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Episode 123: Words Christmas Gave Us, with Grace Tierney

Note: this is mostly an automatic transcription, lightly edited and corrected. Punctuation and formatting are not perfect.

Mark: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Endless Knot Podcast,

Aven: where the more we know,

Mark: the more we want to find out.

Aven: Tracing serendipitous connections through our lives

Mark: and across disciplines.

Aven: Hi, I'm Aven.

Mark: And I'm Mark.

Aven: And we're back. Sorry for the long silence.

Mark: As you may have noticed, we only managed to put out four episodes last season, and so I guess this counts as the first episode of Season 10. We didn't mean to take a break from the show, but last spring and summer were completely swallowed up by our move from Sudbury to Ottawa, and several related moves by parents and kids. And then settling into the new house and our new lives and routines over the fall.

Aven: If you've hung on and waited patiently, we're very grateful. And while we can't promise that we're completely back on track, we'll do our very best to get back to our once a month schedule.

Mark: We're also [00:01:00] grateful to our guest for this episode who reached out to us at the perfect time and with the perfect topic to get us back up on the podcast horse just in time for the holiday season.

Today, we're talking to Grace Tierney, the Irish author whom you might remember from her previous appearance on the show talking about her book Words the Vikings Gave Us. Now she's back with a new book, Words Christmas Gave Us.

Aven: Grace specializes in history with a humorous slant, and her fiction and non fiction has been published internationally and locally in everything from the local paper to anthologies, online media, coffee tins, and glossy magazines. She's also close to our heart, been blogging about the history of unusual words since 2009.

Mark: One last note. One of the casualties of our move appears to be our audio setup, which we unfortunately only realized as we started our interview with Grace. So the sound is not what we'd like it to be. Hopefully we'll sort this out before our next episode, but for the moment, our apologies.

It should still [00:02:00] be clear and listenable, just not nice as usual.

Aven: And with that, let's get to the interview.

 Hi, Grace, welcome to the podcast. So nice to talk to you again.

Grace: Hi, Aven, it's lovely to be here and to get talking to both of you.

Mark: And welcome back because of course we've talked to you before and you are in fact one of a very select group of people, only two, who have made a return appearance on our podcast, so welcome.

We're delighted to have you back.

Aven: That's true. I hadn't actually thought about that.

Grace: I'm delighted to be back. It's very kind that you're willing to put up with me again, so thank you for that.

Aven: Well, the other person is Paul, right? Yeah. Paul Anthony Jones, Haggard Hawks, is the other person who's been on twice.

Grace: I'm flattered. I'm very flattered by that comparison. Thank you.

Mark: You can tell, you know, what we really like talking about on this podcast. There's definitely a theme there.

Aven: We like all our guests, just for the [00:03:00] record. But it is true. People who put together delightful books of wonderful etymologies are some of our favorite people.

And that is definitely you. So the reason we're having you back on is because you do have a new book and it is a thematically appropriate one for the time of the year.

Grace: Assuming all goes well and this comes out when I intend it to come out.

Aven: Would you like to tell us a little bit about this most recent book?

Grace: Absolutely. So we've, I've done a few different themed ones and, it struck me that it would be to do a Christmas one because A, I love Christmas and B, there is plenty of history. I mean, literally. 2024 years of history about Christmas, and I, yeah, sure enough, I found some pretty old words in here, but there's some new recent coinages as well, it ended up involving quite a bit of traditions and customs and folktales and things like that as well, so it's not pure etymology, I, you know, all the words are explained, but the, the pieces ended [00:04:00] up growing as I did more research and learned more about Christmas through the ages and around the world. I couldn't resist putting the stories in. If it's a good story, it's in.

Aven: I mean, that's always the best principle, as far as I'm concerned. So yeah, it's, a book of the language of Christmas and, as you say, the various traditions and customs and a little bit beyond Christmas to some of the other winter festivals, too.

Mark: and as you point out, in fact, there's more than 2, 024 years of history, because you mentioned at several points, elements of Christmas that kind of come from before, like Saturnalia and so forth.

Grace: Absolutely. I think the one that went the furthest back was possibly Bethlehem. There's quite a long history there, which I can't off the top of my head, remember all of the details, but I'm almost certain I got back about 10, 000 years, which is probably one of the oldest ones I've gotten into any of the books.

So I was quite pleased with that.

Aven: Place names can occasionally do that, of course. They really get you going. [00:05:00] So let's start off. I mean, with the sort of regular question that someone like you is going to get asked a lot that you, I'm sure, hate, which is, so what are some of your favorite or most, well let's put it not favorite, let's say some of the more surprising either etymologies or origin stories or, you know, tales or traditions or whatever.

Are there any that stand out that you didn't know before you started to research that really, really surprised you?

Grace: yeah, I did know these two before I started, but I do find them really surprising. And, okay, so one is Vikings and one is the Tudors, but the Viking one, I in the previous book, but I had to include it because it is a Christmassy one.

So glitter goes back to the old Norse verb for glittering, which is glittra. And I just really like the idea of this, you know, rough and tough Viking, you know, fishing, hunting, doing a bit of raiding on the side. And [00:06:00] like, it's a hard life, you know, and, and we have this image of who they are and what they were like.

But they gave us the word for glitter. Like that's why we have glitter on our Christmas cards and our decorations. I just really like the idea of this, you know, big burly Viking and, you know, a festival, a music festival, he's got glitter on his cheeks. Do you know what I mean? It just gives me this image of a festival Viking.

So I love the fact that we get that from the Old Norse. The other one is tinsel. I kind of have a love hate relationship with tinsel in my own home. I don't actually allow it is a bit annoying and bits fall off it. So I'm not a huge fan. But but you know, it is sparkly. It's very Christmassy. But we have that, it's an Anglo French word Estinceller, to sparkle.

 It's fabric that's woven with metal thread, typically gold. But it's popularized by King Henry VIII because he was hugely into the idea of cloth of gold and wore a lot [00:07:00] of bling. He was a seriously blingy king and like we all know Henry VIII, he's the most famous Tudor monarch apart from possibly Queen Elizabeth I. So the idea of him and his flashy blingy clothes giving us tinsel that we now drape around the Christmas tree, just, I like the juxtaposition of that, it just amuses me.

So those, I think if I say those to people and say, Oh, we got glitter from the Vikings, that usually raises a few eyebrows, all right.

Aven: Yeah. The, beard glitter. Have you seen that? Like you talked about festival glitter.

Grace: Yes, exactly. Perfect. Yeah, exactly. That's, that's what immediately comes to my mind. Some nicely, nicely adorned Vikings. I should do that. Yeah. Mark's got the beard for it. So we'll just have to get going on that.

All right. Yeah, I, there's a, I mean, it's not really surprising how many Norse words there are in the list. given that Scandinavia is one of the places we get a number of our Christmas traditions from, but often in a more roundabout way, it [00:08:00] was a little surprising to me how many Norse words there were specifically, I mean, that didn't surprise me in the words the Viking gave us or words the sea gave us, but it is a little more surprising in the Christmas stuff that they're so prominent.

Yeah.

Aven: well, the section I think that I wanted to ask some questions about, or to have you talk a bit more about, because really my questions are just going to be transparent attempts to get you to tell us some of the stories from the book, because they're fun. That's really all I've got. But the sections on the holidays around the world and the other winter holidays, which are the sort of, I guess, perversely a little bit, the least Christmassy in some ways, because they're about other related traditions.

But I liked those sections. Are there any particular ones that you can pull out to talk about some of those other less well known to a North American or British audience?

Grace: Yeah, absolutely. I was determined to put this into the book from the very beginning, and I'm really glad that I did because as I wrote it and researched more, I started to realize there's, [00:09:00] it's sort of an odd balance of two things.

So not everybody celebrates Christmas, obviously, that's fine, but we're both united and divided by it. So we're united in the sense of what it all boils down to is family getting together and food. Right, obviously there is religion, don't get me wrong. Those are the core elements of it. And it doesn't matter whether you're celebrating in Timbuktu, or in Iceland, or in Ireland, or Canada, or wherever your listeners are listening from.

We'll all celebrate it in some way. Religious or secular, but it's united by that and yet there's a division because even an individual country or a region or sometimes even within a family, which can be quite entertaining and there will be differences of opinion about exactly what we should do and the, the one that you will always notice is when a new couple come together, There'll be an element of, Oh, but we always do X.

And [00:10:00] the other person goes, Oh, no, no, no. You couldn't possibly do it that way. We always do Y. And obviously there has to be a compromise in the negotiation. And hopefully there's no falling out or you do both or whatever. Right. So. I liked that idea of, well, it's different, but it's the same. And that really came out in the Holidays Around the World chapter.

So I was thinking in particular about there's different dates for Christmas Day for a start. I know you two know your history, and you know that that comes down to the swap between the Julian and the Gregorian calendar. So, the later date that falls in January is Christmas Day, if you're an Eastern European Christian.

Which is obviously fine, that's just history, that's how it is. It is kind of funny when you hear, oh, and today is Christmas Day in Bulgaria or whatever. And you're like, Oh, really? We're finished. It's different. That's fine. But Christmas Eve around the world. And I actually really like that. I, Christmas Eve, I particularly enjoy Christmas Eve myself and we have our own family [00:11:00] tradition.

So it's one of our favorite days over the Christmas period. But it's, you know, there'll be a lot of attending church and big feasting of some variety, but maybe different things eaten. But there's some lovely ones around the world. So in Norway, you have to hide your broom from the witches on Christmas Eve, because otherwise they're going to steal it.

They're too lazy to make their own flying broomsticks. They will steal yours, presumably enchant it and then fly away, which is the perfect crime when you think about it. Now, I do have a bit of a theory that this one was invented by Norwegian housefrows. Who basically went, Oh, no, no, no, I've done enough cleaning, please take him away, I don't want to do any more, but that's maybe says more about how little I like to sweep. Anyway, that's just my personal theory. In Finland, they have a lovely tradition and it, although Christmas is a happy time of year, people are nearly always in some way. There's somebody missing from the feast you know, you've lost somebody over time and what they do [00:12:00] is in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, The families will gather with lanterns and they go to the local graveyard and you leave a lantern. But well, presumably you take a few moments to think of your loved one and you leave the lantern. So you're looking back over this Graveyard.

Probably in the snow. It's cold. They clear the traffic so that everybody can do it. And it's all lit up with lights. And I just think that's really beautiful. So that's a really nice way of honoring the people that have gone before us. Iceland has probably the one that I would really love to introduce to Ireland and to the whole world.

you will see it on the internet and that's because it's a really good idea. So, please adopt this. This is Jólabókaflóðið. And that's basically the book flood. Okay, this goes back to World War II. And Iceland, as you may remember, is an island in the North Atlantic. Well, higher than the North Atlantic.

And it was getting its supplies by ship. And anybody that lives in Ireland and probably [00:13:00] Canada and America will remember this too. Those ships were being sunk by the U boats. An awful lot of merchant sailors from Ireland died trying to keep the food and that still going between the two continents.

So Iceland was particularly badly affected by that because it's quite isolated. And they had to ration pretty much everything, but the one thing they didn't ration was paper. So the smart Icelanders went, aha, I know what we can do for Christmas. We can exchange books because paper is not rationed. But the lovely thing is that they still do that.

So in the autumn, before Christmas, Everybody in the country gets a book catalogue in their front door. You flick through and go, oh, what would I like? And presumably hints are left for your loved ones. And on Christmas Eve, you exchange your gifts of books and everybody basically snuggles down with their families and they read their books on Christmas Eve.

And it just seems like such a peaceful way to start your Christmas. And obviously I'm pro anybody reading, because that's the way to go in life in my opinion, [00:14:00] but I really like the idea of a book flood, a literal flood of books crossing the country and everybody enjoying themselves on that evening. So I love that one.

Venezuela, they roller skate to church, which is pretty interesting. I'm not saying I'd be up for that personally, but it's different. And they clear the traffic for that one too, which is good.

Aven: Do you have any idea how that one started? I, because I read that one and I thought, no, there's gotta be a story

Grace: there, but I, I, I presumably one brave soul did it and everybody else,

Aven: or it was, yeah,

Grace: I

Aven: mean, I love it in a, in a nice warm area where it's not too hot.

Snowy on Christmas Eve. Yes, come

Grace: on, you could probably ice skate, maybe.

Aven: Yeah, well at least in theory, Ottawa's climate change is striking us. We have neither warm weather nor cold enough for ice skating on Christmas at this point.

Mark: We could roller skate.

Aven: You probably could, but let's not even discuss it.

Grace: And then, oh yeah, my final one from Iceland, which I really [00:15:00] like, are the Yule lads.

Yule is obviously in there because it's a Viking word and, anyway. Actually not Christmastime, it's Jan, so we've been slightly wrong with using that for Christmas. But anyway but they, The Yule Lads, there's 13 of them, I'm not going to attempt to pronounce the Icelandic names for them, but basically they're little troll like characters, and they play pranks on the household.

Now, they do sound a little bit like the kind of thing that a naughty child might do in the run up to Christmas, so there's one who steals the candles, One who licks the bowl, scrapes the pot, slams the door. Some of them are a little bit naughtier than that, but I, I'll go with the PG ones. But you do have to beware of their cat.

So there's a Yule cat and she apparently will eat anybody who does not get new clothes to wear on Christmas Eve. So you have to dress up smart on Christmas Eve in Iceland and read your book.

Aven: which really does sound like pretty much the ideal holiday, doesn't it? Yeah. Nice new clothes, pretty dress, and a book.

Yeah, just be careful of the cat and you'll be [00:16:00] fine. Yeah.

Mark: I quite like this Japanese practice that you mentioned, the furoshiki, of, you know, wrapping things in cloth. And I like your suggestion that we go to thrift stores or whatever and buy headscarves and wrap our presents that way. It's, I think it'd be a great idea. For one thing, I'm terrible at wrapping presents, and it sounds like it would be so much easier with

Aven: cloths.

Well, I'm sure it's not easy the way they do it. The way they do it,

Grace: probably not, no. No, genuinely, it's, you know, some Japanese origami and that are beyond me, but furoshiki is actually fairly easy to do. This was a long time ago, but somebody gave me a set of the headscarves. You know, vintage ones from thrift store or whatever, because people don't wear hard scarves as often as they used to now.

And it It's brilliant for wrapping something that's an awkward shape, you know, well, maybe not a bicycle. Okay, nothing that big but you get this sort of awkward thing You've bought a I don't know a sculpture or a vase or something like it's fine if it's a book because it's rectangular I [00:17:00] can cope with that but anything that's got pokey out bits It is perfect because you basically put it in the middle Fold over twice, tie a knot, and then tie another knot on top of it, and that's it.

And the person gets to keep the scarf, or the nice piece of fabric that you've used. So, I think it's lovely, and it's, and it's the ultimate in recyclable wrapping paper, because they can then pass that on next year to somebody else, or they can keep the scarf for themselves. It's, it's a clever idea.

Aven: I see, yes, I see that a plan is forming here.

Oh, absolutely.

Grace: Yeah, I know what to get for Christmas, Aven. Yeah.

Aven: Well, I mean, I long ago moved to as often as possible, just using reusable, like, paper bags, because that is my level of wrapping skill, is put something in a bag and stick a piece of tissue paper over top of it. Oh, perfect. And then,

Grace: look, wrapped.

If you're feeling really fancy, you can put a bow on it.

Aven: Oh, yeah, that's pretty extreme. A little too much for me. But yeah, I mean, we have a set of [00:18:00] bags that definitely circulate among the family for sure. But, but, you know, they always at some point they give up the ghost because they're only paper. So, cloth is just one step beyond.

I like it. Yeah, the ones around the world are fun because. I feel like, it's perfectly fine to look at it round and say, Oh, well, that seems like a good little custom. Maybe I'll just add that one in. I'll just pick that one up and add it to my, my own little family stuff, because, as you say, you already have to do, a new set of patterns and set of traditions when you start a new family or you move, move to a new place or whatever.

Why not just pull all the best ones from, from other, other cultures too? Absolutely,

Grace: yeah. No, do a little pick and mix, whatever you fancy yourself and put it together and then it's your Christmas. It's your way of doing it.

Aven: Yeah. Now the other section I wanted to spend a little time on before we get to food, because we're definitely going to talk about food, because that is essential to the Christmas experience.

But since you're in Ireland, you have a whole section on Ireland and the UK and I think for, you know, there are [00:19:00] some British traditions that everybody knows very well because they're the Dickens ones are the ones that have sort of shaped how Christmas tends to be thought about. Christmas. around the world.

But then there are some others that are a lot more niche, shall we say. And I wondered if you wanted to talk about some of those. The one that I quite like, and it is, it does spread around the world in some ways, but it's very particular is the mumming tradition and the hunting the wren, which is sort of related.

So maybe you could tell us a bit about those ones.

Grace: Absolutely. Well, I'm, I'm wondering, given there is a Canadian link with mumming, so have you ever come across it at all or was that new to you?

Mark: I've heard of mumming, but I've never seen it.

Aven: yeah, so we have Newfoundland friends, my family does, and I know of mumming in Newfoundland, but Newfoundlanders who move away don't usually do it when they move away, right?

Like it happens at home. I don't think there's, because you kind of need the whole community to do it. It's not really a thing that one family can take on.

Grace: No, that's [00:20:00] true because you're turning up. Yeah, yeah, no, you're probably right. You do need a bit of community buy in on that one,

Aven: right? Otherwise you really do throw off your, new neighbors.

Wait, what are you, sorry? Yes,

Grace: that's gonna confuse you, right? So I, I should name what it is then, because otherwise listeners are going, what on earth are we talking about? And mumming is a tradition in Ireland, UK, obviously Newfoundland I, and has even spread a little bit into the, U S. My suspicion is that it's actually started in Ireland definitely transferred into England.

And I think it got to Newfoundland from Wexford in Ireland, because a lot of people settled, went out from Wexford. Don't ask me the full history on that, but people have told me this is the case. Anyway. So the idea is that during the 12 days of Christmas, so from Christmas Eve right up to the 6th of January, a group of people will get together, usually friends, and they go house to house.

Now they are always disguised, and [00:21:00] traditionally here that will be with conical hats, which draw which go right down over your head. They're like, a half a yard. So they're quite tall and I guess you poke eye holes so you're not falling over your feet, but essentially this is a cone on your head.

It's hard to explain. Anyway, they arrive at your house and they will do various different things and they'll tell a few jokes and some form of a play . It's not a three act thing. There isn't an intermission. And it's quite dramatic. So there'll probably be a sword fight.

There are villains and Kings. There might be saints. There could be a political figure. So Oliver Cromwell sometimes turns up in the very unpopular in Ireland because of various different things he did. Very popular in the UK. So that's, you know, there'll be a bit of teasing and I imagine you'll tweak it locally for whatever's going on. You know, a local politician might turn up in it, for example, at the end of the performance, the people that are listening in the house, have to try and guess the identity of their visitors.

Now their visitors will nearly always [00:22:00] be known to them. So as you said, it is within the community and the identity is, is guessed. They can take their hat off and they will be invited in for some refreshments. now, Ireland being. How we are, that'll probably involve something alcoholic. So I suspect that by the time you've gone to a few houses and acquired a drink, the play might get a little bit more naughty and you're forgetting your dialogue.

have never seen this performed and I would really, really like to. I'm a huge fan of the idea of it. However it does go on. It. dates back to the 1400s but actually possibly even further back than that. There are mentions in the Annals of Ireland which were written by the monks in the 6th century.

was done at College Green in the middle of Dublin by the Trade Guild, so they're clearly related to their trade. So if you were the Wine Guild, they might do a play about Bacchus. I mean, it wasn't, some of it was quite highbrow in a way. And College Green is like literally in the middle of Dublin. So if you've ever visited and visited Trinity College, [00:23:00] the front gates of Trinity College open onto College Green.

It's a big wide open space. Now there's a number of roads that run through it now, but they're hoping to pedestrianize it. And deep down, I would love when it is pedestrianized for them to start putting on Mummer plays again, but I don't think they're going to listen, but I'd love them to. So very popular, various different areas around the country particularly Wexford as I mentioned, and even during the lockdown stages of COVID Fingal would also have a traditional area quite near to me, and they organized small groups of mummers that the one singer would One dancer and one musician and they would go out as a team of three and they would visit people that were cocooning at home for health reasons or particularly elderly and couldn't get out and they would go to them and bring them the play, which I thought was a really lovely way of Using a time of isolation, but still bringing the mumming play tradition to them.

Anyway, it got a bit too rowdy when it came over to Newfoundland, so it was fine for a while. And then this whole idea of you can go into other people's [00:24:00] houses was abused by a certain amount of ruffians, shall we say. It got well over Out of control and people were hurt. So it was quite a while, but it has made a resurgence and I'm sure it's much more sensible now.

I believe, so it's a different kettle of fish these days. And it also came into Philadelphia where it kind of merged with some Swedish traditions as well. And apparently there's records of George Washington hosting mummers at his home. So it, it did spread around the world a bit, but maybe not as much as we would like.

But it, you know, it would be amazing to see it done in, in the flesh. It would be really great. I'd be delighted if somebody turned up at my door doing it.

Aven: Yeah. Yeah. It's, caroling to a whole new level. Yeah.

Grace: It's next level caroling. Yeah,

Aven: absolutely.

Grace: Now, Hunting the Wren is somewhat similar, as you mentioned.

And the disguises are, they would have the conical hats again. So it's, but it is very much just Irish. And also the [00:25:00] Isle of Man, which is in the Irish Sea. But, you know, it would have strong links to Ireland as well. So this comes back to Saint Stephen, who's the first Christian martyr, and that's why we call the 26th of December Saint Stephen's Day that's his feast day.

So the idea is that he was on the run, he didn't want to get caught and martyred naturally, and he hid in a bush. and the wren, which is a, I don't know, do, do wren birds exist in Canada?

Aven: Oh, okay. Well, well, no, I shook my head. However, I lie. We do have wrens, and in fact, I saw one at the college recently, but it was the first time I'd ever seen one, but they're not very common.

And as you know, they're also very small, shy birds. So even when they're around, you don't see them. I did not think we had them in North America until I saw one and had to go look it up and find out that we did. So apparently we do, but I would not think that most people

 know.

Grace: I should stop and explain what a wren is then. So a wren is quite common in Ireland, probably only seen them about three or four times, and I'm quite keen at looking for birds. So they're smaller than, I was going to say [00:26:00] smaller than a robin, but your robin is a different size.

Like they're sparrow sized really. They're like a sparrow, yeah. And they have a lovely cute little tail that just sticks madly up, whereas most birds tails are kind of in line with their back. It feels sort of cocky kind of angle. That's a wren, that's how you can tell. Anyway, they're very sweet and they live in bushes.

Do whatever birds, wren birds do. But, they do live in bushes, and poor Saint Stephen, Is hiding in the bush, doesn't want to get caught by the soldiers that are hunting him down. Because he's a Christian, and they're not happy about that. So, the wren is flying in and out of the bush, it's, It's irritated by the fact that he's in there, maybe near the nest.

And of course that's spotted and it's investigated and he's caught. So hunting the Wren is revenge for the fact that the Wren betrayed the the Christian saint, which is a bit rough on the Wren in my opinion, but anyway. So the idea is the people that are taking part, again, it's a group usually friends [00:27:00] and they will have their straw masks on or their conical hats and, you know, they'll have different clothes on as well.

So. It's fairly well disguised. And they go around with a wren in a holly bush Now, tragically, in the old days, that was a real wren that they had caught and killed. Mercifully, that's not how it's done anymore. It's a small model wren, which is the way it should be. And they'll go knocking door to door looking for money or refreshment.

Their little rhyme is "the wren, the wren, the king of all birds on St. Stephen's day was caught in the furze". So, furze is gorse. It's a prickly bush type plant and the wren is known as the king of all birds from another story where he took part in a competition. They wanted to see who would be the king of the birds and they decided that the way to determine that would be to see who could fly the furthest up into the sky.

All the birds start off and they fly and one by one they drop out because they just can't take the altitude anymore, their flight muscles are tired, and the final one [00:28:00] is the eagle. But the wren has been really clever because it's such a light small bird, it has tucked itself in on the eagle's back and when the eagle falls away the wren goes even higher and becomes crowned as the king of the birds.

So at least that time it managed to win the story, but sadly when it goes after St Stephen it doesn't end quite as well. Apparently this goes massively back in time, even though it's a Christian rhyme that's taken it over, it has an earlier pagan rhyme. They believe that in Celtic times, the idea of the wren was the winter king or the winter bird, and to kill the wren meant to ensure the arrival of spring.

And quite a lot of folklore traditions have this idea of you have to kill something, you have to sacrifice something to bring this, the sunshine back, because they didn't fully know that the sunshine would come back. And the poor old Wren was the victim for it.

Aven: I think my first exposure to that story, and I didn't know all the details of it at all, I think it, it turns up in The Dark is Rising, the [00:29:00] Susan Cooper books, and it, on the first one, on the solstice.

And there's stuff about hunting the wren, but like, it's not explained. It's just a thing that gets mentioned in passing. And it's like, okay. They just have like the boys going around and singing for St. Stephen's Day or something. And I'm like, okay, sure. There's a lot of things that go on in that book that are not fully explained.

So fine. Bump it with the rest of them.

Grace: Yeah, no, you must have to skim on through that. They're wonderful stories and I didn't read those when I was a child. I never came across them. I don't know how I missed them. I read them only in the last year or two and there's lots of stuff in there and reading it as an adult you start to realize, oh, yeah, that's a thing and yeah, that's, that's a real thing.

She pulled from a

Aven: lot of Yeah, a lot of interesting story, like folklore and, and, and old, old stories to pull things together, but yeah, I didn't understand a lot of that when I was 12 in Ottawa. They did not, didn't [00:30:00] mean much to me, but then I was very used to that with, I read a lot of classic kids books when I was young that were set, you know, turn of the century, England or whatever.

And. There was the Fantasy bits, most of that I could understand. And then there was the parts that were set in the real world, which were totally mystifying to me.

Grace: Completely, totally mystifying. Narnia,

Aven: the stuff in the real world in Narnia was completely baffling to me. The stuff in Narnia made lots of sense.

The stuff in England, utterly confusing.

Grace: Those were definitely the books I grew up on as well because they would have been the ones that my mum would have read. But I think I was probably 20 before I read a book that was set in Ireland rather than in Britain. Certainly children's fiction.

Thankfully, that has all changed and we have some wonderful children's authors now, but and you know, it can be fun to read one set in different countries anyway, but yeah, you'd be reading things like Enid Blyton and, and they have staff, you know, and they all go to boarding school, and they, you know, come home for the hols, and you're kind of like, [00:31:00] What on earth is going on with these children?

And we were all fascinated by the fact that they drank ginger beer because that was just not a thing in this country at all. And so I think we badgered my mother until she finally bought some ginger beer. We tried it and went, that's revolting.

Aven: Yeah, well, it's the famous Turkish delight issue, right, which is that lots of people have only ever heard of it in Narnia and have no idea what it is and don't necessarily like it when they do finally taste it and are completely confused. Yeah,

Anyway, so I mean, I was gonna say, I am straying from things, though I suppose the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe anyway is a very Christmassy book, so that's fair.

Sure.

Grace: Sure. And does bring in plenty of early pagan pre Celtic stuff as well. So, you know,

Aven: we're

Grace: nearly on, on track, nearly. Almost on

Aven: track.

Grace: The the other tradition that I, I personally quite do is Nullag Ní Mháin. So that's, that's in Irish, and that takes place on the 6th of January.

I just, I like this as a woman. Sorry, Mark, you're going to regret the fact that I'm telling you this story. So [00:32:00] things were harder in the past. Okay. They didn't have washing machines and dishwashers and internet deliveries and all that kind of stuff. So traditionally in, in the right through advent, particularly the woman of the house or women of the house would whitewash, Everything.

So all the walls would be painted. Now I can't imagine in the run up to Christmas repainting my entire house, but you would paint your entire house. You would obviously prepare all of your food. And if you were in a farming situation, that would also involve the slaughtering and the processing of the meat, etc.

Probably make all the gifts. Now there wouldn't be as many gifts, But they would be homemade, so you might be knitting an entire jumper for somebody for Christmas, as well as repainting your house and everything else. And managing children without a tumble dryer or a washing machine, which I think deserves a medal for everybody that did that.

Anyway, so by the time you get to Christmas Day, you can imagine that the women are somewhat peeved. And rather tired. So in in recognition of all their hard work, you [00:33:00] had women's Christmas. So truly the very last day of the 12 days of Christmas, they get to have the day. One day, I'm just pointing out, they've done this all year long, but they get one day off.

And the idea is that they would, They wouldn't have to lift a finger that day the men of the house would manage to cobble together some food and look after whatever needed to be looked after on the day and the women would typically gather in one house, they wouldn't necessarily have their own, so you might go back to your grandmother's house with your sisters and your family friends and your mother and your aunts and they would all basically have a hoolie, a party and enjoy themselves and no doubt tell plenty of jokes at the expense of the menfolk and the fact that they had to do some work for one day.

But yeah, I, I really like the idea of Women's Christmas Dim. It's, always maintained its strength in the sort of southwest of the country, but it has definitely been spreading over the last, you know, Decade or so, and you will see people, you know, oh, come to our hotel and have a spa day with your girlfriends for women's [00:34:00] Christmas.

Right. It's, it's definitely spreading as a thing. And it's a lovely reminder for me that if I haven't had a chance to meet up with female friends and family over the Christmas period, then we'll make the effort to do it on the 6th of January. Mm-hmm . And it's, it's just a nice thing to do. Like, okay. It's all very family focused the rest of the time, but it's lovely to meet up with your female friends too.

Aven: I think that's a great idea. Yeah, I think in an awful lot of families still, even if the housework is more evenly distributed to a large extent, not completely, but, you know, tends to be a little bit more, I think a lot around the holidays in particular, a lot of Emotional work and the family connections work and the presence and the, you know, that stuff does still tend to be fairly gendered, not completely.

I'm not trying to make any points here, but as a general thing, and so there is still, you know, it's not like it's unneeded to have a day where you just say, okay, I'm done with all of that. All of that. I got through it. Got through it all. Succeeded. Take a little break.

Mark: Well, and now, you know, women are still doing all that work.

Plus they have jobs. Yeah, they usually, [00:35:00] exactly.

Aven: They usually also work outside the home. Yeah,

Now, I am going to ask us to talk a little bit about some point about, some etymologies, because I realized that technically we've just been focusing a lot on the stories because they're so much fun. Which is fine, but before we do that, there's one specific Irish tradition that even in the book you say is very hard to explain.

So I'm going to give you more space to explain it here. Though actually, I think your explanation was pretty clear. It made sense to me. Okay. So tell us about what is it, the late Late toy show, anyway, whatever it is.

Grace: The Late Late Toy Show, absolutely. Okay, so if anybody listening to this has any Irish heritage whatsoever, they're going to know what this is.

And they'll start laughing at this stage, the fact that I'm about to explain it to people who aren't Irish. So please bear with me. If you're actually Irish, please don't laugh at me too badly. I want to point out that this is four pages in the book and I'm not going to read out all four pages. So I have tried to summarize somewhat and hopefully I haven't lost the [00:36:00] sense of it.

Okay. So first of all, we have to go with what the Late Late Show is before we get into the Late Late Toy Show. Right? So the Late Late Show is an Irish institution It is the second longest running chat show in the entire world. The oldest one is the Tonight Show in the US and it only beats us by, I think, one year.

So it's going a long time. So our one's been running since 1962 and it's not that late in the evening. It starts at 9. 35 in the evening, but it's late, late as it was later. It's two hours long, the entire thing is live, none of it's prerecorded, it's all in front of an audience of about 200 and it does a really weird mix.

So a lot of chat shows will be basically celebrities to flog their movie or the book and that's fine. But it's a bit broader than that. So it'll do the celebrities. We mightn't quite get the Hollywood A list too often. But if they're in town, they're on the show, like they're almost met at the airport and pulled to the studio.

But we will also [00:37:00] have real life people that may have gone through a difficult time, an odd illness, or if they've, they've come to some prominence like a sports person. But we will also have politics on it as well. So you could have a show that has, I don't know, Hugh Jackman, the Taoiseach who runs the country and somebody whose child went through a terrible illness but came out the other end.

Like it's a really odd mix of interviews. So they kind of, the host has a really difficult job because A, it's live and B, they have to change horses midstream and go from something that might be quite sad to something that's more lightweight. Anyway, so that's the show. That's watched by quite a lot of people every Friday night, but that would be grownups typically because the kids would be in bed.

Not always, the older kids won't be in bed, but they're not really interested in the show that much. It tends to be adults. However, They started in 1962. 1975, one of the researchers goes, Do you know what we should do? We'll do a segment in the show about what would [00:38:00] be popular toys for boys and girls to get from Santa this year.

And it was only half an hour long and everybody really liked it. So the children didn't watch that year. They had no idea this was on. Parents were watching kind of going, Oh, I wonder would little Jimmy like that toy train or whatever. Right. But they kept expanding it in the couple of years after that, it basically snowballed and it took more and more time in the show and then they started involving children in it as well.

So they got in toy testers. So extremely lucky children. I would just like to say I've never been on the show I would really like to and everybody else my age group would kill to be on the show Because you got given the coolest toy Toys, like the really expensive stuff that your mom and dad were going, no, we can't afford that.

Right? So you get the really good toys, you got it in advance of Christmas. So before all your friends had it, and you got to bring it home and play with it. If it was Lego, you got to put the whole set together. If it [00:39:00] was a doll, you got to play with her and dress her or whatever the thing would be. And it's everything from like a soft toy bear right up to the latest PlayStation game.

Like It's not stuck in the 60s. Do you know what I mean? It is the modern stuff. And the toy testers then come on the show and they're interviewed in complete seriousness by the host about what did they think of the toy and did they like it or not. And the thing is, you can't script children.

So they will be brutally honest and they will sometimes say, No, this was stupid. That bit kept falling off. I'd say Toy executives probably watch this show with fear because if the host goes, Oh, that's not very good. Is it? Of course. Oh, look, we put the batteries in twice and they've already run down.

The parents know that toy is going to be a problem, right? but it expanded again beyond that. So nowadays you've got the toy testing and they do it for all the different age groups. So you have very small children that really have no limits, but also might refuse to talk entirely and the poor host is [00:40:00] standing there on live TV trying to cover for that, which is hilarious if you're watching it and they'll usually have some nerf guns or squirty guns that they will direct on the audience.

Who deserve it. It opens with a big massive song and dance number where the poor host, whether they can sing or dance or not, has to join in. But they are supported by literally hundreds of extremely talented children and there's some real talent. We've had brilliant people on. And real cuties as well. So, they'll do their song and dance. They'll usually do something where they'll reunite a family, maybe somebody that's been serving overseas with their peacekeepers in Lebanon or whatever. And when they come home, they'll surprise their family with the fact that they're there.

Or Irish people that have been in Australia and weren't expected home for Christmas might turn up. They're blatant about pulling on the heartstrings. And I usually cry at least once during the show. They do a charity appeal, which raises loads of money for up to a hundred children's charities around the country, which is very [00:41:00] worthy.

And they finish the show with book reviews by the children about what books they've read, which I, I enjoy. I stay up for that part. . They also have the idea of "one for everybody in the audience". So if you, again, somebody Irish, try them with this, do the "one for everybody" and see if they finish "in the audience", because it's a very well known phrase.

Basically they'll they'll produce a toy or whatever and go, Oh yes, so we, you know, this is a really nice new teddy bear. And then they'll sort of pause and look at the audience and kind of go, would you like one? It's a great cheer and they get given one. So I know there's a few shows in the States that do that as well, but it, it is nice.

But trying to be in the audience. you couldn't just sell your grandmother. You'd have to sell your entire family and your house. It's like it's a goal to get one of those those tickets and the bribery that must be involved with the people that work with them, as they call them, the elves that work on the show because everybody wants to go to this [00:42:00] show. Really nicely, they also bring the various different children of diverse needs into the studio when it's quieter and it's not going to intimidate them and they just film them really subtly so they, with the toys that are appropriate for them as well, which is really nice. So they do try to be very inclusive and as Ireland has become a bit more ethnically diverse over the last few decades, which is a good thing, they have managed to include all of that stuff in as well.

And all the gifts that they use are donated to charity after the event is finished, which is wonderful. It's a good show, right? It's entertaining, but really how it's become an institution is the fact that people have grown up with it, right? So it's the one night of the year where children are given carte blanche to eat nothing but sugar.

The host will start with we are now banning broccoli and Brussels sprouts, like, you know, get your popcorn or whatever, right? So yeah, you bring in the treats. Typically, everybody brings their blanket down to the sofa, you're in your PJs, the whole family gathers and watches [00:43:00] it, and in many cases, the parents that are watching used to watch it with their parents, do you know what I mean?

It's sort of a generational thing now that we all really want to do. Like, It's on this Friday, just heads up, which is the 6th of December. And I know that mightn't be in time for people to watch it when you, when you bring out the podcast. But but when it is on, it's shown overseas as well. So the RT player, I think usually is hard to get in other countries, but they make sure that it's available and it's freely available because lots of people from all around the world are originally from Ireland, but we've emigrated for various different reasons.

And I think that's a really nice way of doing it. So I know I have friends that live in Calgary, in Alberta, and they'll definitely be watching it. And yes, they are too old to be watching it, quite frankly, but they will be watching it. And it's lovely because then you end up that you're live tweeting or you're blogging about it.

Oh, did you see that really cute kid that was showing how to do the, they were adorable. They made me cry, you know, so people are responding in real time. It's [00:44:00] real event TV. Basically. But yeah, so that's that late, late toy show. And it's I think so far, there's only been four different presenters of it over the years, because one of the presenters did the show for 37 years.

He was a phenomenon. And as each one has come in, they've, they've been kind of like, it doesn't matter how well they do the show, the other 50 weeks of the year, the one that counts. It's the toy show. If you mess that up, the whole country will be giving you a stern look going, hang on a second now, you didn't do that right.

Yeah. So it's a uniquely Irish thing. I have never come across any other country that does it. And I, I think it's brilliant. You know, it just puts the kids at the center of the TV for one night in the year.

Aven: Wow. That sounds really lovely. Yeah.

Grace: Yeah.

Aven: I know that there's other places that have very specific TV watching traditions around Christmas, I know there's a couple of other ones like that where it, it comes from when there was only one or two TV channels and there was something that was on and it just became And they aren't necessarily anything to actually do [00:45:00] with Christmas, so at least your tradition actually has to do with Christmas.

Yeah, at least this one's

Grace: relevant. Yeah,

Aven: yeah. I know there's like, Quebec has something your mom always watched. At New Year's. At New Year's, yeah, there's a sort of year wrap up comedy sketch thing that's big with. Right.

Mark: Bye bye.

Aven: Bye bye. Yeah. So, but it's, it's very specifically Québécois and, and I know Mark's mom is Québécoise and so she watches that, but it's completely meaningless.

I mean, not only because it's in French, but also because the, the references are very specific to like Quebec cultural and political and, and social stuff going on and it's, doesn't make any sense to the rest of the world, including the rest of Canada.

Grace: And this is why I took four pages to explain this.

Aven: Yeah, these things are very localized. I've got to say that whole thing. It's, it's a weird thing about all being. In the same time zone is something I've actually always envied the UK for because when my friends in the UK watch a show, they all [00:46:00] watch the show at the same time, right? Like if it's on the BBC or it or it's a live show, and even before streaming in Canada, we have five time zones, right?

So it just never, the only thing that's ever true of is sports. which is why I think sports is a little more unifying that way because Everybody has to watch the hockey game at the same time. There's no tape delay for the hockey game, but everything else is always on at a different time.

So like when, now that we have social media, even if the show is on at the same time, that is everybody's watching the Saturday night seven o'clock show. it happens at a four hour staggered intervals. And so there's, we never all as a country watching the same event, like even like my, my UK friends on Twitter, not that I'm on Twitter anymore, but there's some political show or there'd be the archers or there'd be, and I know stuff is on tape, tape delay and stuff like that now too with streaming, but you know, these kinds of shows, like everybody sits down and watches it and you get that thing where the entire country is watching the thing at the same time. That's doesn't happen in a [00:47:00] country.

Grace: That is a real thing and that never occurred. I mean, I'm well aware there's loads of time zones over there, but that never really occurred to me before. But I think the idea of event TV, as they call it, I think that's kind of like going now because everybody's on streaming or they've pre recorded it and then they're binge watching it or whatever.

It happens now and then, but yeah, this is the, this is the annual one, which I, I quite like. I was trying to think of a way of explaining it that didn't involve making a reference to like a royal wedding.

It's not, it's not that kind of thing, you know, but it's that idea of most people, not everybody, obviously, but most people will sit down and watch it, so.

Aven: Yeah, no, no, I, I know, I think you explained it well and it does make sense to me and I mean does, yeah, that's sort of what ends up happening is the only times that ever happens to us is when it's an actual literal live event where you simply can't.

So, like, I think that's one of the reasons I find the Olympics As endearing as I do is because in Canada anyway, we get the live broadcasts, [00:48:00] doesn't matter what time of night it is, doesn't, I mean, they do a wrap up at the normal times, but even if it's in Korea and we all have to watch it at 2 o'clock in the morning, like people, people will do it because it's live and you want to watch it and so then that becomes a unified thing.

But yeah, no, I think that that kind of unifying, like, we're all going to do this thing all together. It's just a nice thing. It's a nice community, you know, where your community stretches a little bit further than your, your local. It's always really nice. All right, let's talk about food. Ha

Grace: ha ha, food. Yeah, so food, food was an interesting one to do.

I actually thought I'd get a lot more out of the food chapter than I did. But a lot of the sort of origins on the food stuff just came back to, we eat this item at Christmas because it's ready at Christmas. So chestnuts did have quite a bit in it that I wasn't aware of.

I didn't know that North America was covered in chestnut forests at one stage and that, you know, the chestnuts roasting over an open fire, all those lyrics and stuff, I didn't [00:49:00] realize, although we do have chestnut trees in Ireland, there's not a edible, generally speaking. Although I did find one near my house, so I was quite excited about that.

But yeah, so the chestnut history was interesting, but like, we eat those because they're ready about now. Brussels sprouts are ready about now. Geese and turkey are ready about now. So there seemed to be a certain level of repetition when I was going through those. but some of the older things I quite liked.

So gingerbread is quite interesting. So it's one of the ones that goes quite far back. So ginger itself is being grown 5, 000 years ago and being used in Chinese medicine. So it's, it's kind of Asian origins, but it's also in Greece 2000 years ago, you know? So it. well predates Christmas, but by the time it sort of really kicks off when we hit kind of medieval Europe and you've got ginger bread and it's more bready than what now, but basically ginger flavoured bread in Germany and English and they reckon some of the spicing is coming back with the Crusaders coming back [00:50:00] to Europe.

And then there's the idea of gingerbread figures being made at the Tudor court in, in England at the Christmas celebration. So you might be given one of, I don't know, the King of Spain is visiting, probably not because they didn't get on well with the English at the time, but say they were visiting, they would make a figure of the King of Spain and be handed the King of Spain to have a little nibble on.

And then we come forward a little bit and we get the gingerbread houses are mentioned in Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm. And the German bakers go, Oh, that's a brilliant idea. I love that idea. We should make those. So I love the fact that that popularized by a book .

But now we have kids and families making the gingerbread figures and making the gingerbread houses as we don't, you know, there's a ton of history in the whole ginger brotten type idea. So I, I liked that one. I the other one is mince pies. Now, I don't know where you, are mince pies a thing outside of the British Isles?

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Mark: Well, I think there's enough people of [00:51:00] British heritage

Aven: in Canada that In Canada, I'm a little like, it's a cheat because my dad is, well Scottish, but you know, grew up in England. So my grandmother on that side, you know, always did all the British stuff. And my mom's family is fairly British roots too, and Irish a bit.

So we always have mince pies, mince tarts, and we always have Christmas pudding. We've made our, our pudding and our Christmas cake are in the basement right now, maturing. So, you know, they're, they're wrapped. I, I became, after my grandmother, Decided she didn't want to anymore when she got older. I became the Christmas pudding maker.

So that is my particular role so that's important. And even when we were in Sudbury, we'd make them and then we'd bring them down for Christmas because we had to, we had to bring them. But will

Grace: you find, like, in the shops, will they be flooded with loads of mince pies on the shelves?

Aven: There will be some, I would say most people don't eat mince pies at Christmas.

I would, like, I would bet most households don't have them, but, you know, there's a substantial enough proportion. There [00:52:00] is Christmas cake and there is Christmas pudding.

Grace: In

Aven: the shops, but the Christmas cake I think is very much a, Oh, you have that because it's a thing people have and most people don't eat it.

We do. We make it and we like it and we eat it. In fact, the cake we make is, Christmas cake we make is the Irish whiskey cake. It's specifically, it's from a, It's, it's, I make a lighter, I don't like that. My dad makes a really old fashioned,

Grace: Really

Aven: heavy ones. With treacle, like really heavy, really dark, and I've never liked that much.

But there are

Grace: versions of that cake that you could use as an offensive weapon in a pinch.

Aven: Yeah, yeah. I would say. They're quite healthy. It's very good, but it's very, very, it's really got the dark molasses in it. And, and it's, it's not to my taste, and when I was young, my dad knew that I didn't like it.

So he always made, it's his, his grandmother's recipe. He always makes it. But he invented another Christmas cake that was a light. he used coconut cream instead of part of the butter and he put like lime zest in it and it has candied [00:53:00] pineapple, it's tropical, candied pineapple and candied mango and candied ginger and chocolate chips and cashews instead of the sort of other notes.

And it's light, you know, it doesn't have the molasses in it. So he started baking those ones. Yeah. And so that was just, just for me basically, cause I was the only one in the family who didn't like the Christmas cake. And then of course everybody else, it's. Really good and everybody likes it too. So he always makes both.

Now he has to make both of those. And then we make the Irish Christmas cake. So there's three kinds of Christmas cake in our Wow. Wow. We're really into Christmas cake. Yeah. We really like it.

Mark: But I do remember as a kid selling Christmas cakes as a choir fundraiser.

Aven: Oh yeah. Yeah. I think most people don't make them because it's, yeah, they buy them.

Probably they buy them. Most people

Mark: probably. And I remember like just. Eating a lot of them myself, because it was a reasonable breakfast. You

Aven: couldn't be bothered to, yeah, you couldn't be bothered to sell them all, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know, I mean, they've become quite a joke. I think in American, in particular, culture, like Christmas cake as a weapon, and Christmas cake as something nobody would ever actually [00:54:00] eat is sort of the, is the story now.

Our household, anyway, is quite fond of it. I've become reconciled to the older, to the dark one too. It's still not my favourite, but I, I will eat it.

Grace: Now that,

Aven: now that it being brandy soaked is a selling point, which it wasn't when I was a child, I didn't like that part of it. Now the fact that it's like a third alcohol by weight is like an important part.

So I'm, I'm, I'm on board with that. Okay, I'm starting to

Grace: understand why you like the Christmas cake so much. You've made a nice, pretty Christmas cake, but I like the sandwich. I

Aven: don't think my dad, I don't think the light, the tropical one is alcohol soaked. I don't think he, because it's quite a lot moister, and I don't think he puts anything on that one.

I can't remember, I'll have to ask him.

Grace: I bet he does. I bet you just don't know about it. Probably too.

Aven: Because it is

Grace: kind of the idea is to preserve it, of course, is to keep it going. Yeah, of course. Often covered in marzipan and that stops it drying out before you put icing on top, but anyway. However, mince [00:55:00] pies. Lots of them in the shops here, I can tell you, and they're already in the shops because I wanted to have them at my book launch in the bookstore, and I had to go hunting to try and get them but the week after, the shelves are full of them.

And most people will actually buy them rather than making their own. I mean, you absolutely can, it's not hard, but they will usually buy them. They've loads of history to them. So the first question I usually get asked about mince pies is why are they called mince pies if there's no meat in them, there's no mince meat, like they're filled with what's called mince meat, but there's no meat in it.

So that goes back to the Tudors who were very open to the idea of having meat and fruit and spices all in the one thing. So the original mince pies did have minced meat in them, but mercifully, somebody realized that that didn't actually taste that great and changed it. The spices, again, has the link back to the Crusaders, but they also have a whole load of religious symbolism and in the shape of how they are traditionally made.

So the original ones [00:56:00] wouldn't have been circular as such. most would be now. They would have been more kind of an oblong type shape and it was meant to resemble the crib or the manger from baby Jesus. And then the three spices used were meant to represent the three magi, the wise men that come to the birth of Christ.

And often they would be topped with a pastry star for the star of Bethlehem. So they tried to get as much religious symbolism into it as they possibly could. Now, then we come to our lovely Puritans who don't like Christmas very much and they were not having any of that nonsense. They probably didn't like that there was alcohol going into some of the cakes and puddings and things as well.

They wouldn't have been too keen on that too. There'd be no fun. It could only be prayer and they were in charge. So they got to set that, but people got around it, named them silent pies. Instead of mince pies and didn't mention Christmas. So of course we can eat it! But that's when they started a tradition of you should eat your mince pie in silence.

You should never speak when you're eating a mince pie. Now that's very much a British thing. I've never. I've never seen that [00:57:00] observed in Ireland and I've said it to a few Irish people and they've all just burst out laughing going but sure we usually have them when we're in friends group, and we're all talking 19 to the dozen.

And then you're telling me we shouldn't be talking while we're eating the mince pie? Are you insane? So that's not observed here. But there's also the, class thing of, Oh, you bought your mince pie in a shop. You didn't make it yourself. There would be a little, but that goes way back.

So in 1662, Samuel Pepys in his very famous diary, he was annoyed because he had to make do, poor man, with shop bought mince pies because his wife was ill at home in bed and wasn't able to bake them and he's basically whingeing that he didn't get homemade pies. Samuel was not happy.

There's also an idea that you eat one to get a luck for the first month of the year. And then if you eat two, you get it for January and February. And of course you want to go for the trifecta and have all 12, possibly [00:58:00] not in one sitting, or else you're going to be very unwell. But apparently if you eat 12 mince pies, you're going to have a whole year of good fortune.

So you guys like your mince pies and your, and your puddings and Christmas cakes. So, so enjoy, have fun this Christmas.

Aven: Yeah. I think my dad usually makes some mince pies, but we tend to have What is not a specifically Christmassy thing, but we tend to do butter tarts at Christmas ourselves, which is a Canadian thing.

Butter tarts are basically you know, pecan pie, but if you swap the pecans for raisins. And also have fewer of them. So it's, it's very sugar, like they're like a sugar pie, they're little, they're little.

Grace: A real health food. Oh yes, oh yes.

Aven: look, when it's really cold out, those things that are full of sugar and butter.

They're health food in Canada. Yeah.

Grace: Oh no no. Survival food.

Aven: Listen,

Grace: Christmas calories don't count, in my opinion, anyway.

Aven: Just to say, yeah, the butter tarts became, I mean, they're not, I don't think they're specifically Christmas thing in the country, but they are, butter tarts are across Canada, [00:59:00] people do make them and my family always makes them at Christmas because they're, they're easy.

It's just butter, sugar, an egg, and in little pastry cases, so they're, and raisins. So they're, they're very simple to make, but, and very tasty. They sound

Grace: good. They, they do sound good. I think my equivalent of that is I will always make fudge at Christmas. Not a particularly religious or Christmasy thing, but I won't make it the rest of the year because I don't do it with condensed milk, it's the full cream, butter, sugar combo. And I put it into a big saucepan and then I look at it and go, Oh my God. which I really shouldn't be eating this. I should not be making this on this. This is a really bad idea. And then I go, it's Christmas. I at a local fair Christmas market thing this morning and I bought some fudge cause it was nice.

And but a really tiny bit in comparison with how much fudge I make. And I brought it home, showed it to my, my children and they both went, Oh, you are making fudge this Christmas, aren't you? Cause there was one year when you didn't and that's. You know, that's just not good enough. [01:00:00] Yes, I'll be making the fudge.

Yeah, there's certain things that have to be done, you know.

Aven: Yeah, my view of tradition has always been if you do it once, you did it once. If you do it twice, it is a tradition and you can never not do it again, ever. So we acquire traditions quite routinely and we don't. drop them very easily. So they just kind of accrete over time.

That is the tricky

Grace: thing with Christmas particularly is very full of traditions. And where do you fall on the whole turkey versus goose versus some other central roast meat thing?

Mark: I mean, I think turkey is the norm.

Aven: Turkey is the norm here. A fair number of people do a ham. A Christmas ham is quite common too, I think.

we always do a turkey, except the year that you and I decided we were going to take over Christmas and do a, an extravagant Christmas. And we did a Christmas, we came back from, from university, we were in grad school, I think, and came back and we did a goose. and a roast beef because the trouble with goose as you know is they're not big enough [01:01:00] really for the kind of like 10 to 15 people dinners that we tend to have.

Goose is not really enough. So we did a goose and a roast beef and we did like bread sauce for the goose and like the proper trimmings for the goose but then we did the proper trimmings and and you know side dishes for the roast beef too and the standard what we normally have you know so brussels sprouts and potatoes and roast this that and the other anyway it was we only had the one oven and it was the, My dad created a spreadsheet.

It was very complicated. It was great. It was a really good dinner, but it was way over the top in terms of like the military precision of trying to get everything cooked and done. Anyway, that was the one time, but no, I would say here it's usually Turkey. I don't think, I'd say almost nobody does a goose.

Like that's, it would be, it's very unusual to, to, you have to go looking for a goose.

Mark: And of course there's the tourtiere in Quebec.

Aven: Oh yeah, so in Quebec, in Quebec you do tourtiere. But then, in Quebec, [01:02:00] like a lot of Roman Catholic countries, they're really all about Christmas Eve. So they do, they do the presents on Christmas Eve, you do dinner, and you go to Midnight Mass, and then you come home for a réveillon, you come home for a dance party.

So you sort of do fasting on Christmas Eve, and then you go to Midnight Mass, and then you come home, and the party starts after Midnight Mass, and it's a, like, cold, you put out, it's all sort of cold dishes and things, but it's traditionally lots of seafood and other, like, sort of festive foods, and you do a dance party till the wee hours.

we don't actually do that. We haven't, we've done it a couple, a little bit with your family a couple of times long ago, but, you come home and open your presence after midnight mass. Yeah, and at least in theory because of course then it's actually Christmas, but you do it at night And then you just wake up the next day late and sleep Don't do anything on Christmas Day at all

Grace: Yeah, I think that is it's a lot of it's mainly their countries that it's very much Yeah, once you've had [01:03:00] Christmas mass and it's Christmas Day Officially, ecclesiastically, so hence you can get on with having your bit of partying or whatever.

Although Christmas Eve Mass is a thing here as well, no, you're not opening your presents until Christmas Day. And, and when I grew up, there was quite a, an age gap between me and my sister. So she would have been a teenager when I was in classic, I want to get my presents, kind of age. And sadly things had moved on to be a slightly more adult Christmas.

So we didn't get our Christmas presents until after Christmas dinner and after the dishes had been washed because it was our chore to do the dishes. So typically I didn't get my presents until about five o'clock in the evening. Which I was not happy about at

Aven: all. Oh, that is a long time to wait. Yeah.

I'm not saying

Grace: I'm bitter, but

Aven: But you do remember it vividly, is what you're saying. Yeah, we're lucky because when we combine, talking about combining, you know, household traditions, Mark's mum being Québécois, always did it on Christmas Eve. And even by [01:04:00] the time you were young, you didn't go to, because you didn't go to Midnight Mass.

Mark: Normally. Most of the time. We're a bunch of family and then sometimes you

Aven: did. And so you'd actually just started opening your presents on Christmas Eve in the evening. They'd do their dinner and then they'd open it in the evening. We were very British and did Christmas morning. And so when we started celebrating together in the same city, we were able to just split it that way.

And so we still do, we do like Christmas Eve with Mark's family. And then, and so the kids get two, they get stockings on Christmas Eve, and then they get stockings again on Christmas morning with my family, and then we do Christmas morning stocking presents, and then we do our dinner, it's like an actual supper, like it's Yeah, it's turkeys.

It's, you know, seven o'clock or whatever. Not, not a mid afternoon one, but though I think in some ways that would make sense, but you must have to get up so early to start the turkey. It just, that part I don't like.

Grace: No, I don't buy into that at all. We, we eat later for that very reason because I'm not a morning person.[01:05:00]

Aven: No, well, I mean, if you're up. If you're up early because you've got small kids and you're doing your stockings and everything, fine. But you don't want to also be trying to get the turkey in the oven and the stuffing on and the, yeah, no, no. You need that little bit.

Grace: But what people eat in different countries vary quite substantially as well.

Now, I knew, obviously, there was the turkey versus goose thing because My mum always wanted turkey and dad wanted goose. And then one year we did goose and that did not end well. Because of the fat off them and they didn't and it didn't end well. Anyway, the goose was delicious, little bit char grilled, but delicious.

Anyway but and it's evolved over time and, and Dickens writing about, oh, you know, the, the, Poor old Bob Cratchit was poor and he had his goose and instead they got the prize turkey from the window, which served more people and you know, was more luxurious and that definitely helped the turkey merchants of Britain to get that to be a bit more popular, but it was coming to popularity anyway. But I was curious about the different things that people actually ate.

So [01:06:00] fish is super important for Eastern Europeans. Turkey in Britain and Ireland, fine, but also roast beef. And as you said, the Christmas ham is kind of almost seen as a side dish, but well, in our house anyway, there's a big chunk. I loved the fact that in Japan, even though it's not a particularly heavily Christian nation, because it's, it's more Shintoism.

But They eat KFC in Japan, and it's all down to one guy, one manager of a KFC unit overheard people saying, Oh, we miss having our Turkey dinner, but you know, at least there's chicken here. It's close enough kind of thing on the day. And they went, Oh, that's brilliant. We'll use that as an advertising campaign.

And all the locals all went. Oh, that looks nice. Get around with your family at this time of year and have some KFC. And now apparently it's really popular. But roast pork is quite a thing in quite a lot of the sort of more, maybe Spanish influenced nations. So the Philippines and Cuba. ideally an [01:07:00] enormous bit of roast pork, not a small pork chop, I can tell you.

And then apparently it's crab and octopus in Guam. And Spain, they might start with seafood, but their main thing would be roast lamb or again, roast pork. So, I think it's a lot of the food at Christmas. It's, whatever you see as being a little bit special and whatever is available in your area and at that time of year.

So, yeah, it's all very seasonal. It's, quite good for the environment that we're all eating seasonal food and most of it, when you take all the sugary bits out, which of course we don't want to take out, but but if you actually stuck to the sort of standard Christmas plate of your veg and your bit of meat or whatever, it's quite a healthy dinner.

Aven: Yeah, there's really nothing, there's nothing bizarre about it. It's just a Sunday roast, but fancier, basically, or extra side dishes, you know, yeah, a few more things.

Grace: Oh, did I did I mention about the Yule hole? I love this idea. I know it's only a tiny bit in the book, but this is, you know, the holes in your belt? Oh, right, yes. So, [01:08:00] the Yule hole is the extra notch that you have to loosen your belt to after you've had your Christmas dinner.

And basically, if you haven't deployed the Yule hole, then you have not done Christmas right.

Mark: Yeah, exactly. I'm just going to have to make sure that I'm not already using the Yule hole. Before Christmas starts, so I need to, you know, take a few weeks to prepare there.

Aven: Yeah, it's making, making space in a very literal way for the Christmas excesses. Yeah, I think maybe. And we could just go on, but I think we need to leave reasons for people to get the book, because if we tell all the stories from the book, then there won't be any reason for people to get it. So let everyone know that this is a mere sampling, a mere amuse bouche of what is in the book.

There is tons more.

Mark: So as, as you are planning, For your book Flood? Yes. We can highly recommend this particular book for, for the, for the season.

Grace: [01:09:00] Mm-hmm .

Aven: and as I said, we kind of stuck to a lot of the stories because they're fun. But there is lots for those of our listeners who are very into the etymology specifically, it is still focused around the word origins and where the words come from, but also why these things are associated with Christmas.

That's where the, the stories come in. I know, but yeah. Unless there's anything else you wanted to, you know, finish off on,

Grace: Well, you did ask me at one stage, were there any things that I busted wide open in terms of mythical stuff? Oh yeah, yes. And I, I had quite a bit of fun doing that, section in the book.

 It's scattered through it as I discovered things. And, and sometimes there were things I already knew, but a lot of the time, I didn't. I was surprised first and, and now I'm passing it on to the readers. So the one which always sort of slightly is that nobody gets Advent right. Yes.

So bear with me religious for a second. Now the whole book isn't religious by any means, but an awful lot of people think that Advent is 24 days and it's not at all, [01:10:00] not even close. so it started as a period of fasting to prepare for baptisms. And it would have been 40 days, which obviously comes from 40 days in the desert and has religious connotations.

But nowadays, technically it will start on the first Sunday of Advent, which is four weeks before Christmas. So depending on when Christmas falls within the year, it'll be about 28 days, but it could be slightly less, could be slightly more, which means that your Advent calendar should never be 1 to 24.

But equally, you can't predict how long it should be. So I can understand why the shops make them in 1 to 24. But even worse is some of them run 1 to 25. And you shouldn't be doing that either because Advent is literally preparation. In the same way that Lent is preparation for Easter, Advent is preparing for Christmas.

So 25th, you're on Christmas, that's not Advent anymore. However, so long as it's filled with chocolate, I, you know, I'll take a pass. You know, I'll go with that. X mas is kind of a funny one because A lot of [01:11:00] people really don't like Xmas, and you may well have covered this. I know you've a really good YouTube video about because I, I did, I didn't watch it before I read the, before I wrote the book because I was afraid of copying, but I watched it afterwards and went, great, they hit all the same stuff I hit.

So apparently it's outlawed in the style guides for the New York Times, the Guardian newspaper in the UK, the BBC and the Cambridge guide to Australian English. So a New Hampshire governor even declared it to be pagan in 1977 and told journalists that they weren't allowed to use it. I mean, it really, people are down on the whole thing, but the thing is, it's not pagan at all.

It was used from early Christian times onwards because the letter X was used as a symbol to show their faith when it was dangerous for them to be openly Christian. And it's actually the English symbol for Chi, I wish I could pronounce Chi, it's the, it's the Greek letter. And it's the first letter in the word for Christ or Christos in Greek.

So, It's very famously one particular page in the Book of Kells It's an illuminated manuscript on display in Trinity College in Dublin. It's quite famous and [01:12:00] it's the Chi-Rho page and it's those two letters together. It's beautiful. But it's also in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles in the 1100s and in the 1600s you could say X-anity instead of Christianity.

It's being used as like a substitute for the word Christ. Obviously that's not used anymore. But basically calling Christmas X mas goes back 1700 years. It's very much not pagan. It's very Christian. It's not a modern abomination and yes you can use it. So, I know that could be a bit controversial, people really don't like X mas, but it is okay.

That was my myth buster on that one. And my last two are More child focused. So first of all, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. We're a big fan of Rudolph and the book is completely Santa safe, by the way, for anybody that's worried about that. Because we do believe. Rudolph is a girl which was a shocker to me, I have to say, and all of the reindeers that helped Santa with the [01:13:00] sleigh are all girls, they're not boys, because by that point, oh yeah, you're nodding because you probably know a little bit about Caribou and that kind of thing, up in, in, in the frozen north But yeah, because the only ones at Christmas time that would have antlers, the men have them while they're battling for a mate and getting a girlfriend, and then they just drop them.

The females keep them because they use them to clear off the snow to find food. And also, Jingle Bells is not a Christmas song. Now that one really surprised me. So Christmas isn't mentioned in the song at all. And the later lyrics are actually quite hilarious and worth googling. There is a high speed sleigh crash and quite, quite a bit of maybe not particularly PG activity going on in the end of Jingle Bells, and yet it's a super popular song. If you, if you ask any kid here to sing your Christmas song, the very first one they're going to sing is Jingle Bells, but yet it's not a Christmas song. So yeah, there's, there's plenty of [01:14:00] surprises in the book as well.

Yeah,

Aven: All right. Well, on that note, it's a delightful book. Well done again. Really enjoyed it. And thanks so much for sharing it with us. And I hope that, yeah, so we're recording this for listeners on December 1st.

We have started opening our Advent calendars. It is technically also an Advent Sunday, so I suppose it's, it's not so bad, but, okay, but we will, we've got our tree upstairs that's been set up, but needs to be decorated. We're going to go decorate it this afternoon. So we're well into our Christmas mode now.

And My intention is to have this out fairly soon, so I hope the listeners are also prepping for Christmas if you celebrate it, or for every other wintery holiday, many of which are also covered. In this book, just for the record, if anyone is interested in acquiring the book, we will put all the links in our description, but any specifics about where people should best go to find it if they want it?[01:15:00]

Grace: Well, the, the best way to find it is via my blog. Which is wordfoolery. wordpress. com. So wordfoolery is kind of my, my alter ego. A little jester, a little jester character on the side of the book. That's, that's meant to be me, I guess. Because I fool around with words every Monday and do another unusual word history every Monday.

So there's a, my books page on the blog and it's got all of the links because everybody likes it. different retailers, and it's great to support local bookshops as well. So for those don't have connections to the Canadian bookstores, you might have to go online to get a copy, but it's, it's in eBooks for Kindle paperback and hardback which is my, my first ever hardback.

I was saying to Aven earlier that I really liked it in hardback. It's a, it's a nice gift, but but yeah, if you find your way to wordfoolery at all, so wordfoolery. wordpress. com and it has all of the links on it. Excellent.

Aven: Well, so nice to catch up with you and it was really lovely to have a chance to chat.

Good luck with this and whatever you turn to next.

Grace: Ah, the [01:16:00] plans are already afoot. There's a half a book already drafted of other words, so be warned, I'll be back. I'll be bringing storms and snow and icicles and the billion, billion words for rain. In Scots English and in Hiberno English. Turns out we have a lot of rain words.

But I imagine I'll have a few snowy ones too after watching, after doing the Christmas book. But yeah, I'm in full weather mode now.

Mark: Well, you may just have to be a three peat guest on the podcast.

Grace: I keep coming up with stories and you keep letting me on.

Aven: I think it's a good, mutually beneficial relationship, shall we say.

Grace: Oh, and before we finish, I have to say happy Christmas to you both and to anybody that's listening.

Aven: Oh, of course. Of course. Merry Christmas to you. And yes, we'll be, seeing you online and wherever we all turn up these days now that the world of online social media is so much more complicated, but I'm sure we'll find each other.

And thanks

Grace: [01:17:00] again. You're very welcome. And it's really nice to be on. Thanks a lot.

Aven: For more information on this podcast, check out our website, www.alliterative.net, where you can find links to the videos, blog posts, sources and credits, and all our contact info.

Mark: And please check out our Patreon where you can pledge to support this show and our video project. You can go directly to the videos at youtube.com/alliterative.

Aven: Our email is on the website, but the easiest way to get in touch with us is Twitter. I'm at @AvenSarah, A V E N S A R A H,

Mark: and I'm @alliterative. To keep up with the podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcast app or to the feed on the website.

Aven: And if you've enjoyed it, consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

It helps us a lot.

We'll be back soon with more musings about the connections around us. Thanks for listening.

Mark: Bye.