A Very Merry Sidedoor

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

Sidedoor, National Zoo, Exhibits, National Museum, Zoo, Washington, African American History And Culture, Postal Museum, Exhibit, Society & Culture, American History, Pop Culture, History, Art19, Air And Space, Science, The Smithsonian, Tony Cohn, Museum, Smithsonian, History Of The World, Natural History, Dc

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2022

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What is it about a mistletoe that says “smooch?” And what the heck is figgy pudding anyway? The holidays are here again, and with them come songs, foods, and rituals so familiar we may not think to ask where they come from...until now! In this holiday special, we track down the origins of some puzzling Christmastime traditions, jingling all the way from Norse mythology to Victorian home cooking, the Emancipation Proclamation, and even out of this world.

Guests:

Margaret Weitekamp, chair of the Space History Department of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum; curator of cultural and social history of spaceflight

Ashley Rose Young, food historian at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

Teddy Reeves, curator of religion at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture

Jim Deutsch, curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is SideDor, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX, I'm Lizzie Peabody.
0:15.3	This is a transmission from the Gemini 6A spacecraft on December 16, 1965.
0:39.3	The two-man crew was orbiting Earth when they spotted something they couldn't identify.
0:59.3	Margaret Whitecamp is chair of the Space History Department at the Smithsonian's National
1:03.5	Air and Space Museum. She says, at the time of this transmission, Gemini 6A had just completed
1:09.6	a historic first, maneuvering within feet of another spacecraft, Gemini 7, while in orbit.
1:17.8	Having completed their mission tasks, they got back on the radio and called down to Houston
1:22.5	and told them that they thought they saw something unidentified, stand by, it looks like
1:31.3	he's trying to signal something.
1:33.3	On the ground, mission control listened intense silence, waiting for more details.
1:40.3	What was this UFO? An alien life form? Secret Soviet spacecraft? What they heard next?
1:48.3	Was this?
1:54.3	And then they broke into a little rendition of Jingle Bells with Wale Shura on the
1:59.3	harmonica and Tom Stafford on the Jingle Bells.
2:04.3	Immediately recognizable, but a little jazzy.
2:07.3	There's a little syncopation there, he's having some fun with it.
2:10.3	By the end of the song, Gemini 7 had caught on, radioing that they too saw a sleigh-like
2:15.3	form flying in polar orbit.
2:21.3	You're too much six.
2:23.3	You're too much six, which is the answer from the capsule communicator at mission control.
2:29.3	Okay, you got us, Wale. That was fun.
2:36.3	The astronauts didn't actually see Santa. He was mid-December, he was still packing his
	...

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