December 25, 2013 • 16 mins
Chances are that you've heard of the alleged war on Christmas, which some believe is an effort to distance the celebration from its origins. But what are those origins, exactly -- and where do modern Christmas traditions come from? Tune in to learn more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
From UFOs two, Ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, everybody,
thanks for tuning in. I'm Ben and I'm at and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know
(00:22):
that as we record this, we're heading into one of
the most popular holidays in the United States for sure. Yeah,
and throughout the world there are a lot of places
where this is a huge holiday. No, could we have
a little bit of theme music to let people know
which holiday we're talking about? I am wow, that was
(00:49):
a great choice. No, Yeah, that was a good choice. No,
you are superb producer, and I'm sure everybody could guess
that that means this is an episode about Christmas. I
wonder how that's gonna work with our creepy music that
you know, we're coming out of our our creepy music
that a lot of people tell us is weird and
and too dark into that joyful thing that Noll just
(01:12):
put in there. Well. Also, let's let's just be honest, Matt,
A lot of Christmas music is creepy. Yeah, I'm gonna
make a video where we just put some some music
in there that's supposed to be joyful and happy, and
just edit it with some really creepy imagery and see
(01:32):
what happens. Why not chop and screw it and um
remix it, which is an interesting segue into the story
of Christmas. Now, a long time ago, you and I
did an episode on the secret origins of Christmas. Right,
that's correct, and it's actually going to be coming out
on the same day that this podcast is coming out,
(01:52):
So if you haven't yet, you should head on over
to test tube or our YouTube channel and check out
that episode because there's lots of fun information on the
origins of this holiday. Most of our listeners are probably
familiar with the part of the story of Christmas, right,
how how it came became what it is today, which
(02:15):
is um historically not the accurate birth date of Jesus Christ.
It's the day when everybody gets together to celebrate. Yeah,
we're just kind of decided that this is this is
the day we will use. And there's a reason that
it was chosen, right, lay it on me. Well, yeah,
it goes back the the December twenty day goes back
to the pagan tradition of the Solstice. Uh, there are
(02:37):
a lot it was kind of a holy day, and
there were a lot of celebrations that occurred right around
that time and specifically on that day. Um. And then
I guess the church decided, well, we're going to we're
going to kind of be a competing market, or we're
going to compete inside this market, and we're going to
make our day bigger. Oh, and that we need to
(02:57):
put in a disclaimer here. This is something we talked
about when we first did our Christmas episode. If you
are a Christian, if you if you believe in Jesus Christ,
and you celebrate Christmas, none of the stuff that we're
saying is necessarily disrespectful. It's certainly not meant to be.
(03:18):
We're just talking about the historical evolution of Christmas. We're
not talking about any of the spiritual side of it.
But um, it is true that the reason the celebration
occurs on December. You know, the reason it's in that
area of time is because there was an earlier, pre
existing holy day from a different faith, as you said, Uh,
(03:42):
and the Catholic Church wanted to absorb that as well.
What what that process is called is religious syncretism. And
religious syncretism is not unique to the Catholic Church and
the date of Christmas, right, No, not at all. You
you kind of have to if you really want to
look at it historically, you have to pull yourself out
(04:04):
a little bit from the belief just to look at
things historically and and religion like a lot of like
really anything else. Um, it's part of a competing belief system,
right and like UM anything from what you believe with
about economics or what you believe about UM science or
(04:25):
you know, history and religion. I'm just rambling. Or music.
That's something that people argue about all of the time
with absolutely I'm gonna say it. Musicologists are irritating, you know.
It's just it's an opinion. That doesn't make it a fact.
The only fact is is your opinion whether or not
(04:47):
that band is good. Buddy layoff. And when we when
we talk about this sort of stuff, the point you're
making about UH competing belief system is interesting because UM
in the evolution of religions and cultures when they encounter
each other, especially in previous centuries, one thing that we
see is that the competing UM aspect of it is
(05:13):
secondary to this sort of melding and blending. So for instance,
when the Catholic Church goes to South America, then they
and the Caribbean, then they recognize, right finger quotes, recognize
this God or this God is actually oh, this is
this saint, um, And oh, don't worry. You have been
(05:35):
worshiping this saint, and so you've been kind of different. Yeah,
just called it a different thing and arose by any
other name would smell as sweet. That's that's the that's
that's the gist of it. And religious syncretism isn't necessarily bad.
It is tempting, of course, um, to think that this
(05:56):
is some sort of degradation of a religion. Right, It's tough.
You just gotta you kind of have to decide to
not look at it that way. If you really believe,
you just have to. I think I think you really
need to have both of those thoughts going at the
same time. If you are a believer, Um, you just
have to understand that this is just the way history works,
(06:17):
is it the way or religious organizations do things sometimes,
And and that's a great point now before we get
too far side tracked into religious syncretism, which you know,
I find fascinating uh, due to my travels in my
sketchy past where I where I participated in some of
this stuff firsthand. Um, one other thing that was hold on.
(06:40):
We're going to have to go into more of that, Okay, yeah,
firsthand for the end. Okay, alright, alright, So one thing
we should go into when we're talking about Christmas is
that Christmas in the United States has some traditions. They're
very strange and not necessarily related to, um, the birth
(07:00):
of a God. You know, like the the Yule log. Yes,
that was another tradition right there, having a very large
log that would burn for a good amount of time
that would keep you overnight basically warm. Also the Christmas tree,
Oh yeah, what it is a weird idea of chopping
(07:21):
down a tree to put into your house to then
decorate and celebrate around. It doesn't seem to have much
at least symbolism from a Catholic or from a Christian standpoint. Um. Again,
it goes back to the syncretism. I feel like we're
just making a podcast on religious syncretism. Well, we also
(07:42):
want people to check out the video if you haven't
had a chance to do it yet, and we can
speak in Christmas, we can go ahead and wrap this
up like a present. Huh oh, I'm terrible at that,
but I'm disappointed at by my own joke. I'm sorry everybody,
but the as we wrap us up and go off
to prepare for our own holiday stuff, um, I will
(08:05):
leave us with a story about what one of my experiences.
And I can't wait to hear this all right. So, um,
A while ago, several years and years ago, I lived
in Guatemala, and you know this. And in Guatemala there
I lived in a part of the country called katel
(08:29):
Tenango or j La, and in ja Lah. The Maya
culture was never fully extinguished eradicated by the Spaniards. It
was Can I say Spaniards on the air? Is that
that's Spanish conquistadores. Okay, So years ago I lived in Guatemala,
(08:53):
and I lived in a town called kate Tenango or
j La. And in this town, which is in the highlands,
in the mountain mountainous areas, uh, there is a large
Maya population. And this population, thank goodness, was never fully
eradicated by Spanish conquistadores, but they did have belief systems
(09:17):
heavily affected UH. Most notably there is a figure called
San Simon or Mashamon and Marshamon or San Simon is
um nowadays worshiped in some churches sort of a patron
sainted gamblers, adulterers and thieves and sounds like yeah, yeah
(09:42):
and there um this this character has this story. The
saint rather u has an amazing story of evolution because
h originally the folklore's believe that Mashimon or what became
San Simon was based and a mountain spirit named the
mom and if I'm pronounced that correctly, my key jay
(10:05):
is pretty off now, and then became Mashamon. And then
when the Spanish came and the priest came, they said, oh,
we recognize this guy. The story goes that they wanted
to dilute the popularity of this this um this deity,
so they said, yeah, you know, that's that is St. Judas,
(10:27):
that is and Judas. Yeah, and you know Judas plays
a horrible role in the Bible. Most denominations think, yeah,
no spoilers, but check out the book and yeah and
he uh. The thing was, this did not this did
(10:48):
not alienate the Maya from from their culture, from their
history with this deity. Instead, this was just something that
they folded into it. And now San Simona is what's
considered a folk saint, meaning that he's not canonized by
the Vatican and by the Holy See. However, he's still around.
(11:09):
And when I was in Guatemala, I had a chance.
After a very strange experience, I ended up almost dying
in a bus accident because you read busses everywhere, and
uh yeah, and then immediately I headed off with some
other people to go to this shrine where they take
this deity out once a day or once a year,
(11:31):
and um, because he hates the light. Really yeah, he's
interesting and you make offerings of scars and um booze.
He likes booze. And interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure that
when Josh and Chuck were in Guatemala, Josh and Chuck
from stuff that stuff you should know. I'm pretty sure
that Josh visited San Simone as well. So sorry, I
(11:54):
know I'm talking your ear office. It's great. I love it. Man.
I'm sitting here like a little kid listening to a
Christmas story around but we do have uh secret origins
of Christmas, and that I have to ask you, what's
the most surprising thing you learned about Christmas as we
close out. I would say the most surprising thing I
learned about it was just the furthest back history of
(12:18):
the holiday season from the chronology of three fifty four.
That was really interesting. We cover that in the the
original episode that we made just to see. I was
looking through that document earlier today and it's just fascinating.
It was basically a picture book that this that this
guy had made for him, a wealthy man had made
(12:40):
for him, and not much of it exists or I
don't think any of it is surviving now today. But
that was one of that was the first place that
it was mentioned, the idea of this this holiday. Um,
it's not really surprising. It was just I guess it
was just cool. Yeah, And I forgot to mention, I
know we should have at the earlier but there there
(13:02):
there's more than one St. Nick. There are multiple guys,
and I think they based the St. Nicholas is often
attributed to a Greek saints in so correct. Yeah, there
are several others that then get wrapped up into this
one guy that we call St. Nicholas now and they're
all these different stories about you know, we talked about
it and throwing the coins into um, a needy family's home,
(13:26):
and that's where the stockings came from, because he allegedly
put him in a stocking. Um. There was a great
picture I found. It was a painting of one of
the st Nick's saving a I think he was he
was he was a prisoner of some sort and he
was going to be executed and he was staying the blade.
It's a painting of I guess a time when this
(13:46):
one of the saints saved a guy from being executed.
It was an awesome painting on some on some straight
up Gandalf, thou shalt not totally man, He's just not today.
So um, it's it's weird because we are often we
we often grow up, at least in the States, associating
(14:08):
the idea of this jolly obese man with a snow
white beard who goes into your house at night, but
it's okay because he leaves things for you. Um. And
it's it's astounding that Coca cola is uh so so
inextricably intertwined with the story of the modern Santa Claus.
(14:32):
Because I know some people will write to us about that. Um.
We I think we explore some of that in our
episode do we mention that a little bit? Well, maybe
we'll do another one Where does Santa Come From? That's
going um so while we're off to work on that,
let us know what you think. Check out our shows,
drop us a line on Facebook and Twitter where conspiracy
(14:55):
stuff at both of those places. Please do tell your
friends this show when you're sitting around, like right now,
if you're listening to this alone in your room, after
you've been hanging out with family all day, you should
go downstairs. Maybe, Uh, I don't get your dad or
your mom or your sister, your brother, get somebody and
be like, hey, you should check this out. This is
crazy show that I really like. Uh, you can show
(15:17):
them our video, show them the video, share it on Facebook.
It'll be awesome, and tell us what they think, even
even if they don't like it. But Matt, what do
you what kind of emails do you want to receive
this time around? Well? I do want to know. I
want to know the most heartfelt or the most thoughtful
(15:37):
gifts that you got for somebody this year. I want
to know about that. I want to know why, like
why you got what it was and why you got
it for that person. Does it need to be a
Christmas gifts? Who can it be? No? Just like or
maybe just the kind thing you did for somebody, okay
at some point in the year. That's what I'm saying,
is you do something kind for somebody, just randomly, or
for somebody you know really well, or just for some
(16:00):
do you at the grocery store. Just do something cool
and let us know the story. We may just read
it on air. You can write to us directly. Our
email address is conspiracy at Discovery dot com. From more
on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit test tube dot
(16:21):
com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch
on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff
From UFOs two, Ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, everybody,
thanks for tuning in. I'm Ben and I'm at and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know
(00:22):
that as we record this, we're heading into one of
the most popular holidays in the United States for sure. Yeah,
and throughout the world there are a lot of places
where this is a huge holiday. No, could we have
a little bit of theme music to let people know
which holiday we're talking about? I am wow, that was
(00:49):
a great choice. No, Yeah, that was a good choice. No,
you are superb producer, and I'm sure everybody could guess
that that means this is an episode about Christmas. I
wonder how that's gonna work with our creepy music that
you know, we're coming out of our our creepy music
that a lot of people tell us is weird and
and too dark into that joyful thing that Noll just
(01:12):
put in there. Well. Also, let's let's just be honest, Matt,
A lot of Christmas music is creepy. Yeah, I'm gonna
make a video where we just put some some music
in there that's supposed to be joyful and happy, and
just edit it with some really creepy imagery and see
(01:32):
what happens. Why not chop and screw it and um
remix it, which is an interesting segue into the story
of Christmas. Now, a long time ago, you and I
did an episode on the secret origins of Christmas. Right,
that's correct, and it's actually going to be coming out
on the same day that this podcast is coming out,
(01:52):
So if you haven't yet, you should head on over
to test tube or our YouTube channel and check out
that episode because there's lots of fun information on the
origins of this holiday. Most of our listeners are probably
familiar with the part of the story of Christmas, right,
how how it came became what it is today, which
(02:15):
is um historically not the accurate birth date of Jesus Christ.
It's the day when everybody gets together to celebrate. Yeah,
we're just kind of decided that this is this is
the day we will use. And there's a reason that
it was chosen, right, lay it on me. Well, yeah,
it goes back the the December twenty day goes back
to the pagan tradition of the Solstice. Uh, there are
(02:37):
a lot it was kind of a holy day, and
there were a lot of celebrations that occurred right around
that time and specifically on that day. Um. And then
I guess the church decided, well, we're going to we're
going to kind of be a competing market, or we're
going to compete inside this market, and we're going to
make our day bigger. Oh, and that we need to
(02:57):
put in a disclaimer here. This is something we talked
about when we first did our Christmas episode. If you
are a Christian, if you if you believe in Jesus Christ,
and you celebrate Christmas, none of the stuff that we're
saying is necessarily disrespectful. It's certainly not meant to be.
(03:18):
We're just talking about the historical evolution of Christmas. We're
not talking about any of the spiritual side of it.
But um, it is true that the reason the celebration
occurs on December. You know, the reason it's in that
area of time is because there was an earlier, pre
existing holy day from a different faith, as you said, Uh,
(03:42):
and the Catholic Church wanted to absorb that as well.
What what that process is called is religious syncretism. And
religious syncretism is not unique to the Catholic Church and
the date of Christmas, right, No, not at all. You
you kind of have to if you really want to
look at it historically, you have to pull yourself out
(04:04):
a little bit from the belief just to look at
things historically and and religion like a lot of like
really anything else. Um, it's part of a competing belief system,
right and like UM anything from what you believe with
about economics or what you believe about UM science or
(04:25):
you know, history and religion. I'm just rambling. Or music.
That's something that people argue about all of the time
with absolutely I'm gonna say it. Musicologists are irritating, you know.
It's just it's an opinion. That doesn't make it a fact.
The only fact is is your opinion whether or not
(04:47):
that band is good. Buddy layoff. And when we when
we talk about this sort of stuff, the point you're
making about UH competing belief system is interesting because UM
in the evolution of religions and cultures when they encounter
each other, especially in previous centuries, one thing that we
see is that the competing UM aspect of it is
(05:13):
secondary to this sort of melding and blending. So for instance,
when the Catholic Church goes to South America, then they
and the Caribbean, then they recognize, right finger quotes, recognize
this God or this God is actually oh, this is
this saint, um, And oh, don't worry. You have been
(05:35):
worshiping this saint, and so you've been kind of different. Yeah,
just called it a different thing and arose by any
other name would smell as sweet. That's that's the that's
that's the gist of it. And religious syncretism isn't necessarily bad.
It is tempting, of course, um, to think that this
(05:56):
is some sort of degradation of a religion. Right, It's tough.
You just gotta you kind of have to decide to
not look at it that way. If you really believe,
you just have to. I think I think you really
need to have both of those thoughts going at the
same time. If you are a believer, Um, you just
have to understand that this is just the way history works,
(06:17):
is it the way or religious organizations do things sometimes,
And and that's a great point now before we get
too far side tracked into religious syncretism, which you know,
I find fascinating uh, due to my travels in my
sketchy past where I where I participated in some of
this stuff firsthand. Um, one other thing that was hold on.
(06:40):
We're going to have to go into more of that, Okay, yeah,
firsthand for the end. Okay, alright, alright, So one thing
we should go into when we're talking about Christmas is
that Christmas in the United States has some traditions. They're
very strange and not necessarily related to, um, the birth
(07:00):
of a God. You know, like the the Yule log. Yes,
that was another tradition right there, having a very large
log that would burn for a good amount of time
that would keep you overnight basically warm. Also the Christmas tree,
Oh yeah, what it is a weird idea of chopping
(07:21):
down a tree to put into your house to then
decorate and celebrate around. It doesn't seem to have much
at least symbolism from a Catholic or from a Christian standpoint. Um. Again,
it goes back to the syncretism. I feel like we're
just making a podcast on religious syncretism. Well, we also
(07:42):
want people to check out the video if you haven't
had a chance to do it yet, and we can
speak in Christmas, we can go ahead and wrap this
up like a present. Huh oh, I'm terrible at that,
but I'm disappointed at by my own joke. I'm sorry everybody,
but the as we wrap us up and go off
to prepare for our own holiday stuff, um, I will
(08:05):
leave us with a story about what one of my experiences.
And I can't wait to hear this all right. So, um,
A while ago, several years and years ago, I lived
in Guatemala, and you know this. And in Guatemala there
I lived in a part of the country called katel
(08:29):
Tenango or j La, and in ja Lah. The Maya
culture was never fully extinguished eradicated by the Spaniards. It
was Can I say Spaniards on the air? Is that
that's Spanish conquistadores. Okay, So years ago I lived in Guatemala,
(08:53):
and I lived in a town called kate Tenango or
j La. And in this town, which is in the highlands,
in the mountain mountainous areas, uh, there is a large
Maya population. And this population, thank goodness, was never fully
eradicated by Spanish conquistadores, but they did have belief systems
(09:17):
heavily affected UH. Most notably there is a figure called
San Simon or Mashamon and Marshamon or San Simon is
um nowadays worshiped in some churches sort of a patron
sainted gamblers, adulterers and thieves and sounds like yeah, yeah
(09:42):
and there um this this character has this story. The
saint rather u has an amazing story of evolution because
h originally the folklore's believe that Mashimon or what became
San Simon was based and a mountain spirit named the
mom and if I'm pronounced that correctly, my key jay
(10:05):
is pretty off now, and then became Mashamon. And then
when the Spanish came and the priest came, they said, oh,
we recognize this guy. The story goes that they wanted
to dilute the popularity of this this um this deity,
so they said, yeah, you know, that's that is St. Judas,
(10:27):
that is and Judas. Yeah, and you know Judas plays
a horrible role in the Bible. Most denominations think, yeah,
no spoilers, but check out the book and yeah and
he uh. The thing was, this did not this did
(10:48):
not alienate the Maya from from their culture, from their
history with this deity. Instead, this was just something that
they folded into it. And now San Simona is what's
considered a folk saint, meaning that he's not canonized by
the Vatican and by the Holy See. However, he's still around.
(11:09):
And when I was in Guatemala, I had a chance.
After a very strange experience, I ended up almost dying
in a bus accident because you read busses everywhere, and
uh yeah, and then immediately I headed off with some
other people to go to this shrine where they take
this deity out once a day or once a year,
(11:31):
and um, because he hates the light. Really yeah, he's
interesting and you make offerings of scars and um booze.
He likes booze. And interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure that
when Josh and Chuck were in Guatemala, Josh and Chuck
from stuff that stuff you should know. I'm pretty sure
that Josh visited San Simone as well. So sorry, I
(11:54):
know I'm talking your ear office. It's great. I love it. Man.
I'm sitting here like a little kid listening to a
Christmas story around but we do have uh secret origins
of Christmas, and that I have to ask you, what's
the most surprising thing you learned about Christmas as we
close out. I would say the most surprising thing I
learned about it was just the furthest back history of
(12:18):
the holiday season from the chronology of three fifty four.
That was really interesting. We cover that in the the
original episode that we made just to see. I was
looking through that document earlier today and it's just fascinating.
It was basically a picture book that this that this
guy had made for him, a wealthy man had made
(12:40):
for him, and not much of it exists or I
don't think any of it is surviving now today. But
that was one of that was the first place that
it was mentioned, the idea of this this holiday. Um,
it's not really surprising. It was just I guess it
was just cool. Yeah, And I forgot to mention, I
know we should have at the earlier but there there
(13:02):
there's more than one St. Nick. There are multiple guys,
and I think they based the St. Nicholas is often
attributed to a Greek saints in so correct. Yeah, there
are several others that then get wrapped up into this
one guy that we call St. Nicholas now and they're
all these different stories about you know, we talked about
it and throwing the coins into um, a needy family's home,
(13:26):
and that's where the stockings came from, because he allegedly
put him in a stocking. Um. There was a great
picture I found. It was a painting of one of
the st Nick's saving a I think he was he
was he was a prisoner of some sort and he
was going to be executed and he was staying the blade.
It's a painting of I guess a time when this
(13:46):
one of the saints saved a guy from being executed.
It was an awesome painting on some on some straight
up Gandalf, thou shalt not totally man, He's just not today.
So um, it's it's weird because we are often we
we often grow up, at least in the States, associating
(14:08):
the idea of this jolly obese man with a snow
white beard who goes into your house at night, but
it's okay because he leaves things for you. Um. And
it's it's astounding that Coca cola is uh so so
inextricably intertwined with the story of the modern Santa Claus.
(14:32):
Because I know some people will write to us about that. Um.
We I think we explore some of that in our
episode do we mention that a little bit? Well, maybe
we'll do another one Where does Santa Come From? That's
going um so while we're off to work on that,
let us know what you think. Check out our shows,
drop us a line on Facebook and Twitter where conspiracy
(14:55):
stuff at both of those places. Please do tell your
friends this show when you're sitting around, like right now,
if you're listening to this alone in your room, after
you've been hanging out with family all day, you should
go downstairs. Maybe, Uh, I don't get your dad or
your mom or your sister, your brother, get somebody and
be like, hey, you should check this out. This is
crazy show that I really like. Uh, you can show
(15:17):
them our video, show them the video, share it on Facebook.
It'll be awesome, and tell us what they think, even
even if they don't like it. But Matt, what do
you what kind of emails do you want to receive
this time around? Well? I do want to know. I
want to know the most heartfelt or the most thoughtful
(15:37):
gifts that you got for somebody this year. I want
to know about that. I want to know why, like
why you got what it was and why you got
it for that person. Does it need to be a
Christmas gifts? Who can it be? No? Just like or
maybe just the kind thing you did for somebody, okay
at some point in the year. That's what I'm saying,
is you do something kind for somebody, just randomly, or
for somebody you know really well, or just for some
(16:00):
do you at the grocery store. Just do something cool
and let us know the story. We may just read
it on air. You can write to us directly. Our
email address is conspiracy at Discovery dot com. From more
on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit test tube dot
(16:21):
com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch
on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff
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United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.