Something You Should Know
The Origins of Christmas Traditions & A Simple Way to Achieve Important Goals
Thu, 05 Dec 2024
You know what stops a lot of people from asking their boss for a raise? It’s worrying about what the boss will think of them – just because they asked. Will he or she think of you as greedy, ungrateful or what? If you have ever thought that way, you need to hear something interesting from a top negotiation expert. Source: Michael Wheeler author of The Art of Negotiation (https://amzn.to/4g4yb4c). The holiday season is full of rituals and traditions. We have Christmas trees, ornaments, food, songs, Christmas cards, mistletoe and the list goes on. Here to reveal the origins of some of your favorite Christmas traditions is James Cooper. He has a wonderful website that will answer just about any Christmas related question you could possibly have. The website is www.WhyChristmas.com. Before you check out his website though, listen to our conversation. Having and setting goals is easy. Reaching them is something else. It seems most people never achieve the goals they set for themselves according to my guest Dr. Michelle Rozen . She is a much sought-after speaker on leadership, motivation, and change. She is a Huffington Post contributor, and a frequent guest on media outlets such as NBC, ABC, FOX News, and CNN. and she author of the book, The 6% Club: Unlock the Secret to Achieving Any Goal and Thriving in Business and Life (https://amzn.to/3Z3kgEp). Listen as she reveals what it takes to achieve important goals – and it is a lot easier than people think. “Sit up straight!” You have heard that all your life. Yet, sitting up straight may not be so great for your back. Listen as I explain what many doctors believe to be the better way to sit. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/57654.php PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! INDEED: Get a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING Support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms & conditions apply. AURA: Save on the perfect gift by visiting https://AuraFrames.com to get $35-off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames by using promo code SOMETHING at checkout! SHOPIFY: Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk . Go to SHOPIFY.com/sysk to grow your business – no matter what stage you’re in! MINT MOBILE: Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at https://MintMobile.com/something! $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. HERS: Hers is changing women's healthcare by providing access to GLP-1 weekly injections with the same active ingredient as Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as oral medication kits. Start your free online visit today at https://forhers.com/sysk DELL: Dell Technologies’ Cyber Monday event is live and if you've been waiting for an AI-ready PC, this is their biggest sale of the year! Shop now at https://Dell.com/deals Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why do people hesitate to ask for a raise?
Hi, here's a question for you. I think this has probably happened to everyone. You get your nerve up to go walk into the boss's office to ask for a raise, and then you chicken out. You don't go through with it. Well, why? Well, for one reason, who wants to be turned down? Nobody likes hearing no when you ask for a raise. But also, I bet you wondered about your reputation.
What will the boss think of you for asking? Will he or she lose respect or think you're greedy? Apparently not, according to Michael Wheeler. He's author of a book called The Art of Negotiation.
He says there's a lot of research that shows that when you ask people after a negotiation how they feel about the person they just negotiated with, the answer is entirely independent of the deal or the money that was negotiated. So if you're worried your boss will think less of you just for asking for a raise, that's likely not true. What's more important is how you ask.
Making your case well and being respectful is what will get you more, if there is more to get. And that is something you should know. For many of us, Christmas is the favorite holiday of the year. The Christmas season has a lot of meaning for a lot of people. It brings back memories of Christmases gone by, and maybe memories of people who are no longer part of our lives.
But the memories are wonderful. And the glue that holds this whole season and this holiday together are the traditions, the rituals, the things we do only this time of year. And joining me to talk about these traditions is James Cooper. He's a web designer by trade but has a deep love of the Christmas holiday and has a great website you'll enjoy if you are also a fan of Christmas.
The website is whychristmas.com. Hi, James. Merry Christmas. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Well, thank you for having me, Mike, and very happy Christmas. So, first of all, since we celebrate Christmas on December 25th, why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25th?
Yeah, the short answer is no one really knows. The long answer is it's complicated. I'll try and do my best to explain. You might have heard some people say it's because we took it from the Romans. That kind of doesn't really fit if you look really at the evidence. The earliest records of people trying to find out when to celebrate the birth of Christ was actually to do with his death.
Because in the early church, the early Christians, there was kind of a belief that you are important people, especially prophets. And so especially the son of God was born and died on the same day. And they were trying to work out when Jesus died. And they came up with the date.
of the 25th of March as a good consensus date because there were various dates in and around that time, but they chose the 25th of March. And it changed from the belief that you were born and died on the same day to you were conceived and died on the same day. So if you then put nine months onto the conception of Jesus being on the 25th of March, you get his birth on the 25th of December.
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Chapter 2: What are the origins of Christmas traditions?
So let's talk about Christmas ornaments, the decorations you put on your Christmas tree. Where did that tradition come from?
Okay, yeah. The earliest Christmas trees seems to have actually come from trees that were paraded around towns in the early Middle Ages as part of what were known as paradise trees or miracle trees. There were plays put on outside churches traditionally on Christmas Eve telling the story from creation up to the time of Jesus, kind of like an old version of Handel's Messiah.
basically, and to drum up support and interest in the plays. And they would carry around branches of apple trees or just dead, you know, not the fir trees as we think of them today, but branches of trees or frames of trees. And they were decorated with apples traditionally because they represented the Garden of Eden. And so the earliest trees had red apples put on them.
And then when trees became popular as an indoor custom, firstly in northern Germany, and people started decorating fir trees, they still traditionally put things like apples on them. And we have red round baubles today because when glassblowers first made decorations, they made them to look like apples because that's what people were used to putting on their trees.
And I think I saw on your website it was Woolworths, the chain of retail stores, that first started selling glass ornaments, right?
Yeah, they were the ones that sort of did the first big introduction, certainly into the States. They came over from Germany, from Bavarian glassblowers. And you also had things like gingerbread that were put on trees, shapes cut out of bits of paper, stars and angels and things like that. But yeah, the first commercial ornaments came in the way of glass blown ornaments.
And the big ones were from the Walrus.
But before that, it was all kind of handmade. You'd make it at your home and stick it on your tree kind of thing.
Yeah, indeed. But Christmas trees didn't really become a thing in the US until the 1850s onwards. Before that, you would have some of the German and Dutch immigrants that would have had trees, but they were looked on as a very unusual custom. They only came into the UK then. predominantly in the 1840s.
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Chapter 3: Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25th?
And what about holly? holly in the Middle Ages became to represent the crown of thorns that Jesus had when he died and in Scandinavia the translation can be the Christ thorn with the red berries being the blood of Christ ivy was given the symbol at the similarity of that it has to cling to something to live so Christians needs to cling to God And then wreaths came farther back from that.
Back in the Roman times, they had wreaths given at the Olympic Games and sporting events. And so they were a sign of victory. So an everlasting life because they go round and round and round. So that, again, was given a new meaning of the Christmas wreath became a symbol of everlasting life and sort of the turning of the year and things like that.
At what point did Christmas become a holiday where you give gifts to each other?
For most people, the late Victorian period. For the rich, throughout history. Back in pre-Christian times in the Saturnalia festivals, there was an element of gift-giving, but that's sometimes claimed as that's where we get gift-giving from, but it was very different to what we'd think of as gift-giving.
It was more that you would actually give a bit of greenery to someone, which I think if you rocked up with a branch of holly in your hand at someone's house this Christmas, I don't think they'd be particularly happy with it.
um so but i mean certainly royalty um wanted gifts throughout history you know it was a sign of um often your the actual your actual prosperity that you would give gifts to the royals and to people above you to try and win favor that was you you gave gifts to get something in return um you know royal favor and prestige and things it was only when um
commercial printing and commercial goods and toys especially became more widely made in the late Victorian period, that it became a holiday for everyone to exchange presents.
We're exploring some of the origins of your favorite Christmas traditions, and my guest is James Cooper. He has a website I know you'll love. It's called whychristmas.com. So, James, I remember, you know, watching one of the versions of the film A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge, the one with Alistair Sim in it. I always enjoyed that movie.
But I remember the Christmas dinner at Bob Cratchit's house the night of Christmas after Scrooge has made his transformation and all that. I noticed that there was no tree. There was no gift giving. And I remember thinking, well, that's kind of an odd Christmas scene.
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Chapter 4: How did Christmas trees become popular?
feasting and christmas holidays you had advent before christmas which was a much quieter time and a religious time after the industrial revolution when people were working in factories rather than in out in farms in towns and villages you generally had christmas off but then the bosses wanted you back at work as soon as christmas holiday was over so
You also then started to get what we associate with Christmas now happening in December. But before the sort of mid-1800s, it all happened after Christmas, between Christmas and the start of January.
So I know it's a fairly lengthy story, but I bet you're pretty good at making it shorter. Is the history of Santa Claus and how we got to the Santa we're at today from when this all started?
Sure. Well, the original Santa was a man called Nicholas, and he became St. Nicholas. And that's where we get the name Santa Claus for. That went through a few changes in its own. First of all, Nicholas...
was a bishop who lived in the fourth century in a place called myra in asia minor which is now in turkey back then it was part of greece he was a christian and he was orphaned at a fairly young age but he was very rich and he was known for his generosity and gift giving
And one of the most famous stories about Nicholas is that there was a family in the village that he lived that had three daughters and they were a very poor family and the daughters couldn't afford dowries. So that would basically mean that they couldn't get married. So the daughters would have had to go into prostitution.
So as he was a kind man, Nicholas dropped a bag full of gold either down the chimney or through the window. And if it went down the chimney, it fell into a stocking. And if it goes through the window, it fell into a pair of shoes. And you either get presents now in stockings or shoes, depending on what part of the world you live in. And he did this for the first two daughters.
And the father wondered who was given these kind gifts. And he finally caught up with St. Nicholas and told everybody about his generosity. And the story of St. Nicholas's generosity traveled around Europe, especially northern Europe, into parts of Germany, France, and especially in the Netherlands and Belgium. And St. Nicholas became known as Sinterklaas.
And in the Netherlands and Belgium and other parts of Europe, Sinterklaas is still separate from Santa, even though his name is derived from Sinterklaas, because Sinterklaas came with American settlers and Dutch American settlers over to America and Sinterklaas. English and Irish and other American settlers couldn't pronounce Sinterklaas, so they turned it into Santa Claus.
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Chapter 5: What’s the story behind Christmas gift-giving?
And he invented and introduced a new cheaper form of postage stamp. So he got a friend of his called John Horsley, an artist, to design him the first Christmas card, basically to show off that you could use this cheaper penny postal service.
It was kind of a marketing toy to show that he'd got this new way of cheaper postage and he could send out these cards to his family and friends to wish them a Merry Christmas. And it really took off from there. And then when cheaper printing came in, in the 1860s and 1870s, and the cost went even cheaper, then Christmas cards sort of blossomed around the world.
But they don't seem to be as popular today as they did, say, in the 50s or 60s or even 70s. People don't seem to send them as much.
Yeah, no, I think they're on the way out, frankly. I think five, 10 years time, Christmas cards, certainly in the UK will be a thing of the past because one, postage is so expensive these days. And two, we just have other means of communication. They were often a time when families would catch up once a year, the traditional family newsletter of what's been happening through the year.
But now we have email and WhatsApp and social media that we're in much more close communication with lots of people all over the world these days.
Oh, one more I really wanted to get you to talk about is the poinsettias, how they got mixed up in Christmas because it seems odd to me.
Yeah, again, they're an American thing because they come from Mexico. The poinsettia, it was made widely known because of a man called Joel Roberts Poinsett. And that's why we called them poinsettias. And he was the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico in 1825. He had some greenhouses on his plantations in South Carolina.
He visited Mexico and saw these interesting plants growing that were beautiful colors around Christmas. And so he got some of the plants and took them back to his plantation and grew them in South Carolina and then sent them out around America to his family and friends, kind of like early Christmas cards in a way.
He sent them to John Bartram in Philadelphia, who was a big botanical name in Philadelphia. And that's where they became. They really bloomed into popularity as a Christmas plant because they were something again with the reds and the greens that were already associated with Christmas that they just really fitted with Christmas decorations.
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Chapter 6: How did Santa Claus evolve into the character we know today?
On January 2023, I surveyed, after being so many years in the space and the field of change, I surveyed 1,000 people all over the US. And all of them, like so many of us, said, oh, yeah, I'm going to do all these amazing things. And I'm going to lose the weight. I'm going to save more money. I'll be more present with my team. I'm going to do better with my business.
I'll spend more time with my kids, whatever their goal was. And what I found out was that no matter what category, no matter what it is that those people wanted to do, 94% of the people surveyed dropped their goals within the first 60 days.
Which is a lot of goals not achieved, but those 6%, the other 6% that did achieve them, what did they do differently that allowed them to achieve their goals?
One of the things that the 6%ers do differently is they pick one goal at the time for 30 days and do only that. So rather than trying to do this and this and this and that, overwhelm your brain, drop the whole thing. They say, okay, for the next 30 days, I'm going to go to the gym every day at six o'clock. Repeat, repeat, repeat for 30 days. It automates that new behavior in the brain.
Then they pick another goal. Then they pick another. The domino effect of rather than overwhelming yourself with a lot of things, getting overwhelmed, drop the whole thing. How do you get really specific and granular and nail down those new habits one at a time every 30 days?
And in that 30 days, as I'm going through and going to the gym every day at 6 o'clock, and then on Thursday, something comes up. And now I've missed the gym because I had to go to the kids' school or something. And something happens. And then the next day, I'm thinking, well, I missed yesterday. What's another? And then what? And then what?
So think about it this way, Mike. Let's say that the beginning of the year you had, I'm just going to come up with a random number. You had 12 goals for yourself. And let's say, because you're talking about what happens if I drop the ball, which happens to so many people, because you know what? We're human. We're not machines. We're not robots. Life gets in the way.
And it can be that you couldn't go to the gym or it could be that you wanted to save this much money every month and you had this whole system or every week. And then a big expense came, something. Life happens. And so what the six percenters do differently is they say, OK, instead of saying, OK, I have 12 goals, get overwhelmed, drop the whole thing. Let's say that they have 12 goals.
They kill them one at the time, nail them one at the time. And let's say that in the course of the year, Mike, you dropped your goal. You dropped the ball on... Four things. You were still able to automate eight different new healthy behaviors in the course of the year. That's a huge amount of change. Now think about year two. Now think about year three. That's a transformation.
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Chapter 7: What is the history of Christmas cards?
Problem is, like you said, people are like, oh, you know, I was busy today. I didn't do it. I don't know if it's even going to work. But that's the goal you set for yourself. The first thing you do, you manipulate your environment. So you set a reminder on your phone every day at the same time.
545.
What do I do at 545? I transfer $5 into my savings account. And so that's how you use. It's a specific goal. It's very attainable. All you need to do is automate it. And then it becomes a habit. And then you can say, you know what? Second month, I'm going to transfer $10 into my savings account every day at 545. So you do that. And so over time, you get yourself into habits that build you.
And you can do that in every single aspect of your life. It's simple. It's specific, it's doable, and it's a lot more attainable than to say, I'm going to save so much more money this year. You know, definitely going to do it. Get overwhelmed. The brain doesn't even know what it means. Drop the whole thing. So much more attainable, so much simpler.
Well, that brings up a point about goals because people often say, well, you know, I want to have more money. I want to be healthier. There's no way to measure that you ever get there because that's not really a goal. What's more money? What's healthier? It doesn't mean anything.
Exactly. Exactly. And that's what your brain says. Your brain says, I don't know what you mean. You know, think about it this way, Mike. The brain takes about 20% of the overall body energy. So the brain is very costly to the body in terms of energy. 20% is a lot. And it's 20% just to do what you know how to do already, just to live.
Every time you ask your brain to do something different, to start a new habit, You're asking for a lot. And so your brain would prefer to do what it knows how to do already. So if you say every time, oh, yeah, I'm going to save so much more money and you don't do it. The next time you say it, your brain would say, can we just can we just do that? Can we just like drop the whole thing?
Because that's what you I have a neural pathway for that. If you want to curb your brain's tendency to pull you towards your old habits, the only way you can do that is by using what I call the law of specification, which means you get really specific and granular. Don't just say, I'm gonna save more money. Get as specific and as granular as possible. So you say, I'm gonna save $5 a day.
I'm gonna save $100 a month. I'm gonna do that every last day of the month. Whatever it is that your plan is, Be as specific and as granular as possible. Otherwise, I promise you, your brain will prefer, just for saving energy purposes, to pull you towards your old ways. And that's not what you want.
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Chapter 8: Why are poinsettias associated with Christmas?
And I said, how much do you care about it? Zero to 10. That's the zero to 10 rule. And she said, actually, four. So I said, well, that's why you're not going. It's not important enough for you. So no matter what your goal are, make sure it doesn't matter big or small. You don't owe anyone an explanation.
Make sure that it's a 10 for you, which means something that you really feel very strongly about. Because if it's not a 10 for you, you're not going to care enough to make the effort. And so you pick something that's a 10 for you. It can be big. It can be small, no matter what it is. And you go for it and you manipulate your environment. You get really specific and granular.
It's not complicated, super practical. And whatever it is that you want for yourself, go ahead and do it because it's in your hands. You don't have to be the kind of person that talks about goals, gets overwhelmed, drops the whole thing. Whatever your goals are, you can get there. You just have to use the right methodology.
There are some goals, though, that are really hard. It isn't just a matter of remembering to do it. I mean, losing weight, I mean, statistically, your chances are just so low that you will take the weight off and keep it off. Stopping smoking is really hard to do, even if you're committed to doing it. There are some where the odds are really, the deck is stacked against you.
You don't care about the statistics. You care about yourself. And whatever it is that you want to do, you can do. A lot of people stop smoking and they just decide that it's a 10 for them and they go for it. A lot of people do amazing things with weight or amazing things with health because it's a 10 for them. It doesn't matter what the... Don't look at the statistics.
It doesn't matter what other people do. And it's not a matter of remembering to do it. It's a matter of manipulating your environment to do it and being very specific. So... If you don't look to the left, don't look to the right, don't look at people on social media, don't look at the numbers, look at yourself. What do you really want to do that is really important for you right now that is a 10?
Get specific, get granular, and know that you can do it. It doesn't matter what other people can and cannot do.
What about the idea of if you have a goal of doing it, trying to achieve it along with somebody else?
that's amazing. That's wonderful. As long as that someone supports you. So there's going to be people around you. And we do talk about the people that surround you. There's going to be people around you that you will tell you that you can't do it. Well, you need to do is focus and follow the methodology and it's going to generate success. So surround yourself with people that support you.
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