Merry Christmas, everyone! The big day has arrived. And it's time for our sixth annual Christmas year in review. We'll recall all the sights, sounds, news, and trends that made this Christmas unique. Plus, I'll review my own Christmas season, and talk about what's to come in 2022.
Thank you to everyone who took part in the season, by listening, sharing memories, leaving reviews, participating in the Facebook group, and reaching out to say hi.
A very Merry Christmas to all of you, and a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year!
Thank you to The Great Dickens Christmas Fair for inviting me back to check out its drive-through event, and capturing some audio.
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It's Christmas Eve! No matter how you celebrate, or where you celebrate, or who you call family, I hope you’re feeling the Christmas spirit right about now. And I, as well as several members of the Christmas Past family, are here to deliver just a little bit more of it.
Be sure to follow the Tree Twins on Instagram!
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It's Christmas Eve Eve Eve! The big day is almost here. Friends and loved ones are starting to gather and prepare, ready to add a new chapter to their Christmas story, and to reminisce about Christmasses past. And today, so are we…as the Christmas Past family. It’s another episode all about you. About sharing your stories and memories, your traditions and love of our favorite holiday!
Marv from the UK shares a memory in this episode. Check out his podcast, Pods Like Us. Thanks to him and everyone else who shared a memory in this episode!
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Christmas is often abbreviate as Xmas, but why? Why does X make a suitable abbreviation, and why does Christmas need abbreviating at all? To find the answers, we'll have to go back to the earliest days of Christianity, and and explore the world of symbology and word origins.
Thank you to Mignon Fogarty, from Grammar Girl for joining me in this episode!
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Welcome back for the second consecutive day of Christmas trivia! It's the conclusion of our special double header. Join us today when Rachel plays quizmaster to Brian in a game of "Sheperdy." We're in the final countdown to Christmas of 2021, but rest assured: there's much more Christmas cheer on tap between now and the big day!
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"Turning" — Blue Dot Sessions, via Free Music Archive
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In a first here on Christmas Past, we're doing a double header of Christmas trivia. Join me today and tomorrow for back-to-back episodes where you put your Christmas spirit to the test. Today, the name of the game is "Two Truths and a Lie," where your deception detection skills are just as important as your knowledge of Christmas history. All questions in today's game are related to the 1970s. Tomorrow, come back for Sheperdy, a Jeopardy inspired Christmas trivia game. Today and tomorrow, I'll be playing with Rachel in New York!
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"Inspiring Cinematic Uplifting Piano" — ZakharValaha, via Pixabay
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Victorian carolers wouldn't go until they got some. But many Americans wouldn't know one if they saw one. The figgy pudding (or plum pudding or Christmas pudding) has been with us for many centuries, and in many forms. How did a Medieval savory soup become a fruity, boozy and exclusively Christmassy dessert?
Glen Warren from the Seasons Eatings podcast joins Brian in this episode.
Mentioned in this episode
Seasons Eatings:
The Village Carolers:
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The clip from A Christmas Carol came from a Librivox recording, narrated by Elizabeth Klett.
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When this episode arrives, there will be only 10 days remaining until Christmas of 2021. It's a good point in the season to take a breather and snuggle up with a story from the world of classic Christmas fiction. Today, I'm reading The Christmas Fairy, an 1878 story by John Strange Winter. It’s a story for the whole family, about a schoolboy whose plans for Christmas take an unexpected turn.
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Christmas and charity are as natural a pairing as you might imagine. But the long history of charity at Christmas time has a few things worth exploring. For example, who has historically done the charitable giving, and why. And how the Victorians generally, and Charles Dickens specifically, laid the foundation for the modern form of Christmas charity that we know today.
Thank you to Martin Johns, professor of history at Swansea University in Wales, and author of Christmas and the British: A Modern History, for appearing on this episode.
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In 1945, when songwriter Bob Wells first penned the line "chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." chestnuts were as much a part of the Christmas season as eggnog and gingerbread. And then, just a few years after Nat King Cole recorded his iconic version of that song...they weren't. What happened? It's one of the few examples from recent history of a Christmas tradition dying out — literally — in a single generation. Is it lost forever? Or are we poised for a roasty toasty Christmas comeback story?
Thank you to Sarah Fitzsimmons, director of restoration with the American Chestnut Foundation, for appearing in this episode.
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It's our first family gathering of the season...the kind dedicated to members of the Christmas Past family and their Christmas memories. Pour the hot chocolate and snuggle up by the tree! It's time for a trip down memory lane.
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In 1937, radio audiences were introduced to The Cinnamon Bear, a magical twenty-six-part Christmas miniseries. Twins Judy and Jimmy search through the enchanted world of Maybeland for their lost Christmas ornament with the help of a talking bear.
The series delighted audiences for many seasons before falling out of the mainstream. But a new audience is discovering the program in the Internet age.
Thank you to Jack French from the Metropolitan Washington Old Time Radio Club for appearing on this episode.
For more info about The Cinnamon Bear
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Today is an episode for the whole family! A Christmas story about two elves who decide to bring their special month-long celebration to humans. I'll narrate Festive of the Elves, a 2020 book, as told by Holly Figgyworth. After the reading, I speak with Angeli Elliott about the origins of the story, and how families can bring a little elfin magic to their own Christmas!
Visit www.festivaloftheelves.com to find out more about the book, and to register for Elf Notes. And find Festival of the Elves on Instagram and Facebook
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Christmas and sweaters naturally go together. But how did the idea of a festive holiday sweater become the multimillion dollar industry of recent decades? Is the gawdy, ironic, edgy humored Christmas sweater a passing fad, or are we at the start of something enduring? Today on Christmas Past: The "ugly" Christmas sweater!
Thank you to Evan Mendelsohn from Tipsy Elves for joining me. And thanks to my mom, making her third appearance here on Christmas Past!
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All the different landscapes and climates and cultures in America make for a seemingly endless number of settings for celebrating our favorite holiday. And one kind of setting in particular has earned a special place in American Christmas culture and lore: the small town. That homey, local Christmas spirit is the topic of Small Town Christmas, the new series on UPtv. Series creator and host Megan Alexander joins Brian to discuss. Plus, Brian shares a small town Christmas memory of his own!
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A Charlie Brown Christmas became one of the most successful Christmas television specials ever. But the odds were stacked against it in 1965. Written and produced under a crazy deadline, the network executives were sure it would flop like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. But of course, things turned out differently.
This episode includes an interview with Benjamin Clark, curator of the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA.
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