Hello, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and welcome to the Political Orphanage, a home for all the Misfit Toys on the island of Misfit Toys in the archipelago of Misfit Toys.

I'm your host, Andrew Heaton, and did you know that Christmas used to be illegal in Boston, Massachusetts?

The Puritans outlawed it in 1659.

They considered it a satanic holiday.

Ditto over in Britain.

Oliver Cromwell, who is widely regarded by historians as a not

particularly fun guy, he and his roundheads banned Christmas for a while, too. It's just one

episode in the real war on Christmas, which stretches back just about 2,000 years that that's been going on,

because Christmas is, really, two holidays, which are often at odds with each other,

the birth of Christ, Advent, the incarnation, and a totally unrelated European pagan celebration, which happens to take

place at the exact same time and is kind of merged with it. So in today's episode, we are going

to peer back through the annals of history to answer questions like, why do we put a dead tree in our living room to celebrate

baby Jesus? Why do we kiss under mistletoe? What is that? Am I still allowed to do it? And my

personal favorite, where garlands come from? They seem innocuous, don't they? The little popcorn doodad you put around the tree,

they seem cute. The story behind that is incredibly bloody and gross, and I love it. Two quick provisos,

before we jump into a very fun holiday history episode, parents, we will be discussing St. Nicholas at length

in today's program, so you may want to consider that, depending on who else is in the car with you,

maybe return to today's episode at a later time. Also, the political orphanage is for everybody.

If you are religious or non-religious, I am glad you're here.

This is for everybody. Welcome. By dint of today's topic, we will be talking about Christianity

and the history of Christianity and holiday traditions pertinent to it. I don't think anything we

talk about will particularly rankle anybody, but maybe.

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