Which is bigger for you? Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?

In this merry little episode we take a longer look at Christmas Eve and why it is what it is. Why do we celebrate the night before in a bigger way, in many cases, than the day of Christmas? For some, there is no bigger day of the year than December 24th. What is the magic of those hours — especially at night?

In reality and in fiction when it comes to Christmas it is Christmas Eve that is bigger. Every Christmas people hang their stockings, sing of Jesus, gather families, eat special foods and celebrate Christmas — all in the hours before Christmas on Christmas Eve.

Why do we do that?

Christmas Eve is where the real blending of Christianty and Paganism comes together. There’s magic in the darkness. And there has been for thousands of years.

They were years of change and uncertainty. For Christmas, they were years that made Christmas a whole new thing. They were the years of 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1944.

How could these war years make Christmas different?

That’s the topic of this podcast episode which features the stories and letters of real folks who experienced all that Christmas was about at that time.

What would you do, as a young man or young woman aged 19 or 20, away from home for the first time at Christmas with the knowledge that you might never return?

What would you do if you just didn’t know when you would ever be able to return home for Christmas?

What would you do if you were a parent to one of these young people now spending Christmas in harm’s way? How would you feel not knowing if they could ever spend another Christmas with you?

These were the realities for millions of people during these years.

No wonder Christmas was different during this time. And no wonder Christmas was different thereafter, too.

Everyone, it seems, is a Christmas music critic these days.

The Christmas season of 2018 has been marked with those emphasizing what they don’t like about Christmas music. 

Headlining the news has been the new debate about an old song, Baby It’s Cold Outside. Some are calling it the date rape song. 

This despite the fact the song is better than 70 Christmases old. 

Politics and movements aside, it should be pointed out that bad Christmas music is a thing. And it has always been a thing. 

In this merry episode we go down that road — and share — some awful, no good, very bad Christmas music with you. 

You’re welcome. And Merry Christmas. 

The Christmas stocking and the orange so many of us find in the toe of it every Christmas morning is a source of mystery to many. What is legend, what is myth, what is truth?

There is a cruel rumor going about that for whatever the truth is about the Christmas stocking St. Nicholas had nothing to do with it.

That is, of course, poppycock.

There would be no Christmas stocking without St. Nicholas.

This merry episode dives deep into where the Christmas stocking comes from and it explain the orange in the toe — once and for all.

It is, at the end of the day, a fascinating story of legend. A story worth retelling again and again.

That is, after all, how we got the Christmas stocking in the first place.

We should keep it going.