===TRANSCRIPT START===

Astonishing Legends Network. Disclaimer, this episode includes the usual amount of adult language and graphic discussions you've come to expect around here. But in the event it becomes an unusual amount, expect another call from me.

Hey everybody, welcome back to Scared All The Time. I'm Chris Cullari.

And I'm Ed Voccola.

And today, we are celebrating Christmas as only we know how. Or I guess us and thousands or maybe even millions of terrified people throughout recorded history. Because while most of us think of Christmas as a time when all is merry and bright, when the figgy pudding is served to the bandin and when the jingle bells deck the halls or whatever, that's not what it always traditionally has been. I've been curious about a much more frightening tradition, one that seems to have captured the attention of much of the world, if not the United States. Today, we are diving into why gathering around the fire to tell Christmas ghost stories was once as much a part of the holidays as Santa Claus and stocking stuffers. We'll explore the history of how this weird practice came to be, journey through ghostly legends from around the world, and even share a few chilling yuletide ghost stories that I found on the internet. So I hope you're up early this Christmas morning to unwrap the present we left beneath the tree for you. No guessing, just kidding, it's full of ghosts.

What are we scared?

When are we?

All the time. Now it is time for, time for, Scared All The Time.

Are we gonna do, are you gonna have like music, like Christmas music fade up? Should I sing it?

I don't want to do any of those things.

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.

Dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee.

Welcome to the Scared All The Time Christmas episode, Housekeeping.

Oh my god, it's got a bigger opening than the actual opening.

Hey, you know what? I like to make sure people get their money's worth when they stop by and listen to Scared All The Time. The show's free. Did you hear my singing?

Bing, bong, bing, bong, bing, bong, bing, bong.

Guys, you know what day it is. It's December 25th. It's Christmas. It's your Scared All The Time for this week. That's right. We would never let you go a week without the good stuff, even on a holiday. We work nights and weekends and holidays around here.

And the show comes out bi-weekly. We definitely let you go a week, every other week, but we have New Fear Unlocked those other weeks.

Yeah, if you're signed up for our Patreon, the show comes out every week.

Every week, that's correct.

So if you want to give yourself a gift on Christmas Day, how about you go sign up for the Patreon, get yourself scared all the time, once a week, every week, whether it's the main episode or New Fear Unlocked, along with all the other incredible bonus content that we have, go check it out. But before we dive into the main episode for you, we should, we, Ed and I, receive some Christmas gifts from the listeners, and we call those gifts five star reviews. And we have two brand new five star reviews to share with you guys. You know them, you love them. If you're brand new to the show for some weird reason on Christmas Day, if you leave a five star review, we will sometimes read your five star review. We have two great ones to kick off the show with. So Ed, how about you hit us with the first one?

All right, very recent, December 21st, 2025 from Mo 2000. Subject, love the scares, but not scared. Weird flex, but okay. 27 years as a firefighter, seen a lot and lived in deserts and very cold locations, but only thing scares me is missing your great pod. Keep up the scaring, the rest. Oh, I see. Keep up scaring the rest, but one day me. And I think it's signed Myrwood because it's period, then Myrwood, which is a very fun name. I'm not sure. It can't, that's not a word, so it's gotta be a name.

Myrwood is an incredible name. Yeah. Listen, Myrwood.

Get rid of your kid's name. Fucking Felix is out, Myrwood is in.

Myrwood is in, Myrwood Cullari. Yeah, dude, that rules. Sounds like a villain in a later season of Justify or something.

And the good news is if you change Felix's name now, he'll never be scared because Myrwoods are never scared.

We've just learned that. I mean, look, 27 years as a firefighter, you gotta have balls of fucking steel. So Myrwood, thank you for your service as a firefighter. I certainly hope that if my home burns down, I happen to, for some reason, be near you so you can come rescue me. Pay attention, pass it to me now.

In this version, your home's already completely burned down. If my home burned down, I hope you're nearby.

It's on my mind because we're coming up on the one-year anniversary of the Pasadena fires.

Yes, I think nobody in Pasadena, Altadena or Malibu has fucking still probably haven't gotten their money, but the Santa Ana Winds will be back in a couple weeks, so we'll have to rerun that episode.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you, Murwood. We're glad you enjoy the show, and we will try to scare you one day, even if it means we have to break into the back of your car and wait for you to pull out of your driveway.

Oh my god, that would be scary.

I've got a five-star review here from Solar Pixie Chick, titled, highly recommended, three exclamation points.

Nice.

Because sometimes the only option is to stuff all your intrusive thoughts and fears into a clown car. So why not one driven by Ed and Chris?

Oh shit, there's two steering wheels in this bad boy.

Great question, yeah. You can drive it on either side of the road. You can take this car in the UK or in America.

Now, a tandem bicycle, it's just the front turns, right? The back has some sort of like power to pedal, but there's still just one person who turns.

Right, this is more of a fighting over which direction you go kind of car.

Okay, but I was just thinking about that. I guess all vehicles with a passenger is a tandem car. One person's turning.

Here's something, Ed, I'll float by you. For a long time now, we've said we got to do a live show.

Live in person.

In person. We do live on the internet once a month.

I heard the flu season is some of the worst it's ever been, and they have this thing called the super flu. We should try and do it this week, right? For maximum fear?

Yeah, absolutely. But hold on, let me finish my idea here.

Oh, look who wants to take the clown car wheel all of a sudden.

This might be the money maker.

Oh, shit, I'm ready.

What if we offered in-person live shows, but you had to get in our car, and we did them like five or six people at a time, clown car style.

I think you're describing Uber. You want us to just drive for Uber, but then while we have you here, you have to listen to our podcasts. It's the worst Uber driver.

Oh, that's right.

It also sounds like many actual Uber drivers. It might just be describing, oh, podcasters who also need to do gig economy work. Yeah, I think you're just describing a segment of the population right now. Well, I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to do it.

Hopefully someday it will be describing one of our live shows. I don't know, we need a gimmick. We need something.

I think what you're describing is, and I think the way it's gonna work is as such, we rent a van. It's called the Get In My Van Tour.

Yes, yes.

You've heard of Vans Tour, right? Like the punk rock, punk pop. So it's that, but it's Get In My Vans. And we have two vans.

Instead of the Vans Warped Tour, this is the Get In My Van Warped Tour.

It's the Get In My Vans Wrangled People In Tour. And the Get In My Vans Draw Out Your Phones, this is actually, we are really kidnapping you tour.

Yes.

And then once we have them to a location, they don't know because you also get complimentary Scared All The Time black bags put over your head.

With the logo.

They get to keep them. Yeah, they get to keep them. Once we have you somewhere where no one can hear you scream, we will perform.

And you'll only be screaming because you're so scared of the content of the show, not of the fact that you've been pulled in a van and driven into the desert.

You're in a basement that has a dirt floor.

Maybe this is why the podcast doesn't make any money yet.

Maybe, I'm not sure. All I know is it is Christmas Eve and I don't have time to edit this out, so this is who we are now.

All of our good ideas sound like a serial killer's bad ideas.

That's the problem with this show. Well, if they have bad ideas, do you think they pitch them to other serial killers? Do you think it's like, okay, bad idea, but the van's warped door, and then another serial killer is like, I think you can do better. We can beat it.

I will say it's possible because in the 70s, we won't get into this right now, but there is some evidence. I don't even know if I want to say evidence, but there are rumors that there were a number of active serial killers who may have crossed paths with each other at one point or another. Who knows?

In the 70s, too, you really had to meet up somewhere. You couldn't just get into a PlayStation Network game pre-game room or whatever. However, they do terrorist attacks now.

Yeah.

Anyway, this is some of the stuff you can get at the live show, guys.

Well, listen, we love you guys. Happy Holidays to everyone.

Thanks again, Solar Pixie Chick. Thanks again, Murrowood.

This is going to be... We're going into our third year of doing this show.

Yeah.

It is insane that we're going to hit... I don't know if we'll hit 100 episodes this year.

No. You mean coming up. The year coming up.

The year coming up, we'll hit...

Yeah.

We'll be close.

We'll be close.

Like 90, and then if we do some bonus stuff. Yeah. But it's crazy that we've been doing it this long. It's crazy that we have as many listeners as we do. And it really just... It warms our hearts that you guys listen to the show, that you like the show, that you leave comments, that you give us ideas for episodes, that you talk about things that scare you and share that stuff with us. Like it's all... It's just crazy that we had to do this. So thank you so much for the bottom of our hearts for listening. That's the most sincere I'll be for the next hour.

Anybody who ordered a shirt, a Christmas shirt, and they're waiting on it, which is very few people, because I mean a lot of people order, but I'm saying I get them out really fast on this run. I will be working on my birthday tomorrow. Well, tomorrow meaning in nine minutes, I'll be working on my birthday to get out the last few shirts before Christmas. They won't get to you by Christmas, but...

So happy birthday yesterday by the time you're listening to this.

Oh yeah, thank you. We love you Ed. We love you the fucking van.

Hard cut to the episode begins.

Yeah, hard cut to the local news.

Happy holidays everybody, we love you. We'll see you in 2026. Bye bye.

Bye bye. Well, just listen to the episode.

Hello.

Hello to the episode. Goodbye to housekeeping. Hello to Christmas ghost stories.

So my interest in the topic of Christmas ghost stories stretches all the way back to the day. I was aware of the world enough to really listen to the lyrics to It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year. Ed, if I may.

As long as you're not going to play it and get a suit, it's got to be pulpit domain by now. But maybe not because they all came from movies.

There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow. There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of blah, blah, blah. The line is, there'll be scary ghost stories. That's the important part.

I'll put it as much as I'm able, without a science and legend saying we're gonna get suit.

I think it's less than five seconds, right?

I have no idea.

And it's a cover, so you owe less than the publishing rights or something.

I don't know. Well, what we want for Christmas is to be bailed out of prison when they come and arrest us for using too much of a song.

Everybody who listens to this show, I hope you're helping save up some bail money for us because this is gonna be what finally does us in.

We have a GoFundMe draft that's always ready to go. We just have to publish on the day that it happens. Yeah, I never really thought about that line.

You never thought about the line, there will be scary ghost stories in this song?

I think there's so much of Christmas music. Traditionally, it's played 24 hours a fucking day on the radio. So I think it's just stuff washes over you a little bit.

Yeah, I guess the first time when I was younger and I heard it, I think I always just assumed that it was a weird way of referencing a Christmas Carol.

And which is where my mind went as well, which is they must be talking about A Christmas Carol, which seems old, it's the 1800s, right?

It is, but the lyric does say scary ghost stories, plural.

Well, three ghosts visit.

That's true. Well, spoiler, it turns out that it goes much, much deeper than a reference to A Christmas Carol. A Christmas Carol is the famous Christmas ghost story, but it is far from the only Christmas ghost story. For generations, Christmas time was nearly synonymous with The Dead. As one 19th century British humorist with the hilarious name of Jerome K. Jerome observed, quote, whatever five or six English speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. It's a genial, festive season and we love to muse upon graves and dead bodies and murders and blood. He was also once quoted as saying the average orthodox ghost has his turn one a year on Christmas Eve and is satisfied. Which makes me think that Jerome K. Jerome had a pretty low opinion of Halloween.

Yeah, I don't know. He seems never heard of him. So, you know, what's that say?

PG.

Woodhouse, he is not.

No, but Jerome K. Jerome would be a great name for like an indie band or something.

Yeah, yeah.

They could bring it back. Like Franz Ferdinand. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Franz Ferdinand's a band. Granted, Franz Ferdinand maybe had a slightly higher position in history than Jerome K. Jerome, but not as good of a name.

No.

I don't think. Before we go any further, though, into this history of Christmas ghost stories, Ed, did your family ever tell scary Christmas ghost stories? Did you ever encounter them anywhere around the holidays?

Not once. Not once. And we are a people who have more maybe Christmas shit around than you want. And I don't mean like decorations. So I was born on Christmas Eve, as most people know. It's a nightmare. But every year, I feel like for a long time in my life, like every year I was given a different copy of The Night Before Christmas. I almost said nightmare before Christmas. So I have like many copies of pop-up books and this and this fucking version and the Penguin paperback. And yeah, there's no ghost stories in that. So it didn't pop up. And also, no one in my family. I think, is it supposed to be like you're looking back at the year you had? Because I feel like New Year's does that. New Year's Eve has like old Lang Song, which is like all about the dead. But yeah, I don't associate Christmas, if anything, the Christians associated with birth, not death. And I don't know, it's a little too early in the year to be in memoriam.

Yep, true.

So I don't know. Yeah, no one's ever brought up a ghost, not once.

I really didn't encounter any Christmas ghost stories either. I have one slightly hazy, spooky memory of trying to wait up for Santa one night. And I came downstairs to try to like-

You witnessed a murder?

See him. Well, I do remember hazzily seeing a big man in my living room near the Christmas tree. And I remember sitting down on the little, on the little like two or three stairs that led into my living room. And feeling really, really tired. And then waking up in my bed. Which now, now that I say it out loud, sounds more like an alien abduction than encountering Santa.

Losing long tracks of time.

Yeah, but I mean, it was kind of eerie, whatever it was. Maybe-

What's that thing hurtling towards Earth? The fucking UI by L3 or whatever?

Or 3I Atlas.

Yeah.

3AI Atlas.

Maybe that's Santa. Maybe that's Santa. Or whatever you thought was Santa returning to Earth to finish the job.

Possibly, possibly.

Maybe, maybe Santa is an alien and they're coming back just in time for Christmas, it sounds like.

I hope, I hope. Bring me the gift of unshackling me from this realm.

Any way you were saying?

I'm going to slam back into the topic at hand, much like 3I Atlas is going to slam into the Earth's crust.

I don't know what it's going to do. All I know is we sent that Mars thing. We'll talk about it in the live show, but 3I Atlas is probably not Santa.

Probably not. And ghost-free Christmases have not always been the case, either. According to Smithsonian Magazine, telling ghost stories during winter is a hallowed tradition, a folk custom that stretches back centuries, when families would wile away the winter nights with tales of spooks and monsters.

Well, the days get shorter, so it's night longer, and you probably only had one heat source, which would have been like a fireplace or a fire pit. And so you're already huddled around, their work days short, so you're inside earlier, and you're stuck together literally around each other longer. So I can see them. If you're not going to jerk each other up, you might as well tell fucking ghost stories or something.

We're gathering in the family jerk-off circle around the fire.

Get in here.

There's a couple of quotes from other sources, quote, a sad tale's best for winter, Mimilius proclaims in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, I have one of sprites and goblins. And the titular Jew of Malta in Christopher Marlowe's play at one point muses, quote, now I remember those old woman's words, who in my wealth would tell me winter tales and speak of spirits and ghosts by night. This tradition was based in folklore and the supernatural. And so was a tradition that the Puritans frowned on, which is part of why telling ghost stories around Christmas never gained much traction in America.

Not in the States, because they came here to get away from fucking ghost stories at Christmas.

Exactly, that was a big, that was really a big on the action items list. They could cross that off pretty solidly once they landed.

I'm sure everyone around them is like, why don't you get those fucking buckled shoes the fuck out of here? Why don't you get those steppin? Get those buckled shoes steppin to the new world, because we're trying to have a good time telling ghost stories.

Washington Irving helped resurrect a number of forgotten Christmas traditions in the early 19th century, but it really was Charles Dickens who popularized the notion of telling ghost stories around Christmas Eve. As a side note, I found this interesting notion in my research that it wasn't because of the popularity of Christmas ghost stories that Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. According to an article I found on the Jackson County Library Services web page, A lot of people believe that Charles Dickens wrote the story in order to save Christmas, a holiday that was fading in popularity at the time. The decline in Christmas joy came courtesy of Lord and Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell. He was a Puritan on a mission to cleanse England of decadent excesses. Some people might refer to him as a… Asshole. Scrooge.

Oh, okay, sorry.

During the time that Dickens published A Christmas Carol, we were in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. People were working more, and with Christmas seeming to be unimportant, many people worked that day and didn't care that they did. A Christmas Carol has more to do with industrialization and the loss of cultural traditions than anything else. Dickens illustrates how cities were less inclined to give paid holidays, as well as widespread poverty and suffering, which he illustrated through ghostly apparitions reminding people of a lost tradition.

I fucking love it.

I don't think we can give Dickens all the credit for bringing Christmas back though. We'll get into this a little bit later, but at the same time, actually the exact same year that he published A Christmas Carol, we saw the invention of the commercial Christmas card, and there was also, of course, Coca-Cola reinventing Santa as a pitch man for their soft drink around the same time.

So it was interesting, the definitive anti-capitalism Christmas work that is A Christmas Carol was on the rise at the exact same time as capitalism was like, hey, fucking thanks for reminding us of this thing. We should do that too, we should use that shit too.

It sounds like it was a really interesting intersection of this, like, the changing economic times and the expectations of work, along with this sort of disenchantment with at least Christmas as a holiday, because Lord and Protector of England, the Puritan Oliver Cromwell felt that it was like too joyful and he wanted to stamp it out.

Well, I don't know much about Puritans other than their fucking shoe choices. What was their deal? How were they feeling about Jesus and his involvement in that, at this point, his involvement in that holiday? Because it seems like Christmas or at least whatever festival was there at this time period, has ebb and flowed and gone through changes itself. So I do wonder, because if these people now, people are all about that Jesus Christmas life, but it's interesting if they're like, oh, I'm going, I'm leaving England because of religious persecution, and then also taking the high holy day of Christmas and being like, it's dumb. Well, I don't see how those two things can be one in the same.

I think the Puritanical War on Christmas was a war on the carousing and celebrating and it was the drinking and the feasting and I think the Puritans just they they found it a very important day, but they took it a lot more seriously in terms of it was a day for prayer and reflection.

So when was Santa invented?

Well Santa at like this.

Like before Santa, was it just about drinking or did kids get any presents?

Well, it was different. I mean, every culture kind of had a different thing going on. Kids did often. I think we talked about this in our Christmas horrors episode on our first Christmas episode, and we'll touch on some of them again in a little bit, but a lot of kids did either find themselves being threatened with punishment around Christmas if they weren't good or, you know, hoping.

Or during the Industrial Revolution if they weren't at the factory on time.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

All right, I guess we have to do a whole episode on Santa, and we should put a disclaimer at the beginning of this one that like, hey, there's some Santa talk in here.

What?

In case a kid's listening or something.

If there's a kid listening to this episode, they already know that Santa isn't real. I think-

Not from us though.

Not from us. Not from us. So whether or not this Jackson County Library Services interpretation of Dickens' participation in the reason that he wrote A Christmas Carol and the ways in which he was trying to make Christmas important again, whether or not that interpretation is correct, it is an indisputable fact that the Christmas issues of the magazines that Dickens edited, both a magazine called Household Words and a magazine called All the Year Round, the Christmas editions of these magazines regularly included ghost stories like The Chimes and The Haunted Man, both of which also feature an unhappy man who changes his ways after visitation by a ghost.

Okay, so he's just reusing shit.

Yeah, he's a little self-plagiarizing.

Yeah.

According to the Smithsonian, Dickens discontinued the Christmas publications in 1868, complaining to his friend Charles Fetchter that he felt, quote, as if I had murdered a Christmas a number of years ago.

Murdered a Christmas? Is that like someone in town? Lloyd Christmas's grandfather?

That he felt, quote, as if I had murdered Christmas a number of years ago, perhaps I did, and its ghost perpetually haunted me. But 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.

You're saying that quote is after A Christmas Carol came out?

Yes.

Okay, got you. So he's like, I wrote the definitive Christmas ghost story. I don't need to go back to that well.

Yes. By the time of the publication of Jerome K. Jerome's quote in 1891's Told After Supper, ghost stories around Christmas were common enough that he could casually joke about this tradition long ensconced in Victorian culture. Dickens' publications helped forge a bond between the holiday and ghost stories. Christmas Eve, he would claim in The Seven Poor Travelers, the story he wrote in 1854, is quote, the witching time for storytelling. And why wouldn't it be? Ed, as you pointed out earlier, in a time before electric lights and heat and any trace of modernity, the chill and darkness of winter would have been absolutely frightening. If Halloween marked the transition to a dead, difficult time of year, Christmas and its predecessors fell right in the middle of its darkest, dreariest days. I think we talked about this a little bit in our Christmas Horrors episode in 2023, but an article in Big Think reminds us that quote, historically December 25th actually has a closer link to pre-Christian festivals that honored the winter solstice than with Christianity. Mistletoe, holly berries, wreaths and yule logs, for instance, are all pagan symbols. Celebrations like yule tides symbolically celebrate the death of light and the arrival of the longest night of the year.

And if you want to hear a lot more on that, then yeah, listen to our last year's Christmas episode. We definitely went more into detail on that stuff.

It was only as Christianity spread across the world and tried to ingratiate itself with local customs that holidays like Christmas and Easter were married to existing pagan celebrations, which we discussed was sort of a way to keep your people happy and partying even if the reason for the party was just a little bit different now.

Until the Puritans showed up.

Until the fucking Puritans showed up. They've ruined shoes, they've ruined Christmas.

They've ruined shoes, they've ruined buckles, they've ruined fucking hats.

In that same episode, we covered a number of pagan pre-Christian creatures and creeps like the now available in the merch store as holiday shirts, Frau Pekt and the Yule Lads that came out to haunt the holidays. But there are so many more stories out there, both ghostly and monstrous. So one of the creepiest Christmas ghost stories I found is a tale from an Icelandic saga called the Saga of the People of Fløy, written around the year 1300.

So we're returning to Iceland.

We're returning to Iceland, but this is pre any creatures, I think that we discussed in our last episode. Pre Yule Lads. I think this is pre Yule Lads, and this is a ghost story in the truest sense of the word, as opposed to the Yule Lads, which is more of a mischief creature. I would categorize them as.

Yeah, okay, sure.

Oh, and I guess before I dive into this, I should say, I couldn't find a direct translation of this story, so this is sort of a loose summary of the story, of this ghost story from the saga of the people of Floyd. So, it's Christmas night, and a band of boisterous revelers is feasting and drinking late into the night. Outside, the winter winds howl over the barren fields, and they bring an ominous knock to the door. One reveler, perhaps a little drunk, jumps up to answer with the friendly cheer, It is undoubtedly good news! Which, next to, I'll be right back, is probably the last thing you want to say before you jump up to answer an ominous knock at the door.

That's Walter White at your door, dude.

Yeah, wouldn't you know it, as soon as he steps outside, something unseen strikes him. He goes mad and drops dead on the spot. Throughout the night, the mysterious knocking comes again and again.

Stop answering that door, guys.

Every time! I guess, undaunted by the fact that it never goes well, another curious party goer ventures out, and each time the result is the same. They go mad and drop dead. One by one, six men from this rowdy crew are lured outside, driven insane with fear and killed by an unseen evil. The saga pointedly notes that those who had gone to bed early that night and skipped the late night carousing were spared. By the end of Christmas, seven partiers lay dead, but the horror was just beginning. After Christmas, the dead men don't stay dead. According to the saga, as soon as the Yuletide feast is over, all the slain revelers return from the grave as revenants, determined to wreak havoc on the living. In Old Norse terms, these are draugr, basically zombies or undead spirits in physical bodies. A deadites, basically.

They kind of got done dirty, though. They didn't do anything wrong other than having a good time.

And being way too optimistic about the knocking at the door.

Yeah, dude, when life's good, you're hoping all life's good. And they found out real fast that it's not.

It quickly becomes a small zombie outbreak with the walking dead roaming this farm, scaring people out of their wits, and maybe even attacking the living. The translations are a little unclear. One analysis notes that in this saga, the state of being a revenant is almost a death spread by other revenants, as if either the terror or perhaps the bite of the revenant is contagious.

I don't know what that word means, and I didn't see the movie Revenant, but it sounds like Sinners so far.

Yeah, it's more or less Sinners. It's a loose interpretation of the saga of the people of Floyd.

Well, it sounds more like Sinners than it does the movie The Revenant.

Well, The Revenant, I think Revenant in American English around the 1800s, whenever the Revenant, the film takes place, I think means something a little bit different than Revenant in this context.

I wouldn't know. I don't know what it means in any version, so.

In this version, the Revenant means these zombies are surrounding the house and the survivors are living in fear of their former friends and neighbors, now turned into monstrous Christmas ghosts. Enter Thorgill's, the hero of the saga of the people of Floyd. Thorgill's is actually also the leader of the party animal crew, but he was one of the few wise enough to go to bed early and survive.

He's in the house.

He's in the house. Now, according, Thorgill is in the house. He's looking out the windows. He's seeing his buddies roaming about.

He's seeing Olaf out there.

Yeah, Olaf's guts falling out, Grindelthorn's eyes popped out of his head. Thorgill's, though, is also one of the first Christians in his district, navigating a mostly pagan world. And now I would say a very pagan world with these pagan beasts roaming his property. Throughout the saga, he's tested by supernatural evils. And this Christmas horror, I guess, is one of his big challenges. He keeps his cool.

He's like, I don't know why I'm being, why am I getting punished for this? I went to bed early just like Jesus commanded.

Yeah.

Which he never did. But in this case, you know, I did the Christian thing.

He's sort of, if you think about it, Ed, maybe this would speak to you as the resident comic book guy here. Thor Gills is sort of like a Marvel hero. He wasn't asking for this. He just became the man with the powers to save the day.

He sounds like, so there was a thing that Marvel and DC did in the 90s called the Amalgam series where they would like take a character from DC and a character from Marvel and like squish them together or whatever. And this sounds like they squished Thor and Aquaman together. Fucking Thor Gills over here.

It sounds like the least interesting origin story of all time. A superhero born because he went to bed early one night.

Yeah. Well, I think it's, they often say like something woke inside them, right? For a superhero like, oh, the spider bite like woke inside Peter Parker, like all this. I feel like the most, you're never more awake than when you got a good night's sleep.

That's true. That's true. Well, Thor Gill here realizes what he must do. He gathers the corpses of all the newly dead revenants. I don't know-

From outside?

Well, from outside. I don't know how he-

How did he get out there without being eaten?

I don't know. I don't know how he re-slayed them. I do know that one of these newly dead revenants was his own wife.

The only way she can get a divorce back then.

Was to answer the knock at the door and scream and drop dead.

Well, I think you had to die. Yeah. So she was probably the first one, the very first person to be like, I'll get it. Right after that, they're like, no, it's fine. I'll get it. Because all these shriveled men. Well, she's like, no, I really went out of this relationship. He's asleep right now, man. Like when I first met him, he'd be up all fucking night. Then he found God. And now he goes to bed early and I just want to party. And if I can't party, I want out. But they say I can't get out unless I go become a zombie. So let me answer the door, please. I'm begging you.

Yes. That's why she thought it was good news. She saw the exit. Well, Thorgill didn't know any of this about how his wife felt about him because he was asleep. And he drags her and all the rest of the newly dead revenants to a makeshift pyre where he burns all the bodies to ash in a massive funeral fire. And the saga concludes this ghoulish episode by noting that after Thorgill's action, quote, none of the troublesome rates were ever seen again.

No, because you turn them into yule logs.

Yeah, certainly his troublesome wife was never seen again after this.

Good riddance. Good riddance is what she wanted to be, but it didn't get far enough away.

In another Icelandic horror tale, a shepherd named Glomir disappears on Christmas Eve and returns as a vicious revenant who terrorizes the countryside until he's finally slain. But in this story, he curses the hero with his dying breath. So real merry and bright stuff happening in Iceland Christmas horror stories.

And here we thought the worst thing someone can do is deny you a room in the inn.

No, it can get so much worse.

It could have been way worse.

In Greece, they have a Christmas ghost story that does feel a little Yule laddy to me.

OK, a Merry Malaka.

A Merry Malaka is running door to door, acting Malakish. Throughout Greece and neighboring regions of the Balkans, an old folk tale warns of the Calikantzoroi, fiendish Christmas goblins who run amok during the Dodeca Cameron, the 12 days from Christmas to the Epiphany. If you're unfamiliar with the Epiphany, in Greek Orthodox tradition, Christ was born on Christmas but not baptized until Epiphany, so the interim days were unblessed or unbaptized time. And superstition held that during this kind of cosmically turbulent window, the forces of chaos could slip through and plague the living.

Well, you know what took so long? We've all heard the song. On the first day of Christmas, they didn't give a baptism. On the second day of Christmas, they didn't give a baptism. At a certain point, they'd be like, I don't need all these pear trees. This kid needs some water on his head. We're waiting over here in Greece. Could you please just give them something that isn't trees and birds?

Oh, trees come up in just a second here because according to...

Oh boy, it's gotta be olive trees in that part of the world.

According to Greek folklore that dates back to at least the medieval era, these small black furred goblins dwell underground for most of the year where, Ed, do you know what they're getting up to down there?

I think nothing, like locusts, right? They just lay there.

Don't say orgies.

Well, they'd have to be at that party, different part of Iceland. Or they're just like locusts hanging out underground.

No, they're being demonic little mischief makers. They are sawing at the world tree that holds up the earth.

From Avatar.

They are often depicted as half-animal demons, hairy with goat legs, tusks or other beastly features and come January 6th, Epiphany, the return of longer days drives the goblins back underground where they find that the world tree has healed itself in their absence, forcing them to start their endless sawing anew.

So it's Sisyphean, their life.

Yeah, they have a really shitty saw-based existence.

Yeah, well at least everybody hates them. They have that going for them.

According to Atlas Obscura, it's hard to pinpoint the exact origins of these mythical creatures, but they've been around for hundreds of years. The idea of Cala Cazoroi gained ground especially during the Middle Ages, says Tommaso Braccini, professor of classical philology and ancient Greek folklore at the University of Siena. The Middle Ages were marked by a decrease in communal life compared with antiquity, Braccini explains. There was less emphasis on public spaces and people spent more time at home. Quote, fears about beings that can roam around the home and break in were increasingly common at the time. I feel like Ed, that's something that you worry about over in the Wilshire district, off Fairfax, or off Wilshire.

It's not uncommon and I've seen people described as these beasts. So, yeah.

Well, get this, get this. In many parts of Greece, it was traditionally believed that children born around the same time as Jesus could become Kallikantzoroi.

Oh my God. I do have to see a doctor when I get back to do some tests. I guess I can ask if they can run that one.

I know, we have to.

Say, hey, we got anything, what's, am I gonna wanna saw anything? Like I'm feeling urges to saw. Can you do, what tests you have for this?

Well, here's one.

I was born on Christmas Eve, you understand.

Placing the baby's feet near a candle was believed to prevent claws from sprouting. So ask your parents if they put your feet near a candle. Other strategies included putting the child in an unlit oven and asking them if they preferred bread or meat. If a child picked bread, it was deemed safe, as bread had traditionally symbolized civilization. But if they said meat, it was a cause of concern, as it was believed to reveal the beastly nature of the child.

I have a feeling I would have said meat. I love that.

I love that you put your child in the oven before you ask the question, so that if you don't like the answer, you've got an easy solution.

I think a lot of these people lived in villages. And in villages, it's basically all studio apartments. Like, you don't have a lot of rooms. Maybe the only time you can have a fucking discussion amongst yourself is if you put the baby in the oven, so it can't hear you talking about, okay, where's the thing? We're gonna ask about meat. We're gonna ask about bread. And we're on the same page about this, right? This is because this is a husband and wife. And they're like, if he says this, what's that mean? It means he's a fucking demon. All right, we're on board. If he says demon, I wanna hear about, oh, he's so cute. We gotta throw him in the garbage. And they say, okay. And then they open the oven. They're like, hey, you weren't hearing that, right? And it's like, no, I'm a baby. And also, I was in the oven. I couldn't hear anything. And then they say, what do you wanna eat? You wanna eat this shit? You wanna eat that shit? And they're like, Brad is like, boof. Okay, cool. You're coming in.

Unless this father and mother were from families with different cultures and one family believed-

No, no, no. They're from the one that we're doing in this story. Why would I do this whole bit unless they were from this story? And they also, I thought you were gonna say the alternative is they can leave him outside so he couldn't hear, but it's winter. Baby would die.

Well, I think depending on what the answer is, if it's bread or meat, if it's meat, baby's gonna die anyway. Although, if your child became a Christmas goat gremlin, you were spared the burden of raising them because they would head underground to saw at that tree and were only allowed to emerge to the surface during the 12 holy days of Christmas where they terrorized mortals with pranks and mayhem. So sort of like having-

After you moved to California, how often did you go home? Did you go home just for Christmas?

It's sort of like having a child away at college.

We're still doing this. Yeah, we're still-

And most nights I'll be out causing mischief.

Yeah, yeah.

The Cala Catzoroi do everything from riding on people's backs to urinating on Christmas feasts, according to various local stories.

I've done one of the two.

I found one-

I'll never say which, but I've done one of the two.

I found one story on a blog that tells us, From dawn till sunset, they hide themselves in dark and dank places. But at night, they issue forth in one run wildly to and fro, rending and crushing those who cross their path. Destruction and waste, greed and lust mark their course. When a house is not prepared against their coming, by chimney and door alike they swarm in and make havoc of the home. In sheer wanton mischief, they overturn and break all the furniture, devour the Christmas pork, befoul all the water and wine and food which remains, and leave the occupants half dead with fright or violence.

And I would have, this would have started already, right? It's like Teen Wolf, like by 18 I would know if I'm one.

I think Ed's just sitting there listening to all this, getting more and more concerned. He's like, I have devoured the Christmas pork. I have befouled the water and wine.

Yeah, I'm real close. On the dartboard of birthdays, I am right next to the bullseye that is Jesus' birthday. So, you know, I like to always say that I am the guy who ruined Jesus' surprise party. I showed up knocking and everyone was like, surprise. And it was like, gosh, it's fucking Ed. We're waiting for Jesus. He'll be here any minute.

Well, villagers who were afraid of Ed and the Calacanth Zoroi developed many tricks to ward them off during their Yuletide reign of terror. For example, one could leave a colander or sieve on the doorstep and the dim-witted goblins would get distracted.

Okay, I don't like the way we're described in this. That's my people, dude.

Ed, this actually could be another test to try to count the holes in a colander because these dim-witted goblins would get distracted trying to count the holes. And on top of that, they could only count two. Since three is a holy number, they dare not utter and they would spend the whole night baffled.

Seven is a holy number. I have help but notice that came up in the last story. There was like seven ghosts that went outside.

That's true. Well, I don't know. I mean, it does seem like these guys could just skip three. Their counting would always be a little inaccurate.

Yeah, but they're probably lazy like I am, which means everyone born close to Jesus is lazy, and they just stopped it too. Gave a reason.

Ed, do any of these sound like familiar traditions? Other households kept fires burning or threw smelly shoes into the fireplace to keep the creatures away.

Oh, I don't know. It's pretty good tradition, though. If your shoes are smelly, just get some new shoes, or make some.

It does seem like a good time of year to kind of, it's like a little pre-spring cleaning.

A passing off, a casting off of the stinky shoe into, we're gonna get some new shoes, we're gonna enter the year with clean feet. That's in the Bible. People always clean each other's fucking feet in the Bible.

That's true. Jesus, infamously, or I guess not infamously, but he was a well-known foot cleanser.

Yeah, yeah.

Famous story.

I can see how they wove all these stories into shit.

Ed, if stinky-ass shoes aren't enough to keep your Christmas demons at bay, you can always try a bowl of red bean porridge, at least in China. Their midwinter ghost story tells of an evil being, often described as the son of the ancient water god Gonggong, who died on the Wilter Solstice, or Dongxi, and became a vengeful ghost or plague demon. This malevolent spirit was said to roam on Dongxi, spreading pestilence, specifically in some versions, smallpox, among the people.

Damn.

However, this ghost had one weakness. It was terrified of red beans. According to lore, I gotta say, I gotta say, look, no one culture is better than the other. But I do think a werewolf's fear of silver bullets might top the winter ghost's destruction via red bean.

Yeah. I mean, the first Green Lantern, Alan Scott from like the golden age, his like weakness was wood. And I was like, so you're gonna just beat this guy to death with a chair, I guess.

A two by four.

Yeah.

One of the most common.

I feel like all of our weakness is wood. We're all having trouble defending ourselves against wood.

Well, according to lore first recorded in the 6th century Chronicle of Jin Shu Times, villagers discovered this ghost's aversion and thus cooked red bean porridge on the solstice to ward it off. By consuming and displaying red beans, they believe they could exercise the plague spirit and prevent disease during the year's darkest days. In some tellings, people even scattered or placed red beans at their doorways to stop the ghost from entering and harming the household. The yang energy of the color red was thought to repel yin forces, a symbolic triumph of warmth and light over winter's yin darkness. I think perhaps what was going on here was just if you were eating healthy porridge during the winter, you were less likely to get sick.

Yeah, probably. It's like the fucking chicken soup for the soul or whatever, or just chicken soup in general where it's something about like, is it the chicken soup that's making you better, or is it the warmth opening the pores or some shit? There's a physiological reaction to being over warm and drinking warm stuff. I don't know exactly, but whatever keeps your demons away.

Well, this practice caught on. Later dynastic records and folklore collections continue to mention the practice. King-era scholars remarked that making red bean porridge on winter solstice to dispel evil was a well-known Jingxiu custom. By the Tang and Song dynasties, Zhangzhi was widely celebrated with various foods, dumplings, tangjian, I think that's how you pronounce it, and the like. But in southern Chinese locales, the red bean porridge persisted as a folk rite. I found one account published as recently as 2018 that notes in parts of South China on winter solstice, quote, the whole family gets together to have a meal made of red bean and glutinous rice to drive away ghosts and other evil things.

That's nice. I think there's something about the New Year's like lentil or like on the winter solstices, like Italians have like lentil or something. I think there's-

I'd love to try red bean porridge. It sounds good.

Yeah, but it also might have, the birthplace of it is like, what are we growing too much of, you know? Like, what's that thing with the America's largest buyer of kale was Pizza Hut, and the kale was just used on like the buffet between the things, like as a garnish, so you didn't see the like plastic table bottom. And then I imagine-

Yeah, I think for a long time, I didn't know you could eat kale.

No, I think it's hard as shit. And I think they used it as like fucking garnish, and then Pizza Hut's I think maybe weren't as prevalent as they once were, and the kale, people were probably like, fuck, we're not selling nearly as much kale. We better start telling people it's super healthy for you or something. It might be like that, which is like, yeah, we're not moving any red beans. We better tell you that if you don't buy these red beans, your family's gonna be eaten by a demon.

Oh, so you think maybe this was another, yet another commercial corruption-

I'm not saying, I'm just thinking that perhaps-

You're not saying, you're just speculating.

I'm speculating that perhaps more times than we would like to admit, things are probably invented because of surplus.

I buy it, I buy it.

That's what they're hoping you would do.

I have a surplus of believing the things that Ed tells me.

So- There you go, baby, love it.

Stories of strange, supernatural Christmas beings aren't just contained to countries with cold climates either.

Did you say Christmas beans?

Beings. Beings, my friend.

Oh, man, I thought we were going to get another beans story.

No, not another beans story. I found a story from Liberia in West Africa, where children traditionally grow up hearing about Old Man Baika, a folk figure associated with Christmas Eve. Unlike these previous creatures, Old Man Baika is not a ghost exactly. He's more of like a legendary wandering old man. Some people call him a local Santa variant, but his role is more cautionary. And I think, interestingly, it's more about being given gifts as opposed to handing them out.

OK, I like to hear it.

An article in Atlas Obscura expands on Old Man Baika's mythology, saying that, quote, unlike Santa Claus, who gives presents, Old Man Baika goes from house to house asking for money and gifts for himself.

Oh, I take it back. I misunderstood what his position was.

Well, no, I think this is going to a good place. So listen, in place of shiny boots and a red jacket trimmed with white fur, Old Man Baika wears old clothes. Sometimes he'll have a fake beard on or he'll have a mask on his face. And these costumes vary. Some wear baggy old clothes and masks. Others travel on stilts or covered in straw. They are always, though, followed by the sounds of traditional drums. Parents would invoke Old Man Baika to encourage generosity during the season. If you were greedy and didn't share your riches with the community, Old Man Baika might appear at your door, chastising you through stories. Again, while not really a ghost per se, the name Baika in some local languages connotes a mysterious or scary man akin to a boogeyman. I found an article written by Max Bankol-Jarrett, a Liberian-born journalist who wrote about Old Man Baika for NPR in 2015. Quote, what scared the living daylights out of me at Christmas were the traditional so-called dancing devils that came out during that time to dance in return for payments or gifts. They were always larger than any human beings I had ever seen. Some were as tall as 10 feet and some as wide as three men. In retrospect, I think they used stilts. They were covered in piles. This guy is an investigative journalist on the beat. He's figured out the trick.

Yeah, on the bean, some would say, this time of year.

On the bean, some would say. These dancing demons were covered in piles and piles of brown raffia straw. According to Jarrett, quote, their arrival was heralded by drumming and the commotion of the entourage that followed them. And they moved. Wow, how did they move? Fast and always to the beat of the drummers, at times darting towards someone in the gathered crowd. They were indeed awesome in the literal sense of the word. He sums up this entire old man, Becca dancing devil's tradition up in a way that I think illustrates it pretty well. He says, where in the West would you ever have a situation where Santa turns up during Christmas week with a mob of rowdy musicians in tow, knocks loudly on your front door, says, my Christmas is on you, dances a quick Nordic jig and then sticks his hand out and waits for his dash or his holiday tip.

You see this at every stop sign in LA, the same move. Every red light, every time you're leaving Walmart.

I don't know that those are old man, Baker's in practice, but perhaps in spirit because in a way, I think old man Baker has a lot in common with Dickens ghostly Christmas tales. Just like Scrooge being taught a lesson about charity by his ghosts, old man Baker or OMB, as maybe we should start calling him, serves as a ghost of Christmas conscience. He is a folkloric figure who is half teacher, half spook and making sure that the seasonal message of charity is is being kept alive. So you know, I think the idea of Santa asking for gifts could sound greedy, but I think the idea is that you are it's a way of reminding you that it's a time to give and share and take care of others in your community.

Sure.

Which is really a lesson that I think Americans could stand to learn.

No, you're talking about we did all the fucking time. Americans are best when they're helping others and they do it a lot. And at Christmas, I think it comes up a lot. I think we do a great job. I don't think I want to help someone if they banged on my fucking door and demanded it, but other than that, happy to help.

What if he dances a little jig and has a band of rowdy musicians in tow?

They'll be dancing a jig when I'm shooting at his feet. Tell you that fucking much. Get out of here, you old man busker, whatever your name is. Creep out.

By the time the Victorian era rolled around, the idea of scary stories in the dark chilly night had fully captured their place in cultures around the world. But the kinds of stories being told during the Victorian era began to change. To my mind, they took on less of a mythic quality and took the shape more of urban legend type stories. So in one story, for example, The Open Door, a woman inside her home is provoked by a strange voice begging to be let in out of the cold. In another story, The Wondersmith, haunted wooden toys spring to life and spray children with poison. Which has not become a story that's been passed down. It's not one that I've ever heard before, although I guess maybe it influenced some of-

They had to make cuts to make it palatable.

Maybe it influenced some of Ed's least favorite movie.

I don't know, we can't say that. People will think I'm a piece of shit for not liking a garbage film.

It's pretty good, Ed, it's pretty good. One of the most famous Christmas ghost stories told and retold throughout the Victorian era is The Mistletoe Bough. I found a short and sweet version of it on a website called Burials and Beyond that I thought I would regale you with right now. So Ed, much like in Blizzard's when you cued the howling winds.

More work.

I want to hear some Christmas bells and the chatter of a party.

Okay, fine. I can do that.

Is that is that? I hear it now. I hear it now. In the early 17th century, a young girl reportedly named Anne Cope was due to be married at the house on Christmas Day. After her and her new husband took their vows and celebrated their new nuptials, it was time for Anne as a new bride to be escorted to the marital bed.

Ooh, shit.

However, before heading for the bedchamber, the young bride suggested that her and her guests play a short game of hide and seek. Anne asked for a five minute head start before her guests began the search and away she went. After her head start, the wedding guests began their hunt. They searched the house from top to bottom and found no sign of the young bride. At first, the guests assumed it to be a trick as Anne was in high spirits. However, as time passed, concern began to grow for the young girl. Her new husband was distraught when Anne wasn't found and rumors circulated that she had fled rather than spend her life with this man. Through his grief, he spent decades searching for his lost bride until 50 years after Anne's disappearance, he was in the attic of his mansion still searching for clues. And as he was knocking on some oak paneling, a hidden and previously unknown secret door opened. Inside was an elaborately carved wooden chest, and inside the chest, the skeletal remains of his long dead bride, still in her wedding dress, holding her bouquet.

Hmm, do you think that's, do you think that's?

No, no, I said the story about the toys that come alive and spray children with poison. Oh. Sounds a little bit like.

This one might be corpse bride.

This is very much the definition of a corpse bride. You've probably heard this story or some version of it before. I certainly had the the bride who locks herself in a chest while playing hide and seek is, I feel, like one of the more popular urban legends in the world. But I never knew that it was such a popular Christmas time tale at one point. That there is an entire Christmas carol called The Mistletoe Bough written about it. And then that Christmas carol was actually adapted into a short black and white movie in 1904 with the same title as the song. So in the show notes, I have put both a link to the song on YouTube and the film. If you're curious to watch or listen to-

The whole movie was on YouTube?

It's only eight minutes long.

Oh, jeez.

And there's actually an even shorter version that's cut down to like two minutes or three minutes. So you can get the highlights if you've got somewhere to be.

I'm constantly looking for stuff and I'll hear about, we'll talk about a movie in an episode and it'll be like, oh, fucking Rascal's Cupcake, 1934 or whatever. And then we'll look it up and it'll be like, Rascal's Cupcake, full movie on YouTube. Nobody's coming to take that down.

No, this is a very, very early short film based on The Christmas Carol. And it's funny, if you listen to The Christmas Carol, it sounds very Christmassy, but if you listen to the lyrics, it is the story that I just told you about a woman who dies in a chest hidden in the attic on the night of her wedding day.

Yeah, Merry Christmas, your wife's missing.

Not even Santa Claus was spared a morbid spin by Victorian era storytellers. Various tales of the jolly fat man throughout European history feature him forging alliances with all manner of villains and beasts. In one iteration, Santa teams up with the devil himself to figure out which children deserve gifts and which ones deserve punishment.

You know what? I think the mark of a great leader is...

I don't know where this is going. The mark of a great leader is 666.

Yeah, for real. What's that thing that I never do because I do all the work myself?

Delegate.

Delegate. Yeah, the mark of a great leader, he delegated that part of the list to the devil, man. He can't be checking both. That's why he checks it twice. He checks the list. He has to check it twice in case the devil put him on the list or something. He has to make sure because he outsourced that part of the list.

What he realized is he could save so much time if he delegated checking the list the second time to somebody else.

Oh, you can't do that. You got to do the final check yourself.

No. Well, he just has to check for the good kids and then he doesn't need to check it twice because Satan is checking the second time. It's sort of like how you listen to each episode to make sure that it's good and I never listen to any of the episodes.

Yeah, you've delegated it to me.

I've delegated it to you. Well, the story, the one common version, again, this is not a direct translation, this is just sort of a common version.

This is the Santa and the Devil road trip story?

Yes. It goes a little something like this. One winter night, St. Nicholas was traveling along a lonely road to deliver his charity. The snow was deep and his white horse became hopelessly bogged down in the mud and ice. Suddenly, the devil appeared from the shadows, mocking the saint's plight and demanding he turn back and abandon his mission. Instead of fleeing, St. Nicholas stood fast, invoking the power of heaven. He commanded the devil to take the horse's bridle. Bound by the saint's holy authority, the devil was powerless to resist. He was forced to pull the cart and help deliver the gifts himself.

There's a guy where he's like, why did I jump out of this shadow? You know what I mean? Like I could have waited till the next guy to fuck with. Now I'm stuck delivering shit all night. This is on me. I'm gonna change my ways.

I saw this guy come in and I thought this was just gonna be another guy with a guitar, wants to learn how to play. But nope, it is St. Nicholas himself. And from this night on, the devil was enchained to St. Nicholas, forced to accompany him every year to carry the heavy sack of coal and punish the wicked children, a job that St. Nicholas was too kind to do himself.

Oh wow, but he still fucking oversaw it. I don't want to hear. The Santa Claus Nuremberg Trail, I don't want to hear one fucking thing.

I was gonna say, but we put him up on the stand.

Yeah.

There's another version of this story that's more popular in France than England that depicts the devil figure as someone even nastier. So get this version of the story. Three young children, lost in the winter cold, knocked on the door of a butcher shop asking for shelter. The wicked butcher welcomed them in, but instead of helping them, he killed them, chopped them up and hid them in a salting barrel to hide his crime. Years later, St. Nicholas visited the shop. He placed his hand on the barrel and resurrected the children who awoke as if from a long sleep. The terrified butcher fell to his knees, begging for mercy. St. Nicholas spared his life, but issued a penance. The butcher would become his eternal servant. He would wear black robes, carry a whip and accompany the saint forever to deal with the naughty children known eternally as Peder Futard or Father Whipper.

I, he, okay, he's out of pocket in some of these stories. Like he's obsessed with indentured servitude, obsessed with it. And like, also, how well are you doing that you have more than like one salted barrel or whatever that you can just leave one for years not in use in your business? Also, do you live there? Why is Santa coming to anyone's business?

But also, what the fuck is St. Nick thinking? This, this is a guy who loves chopping up kids into pieces and hurting them. And he's like, hey, you know what? How about you do more of that? You, you want a chance to whip kids for eternity? Come on and work for me.

I guess you try and find someone who won't quit right away. So you gotta get somebody who's a little into it.

You want someone who's gonna put their heart into it.

And also for all we know, how many kids is he saving on these here streets? By letting this guy have the whipping outlet where he doesn't become fully bent up enough to chop?

I guess, I guess, I don't know.

It's not like I need to chop because once a year he vents with whips. I'm not team this guy. I'm just trying to see why St. Nick, like what's St. Nick gonna say on the stand? You know what I mean? I don't know.

I honestly, St. Nick, like I see maybe giving the devil a position because you're too fucking lazy to do some of this yourself.

And he's omnipotent enough to like know all the kids.

Yeah, but to just give a literal butcher of children a gig on your sleigh, on your sleigh.

Oh shit, they sleigh kids.

On your sleigh.

They sleigh them in the way that, not in the modern parlance, in the way of Jack the Ripper.

Guys, it's the end of the year. We're barely hanging on.

Yeah, it's the first time I'm seeing any of this information.

Finally, I thought we'd bring this episode to a close by touching on an even more surprisingly spooky element of Victorian Christmas than their stories and songs, their Christmas cards. Because it turns out there is a dark streak running throughout the season's greetings that Victorians would send each other. As I noted earlier, Christmas cards were a brand new thing at this point in history. They weren't invented until 1843, the same year that Dickens published A Christmas Carol, when a prominent English educator and society member, Sir Henry Cole, commissioned the first Christmas card. This card is not weird. The card shows a... Well, here Ed, I'm going to actually... I'm going to pull this up. Take a look at this card. You can bring it up on screen. For those of you watching this podcast, you'll see the first Christmas card. I'll describe it to you in case you're not watching. Once Ed brings it up, you click this link. There you go. So, this card depicts a merry looking bunch holding glasses of wine and spirits in a house or a pub with a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you written across the bottom. Nothing strange to see, although unless possibly these glasses filled with red liquid, potentially it could be blood, which changes the tenor of this image if you imagine that's blood and not wine. But other than that, I think it looks pretty harmless.

I like that they, for the very first commissioned Christmas card of all time, they knew they had a hit on their hands because they have blanks after to and from. So they were like, oh my God, we're going to be hauling these off. We can't be writing to blank from the Johnsons. Every family in town is going to want this.

Well, you would think there are 1000 of these cards were printed, 21 of them still exist today, which is pretty cool. But according to Samantha Bradbeer, the archivist and historian for Hallmark Cards, it was an impressive first run, but these cards did not catch on right away. It actually took several decades for the exchange of holiday greeting cards to really be something that people did every year, both in England.

What year did this come out?

This was 1834, or sorry, 1843 that these...

Okay, well, you know what? It's cold in the winter. Maybe people just don't want this kind of positivity at that time. That, it's like, oh, what? A Merry Christmas and a Happy, everything sucks. Well, there's nothing merry about this. I'm working, they haven't turned on the heat in the factory in fucking a month.

Well, yeah, this definitely looks like an upper class family celebrating here. This was not something that was-

Yeah, people aren't going to catch on to spreading good shear.

I mean, if you were a peasant, I don't even know if you had an address to send and receive cards to and from.

No, you'd have to throw the card in the gutter.

And hope that it washed down to somebody down the street. You just throw a pile of them.

You don't fill out the two ever on that card. It's just to whoever finds this. Okay, real fast. Are you looking at this card still?

I am still looking at the card.

The woman is feeding a glass of wine to a baby.

Yes.

Did you say that already?

No, but that happens. That was me at Italian Christmas and Italian Easter's. They would be trying to get me to sip some of the wine.

Okay, well, it's not really a baby. I guess they're on their knees.

Well, that's what I mean. Imagine all that red liquid is blood.

It's like a toddler.

And it gets really creepy really fast.

Yeah, all right, well, you were gonna say?

I was gonna say that Katie Brown, Assistant Curator of Social History at York Castle Museum says, quote, I think it's important to understand that festive cards as we know them are very much a 20th century phenomenon. According to Brown, although some of the history is lost, designs were made to serve as conversation pieces as much as they were made to celebrate the season. Many Victorian Christmas cards became parlor art or people added them to their scrapbook collections. So what kinds of cards did Victorians like to send each other and memorialize on the walls of their home? According to an article on history.com, among the collection of dark and outlandish designs, an army of black ants is shown attacking an army of red ants with the caption, compliments of the season printed on a tiny flag.

I don't even understand that.

It's just a war of ants, of disgusting ants that have a little war flag that says, compliments of the season.

That's somebody who got commissioned to do the war of the ants, and then the guy didn't fucking pay, and so he drew a little flag in there and been like, man, fuck, maybe it'll work as a Christmas card. I don't know, I gotta do something with this, man. I made 100 of them.

history.com also tells us solid and brooding children, random lobsters and Christmas pudding with, quote, human elements in frequent appearances on Christmas cards printed in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

I stand by what I said about the first one. There's a lot of reused, someone didn't pay material in here.

I found other cards in my own deep dive. And if you want to see some of these, I linked it in the show notes. There's a couple of websites that are just like pages and pages of weird Victorian Christmas cards. But some of the highlights were a line of sparrows marching with lit torches in what looks like a precursor to like some sort of a violent mob event. There's lots of dead animals, some racist voodoo dolls, a man being attacked by a polar bear. There's one card that has old people dumping what literally might be a cold bucket of piss and shit out the window on Christmas carolers. Most relevant to this show, Ed, I wanted to bring this image up for the viewers. I encourage you, if you are not viewing this, to go look up this image in the show notes.

Oh my Lord in heaven.

This is my favorite Christmas card. This is an image of a murderous frog stabbing and robbing another frog with the words, a Merry Christmas to you written across the bottom of the card.

Yeah, and not only that, the one who has stabbed the frog is making off with a cartoonish bag of loot that has like $2,000 on it or something. Not dollars, but $2,000 of your currency.

$2,000 somethings, yes. Also notably the stabbed, bleeding, dying frog on the ground. The naked one? It's fully nude, but the other-

We know this to be true because the other one's wearing clothes.

Yeah, the other one has like some sort of a vest perhaps and blue pants.

Yeah, but maybe it's like a bad person thing where it's like how after eating from the Tree of Knowledge, like they knew they were naked and they were ashamed and eaten. And so maybe like the pure frog is nude because he's pure, and then the villainous frog has such shame, they have to wear clothes.

No, I think this motherfucker just stole his clothes.

Yeah, he wrapped that up in his shirt. He wrapped those coins up in his shirt.

I think he was jealous of the drip that this other frog had.

I think again, this is another clear example of somebody didn't pay for this, you know, stripped frog murder.

But who would have asked for this to begin with?

I think someone who's just fucking cool.

I guess.

Like this is Mr. Toad's real wild ride.

This is Mr. Toad's rock bottom. This is what we're missing here.

Yeah, this dude looks so in the gutter that he should have a different Victoria Christmas card like in his hand.

Yeah, it's terrible.

It's like a Merry Christmas to you from fucking Diagon Alley or whatever the hell that fucked up part of Harry Potter is.

I don't know any Harry Potter.

Ed is thinking of Nocturne Alley.

It would be crazy if we did have bad neighborhood Christmas cards, like a Merry Christmas from Kensington Street and it's just this type of shit.

I mean, yeah, these types of cards have fallen out of favor with, I guess, good reason, you know, amongst the explanations.

There's blood pouring out of this frog. I would say that's pretty good reason.

There's all kinds of theories as to like what folk customs influence the design of these cards. Some of the, there's a lot of bird imagery, both dead birds and living birds and violent birds. One author points out that robins and wrens were considered sacred species in British folklore. So images of these dead birds on Christmas cards may have elicited Victorian sympathy and possibly reference common stories of poor children freezing to death around Christmas. My God. Other people believe that just the cultural interests at the time in fairies and secret places and strange creatures may have had something to do with the popularity of these of these bizarro Christmas cards. But honestly, I think to me, it's just it's like a weird trend. It's like these bizarro cards became a I think that idea that they were sort of a centerpiece of conversation is what makes the most sense to me. And every year they just tried to kind of outdo each other. Right? Like if you're going to spend the money to send somebody an image in the mail at that time, why not make it the craziest shit they've ever seen?

Yeah, I guess it's true. It's true. I mean, I guess if you got the money, if you're a patron to the arts, I mean, this is a funny card to receive today. Like if you receive this today, you'd be like, this is hilarious. And I have to imagine.

We have a PO box, guys.

Yeah, fucking PO box. It's on the website. The, I forgot what I was going to say, because I'm looking at this fucking piece of art right now and I'm lost in it. Yeah, I mean, I have to imagine. Yeah, even today, this would be funny. So I bet you back then, they were exactly the same as us.

Yeah, I think that.

I mean, they had like religious things and they lived in trash and they died every winter, but they probably still were like, oh, this shit's funny as hell. Look at this frog. How small was that knife, you think? You know what I mean? And now they're talking.

I mean, let's be real. This is essentially the same kind of image that people are just using AI to create now.

Oh my God. Yeah, probably. And this also looks like it could be a meme, a million percent.

Yeah.

Like you could just remove a Merry Christmas to you and put like, oh man, no Christmas bonus this year. Look at our boss stabbed us and took our money, essentially. Jelly of the Month Club.

I think that's a good place to leave it, Ed. So this is obviously a bit of a tough one to put on the fear tier, but.

Maybe we should start doing no fear tier at Christmas.

Well, I think so.

The only thing in this story that I'm afraid of is fucking Santa Claus.

Where would you put Scary Santa and his devilish companions on your fear tier?

If I see feet coming down the chimney this year, I'm putting it at a 10. Because I know he's coming to make me do a job for 100 years.

I'm afraid that you're a Cansa Carolla.

Oh, yes, true. I might be a Cansa Carolla. I might be that.

You got to put your feet to the fire and find out.

I have a milestone birthday coming up. That might be the one where I transform.

It could be.

We don't know. So many of the rules have been lost at time.

We need to make sure that you are in an oven around midnight on Christmas Eve just in case.

Hell yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. Anything to get warm.

I'm gonna put Christmas Ghost Stories at a two on my fear tier just to give it a rating. It's very low, although I'm sure there are some very freaky Christmas tales out there. And if you have one, please email it to us. We might share it in a future episode.

Also, let us know if you've ever shared Christmas stories at, or ghost stories at Christmas. Like let us know if your family ever, since ever in the modern era have ever done it. We'd love to know.

I'd love to know. I'd also love it if you follow our Patreon, patreon.com/scaredallthetimepodcast. I'd love it.

You can feel like the person who commissioned this frog art.

I'd love it if you leave us a five star review that we can read on a future podcast. And more than anything, I would love for all of you out there to have the merriest of Christmases, the happiest of Hanukkas, the coolest of Kwanzaas, the best of Boxing Days, the most excitable Epiphany Day on January 6th.

I'm sure we're forgetting a few Festivus, the most fantastic Festivus, the happiest of Secret Foot Day, the best Spoon Licking Day, 12 days of fucking geese. I don't know, we didn't do enough research, but let's hope the eggnog doesn't kill either of us.

And let's all wish Ed a very happy birthday. Well, this comes out the day after his birthday. So in your head.

You already missed it, you fucking losers.

But yeah, we love you guys. This is our last episode for the year. We will see you guys for New Fears Eve on December 31st to truly close out the year together. But until then, I'm Chris Cullari.

And I'm Ed Voccola.

The show, as always, now and forever more, is Scared All The Time. And we will see you in the New Year.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Scared All The Time is co-produced by Chris Cullari and Ed Voccola.

Written by Chris Cullari.

Edited by Ed Voccola.

Additional support and keeper of sanity is Tess Feifel.

Our theme song is the track Scared by Perpetual Stew.

And Mr. Disclaimer is...

And just a reminder, you can now support the podcast on Patreon. You can get all kinds of cool shit in return. Depending on the tier you choose, we'll be offering everything from ad-free episodes, producer credits, exclusive access and exclusive merch.

So go sign up for a Patreon at scaredallthetimepodcast.com.

Don't worry, whole Scaredycats welcome.

No part of this show can be reproduced anywhere without permission. Copyrighted Astonishing Legends production.

Tonight, we are in this together.

Together. Together.

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