Big Little Gherkin

[00:00] Joey, as the host, I'm going to stop you for a second, because I feel like we need to do
[00:10] an under-Google-able.
[00:11] All right.
[00:14] Is there a new recording then, or?
[00:25] So I have a question for the team.
[00:27] Smooth as silk.
[00:28] Wait, I thought this was like a standalone thing.
[00:32] It is.
[00:33] It is.
[00:34] What are you stopping me from?
[00:35] I haven't even done anything.
[00:36] It's got to make it seem like it was organic.
[00:39] Exactly.
[00:40] It's what I'm trying to do, because then we put in the...
[00:41] Totally spontaneous.
[00:42] Yeah, and then we put in the...
[00:43] We just had a conversation.
[00:44] We just happened to be recording it.
[00:45] Okay.
[00:46] That's what we always do on the other shows, so like I'm trying to...
[00:49] Okay, let's start over.
[00:50] Oh, hey.
[00:51] I didn't see you there.
[00:52] Ooh.
[00:53] Can we do an under-Google-ables?
[00:54] That was the play-up.
[00:55] Super excited.
[00:56] We told us we had to.
[01:10] You said we signed up for it.
[01:12] In the end, it's going to be better and more true than Google can give you.
[01:23] So I've got a question for the team that I feel like needs to be answered without Google.
[01:32] Christmas trees.
[01:33] What's up with Christmas trees?
[01:35] I have two things that I know about them, but I don't know enough about them, so I didn't
[01:40] Google them without talking to my three smartest friends.
[01:45] One, I know that at some point, Christmas trees existed and we put lit candles on them, which
[01:52] seems like super dangerous to me before we had the Christmas lights.
[01:58] More fire departments.
[01:59] Yeah, yeah.
[02:01] And then two, I know that in Germany, they used to hide pickles in the Christmas tree,
[02:09] and I think that that is the beginning of ornaments, but I'm not really sure that's
[02:13] something I heard, and I don't know how to have an era or anything.
[02:17] Christmas trees.
[02:18] Why do we bring dead trees inside the house to celebrate the death of, or no, the birth
[02:22] of Christ?
[02:23] Not the death of Christ.
[02:24] That'd be weird.
[02:25] The birth of Christ.
[02:29] Does anybody have any thoughts of when or how or why?
[02:32] Well, I'm going to guess most things related to Christmas, it has nothing to do with Jeebus,
[02:42] and it's more of a pagan thing.
[02:44] Yeah.
[02:45] Christmas writ large is that way, so why would Christmas trees be any different?
[02:51] And I'm going to guess that it was big pine.
[02:56] Now, I will say to you that I have spent much of my life in North Carolina, and this
[03:03] is, and people don't know this, but this is where most of your Christmas trees come from,
[03:08] is North Carolina.
[03:10] Huge Christmas tree farms all over the place.
[03:12] It's like the corn of Indiana, it's Christmas trees, and we're sending you Christmas trees
[03:17] all over the country here in North Carolina.
[03:19] So maybe North Carolina is the reason why we have Christmas trees?
[03:24] I don't know.
[03:25] Like big North Carolina.
[03:26] Yeah, big North Carolina.
[03:30] So you said that they used to hide pickles in the trees, so I actually thought maybe
[03:34] it was big little kurken.
[03:36] Well, it seems to me like this comes from, yeah, it's a Northern European pagan thing
[03:46] is what my guess is.
[03:51] Going back to, God knows when, like the way back.
[03:58] I mean, it's got to be just far enough along to your neighbors live close enough to come
[04:02] over once a month, right?
[04:07] So pretty early.
[04:09] Yeah, I feel like I've not heard the pickle thing before, but I've never heard of hiding
[04:21] it in a tree.
[04:24] I mean, I feel like the Germans were...
[04:29] Your wife never told you to hide the pickle?
[04:31] Not in the tree.
[04:35] I feel like the Germans were bringing the decorating game, and I feel like the candles
[04:50] in the tree, that's what I associate that with is Germany.
[04:54] Yeah.
[04:55] Yeah, I do too.
[04:56] I don't know why I feel like that's German, but I feel like lit candles on a dying tree
[05:03] seems incredibly dangerous to me.
[05:06] I had a bar regular who was German, and they had a German ornament, it was a pickle ornament,
[05:17] and you would hide that in the tree, and then finding it gave you like an extra gift
[05:22] or whatever.
[05:24] So I assume that at one point it was a real pickle and not a pickle ornament, and I assume
[05:31] that that's how people started hanging things on the tree.
[05:35] That's my assumption.
[05:37] But I agree with you.
[05:38] I'm feeling this is German.
[05:39] I mean, I agree that it's pagan originally, pagan tree connected to stuff, because everything
[05:46] Christmas is pagan, but I think that the lighting of the tree and the hanging of ornaments
[05:51] may be German.
[05:52] Sure.
[05:55] German is like Sid and St. Nicholas and Krampus and all that stuff.
[06:01] Yeah.
[06:02] It's like a German.
[06:03] Right.
[06:04] For sure.
[06:05] And didn't we learn that the Easter Bunny was German as well?
[06:09] Oyster?
[06:10] I don't remember.
[06:15] Yeah, I think it was the Oyster Hoss or something like that, and there was like a rabbit
[06:22] that was the bisexual or something.
[06:26] I'm going to assume homicidal.
[06:29] I think it was a virgin rabbit, but it was the Oyster Goddess, I think.
[06:35] The Germans are so weird, man.
[06:37] Yeah, the Oyster Hoss.
[06:39] Yeah.
[06:41] That was German as well.
[06:42] Easter was German as well.
[06:44] So I'm going to go with the Germans created Christmas trees.
[06:48] Yeah.
[06:49] But probably before there was anything approximating a modern day Germany is probably what?
[06:56] We're talking 1,600, 1,700.
[06:59] Yeah.
[07:00] So the Germanic peoples in what?
[07:04] Let's go 1,200?
[07:08] Middle ages.
[07:12] 1,200 is really early.
[07:14] It's really early.
[07:16] Let's go 1,500 then.
[07:18] Okay.
[07:19] I want to go pre-Shakespeare though.
[07:22] Pre-Shakespeare.
[07:23] You don't want that Shakespeare stick on.
[07:27] Exactly.
[07:29] Shakespeare stick.
[07:32] And then, yeah, so we think it's just like around whatever the winter solstice type thing.
[07:39] Yeah, no, it's definitely from the pagans.
[07:41] Trees, let's decorate this.
[07:43] Hide a pickle.
[07:45] No, it's definitely from the pagans.
[07:48] This is a...
[07:49] I think the pine trees are the thing that survives through the winter, and it's a
[07:54] thing of life when everything else is dying.
[07:58] Exactly, yeah.
[07:59] This is hope for the next season, right?
[08:02] And then lighting candles is super dangerous, and probably a lot of things got lit on fire.
[08:09] A lot of houses burned down, and that's what I think.
[08:13] It was cold, so if it catches... bonus bonfire.
[08:19] Yeah, exactly.
[08:20] So I'm going with pagan ancestry.
[08:24] The pine trees survived through the winter, and that's why they are a hope for the birth of Jesus.
[08:32] Did you guys see this thing?
[08:34] 1,500.
[08:35] I was watching Seth Meyers, and apparently Miller Lite has drinkable ornaments now.
[08:42] So it's like a Miller Lite can in the shape of like a globe ornament,
[08:47] which seemed both weird and awesome to me.
[08:53] Do you know why Miller Lite and having sex in a canoe are the same thing?
[08:59] Something about water.
[09:03] They're both fucking close to water.
[09:05] There you go.
[09:08] Nice.
[09:09] Oh, now I'll have to be explicit on this one.
[09:15] For like no reason.
[09:17] For no reason, just because I'm out of control.
[09:22] Are we supposed to be clicking?
[09:23] Yeah, yeah.
[09:24] Yeah, what do we got?
[09:25] No.
[09:26] No.
[09:27] Nobody cares.
[09:28] Nobody listens to this.
[09:29] Nobody cares.
[09:30] Yeah, I don't know.
[09:34] Yeah, super...
[09:36] I mean, who doesn't...
[09:38] You know, decorating is cool.
[09:40] Cut something down.
[09:42] What else were you doing?
[09:44] Yeah, I had nothing else to do.
[09:47] You're going 60.
[09:48] No, press.
[09:49] What about like pencil?
[09:50] I'm going to say we nailed it.
[09:53] According to History.com, Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition,
[09:58] as we know it, in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their
[10:05] homes.
[10:07] Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood
[10:13] was scarce.
[10:14] It is widely held belief that Martin Luther first added lighted candles to a tree.
[10:21] That sounds sketchy.
[10:24] Walking towards his home one winter evening composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance
[10:29] of stars twinkling amidst evergreens.
[10:32] To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired
[10:36] its branches with lighted candles.
[10:38] No, I'm out.
[10:39] I'm out.
[10:40] That's bullshit.
[10:41] Okay, yeah.
[10:42] Sorry.
[10:43] Sorry that you have a problem with.
[10:44] I do.
[10:45] Hey, look, we've got one guy that like made the Protestants.
[10:49] Let's just make him in charge of the Christmas tree as well.
[10:51] Like, come on.
[10:52] Come on.
[10:53] We already got one guy in charge of all the things.
[10:57] Whatever.
[10:59] If he nailed the thing on the door, he didn't also put a pickle on a tree, you know?
[11:04] I'm not saying anything about pickles and trees.
[11:08] German settlers brought Christmas trees to America.
[11:11] See?
[11:12] There you go.
[11:13] And did they also bring pickles?
[11:14] I'm going to look up pickles and trees real fast.
[11:21] Saturnalia was the Roman celebration between the 17th and the 25th that Christmas was
[11:27] meant to counteract.
[11:31] What was that again?
[11:33] Saturnalia.
[11:34] Okay.
[11:35] The Roman holiday.
[11:36] Right.
[11:37] Because they had to counteract it somehow.
[11:40] Right.
[11:41] Because pagans.
[11:42] Right.
[11:43] These evergreens were initially called paradise trees.
[11:49] So, I haven't seen this Christmas pickle, but it is apparently, it was believed to have
[12:02] come from Germany, but it is.
[12:04] That seems like that is not true.
[12:06] What?
[12:07] Well, it seems so.
[12:09] Yeah, that's the one.
[12:12] It seems like the Americans say that, but the Germans don't know about it.
[12:16] So, it seems like an American thing.
[12:22] Well, I just let you know that, but I had a German regular who believed it was true,
[12:28] but she was probably born in America, honestly.
[12:32] Okay.
[12:33] Or grew up in America at the very least.
[12:36] What do you know about the German pickle?
[12:41] You already tell you this is explicit, right?
[12:47] I mean, all I've seen is that kind of what you say, you just kind of hide it in
[12:53] the tree.
[12:55] Did you get a prize or something for finding that?
[13:00] Yeah.
[13:01] Yeah.
[13:02] But I don't know what that prize was.
[13:04] Hopefully, something more substantial than a pickle.
[13:07] Unless you really like pickles, you know what I'm saying?
[13:12] Unfortunately, I do.
[13:14] I'm hiding my pickle in the tree.
[13:16] It was driven by big German glass.
[13:20] The historical evidence supports the theory that the tradition was most likely
[13:24] fabricated by salesmen during the late 1800s to promote German glass ornaments
[13:29] in American stores.
[13:30] Oh, and glass blown decorative vegetables.
[13:35] It seems like I've seen a couple of places refer to a story where St.
[13:39] Nicholas saved two boys who were trapped in a barrel of pickles.
[13:44] But I don't think that I think that was completely fabricated by these glass
[13:49] salesmen.
[13:50] Okay.
[13:51] One big glass.
[13:52] All I know is that Santa is happy if you took on his pickle.
[13:56] Merry Christmas.