Stories of Christmas Past

The Box of Oddities

John Elliott and Kat Walls

Society & Culture, Comedy, True Crime

4.9 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Holiday Oddities: Stolen Santa Bones, Pooping Logs, and the Strangest Christmas Traditions on Earth This holiday bonus episode of The Box of Oddities unwraps the weirdest, darkest, and most unexpectedly heartwarming Christmas stories from history. Kat and Jethro explore the true fate of Saint Nicholas’s bones, including the medieval relic theft that scattered Santa’s remains across Europe—and the unsettling legend of “Santa juice” still collected from his tomb. From there, the episode sleighs straight into bizarre holiday traditions from around the world: Catalonia’s infamous pooping nativity figure, the gift-pooping Christmas log that children beat with sticks, Iceland’s child-eating troll Grýla and her terrifying Yule Cat, and the unsettling folklore behind Santa once writing threatening letters to children instead of the other way around. Balancing the strange with the sincere, the episode also highlights true stories of compassion and humanity during wartime, including the Christmas Truce of 1914, enemies sheltering together on Christmas Eve during World War II, George Washington returning an enemy general’s dog, and a Japanese pilot gifting his ancestral samurai sword to an American town decades after bombing it. It’s a holiday episode filled with macabre history, unsettling folklore, absurd traditions, and genuine hope—a reminder that even in the darkest seasons, people can still surprise us. Listener discretion advised… and Merry Weird Christmas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You've always been a very fashionable sort, and I love it when we're out in public and people compliment you on your apparel.
0:06.4	We were at Disney and somebody said, I love that t-shirt you're wearing.
0:10.4	And it just so happened. It was my new shirt from Soon to Be Mythical.
0:14.9	Describe it.
0:15.7	It's a shoe bill playing the drums and on the drum set it says death metal.
0:20.4	That's the thing about Soon to Be Mythical.
0:22.9	It's conservation-driven apparel.
0:25.1	So the Shoebell Stork is in need of our help as a species,
0:29.3	and that's why it's featured on Soon-to-Be Mythical's wear.
0:32.6	It's also conversation-driven apparel as well,
0:35.8	based on people's response that I've seen. It's a great
0:38.5	gift idea this holiday season. Up to 25% of proceeds will be donated to non-profit organizations
0:44.7	that assist with the conservation of endangered species. What could be better for people like you and me
0:50.5	that want to make a difference but also want to wear cool t-shirts? They also take advantage of a print-on-demand model to reduce waste and also decrease our carbon
0:59.6	footprint. We love these guys. The business goal is to become irrelevant by helping these
1:04.9	animals become so common that they're thriving and a t-shirt calling them soon to be mythical
1:10.3	makes absolutely no sense.
1:12.3	So join us in helping postpone the myth.
1:15.4	Visit postpone the myth.com. Use code oddities 10 and get 10% off your order. That's
1:22.6	postpone the myth.com code oddities 10 for 10% off. We could be shirt buddies. Who doesn't want to be shirt buddies with Kat? At Liddle, find wines you'll love this new year. Buy any three or more deluxe wines and get 30% off with Liddle Plus, like our award-winning Barrossa Valley Shiraz or Marl Brasovion Blanc. Cheers to that. Lidl.
1:44.4	More to value.
1:45.5	Be drinkaway 18 plus, subject to availability.
	...

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