Hi, I'm producer Jacob. You know, we like to have fun here on busted pencils. But one thing
that's never fun is accidentally spoiling some information about Christmas that some parents
might not want their children to know. That's why I'm letting all of you pencil busters know right
now before the show begins that this episode contains spoilers about Santa Claus. I think you know
the one I'm talking about. So just be aware of that before you start listening with any little
ears in the cornfield. And now please enjoy the show. Oh yeah, and don't forget to drink your
oval teen. Uh, oval teen. Ho ho ho Merry Christmas. It's the busted pencils Christmas Eve spectacular.
You shoot your eye out kid. Yeah. Hello, my friend. My old time smash it. Come and be
causing you all today. I'm going to have the happiest Christmas and spin-cross me tap dance with Danny
I'm too much bus pencils. Yeah. Grattles pencils and bust them. 12 shows of Christmas. You don't want
to miss this. Johnny Lupin action. Tim Slaker. We're going to jack up sit your
ass down and learn. Oh, no. Man, I'm ready. How much more Christmasy can that be, Jacob?
I don't think it's possible for anything that will be more Christmasy than these busted pencils.
Christmas Eve spectacular in the case you guys are like, yeah, it's it's still busted pencils.
Though, you know, fully let it education talk. Maybe it's fully let it with silver and gold
tonight. Um, you know, can you can lead silver and gold? I don't know. Can you draw with frankincense?
It sounds like an alchemy issue potentially, but no, Jacob, Mary, um, Christmas Eve to you,
my friend. Mary Christmas Eve to you as well, Tim. What a what a great year of busted pencils
had spent, huh? Oh, man, I tell you right. I'm still worried about Johnny. I know. I feel bad
because it's the 12th show of Christmas and he loves this gimmick so much, but he couldn't be
for the the ultimate show of Christmas. Well, okay, so you know what it is, right? Um,
in case people don't know, um, you know, Johnny, Jacob, me, Tim, were men. And um, it is Christmas Eve,
Jacob, and um, what does that typically mean for men? I don't have time to dress up as Santa
and break into your own house on the ring camera for the kids to see the morning. Oh, Jacob,
not holy crap. I got to do some Christmas shop. Yes, you're right. In that, Tim, I have not yet.
So you're absolutely right. I better leave this studio pretty quickly.
So, uh, yeah, Dr. Johnny Lupinatch, he's, you know, he's making that Christmas Eve run
to, uh, guarantee that there is a joy on Christmas day, you know, so, uh, Jacob, you know, I'm thinking
about this, it's a classic in session, right? I'm gonna stay true and try to teach a little bit here
but, uh, you know, staying with the theme, what do you know about the origins
of Santa Claus? Oh, hey, that's a pretty good question there, Tim. Uh, I think I know the things
that any smarty pants college student would know about Santa, like you could say, oh, you know,
he's actually a Norse pagan tradition that got picked up by the early Christians or, uh, you know,
did you know that Saturnalia, they had a guy with a beard who would bring a cornucopia over to
the Romans on their holiday. Uh, I have a patchwork of half completed thoughts about potential origins
of Santa Claus and I would say the best answer that I have is I believe the actual St. Nicholas
was a saint from a modern day Turkey, maybe is that am I picking up anything anywhere near
a true thing about Santa? I tell you one of the things that's obvious from, you know,
you're getting to this is, um, you must listen to that podcast, the rest is history,
but not well evidently. Well, but the fact of, uh, making reference to the Romans and stuff,
I, I'm pretty sure I listened to that same episode, uh, last year, unless that was just part
of your general knowledge. Tim, it's so hard to tell where my knowledge comes from. That's why
none of my papers get A's because I can't cite anything. I just absorb information from the world
around me. All right. Well, actually, most of my information comes from listening to busted pencils.
What a show that is. I think we can all agree. Well, I, I, yes, it can be, but you know,
I'm thinking it's just like, okay, um, you know, what is the history of, uh, Santa Claus?
And I'm interested to learn in this. Yeah, the, you know, it's it, you know, he's,
right now he's on his way. Um, you know, he's got a lot of, a lot of work to do tonight,
and so my guess is he's, you know, already out and, um, starting to do the hard work, but, uh,
and he told me he's doing all this, this year when he came in to record that beginning of the intro
for today. Well, I was going to say, I mean, I wanted to go, you know, refer to that. I was like,
wow, man, you got the big guy in. Yeah. Terry Bart knows him and, uh, she got me in contact.
Yeah. Terry knows everybody. Wow. I mean, you know, how awesome. You know, we're talking about
great guests and appearances, but, uh, how many podcasts can claim Santa Claus did our opening?
I know. I tried to get him to come on the show, but he had Hannity tonight. So that didn't work out
scheduling wise, but he dropped it for the intro. He's always got to make a, you know,
making appearance on the War on Christmas episode, you know, so, um, but no, Jacob, okay, so yeah,
let's get to it. And in fact, um, I don't have the ding, ding, ding button for your answer of St.
Nicholas, um, as far as we can tell, um, he may be potentially the earliest kind of,
what do you want to say? Image and or identity and or personality that that may have contributed
to Santa Claus, St. Nick. In fact, Jacob, you know, how many times have we referred to Santa Claus,
you know, jolly old St. Nick. Yeah. Very linked figures throughout the history and the lore of
Christmas. I'm kind of interested to hear how this situation with Santa evolved from being
a normal, very strictly religious saint who lived in the real world into being the mythological
Santa that we all know who actually lives in the North Pole. Now, I mean, how did these figures
diverge from each other? What's the story, Timothy? Well, there's a lot there and what's the story?
Hmm, you know, there might not be the story. There might be stories. Yeah. A story here,
a story there, wrap that all together. And maybe that's how we get to the big guy showing up on
busted pencils right there, Jacob. But hey, just a little bit of background, St. Nicholas,
it was St. Nicholas of Mira, somewhere around the year 270 CE. Yeah, a Greek Christian bishop, Jacob,
and you nailed it in what is now Turkey. Boom. Look at me knowing things about Santa.
You know, there it is. Thank you, Jacob, for digging for yourself. I appreciate that. What else
do you know about St. Nick? Well, other things I know about St. Nick, I kind of have a big gap in
my knowledge of Santa from from what did you say in the common era? Did St. Nicholas actually live?
230. Let me go back to my notes. Just yes, people are amazing. My notes, which is not a bad idea.
270, the common era. Yeah. So 270 AD, yeah, you heard me 270 AD until there's a huge gap of
several hundred years. And then I know that I believe in the Victorian age, the modern idea of a
St. Nicholas starts to emerge. Is that anywhere near an actual piece of information?
It may be, but I mean, I will go back to my own understanding of St. Nicholas. And it's kind of
what you put in there and people have listened to the show. And if you need to go back and listen
to all these to actually catch up so that you know what I'm talking about right now. Hey,
civic media, go there, you can get every one of our shows. But Jacob, there's a there's a there's a
hint. A Greek Christian bishop, Greek right there, Greek Orthodox potentially, you know,
coming into the Byzantine area and so like that. So you know, as a practicing child who was a
Byzantine Catholic, in fact, we sat on St. Nicholas's lap when we were in church. Really?
Yeah. There is a maintained tradition of none of this Santa Claus nonsense, but he's still
St. Nicholas to us. You know, sorry, but when we're doing Christmas and the nativity and all that
stuff here, you kids are sitting with St. Nick. Hey, fair enough. All right. I guess that's the
the original name. And you and I, speaking of things you and I have already talked about,
there are many different traditions, even just talking about Christmas, you know, even just within
Christianity, not not even factoring the multiple different religions out there. But you know,
in the UK, I know he's father Christmas. I know for the Orthodox now that you've taught me,
there's St. Nick himself. So this guy that we all know and love apparently has multiple different
names and multiple lots of them everywhere. We're going to go through them. But yeah,
and what's the connection to Christmas? Well, not a lot again, how much of this is imposed?
You know, from what we know, generous protector of children, patron of sailors,
and secretly slipping coins into the shoes or stockings of those sailors is what we think we know.
And according to the Greek Orthodox calendar, December 6th is his feast day, which there was a gift
giving tradition then around December 6th. So how's that for the best busted pencils take at
the beginning of what would become Santa Claus? I think it makes perfect sense to me, Tim,
that you find in the saintly figure of Saint Nicholas, these gift giving traditions that over time
get translated into sort of a patronage of this larger, you know, you want to call it a feast slash
a gift giving holiday. It makes sense. And it's the sort of thing that you see a lot through history with
the evolution of of these figures and these celebrations. But I'm wondering, how do we go from
the patron saint of sailors and sneaking nickels into people sucks to the jolly old white hair,
bearded, rosy cheeked fellow we know and love today. Well, you are just really being very
disruptive today in class. We'll get there. We'll get there. Tim, I'm such a inquisitive mind. I can't
help it. And so, you know, here's an aside to this show. So Jacob, you know, the other thing that
really starts to happen, we could do a whole show on this. The age appropriateness of
when do you stop believing in Santa Claus? What do you mean? Well, there you go. We in my
church never had to stop believing. Because we always said, oh no, Saint Nick, he's real. He's true.
That is interesting. So you know, you and I were talking about and I asked you on a previous
episode, you know, does the modern secularized commercial Christmas even have that big of a religious
component to it? And I think our Santa with the red hat and everything, he's he's part of that
tradition, you know, of the more secularized selling things on Christmas version of Christmas.
But it's interesting. Like you're saying, if you keep Santa more in the religious zone, no,
he is Saint Nicholas. Okay. Well, then yeah, he never is a myth. He's always proud of your religious
beliefs. I got no, you know, I believe in Saint Nick. I think I'm going to try to incorporate
this into my own belief system. You're like, wait a minute. Okay. Because yeah. Anyway, so just
in a side, so yeah, when is it a question to him? Yeah. Any saint ever give people money when
their teeth fall out? Because if I can incorporate that, I might be able to keep a lot of the things I
like. Nice. I do not know that. We'll have to do another show and do the research for that.
We'll get back to him. We'll get back to it. But you know, and yeah, on the side, I don't know what
age appropriateness is for, you know, for people who enjoy Christmas, when do you tell your kids
that actually the stuff in the closet hidden behind the clothes you guys bought and that there
is no Santa Claus. Hey, busted pencils. We are not going to produce any type of this is when
you do it because hey, it depends, right? Jacob. It does depend. I think it's contextual.
Every kid is different. My brother, Colin, just turned 21 and we're thinking about telling him soon
because you can't love your whole life with it. But I think it's contextual. And it kind of
reminds me of something else we talked about on a previous producer's choice, where I I ask you
guys is, you know, is a little bit of youthful rebellion good for a kid. In other words,
if there's nothing to rebel against is something lost anyway, you know, in that situation.
And the same way, I think it's, it's good for kids to learn a sense of skepticism based on their
own story of learning the truth about the holidays. I think that process is part of growing up. So
I wouldn't want to rob my own, my own son, Jacobito, of the pleasures of learning these things.
I think it's part of it. My tip for all those parents out there would be, yeah, let them find out.
Leave it alone, let them find out. You know, hey, make it there. All right, Jacob, next.
And now because actually truly what's our timeline, it kind of depends after St. Nick,
but what is probably more closely that then brings us to Santa Claus comes from the Netherlands
and Jacob, do you know who came from the Netherlands? No. Oh, Dutch Santa,
center clause, center clause. Of course, it sounds so close. All right. I mean, and there you
see it, it comes right there. This is for some people too. You might see this. This is the
the guy on a horse wearing green, green, not red, Jacob, green, and dropping gifts. And here's
the thing. I don't know how true this is, but putting gifts in shoes. Okay. You know,
probably wouldn't shoes. Let's be one or did center class steal the slipping coins into socks
and saying, I'm going to one up. Yeah. I'm going to put stuff in people's shoes. Okay. But all
that is kind of going like, so why do we hang stockings? All right. Here you go. I think you can
figure it out right now. But yeah, center clause. And in fact, though, what a big time span,
270. And yeah, Jacob, please, AD, let's be honest, most people are like, what the heck, CE,
AD started really, but 1600 to 1700s, center clause in America with the Dutch. And come on,
you know, Christmas and Santa Claus, it's American. So, you know, we jump right from
AD to where stuff always happens. That's America.
That's interesting to me, Tim, that we're taking such a big leap again
from St. Nicholas to the introduction of Dutch Santa Claus to the United States,
which was then not the United States, but North America. That's interesting to me.
Big gaps here. And I guess that explains how these things change over the course of time,
you know, going from Greece over the Netherlands and then 100 years later to the North American
continent. And really, what you had talked about in the opening, though, is just like, so what
happens in between? And this is where, oh, there might be some people offended.
But a lot of paganism throughout those last years really becomes influential in setting up what
we know Christmas. So don't have enough time in the show tonight. But everyone from the Viking
says you point out to the Romans, there is some form of a contribution of all that time adding to
what we end up calling Santa Claus and everything we do, Christmas.
So Santa Claus is kind of like a taco made in Wisconsin. We're borrowing these different cultural
elements. And then suddenly there's a cheese curd in my taco. Well, you know, we're all coming
together and we're adding to the legend of this taco. It makes perfect sense.
It's inclusivity right there. I know we're not allowed to do diversity, equity and inclusion
and more. But come on, Santa Claus is truly only exists because of inclusion of all of those
different things. But hey, you know what? It does make it kind of what we start going to America.
Jacob, though, you did hit another one, though, when you were kind of going, I know I remember this
and this and this. Well, Father Christmas. And Father Christmas, England, Jacob, England.
Oh, introducing the English side of this story. Yeah. And you know, hey, not a whole lot. Father
Christmas didn't do a whole lot with the kids. He was, you know, what you might say, he was a drinker.
Okay. You know, I'm glad Johnny's not here because he would be heartbroken by these dark stories
behind Father Christmas. I'm glad he doesn't have to have his Christmas interrupted.
I mean, you know, Father and actually, though, you start to see the contribution to what we're at
today, feasting and partying, you know, merriment, you know, the vibes. And so Father Christmas
brings that gathering, feasting and, you know, thrown some back if that's what you like to do.
And is this going to lead Tim? Are we moving towards because I know, I know something about
the Dutch is that they colonized part of North America. And I know that the English are influential
in North America. Are we heading to a lot of these things coming together?
There you go, because where is that Wisconsin taco example you made while it is America,
that melting pot where all of those things come together. And in New York in the 1800s,
Washington Irving boom. Yeah, satirical piece referencing the Dutch Saint Nicholas in New York.
Jake. Oh, wow. Man, give yourself a ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding again there.
Okay. Or want networks. No, Tim, I'll give myself one more ding for that.
All right. Nice. Nice. Okay. And so you have Irving there. And then this also combines with
Clement Clark Moore. Jacob, do you know what he wrote? Not in the slightest.
It was the night before Christmas. Oh, okay, okay. Okay. And Matt respect the climate.
Yeah. So you put that together. And what did Clement contribute? Slay, reindeer,
chimney delivery, the Santa body type, and pleasantly pump.
And jolly. So yeah, you see this all coming together here, Jacob, it's starting to make sense.
Now, what does he look like at this point? Very good question. You know, we don't know,
except, you know, these people, well, there we go. Civil war era now in America.
Man, I hope Santa was with the union. I couldn't take it to learn that upsetting historic fact.
Thomas Nast starts putting together drawings, introduces us to the North Pole workshop,
the naughty and nice list, a little bit of the, what they say, the suit vibe,
and some elves. But Jacob, at this time, Santa Claus is identified,
wearing what color Jacob? Wait a minute. I'm going to go with green, because that's what's
green in the Netherlands. I mean, that green held on for a long time. You know, in fact,
I would say, you know, if I could show you around my house right now, I have a couple green
St. Nick Santa Claus, you know, not green skin, but a green wardrobe.
You know, it kind of reminds me, because I was going to say, you still see a little bit of green
Santa out there in the world. And it reminds me of, from Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, he always wears a green
shirt. But I remember there were a few times where he had a red shirt for some reason. I was like,
what was that all about? So sometimes these iconic outfits can switch just a little bit.
Yeah, exactly. All right, now Jacob, when do we get the real Santa Claus?
Tim, I think I know, but I don't want to spoil your story.
I mean, it is so American. Is it, is it when Coca-Cola codified what Santa looks like?
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, dang right there. Coca-Cola in the 1930s. In fact, drops the
green outfit and gives us the bright red suit Santa Claus, the Santa Claus that we know and love
who is the real true Santa Claus thank you Coca-Cola. Is he red because Coca-Cola is red?
Is that why? Yeah, that's it. It's a great advertising fish. That is a great ad for Coca-Cola,
but and boy, it's stuck right because we know that if you happen to, on this evening, Christmas
evening, if you happen to get up and possibly go around the Christmas tree and spy somebody
putting presents under there, he will be wearing red Jacob. Well, Santa, yeah, it's like Michael
Jordan has to wear Nike. Santa struck that deal in the 30s with Coca-Cola. He always wears red and
drinks Coca-Cola. There it is. That's it. He would get sued so hard if he came out in a green suit
right now. I get it. You know, yeah, there it is. And so, I mean, so, so class in session,
Christmas Eve, Jacob, that is, you know, so where does Santa Claus come from? I think we covered
it right there. Yeah, guess what though? Throw in a little bit. There goes like, well, what about
the flying reindeer? Now, Jacob, where did the flying reindeer come from? The North Pole.
Yeah, that's true. Okay, but like, who gives it? I don't know. I'm interested to learn this one.
My favorite people, the Vikings. Really? Yeah, no, no, they didn't have a flying reindeer. It was
olden who would fly through the sky on an eight-legged horse. I'm glad we dropped half the legs on
the reindeer because it would have been a little odd if they had eight legs. So that's just another
contribution along the road from St. Nicholas to modern day Santa. I assume that started with
Scandinavian Christmas traditions. There you go. Scandinavian right there, you know, so again,
people like, how did we get to where we are? And I think this is a great lesson class in session
because who Santa Claus is today? Boy, it took a long time to get him to who he is today. Lots
going on, lots of learning, but didn't get the memo that inclusion is out.
I'm sorry, Santa. You have to be a Greek saint from Turkey again.
No more, you know, you got to go back, but yeah, you know what? And here it is. Classes and
session, Merry Christmas, everybody. And Santa Claus is the mixture of multiple traditions over
about almost 2,000 years to get us to the fat guy with in the red suit who, you know, the M&M's catch
that one Christmas Eve. And he is the one M&M faints and Santa Claus faints. So there you go.
A Christian saint to marketing M&Ms.
Tim, the modern Santa that you remember from your childhood in the 1970s is what have been to
the 1940s guy or the 20s guy before Coca-Cola showed up. That's not what Santa really is. You can't
change Santa and do this or when Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer was added to it, but he doesn't
have a red nose reindeer. That's not part of how Santa's always been. So I think the lesson here is
over time every once in a while, a new thing catches on whether it's about Santa Claus or, you know,
the Frankenstein that I know is different than when, you know, 30 years from now they've got,
oh, what do you mean Frankenstein always has a hat? Yeah, I've always remembered him with a hat.
Yeah, he changes over time.
Hey, you know, and not to get, but Frankenstein will always be Fred Gwyn from the monsters.
And, and Tim, it's Christmas. We've got Frankenstein and Mer and we're just, we're having a great time
and I want to thank you for educating me. I feel more like an educated educator. Thanks to your
history of Santa Claus. And with that Jacob history of Santa Claus, Mary Christmas on Christmas Eve,
and now it's time for your moment of sin.
The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis
of important data. The definition of important, of course, depends on one's values.
Oh, oh, oh, Mary Christmas and some busters. Thank you so much for your time.
So much for listening to this special Christmas Eve edition of Class In Session.
If you enjoyed it, then Santa has good news for you. Go ahead, check under the tree.
What's that? Yes, you're right. It's home room on Monday. The producers' choice show on Friday.
And over here in your stocking, it's one hour of your favorite blue collar scholars.
Tim, Johnny, and Jacob, every Saturday to help you keep busting pencils.
You