrities counted
it as their favorite movie, didn't they. That's right, man, Yeah,
Elvis was one.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
You know. I actually around Grace Lamb man. Watch that
movie about those schrority girls is pretty good.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Wow, that was really good, Elvis. Can you do it
really good? Steve Martin? No, I can't either.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Steve Martin loves it though. That's pretty wild and crazy.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, Olivia Hussey's in it. Apparently he met her years later.
He's like, oh my god, you're in one of my
favorite movies of all time, and she thought he was
gonna tell her Romeo and Juliet like the nineteen sixties version.
He said, you're in Black Christmas and she was like, what, Yeah,
one of your favorite movies.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
So yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
So that's it, everybody, Black Christmas, and we're gonna get
in that sleigh one last time this episode for this
Christmas Spectacular and go on to the last segment, which
Chuck is going to pick for us.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Hey, thanks for driving. By the way, I've had a
couple of too many negronies. That infused gen has hitting
me hard, So thanks for taking the reins.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
That's all right. I don't mind being the DD. Sometimes
next year it's you though.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Yeah, you found this great thing about Christmas card etiquette
from the Merrily McKee Etiquette School. And we may have
talked about this before. I've never we have never sent
out a Christmas card as a family.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I don't remember you saying that.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, we just we never did it. I don't know why,
Probably because we're lazy. Emily was always her very very
busy during the holiday season with her business, for sure
the busiest time of the year, and so that would
have fallen to me, and I never have really had
much of an interest in doing it myself. But I
love getting them and I'm one of those people that
likes to display them.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Okay, So if you ever decided to start sending Christmas cards,
after you hear this Merrily McKee's Etiquette School's list of
Christmas Card etiquette, you will be well prepared for how
to navigate the travails of Christmas card sending.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Chuck, all right, get us going. When should we be
sending these things?
Speaker 2 (43:54):
So you want to send a Christmas card technically for
it to arrive by January fifth, because you have until
the end of the twelve days of Christmas for your
Christmas card to arrive in the twelve days of Christmas,
start on Christmas and go till January fifth, which is
three Kings day. That's the traditional way, like if you
were sending a card in nineteen oh three, that was
(44:17):
your time limit. Now it's like much more abbreviated because
people like you like to display Christmas cards. So you
want to get them to people by I think December fifth, fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Right, Yeah, if you're getting if you're purposely sending your
Christmas cards, so they go out by January fourth, everyone
that gets that Christmas card will say a little late huh.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Kind of January fifth, you know. I mean it's like
literally the next year.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, so that's sort of like you said the old school,
like by January fifth. They also say sort of back
in the day that you didn't typically send them to
your close friends and neighbors or colleagues that you will
see right over Christmas. It was sort of a way
to say like, Hi, I don't live near you and
we aren't in like regular touch, so here's our family.
(45:09):
But that certainly has gone away too, because you can
send Christmas cards to anybody at any nun at any time.
But sent them in July that would be really weird.
But send them to anybody. You can send them to
your next door neighbor and it's not like they'll think like,
well that's weird. I see them every day.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah. Merrily mckithays, these days it's not rude to give
anyone who celebrates Christmas a Christmas card, even if you
see that person regularly. And I would argue the people
you see regularly are the ones you would most want
to send a Christmas card to these days, because everybody's
so neurotic and insecure.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
I know, I well, I mean, would this make you insecure?
What if you get a Christmas card every year from us.
Let's say we were sending them to you and Momo
and you me, and all of a sudden we didn't.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
I okay, I'm just playing a part here because I
actually wouldn't do this. I would come to you and say, hey,
we didn't get a card this year? Is everything okay
between us? And what would you say in return? As
far as Merrily McKee's Etiquette school.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Suggests, well, I would say. I could say a number
of things, but one thing I could say is, well,
you know what, my friend money's little tighter this year.
We had to cut down and send about half as
many Christmas cards as usual.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
And I say, oh, okay, I was part of a
huge culling of people.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
I can live with that exactly. That's supposedly the nice
way if you want to drop someone from your list
is to not just drop one person, but you know
you're probably dropping a lot at once.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Well, I think if you read between the lines, Merrily
McKee's saying, even if you're just dropping one person, tell
them they were tell them like half the list that
you cut. So if somebody tells you are part of
half the list, now that you hear that, you'll know
that there's no telling whether you were half of the
list or not.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Yeah, kids, that's called a lie to spare someone's feelings,
and that can be Okay.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
That's right. So if you want to cut somebody from
your Christmas card list, how do you go about cutting them? Chuck, Like,
what decisions do you need to make?
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Well, I mean, I guess you wouldn't put their name
on an envelope.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Okay, how would you decide? I think is what I'm
trying to say?
Speaker 3 (47:18):
More specifically, Well, I mean I wouldn't do that to
any senior member of your extended network because oftentimes our
older friends maybe a little lonelier, and this card might
really be a big deal for them.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yeah. Merrily McKee makes a really great point that some
of your older adult friends or family members probably aren't
on social media, or there's a good chance they're not,
so getting a Christmas card in the mail is a
big deal to them. Yeah, and they're probably don't have
they probably don't have emails, so they're not going to
get an e card. So not only do you want
to keep the older people on your list, you also
(47:56):
want to add in their Christmas card like an extra
special note. Maybe, Yeah, Christmas drawing from your kid, because
it is going to mean a lot more to them
than you're you know, forty year old go go go, single,
childless executive brother is going to it's going to mean
to him.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
You maybe, you know, maybe if someone doesn't send you
a Christmas card and not as like a revenge, but
if you're just looking to cut back on the number,
maybe you don't want to do it to the people
who like every single year they send you one, but.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
You could do it as revenge too. I mean that works.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
I guess. There are no rules.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, so, I mean that's there's there's some If somebody
stops or if you send somebody a card also and
they don't send you a card in return for two
years in a row, they're off. They're done dead to
you for sure. You don't even talk to them when
you see them during the rest of the year. Yeah,
Because that's the thing that people don't realize is when
(48:56):
you take someone off your Christmas card list, you're not
allowed to talk to them any longer. So really you
need to decide pretty pretty you really need to give
us some thought, I guess is what I'm saying do
you want this person out of your life forever?
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
And you said earlier something very key that you can
send a Christmas card to anybody these days who celebrates Christmas,
And that is very key because unless you know that
your Jewish or Muslim friends really enjoy the Christmas card thing,
then probably don't send them a Christmas card. Maybe a
(49:33):
high how you're doing it's it's winter card.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Sure, Or you could send your Jewish friends a Hanika
card or your Muslim friends an idolph a tier card,
which is the last day of Ramadan. I'm probably not
pronouncing that correctly.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Yeah. Would they appreciate that? Or would they be like,
oh please?
Speaker 2 (49:51):
I think they would appreciate it. I think most people would.
Maybe your your cynical Jewish friends or your cynical Muslim
friends might might be like oh please, But I think
for the most part we'd be like, wow, that was
really thoughtful.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, Or maybe they think you're like, just oh, I
see what Chuck's doing here.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
He's buttering me up to hit me up for money.
In June.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Something's going on.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah, something's coming. So that's it for Christmas cards, and geez, Chuck,
I mean that's it for the whole holiday episode, isn't it.
I'm starting to talk slowly because I don't want it
to end.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
I know, and you know what, I am a little
worried about next year because the Christmas reservoir is genuinely
getting thin.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Well, we'll have to send an alert out to our
Christmas idea helper Elves Robert Paulson and Alex Stock, who
usually send us ideas they need to step it up
for this year.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Robert sennis one this year? Which one did he send it?
Did we use it?
Speaker 2 (50:47):
I didn't see one from him.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
No, Oh I may have used it. Oh, let me
look while you wind things down with glad tidings.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Oh okay, well everybody, well Chuck does that. I want
to say from all of us, it's if you should know,
from Chuck and me, from Jerry, from Dave, from Ben,
from everybody who's ever been involved with stuff, you should
know we wish you the happiest of holidays, The merriest
of Christmas is the happiest upon it because the happiest
(51:16):
of everything. We hope this is a wonderful season of
plaid tidings, joy, super boozy eggnog and just goodness in general,
even just for a few days around the Christmas time.
So thank you very much for joining us and sitting
with us. Hopefully this sets you off. I'm the greatest
(51:36):
Christmas ever.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
Boy, you did a great job killing time. Thanks Ma,
that's genuine. We actually did not use Robert's suggestion this year,
so we have one in the hip pocket for next year.
I'm not even gonna say what it is. Okay, it's
a pretty good one.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Well, I have a list too. I'll send you. If
you're really low, check it twice. I will, and I
know that you're nice, so you will get that list.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Happy Holidays, everybody. We love you.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yeah you guys, thank you so much for listening, and
we'll see you next year.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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