Stuff You Should Know - The 2023 SYSK Ho-Ho-Holiday Spectacular!

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Happy Holidays, friends! Tune in today to listen to our annual ad-free holiday extravaganza. There will talk of merriment and joy!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. 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 2023 holiday special episode of Stuff You Should Know. Hooray! Hooray Chuck indeed.

It's our Christmas episode. Yeah, our ad free Christmas episode, right? Yes. It better be For sure. We'll find out after we publish. Oh Goodness boy out. I mean did we even order these should we just free wheel it? Oh gosh, we're getting to it already Okay, I wanted to kind of meander for a little bit, but sure now we can me enter. What do you want to chat about? I don't know how's the family I wanted to kind of meander for a little bit, but sure. Now we can meander. What do you want to chat about? I don't know. How's the family? 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. Okay. Always wondered when it was going to happen. Uh-huh. And it happened. Yeah.

Is everything okay? I'm fine. Actually Emily was a little more upset than I was. Yeah. Uh, and I was just like, you know, um, I mean, well, I'll talk to you offline, but everyone knows what I'm talking about, right? I think so. Hopefully just everyone. Yeah, well, let's just stop this right now.

It's still going to be a great Christmas regardless. We all agreed on that. Good. And this is going to be a great Christmas episode, despite that beginning. You know, let's start with, I'm going to go ahead and call. We'll just take turns. How about that? Okay. You're going to call an audible each time? Wow. We. I'm going to call an audible each time on my own picks. Okay.

Well, you go first. How about that? Yes. Everybody in classic stuff, you should know fashion. Chuck and I each picked a few Christmas pieces to talk about. Yeah. 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 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. Yeah. Because sometimes for Christmas stuff, you just get stuff from some of the wackiest websites. And that's fine. And this one actually wasn't wacky. This was USA Today. That's legit, right?

That's a little wacky. This is from 2012 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 how people do stuff and this is uh... this is a good little poll they did

eleven years ago yes civic science did a poll well they didn't do a poll they apparently found a bunch of other polls that totaled ninety,000 responses of Americans responding to questions roughly about what they're gonna 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 region has a lot of different things that they do or don't do around Christmas time. Let's wrap about them. And Craig Wilson said, yes, let's. That's right. So we're gonna 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. Iowa, Kansas. Is that Midwest? Yeah. Kansas is in the middle of the country. It's Midwest for sure.

All right. We'll see with our Kansas friends have to say about that. If you live in the Midwest though, then you are 35 percent. You're more likely to work between Christmas day and New Year's day than any other part of the country. 35 percent of Midwesterners say they work that time between the 25th and 31st, which is terrible. So sad.

Very sad. 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 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 christmas party that has ten or more people not bad uh... and as far as gifts on christmas eve uh... 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 twenty they're twenty five percent more likely than the national average to open at least some of the gifts on Christmas Eve. We did not when I was a kid. That was for both. For a Ohio. 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. including Wyoming and Maine. They apparently party all the time. 39% of people eat Christmas dinner at a friend or family members house. They're 30% more likely than anyone else in or any other region in the country to go to a Christmas Eve party. 40% more holiday

parties than people from the south or the west. So they like to tie one on. Yeah, they like to tie one on and they also get their shop and done early, or at least some of them do. 34% said they have finished their gift buying, or at least most of it, 10 days by the 15th, I guess, of December, which is pretty good. 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 10 people. And they like to take car trips

if they're going more than 100 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. Yeah, 29% 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.

No, no, no, Midwesterners are odd folk. Christmas parties are big though. 64% of southerners will go to an office party. Which means something check. That means you are not at work, but you go to work for the party. That's what happens in the South.

That's what we always did. No, I know. Apparently, the Southern thing. Well, actually, that's not true, because they don't work between Christmas and New Year's. You're going to have your office party before Christmas. Oh, yeah, that's right. I just outed us as not working long before Christmas. No, we do know.

We like to brag about our month off. It's great. But 29% they're a little lazier with the gift buying. Only 29% had completed their shopping 10 days before the holiday. 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 to travel more than 100 miles. And more than twice as likely to travel more than a 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 it someone's house Yes, and I think 38% of them go to see a movie in the theaters So when you hear about people going to see movie on Christmas day, they're talking about California So when you hear about people going to see movie on Christmas Day, they're talking about California. All right, where are we headed next, my friend? Oh, Jesus, it's my turn again. Oh, are you already, I guess. Let's talk about Darling Love Chuck. Treasure. But first, let's do a little interstitial Christmas music. I love that part. Okay, thanks for that, Chuck, by the way, but we're talking about Darling Love, who was part of the wall of sound, was one of Phil Specter's finds, and someone Phil Specter took advantage of too, but she's most well-known for her Christmas song, Christmas, and then parentheses, baby please come home.

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 on where she did this every year Mm-hmm, and but you're like I know that woman You might know her as Murtaugh's wife from the lethal weapon movies. Oh really? Yeah, she was Danny Glover's wife. Oh, okay Nice. That's a nice thing. Yeah another place you might have noticed her is on Letterman.

Because every year from 1986 to 2014 when Letterman retired, Darleen 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. 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 Schafer said that he wouldn't let us play Monster Mash around Halloween. He just wasn't given to holiday novelty songs. Right. So the fact that Darn Lee and Love's 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. Yeah, and we got this from our friends

at Far Out Mag. And they mentioned that the thing that kept us fresh every year. I mean, she belts it out and it's 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 30 years, 28 years, was that the CBS orchestra saxophone is Bruce Kapler, who was in Paul Schafer's band. when that saxophone solo kicks off, he would come on stage in all sorts of different hilarious ways that just like for the roof off the studio. Yeah, it was always fun. I always love 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 it was always just a lot of fun. The whole segment is always great. He came out of a present once a giant present, came in on a sleigh, stepped out of a fireplace, like it was really great. Everybody loved it. Now, apparently this happened every year except for the writer's strike in 2007. And then when Letterman retired in 2014, Darling Love took this tradition over to the view of all places. I'm not sure why I

couldn't find why, but now you can find her singing the song on the view right around Christmas time every year. I'm sure it's because of you called her up. Probably will pay you money. For sure. 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.

Yeah, those are great. The writer's strike year was 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 Jungian to bring the show back. So it was, he was three days late, basically from being able to not have that streak interrupted unfortunately.

Yeah, and she's like I could do a belated version. He's like now not this year. All right, cue the music, magical elves. So happy. Alrighty, you know what, let's go with the worst Christmas songs. Oh boy, I'm pretty excited about this. I don't know if you out there in holiday podcast, Lankan, hear us shuffling our papers, but that's what we're doing right now. A rare paper shuffle.

So you found a bunch of different worst Christmas songs. Apparently it's a pretty fun poll for people who conduct because people love to tell people what Christmas song they hate the most at that moment. Yeah, I mean, we could have included 100 bowls because there are that many or more, but we just kind of picked through, I kind of went by recent years.

There was one in 2021 from the today show. I think it was you, Gov America, who did this poll and people responded and this shocks me that Santa Baby was, I think, their least favorite or more most hated Christmas song. It shocks you. I'm in total agreement. I don't mind it.

I don't love it, but I don't hate it. I wouldn't rank that as my most hated. 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 Santa Claus, and I don't like it. It's not a good song. It's not great. No, no, I guess I'm with you.

I just don't know if that would be my most most hated. We went to Holland Sentinel.com because we had to get a poll out of West Michigan. And there's a something called local spins and grand Rapids and they did a survey in 2020. And this time this one really upsets me. I know you don't like it, but I love it. I like it. Paul McCart. Oh, I thought you didn't like it. Paul McCartney's 79 wonderful Christmas time. If I said I didn't like it before, that means that that was the one I had to win too many times most recently. Because I do like that song in general.

Okay, not not the best song, but I do think it's pretty good. But there is a B side of that called Rudolph the Red Nose Rage. Yeah. Did you listen to that? I did. I didn't realize it was instrumental. I was grateful for that. I was, I was too. And it's not even that Rage. 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, what would you call it, the harmony? No, this is the melody. The melody, okay. But yeah, it wasn't that bad, but I could see people hating wonderful Christmas time more. But just,

What about the UK? 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 buffet with frogs legs. And that's where I was introduced to frogs 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.

It tastes like chicken. It tasted a lot like chicken, froggy chicken. 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? Yeah, thanks a lot, Far Out. So they don't like Mariah Carey, apparently, because her terrific, in my opinion, song,

all I want for Christmas is you, was voted as the most annoying. That's the UK. That's not Far Out's opinion, right? Yeah, yeah, that's the UK as a whole. Yeah, and Far Out points out that you still have to give Mariah Carey props because apparently that song was written very quickly She was like 22 at the time and you can make a really good case that that is the most recent Genuine bonafide Christmas song that's entered into the cannon. I can't think of one shit Yeah, I can't think of one that's made it more recently than that and this was like the mid 90s

I was like 30 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. I still haven't seen that. I mean, I'm no huge more like Gary fan but I love that song. I think it's terrific. Okay. Good.

What's next? We're going to go over to oldstreetsolutions.com. And this is a 2022 poll. I didn't see where the poll was, but the clear winner, I mean 53%, that's really saying something. Like usually your most hated Christmas song is hitting in like the 30%,

53% of people pulled so that they hated Justin Bieber's mistletoe So have you heard that one? Well, I have now I had to listen to it for this. Yeah me too and I think we should read a portion of the lyrics Can we I I mean we're kind of half-sue I think All right, here's a selection. This is called Missile Toe by Justin Bieber. Everyone's gathering around the fire.

Chestnuts roasting like a hot July. I should be chilling with my folks, I know. But I'm a bee under the Missile Toe, word on the street, Santa's coming tonight, reindeer's flying through the sky, so high. I should be making a list, I know. But I'm a bee under the mistletoe with you, Shoddy, with you, with you, Shoddy, with you. The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The the the. I think you're not the rest. 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, people like to hate on Justin Bieber, but that the song is like objectively a bad song. So it definitely does deserve that 53% of votes. I think anyone who's heard it would agree with that. And this last bit we're going to include is not a poll, but Rolling Stone magazine put out their very snotty top 20 worst Christmas songs list. 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 Simpson's little the little drummer boy version.

He definitely did. 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 Lucetania. Not bad. No. Each parrumpa pump hum hum is another drop in their musical waterboarding.

And finally, he closes the review with Christmas. You chose violets. Did you listen to this one? I did. It's not bad, but it's also not good at all. I mean, it's a straight ahead version of that song, which is Rob Sheffield, it 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 parrumpa pumpums that are just grating. I don't know what it is. It's not just that. It's also the way they go, little baby. Yeah. It's pretty bad too. If you're listening,

if you're not listening to the song, you just, it would come and go without you paying attention. You're 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. Yeah, there's some annunciation problems, I think. 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 just in Beaver put mistletoe out there, and this is not worse than mistletoe. But yeah, it's not good. What's your favorite going the other direction? What's your favorite of all time? Or right now, I should say? I haven't got a ton. We've talked about this over the years here and there and I think I

mentioned Tom Petty's song I love. I really love Elton John's step into Christmas. I love the Wham song. Oh, it's a great one. 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 1st at least. And then I have a hard house rule that it stops at midnight on December 25th. I'm sure I've asked you this before,

but do you guys listen to instrumental Christmas music at all? Yeah, I like it all. I mean, piano classics. I found a good R&B soul playlist. That's great. I like it all. What about you? I've, okay, well, I found something recently. I think I found it on Meta Filter. 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. Yeah, I'll check that out. Sinatra, I love that one. I like all that stuff. I think my favorite vocal Christmas music would be Johnny Mathis probably far and away. And then 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 Fronte and Tyker and their dueling pianos.

Although it's not really dueling, I would say, let's see, opposite of dueling, holding hands. They're holding hands pianos. Yeah. I think you should say that every year because people drop in and listen and they should always get their shout out. Yeah, fronte and tyker definitely deserve their shout out every year. Thanks for that, Chuck.

Alright, let's hop in that sled and get going. Okay, Chuck, I am up and I'm going to go with... Gosh, is it 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 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 they call it a Christmas Degroany and it sounds pretty boss. I'm all in on this. This sounds really good.

We'll tell him about the Spice Gint. 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 wiggin 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 from Eddie this year because this sounds great. Yeah. So for the Christmas to groan, he from all of magazine,

their spice gin is 500 milliliters of gin. That's right between a half pint and a pint. So I guess three quarters of a of a of a no, it's between it's half and a pint. So I guess three quarters of a, no, it's between, it's half of a liter, now that I get about it. Well, it depends on how much gin, you know, how many of these drinks you want. You can get any kind of bottle of gin you want. For sure.

So let's just say you take half a liter of gin and you put two cinnamon sticks, two star anise, four cloves, four cardamom pods crushed. That's very important. Two bay leaves, fresh if you got pods crushed, this is very important. 2 bay leaves, fresh if you got them, and 2 strips of orange peel. And if you've got some cheesecloth, you might want to put everything in there, it will probably make 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. Yeah, I mean, from there, you go fairly traditional Negroni with the Kimpari, the sweet for muth.

But instead of, you can do your little orange twist, which I believe is a traditional negroni garnish. But since you've spiced it up, you can also add another cinnamon stick, or another little, is it star anise or anise? I never know how to say that. I think both are fine. All right, put both in there.

And that'll just add it even a little more pop there at the end. For sure. 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 home, right? Yeah, I love it. And also, Negroes are super easy to make.

You just pour equal parts of the gin, compari, and sweet vermouth, usually about three-quarters of an ounce, or 25 milliliters, and you just pour that over ice in the glass, stir it up a little bit, and you've got into groany. And if you've ever had into groany and you've been like, this is a bit boozy for me, I found also an alternative into groany, 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. 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. Yeah, same here. Also, I think I said on our Amaro episode that I was gonna try Capilletti,

which was supposedly like a better version of Campari. Well, I did and I'm here to tell you, just use Campari. It's so much better. So much better. I went into, 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 video drum. They're at North Avenue, you know what that is? Yeah, sure. All right, next to the manuals tabern. Okay. And it's great. They're very highly Avenue, you know where that is? Yeah, sure. All right, and next to Emmanuel's Tavern. Okay. And it's great. They're very highly curated, really good stuff, like that you don't find in regular liquor stores,

but I went in and asked for an Amaro. I said, give me a couple. I said, give me one really accessible one and give me the bitters 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 Mallort. It's so medicinal and bitter. Like you say, why after each sip? I mean, I like it, but it's it's really like I've leapt into the bitter zone and

this one's testing my limits. Okay. Well, if we're shouting out incredibly well-curated liquor stores in Atlanta, I definitely want to shout out each andF bottle shop over by Peach Tree Battle. It's so good. Oh, I'll have to check that one out too. 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. 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. I bought one the other day that I never heard of. It was a sweet potato syrup. And it is so good with whiskey. That sounds

good just to drink on its own. 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. It's great. It doesn't taste like, oh, I'm drinking a sweet potato. It just, it makes it more, you know, because there's other spices. It's like a nice holiday whiskey cocktail, basically. Yeah, it's just really yummy. Where did you find that? This was a Decatur package on Claire Mott. So, like, you can find it probably nationwide? 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 serps. Well, I got to find that one because it sounds pretty delicious. Yeah, maybe I'll send you some. I'd love that Chuck. I love pre-presence from you,

especially around Christmas time. All right, great drink. Great drink, agreed. Thanks to our friends at 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. I guess we'll go with how to make your Christmas tree last longer. That was a good one. This is a personal one because I have had bad luck to pass couple of years with our trees dying way too early. Oh no.

And I think it's because I was sort of stuck on using the Christmas tree stand I grew up with, which compared to today's stands had not much room for the tree 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. Well, that's definitely one of the keys that better homes and gardens recommends is getting a stand that fits. Yeah, you got it. You got those old school ones that hold like three cups of water, 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 keep that tree going for the month of December. Yeah, and I always heard, you know, pour some spryte 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, then that's gonna nourish that tree, it's gonna preserve the sap. And that vinegar is gonna be a pH stabilizer that's going to ward off bacteria and rot.

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. But you want to mix this 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. 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.

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. 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 to 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 Gardens, it says shave off two centimeters. That's like, it's barely the width of a chainsaw blade. It's three quarters of an inch. I looked it up. I don't know, okay, I guess that's bigger than I thought. Yeah, no, I know. We're not super metric here, everybody in the United States. But you do want to cut a little bit off the trunk, not too much, but 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 going to 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. 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 to trim some 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 as much water as possible so that it stays fresh as long as possible. Yeah, and also be discerning when you go to pick out that tree to begin with. Don't just fall for what looks the prettiest. You got to 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 it a little hug, give it a little feel, give it a little tug. And make sure that everything smells really fresh. Make sure that bark is very smooth and make sure that the branches themselves feel not breakable but pliable at that point. Exactly. 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 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 do. Yeah. Good idea. And most of them these days are LED, I think. 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? 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. 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 will be like, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Or you can strip it. You can trim off the branches and lay those down as mulch at the base of garden plants and stuff like that. Yeah. Or do what I do. I already gave myself a ways that my friends throw them all in the back of my pick up truck and we let them dry to a crispy brown then throw them on campfires for a quite a firework show.

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 a president 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 of them are mine. It turns out. So I'm going to share one with you.

So you pick the last one, okay? Well, I guess I'd be picking the last one for you by picking the second to last. I was waiting for you to catch on here. 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. 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 or technically Christmas movies. And at least one of them is a classic horror movie which arguably gave us the slasher horror genre 1974's black Christmas. Yeah, from Bob Clark who has made three classic films, Black Christmas, a Christmas story, and porkeys. Yeah, he made two Christmas films. One of them was a Christmas story, and porquies. Yeah, he made two Christmas films.

One of them was a Christmas story. The other was a slash or film called black Christmas. Isn't that nuts? And porquies. Yeah, I never saw porquies. My mom would have died before she let me see porquies. And I still have never seen it. Yeah, I saw it years later because I just felt I had to

to make up for my restricted childhood. Sure. It's not great. But what is pretty great is black Christmas. It is. It's a 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, there are 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 straight ahead, Gore and traditional horror that would come years later in the Slasher genre, Bob Clark went with more suggested stuff,

and eerie-ness, 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 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. Yeah, I mean, 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. I could see it. But that's when I watched it. I hadn't seen it before that. And it is really good.

And it was also sort of a landmark movie. And 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 you can you can make an argument that the kind of prototypical Slash movie and 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 1974 and that was four years before Halloween came

out. 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 eerie-ness 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 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.

Yeah. That they typically like in typical 70s fashion just kind of like like laugh off or dismiss or like you know they say, do things back to the guy. But slowly but surely they all start to be murdered one by one in this house. 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. Yeah, I think the urban legend existed already,

but this was the first movie to do that. Yeah, yeah, the movies didn't invent that trope, but the movies made use of the urban legend trope. Yeah, as far as I know, it was the first one. I think so, because when a stranger calls was after this, and that was the other sort of big one where they said that line. Man, that movie, a few movies have me entered more than a string, when a stranger calls. Have you seen a stranger calls back? No. It's even more meandering than the first one.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But 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 you're into horror. This might be right up your alley. Yeah, the 74 version. There have been two remakes. The 2006 one was very gory and terrible.

I didn't see it, but I did see the 2019, I don't know if it was pretty good. 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. You know, I like to sit around gracing my hand and watch that movie about those sorority girls.

It's pretty good. Wow, that was a really good Elvis. Can you do it really good, Steve Martin? No, I can't. I can't even. Steve Martin loves it though. That't. I can't even. Steve Martin loves it though. That's pretty wild and crazy.

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 1960s version. He said, you're in black Christmas. And she's like, what?

It's one of your favorite movies. So yeah. That's amazing. So that's it, everybody. Black Christmas. And we're going to 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. Hey, thanks for driving by the way. We've had a couple of too many negronies. And if you've gin is hitting me hard, so thanks for taking the reins. That's all right. I don't mind being the DD sometimes. Next year, it's you though. 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. I don't remember you saying that. We just, we never, 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. 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. Okay, so if you ever decided to start signing Christmas cards

after you hear this, Marley McKee's etiquette schools list of Christmas card etiquette, you will be well prepared for how to navigate the travails of Christmas card sending Chuck. All right, get us going. When should we be sending these things? So you want to send a Christmas card technically for it to arrive by January 5th, because you have until the end of the 12 days of Christmas for your Christmas card to arrive in the 12 days of Christmas start on Christmas and go till January 5th which is 3 Kings Day. That's the traditional way. Like if you were sending a card in 1903

that was 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 15th, right? Yeah, if you're getting, if you're purposely sending your Christmas card so they go out by January 4th, everyone that gets that Christmas card will say, oh, little late, huh? You kind of, January 5th, you know, I mean, it's like literally the next year.

Yeah, so that's sort of like you said, the old school, like, by January 5th, 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 hi i don't live near you and we aren't in like regular touch so here's our family but that certainly has gone away too because you can send Christmas cards to anybody at any not at any time but to send 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 yeah merley mckee says these days it's not like they'll think like well, that's weird. I see them every day Yeah, Marley McKee says 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 I know I am. 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 and me and all of a sudden, we didn't. I, okay, I'm just playing a part here because I actually would 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 Marley McKee's etiquette school 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 a little tighter this year, we had to cut down, and send about half as many Christmas cards as usual. And I said, oh, okay, I was part of a huge calling of people. 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. Well, I think if you read between the lines, Marley McKee's saying, even if you're just dropping one person, tell them they were telling them half the list that you cut. So if somebody tells you you were 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. Yeah, kids that's called a lie to spare someone's feelings. That could be okay. 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? Well, I mean, I guess you wouldn't put their name on an envelope.

Okay. How would you decide, I think, is what I'm trying to say more specifically? Well, I mean, I wouldn't do that to any senior member of your extended network because oftentimes our older friends may be a little lonelier and this card might really be a big deal for them. Yeah, Marley 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.

And they 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 want to add in their Christmas card like an extra special note, maybe a Christmas drawing from your kid. Because it is going to mean a lot more to them than your're, you know, 40-year-old go-go-go single childless executive Brother is going to it's gonna mean to him 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 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 on. But you could do it as revenge too. I mean, that works. Well, I guess there are no rules. Yeah. So I mean, if somebody stops, or if you sent 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 do 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 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 it some thought, I guess is what I'm saying. Do you want this person out of your life forever? Yeah 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 high how you're doing, it's winter card. Sure, or you could send your Jewish friends a Hanukkah card or your Muslim friends in Aydal Fatir card, which is that last day of Ramadan. I'm probably not pronouncing that correctly. Yeah. Would they appreciate that? Or would they be like, oh please? I think they would appreciate it.

I think most people would. And maybe your cynical Jewish friends or your cynical Muslim friends might be like, oh please, but I think for the most part would be like, wow, that was really thoughtful. Yeah. Or maybe they think you're like, oh, I see what Chuck's doing here. Right. He's buttering me up to hit me up for money in June. Something's going on. 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. I know. And you know what? I am a little worried about next year because the Christmas reservoir is genuinely getting thin. 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. Robert sent us one this year. Robert sent us one this year. Which one did he send? Do we use it? I didn't see one from him no. Oh, I may have used it. Oh, let me look while you wind things down with

glad tidings. Oh, okay. Well everybody, well Chuck does that. I want to say from all of us at stuff 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, the happiest of Hanukas, the happiest 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 on the greatest Christmas ever. Boy, you did a great job killing time. Thanks, man. That's even 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 going to say what it is because it's a pretty good one. Well, I have a list too. I'll send you if you're really low. Check it twice. Oh, yeah, I will. And I know that you're nice, so you will get that list.

Happy holidays, everybody. We love you. Yeah, we love you guys. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next year. Staff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. you