santa_claus

In this holiday-themed episode of Hold Up, Daily Show correspondent Dulcé Sloan and writer Josh Johnson debate whether parents should tell their kids the truth about Santa Claus or not?

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With Christmas coming up, you're likely in the full holiday swing of things — decorating your tree, eating certain foods, listening to particular music, and buying and wrapping gifts. But did you ever stop to think about why it is you're taking part in this slate of often weird-but-wonderful traditions?

Brian Earl has traced the backstories of our Christmas traditions in his podcast and book called ChristmasPast. Today on the show, he shares some of those backstories with us, and explains how many of our seemingly fated and timeless traditions actually came about in fluky and fortuitous ways and are a lot more recent than we think. He first unpacks how Christmas went from being a small religious observance to a huge cultural celebration and how our idea of Santa Claus evolved over time, with our current conception of Old St. Nick being less than a century old. We then discuss how it is we ended up taking evergreen trees inside our houses and decorating them, the origins of the most recorded Christmas song in history, why fruitcake became the butt of jokes, and why hardly anyone roasts chestnuts anymore, on an open fire or otherwise. Brian shares what new Christmas traditions he's seeing emerge and which classic ones are going away, and I offer an important PSA to future parents about Elf on the Shelf. We end our conversation with Brian's tips for getting into the Christmas spirit if you haven't been feeling it.

Resources Related to the Episode

• AoM Article and Video: How to Roast Chestnuts on an Open Fire
• AoM Article: Be a Scrooge This Year — Reflections From A Christmas Carol
• The evolving image of Santa Claus
• Pew Research study on the changing ways Americans celebrate Christmas
• Vintage Flintstones Fruity Pebbles Christmas commercial
• Vintage McDonald's Christmas commercial
• AoM Article: 11 Ways to Get Into the Holiday Spirit

Connect With Brian Earl

• Brian's Website and Podcast

It's here again! Our annual ad-free holiday spectacular. So pour up a hot toddy, throw a log on the fire and listen with the whole family!

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While many Christmas traditions have ancient roots, Christmas culture as we know it today is a modern creation and most of that genesis happened in New York City a century ago.
My guest today on the show wrote a book that explores the development of Christmas in New York City by looking at a 1920s con man who used the story of Santa Claus to swindle hundreds of thousands of dollars from generous New Yorkers. His name is Alex Palmer and his book is "The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York."
Today on the podcast Alex and I discuss what Christmas was like before the 19th century and the famous New Yorkers who helped turned Christmas into what it is today. Against that backdrop we discuss the life and times of John Gluck, a PR man who started an organization that answered letters written to Santa Claus but in the process lined his pockets with hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s also a story that involves a bitter rivalry between the Boy Scouts of America and another scouting organization that consisted of rifle-toting 12 year olds.
You don’t want to miss this holiday edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. It’s going to give you lots of fodder to talk about at Christmas dinner.

Welcome back to the Art of Manliness podcast. This week we bring you a special holiday edition of the Art of Manliness podcast with a very special guest: Santa Claus! Or at least a guy who works as Santa. Santa Dave (or Dave Davis) is a professional Santa Clause that lives in Ohio. He's a member of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas and also does story telling. You can find out more about Santa Dave's work and see pics of the big man himself at his website Christmas Lore.