Welcome to the end of 2024 and our annual Christmas Extravaganza episode, brought to you ad-free for you listening pleasure. Please pour a hot toddy and enjoy around the fir tree of your choosing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the focus of the 2024 Christmas Extravaganza?
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's trying to come, but she's had car trouble, I guess. Either way, she's here in spirit, the Christmas spirit, and this is Stuff You Should Know.
That's right. The holiday spectacular, and a couple of traditions here, is that this episode is brought to you ad-free, and also... Exactly. By us. And then also we have managed to work it out. I don't know about every year, but it seems like every year where this is the last episode that we record of our recording year. And it's so great and so fun to wind it down this way.
It's such a special tradition. And Chuck, I'm really excited about this particular one because this is a good combination, a good assemblage of stuff, I guess you could say. But add some holly to that.
Yeah. And I also realized when you sent your stuff over, I was like, hey, we kind of have a theme for one of yours and one of mine. Yeah. Which is, you know, like sugary confections from different parts of the world. Right. So those are kind of fun. Maybe we should do those back to back.
Okay. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. And then also we have another theme, movies. Oh, yeah. Or Christmas specials. I don't know. However you want to put it.
That's right.
Why not?
I think you should announce what's going on to everybody.
Yeah, so what's happening is we usually try and source some sort of a holiday cocktail and tell you how to make it. Sometimes we make it and have it on our own. And this year, we had someone send in a holiday cocktail. A few months ago, we got an email from somebody named Holly Eitenmiller.
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Chapter 2: What is Grandma's Christmas Breath cocktail?
I think you nailed it.
And this is a drink that Holly invented called, hang on to your hats here, Grandma's Christmas Breath.
That's so great. One thing I've noticed when you look around and read Christmas stuff and try to find Christmas stuff, grandma is almost invariably portrayed as a drunk.
Oh, I didn't really, I wasn't sure what the breath would be, but I guess boozy breath. That makes sense.
Boozy breath. Yeah. Like I found a recipe for something or other. It was like grandma's version. It has like whiskey and rum in it. Yeah. Everybody's grandma gets drunk apparently on Christmas.
Well, our dear departed Grandma Mary, Emily's grandmother, who was the senior general in the stuff you shoot in Army, who passed away at the ripe old age of 101. That's awesome. When she was in her 90s, like around Christmas, she would have a little Bailey's in her coffee.
Oh, yeah.
Just to touch every now and then.
A little Christmas Irie.
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Chapter 3: How do you play Dirty Santa?
Okay. Oh, poor Holly. Her Christmas dreams have just been dashed.
No, it's not bad. I mean, it's orangey because the Grand Marnier and the orange juice, obviously.
Right.
And it's not bad. I mean, it's definitely like a festive holiday drink. I would not recommend more than one of them. Oh, is it pretty boozy? I mean, it's pretty just sort of sweet. Thanks on your tolerance for sweet drinks.
Is that rum really coming through or is it getting missed in the orange?
It could probably come through a little bit more. So I could probably add a little less orange juice if there were to be a next time.
Or you could add more rum. Well, let's not get carried away here. Okay. Well, I say we move on. Speaking of carried away, let's carry ourselves away to the next segment. Yeah. And as per Christmas tradition, holiday show tradition, Jerry's going to add some really nice Christmassy interstitial music. So take it away, Jerry.
All right, Chuck. How are you feeling? Good. And big thanks to Holly again for this drink.
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Chapter 4: What are the origins of the White Elephant game?
Yeah. So we're going to teach everybody how to play Dirty Santa next. We're doing that with an assist from Nella Bailey McGough. I'm pretty sure that's how you'd say her last name, from Southern Living, who wrote a pretty top-notch article on how to play this, why to play it. And they even turned up the origin of the name, because it's got a bunch of different names.
White Elephant, apparently in the South, were the ones who typically call it Dirty Santa.
Never heard of that.
You've never heard of Dirty Santa? That's all I've ever heard of. Well, aside from White Elephant.
I've only heard White Elephant. Interesting.
What about Yankee Swap? That one's new to me.
No, never heard that one. I've only heard White Elephant when it comes to this kind of game.
Okay, well, I've heard Dirty Santa and White Elephant, but regardless, the White Elephant name seems to be the traditional name for this, which is, it's kind of like, it's a party game. You would play it like your holiday party. And in the spirit, basically, of Secret Santa, where everybody gives somebody else a gift anonymously, and then the person tries to guess who gave it to them.
It's very nice and sweet. This is not, well, it's not supposed to be mean or anything like that, but there's a lot, there's some twists to it that make it dirty.
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Chapter 5: What are some creative gift ideas for White Elephant?
And the king of Siam was, if he was annoyed, he might give someone an albino elephant if he didn't like them very much, right?
Yes, but the key here was to the courtier who received this gift, I mean, this is a lavish gift. Yeah. But it was a lavish gift that cost a lot and took a lot of effort to keep healthy and happy. Right. So although it seemed like you would really gain the king's favor, the king was giving you a real problem to deal with for the rest of the elephant's life.
So it's a pretty sharp little idea that Yul Brynner came up with. And that's where the name came from, White Elephant, right? Yeah. Okay. So getting on to the modern incarnation of it, I did not see who invented this. I guess the King of Siam did. But the modern incarnation, I don't know where that came from.
But there are basically wherever you look up rules for the White Elephant game, there's some that are just tried and true. You're going to find them in any set of rules. One of the big ones is set a dollar limit.
Yeah.
You don't want some person just showing off their Christmas bonus by, you know, they show up with a bunch of Bang & Olufsen speakers or something like that, you know? By setting a limit at like 20 bucks, you're making the people get kind of creative. Yeah.
Yeah. And the whole idea here is to have fun. So, yeah, 20 bucks, I feel like is I mean, you can set it according to whatever, you know, financial pool you're swimming in. But I feel like 20 dollars is a pretty good round number.
Great. But yes, the cheaper, the lower the the the price limit, the more creative the people have to be to come up with something.
Yeah, exactly.
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Chapter 6: How do you make traditional Italian Pizzelles?
I mean, it's more orange.
Oh, it is actually orange? Okay, good.
Yeah, it looks like orange juice.
Okay, well, that's it for White Elephant. There is one quote I wanted to read from Nella Bailey McGough. Oh, boy. Do you know the one?
I'm pretty short. Go ahead.
They say that the mixture of gag gifts and gifts people actually want combine to make the nitro that fuels this amazing game. And I guess that Nella Bailey McGough would be a really fun person to play White Elephant with. Totally.
I love it.
Hey, let's hit that interstitial Christmas music again as we mosey on over to the next segment.
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Chapter 7: What are unique flavors for Pizzelles?
All right. I'd say we move on to let's go ahead and knock out our two or two confections.
Oh, okay. Which one do you want to do first?
You know what? Let's start with Italy because this is also another thing that a listener sent in, which is really great. People are starting to help program the show because it gets really, really hard to find new short Christmas stuff after all these years. But Carl with a K, Hardin, sent in a suggestion to do a short stuff on pizzelles. Pizzelle or pizzelle?
Pizzelle, I thought.
Pizzelle?
Yeah. You got to say it like that.
Yeah. It's an Italian cookie that is enjoyed, you know, at different times of the year, weddings and things, but really known as a Christmas or Easter cookie.
Yeah. I know them as Christmas. I didn't realize they were Easter. But, yeah, they're super Italian, and they're so Italian that it shares a root word with pizza. Yeah. Pizze, which means round and flat, which is pretty impressive that they fit round and flat into just one word. Yeah, that's true. The L in pizzelle means small, and the A in pizza means personal pan. Right.
Oh, man. Yeah. Well done.
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