Episode 160: Myth Movie Night - Spirit of Christmas
/Did we use a cheesy Christmas movie as an excuse to talk about ghost stories and haunted houses during Christmas time? We sure did. Amanda and Julia both brought the research this episode, talking about the tradition of telling ghost stories around Christmas and how hauntings are way less romantic that Hallmark would make you believe.
This week, Amanda recommends The Repair Shop on Netflix.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about murder, complications with childbirth, death, undead/revenants, mental illness (“driven mad”), animal death, possession, and
If you’d like to read more of the articles we quoted, you can find them below:
Christmas ghost stories: A history of seasonal spine-chillers
A Plea to Resurrect the Christmas Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
Julia: And I'm Julia.
Amanda: And this is Episode 160, Myth Movie Night, The Spirit of Christmas, a buck-wild, rom-com streaming movie.
Julia: Yeah, happy holidays. We gave you a real doozy.
Amanda: I know. Happy belated Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa to any who celebrate, and we hope that this gets you really in the spirit to drink or otherwise self-medicate and self-care your way through the holidays.
Julia: Yes, we picked a doozy of a drink for this episode. I made Hanky Pankys, and you'll find out one, what that is, and two, why later on in the episode.
Amanda: It was extremely on the nose in a way that I really enjoy.
Julia: Thank you.
Amanda: Again, we are recording this a little bit early, as we are doing various kinds of traveling and family time this week that you're listening to it. We just have one new patron to thank, Torbin, who joins the ranks of our supporting producer level patrons, Phillip, Megan, Debra, Molly, Skyla, Samantha, Sammy, Josie, Neil, Jessica, and [Phil Fresh 00:01:06].
Julia: As well as our legend level patrons, Kylie, Charlotte, [Kyla the Huskey 00:01:10], Morgan, Emily, Beam Me Up Scotty, Audra, Chris, Mark, Cody, Mr. Folk, Sarah, and Jack Marie. They always make the best prohibition-style cocktails at your holiday party.
Amanda: Julie, can I tell you how I am prioritizing solo time, my family of choice time, and just general rest this holiday season?
Julia: As you well deserve. Do it up.
Amanda: Thank you. I am spending a lot of time at home watching my favorite genre of show, which is completely devoid of plot, with my very patient and indulgent partner, ex-lover, who knows but still pays attention to shows that have absolutely no plot, which I love a ton. The Repair Shop is a British restoration barn where a bunch of lovely, patient, supportive coworkers together restore antiques, so there's a woodworking guy, an upholstery guy, a ceramics lady, a watch and clockmaker guy, an ironworker that they bring in on occasion. They're all just supportive. They josh each other, but not too much, and you get to see them lovingly restore tables and shit back to working order.
Julia: That sounds like a less competitive version of Flea Market Flip, and I'm here for it.
Amanda: Exactly. There's absolutely no drama or competition, except when very occasionally the boss is like, "I'll give you the light piece to carry," and it's exactly what I'm here for.
Julia: Incredible. I love it.
Amanda: That's The Repair Shop, and please, I am deeply into the show. I have grafted the cast onto the Bon Appétit test kitchen, which is my other source of mindless but lovely viewing, so if you want to talk Repair Shop, tweet me. I'm here for it.
Julia: Love it.
Amanda: Finally, as a reminder, if you are seeing friends and family this week, it's a great time to say, "Hey, I know you may not know of this podcast, but why don't you come and see a live show with me?" If you are in Austin, Boston, or LA, we're going to be in Podcast Movement this February. We have stuff for you to come and see us, so grab those tickets. Check out where we're going to be at multitude.productions/live, or if you're not in those cities, never fear, we're adding more dates all the time. Most of all, you can always say to somebody, "Hey, let me open up Spotify or a podcast app on your phone, subscribe you to this show, download an episode that you're going to love. I promise you're going to love it." That's the absolute best way to help us by growing the show, and to get your friends and family into a show that you think they'll enjoy.
Julia: Honestly, the best holiday present you can give is giving them a podcast that they will enjoy, and you can enjoy together.
Amanda: Particularly ones with 100-plus episodes for them to catch up on.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: It's so good. Well, that's it. We know it's a tough time of year for a lot of people, and if nothing else, a busy one with a lot of obligations, so no matter what you celebrate, when you celebrate, or if you celebrate, we are wishing you lots of love and warmth this end of December.
Julia: We hope that you tell some ghost stories this holiday season. You'll see why.
Amanda: All right, without further ado, enjoy Spirits podcast episode 160, Myth Movie Night, Spirit of Christmas.
Julia: So Amanda, we have another myth movie night with us today, and am I using a bad Hallmark Christmas movie to talk about the tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas? Yes. Yes, I am.
Amanda: Fuck yeah we are. Yes.
Julia: Excellent.
Amanda: I'm so excited. I watched this last year when it was on Netflix, but listen folks, it is worth finding. This movie is something else.
Julia: It's on Hulu now. We watched The Spirit of Christmas, which was made in 2015. It is not the best movie, but Jake is a big fan of the Hallmark-inspired Christmas movie, like the Hallmark romance.
Amanda: Of course he is, Julia, because he is wonderful.
Julia: Yes, he is. He's just a big soft boy. We watched this last year, as you said, and I think I fell asleep during the last quarter of the movie.
Amanda: Well, you missed a lot.
Julia: The revelations were a lot at the end, so we're going to start off by doing our two-minute summary, which-
Amanda: I think it's your turn, my friend.
Julia: It is my turn. I'm very nervous about this.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: Let me try to use the studio clock.
Julia: Okay. I believe in you.
Amanda: Nope, Brandon's shaking his head.
Julia: Okay. Brandon says no.
Amanda: Nope. Going to do a timer on my phone.
Julia: I can also set a ... I'm going to also set a timer for myself.
Amanda: Oh no, Julia. I just want the opportunity to be your timekeeper.
Julia: Excellent. Great. Okay. I'm going to get started. If you would like fewer spoilers for the movie, you can skip ahead about two minutes starting about now.
Amanda: Ready, set, go.
Julia: Okay, so we meet Kate, who is on a date, and she gets broken up with her boyfriend, and Kate is a real estate lawyer?
Amanda: Yep.
Julia: Does some sort of lawyering where she takes care of people's estates. Estate lawyer, that's it. She is sent to the Hollygrove Inn, which her boss tells her is haunted, and they can't get any of the people to figure out how much it's worth. I forget what it's called. This is literally what my husband does. This is terrible.
Amanda: Appraise it.
Julia: Appraise it. She goes there. She meets the ghost, whose name is Daniel. We find out that he was a bootlegger, and ran this inn with his cousin and his brother.
Amanda: And he's sexy.
Julia: He died, and he only gets to stay in corporeal form for 12 days, the 12 days leading up to Christmas, and then he disappears at midnight on the 24th, and so basically she is like, "Okay, I got to get you, figure out what your final wishes are, or how you died or whatever so we can get you out of this house, and I can get it appraised."
Amanda: [crosstalk 00:06:37].
Julia: "And then we can just go on with our lives," but of course, they fall in love, because he looks like a Canadian hipster, and they really didn't try anything on the costumes, and basically we find out that he had ... The woman he was in love with married his brother. She had a baby who died, and then also she died herself right after that, and that sucked, but basically he finds out that his cousin, who he ran the bootlegging business with, killed him because he ...
Amanda: 30 seconds.
Julia: ... was quitting the bootlegging business in order to be with the girl, and the reason that he comes back is that's the amount of days he was gone, and the girl was not all about that. Then he basically decides whether or not to go with her into the afterlife, or stay with Kate, who he is also in love with, and then he decides to stay, and somehow becomes ...
Amanda: 10 seconds.
Julia: ... alive again, and that's wild. How did he stay alive again? I don't understand. Then the movie ends with a kiss.
Amanda: Three, two, one. So well-timed. Good job, Julia.
Julia: Thank you.
Amanda: I know. He basically just wills himself into life, and it's wild.
Julia: How? How? Okay, also let's talk about the cocktail that we made for this episode.
Amanda: Oh, yes.
Julia: Because there is a whole weird section, because he's a bootlegger, and he's like, "Ah yes, I can beat any person in a cocktail-making contest," and then he's like, "Ha, ha, a woman challenged me to a cocktail-making contest? Wild."
Amanda: And everyone's like, "Oh, it's so old-fashioned."
Julia: Then he makes a Hanky Panky cocktail. Like most prohibition cocktails, the Hanky Panky is relatively simply. It is Rutte dry gin. I don't know what Rutte dry gin is. I imagine it's a prohibition-style gin. Martini Rosso vermouth, so it's a little bit of a red vermouth, which adds the color to it, and then Fernet-Branca, which I had to look up what that was. It's basically a digestive biter liqueur. It's got chamomile in it, and saffron, and rhubarb, and then it's aged in a oak barrel for about a year. You can't really find that at most local liquor stores, but if you want to get real fancy, try it out.
Amanda: Yeah, but I appreciate the opportunity to enjoy gin, even past the summertime.
Julia: Mm-hmm (affirmative). No, a good gin drink is always seasonal.
Amanda: Very, very adorable, Julia.
Julia: Thank you.
Amanda: I think that should be Hendrick's new motto.
Julia: Oh, give me that money Hendrick's, or just send me a bottle every month.
Amanda: Truly.
Julia: For life. Or my afterlife, since I might be a ghost, like poor Daniel.
Amanda: Yeah, so there's a lot to talk about here about ghosts, about hauntings, about Christmas hauntings, and all kinds of other things, but in general, I thought the movie was pretty enjoyable, as far as a cheesy Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix Christmas movies go. I am always here for a sexy ghost.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah, he was very sexy. He was not a good actor. Anyway, let's talk about-
Amanda: Also, never wore a hat, which I understand about the past, that people would be scandalized, if, specifically in the early 1900s, you don't wear a hat ever.
Julia: That's fair. He did have a hat in the final scene where he was human again, and then he got his modesty back, apparently. All right, let's talk about Christmas and ghosts. Amanda, I feel like ...
Amanda: Let's talk about it.
Julia: ... we both are ready to talk about this. Let's do it.
Amanda: Julia, of course, we know that the origins of Christmas kind of are syncretizing existing celebrations of Yule and the winter solstice. Do you want to remind us a bit about that context?
Julia: Yeah, absolutely. The festival of Yule, to quote the Professor Justin Daniels, "Christmas as celebrated in Europe and the US was originally connected to the 'pagan winter solstice celebration and the festival known as Yule.' The darkest day of the year was seen by many as a time when the dead would have particularly good access to the living." Much like we talked about with Samhain, and the kind of veil between the worlds being lifted, or thinner than usual, Yule has a very similar aspect. Yule is also often connected with Odin, and the Wild Hunt, and the Anglo-Saxon Night of the Mothers, which I hadn't heard of before I started researching this. The Night of the Mothers specifically featured sacrifices being made to female deities who were usually represented in trios of women.
Amanda: Fascinating, and keep your ears open in, I don't know, maybe late January for an episode having to do something a little bit with this.
Julia: I know we've also discussed the Wild Hunt in past episodes, but as a reminder to our listeners, the Wild Hunt is when a ghostly or supernatural group of hunters, typically fae, but it depends on where you are in Europe, pass humans in this kind of static hunt. Sometimes it's led by Odin, who leads the spirits of ancestral dead, or dead warriors. Occasionally an observer will be attacked and torn asunder by the hunt, but sometimes they bring forth the spirits of loved ones to send messages, so can be really violent and chaotic. Can also be a good way to talk to your loved ones, and for them to pass on messages to you. In fact, the word Yule is one of the names of Odin, so he's known as the Yule father, or the Yule one, and in old Norse poetry, the word Yule is used as a synonym for feast.
Amanda: Really?
Julia: Yeah. I have a long-ass quote by a historian named M. Lee Hollander, from his History of the Kings of Norway, but I'm not entirely sure I want to read it, just because it's very like, "All those pagans were doing sacrifices, and putting blood on everything."
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: On Yule, when it was celebrated in Norse traditions, so toasts were drunk during the ceremony, so the first was to Odin, "for victory and power to the king," and then the second were toasted to the gods Freyr and Njörðr for the good harvest and for peace, and then a third was drunk for the king himself. Then there was a separate toast that was drunk memory of the departed. Again, we're seeing that kind of play on the fact that the dead and those who have passed can interact with the living during this period of time. Contemporary celebrations, especially in Neopaganism traditions center their celebration around a meal and feast and gift giving, which we kind of see in similar traditions of modern Christianity and celebrating Christmas. In some forms of Wicca, the winter solstice marks the rebirth of the great horned hunter god, and is celebrated accordingly.
Of course, we see a lot of Yule traditions, like I said, in modern day Christmas traditions, so the Yule log for instance is said to represent the battle between light and dark, a burning bright light in the darkest day of the year. Yule singing or wassailing is also still practiced, going door to door singing and offering a drink from the wassail bowl in exchange for gifts. Modernity has kind of given way to caroling instead, but wassailing was also referred to before Christianity as spending the Yule celebration singing to the trees in order to promote a good harvest for the coming year.
Amanda: Let us sing to the trees. They don't care if I'm on pitch or not.
Julia: No, they don't. They don't. They're just like, "Oh, that's so nice of you. Here."
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: "Have plenty next season."
Amanda: Yeah, I was also looking into a few of things, because I said to myself, "I know that people tell ghost stories in the sort of October season in the modern US. We associate ghost stories mostly with Halloween, and some of this thinning of the veil, being together and observant of the dead reminded me of our discussion with Trina Espinoza from Día de los Muertos in 2018.
Julia: Oh yeah.
Amanda: I notice in one of the articles I read that they were like, "Yeah, the kind of ghost telling tradition has moved a little bit from Christmas more toward Halloween in recent decades." I'm not sure why. I guess the idea being there's something about the darker parts of the year that encourage us to sit around inside, thinking of stuff to do in the dark, or near dark, and embracing that level of spookiness, observing something about the turning of the tides, the seasons, the year, and thinking about those who have gone, and those who may still be around. I wonder, Julia, if you have any thoughts or theories as to why that might be.
Julia: Yeah. I think that when it comes down to it, it's probably a matter of Christianity superseding traditions, and then everything sort of shifting on the calendar, but I loved your point about the darkness of winter, and the dark nights, and the coldness of it being kind of inspiring to tell spooky stories and ghost stories. I mean, even Shakespeare in the Winter's Tale writes, "A sad tale is best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins."
Amanda: I in fact, Julia, cast an eye over my bookshelf, where I have all of my texts from my literature degree grouped in the same place, and realize that a lot of these books actually take place in December. Frankenstein takes place in mid-December.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: The Raven is in late December, as you will recall, "Each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor." Poe, you're so metal. Fuck.
Julia: So metal.
Amanda: He has so many feelings.
Julia: If you haven't heard Amanda rap The Raven ...
Amanda: Yeah, it's true.
Julia: It is an incredible experience. Can you give a little taste here?
Amanda: No.
Julia: Yeah? No?
Amanda: Because James Joyce's The Dead also takes place at Christmastime.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: I'm sorry, Julia, I don't want to shut you down, but I just, without David Rheinstrom beatboxing under me, I am nothing.
Julia: I will link it in the show notes for our patrons, so that they can listen to it.
Amanda: But perhaps the most Christmas ghost story of all is of course A Christmas Carol, which we actually touch on in next week's episode. Keep an ear out for that. This, as you know Julia, was published in 1843, and very unlike, I think, our modern conception of the Victorian era, which you think like Christmas villages, and people being so festive, and the height of nostalgia, for a certain kind of British person. It was actually, Christmas Carol's publication, was part of a project of trying to make Christmas more of a thing, because it wasn't for a while. Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas carols and other elements of what we now think of as traditional Christmas pastimes as part of a project to "rid England of its excesses," and Christmas ghost stories of course didn't really catch on in the US since the settlers that came over from England were Puritans.
I had a really, I thought, insightful paragraph from an article by The Smithsonian, which we'll link in the description, "Dickens discontinued the Christmas publications in 1868, complaining to his friend Charles Fechter that he felt 'as if I had murdered a Christmas number years ago, perhaps I did, and its ghost perpetually haunted me.'"
Julia: I wrote down that same quote.
Amanda: Oh yeah. Returning to the article though, "By then the ghost of Christmas ghost stories had taken on an afterlife of its own, and other writers rushed to fill the void that Dickens had left. By the time of Jerome's 1891 Told After Supper, he could casually joke about a tradition long ensconced in Victorian culture," what was actually only about 45 years old.
Julia: Yeah. I have the quote from Jerome, if you'd like me to read it.
Amanda: Oh, sure.
Julia: Yeah. Jerome K. Jerome was a humorist from the late 1800s. He wrote, "Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters. It is a genial festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood."
Amanda: I mean, we do, but I'm glad to know other people do too.
Julia: Yeah. It's really interesting too, because I think at this point Charles Dickens had created something that wasn't just Christmas stories, you know? Because people were telling Christmas stories for generations and generations. A couple of years before Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, writers like Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell were basically reincarnating the practice of telling those Christmas stories, but I really liked what author Keith Lee Morris wrote for an article for The Independent, which was this: "It's not just a ghost story that one could tell at Christmas, but with Scrooge sitting in his armchair as his life story is unfurled before him, it is a story about ghost stories at Christmas, a kind of meta Christmas ghost story, if you will."
Amanda: Which I thought was so fascinating, and I have been listening to a lot of Shedunnit, Caroline Crampton's wonderful podcast about women in Golden Age detective fiction, and I read a book she recommended about the history of The Detection Club, which was Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L. Sayers, and a bunch of different crime writers in Britain had a little club together where they talked about and tried to formalize the idea of what makes a proper detective fiction story. With that framework in mind, I was so delighted to see this article in The Paris Review where Colin Fleming wrote and tried to put down the rules of what a ghost story is.
He writes, "Writers of ghost stories love to make authoritative lists about what makes such stories work. The first key to a Christmas ghost story is a convivial atmosphere. People in these stories are well fed. They're often hanging out in groups. You feel like you're hanging out with them, and you don't wish to leave any more than they do. It's cold outside, but warm in here, and it's time to rediscover that sense of play that so many of us adults lose over the years."
Julia: I absolutely love that. I think it's really funny, because one of the things that I pulled up while I was researching was by a author named William Dean Howells, who wrote a Harper's editorial in 1886 basically complaining that Christmas ghost story traditions didn't have a set of morals anymore.
Amanda: Yes, yes, yes.
Julia: He would have hated this movie, first off, but also, would totally agree with this Paris Review quote. Let me read his quote real quick. "It was well once a year if not oftener to remind men by parable of the old simple truths, to teach them that forgiveness, and charity, and the endeavor for a life better and purer than each has lived are the principles upon which alone the world holds together and gets forward. It was well for the comfortable and the refined to be put in mind of the savagery and suffering all around them, and to be taught, as Dickens was always teaching, that certain feelings which grace human nature as tenderness for the sick and helpless, self-sacrifice, and generosity, self-respect, and manliness and womanliness are the common heritage of the race, the direct gift of heaven, shared equally by the rich and poor."
Amanda: Damn, guy. You have a lot of opinions.
Julia: Damn, Howells. Damn. But he's basically saying, he's like, "What happened to our Christmas ghost stories where people had morals?"
Amanda: Listen guy, I don't think any of your morals are current morals.
Julia: They're not. Listen, at least he included womanliness and not just manliness.
Amanda: That is true. Well, because Julia, those are the two genders.
Julia: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Only that. Only femme and butch.
Amanda: You liked that one?
Julia: Just a little bit.
Amanda: Well, you may ask how does Colin Fleming summarize that writers of ghost stories think should happen after that convivial atmosphere has been established.
Julia: Yes, please.
Amanda: Well, next, a game might be proposed, say, a game of telling stories.
Julia: Of course.
Amanda: "Then," Colin writes, "comes the terror. The status quo is infused with a sensation of something being a touch off, chuckles give way to shared uneasy glances that maybe this isn't all merrymaking."
Julia: As we've talked about in many a hometown urban legend, the scared chuckle is one of the defining traits of a ghost story.
Amanda: Oh, totally. In reading that quote, I love that we're going back and forth with all this research by the way, because normally I'm just like ... It's a deluge of research from you at me.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: I really appreciate the back and forth. But I really loved this. I was like, "Oh wow, maybe the idea of a ghost story interrupting a shared family holiday is ..." I mean, hasn't that happened to you, Julia, where like you're at a family occasion and then someone's like, "Wait, Uncle Whatever has been married before?" Or like, "Wait, that ..." It can be everything from like, "Oh wow, I just didn't know that fact," to revelations that you didn't think were going to come to light. It could be forced. It could be just unfortunate. There's all kinds of just stuff happening under the surface potentially that could come to light at a gathering like this, and maybe it's that the past was good for people like you, and now you're worried that modernity is happening, and that is sort of the upsetting of the "existing order" that you think of as a ghost coming, or maybe it really truly is a specter of the past that had been suppressed, or had been shunted to the side, or you didn't know about as a young person in the room that's now coming and interrupting your family gathering.
Julia: Yeah, and I think that this reminds of most of my family holidays, and this might just be me, so tell me if I'm wildly off, but my family has a habit of one-upmanship when it comes to storytelling, where it's like someone will be like, "Oh my god, you'll never believe what happened to me," and then they tell a story. Someone will be like, "Oh my god, that reminds me of when this happened to me." Then they try to one-up the story.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: And then it continues and continues until there's just wild, preposterous stories happening in the living room while the rest of us are trying to clean up after dinner. You're like, "How did we get to this?"
Amanda: Yeah, mine is more like someone either accidentally or is just like, "Oh yeah, no. You didn't know that this cousin suffered this horrible trauma?" Or like, "This relative you didn't know about used to be around." It's kind of dark, which is why I really love James Joyce's story The Dead, which is about just a nice little dinner party where bad secrets about marriages come to light. I'm just like, "Yes." Everyone's kind of drunk and talking about the marriages they wish they weren't in. Sounds like a very Irish family holiday.
Julia: That sounds absolutely delightful, honestly. I love when family secrets get revealed and everyone is scandalized, and then everyone forgets about the scandal two weeks later, because we've moved onto the next one.
Amanda: Yeah, no. That sounds right.
Julia: You also have so many relatives that you have a constant pool of these.
Amanda: Yeah, I know. The odds are ever in my favor of having eventful family holidays.
Julia: That is fair.
Amanda: But Julie, before we move on to what I also would love to address, which is the physicality of hauntings, and houses, and inns, I would also like to bring up this wonderful Icelandic Christmas ghost story that I found, because it didn't all start in the UK in the 1800s.
Julia: That is fair. Amanda, do you want to get a refill of our Hanky Pankys and then you can tell me the story?
Amanda: Yes, Julia.
Julia: Awesome. Let's go get a refill.
Amanda: Julia, we are sponsored this week by HoneyBook, which in 2019 did a lot to help keep me levelheaded during my first full year of running a business full-time.
Julia: Sorry, I just got really distracted because the HoneyBook copy has a thing that says, "You are the CE, oh my god, no one told you there would be so much admin work to do."
Amanda: It's extremely hard, and HoneyBook knows that, which is why their copy is so great.
Julia: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
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Julia: What about busywork?
Amanda: It can help you automate it, and they have easy-to-use templates for emails, proposals, brochures, invoices. I use templates every single day at work, whether that's reaching out to a new sponsor, or asking somebody, "Hey, hi. I sent you an invoice. Please pay me." Actually Julia, I ran some stats, and HoneyBook helped make sure that we got paid on time in 2019. The average time between sending a sponsor an invoice and getting paid for Multitude was 27 days.
Julia: Dang, that's pretty good.
Amanda: There is no way that that would be the case without HoneyBook helping me to make sure that I send those follow-ups and send those invoices in a timely fashion.
Julia: Incredible. Amanda, right now HoneyBook is offering our listeners 50% off if you go to honeybook.com/spirits. The payment is super flexible, so you can either apply that promotion to when you pay monthly, or when you pay annually.
Amanda: Absolutely. That's honeybook.com/spirits for 50% off your first year. Honeybook.com/spirits.
Julia: Amanda, during the holidays, things get a little hectic, and the grocery stores are super packed, and I can't always make the dish that I want to make for dinner. Luckily, on nights like that, I can just open up my phone, and pull up the DoorDash app.
Amanda: You mean the place that lets you order from over 340,000 restaurants in 3,300 cities in all 50 states?
Julia: Yeah, and it's super easy. All you have to do is open up that app. You choose where and what you want to eat, and then the food is delivered right to you wherever you are, so you can get door-to-door delivery in all 50 states and in Canada. You can order from all your local go-tos, or you can get stuff from your favorite national chain restaurants, like Chipotle, or if you're Amanda, The Cheesecake Factory. Amanda loves Cheesecake Factory.
Amanda: I love it. I love it.
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Amanda: Exactly, so you can get $5 off your first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app from the App Store and enter the promo code spirits.
Julia: Yep. Again, that is the promo code spirits for $5 off your first order from DoorDash.
Amanda: Make your list. Check it twice. Get DoorDash.
Julia: Yeah. Get Santa some cookies from that cool bakery down the street.
Amanda: Finally Julia, we are sponsored this week by Stitch Fix, which is helping me make my planning, my outfit planning for our live shows coming up in 2020, a lot less stressful, because I know that I can ask them, "Hey, I want some statement pieces, because my girl Julia always wears amazing sequined garments, and I want to make sure that I bring the sartorial level of excellence that you do."
Julia: My outfits are always sparkly.
Amanda: It is extremely good, and Stitch Fix is really helpful for me in this regard, because I am not super good at shopping for myself. I really prioritize comfort, and I know my styles. I know my stores and my sizes, and I stick to what I know, so Stitch Fix is really helpful because you can give them input, and say like, "Hey, I'm shopping for this one event, or this one hole in my closet," or, "I'm going on vacation and I need a warm wardrobe," and they do all the work where their stylists will select things that fit your budget and your body.
Julia: Yeah, all you have to do is complete a style profile, and then you get that expert personal stylist, and they're picking the clothing out for you. They really listen to the feedback that you send them. The best part is there is no subscription required, so you can pick between automatic shipments, or you can only get new pieces when you want them, and then shipping, exchanges, and returns are always free, and the $20 styling fee automatically applies to anything you keep in your box, so the minute you keep something from Stitch Fix, that $20 goes right to that.
Amanda: If you end up loving everything they send you, as I often do, you can get 25% off when you keep everything in that box when you go to stitchfix.com/spirits to sign up.
Julia: That's stitchfix.com/spirits.
Amanda: Thank you so much, Stitch Fix. Once more, that's stitchfix.com/spirits. Now, let's get back to the show.
This comes from a really great blog by Jon Kaneko-James, who is a historian and scholar, and it's jonkanekojames.com. We'll also link that in the description. He has a co-fee, so if you enjoy this story, Spirits will be making a donation because we loved it so much, but please consider subscribing and donating to his blog.
Julia: Buy him a coffee.
Amanda: The point of this blog post titled Ghosts of Christmas Past is that there were all kinds of ghost stories happening in the northern traditions, Britain, Scotland, Denmark, and all kinds of other places. This one comes from Iceland, which I really enjoyed. It's in The Saga of the People of Floi, which is a oral history and text that was dated to around 1300 CE and it contains an extremely good Christmas ghost story. I will be quoting here from Jon's blog post. "In The Saga of the People of Floi, an anonymous knocking figure begins the Yuletide horror."
Julia: Already hate that.
Amanda: "After a particularly beautiful Christmas day, a group of noisy celebrants are roused by a knocking on the door of the house in which they're staying. When a man goes out to see who it is, optimistically remarking, ‘It's undoubtedly good news’ ..."
Julia: Oh no, dude.
Amanda: "He immediately goes mad and dies."
Julia: Oh no.
Amanda: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. This haunting does not escalate. It just goes there.
Julia: Just starts from the beginning at an 11 and stays there.
Amanda: "The same thing happens to another six of the men from the rowdy crew. Notably, the terrible fate of madness and death is spared for the crew staying in the same house who were in bed nice and early."
Julia: What?
Amanda: So this is like late on Christmas day.
Julia: Why do they keep going out if the people keep dying of madness and whatnot?
Amanda: Well Julia, "They're tempted, one by one, into the night, driven mad, and carried off by illness."
Julia: Huh?
Amanda: "Once Christmas is over, the dead return in force."
Julia: Oh no.
Amanda: "So not only are the rowding Jostein’s crew brought back as Revenants, but so are a number of dead locals."
Julia: Oh no.
Amanda: "Finally Thorgils, captain of the crew who slept early ..."
Julia: Great name.
Amanda: " ... takes all of the dead and burns them in a pyre, ensuring that none of the Revenants, one of whom was his wife, would rise to trouble the living again."
Julia: Okay, we know that Revenants can be killed by fire. That is a fundamental fact. Got it. Cool.
Amanda: The Revenant comes up again in Grettir’s Saga. "Here, Thorall, owner of a haunted pasture," which I need to know a lot more about.
Julia: Are the ghosts stallions? What's happening?
Amanda: We will find out, because Thorall "hires the desperado Glam ..." great name.
Julia: Great name.
Amanda: "... to watch his sheep."
Julia: Oh, his sheep.
Amanda: "Glam is happy to take up his task in mid-October and watch the flock through Hallowtide, but his rough manners soon bring him into trouble, because on Christmas Eve ..."
Julia: Ghost sheep, ghost sheep.
Amanda: "... he demands food from Thorall’s devout wife ..."
Julia: Don't demand food.
Amanda: "... uncaring of the fact that she is fasting."
Julia: Hey. Don't do that.
Amanda: Hey, Glam. Don't be a jerk. "After managing to get a meal by threatening and abusing Thorall’s wife, he stumps out into the snow for his watch, never to return."
Julia: Good.
Amanda: "Unprepared to venture out into a snowstorm that seems to have devoured Glam, Thorall and his household wait until daylight."
Julia: See? Smart. Don't go outside when people are disappearing and dying.
Amanda: Fucking smart. The only bad choice Thorall's made so far is hiring Glam.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: But like, fair enough.
Julia: But you know, we all make mistakes when hiring people sometimes, and then you're like, "Oh, you don't really mesh with the team. Sorry."
Amanda: Bye. Don't abuse my wife and demand food from her. In the daylight, "they come upon the remains of the shepherd. His corpse is badly damaged, seemingly torn to pieces by an evil spirit. It is here that Glam also rises. His corpse vanishes, is found and then buried under a pile of rocks, but it does nothing to deter him from rising to terrify the local community." Finally, Julia.
Julia: I'm not liking the theme of Revenants at Christmas, though I do want to write that horror movie.
Amanda: Oh, it's bad, and y'all should really read this whole blog post. It's wonderful, but finally, to do a little coda here, let's fast-forward one year to the next Christmas morning.
Julia: Uh-oh.
Amanda: "Glam’s replacement, the shepherd Thorgaut, is found with his neck broken, and Glam begins to attack Thorall’s household ..."
Julia: Glam.
Amanda: "... killing his animals, and literally frightening Thorall’s daughter to death."
Julia: Glam.
Amanda: "Finally, the hero Grettir kills the Revenant, but only at the cost of being cursed himself."
Julia: No, Grettir.
Amanda: "As in the first story, the Revenant is the result of an external contagion that is never really identified."
Julia: Zombie, zombie, zombie.
Amanda: "Neither is Glam’s killer, nor the being who kills Jostein’s crew ever seen or explained."
Julia: Someone write me a Christmas zombie story right now. I need it in my life.
Amanda: Extremely good. Thank you, Jon Kaneko-James. That's linked in the description.
Julia: Amanda, what I'd love to talk about before you get into the rules of haunted houses ...
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: ... let's talk about the rules of this haunting from the movie.
Amanda: Yes. I would love to ground us in this text before we examine what happens in others. Mostly Julia, wouldn't you say that this is a haunting that's like an echo of previous life?
Julia: Yes, because we do see in several parts of the movie that basically there's just ... He's replaying the events of the night that he couldn't possibly have seen.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: But it's the same people caught in the same time loop basically.
Amanda: Exactly. It's stuff like doors opening and closing, noises, things dropping. None of it is particularly terrifying. It's just you can't identify the cause, and so it's creepy.
Julia: Yes, absolutely. In the movie, Daniel, our ghost, basically can only appear during the 12 days of Christmas in his corporeal form. He can only stay on the grounds of the inn, which we see highlighted by this weird column arch that if he passes through it he disappears.
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah.
Julia: Which is also the veil between the world of the living and the dead, which we see he has to make his choice whether he goes with Lily, his loved one, or stays behind with Kate in the human world.
Amanda: Is it explained why that's the case? No.
Julia: No?
Amanda: Do we know why the house is just in a bubble? No. Do we know why, when he tries to cross that boundary, he just teleports back to the stairs? No.
Julia: No. Not really. I think it's very much similar to Beetlejuice in that they can't leave the house, or otherwise they get stuck in the weird desert with the sandworms. Don't know why.
Amanda: Something else I thought was interesting about this ghost in particular is that he is always eating.
Julia: I also like ... They leave it very open to the idea of whether or not he has a consciousness when it's not the 12 days of Christmas.
Amanda: Oh, tell me more.
Julia: I just, well, because he says, oh, something to the effect of, when she says, "Oh, that's been 95 years," or whatever, he's like, "Well, it hasn't felt that long to me." I'm just like, "Are you only conscious during those 12 days every year?"
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. I think so.
Julia: Hold on. How many days is that?
Amanda: 95 times 12.
Julia: It is ... That's only a little over a thousand days, 1,140 days.
Amanda: So it feels like a good three years.
Julia: Yeah. That's like nothing.
Amanda: No, it's not.
Julia: That's not enough time to grieve your wife and dead child.
Amanda: Something else that was unusual I think about this ghost, this is a quote from the blogger The Duds and Studs. I read a bunch of recaps to refresh my memory here.
Julia: Incredible.
Amanda: She writes, "Much like Brad Pitt in Oceans 11, Daniel is always eating."
Julia: Yep, that's correct.
Amanda: Yeah, but the ghost, I guess, sensations that he can experience include eating while he is alive briefly. He can use his senses to their maximum when eating, and then The Duds and Studs blogger was like, "Yeah, and maybe for other things, who knows?" It's just open to our imagination.
Julia: Oh, just implying he fucks.
Amanda: Yeah. Yep.
Julia: Oh okay, interesting. Love it.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: He does not get to fuck while in ghost form though. That's unfortunate.
Amanda: No, not this time. But after his decision at the end, we'll see. But I thought it was an interesting wrinkle on the haunting, because when we think about traditional hauntings, we often ... The ghosts are obviously very transparent. Maybe they can't move objects. They can just pass through things, or they can push stuff over, but not throw it. It's sort of like a continuum of being able to impact matter all the way to it's sort of like a poltergeist-style haunting, where they can ... They touch you, scratch you, throw things, whatever.
Julia: Yeah, very, very rarely do we see a ghost in media, or even if you are a believer, see a ghost that ...
Amanda: Around.
Julia: ... exists in reports, has a corporeal form in the way that Daniel is described.
Amanda: Yeah. I basically could not find any examples of a ghost that has ritualistic physical form, apart from what we discussed earlier of the ghost being able to commune or visit, or come into the world on that day of the veil being open.
Julia: Oh, what if he's just like a demon spirit who is possessing a body every time that he shows up, and it just transforms to look like him?
Amanda: Oh, interesting.
Julia: Then he sheds the husk every year. Wow, that got dark real quick.
Amanda: That really explains the serial killer of Hollygrove, doesn't it?
Julia: There you go.
Amanda: Also, again, keep your ear out next week. This is a very interesting pairing of episodes. I love it.
Julia: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, it's very, very good.
Amanda: But I thought too about the ghosts being tethered to a place, and again, I tried to do a little research about this, but I realized it's more of just an understood thing that ghosts can either be tethered to a place or a person, aka like a haunting, like a ghost can haunt you specifically, and I guess-
Julia: Or an object ...
Amanda: Or an object.
Julia: ... as we saw in the case of Annabelle the doll.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: All the haunted dolls.
Amanda: Thank you for reminding me. Don't like that.
Julia: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amanda: I thought a little bit about hotel and inn ghosts, and in particular, these kinds of hauntings are very common.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: There's all kinds of horror and spooky stories, as we know, with this kind of setting, from The Shining, to all kinds of actual places you can actually stay that are, by their own admission/claim, haunted.
Julia: Okay. Before we get into this, recently as Amanda tweeted out a tweet, about using her VPN to Google ghosts that have fucked people.
Amanda: No, Julia. I said, "Movies where people have sex with ghosts."
Julia: And what did you find?
Amanda: I found nothing, Julia, except a listicle that when I read it, I turned to Eric and Brandon here in the office and said, "What happens in the movie Ghost?"
Julia: They fuck.
Amanda: Then I realized that they fuck, Julia.
Julia: They do.
Amanda: That's what happens in the movie Ghost. Yeah.
Julia: Also, Ghostbusters.
Amanda: That's true.
Julia: Yeah. That is. He gets a blowjob from a ghost.
Amanda: Yikes.
Julia: Anyway. Moving on.
Amanda: But when that particular area of research did not really pan out for me, I decided to just do a little Googling about haunted houses, because this inn is not a haunted house, right? It's just the location of this ghost's death and he, as we were saying earlier, it's more like there's an echo or a time loop that is caught in that location, and not like it is a haunted house like we think of where it's just a spirit of malice.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: But I thought that it would be really interesting to define what exactly is a haunted house?
Julia: I would love that. Please, go on.
Amanda: Well, I would love to give you some of my favorite parts of a book I read called Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore, by Diane Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie B. Thomas.
Julia: Wow ladies, go.
Amanda: I know. Three women scholars writing about hauntings. Love it.
Julia: Hell yes.
Amanda: Haunted houses, they write, are delineated by property lines. They contain spirits driven by a yearning or echoes of past life, party noises, cries, doors shutting, et cetera.
Julia: Did they say property lines?
Amanda: They did.
Julia: Like the ghosts really, really care about how the local township decided where they'll cross?
Amanda: Yeah, almost like the myth of private land is toxic, and has stolen origins.
Julia: Yeah. Incredible. Love it. Continue.
Amanda: They summarize some of the popular literature that really brought haunted houses as a thing to the fore. There was of course The Fall of the House of Usher, which is in 1839, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables in 1851, and of course many since then. But popular literature has brought the literary innovation of the haunted house as a character to unexpected heights of psychological terror. They write, "The unseen supernatural inhabitants of these haunted houses assume the role of supporting characters who are seemingly controlled by the house itself. Instead of functioning as a deus ex machina, the haunted house is the machina, completely outside of human control."
Julia: Wow, I love that. As someone who spent most of last year telling Amanda to watch The Haunting of Hill House ...
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: ... it is very much the house itself is one of the primary characters of the show.
Amanda: Well Julia, I'm so glad you said that, because to close out my little haunted house research corner, I thought of course, let's quote from the first page of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
Julia: Of course.
Amanda: Shall we?
Julia: Yes, please.
Amanda: "The face of Hill House seemed awake with the with a watchfulness from the blank windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of a cornice. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of a house. Hill House would stay as it was until it was destroyed."
Julia: So good. Shirley Jackson, incredible.
Amanda: But unlike Hill House, we assume at the end of this movie that the Hollygrove Inn is just going to be a nice place where people live, and fuck, and come to stay.
Julia: They do go to fuck and also to stay.
Amanda: Don't you love a Christmas movie that is not really about a haunting, but just about wanting to eat and enjoy other carnal desires?
Julia: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep, definitely. He definitely had a big sandwich and then fucked her immediately after the credits rolled.
Amanda: All right, if you became a ghost and then came back to earth, what would be the first things you'd do with your corporeal form?
Julia: Oh my god, eat. 100% I would eat.
Amanda: What would you eat?
Julia: A good steak and garlic mashed potatoes, some really good asparagus with a lot of lemon juice on it. I think that would be it, or prosciutto-wrapped asparagus. That would be a good option too. Lots of cheese, just like a cheese plate for my appetizer or my dessert.
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah.
Julia: One of those.
Amanda: Love that.
Julia: What about you?
Amanda: I think I would go cheeseburger, just because the textures, the different kinds of flavors all present in the same dish, a real good sour pickle in there, crunchy lettuce. I think that would be my first bite, but I'd also want to get in the bath ...
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: ... because I feel like sensation of temperature would also be really welcome.
Julia: Yeah, no that makes sense. I feel like when you're a ghost, you're always cold.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I'd just assume that.
Amanda: Or no temperature.
Julia: No temperature, I would be fine with. If I could just always be the perfect temperature all the time, that would be my ideal situation.
Amanda: That's true. That's true.
Julia: But I feel ghosts, always cold for some reason.
Amanda: Well Julia, I hope that this December you get to enjoy not just the taste and sensation of foods that you love, but also being able to enjoy those temperatures, and if you're a little bit chilly, put those feet by a fire.
Julia: I'm going to. I love my fireplace. It's like my favorite part of my house during this time of year.
Amanda: My favorite part of my house during this time of year is the electric blanket that I inserted into my duvet cover ...
Julia: That's so smart.
Amanda: ... so that I have duvet electric blanket all wrapped up in one envelope, and I can just curl up in it.
Julia: Incredible. Add gravity blanket, make it perfect.
Amanda: No, Julia, because then I'd never be able to sleep without it again.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: If I traveled, I would just be screwed.
Julia: Yeah. That happens. I just burrito when I travel ...
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: ... which basically does the same thing for me, but yeah, I feel you.
Amanda: It's good stuff. But thank you for suggesting this wonderful movie. Thank you for bringing me such good research, and letting me quote literature. Listeners, remember, stay creepy, stay cool.