Episode 262: Santa Claus (with Emily VanDerWerff)
/When you think of Santa Claus, what do you picture? The big guy in red is this malleable, larger than life figure that has origins that might surprise you. Luckily, we have Emily VanDerWerff to guide us through the labyrinth of who Santa is.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of illness, racism, religious persecution, violence, child death, cannibalism, family dysfunction, economic anxiety, and sex.
Guest
Emily VanDerWerff is Critic at Large for Vox and co-creator of the podcast Arden. Follow her on Twitter @Emilyvdw.
Housekeeping
- MERCH! Get the Mothman Crewneck at spiritspodcast.com/merch!
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Have you heard about the MultiCrew?! This is our membership program that lets you help us invest in Multitude as we try weird new stuff. Plus, you get a members-only weekly podcast: Head Heart Gut, our weekly friendly debate show. Join for as little as $5 a month at multicrew.club and get access to Head Heart Gut!
Sponsors
- Doordash is a fast, convenient food delivery app. Get 25% off and zero delivery fees on your first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter code creepycool.
- Skillshare is an online learning community where you can learn—and teach—just about anything. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com/spirits and get a free trial of Premium Membership. This week Julia recommends “Unlocking Your Potential: 5 Exercises to Build Creative Confidence” by Emma Gannon.
- Brooklinen delivers luxury bed sheets, pillows, comforters, & blankets straight to your door. Go to Brooklinen.com right now and use promo code “spirits” to get $25 off when you spend $100 or more, PLUS free shipping.
Find Us Online
If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/spiritspodcast) to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more. We also have lists of our book recommendations and previous guests’ books at http://spiritspodcast.com/books.
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 262: The Spirit of Santa Claus with -- it turns out, our December guest -- one of our faves. Someone I've been reading on the internet for more than a decade, Emily VanDerWerff.
JULIA: Listen, we did say in her last episode that we were going to invite her back on in December and we did it. We did that thing.
AMANDA: We did it! I set a reminder for myself for 11 months from the day we recorded that episode. And hey, guys, time marches on and here we are, and I'm very excited about it.
JULIA: Sure does. I'm stoked.
AMANDA: We asked Emily, like, "Hey, you know, what would you be interested in talking about?" And she's like, "Can I just, like, really, like, dig into the myth of the American Santa Claus?" And we're like, "Yes. Yes, Emily, you can."
JULIA: Anytime, Emily. Anytime.
AMANDA: This will give you some escapism from the holiday if these are not the kinds of conversations that you could have at home. If this is not a holiday you know a lot about, but you're just... you're like, aware in the world and with America which is overtly a Christian country then you can at least have some talking points and things to just laugh about, get excited about, learn about. That's what we strive to do for you here on Spirits.
JULIA: You don't have to keep recycling those same points that you bring up with your family. "Like, Jesus wasn't even born in December mom."
AMANDA: Exactly. New stuff for you. And do you know what else is new today, Julia?
JULIA: Our new patrons.
AMANDA: Our new patrons: Yasiri, and Betsie - tropes to live by.
JULIA: I wanted to include Betsie's full title because it's adorable and I like that a lot.
AMANDA: I love that. Thank you as always to our Supporting-producer level patrons: Uhleeseeuh, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Jessica Kinser, Jessica Stewart, Kneazlekins, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi. And the Legend-level patrons. Legends more important and significant than Santa in this household at least: Audra, Bex, Clara, Drew, Jaybaybay, Lexus, Mary, Morgan, Morgan H., Mother of Vikings, Sarah, Taylor, & Bea Me Up Scotty.
JULIA: You know what, Amanda, I hope that one day every one of our Legend-level patrons are turned into a mythic figure.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Through capitalism.
AMANDA: That's a good legacy.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Maybe they'll have, like, a multi-million dollar ad campaign. Really, like, cementing the fact of them into American consciousness, you know?
JULIA: I would like that very much. I want that for them.
AMANDA: I would too.
JULIA: Amanda, speaking of things that I like, what have you been liking, listening to, reading lately?
AMANDA: Well, Julia, I had the pleasure of seeing you earlier this week. And I was like, "Man a week is off to a great start. I see Julia. We're talking about good stuff, got to hug, talk about Join the Party." And then, I stayed up until two in the morning that night reading a book, which is not a thing that I do much of these days because I am a delicate biome and I require, like, very specific inputs and circumstances to be okay.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: This ROMCOM, The Love Hypothesis was just way too good and I couldn't put it down.
JULIA: Tell me about it.
AMANDA: This is a book by Ali Hazelwood, which is a contemporary romance with some comedy elements set in STEM. The heroine is a PhD student doing pancreatic cancer research.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: And ends up sort of accidentally fake dating a professor, not her professor, but a professor in the department. And it really gets into issues of, like, academic betrayal, and what it's like to be a woman in STEM and do research and try to, like, make a name for yourself in grad school. But ultimately, like, the heroine loves science. Like, this is not just kind of a burnout, you know, life is sad story and, like, regulations are complicated. These folks have a very wonderful, like, one of them is exuberant, one of them is really terse, and then you get to see the wonderful unfolding of, like, why each person is the way that they are and you get a ROMCOM ending. Like, what more could you want?
JULIA: I love that. Every time I read a book like that, or a, like, hear about a book like that, I was thinking about how much research the author had to do in order to be like, "I'm going to make this, like, STEM research background as accurate as possible." And I commend them for that. Not only are they writing good romance, they're also doing the research.
AMANDA: Yeah, this is Hazelwood's first book and I am pretty sure she works in STEM in some capacity. And my favorite thing is when I looked up the page on bookshop.org, where we can get you links to buy this book in your local bookstore or have it shipped to you from a local bookstore to someone else's locality. It says it's part of a series. It says Love Hypothesis No. 1.
JULIA: Yes!
AMANDA: And I was like, "Number one? I need more! Good!" So, that's my recommendation. I have been paying for it in terms of my general demeanor and... and sleeplessness for the last few nights. Gotta tell you it was worth it. The Love Hypothesis.
JULIA: Worth it. Amanda, incredible. Thank you for sharing that. And now, I know our listeners are gonna pick up that book, obviously because it sounds like totally up their alley. But what if they have listened to a bunch of podcasts in the Multitude collective? What if they listened to Spirits? What if they listened to Join the Party? What if they listened to Horse already and they're like, huh, yeah, I think I've gone through everything at this point. I have dedicated my life to Multitude and now what? What would you recommend for them, Amanda?
AMANDA: They should join the Multicrew. This is our membership program where you can help support the work that we do and help us do weird stuff and say no to projects we don't like and invest in new people, new hosts, new shows. And just as a thank you as a way to hear Multitude hosts from different shows interact and do very, very, like, high intensity debates on low stakes topics. You can also listen to our weekly Multicrew only podcast: Head Heart Gut. It is incredible. There's a definitive survey of greatness TM TM. And you get to hear us talk about such subjects as what is definitively the best Pixar movie. That's our December pick and it is absolutely wild.
JULIA: I'm going really hard for Ratatouille because I just love that little rat chef so, so much. And if you want to hear me yell at Mike Schubert and Brandon Grugle about how much I love that tiny, tiny chef, you should absolutely subscribe.
AMANDA: You should absolutely do it. Join the Multicrew today and get access to Head Heart Gut and so many other benefits. Like a private Instagram account where the hosts show you about their days. And newsletters, all about what's happening behind the scenes at Multitude. And stuff like pins and stickers and posters. Go to multicrew.club and get access to Head Heart Gut. So, folks, without further ado, please enjoy our annual guest, Emily VanDerWerff in Spirits Podcast Episode 262: Santa Claus. Like the ghost of Christmas past, Emily VanDerWerff. You promised us in 2020, and you've done it in 2021. You've rejoined us again for Emily in December Holiday, spectacular!
EMILY: I'm trying to be the... the regular holiday guest on, like, sixth podcasts now, which is great, but it makes my December just, like, I'm like, this week, I have literally recorded six podcasts. You are five out of six. I'm recording my sixth tonight. And you know what, I wouldn't have it any other way. And also, this is the year a new Matrix comes out. And like, everybody, like, I get asked to do so much stuff around the Matrix. So, like, I have, like, six next week. And they're all about the matrix. So, Christmas now, Keanu tomorrow.
JULIA: You know what, honestly the best way to spend December. Well, we've invited you back. We put it in our calendars last year, you're back now.
EMILY: Yeah.
JULIA: And I hear you're going to be telling us a little bit about Santa Claus.
EMILY: Yes. Santa Claus is one of those things that we can't possibly cover in just an hour or however long we have here. There's so many facets to it. So, I'm primarily going to be talking about American Santa Claus, which technically Santa Claus is always American, but now he's spread everywhere and like a virus.
AMANDA: Yes. Yep. Infecting the globe.
EMILY: But yeah, the, you know, he is just at the very highest level, a American adaptation of European traditions of, like, a figure who came along and gave presents somewhere in the holiday season to good Christian. Specifically, boys and girls. And I mean, boys and girls, and gender non-variant people.
AMANDA: The myths doesn't usually say that, which is sad, but we will.
EMILY: No, we will. Like, so I was just thinking about, yes, back in the... in the medieval times, or whatever, non-binary identities were not on the list of people that Santa Claus was giving presents to. But yeah, it's usually explicitly tied to, like, a Catholic saint, or a figure who has something to do with Jesus, or there's all of these things that are sort of baked into the myth that are often especially in some countries where the myth is tinged with racial overtones.
JULIA: Mmh.
EMILY: Quite problematic, let's say. So of course, this being America, we took all of those, combined them into one thing, and then we're like, "You know what, let's use this to sell things." And that's how we got Santa Claus. That's the broad overview of our friend in red. The chain of events in American Santa Claus very much starts with a visit from St. Nicholas, which sort of solidifies the idea of who Santa is. Even though if you look at that poem, and we'll probably talk about that in more detail, you see that it is something that doesn't quite sound like our Santa Claus. Like, he's a little elf, he smokes a pipe. Like, there's all these things that don't really make it to the Santa that appears in the mid 19th century. And what happens is that that basic idea of Santa Claus gets more and more solidified with things like the song, Up on the House Top, etc, etc. And Thomas Nash, the great editorial cartoonist, grabs hold of the idea and puts it in some cartoon-- editorial cartoons. And then Coke is like, "Hey, this seems like a thing that would sell Coke," because Coke, red, Santa, red. Let's see --
AMANDA: Okay.
EMILY: -- what we can do there. You know, he does a bunch of drawings of this big, jolly, overweight, bearded man with big red cheeks. And that becomes just the idea of Santa Claus. And like, you know, by the time you get to things like Kurt Russell and The Christmas Chronicles, which is one of the more recent things. It's so solidified that now even subverting it doesn't feel like a subversion because it is simultaneously both such a specific symbol and such an elastic one --
JULIA: Mhmm.
EMILY: -- that you can be like, "Here's a guy who dresses up like Santa and kills people." And you're like, "Oh, of course, that is a thing that happens." And then you're also like, "Here is Santa Claus, a benevolent spirit who lives at the North Pole and gives everyone gifts." And you're like, that is also a logical interpretation of this character and they're, like, two completely opposite things. One thing the United States is really good at is coming up with these huge symbols that just can mean, like, 15 different things to all sorts of people all over the world. Like, it's one of the reasons our pop culture has been so successful in the past, you know, 100 years. And, like, Santa Claus is, like, the ultimate example of that. He was invented. He was invented by some random guy who took a bunch of stuff and then... then he was drawn by another random guy. And then, a corporation was like, "We can make money off this." And then the whole world had to think about this guy for, like, two months out of every year.
JULIA: I really like the idea that you brought up about the elastic image of Santa Claus because really, as long as it kind of check certain boxes --
EMILY: Yeah.
JULIA: -- it's very easily identifiable as Santa Claus. I'm also super glad you brought up Kurt Russell in The Christmas Chronicles. Because my husband and I were just, like, looking at the trailer for that last night. And I'm like, "Oh, Kurt Russell as Santa Claus. That's interesting. I wonder what his take on it." And then for people who haven't seen that, imagine Kurt Russell in literally every other role you've seen Kurt Russell in, that's him as Santa Claus.
EMILY: Yeah.
JULIA: It's really... there's really no stretch there. They just put him in an outfit, and then it's Kurt Russell.
EMILY: It's a Santa who fucks. Like, let's just be honest, he's got sex appeal.
JULIA: Duh.
EMILY: He comes in to save the day and he's like, "I'm Santa," and like he's so hot. I don't even know how to. I, you know what? I would marry Santa. That's the thing I'm... that's, like, one of my hotter takes. I would marry Santa. I would be Mrs. Claus. I feel like it would be fine to be just, like, in eternal spirit of grandmotherly kindness and like, you know, it seems like he's got a pretty sweet deal. I've got housing security, I know where my food is coming from. I've got, like, a whole bunch of, like, reindeer to look over. Like, I have a career I can work on. And honestly, if I've seen, like, recent Santa mythos things, Mrs. Santa is usually allowed to have a job of her own. So, she's, you know, in the Santa Claus movie, she's like a teacher to the elves. You know, it's always a feminine coded job, but I could be like a girl-boss, CEO of Santa Inc. I think that could happen.
AMANDA: Yeah, if you're gonna have a pink collar job, it might as well be a pink like faux fur, you know, Topper to your Mrs. Claus Santa robe.
EMILY: Yeah.
AMANDA: You know?
JULIA: I feel like I would sign up for the deal, but the problem is, I don't like the cold that much. So, I feel like eternally having to be in the North Pole would kind of cross it off the list for options for me.
EMILY: Oh, I love the cold. One of my favorite subreddits is, like, winter porn. There's another one that's, like, freezing cold or something. It's just like visions of, like, wintry wonderland. I live in California, so I desperate -- like, it's... it's 55 here today. And everybody's like, "Oh, wow, it's so cold. It rained." Switches also just a weird thing to have happened, so I have a stocking cap because it;s cold, even though it's not. Yeah.
JULIA: So cold, dip below 60, you know?
EMILY: Yeah.
AMANDA: Santa seems so omnipresent that it almost seems silly to, like, ask where he came from. But what are the origins of Santa? Like, where did we get the building blocks of this myth from?
EMILY: So, you know, as mentioned, there's in Europe. Basically, every country has their own gift giving figure. Santa is a combination of all of them, but is kind of mainly-- especially a combination of three, which is St. Nicholas, who is of course the saint who was said to give children presents on St. Nicholas Day, which is December 6th. And then that occasionally was transmuted to Christmas/Christmas Eve.
JULIA: Mhmm.
EMILY: Then there is Sinterklaas, which is where we get the name. He has a lot of the, like, trappings of, you know, who the character is. And also, again, gives gifts to children. Um, he's Dutch. Then you have Father Christmas, of course, British thing and, like, Father Christmas is visual aesthetic, is the thing that really becomes part of Santa Claus. But Santa Claus is a melding of all of these things. The origin, again, is tied very closely to A Visit from St. Nicholas, which is, the authorship of this poem is disputed.
AMANDA: Ooh.
EMILY: I tend to think it was written by Clement C. Moore, but there is an argument that was written by a man named Thomas Livingston that Clement C. Moore, like, ripped it off. Or, you know, something happened in this regard where it became attributed to Clement C. Moore. The main argument in favor of Livingston is that he wrote a lot of poems in this manner, and there is similar phrasing between the two. But Livingston and Moore were distantly related. And to me, there's much more compelling evidence that Moore wrote it and he probably just, like, ripped off this... this distant relation either without realizing it or deliberately doing so.
AMANDA: I love a historical attribution scandal. There is nothing like it. It's delicious.
EMILY: You don't even have to, like, do the, like, reading of the scholarly papers or whatever. Just go to Wikipedia and read Authorship Controversy. It's wild. It's like, there's this one scholar -- modern scholar -- who's like, "It was Livingston and here's why, and I can prove it." And, like, everyone else is like, "We think it was Moore." And he's like, ”No, it was Livingston." And you know what, maybe he's right. Like, maybe he will... he will prove it and I will have to, like, issue a big correction to this episode. But I tend to think it was Moore. There is another thing about Visit from St. Nicolas that people are unsure about. They're not sure if Moore was writing a satire. If he was writing basically a parody of the then movement to, like, basically create a quaint family British Christmas, which we talked about last year with the Christmas Carol.
JULIA: Mhmm.
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: Which is very much part of we're going to take this holiday that's about drunken revelry or we're gonna make it about sitting at home with your family. Another thing about gift giving tradition that works in here as sort of a tangent is, often gifts were given on New Year's Day back then. And like, Christmas was like, we're gonna hang out and, you know, have a big party and get really drunk and do some revelry. That got turned into -- we almost flipped the holidays. Like, Christmas became when we give gifts, and New Year's Eve now is when we get drunk and break things.
JULIA: Yep.
EMILY: But Moore was either trying to, and again, and every time I say Moore, if you want to say Livingston, fine, I'm not gonna fight you. So, don't come and fight me. Moore was really in a position where he was writing in this tradition, and we're not sure if he was making fun of it. It very quickly became, like, a thing where it was just, like, another part of this process of making Christmas more downhome, more British. Having the respectable morals of that period.
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: But Moore himself might have been mocking that trend, because, you know, especially in the United States at that time, it was like, "Should we be breaking free of Britishness? Or should we be leaning into it?" And Santa Claus, like so many things in American history is us saying, "This thing is British, we kind of like it. But also, we could, like, make some tweaks here and there." And I feel like this is an example of this sort of tension within American society throughout where it's like, we're simultaneously kind of making fun of something and also, like, really appreciating it. There's sincerity to our dogs. And I think that makes us the greatest of people.
JULIA: I love that. That also reminds me, Amanda, when we talked about the, like, kind of origins of the classic haunted house.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And how the Victorian house kind of became what our idea of what the haunted house was because this was a thing that we really liked that was British. And then we're like, "Do we really like the British that much? Okay, we don't like the British that much. Okay, now these houses are haunted."
AMANDA: It's a real, "LOL, it's not pagan. It's fine," but the early American version of that is, "Well, it's not British. It's fine."
EMILY: Yeah.
AMANDA: Like well, maybe it is British but therefore it's bad or maybe it is British therefore it's quaint. Or maybe it was British and now we make it our own.
EMILY: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah. So, with Santa, I feel like we went in the opposite direction. We're like, "You know what? Nope, this is all ours now. We're gonna make it into ours. Don't. don't even touch it."
EMILY: It does seem like most of these stories stemmed from the Catholic Saint -- Saint Nicholas. Like, there are, like, a lot of things in Christmas are directly tied to some sort -- something pagan that pre-exists the Christian church.
JULIA: Mhmm.
AMANDA: Mhmm.
EMILY: So, as far as I can tell, and again, I'm not, like, a deep expert on this. I'm not, like, a serious Christmas scholar, but Stephen Nussbaum wrote a book called The Battle for Christmas. And like, Santa Claus is one thing that is kind of, like, a Christian invention. You know, Santa Claus himself is a transmutation of a transmutation of a transmutation. But, like, St. Nicholas, there were all these stories around how he was generous and gave gifts to people. Have you seen the Kirk Cameron movie? Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas, I think?
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: I don't think so.
EMILY: That is a movie that is about the war on Christmas, but from the point of view, I almost don't want to spoil it, because watching this movie, the experience of watching in the first 10 minutes is just so astonishing. Every time I see it with people, they're floored by it. The premise of this movie, though, I'm going to spoil. It's about the war on Christmas from the perspective of Kirk Cameron saying Christians are being too mean to Christmas. And basically being like, you're trying to get rid of Santa Claus. You're trying to get rid of the Christmas tree. You're trying to get rid of presents. You're trying to make it just focused on the religious aspect, but Santa Claus is actually about Jesus and the Christmas tree is actually about Jesus. And these presents represent the city of heaven. And you're like, "Kirk Cameron, what is happening right now?"
JULIA: Kirk Cameron what are you doing?
AMANDA: It's a real like resyncretism, right?
JULIA: Yeah!
AMANDA: Like, it's resyncretising a syncretized thing.
EMILY: Yes, exactly. And it ends with a whole bunch of people doing a hip hop dance to angels we have heard on high but they're all white, except for, like, the token characters of color. There's, like, two of in the movie. It's so good. Please watch this movie for me. And then just, like, text me or whatever, and be like, "Here's what I thought of Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas."
JULIA: Well, I figured out what I'm doing tonight. Jot that down real quick.
AMANDA: That sounds great.
EMILY: There is a section in that movie, the first section of Kirk Cameron telling -- because the premise is that he sits in a car with his brother-in-law who has tried to get away from the family Christmas and Kirk Cameron gets in the car and just yells at him for, like, an hour. So, he's like, you know, what's rad about St. Nicholas is he was so generous, blah, blah, blah. And then he's like, "And he went to the Council of" -- I think it's the Council of Nicea. "He went to the Council of Nicea and he heard the heretics and he beat them with his cane. That Santa Claus. He's violent." And you're like, "Okay, thanks, Kirk. But yeah, within... Within St. Nicholas, the various, like, stories about him as a religious figure are mostly about his generosity. And then occasionally, it will be like, oh, you know what? One of my favorite ones which I'm gonna butcher because I'm just doing this off the top of my head.
JULIA: Mhmm.
EMILY: It's something about St. Nicholas discovering that some parents had, like, killed their children via neglect or something. And then he, like, --
AMANDA: Oh my.
EMILY: -- fed the kids to their parents in, like, the form of pies. Is very [20:29].
AMANDA: That's terrifying.
JULIA: I know which one you're talking about. I think he actually pickled them and then fed them to him.
EMILY: Oh, that's wonderful.
JULIA: Yeah.
EMILY: Fucking wonderful.
AMANDA: Oh my.
JULIA: Amanda, going back to all of our listeners being afraid of pickles. Here we go.
AMANDA: I know. That's quite food safety conscious, but there is this element of judgment in Santa Claus, right? I remember as a kid growing up being told about my, like, moral accounting. And either you will or won't, you know, get presents at the end of the year. Where does that element come in?
EMILY: That's, I think also from the Christian element of, you know, obviously naughty and nice is, like, a very binary thing that is not actually that binary. The origin of that in terms of, like, St. Nicholas was he was giving gifts to Christian children. Then it slowly becomes, like, as Christmas becomes a holiday that is more and more secularized and has less than less to do with the Christian church, specifically, in a way that, like, Easter has never quite managed that leap.
AMANDA: Yup.
EMILY: And it becomes just naughty and nice, because it's, like, okay, well, there's the good in-group and the bad out-group. And now, it's just, like, about kind of a vague sense of morality. I was listening to the podcast blank check. And their Patreon feed -- one of the people on the podcast received a lump of coal one year as their… their gift from Santa.
JULIA: Wow.
EMILY: And that's the first time I've ever heard of that happening. Like, was... Like, did either of you ever, like, I don't know if you had Santa in your house growing up, but did Santa ever bring you, like, something that, like a lump of coal?
AMANDA: Yes. One year my mom got us, like, little black rocks that were painted with our names on it in our stockings as part of-- or maybe it was a joke. Maybe it was just, like, a fun, sweet thing, but I took it out first and was terrified that I in fact, got no presents.
EMILY: Amanda, what did you do?
JULIA: Yeah, what did you do that year, Amanda?
AMANDA: I mean, insufficiently protected my other siblings from the shield of dysfunction on our home. I don't know. There are lots of things that we can unpack at therapy, but I actually, Emily, opened up the Father Christmas Wikipedia article on your recommendation. And I was so astonished by this drawing of a very, like, sexy green knight looking --
EMILY: Yeah.
AMANDA: -- like Forest Father Christmas. And on his back, not a comical sack of presents, but a Yule Log.
JULIA: Mhmm.
AMANDA: Like, hey, here is a nice log to keep you warm and do your holiday. And then America has, like, dozens of presents instead.
JULIA: What if we kept warm? No, we must have presents.
AMANDA: Yes.
EMILY: I do think that Father Christmas, you can make an argument that he descends from the sort of Celtic figure of the Green Man.
JULIA: Mhmm.
EMILY: And, like, that's, you know, the Yule log is, of course, specifically something that stems from Celtic and British pre-Christian traditions. So, I do think there is that line that you can connect to Santa, but Santa is so much more tied to St. Nicholas that I feel like it's less of a connection than with, say, the Christmas tree, which is a direct adaptation of a pagan tradition.
AMANDA: Totally.
EMILY: That's it. Like, yeah, you can draw that line. And I also feel like we should have more green Santas.
JULIA: We should.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I like the green better than the red.
EMILY: At a time when we're environmentally conscious. What if Santa to just, like, show us that you can be good for the planet. Just changed everything to green. Just was, like, "This year, I'm going green." What if Santa was greens out from 30 Rock?
JULIA: What if Santa eliminated coal --
AMANDA: Oh, my God, Julia.
JULIA: -- as an option because if Santa really wanted to be green, he would stop giving fossil fuels to children.
EMILY: This is what, you know what... you know what Santa can give to bad kids is NFT's. He can give all the bad children NFT and be like, but at least it's carbon neutral. He'll just be like, "Yes, this is... this is what you got. You got the NFT, and that's bad. But I made sure to purchase a carbon neutral one. I'm green Santa."
JULIA: There you go.
EMILY: I think... I think we're onto something.
JULIA: Oh my gosh. All right, Emily, we're gonna have you tell us a little bit more about Santa just as soon as we get back from a refill.
AMANDA: Julia, it is the season of giving. No matter what holiday you do or don't celebrate, there is all kinds of pressure to give and receive gifts right now. And if you feel like doing that, and helping someone feel how much they mean to you, I think a really nice way to do that is to give them a gift that will make their life more comfortable. So, I mean, they can use all the time and think about you and be like, "Wow, I'm so glad I have this thing. I'm so glad that this person gave me this gift. It really improves my life day to day." And I just-- I think there's no better way to do that than giving someone something that they'll use all the time that is comfortable, that they're gonna love. Like, I did recently with my sister where I sent her some Brooklinen silk scrunchies and got myself a Brooklinen sleep mask at the same time. So, every morning, I wake up because she was in Hawaii. I see the text that she sent me when she got home from work when I was already sleeping, and I take off my soap sleep mask and I get to text her back. And it's a really nice, fun tradition and I don't know a way for us to feel a little bit connected. So, you have to check it out. Find their gift guide to find the perfect present at every price point. Go to brooklinen.com and use promo code "spirits" to get $20 off with a minimum purchase of $100. That's B-R-O-O-K-L-I-N-E-N.com and enter promo code "spirits" for $20 off with a minimum purchase of $100. Once more, that's brooklinen.com promo code "spirits".
JULIA: Amanda, I've been saying this for a long time, but humans love to create things, right? It's just, like, part of our nature. And you can learn, express, and discover what you can make with online classes from Skillshare. Just like I did when I took this class from Emma Gannon called “Unlocking Your Potential: 5 Exercises to Build Creative Confidence”. And I just feel like sometimes I just need that little extra boost to feel a little bit more confident about the things that I'm creating. And this class is a great idea for me to take just because it's all about, like, "Hey, why are you self-sabotaging your projects? Hey, let's identify your patterns and figure out how best to use the time that you feel creative in a way that will help you actually finish the things that you're doing, because I have a problem with that." But Emma has been so good about kind of guiding me through that creative process. And with Skillshare short classes, you can move your creative journey forward just like I did when I took this class. And you can explore your creativity at skillshare.com/spirits, where our listeners get one free month trial of premium membership. That's one month free at skillshare.com/spirits.
AMANDA: So, Julia, when I go to visit my grandma, I take the train into the suburbs where I grew up and where she still lives. And she either picks me up at the train or I'll walk from the train station to her house because I don't have a car, I live in a city. And when I go to visit her, you know, I don't want us to be, like, running around or if it's early in the morning, if it's cold outside, I don't want to drag her out of her house. So, when I get there, we'll often have bagels together or we'll have a sandwich. And sometimes I want to make sure that when I leave, I'm leaving her with, like, a lot of leftovers or a good meal for dinner, right? Like, something that I know she can have in the fridge and I'll feel satisfied knowing that when I go back home, you know, I'm leaving her with something in the fridge like she used to do for me when I was a kid. And recently, I was showing her the benefits of DoorDash. I was like, "Jammy, we can get you a muffin. We can get you if you forgot, like, band aids or you ran out of Advil. Or you need, like, one more ingredient for the thing you've been trying to cook or you just want your special secret treat, which is Taco Bell, we can get that. We can get that for you.
JULIA: Or Amanda, like, right now, a lot of the bagel stores are running out of cream cheese. So, maybe the bagels you got didn't have the cream cheese that you wanted, but you can order through DoorDash, the cream cheese that you want.
AMANDA: From a grocery store or wherever because DoorDash is not just all about restaurants. They also have grocery essentials, drinks, snacks, and other household items. And no matter why you need it, DoorDash is a really good option to get something delivered right to your door.
JULIA: Yeah, ordering is super easy. You just open up that DoorDash app, you choose what you want from where you want it, and then your items are left safely outside your door with contactless delivery drop off settings. And for a limited time, our listeners can get 25% off and zero delivery fees on their first order of $15 or more when you download that DoorDash app and enter the code creepycool. That's 25% off up to a $10 value and zero delivery fees on your first order when you download the DoorDash app in the App Store and enter the code creepycool. Don't forget, that's code creepycool. All one word, for 25% off your first order with DoorDash. Subject to change terms apply.
AMANDA: Subject to change terms apply. And now, let's get back to the show.
JULIA: Emily, I feel like everyone kind of has different cocktail traditions when it comes to the holidays. What's your favorite, like, holiday December cocktail? Are you a spiked hot chocolate person? Are you an eggnog person? Are you, like, a cranberry mule kind of person? What's up?
EMILY: Hot buttered rum is --
JULIA: Yes.
EMILY: -- the best. It is as you'd expect rum, but then there's, like, brown sugar, there's butter as you'd expect. There's this recipe I found is, like, a honey and then, like, pumpkin pie spices cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and yeah. It's just a nice warm drink for this time of year. I also love a good Hot Toddy.
JULIA: Mhmm.
EMILY: And I also love mulled wine, which is you take red wine and you put some sugar and some spices and some fruit in it. And then you simmer it on the stovetop for a long period of time. That becomes very rich and even more fruity. My wife hates it, which is why I don't make it very often but if you're at a big holiday gathering, mulled wine is a good way to have a drink that a lot of people can have because you can dip the little in and pull it out. There is my favorite thing to do every year at Christmas is get on YouTube and watch this random Gordon Ramsay Christmas special he made in, like, the --
AMANDA: Ooh.
EMILY: -- year 2001 where he's just, like, shouting earnestly about his favorite Christmas traditions. There's so many good recipes in it and I don't know if it's in the first one or the second one because there were two but he does make mulled wine and it's an excellent mulled wine recipe. So, if you're looking for a mulled wine recipe do that. It sort of depends on what you need the drink for. If you're just doing it for yourself, have a nice Hot Buttered Rum. If you're doing it for a large party ideally outdoors in the freezing cold because there's still a pandemic out there people, mulled wine is the way to go.
JULIA: I feel like buttered rum is a very Santa drink, so I appreciate you bringing that.
EMILY: Yes, buttered rum is, I mean, it's very rich. It's very decadent. It is definitely going to, like, be a drink that is, like, you know, having a Christmas cookie or some sort of rich holiday dessert.
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: It has just enough rum in it to, like, feel it. But also, you don't really taste it, which is what makes it dangerous so...
JULIA: This is the best kind of cocktail.
EMILY: Exactly.
JULIA: Especially when you're with family. You're like, "I don't taste this alcohol at all." Then all of a sudden, you're like.
EMILY: Yes, absolutely. The party I went to last night, which I refer to had something called -- gosh I don't remember -- it was a Moscow Mule with, like, a holiday twist. And it was so good. It was, like, apple cider and cinnamon in with, like, --
AMANDA: Yes.
EMILY: -- the Moscow Mule traditionally is. It was wonderful. I only had one because I was, like, if I have another then I'm getting to have, like, three more, and that's a bad idea. But it was wonderful.
JULIA: We've all been there. We've all been there. Especially during the holidays.
EMILY: Yes. So, hot buttered rum. That's the way to go. And, like, you can find a billion, billion recipes for it. I just found one by Rachael Ray, which seems like it's pretty good, but yeah, just Googling it.
AMANDA: I trust her with a holiday cocktail. Like, if you're from upstate New York. You... you know what has to happen
EMILY: I feel like yes, my German grandmother used to watch Rachael Ray and at the end of every recipe in her thick German accent say, "Yummers." So, that's what we say to hot buttered rum. We say, "Yummers."
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Excellent.
AMANDA: Julia, what's your holiday cocktail of choice?
JULIA: I like a hot toddy, but I'm not a, like, dark alcohol person. So, usually like a hot toddy is, like, whiskey or something or bourbon something to that effect. So, I'll do, like, a fancy, like, spiced tea. Something like a chai maybe or like a really nice, like, deep Hibiscus or like an apple cinnamon kind of combo. And then I'll just pour a bunch of gin in that and that's my hot toddy.
AMANDA: And I highly recommend looking for vegan CooKeto Recipes, because eggnog is great, but I'm lactose intolerant. And these days there are, like, soy and oat and almond milk versions in the supermarket, but you probably have coconut milk in your pantry. And so, there are a lot of really good vegan cookie dough recipes out there because it is coconut based already. And it's… it, like, many kind of vegan substitutes the closer to, like, coconut flavors you already have, the better it's probably going to be. So, the writer Alicia Kennedy has a great newsletter that includes as of this year 2021, a really, really good recipe that I highly recommend.
JULIA: Hell yeah dawg. That sounds awesome.
EMILY: I totally blanked on eggnog. I do love eggnog. I never think about it as a holiday cocktail because I think it's delicious without, but homemade eggnog is a lovely thing.
JULIA: I have never had homemade eggnog. I'm not lactose intolerant, but, like, a lot of dairy is not going to impact me very well. So, I tend to skip to, like, the really dairy heavy cocktails but...
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: You've just summoned me to your house. Like, I'm going to appear in the middle of the night and make you a bunch of eggnog and disappear.
JULIA: My husband is gonna wake up for work and be like, "What? What happened? Why is there eggnog?
AMANDA: And like Santa, you'll leave a mug with one sip of eggnog left and crumbs of cookies and have a baby carrot on the table when you leave.
JULIA: Emily, we will leave out, like, Italian Christmas cookies for you, so I think that's a fair trade.
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: That's a wonderful trade.
JULIA: Speaking of cookies, Santa Claus.
EMILY: Santa Claus, our best pal. I do think, you know, we've talked a lot about the origins of Santa and, like, that is a thing that we could dig into a lot more. But I do feel like interpretations of Santa, especially once movies and TV enter the equation are just as interesting and just as, like. And well, actually let's take a brief detour to talk about my good friend L. Frank Baum, who wrote just a fuckin crazy book called The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, which is like a high fantasy novel. Santa Claus, like, fighting, like, evil trolls and stuff.
AMANDA: I didn't know about this.
EMILY: It rules. It's so weird. It was adapted by Rankin Bass into one of their last holiday specials. A solid hour long just, like, what if Santa was in the Ralph Bakshi, Lord of the Rings, and you're like, "What if Santa was in the Ralph Bakshi, Lord of the Rings."
JULIA: It's a great question to ask.
EMILY: Yeah.
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: I can't believe I've never seen that. That's wild.
EMILY: It is hard to see because it, like, was not a big hit. It was, I think, their last special they produced just, like, this deal they had with CBS and then CBS was like, "What? No, we're not doing this any longer." Because like that last stretch of Specials is they have, like, Pinocchio's Christmas in there, Leprechauns' Christmas Gold, and you're just like, "They're really running on fumes at this point." But Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is at least bonkers. It is just, like, so weird. And I do love it in a weird way. Even though I can't imagine, like, anybody watching it and being like, "Yes, of course. This is my favorite thing ever." Actually, Julia you might.
JULIA: Yeah, no, that's fair. That's a fair assessment of me, Emily, thank you.
EMILY: So, that's, that's my friend L. Frank Baum but there's all sorts of, like, stories about Santa and especially songs about Santa but it is shortly after World War II that really the Santa mythology starts to become, like, a runaway boulder. You get, like, Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer who is this tertiary figure. Like, I think if you are living now, you're thinking about Rudolph as, like, this... this eternal part of the tradition. But no, the song literally adds him and it grafts him on in, like, the 40s. Cool. I think that that is what's fun about Santa is you can just sort of tack things on to him and he becomes a part of whatever era you're in. But it is that malleability. Makes it seem like there are things that have always been there that are not actually like that old. Like, Rudolph is less than 100-years-old. And like, yeah, he's a lot older than any of us. I mean, at least I don't think either of you are in your 80s.
AMANDA: No. But I am in my late 20s and I grew up in the era of Santa as the mascot of the Hess company. And Emily, as you were describing that I just had a whole cloth memory come back into my brain of the Christmas Hess commercials and the Christmas Hess trucks and Santa as a mascot for oil, which, you know, there's nothing more American than that, I would say.
EMILY: Hey, listen, I'm obsessed with mid 20th century Christmas Americana. And I just want to say if either of you revealed you were an ageless spirit of holiday joy, I would say of course that makes sense.
AMANDA: Ah, thank you.
EMILY: I am an ageless spirit of holiday joy. That's why I have this stocking cap.
JULIA: That's why you'd be able to recognize it in us.
EMILY: Yes.
AMANDA: Yes.
EMILY: Exactly. Game recognize game, as they say. I love mid 20th century Christmas Americana. And it is-- there was this whole period when corporations were like, "We have to do a special Christmas thing." And like, I remember growing up, there was a True Value Hardware store in my hometown. And they always had a special, like, cassette tape of Christmas songs. It was like this is the True Value cassette tape of holiday songs for the year. If you go back to the, like, 50s and 60s, there's a company called Line Materials, which is aluminum can they annually put out, like, a full Christmas production that they recorded and put on an album and you could take it home. And it was usually like a story for children, but they had, like, a little jingle that went Merry Christmas from Line Materials, which I'm not going to sing because I doubt it's copyrighted still or like anybody would run you down. But I don't want to experience some trouble with my lovely singing voice.
JULIA: I appreciate it.
AMANDA: Thank you.
EMILY: And so much of that was, like, we don't want to alienate non-Christians. Occasionally, we'd have, like, nativity scene or whatever. But like, also, you don't want to alienate Christians. Like, this is a thing that I think people have never quite understood about the "War on Christmas." It's so much of it was like, if you use, like, the symbol-- the religious symbols of Christmas in a commercial way, that really perverts, like, in essence, the religious nature of the holiday, because if you're like, Jesus wants you to buy presents. Like, that's gonna offend some portion of Christianity. Now, on the other hand, if you're like, "Santa wants you to buy presents," you're like, "Well, of course, that's what he's there for," you know? He wants... he wants us to help prop up the capitalist system that we live in.
JULIA: He can't do it all by himself.
EMILY: Yeah. Despite the fact that Santa Claus himself is very much, like, just giving freely of his largest so on and so forth. So, it is this, like, interesting tension within Santa where he's sim-- he is simultaneously a symbol of socialist goodwill, and also, like, capitalist consumption.
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: I love that about him.
AMANDA: And economic anxiety too. Like, I know, you know, so many people for whom this is for kids, like, an early realization of socio-economic difference, or of, you know, a family's difference. Or parents feeling so much pressure to, you know, make this measure up in some way or another.
EMILY: Yeah. And like, what I think is interesting is I never had Santa Claus growing up. I was told at 3 that Santa was not real. And I was like, --
AMANDA: Really?
EMILY: -- Okay, sure. Whatever. By the way, for anyone listening. Santa is real, if you believe in him in your heart.
JULIA: That's true.
EMILY: And that's all that matters. Yes, Amanda. Yes, Julia. There is a Santa Claus. He lives in every one of us, blahblahblahblah.
JULIA: I have to tell you, my uncle reads that poem literally every year at Christmas Eve.
EMILY: That's-- it's lovely. It is a lovely little piece. And like.
JULIA: It's adorable. Everyone hates it, but it is very sweet.
EMILY: I glided right by the late 19th century, but that's where that comes from. And like Up on the House Top and Thomas Nast, Santa Claus. And yeah, those are all very important to the formation of the myth. But yes, there is this thing about, like, on how Santa Claus underlines class differences. Like, it is just this... this complicated thing that wraps in so much American anxiety, so much American, like, structural prejudice. And is, like, tries to put a good holiday cheer face on it. I think you might remember about 10 years ago, Megyn Kelly on Fox News, like, had a hissy fit over the idea of a black Santa.
AMANDA: Mhmm.
EMILY: But like, a Santa who is a black man, that's been a symbol we've had for hundreds of years. Like, the thing about Santa is he can be whatever you want, and trying to force him into a box doesn't ever really work. The things about him that are consistent tend to be; well, he wears red, and he has a beard, and he's overweight, and he has reindeer. Like, that's... that's kind of it. Like, most Santa's, like, give presents but there's often, like, the Santa who just, like, gives you this spirit of good cheer. And that's what he exists for. Also, if there's no Santa, there's not a Christmas is like this other thing that is a frequent trope where like, oh.
AMANDA: That's what The Santa Clause told me.
JULIA: Or The Year Without a Santa Claus.
EMILY: Yes.
JULIA: There's movies about this.
EMILY: Yeah, like, you gotta... you gotta save Santa to save Christmas. And like, it's so often just, like, I love the Rankin Bass one where it's just like Santa's like, "I'm done with this. This is..."
JULIA: I got a cold. This sucks. I'm not going this year.
EMILY: Where he's just like, "Yeah, this, you know what? Nobody's that grateful. I'm being taken for granted." Where he's just like a... like a mom of like, you know, who's at the end of vacation, and she had wanted to have a nice time and her damn kids and her damn husband just, like, spent all the time lazing around expecting her to do everything for them. Nobody's grateful. We got to take Santa out to the Applebee's in Hilton Head just so, like, he can feel good about himself again.
JULIA: You can have those $5 margaritas --
EMILY: Yeah.
JULIA: -- and really live.
EMILY: Hey, Santa, I'm cooking tonight. Okay? My friend David Sims once came up with a sitcom called Keeping up with the Clauses that was set on the other 364 days of the year. It was literally 364 episodes about what Santa does when it's not Christmas Eve. And then, like, the last episode would be December 23rd.
JULIA: That's incredible.
AMANDA: It's pretty good.
JULIA: I love that.
EMILY: You know what, the second I make it big in Hollywood, I'm calling up David and we're doing Keeping up with the Clauses.
JULIA: Do it!
EMILY: Yeah. 364 episodes -- that's, like, 11 seasons or something.
JULIA: Yeah, that's not bad. Supernatural got more.
EMILY: That's our aim is to take down Supernatural.
JULIA: Truly. Supernatural coming for you Mash.
EMILY: Yeah, get out of the way, Mash. But yeah, I think that the... the ways in which Santa exposes all of these fault lines in American life, because of his inherent malleability is a really fascinating thing about the character. And I don't know, I love Santa, but, like, trying to talk about him is hard, because he's so huge. He's just, like, --
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: -- his own country of Christmas discourse. That's great, you know, good for him. But also, like, I keep going off on tangents, because there are so many tangents to go on. And we got here because I was talking about movies and TV depictions of Santa, but it's really fascinating to me, how many of, like, our movies and TV Santa Claus depictions that have really stuck are from my lifetime. Like, I'm not that old, but, you know, like, the Santa Claus is this, like, really, like, established idea of who Santa is. It's only from 1994, you know?
JULIA: Yeah.
EMILY: The Rankin Bass specials are older than me, but they're from the 60s and 70s. And like, Santa Claus, the movie was this big deal when I was young, when I was a little kid. It was huge bomb, but that's only from the 80s. The idea of Santa as just kind of a nonspecific secular Christmas figure that we can make entertainment about that won't offend Christians, and won't offend non-Christians, because everyone can sort of agree on Santa is, like, this neutral territory.
AMANDA: It belongs to capitalism, and therefore no one's religion, but capitalism's.
EMILY: Exactly. And like, yes, there are people who don't celebrate Christmas who will look at Santa and say, "Well, Santa is Christmas. So, we don't, you know, we don't include Santa as part of our holiday celebration." But then you almost have to invent a Santa, like, figure to be a part of this tradition.
AMANDA: Yes. Like so many Hanukkah reindeer.
EMILY: Yeah.
AMANDA: Christmas bushes that a lot of my Jewish friends growing up. Their parents were like, I don't know, target selling it. So, I guess I'll pick it up.
EMILY: Or like the holiday armadillo from Friends.
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: But yeah, like, Santa is this massive thing because Santa simultaneously means everything and nothing. Like, he can be whatever you want and he always kind of is himself. And like, that's just a fascinating -- his non-specificity becomes his specificity. And that's, like, my favorite --
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: -- kind of figure to talk about. But it, again, also means that, like, any attempt to talk about him involves, like, wandering all over the map.
AMANDA: No, it does.
JULIA: I'm going to propose a hot take and you guys can agree or disagree with me on this.
AMANDA: Is it a hot buttered rum take?
JULIA: Yes, it is.
AMANDA: Great.
JULIA: Is Santa just like a fanfiction Gary Stu?
EMILY: Oh wow.
AMANDA: I think that that's very provocative, Julia, because I was here thinking about drag Santas that I've seen before. And like, burlesque Santos that I've seen before.
JULIA: Mhmm. Mhmm.
AMANDA: And sitting here thinking, like, it's so interesting and as always, like, queer people and sex work, and sex adjacent work, right, is like pointing at fault lines, like Emily put it. And pointing at the things that make us uncomfortable and, like, asking us to take a symbol and put it next to something new and say like, "What are the tensions here? Like, why is there humor here? Why is there discomfort if there is any?" And like, that is one of the most kind of, like, biggest American symbols of, like, in theory, it's you know, rewarding good behavior. I don't know, giving presents; sure. And the deeper you dig, we don't have to come to, like, a thesis statement of Santa. We can ask what makes us curious, what makes us uncomfortable, what makes us nostalgic, and how those symbols can be used to, like, uncover those truths in the kinds of lives we want to build only going forward.
EMILY: Yeah, I think a lot about it does seem like the era of American dominance and everything is sort of waning. And like, that doesn't mean America won't continue to be a powerful country that has enormous pop culture that has a huge reach across the planet.
AMANDA: We shouldn't be in charge of stuff. It's fine.
EMILY: But I do think about what are the things that will outlast us in the way that there are certain things that outlasted the British Empire, that outlasted all these other empires that crumbled, and Santa Claus really seems like he's got a foothold. Like he seems like he's gonna hang around and do his thing. And as symbols of America go, you could do a lot worse than Santa Claus like...
AMANDA: No, it's pretty good.
EMILY: Santa Claus, like, does show some of our worst tendencies, but he also shows some of our best and I'm proud of the guy. I'm glad he made it this far.
JULIA: We're proud of him too. Thank you, Santa. He's a real global character.
EMILY: Congratulations to Santa on his big success. He really did it. I do want to talk very briefly about the 2019 Girlboss Santa movie Noelle starring Anna Kendrick, which I don't think anybody saw. It's on --
AMANDA: No.
EMILY: -- Disney+. I don't know if you have browsers open but I need you to google image search Anna Kendrick Noelle and it's spelled N O E L L E. And you're going to see what is my desired aesthetic. Like, the way that she dresses in this movie.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: You know what? I think I know someone who worked on this movie.
EMILY: Oh, hell yeah.
JULIA: I think there's someone in podcasting who did, like, shoot on this movie or edit it. I don't... I don't remember, but oh my goodness.
AMANDA: Wow. I mean, it's really cute.
EMILY: Yeah.
AMANDA: It's a cute aesthetic.
JULIA: That sure is Bill Hader there, huh?
EMILY: This is why I want to marry Santa and move to the North Pole. I just get to wear stuff like this. In the movie: Noelle, however, the Santa thing is a family business. And she is the younger sister of presumed new Santa Bill Hader. And Bill Hader is not good at the job. And would you believe she becomes the first girl Santa? Which is the most Disney in 2019 premise imaginable.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah, no, it really is.
EMILY: But yeah, it's... it's not a very good movie. But I like to watch it for the costume design because I'm like, "What if I could just wear this, these clothes all the time?"
AMANDA: I'm glad you have this.
JULIA: You know what, I appreciate that she's got a lot of the green mixed in and not just red. So, I'm a big fan of that.
EMILY: Yeah, I think I like that she looks like she lives in a gingerbread house. Like, that is --
AMANDA: Yeah.
EMILY: -- what I want from life in general.
JULIA: Emily, I need you to know, in googling these images, it also gave me a bunch of shopping options where you can buy a bunch of the different coats that she wears in this film.
EMILY: Oh my God, I need to do that right now.
JULIA: Do a quick google and take care of that.
EMILY: That's the kind of thing that you absolutely can buy and wear in California all the time.
JULIA: Yep.
EMILY: Wow.
JULIA: Absolutely.
EMILY: These are all very expensive. What is-- how much am I devoted to the Anna Kendrick 2019 movie Noelle?
AMANDA: I mean, how nice have you been? How naughty or nice?
EMILY: Yeah.
AMANDA: That's... that really is, you know, as an adult, you have to make your own presents. And I think if you've been nice enough, you should do it.
JULIA: Yeah.
EMILY: It is fascinating to watch the traditional version of Santa who is very white and very male, sort of like the new thing that's happening is that version of Santa is running up against this... this push we have to do Corporation friendly diversity, you know? Where, like, it is not going to challenge the image of Santa as, like, a capitalist figure too much. But certainly, like, well, what if there was a gay Santa? What if there was a Santa who wasn't white? What if there was a Santa who wasn't a man? It's always, like, well, I guess Anna Kendrick can be the CEO girl of Santa Inc. And like, sure, I guess, but it's this thing where... where Santa is extremely malleable. And then, maybe he's not malleable enough. Like, maybe he's not malleable enough to do this sort of thing. And yet at the same time, like, you know, a gay Santa seems pretty, like, a pretty natural fit to me. I feel like we need to have our first trans feminine Santa and I think it should be me. That's... that's all I'm saying.
JULIA: When can we sign the petition? We're ready to go.
EMILY: Yeah.
AMANDA: Co-signed. Seconded.
EMILY: Yeah. I feel like Taylor Swift should be Santa. I think we should get to see a whole bunch of Santas that are just targeted to my very specific interests.
AMANDA: Well, listen, why don't you and your wife work on those pitches and by next Christmas, we'll come back together and kind of see... see where things went?
EMILY: Yeah.
JULIA: Can I pitch you one that just popped into my mind right now?
EMILY: I'd love this. Yes.
JULIA: A Hunger Games style Santa wars.
EMILY: Oh, here we go. I love this.
AMANDA: This is good.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: This is good.
EMILY: I love this. Inherent to the premise of this movie that my wife and I pitched was that Santa is like a job one can apply for.
JULIA: Mhmm.
EMILY: And like that, the new San-- There's only one Santa ever, but he has, like, a normal lifespan. And like, he eventually just is like, "I'm done with this. I want to retire. My work used to be my passion, but now I have other passions. I wanna hang out with Mrs. Claus and, you know, feed the reindeer and do whatever." And then, like, there's, like, a thing where a whole bunch of people apply to be Santa and then they are winnowed down and they pick the right one. Can you imagine if that was true? What the reality show version of that would look like?
AMANDA: I would watch it.
JULIA: Well, now I'm picturing a Charlie in the Chocolate Factory situation.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Where it's, like, it's a lottery and then terrible things happen to the people who don't deserve to be Santa until the one person who deserves to be Santa is rewarded with the title of Santa.
AMANDA: Yes.
EMILY: The ardent pitch that we never did, which yeah, this is... this is off... this is off the... off the rails now. But there was a pitch I keep making for Arden which we're never going to do because nobody's as passionate about it as me, so I'm just gonna throw it out there in this episode; is that we always are, like, do we ever touch King Lear? Because we adapt Shakespeare plays. And I have always been like, what if we did a one off episode that's a tour of way face industries, like hub. And we combine Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and King Lear. So, like, Andy is, like, trying to, like, get these three girls to like, even next one. And then they keep falling away and stuff with, like, nobody and he's out in the middle of his chocolate factory wailing at the sky. We're not going to do that because nobody likes it as much as I do, but I have always felt like a King Lear Charlie and the Chocolate Factory mash-up is just like a thing. It's just sitting there waiting to happen.
JULIA: If you want to make that just for me, Emily, I'm cool with that.
EMILY: You know what, that'll be my ardent fanfic that I'd write--
JULIA: Okay.
EMILY: -- after the show's over and I'll write it just for you.
JULIA: I love it. Thank you.
AMANDA: Well, it wouldn't be a December end of the month episode without you here Emily. So, thank you for making time for us in your busy month of sprinkling holiday episodes all across the podcasting internet.
JULIA: And also the Matrix.
AMANDA: And also the matrix.
EMILY: Thank you so... Yes, and the Matrix.
AMANDA: Please let the folks know where they can find you and Arden online.
EMILY: I am online at twitter.com/emilyvdw. You can follow my adventures there. My writing appears at vox.com. It also appears on my newsletter which is at emilyvdw.letterdrop.com.
AMANDA: It's very good.
EMILY: You can find Arden wherever podcasts are sold. It's about two women who tried to solve cold cases and not fall in love. And as you are listening to this, we are unveiling a mini series of mini episodes one coming out a day right through the holiday. We're going to apparently do a Christmas special that is written and we haven't recorded any of it yet, but there is apparently going to be one. Like, this is a thing that we're going to summon out of the ether.
JULIA: Santa is gonna arrive on Christmas Day fully delivering a finished podcast episode.
EMILY: I mean, it might. Like, last year our Christmas episode came out on New Year's because that's just the way the cookie crumbles. And maybe that'll --
JULIA: It's just life.
EMILY: -- happen again this year. In theory, there will be a Christmas episode but we are right now doing a mini series of mini episodes about the character Julie Capsim who people enjoy and like and etc. And she does a prison heist, so that's… that's the premise of that one.
AMANDA: One thing much better than prisons is heisting prisons.
JULIA: That's true.
EMILY: Exactly. That's at twitter.com/ardenpodman. Wherever podcasts are sold, please check it out. And also, I'm not saying this because it's written under a pseudonym, but I may have written something special for the holiday season that you can find somewhere on the internet. What a fun tease. What a, like, like, people are gonna be like, hmm?
JULIA: What do we find on that?
EMILY: Something that's on the internet?
JULIA: Could be anything.
AMANDA: Where could it be? Well, thank you again. Thank you everybody. And remember.
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool. Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Alison Wakeman.
JULIA: Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us @spiritspodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. We also have all of our episode transcripts, guest appearances, and merch on our website. As well as a forum to send us in your urban legends, and your advice from folklore questions at spiritspodcast.com.
AMANDA: Join our member community on Patreon, patreon.com/spiritspodcast for all kinds of behind-the-scenes goodies. Just $1 gets you access to audio extras with so much more like recipe cards with alcoholic and non-alcoholic for every single episode, director's commentaries, real physical gifts, and more.
JULIA: We are a founding member of Multitude, an independent podcast collective, and production studio. If you like Spirits, you will love the other shows that live on our website at multitude.productions.
AMANDA: Above all else, if you liked what you heard today, please text one friend about us. That's the very best way to help keep us growing.
JULIA: Thanks for listening to Spirits. We'll see you next week.
AMANDA: Bye.
Transcribed by: John Matthew Sarong
Edited by: Krizia Marie Casil