From Desert Ornacle Radio, this is the Eldrich Republic.

True tales of America's strange history and uncanny folklore.

I'm Ken Lane.

Episode 3.

Christmas and Chelsea.

Nothing is more American than the Christmas holidays.

Santa Claus especially.

Of course, there's a Christian saint of the Roman Empire named St. Nicholas,

whose great miracle was paying some money to keep his neighbor's daughters from being sold

into prostitution. But that's not a very good Christmas story.

Instead, the Northern Europeans who settled the Dutch and British colonies of North America turned the old world's stodgy father Christmas and stern-faced center claws

into a charming supernatural visitor from the North Pole,

flying through the winter night behind eight magic reindeer, like white-bearded Odin

riding upon his magical eight-legged horse named Slepnir.

And while the cold and snowy New England winters would seem a natural place for such

folkloric creation, remember that New England was founded by Puritans and pilgrims, who did not tolerate Christmas at all.

They saw correctly that Yuletide revelry had nothing to do with the biblical nativity story.

Bonfires, feasting, drinking and kissing games, boisterous singing on the streets,

the poor demanding gifts from the rich, houses decorated with festive evergreen trees, and druidic mistletoe and the blazing eulog.

Such things were utterly rejected in puritanical societies.

Christmas was a sin.

By 1659, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had made the celebration of Christmas a crime.

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