This episode is brought to you by Delive a rule because anything goes this Christmas. Yes, even sprouts on a pizza or gravy on sushi.

The rules are, there are no rules. Have a Cantonese on Christmas Eve or a

Balty on Boxing Day and when you sew over the leftovers bring on the ramen

From big brands to local favorites this Christmas it's all on your doorstep with

deliver room. Geographical restrictions, season C, service and delivery fees apply. My name is David Wolf. I grew up in Ohio in the 1950s in the Eisenhowersenhauer era.

I remember thinking that when I saw the Wizard of Oz movie,

that that had been filmed in my own backyard

with the Scarecrow and the corn and the flowers and things.

And then as the developers came evil men, they turned the whole thing into a black and white sepia colored movie just like in the

Wizard of Oz before the tornado.

And we had plenty of tornadoes in Ohio, so I often got confused about reality and movies. I'm still often confused. I had a cousin

Lois who was eight years older than I and she had a superlative collection of paper dolls and whenever I would go

visit her which I did as often as possible I would beg to play with the paper dolls.

And it was great fun to dress them up

and prop them up against the furniture and stuff

and pretend they were going shopping or to the movies, you know, I was a terribly odd little boy.

Could you have had like an actual doll?

I don't think I could have. I wouldn't have dared to ask for one. The only

sissies had dolls. Bad enough I had paper dolls. Paper dolls could be a

secret in my chest of drawers in my bedroom underneath my socks. This is Decodering, a show about cracking cultural mysteries.

I'm Slate's TV critic Willipaskin.

Every month we take a cultural question, habit, or idea, crack it open, and try to figure out what it means and why it matters.

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