Impolite Society: Exploring the Weird, Taboo & Macabre

The Darkest Christmas Traditions Around the World

• Impolite Society • Season 2 • Episode 7

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Christmas bells, candy canes, and hot cocoa by the fire - that’s the idealized American Christmas scene. Our traditions are designed to give everyone in the family the warm fuzzies and in America, the worst thing that could ever happen at Christmas is a lump of coal in your stocking. 

But this isn’t the case in the Old Country. Europe is the source of many of our grim fairy tales and even Christmas has its own unique cast of monsters. Tales of cannibalism, horse skulls, slaves, and worse all make an appearance in the holiday traditions around the world. Today we’re exploring the yuletide lore that your parents definitely didn’t tell you before bed. 

That’s what you're in for today on Impolite Society.

Sources:

https://www.slate.com/articles/life/holidays/2011/12/zwarte_piet_holland_s_favorite_racist_christmas_tradition_.html

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0015587042000231264

https://www.medievalists.net/2019/12/the-yule-cat-of-iceland-a-different-kind-of-christmas-tradition/ 

https://witchlike.wordpress.com/2020/01/05/frau-perchta-witch-of-twelfth-night/

https://www.wales.com/about/culture/mari-lwyd

https://medium.com/@jahernandez_writes/the-tale-of-p%C3%A8re-fouettard-66260dc44890

https://www.visiticeland.com/article/meet-the-icelandic-yule-troll-family

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIXscGcdGyk 

https://www.americanacademy.de/attacking-zwarte-piet/ 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/12/22/572569325/caga-ti-a-catalan-log-that-poops-nougats-at-christmas

https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/holidays-christmas/pooping-man-catalan-nativity-scene.htm



Got your own thoughts? Text them to Impolite Society!

Text Rachel and Laura or email us at rude@impolitesocietypodcast.com. Visit our website for info about the show and your hosts.

Christmas bells, candy canes, and hot cocoa by the fire. That's the scene of the idealized American Christmas. Our traditions are designed to give everyone in the family the warm fuzzies. And in America, the worst thing that can happen at Christmas is a lump of coal in your stocking. But this is not the case in the old country. Europe is the source of many of our grim fairy tales, and even Christmas has its own unique cast of monsters. Tales of cannibalism, horse skulls, slaves, and worse all make an appearance in the holiday traditions around the world. Today we're exploring the Yuletide lore that your parents definitely didn't tell you before bed. That's what you're in for today on Impolite Society.

Laura:

Welcome to the podcast that explores the weird, the taboo, and the macabre topics that you cannot discuss in polite society. I'm Laura.

Rachel:

I am Reindeer Rachel. It's festive!

Laura:

Merry Christmas.

Rachel:

feeling feisty and festive today.

Laura:

And we've got some special holiday news. Rachel.

Rachel:

Santa came early and dropped off a special surprise package at the, the household over here. Uh, we have a new baby in the picture, a little girl named Daphne. Uh, she's about a month old now and I am tired.

Laura:

You got a bundle of joy for Christmas.

Rachel:

Yes. Everyone's like, Oh, how magical a new baby on Christmas. And I'm like, I would just actually like a little bit more sleep.

Laura:

Yeah. That would be a really good Christmas present. Just

Rachel:

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's not that it's not magical, but I just have an angry little burrito who likes to yell at me all the time. She's like, I don't care that it's Christmas. You have to attend to me at all hours of the night.

Laura:

You know, you know it. You know the drill. You're gonna get through it. And we've got a lot of episodes banked. So we should be pretty good to go. This was a last minute recording, listeners. Because we wanted to be on

Rachel:

Yeah. And I had this idea before and I was like, me, I'm not going to post it. I'm not going to pose it because I don't know if I'm actually able to follow through on it.

Laura:

But I did. So here we are

Rachel:

Oh my gosh. Doesn't your back hurt from single handedly carrying the podcast?

Laura:

I'm good. So today we're talking scary Christmas, weird Christmas, all the fucking crazy shit that goes on in the world. And we are just, we're so sweet in America, right? We're so precious, warm and safe over here, but across the pond, man, not so much. Different world.

Rachel:

has been around a long time, and the warm, fuzzy, easy going, happy merry, that's not been around that long. Life used to be hard! Well, it still is, but

Laura:

Not, not in the same way, because there's a lot of them and, and today I'm going to start with the lamest of them all, and that is Krampus and everyone knows Krampus. He's really having a moment with gothy American people who just are really sick of the holidays, making people happy and children being happy. They really want to get in on this Krampus thing. Rachel, what do you know about

Rachel:

I, of course, know Krampus from the movie that came out, I want to say a few years ago, but it's probably closer to 10, if I'm being

Laura:

Yeah, I think it's like 2015. I looked it up.

Rachel:

Time, it goes by. That's the real Krampus, is the time that comes and takes your family members away one by one.

Laura:

Ruins everything.

Rachel:

Um, no, I hate that movie, but it was definitely entertaining, but I hated it. I hated it. I hate that all the children died, and there was a scene where the baby got swooped up the chimney, and I was like, nope, can't do this.

Laura:

Baby died?

Rachel:

baby. Well, in the end, spoiler alert, it was all a dream! Or was it? Nobody fucking knows. They pulled that.

Laura:

awful.

Rachel:

pulled that cliché. But Krampus himself, he is uh, I want to believe somewhere in like Central Europe, maybe like Austria. They're big on Christmas shit over there.

Laura:

Austrian, German, like Slovakia, all that. Like Eastern, Northern Europeans. Like that's like the center of Christmas. And that's where most of these

Rachel:

and oh my gosh you say Krampus in Germany that all makes sense because this guy looks like a devil essentially I remember clearly from the movie. He's got cloven hooves he's got like a he's got a whip or chain or something that he a rod he flails it around and He is like the anti Santa so

Laura:

Oh, no, he does have chains. You're right. He has chains. Like the chains rattle instead of bells. But he also has rot. But

Rachel:

because I remember the chain came down and is what grabbed the baby and pulled it up the chimney.

Laura:

That's

Rachel:

Yeah, I was like, I can't, um, I quit. Anything that kills a dog or a baby, it's just such a low hanging Plot device that I'm just like nope can't do it and anything about babies in peril. I'm like, no, I can't do it.

Laura:

Yep. Can't. Children in peril in

Rachel:

I can't do that life. But yeah, so he is like the he's the bad Santa So if you are in America, we're like, oh if you're bad, you're gonna glump a coal But in this case if there's Krampus He comes around and he'll beat you with his rod and take your soul to hell or at least that's how the movie went

Laura:

Yeah. Uh, so there's really not anything more than. The beating in the birch rod, like I thought with how scary he looked, there's some sort of like sinister, depraved backstory, but, and, and like something worse happens to you. There's some iterations where he like shoves them in a sack and takes them somewhere.

Rachel:

in the movie

Laura:

But there's not really There's not really anything additional about that. Yeah, you just take it away and Really? He's just there and the history the backstory. There's not really one he's there because Germans and Austrians they have a lot of demons running around in their culture and Seemingly one day. It was just like Did you hear? St. Nick, he runs around with a demon. And the demon doesn't even kill you, he just hits you with a stick. I mean, it's lame. It's

Rachel:

there like another he, before Krampus, there's like another iteration of him that goes around with Santa, and I want to say his name is very racist, but I can't pull it off the top of my head.

Laura:

There's another really racist one that we're gonna get to. I don't think it's this one, but I feel like there were a couple iterations of Krampus when I was looking into it. I didn't look too much into Krampus, because like I said, he's fucking lame. Uh, I did some digging to try to find, like, a more interesting backstory, and I couldn't. So I was just like, yeah, we're, we're He's just fucking lame. He's lame.

Rachel:

lame. Yep, and that is the racist character that we'll get to later.

Laura:

Ah, all right. Well, spoiler alert. Well, not spoiler. Teaser

Rachel:

go anywhere

Laura:

that one.

Rachel:

Europeans are racist. What? Surprise! That's a Christmas surprise for ya.

Laura:

But do you want to know who's way more fucking metal than Krampus? Frau Perkta.

Rachel:

Perkta, I have never heard of this queen, but I'm guessing she is uh, pretty badass.

Laura:

So this is another Austrian folklore tale and those Germanic people, they fucking love some grim shit. Grim fairy tales, right? That's where they all come from. Frau Perkte is a woman, Frau, Miss, uh, and like so many angry women in the world, she started life as a young, beautiful thing, a goddess to be exact. And her name was Bertha or Berkta.

Rachel:

And that was the last time that the name Bertha was associated with any type of beauty. Galadriel.

Laura:

It makes me think of a Gladriel, Galadriel. I don't know how you say her name from, yeah, from Lord of

Rachel:

My son has a onesie that says, All shall love me and despair. Which is a quote from her. And it's

Laura:

So yeah, she's beautiful, but she's kind of scary, right? So Berkta. She was an old god worshipped by Celtic and Germanic tribes. She protected women and children. She was associated with the life cycle of the world life. Death, rebirth,

Rachel:

And that reminds me of, we were talking about it in another episode, I can't remember which one, where death and life were kind of rolled into one package. And it had to have been Satan, right? It had to have been the Satanism episode because as a Celtic and Germanic pagan figure who is specifically linked to women, I'm guessing that she's going to get done dirty.

Laura:

you would be quite right. And, but, not only, so she was able to take on all of these forms, too. All of these different forms of the life cycle. A mother, a beautiful woman, and an old crone. And, also, she was a shapeshifter. And, uh, sometimes had the foot of a

Rachel:

Of course, right? Why not?

Laura:

Yeah,

Rachel:

You got a paddle. Just one. Just one goose foot?

Laura:

Just one, just one goose

Rachel:

paddled in circles non stop.

Laura:

And no one knows why. This is just, just so fucking long time ago. Nobody knows. I'm surprised we know this much. This, actually, Frau Perkte has the most backstory of any of these other Christmas traditions that I could find. I don't know why she was so special, but I think it's because, like, her iteration, Is actually like an older, older goddess. Like it had been going on for so long. That's why they had so much honor. But then the church came around with its good documentation skills, cause nobody ever wrote shit down, and they banned the worship of Berkta in 1468. They've got a whole document about it. And it was around this time when Berkta, the shining one, becomes Perkta. And the word Perchten means scary monsters in Austrian or German. I don't know. So Berkta became Perkta, leader of the Perchten. Yes, because everyone likes alliterations and making old gods demons when you're trying to bring in a new

Rachel:

Out with the old, in with the new. And the way to do that is to make all of the old demons.

Laura:

Yep. And this scary monster demon Perkta, like I said, way more fucking metal than Krampus.

Rachel:

Guitar riff.

Laura:

They're from the same regions of the world, but Perkta, she doesn't just beat you with a rod. Fuck no. She's the goddess of women. You know, they were getting beat all the time back then and that is not scary. So Perkta doesn't beat you.

Rachel:

She says she's fine when she isn't.

Laura:

I'm fine. I'm fine. No, she just eviscerates you.

Rachel:

Ouch.

Laura:

If you're good, you'll get a silver coin, which

Rachel:

Score! Silver coin!

Laura:

If you're bad, she slices your belly open, rips out all of your guts, and stuffs your abdominal cavity with trash.

Rachel:

That's one plan for getting rid of Trash Island in the Pacific. Stuff it into the cavities of, uh, bad children. specifically.

Laura:

But she's also very interested in spinning, you know, like Rapunzel and like the spinning wheel. So if a woman hasn't spun enough, eviscerated. If she spun too much. There seems to be just the right amount of spinning that a woman should be doing, and Perkta is a real bitch about it. So, uh, plan your year accordingly, spinsters.

Rachel:

That seems to be a little harsh, Perkja. I would imagine that that was an addition from the church. They were like,

Laura:

No, she was, like, this Celtic goddess was, like, the goddess of spinning, again, because I, the goddess of women, so, like, that's, like, her trade but yeah, but I guess throwing in the, the, ripping out your guts and

Rachel:

if you're not working hard enough.

Laura:

part. Yeah, yeah, you're not

Rachel:

Or if you're working too hard. You have to have some time for your wifely

Laura:

or if you're making too many clothes, women, can't be all

Rachel:

be vain. And yeah, that's one way around it. At first they were like, you can't be lazy. And then there was some woman who was like, fine. I'm making all these beautiful clothes. I'm hot shit. I look great. And then they're like, well, not like that. You can't be ambitious like that. You have to be right, so.

Laura:

Just the

Rachel:

And then eviscerated.

Laura:

as women deserve,

Rachel:

of course, in children, in stuff with trash. What is the right amount a woman should spend? Let's say it's a very Fine line. It's a thread.

Laura:

on the edge of everything.

Rachel:

Merry Christmas! Okay!

Laura:

That's our feminist, feminism rant. I don't think there's any more feminism in this episode, so stay tuned listeners.

Rachel:

Nothing like some Christmas feminism.

Laura:

So next up, we're going to head to Wales, and I'm always really confused about Wales. Is it England? Is it in England? Is it its own country? Yes and yes. It is on the same island as England. It is part of the British United Kingdom, but way more than Ireland. Basically, it is England. No, I know. That's what I'm saying. So, but Ireland is a part of the British

Rachel:

Not Ireland. Northern

Laura:

Ireland. So, Northern Ireland is. But the

Rachel:

I will offend the Welsh, but I will not offend the Irish. That's where I draw the line, at that channel.

Laura:

Ireland, the island, used to be a whole part of the British Empire, or the United Kingdom. It's no longer. Except for Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom. And Welshman, Welshers, whatever. I know you're in your own country, but basically it's, it's England. And they have this tradition called the Marie Lloyd. And as usual with these things, no one knows what the fuck it means or where it came from.

Rachel:

Or how to pronounce it, if you're just looking at it, because it's Welsh. And Welsh is just like, what are vowels? I don't know!

Laura:

I listened to somebody pronounce it and this is my best guess marie lloyd I don't know. That sounds more French. I don't know. That's what I have in my pronunciation guide. But some people say it means Blessed Mary. Other people say it means Grey Mare. And then another camp says Merry Game. So you think that would be easy enough to translate, but no, nobody knows. And what this consists of is going from house to house in this bizarre parade that's filled with a bunch of colorful characters. There's people in blackface, spoiler alert, Europe is racist.

Rachel:

Well, so is a mirror. I don't want to just pin it, pin it. It's just white people. No, no, sorry. It's everybody's racist in their own way. Let's just, you know.

Laura:

we're all unique snowflake and carolers there and there, there's some normies that are thrown into the parade and usually two people dressed up as Punch and Judy. Do you know who Punch and Judy are?

Rachel:

I've never heard of them in my life.

Laura:

know them. You, this is the one of the interesting things that there are these two old timey puppets that you have definitely seen cartoons and movies. It's like a booth, like a puppet booth with the red and white stripes. And there are these like old, old timey wooden puppets and he's got like real exaggerated facial features. Punch, who's the, the man, and he is very angry, he has a club, and he uses it to beat and sometimes kill his wife, Judy, and sometimes beat and kill the baby. Um,

Rachel:

All in good Christmas fun.

Laura:

this is not a Christmas thing, this is just like a, like an overall culture thing in Europe,

Rachel:

But it's a part of the Christmas

Laura:

But they, yeah, Punch and Judy, for some reason are in this Murray Lloyd parade and looking at this picture of Punch and Judy and, and this parade, I'm just like, this is so fucking weird about how these traditions, they just start going and going and going. Cause like I said, you've heard of Punch

Rachel:

Yeah, oh, I can picture them explicitly in my mind. I cannot pinpoint from where. They just have permeated the zeitgeist of western culture. And I'm just imagining the back, back, back, back, back,

Laura:

Yeah. He's angry. He's got a like crazy voice. Sometimes he has a kazoo and it's just these things They're they're they're out there and you don't know why and then they get into your brain and you don't know why and it's just All there so that that was just mind blowing to me as I see this parade with Punch and Judy and I'm like fucking hell

Rachel:

Yeah, what? And it's it's ironic that this is not where we had our feminist corner aside. It was more about Perkda and spinning. But let's just say, there's probably some commentary there as well.

Laura:

Yeah about a man beating his wife and child to death yeah probably

Rachel:

But that's low hanging that's

Laura:

Ha, Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,

Rachel:

We're a little bit more, uh, highbrow than that.

Laura:

So, those two assholes are in there. And at the real head of the parade is the Marie Lloyd. A huge and very real horse skull. It's mounted on a pole, adorned with ribbons, a white shroud. Surrounds it on its neck to hide the person who's underneath holding the pole and working the jaws with a stick to go around and snap at people. And it also has glass eyes, which are really fucking creepy. And this merry band led by a horse skull goes house to house, knocking on doors, singing, asking for food and drink. And if you give it to them, good luck for everyone in the new year. The end of the Marylewd tradition.

Rachel:

Those British Isles could really use a little bit more sunlight and vitamin D, right? It's a long dark winter. ha

Laura:

yeah. And I wish that I had an explanation for why. Nobody fucking knows. The earliest it's written down is around 1800. And people say, oh, it's a, it really isn't. And people are like, oh, it's some pre Christian tradition. But, Nobody knows why it's just a thing that people do because they've always done it and I'm just thinking like what are all these other weird Traditions these weird cultural things that are out there that have no discernible purpose or origin What's going on in the world or? What weird thing do we do now that we know the origin for that in 200 years? They're gonna have no fucking idea why we do it

Rachel:

Like, why do some people make a phone with their index finger and their pinky? They'll be like, nobody knows. Nobody knows. That's just a weird symbol for phone. Or why is this? What is that weird shape that makes a save icon?

Laura:

That's what I was just gonna go to is the this this the the disc shape and that people don't use discs anymore And yet it's there because that's what we are used to Humans are so interesting

Rachel:

What's a gold record? A gold record is just a big golden disc. Nobody knows why people give those out but they just get them to artists.

Laura:

You know, something like eating turkey on Thanksgiving. You know what I mean? Like we know like it's supposed to represent that first meal with the, the Indians. I'm sorry. The Native American. I don't know what you're supposed to say now that it is Native Americans, indigenous. Okay. The first uh, Thanksgiving unquote with the indigenous people. That's what it represents. But in fucking 200 years, people will be like, we eat turkey. Why? Um,

Rachel:

Another example why do we put candles on a birthday cake? Yeah, it started a long time ago. I mean, as far back as, I think, ancient Greece. But it's just, you know, something about, I don't, I don't know. It's an old thing

Laura:

Because a flaming cake is fun. I don't know. Yeah, and that's the thing. These things are fun, right? So people are having fun with their merry horse skull and their costumes and their black face going from house to house. And so they just keep doing it. It doesn't have any reason. It doesn't have any purpose. They just like doing it. And so we do it.

Rachel:

And they still do it today with the black face and the wife beating and, Mmm, we gotta cancel Wales.

Laura:

Punch and Judy might be its own episode someday, honestly. It's pretty interesting. Uh, there's like a whole culture around it, like uh, they have for people who still do Punch and Judy and things like that. I don't know, but it's not as violent. It's not as violent as it used to be. He almost never kills uh, child anymore, but, but he does still beat them with a stick.

Rachel:

the thing that I remember is, yeah, the guy's beating the woman with a stick, and then she conks him with a frying pan in return. It's kind of what I remember, the

Laura:

feel like. Yeah, I feel like I've seen that before, but the original version, yeah, he killed everybody and put his baby in a meat grinder

Rachel:

Ooh.

Laura:

on accident, if that makes it any better.

Rachel:

Hmm. Merry Christmas. We just end all of these with Merry Christmas. This is very light and happy. Grinding babies.

Laura:

So the next one, let's go and do another cheery one. We're gonna go over to Iceland now. They have Gryla and Gryla and the Yule cat and again way fucking cooler than Krampus because Gryla is a Troll woman She

Rachel:

over there.

Laura:

Do they?

Rachel:

Oh yeah, trolls everywhere. Trolls, trolls, trolls, Iceland trolls, everywhere.

Laura:

Well, she is a troll that's DTF because she has got 13 sons that are known as the Yule Lads. And,

Rachel:

the Yule

Laura:

lads. Grilla and her brood, uh, and her cat all live in a cave in the mountains and they don't make their way down to see people very much unless it's Christmas. And so each of the Yule Lads, they have their own gimmick, and I'm not gonna go into it because there are fucking 13 of them,

Rachel:

Are they, maybe, one's sneezy, one's dopey. Yeah.

Laura:

Bukignakr, the sausage swiper, and Glukagninr, the window peeper.

Rachel:

Oh god, that's somehow way worse. Yeah.

Laura:

like the sausage swiper, the bowl licker, the window peeper, like all just fucking weird But as soon as I saw that yeah, it did made me think of the seven dwarves like obviously influenced by this Icelandic um

Rachel:

Also an

Laura:

folklore. Yeah, 13. Well, 13 is evil, right? And these guys, they used to be bad but culture has softened a little bit. Now her son's just kind of like a merry band of pranksters that

Rachel:

Oh yeah, as you know, it's harmless window peeping. It's just for fun. This is silly good times.

Laura:

Just silly, just silly felonies. Uh, but Gryla, Grilla, whatever I said. She's got bigger fish to fry than sausage swiping and window peeping. She is hangry. And her favorite dish is boiled children. So,

Rachel:

opposed to ground up.

Laura:

Yeah, so every Christmas she comes down, she looks for naughty children to shove in her sack, bring back to her cave, and boil them for a stew that will last her until next Christmas. Because girl gotta get her meal prep in. She has way too much troll shit to do to be making a meal of children every day. She's gotta stock

Rachel:

what, she's gotta tend to those thirteen lads. That's gotta be a whole job and a half on its own. So

Laura:

And you know, there are a bunch of man babies.

Rachel:

Oh yeah, they're out there stealing sausage and licking bowls. She's got a lot, lot to do and deal with. Why on Christmas though? Why just Christmas?

Laura:

Cause you know, Christmas and you got to have that good counter or that bad counterpart to Santa and St. Nick. So that's what they did. Again, you take these Modge Podge of cultures and you slam them together.

Rachel:

Cause yeah, you always need the opposer, right? You need the good and the bad.

Laura:

Circle of life. But then. There's the family cat, the Yule cat, and this is a gigantic black cat that towers over houses. He's not like just like knee high, not like people high. He's like fucking giant and he goes around peers into windows and to see what everyone got for Christmas. He should be the window peeper.

Rachel:

was gonna say. He sounds like the window peeper.

Laura:

And he keeps tabs of the presents and if the children didn't get new clothes, them. So

Rachel:

like nom nom nom. Just like a little, little peanut. Just, it's so big.

Laura:

And it's something about how good children did all their work and got new clothes for christmas and lazy ones don't And I don't know none of this shit makes sense But really when you think about it, it's really kind of dark. It's like You didn't do your work. You don't get new clothes. Not only are you gonna freeze to death in fucking iceland You're also gonna be eaten by a yule cat

Rachel:

Well, okay, in my perspective, clothes was always the thing that you weren't excited to get. You're just like, aw, clothes. So in this case, they're like, be grateful, you little turd. You know? If you didn't get those clothes, Yule Cat was gonna come eat you.

Laura:

Yeah, like in iceland though, I imagine it's gonna be extra important like I said because it's so fucking cold

Rachel:

But they're always just chilling in their saunas, their natural thermal pools.

Laura:

True. Maybe this was before Saanis, though, because this is all comes from Norse mythology and

Rachel:

I think they had saunas.

Laura:

yeah, I mean

Rachel:

Those people know how to sauna.

Laura:

crazy Icelanders, all their saunas, all their Norse mythology, if you know anything about Norse mythology, you know it doesn't make any fucking sense. It's full of a bunch of crazy shit. So, again, none of this shit makes sense. We don't know where it comes from or why.

Rachel:

But it's fun.

Laura:

Another Christmas Boogeyman in the roster. This is Perfauta, the French Christmas Cannibal.

Rachel:

Oh, no! I was not expecting that!

Laura:

A. K. A. Father Whipper. Uh.

Rachel:

Tenderizing.

Laura:

Nyargh! Crch crch. But Perfauta is not just another Krampus. His origin is So much weirder, even though he whips and, you know, hits people the way, uh, Krampus does. The story goes that Perifauta was a child killer, who killed boys, chopped them up, and boiled them into stew.

Rachel:

Ooh, more stew. More child stew!

Laura:

like, again, a lot of grim fairy tales do this too. Like, doesn't the, the witch in uh, the, what is it? Hansel and Gretel! I guess she

Rachel:

Eat some. Yeah and the giant grind your bones to make your bread and it's like the worst thing that can happen to you after you're dead is to be eaten which is like dead is dead.

Laura:

Yeah.

Rachel:

I think you could get just as much across if they said she comes in or he comes in and he kills you.

Laura:

Yeah. Well, I mean, add in the horror factor, throwback to the cannibalism episode about why that disgusts us. But,

Rachel:

Well I was gonna say is that more of a backswing of like those more primal groups that did ceremonial. Yeah.

Laura:

And, but, so once Per Fauta had committed these atrocious acts, St. Nicholas appears to set things straight because, you know, Santa is based on St. Nicholas who was a real Catholic saint and Europe is not so much about Santa, they're more about St. Nick, uh, St. Nicholas. So, uh,

Rachel:

out.

Laura:

Yeah, December 5th. And so he resurrects the dead boys, Saint Nick does, and he sends them home. Yeah. Good. Good guy, Saint Nick. And he gives Per the chance to repent for his sins. And he can do that by whipping all the bad boys and girls. And I don't know about you, this doesn't seem appropriate for punishment.

Rachel:

No, it seems like it's letting him do exactly what he wants to do.

Laura:

yeah, a sadist doing sadistic things for the rest of time.

Rachel:

It'd be like, oh, Rachel, you've been bad, but you can be redeemed if you just eat this entire two dozen of Christmas cookies in one sitting, making yourself sick.

Laura:

Yeah.

Rachel:

I'm like, oh, darn, you got me. Nom, nom, nom, nom. Nom, nom, nom, nom. No.

Laura:

he also carries around a cat of nine tails looking thing really adds to that creepy S& M child molester serial killer vibes um, but yeah, that's, uh, that is the French cannibal, Pierre Fauta.

Rachel:

the kid bar or wherever kids used to hang out, you know, Gets a glass of brandy. He's like, let me tell you about the time that I got chopped up and made into stew, But I got better.

Laura:

Saint Nick, man, he's a good guy, he's a good guy.

Rachel:

That's a powerful, that's a powerful Tricks, bringing people back from the stew.

Laura:

Maybe that's why he, uh, he's a saint. Maybe that was one of his miracles. I don't know. Truly, actually, it might be.

Rachel:

Bringing people back from stew?

Laura:

Maybe?

Rachel:

We're not biblical scholars, that's for sure.

Laura:

Next up, we're going to Holland for that, racist one that you teased.

Rachel:

Oh, here it is.

Laura:

If you have not read or listened to David Sedaris short story about this, you are missing out. It's called Six to Eight Black Men, is the name of the short story. Link to the source notes on him reading it on a YouTube video. And Holland's version of St. Nicholas, who's called Sinterklaas, he doesn't get around with elves. He gets around a team of six to eight helpers.

Rachel:

I think it's gonna be loose on the helper and maybe a different kind of They

Laura:

and they're called Swartopetes and Swartopete literally means Black Pete,

Rachel:

all have the same name?

Laura:

have the same name

Rachel:

God, that's low.

Laura:

and the Dutch they were big players in the slave trade and in 1850 this popped up in their Christmas lore as you can imagine. It's a pretty big controversy now People still do this though in parades. They dress up in blackface. They paint on the big red lips They put on curly black wigs Big hoop earrings and they put on this kind of like medieval merry maker costume, like with the poofy hat and that kind of thing. And

Rachel:

Oh no. In the year 2020s, they do this still?

Laura:

yes.

Rachel:

my gosh.

Laura:

uh, Sortie Pete has his defenders. they say that it's not blackface. He's not a slave. It's not,

Rachel:

Then what is it?

Laura:

it, it, is because he's a chimney sweep. He came down the chimney and that is why he has black skin.

Rachel:

And the hair and the drawn on lips?

Laura:

Um, no

Rachel:

you Hollander.

Laura:

And some of these people, they want to hold on to it. The modern mentality people are seeming to kind of get the. Message around the world that people don't like this. So they're kind of laying off of it They've done a new version that instead of black Pete. It's sooty Pete and He Doesn't have the big red lips or the wig or he wears the merrymaking kind of Medieval costume the actor playing and has their natural skin tone And then they just like wipe soot on his face as he would actually look if he was just a chimney sweep So they're kind of trying to recast him as that but there are some people that are still holding on and want to keep going and yeah, It's if you look up Swartopete you are only going to see articles about how people are fighting on it, which is good I mean, that's what you're gonna see. There's not a lot of backstory that people tell because it's so Seeped in controversy right now.

Rachel:

And just kind of messed up. It's not like they went to Africa and like made friends. They were there stealing people to sell them. And it's only the 1850s. That's not that long ago. Like, come on, just let it go. That's only 150 years. Just because it's been around for what? Three generations. That doesn't mean that you have to keep it.

Laura:

but that's another one that people are going to be like, in, you know, 200 years, they're like, Oh, there's this city guy that hangs around with, with Santa Claus.

Rachel:

Saint Nick. Uh, they don't know. He's just there, but that's why I'm just get rid of it. Just get rid of it and, you know, take a note from the rest of Europe. Maybe find a nice animal skull that you can parade around town. Maybe play up some domestic violence. You know, just really lean into the good times. Take a a pagan figure and make her horrible. Like the classics. Stick to the classics. The old, old school

Laura:

there's clearly a buffet of options and, you know, they went with one. Uh, yeah, but you, you can change gears anytime, Holland.

Rachel:

Yeah, they really latched on to the worst one too, cause that's like the, you know, that's what everybody's focused on these days, rightfully

Laura:

in the public opinion. I mean, I don't know. Who's to say what's worse? Slavery, racism, child murder,

Rachel:

But at least they say that that's bad, they acknowledge that that's not good.

Laura:

True. It's fair. That's fair.

Rachel:

They're not like, oh, yes. Then here comes Santa Claus eating his child's Stew

Laura:

Merrily eating his child's stew. All right.

Rachel:

and another kind of stew. Speaking of

Laura:

warm, hot, and steamy next, strange tradition here. This one's a lot lighter and I don't know what is going on in Spain, but they do the holidays a little dirtier than the rest of us, there is a lot more poop in their Christmas than there is in mine. But I, I don't want to come across as ethnocentrist, you know, um, you do you Spain. First There is El Caganer, which literally means the pooper or the shitter if you're a potty mouth like me and El Caganer is a figurine of a squatting man. He's got a red hat, his pants around his ankles, and he's got that little pile of disappointment. Underneath his naked butt and this figurine. It's included in Spanish nativity scenes. Yeah, but not next to the baby Jesus because that would just be disrespectful. It is a part of a larger scene. Um, that usually is like a nativity village. So it's, you know, it's got the shepherds and it's got the wise men traveling. It's got some palm trees and it's got El Caganer hiding usually behind a tree or in a bush and. Traditionally, the children will be tasked to find it. It's like, find the El Caganer, and go look at it. And, who knows why? Nobody. Uh, so, some people say it represents fertility of the earth, because, after all, poop is very useful to farmers.

Rachel:

Yes,

Laura:

Or people, or people say it represents the newly human and earthly life of Jesus, because I mean, everybody poops, right? I guess.

Rachel:

God poops, I guess. He's man, he's out there, he's squatting and shitting. My theory is that this is just what you get when you get the vitamin D. Spain, sunny, warm, beautiful green plants. You get a lot of sense of humor. It's fun. It's light. It's, it's a crapper. It's the shitter. But then you go up north into the dark, cold, gray aisles up there, then it's a, it's a skull being paraded around. It's just really amazing what a little sunlight will do for you.

Laura:

I agree. I like that theory. Seasonal affective disorder is to blame for all of Northern Europe's

Rachel:

Just whole, whole thing they got going on.

Laura:

And so El Caganer, we have records of him in the 17th century. It's one of those things it's old enough to be lost to history. So 1600s and now we can just make up what this pooping man means to us. Because you can buy any figure you want as an El Cagoneer. It's very popular. They have whole stores. So they have like Trump, Mario, Madonna, any, anything you want. There's whole shops full of uh, public figures with their pants around their ankles and a little poo poo between their legs.

Rachel:

I don't believe Madonna eats enough to make any kind of satisfying shit. That's just my

Laura:

yeah, just by looking at her. Oh, she looks horrible. Woo. All

Rachel:

and unsatisfying. Prove me wrong, Madonna!

Laura:

right, but Spain doesn't have just one pooper in their holidays.

Rachel:

not enough poop.

Laura:

No, because we've also have Cogatillo and this is a log, the pooping log. Is the translation and it is exactly what it sounds like it is a pooping log and it's a wooden log that has a face painted on the cut side, some sticks for arms, a red hat, or a blanket around him.

Rachel:

The red hat is a theme for pooping. I need to get a red hat

Laura:

Something in Spain, right? Yeah, I don't know. so they families keep them in their house and. All December long, children will feed him little scraps of food or pretend to feed him scraps of food. Yeah, so, you didn't, you know, got a little orange left. Let's like, give it to Kakatio! And you got, uh, some mashed potatoes you don't want. Give it to Kakatio! And then on Christmas Eve They beat him with a stick, sing a special song, and then he poops candy.

Rachel:

So, how does he poop candy is it just the candies in there already

Laura:

No, the parents put it underneath it, and then recall the kids in, and then the kids hit him. And they sing their special song. I want you to sing this song, Rachel.

Rachel:

How's it go?

Laura:

Oh, I don't know the tune.

Rachel:

Oh, You think I could speak Spanish Laura Okay, I Gotta think of I gotta think of like what's some Spanish music. Let me play Spanish music for a second I'm gonna do it. Upbeat Spanish music. Just to get me in the right frame of mind. Do do do do, poop log, log of Christmas. Don't poop salted herring. They're too salty, poop terrons. They are much better. da da da da.

Laura:

You're gonna make it just, laughter brings on my cough.

Rachel:

I'm glad that that landed that well, because I was just I wish I had studied better.

Laura:

Don't poop salted herring, they are too salty. Poop Turans, they are much better.

Rachel:

Cago tío, tío de Nadal, no cago sarandes. That's my, my Spanish is not good. Actually it's non existent. When I, why did I say it's not good? It's, it's non existent.

Laura:

And a Turan is a nugget like candy that can be browned, so it really, it goes full circuit. It really fucking makes sense.

Rachel:

So, is the log himself supposed to represent poop, or is it the fact that the log is pooping the nougat?

Laura:

I have no idea.

Rachel:

I will say this makes a much better alternative to Elf on a Shelf. I just want to log and then move it around and it'll just leave piles of candy in different places. Just

Laura:

I,

Rachel:

wherever it goes.

Laura:

I think that is awesome because this fucking elf on itself shit, we don't do it in our house. We're never going to do it. Uh, so I think this is a much easier, I mean, it's a fucking log. You don't have to buy it. You can just paint on it. I like this tradition much better. And if anybody comes to your house and asks you why you have a pooping log, You're going to

Rachel:

ch

Laura:

I don't know.

Rachel:

about it on my podcast in polite society. Check it out. Leave us a five star rating and review on on apple podcast so that and tell your friends and family.

Laura:

No, you're gonna say no one knows because that's the thing with all of this.

Rachel:

No one knows where it comes from.

Laura:

no theories about it You know, they think maybe it was a pagan Ceremony where they burn trees and they kind of morphed it into a pooping. Oh, nobody knows who the fuck knows Why does Santa live in the North Pole? Why does he ride reindeers? Why does he have bells? It's just dumb shit that we do because we're bored. Life is short It's kind of fun.

Rachel:

That's kind of fun. That's, that's the tagline of Christmas. Christmas. It's kind of fun.

Laura:

Life is short and it's kind of fun. And that's it! Those are all of our Christmas traditions from around the world. Merry Christmas, socialites!

Rachel:

A very Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. Thanks for joining us for our big return this year. And we'll be back in 20, 24. Jesus Christ.

Laura:

it sounds weird.

Rachel:

Yeah, I just like stumbled over it. With a whole bunch of new, rude, strange, obscure topics for your ear holes. In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and tell your friends about the society. Guys, I know you've got holiday parties, Christmas gatherings, all these things. Go out on Carol and say, We wish you'd listen to Impolite Society. We wish you'd listen to Impolite Society. We wish you'd listen to Impolite Society. And leave a five star review.

Laura:

Oh, that's lovely.

Rachel:

Thank you.

Laura:

I couldn't join in because my voice hurts too much because I've been sick, but I love it!

Rachel:

Yep. That would be the best Christmas gift you could give us.

Laura:

and this episode does release literally on Christmas. Uh, so do it at your New Year's parties. Get drunk, and tell all your friends about the crazy shit that you just learned on Impolite Society and that they should listen. Be a drunk promoter of Impolite Society.

Rachel:

that's how we are.

Laura:

Yeah, truly.

Rachel:

Uh,

Laura:

the fucking podcast.

Rachel:

haha, but even like, listen to it on the way to your Christmas gathering and when there's like anybody tries to bring up politics or the election next year, just be like, have you heard of the pooping log?

Laura:

The cockatiel?

Rachel:

So we didn't just give you entertainment. We gave you the means to save Christmas. You're welcome and we will see you in the new year.

Laura:

Oh wait, keep marching.

Rachel:

Stay rude or something. Stay curious. Get out of here. Go be Christmas. Watch out for all the witches. Don't become stew.