Krampus

In the dead of night, as people sleep, that's when the spirits creep. As the bell tolls three, dark things take power. We like to call it the supernatural hour. We wish you America, Piss, we wish you America, Piss, we wish you America, Piss, I'm glad you're all here.

Find me some throw at this guy. Tim's got New Zones and Dan's been in homes. Castles look at weird news and Brandi's here too. Hey, welcome to the supernatural hour.

This will be the last episode I've ever heard. We're all sitting here in shock. This will be our Christmas episode. So this will be the final episode that Castle makes an appearance on the show.

Because after we're done recording, we are going to kill him. Or at least give him a music lesson. That was a fantastic song and you guys know it. Right.

Let me pull up my laugh track on my phone. Would you? Nope, because I don't have one. Busted.

Hey, we are actually here for our last live show. This is our season finale. Kind of. We've got one more show before the end of the year, but it's a pre-recorded show that we've had for two months, two months that we just have put together.

We've been saving it so that we would have something for you guys to listen to around Christmas because we're not going to record next time because it's like what? 20, 30, 7 or is that a regular recording? Yeah, that would have been our next recording date. And we don't want to record that close Christmas.

So you're getting our quote unquote bonus episode from the Paranormal Expo. So what that translates into is we love you, but we don't love you enough to interfere with our personal holidays. So screw you all. Yeah, that's what it means.

No, actually, hey, welcome to the show. Tonight's show's going to be a good show. It may be a short show, but it's going to be a show. Just a short show?

Yeah, short show. It might be a short show. It might be a short show. Did that 10 times fast?

Short show. Alright, so we are going to talk grandpas today. But before we do, let's get into some news or some business actually. So we have our 100th episode coming up.

Tell us about that, Tim. So what we plan on doing is we're going to have our 100th episode recorded live quote unquote at the Family Tree restaurant. And you probably are wondering why we're going there again. For two reasons.

One is because we love that place. And two, y'all keep buying our tickets. Like both of our January events are sold out. And so we're going there again in February for the people that didn't get to make it to the January investigations.

So what we're going to do is we're going to have two different ticket prices. We're going to have less expensive price for those that just want to come and kind of eat scones and have drinks and participate in the podcast. You can come up and ask us questions while the microphone is set up so you can actually be on the podcast. Our other price will be a $40 price.

This will be discounted from our normal $50 price because it is a special episode. We kind of want to make it a little more accessible to people. But what the $40 price, what you'll get is the same as you would get on an investigation night. So you get the dinner, you'll get the investigation and you'll also be able to participate in the podcast as well.

So we're going to open that up to about 15 or 16 tickets. Probably 16 because it seems like even numbers are happier if people want to bring up. So we'll probably do about 16 of each and then we'll obviously unfortunately kick the people out that bought the cheaper tickets when it comes to investigation time. Yeah, so what we're hoping for is we want those of you who listen to the show on regular basis to come to that.

And what Tim means by participating the show is we're going to show up with our podcast equipment. We're going to have an intro and we're going to open it up to you guys to ask questions. That'll just be a Q&A session. Exactly.

And so it should be kind of fun. So if you've had lots of questions you want to sit down and grill us on something. Whether or not it's paranormal related. If you want to ask us about like how we got into the paranormal or questions about ourselves, we'll basically be doing like an AMA.

I am going to even throw it in there so somebody can manage to make them cry. I will buy your dinner. That's so nice of you. I know.

If you make Castle, if you can get Castle, eat a cucumber, I will buy your dinner. Wow. If you can get Castle, you can get a cucumber. You're going to be lucky to walk away live from that event because I will kill you.

You can't taste like anything. They're just crunching. They taste like groves. And if someone can get the end of the avocado, I'll buy their dinners as well.

I think that's not happening. I will throw up on you. They're that bad. I'm going to take that back because I know Tim is kind of an empath.

I was going to take it and show up and ask something like their dad, I'm going to have some information passed along. Tim is going to have the water works. He'll turn on because Tim can get emotional when he's channeling the empath. It's not emotional.

It's a spirit. I'm going to take a step back from my offer because I'm going to buy 50 people. I can't afford that. I'm not doing that.

It should be fun. We will have tickets online. Hopefully, if not, by the time this airs shortly thereafter. We do want people there.

We prefer to have people there who are excited and want to ask questions and participate in the show. If we end up with 16 people who sit there and look at us like we got a third egg or four-head. I'm going to ask them questions. It's going to be really an interesting show.

I'm sure if Terry Finley comes down, she'll have plenty of questions for us. Anyway, that is kind of our going to be our 100th episode. We're going to record on our family tree. Again, scones and drinks will be provided if you purchase tickets to come.

If you buy the Mark Spencer ticket, dinner and an investigation will also be provided at the end of the show. That's our plan. What else do we have in the news wise? Anything else on the agenda other than our sold out ghost ends?

We've got another thing in the works. We're not 100% on this yet. We are thinking about sometime in the spring renting out, if possible, we have to work out the details. We're thinking about renting out one of the ghost door buses and doing a special event there for some of the listeners.

They can come and do one of the ghost doors with us. We're still working out the details though. That one's just kind of an idea. It's starting to throw me around today.

We've got events around the corner. We've also got some other ghost ends during the works for Sam Renett details. There's always something to do. We've always got something planned or something on the horizon.

Hopefully by the next actual episode, which will be after the new year, we'll have some more details for you on some of these other events. Now we've got business out of the way. Tim, let's talk about Stone of the Week. Okay, so the Stone of the Week, we're getting back onto my list of the top five here.

I believe I've already talked about Obsidian and I've talked about Amethyst. This week we're going to talk about Selenite. One of the reasons why I like Selenite is because of this particular stone, it doesn't hold negative energy at all. There's no possible way for it to hold negative energy.

This stone will actually take that negative energy and just release it back as positive energy. It takes it from the other stones. It cleanses your other stones. If you have a stone like, say, Obsidian, for example, one that kind of absorbs negative energy, the selenite will be able to cleanse that stone and remove all the negative energy that's on it.

Another thing that this stone is actually good for is if you wear it in jewelry, such as a necklace, or a pendant, it can also ward off toxic energy and prevent your light from being sucked away by energy vampires. I know that we said we're going to talk about energy vampires. We'll probably do that on a later episode, but that is another thing that Selenite does. It just helps people from stealing your energy.

Those are actually, I think I thought about the Selenite. The Selenite is it received its name from the Greek goddess of the moon, Selen. It's meaning it's easy to see. It reflects light often appearing as a rock fallen direct from the moon.

One of the things I did find fascinating about this stone is this stone can actually be found in all parts of the world, but they say if you're looking for specific pieces of selenite for healing properties, you want to find the long clear pieces of selenite that come out of Mexico. Selenite is kind of one of my favorite stones. When people ask me what stones I need to investigate, the two stones I usually point them towards just kind of a catch-all generic best to have with you stones, or obsidian because it does absorb negative energy and selenite because it does protect and it can cleanse that nastiness that the obsidian picks up. One thing that's interesting about Selenite is you can actually find it in a lot of places.

One of the other names for Selenite, and it's a form of selenite, it's gypsum. There's actually a mine down near St. George on a border called the Glitter Mine. The owner of that mine has got mineral rights with US government, so he actually owns the mine.

There's a great but humongous wall. It's literally a wall of selenite inside of a red sandstone cliff. I've actually been down there. I've actually got a milk crate full of selenite that I collected down there.

The commander said that they really don't care if you pick up selenite off the ground. If you go down to the glitter mine, they don't care if you go to pick it off the ground. They just don't want you down there with a jackhammer or a wheelbarrow. It just doesn't have a way at the selenite wall that they have there.

Now what's interesting is you go down to this pit where this mine is at. There's like these humongous dirt clods. There's obviously smaller pieces of selenite about the size of maybe half dollar solar dollar just laying all over the place. But there's these dirt clods, and if you look real careful, some of these dirt clods are actually big, like about the size of your fist or both of your fist put together chunks of selenite.

They're just covered in dirt. You just have to be willing to kind of dig through the dirt clods to figure out which ones are actual dirt clods and which ones are humongous chunks of selenite. But selenite is one of the stones I definitely recommend that people take with them on their investigations. The other thing that's kind of cool about selenite, I don't know if you've ever seen it, but if you're looking for a cool table lamp, obviously one I would suggest would be a salt lamp.

But if I don't know if you've ever seen a selenite lamp lit up, but when those things have lights in them, they look beautiful. They're amazing. So that's another thing you can do is just buy one of those selenite lamps and use it to decor your home. Which I also have right next to my bed on my nightstanders because I'm at lamp.

It's one of my personal favorites. So speaking of Holmes, Dien, what about recent investigations? We really haven't had any. We did one.

It was actually a revisit of a home that we've been to before. And not really anything crazy going on, just some residual things, some residual energy that she wanted taken care of. So we went and took care of that. So what was the original story with us?

I mean, what got you guys there the very first time? What kind of things did they have going on? It was one that Brandi and Tim actually came out with us on in Harriman. I think the last one you came with us on.

Okay. I remember that one. Yeah. And she had what sounded like furniture being thrown around on the patio, noises and thumps she would hear in places.

It just had some concerns that it wasn't all gone. And so we went out and we took one of our new investigators out there to let her see how we work and see how she worked. And we got it taken care of. So when you guys got out there the second time, what did you guys find?

What kind of thing for going on still? She was concerned because she has a small child in the home that had some scratches on its back. And we determined that there was a portal on the staircase. And we took Mike Finley out with us.

So between me and Mike and Terry, all three of us got out our dowsing rods. And we asked each of our spirit guides the same question. We kept getting the same answers. So we closed the portal on the stairs.

And through the portal had come some Native American spirits. And the type three and the type three was controlling the Native American spirits. And they were trying to kick the pricks a little bit. So there was definitely some tension between them and the type three.

But we salted them out. Fantastic. Anything else happen when you were there? No.

Also speaking about wisdom investigations which you had, the Wist site I was informed has been down for a couple of days. Tim. And what? I was just pointing out that you pointed out that the Wist site has been down.

I have a very faithful follower and my brother who always keeps up on everything we do. So as soon as the website went down he's like, what the hell's going on? So if you visited the site and it looks like it's down, we are not out of, you know, something that will say it's just down which we will fix as soon as podcast is over and I have a mid-contact support. So yeah.

So by the time you hear this it should be working. Yeah, it'll be working. But if you saw it and it was down and you're sad and we're never going to go back. It's still there.

Alright, one thing I just wanted to say about the residential is we do have a couple more in the works. But we have run across people. I've had people call me recently that are terrified to tell me about what's going on. So if you know someone who is experiencing things and they're afraid that no one's going to believe them have them call.

I have this lady call and she hemmed and hawed and beat around the bush for about 10 minutes and I finally stopped and said, you know what, I will believe you. Just tell me what's going on. So if you or somebody know is hesitant because they're afraid they're going to get laughed at or not believed, just have them call, have them email, have them contact us through the website and we will get you taken care of. It's interesting you say that because we've all been doing this for years and there's a huge difference between I have paranormal activity at my home and I've got the mental illness.

And really all the paranormal activity is fairly similar. So I mean if you hear hearing noises, you're seeing shadows, you're getting welcome in the middle of the night, you got scratches, things of that nature. We're going to believe you. If you think it's paranormal, it generally is probably going to be exactly like something else we've dealt with somewhere else.

Yeah, this lady that I spoke to and she finally told me what was going on. I said, yeah, yep, that sounds pretty typical. I mean, it wasn't anything that I thought, ooh, you're nuts. It's when you start telling us that your dog is resetting the alphabet backwards in German.

That's when we start asking some other questions. If your dog's a thousand years old and he's telling me to kill people, that's serial killer. That's when I don't know. Good job.

Don wins ten points. That's right. Son of Sam. The end for quits.

Yeah, I can tell you right now that we have dealt with some people who have contacted us who obviously suffer from mental illness and bless their hearts. There's definitely a different note to mental illness. I would say that's probably been like 1% of our clients. I can think of two maybe over the course of doing this.

That's still a very low percentage of our clients. Yeah, I can literally say two. And I honestly deal with people with mental illness on almost daily basis with my job. There's a day and night difference between somebody who's experiencing paranormal and mental illness.

And so if you get something going on, tell us you're not going to tell us anything that's weird. If you're experiencing paranormal activity in your home. Alright, anything else again? No, I think that covers it.

A little bit of a slower two weeks this week. We are going to now talk about weird paranormal news. And the two stories I picked today are not really ghost related per se as they are just kind of weird. And so we are going to run with it.

First one deals with the hurricane in Puerto Rico a few years back. People in that area are saying that a creature has savaged and sucked the blood out of livestock and they believe it's escaped from US testing site. The Chupa Cobra, which is Spanish for ghost secretary, is a legendary creature in folklore in parts of the Americas. The first report deciding the beast came following the 1985 hurricane in the Louis that struck in Puerto Rico, following the violent storms local screen in the middle of the night before waking to find their animals mutilated.

Some even declared they got a glimpse of the animal causing havoc in the local area. It was described as being a humanoid creature with spikes on its backs. Since the original report countless eyewitnesses have claimed to have spotted the creature all around the world from America, Paraguay, and even Russia. One bizarre theory came to light where people claimed that they basically saw US government officials capture the creature and secreted away into a van before driving away.

This is what people in Puerto Rico have to believe that this creature is actually a US government experiment that escaped during the hurricane. After five years of investigating a journalist Benjamin Radford shot down the claims. He believes that basically the claims were from faulty eyewitnesses, mass hysteria, and things of that nature. So basically people right now in Puerto Rico believe that there's a chupacabra running around and has an escaped science experiment from the US government.

Do okay. I guess it's possible. So we were watching a show, it's been a few months ago, where they thought they got some video evidence of this creature. When they showed it, it was pretty cool.

I don't know if it was actually a chupacabra, but I didn't recognize it. How much the government hides from us? It's entirely possible that they've got some little creature that might have escaped. I'm always kind of on the fence on how much really, truly weird stuff our government has out there and how much we as a people in general invent and make up.

I don't doubt that they do toy with some genetic stuff. I just don't know if it goes to that extreme where they're like created X-Men type monsters in labs somewhere. But the time will tell I suppose. The next story we have is about a secret base on the moon.

US Air? Is it on the dark side? It is on the dark side of the moon. Also not.

US Airman claims he was left terrified after viewing a photograph on the dark side of the moon, which exposed alien-built structures. Sergeant Carl Wolf had top-secret clearance and worked with a tactical air command at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia in the US in 1965. He's drafted into NASA's Lunar Orbiter Project. He worked as a precision electronics photographer repair and was sent to fix equipment for the space agency.

However, it was during this time he claims another worker showed him a bombshell photo. We walked over to one side of the lab and he says, by the way, we found a base. I said, what do you mean, who's? He then pulled out a photo and showed the base with powers, buildings and things that looked like radar dishes.

At that point, he says I was terrified and a little frightened. Shortly after coming out of this information in October, Wolf was killed during a horrible bike accident in New York. Cops have launched a probe into his death, but no charges have been filed against the driver. Conspiracy theorists believe that Wolf was murdered to silence his bringing out that he'd seen this moon-based photograph.

So like I said, not really paranormal, but kind of interesting. Aliens. Aliens and conspiracy theories. Alright, two of my favorite things, minus one of them because I'm not really an alien.

I'm not really a alien either. Do you like a conspiracy theory? Yeah, well conspiracy theories and aliens go ahead and have a tendency. I guess they do.

So let's get on with our topic for this episode. Okay, you have to tell us how festive we are. We're like super festive. Hey, Tim, Brandi, what's just me, them all silence?

I'm kind of digging Don's sweater. Silence starting now. I like the little 8-bit Krampus sweater he's got going on. No, it's fun because we talked about doing Krampus episode.

We've actually talked about it for a few weeks now. I suggest a Krampus and Christmas ghost stories. I kind of researched that one a little bit. I've got an article here on it.

Oh good, because there's not a lot of information on Krampus. I'm glad you did that because that's why I was saying it's going to be short episodes. Yeah, Krampus is pretty much every documentary documentary. It was about 10 minutes long?

Yeah, and they all said the same thing. Yeah, that's kind of what I found. There was a 45-minute one, but it was a guy just telling stories. I couldn't really get into it because the background was just red with like, snowflakes the whole time.

You know, I think I may have researched the same research that you researched. It's quite possible because if we did good research, we researched more than one source. And I say I usually research several sources when we do these. And I think I saw the same one and I got about five minutes and I was like, How many times can I say research?

This is bullshit, this research. So speaking of research again. I researched shirt science on my more than a crampus shirt. I have to post pictures on the Facebook book.

I can see research shirts. So tell us about your crampus shirts. They look like ugly sweaters, but they're t-shirts, which I'm not sure. I don't want to spend a ton of money on a shirt.

I probably wouldn't wear a whole lot, so we did the cheap t-shirts. I would totally wear that in July. Being it's a t-shirt. I got kind of the happy crampus, kind of like what your four year old can wear.

And finally. The happy crampus with the jeansimin' stun. Yeah, so then Don's got more of the creepy demonicy looking ones. Some of them were really scary.

I didn't want to be like totally evil. I'm not as crampus looks like as Tim said, like 8-bit graphics from the comic. I'm very diggy. He's got the chains and everything.

But mine has mine's carrying off a little kid in the bag, so that's a little creepy. Oh wow. See, it's like he's all happy about it too. That's kind of twisted.

Yeah, they're all happy. Even the kid looks a little happy to be honest with you. That's like sweet. I'm kidnapping this kid.

It's like, whoo, okay. All right, I'm going to die. Crampus is going to drive me down to hell for a year. I mean, if Chuckler here would be like baby Spunari.

I'm dead. I've got a very important story. Crampus is kidnapping me. All right, so let's talk crampus.

Let me grab my crampus note so that I can stay on topic and not say weird crap. So crampus is kind of interesting because really experts can't decide whether or not crampus. There's really no set origin for crampus. No, there isn't.

That's the kind of cool thing about it. It's kind of believed that crampus may have started with the pre-Christian alpine cultures. It's also believed that it could be Norse mythology. It could also be kind of a...

Drive from some kind of pagan culture. mythology was also kind of pointed at. And it really could be... That's all over the place.

I can say, and it really could kind of be derivative of all these things. And it seems like from the... I'll use the word again, research that I did. It seemed to really kind of take off in the eastern Europe, the very area.

Right, it kind of seems like the real area where it's really kind of focused at seems to be Germany, Austria, and kind of those countries. It kind of like Slovakia, Czech Republic, Slovenia. Croatia. Just that whole area right there.

It even got up into like Norway and Sweden. Right. Yeah, the Norse part of it, yeah. It's interesting because Krampus actually comes, drives from the word Krampen, which is German for kla.

And so that's kind of where the name comes from, is the kla. And basically you've got St. Nicholas, who is a happy, good, smiley, Santa Claus-y type individual. And Krampus is kind of like the evil twin of St.

Nicholas, if you will. Almost as if St. Nicholas represents God, and Krampus represents the devil. Or a good and evil or yin and yang, does that type of thing.

Well, it has to balance out. I mean... Right, well you can't have good without evil and you can't have evil without good. So what the whole representation between Krampus and St.

Nicholas was, some of these cultures, they thought that these two actually worked together when it came to the Christmas time and the holiday and that. Yeah, in fact it's kind of interesting, and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but the whole mythology behind Santa leaving Lompa Cole was kind of basically Santa's calling card for, Hey Krampus, the kid with the coal is yours. So it would be a lump of coal or either a set of, was it birch sticks or birch reed? Birch sticks.

And in some cultures they would actually paint the birch gold. And what was interesting is, in some areas, in some cultures in that region, they would give the children a gold birch stick on Christmas, and the next day if they received a silver birch stick, that meant that Krampus was a coming form. If they got to keep the gold birch stick, then all was well. But if they're a silver birch stick, then you're in for a whoopin.

Yeah, I know this. And Krampus, that was kind of his thing is when he would show up for these kids. He would either beat them with birch sticks or he could potentially kidnap them and drag them down to hell to spend a year, basically being punished for being a little shit for a year. And after that year's over, they could come back and hopefully they'd be fixed.

Well, that's just one of the things I read or heard is that part of the Norse mythology being that Krampus is supposedly the son of Hell, who is the daughter of Loki. And Krampus is basically over the underworld. And so what would happen in that part of the world is that Krampus, when he would kidnap you, he would take you down into the underworld and you would either be tortured or eaten. Ooh, that sounds like fun.

No, thank you. No. I like the other one better. I'd rather have a jail sentence like one year and then come back.

Kind of back where you're talking about the Loki thing. Krampus was also kind of thought to be derived from the Pawns and Satyrs from Greek mythology, which is kind of along that same line going back again to the origins. Now what was interesting though is even though we celebrate Christmas on the 25th, December 5th was actually considered to be Krampus night. No, you just wait out the bad kids before Santa gets there.

Yeah, it's like Christmas in Germany is basically just about 5th. You celebrate it differently. And so Krampus, spoiler alert, Christmas is not December 25th everywhere in the world. Just so you know, Santa Claus doesn't hit every kid in one night.

So it makes so much more sense. I actually knew that about research I did when I was in the second grade because I had to do a report on Czechoslovakia. But yeah, basically December 5th was considered Krampus night and kids were warned before they went to bed not to invite demons into the home. Which by the way, I'm here in the supernatural hour.

We invite you not to invite demons to home. Ever. If you get a we did work for Christmas, call us and we will dispose of it for you. After we get you over the head with it.

Or whoever gave it to you. No, you. Perk using it. Child abuse.

Child abuse. Child abuse. Elderly abuse. So now what was interesting is if you go to some of these countries in Eastern Europe, they actually have what they call Krampenach, which stands for Krampenite.

And they have these parades in these cities where basically people dress up as Krampus. And essentially St. Nicholas leads the parade. But hundreds of people will actually dress up as Krampus.

And they kind of pray through the streets of these cities and try and scare children and try and taunt adults. And basically kind of whip people's legs with birch sticks. They make asses out of themselves is what they do. Right.

It's kind of a drug. Experienced that personally. Kind of drunken revelry if you will. But you know, some of those customs are pretty creepy.

Krampus has been described several different ways. Some describe Krampus as more kind of a man with kind of beastial features. Beastial features. Beastial features.

Some describe it more demonic. Some describe it just flat out as a beast. But generally. Half demon, half goat.

Goat, yeah. That's the one that we have. I was going to say, most believe Krampus has got cloven hoofs. Actually, one cloven hoof and one human foot.

Every culture has that. Really? Yeah, I read that in one of the articles. And you can even see it in some of the pictures.

Like I think right there on Dan's shirt, not so much on dogs. You can kind of see he's got like one regular foot and one cloven hoof. Couldn't decide, huh? No, I'm not sure why that is.

I might. It just looks like feet. Yeah, but in all variations of what Krampus looks like, that was the one constant thing. It's one human foot and one cloven hoof.

He was also known to have a long, very long, pointed, jean, simmon style tongue. Mine does. Flocked. Dark, brown or black hair.

Usually kind of long and goat-like. And Krampus had goat horns, which both of your sweaters illustrate quite well. So he was kind of a demonic looking character if you would. Now what was interesting with Krampus is he is often viewed with chains.

Tell us about the chains, Tim. So according to this article that was written back in 1958, the chains possibly represent that attempt to bind the devil that the Krampus represents. This was after like Christianity adopted the whole thing in that region there. And that was the thing because at one point in time they actually tried to ban Krampus in some of those European countries because they saw it as basically anti-Christian.

And... Kind of like Wershman the devil. Yes. So one of the things that they say is that chains represent their attempt to kind of buying the devil that Krampus is.

Some of them think that they come back though from a more paganistic past. And again, kind of going back to the fact that nobody really knows the true origin of Krampus, there is some belief that he originated from some pagan which is Kevin's ritualistic rituals. He was summons basically is what happened. They conjured, they did a conjuring and they used a goat, like an actual goat as the conduit.

So then he grew into a man. So that's why some people think that he's half man or half goat or just a beast because they had to use something to bring him to life. Well and what's interesting is going back to the Birch branches that their women people with and that they're giving kids is in the coven type stuff. The Birch branches actually symboled a phallic virility if you will.

Yeah. And so it's kind of a great big dong made out of Birch as kind of what those sticks represent so to speak. I can't believe they said dong on the podcast. Okay.

In fact, there's actually a writer who back in the 1950s said, and I'm going to quote him here, he says, there seems to be little doubt as to his true identity for another form as a full regalia of the horn god of the witches so well preserved. The Birch apart from his phallic significance may have a connection with initiation rights of certain witch and covens. Rights which entail binding and scourging as a form of mount death. The change could have been introduced in a Christian attempt to bind the devil.

But again, that could be reminiscent of pagan initiation rights. That's the art cloud just quoting. Oh, was it? Yeah.

I didn't read the whole thing. I was just talking about the change part of it. And so it's interesting because Krampus has kind of been more of a European belief. But recently he's kind of made a resurgence in pop culture.

I mean, with the movie in 2015, Krampus, and you start to see it here. I mean, TV show Supernatural. They've never watched a Supernatural. They've got an episode involving Krampus.

I think they killed Krampus in the episode of Camember. So one thing before we get too much into the pop culture part of it. One of the things that they used to do is with those golden Birch sticks, they would use those as a decoration in the homes and they put them up on the walls. And it would be a constant year-end reminder for the kids to be good.

So they would see it every day and they would remind them to be good so Krampus wouldn't come to their house, come to December for a few minutes. I also suspect that if their houses were like my home was when I was a child, if you weren't good at that Birch stick, it could be a reminder that you're going to get a whoopin' if you set a swear or did something you weren't supposed to. Yeah, I think they would have actually been used. I do believe our mom used to wooden spoon a time or two on my backside.

I may have had a belt once or twice. I could have okay. That doesn't surprise me. But I can't say much because I've had a belt or two or so.

Back a day or two. When your parents couldn't spank you. Yeah, that was back in the good old days. In the 70s.

When America was great, I guess. So that's kind of it on Krampus, really to be honest with you. It was surprisingly not a whole lot on Krampus. Is there anything else you'd like to add on Krampus?

Yeah, because Annie, my great-great-grandfather, Anton, he was from Austria. And so when Annie came down to be with him, they instilled out in each generation on my grandfather's side. So all of us had to grow up with the whole Krampus thing. And the way that they worked it for us here in America, kind of trying to cultureize things.

So if we came down from downstairs and we woke up and if there was a switch in it, there was like a switch at all in our stockings. That means we were bad and we were going to get a whooping. But if we were good, it was filled with candy and money and all kinds of goodies. Pizza's got a lot of sticks.

No, I didn't. That was a really good kid. So it was just curious. So did anybody get a stick?

I'm curious. A couple of my cousins did one year, but I think it was just because the parents were playing a trick on them just to see how they would react to getting a switch. But you mostly got candy. Now if you had a switch in your sock, you'd be glad because Nintendo makes those.

It's a video game system. It's just a switch. It's just a thing. Anyway, so that is Krampus.

Now what was kind of interesting, I did this research. I know that Tim, you did some ghost stories. I was looking at it here in just a minute. As I was looking into Krampus, I found some interesting facts about Christmas in general that I'd like to touch on.

The Christmas tree itself was actually a Norse tradition during the winter season when food was sparse. And basically that time of year they'd have a big celebration around December 25th, where a lot of meat wasn't normally available. But when winter came around, they killed a large portion of their livestock because it was easier to feed fewer livestock than lots of them. And they would just reproduce and have new livestock in the spring.

So they'd have these big festivals and they'd bring in the biggest log they could find. It was called the Yule Log. And they'd bring it over the fire and it would burn. Sometimes up to 12 days because I mean this humongous log.

And while this log burned, the sparks, they would set each spark represented a new sheep or towel that was going to be born the following year. And then we'd just feast and party and have fun. And they used to bring in an evergreen tree to symbolize life because winters were so cold and sucky that it was kind of reminded that, hey, you know, the street can survive the winter, we can survive the winter. And then it'll be spring again.

And so that's kind of where the Christmas tree originally came from. They also used to decorate a lot with holly. Now what was interesting is when the Christian religion started to kind of take Europe by storm, they kind of appropriated a lot of the traditions that were already going on in Europe at the time. They decided that Christmas trees stood for everlasting life and attributed it to Christ.

And then they started hanging apples on it to represent the Garden of Eden. When those apples have basically become now our glass round Christmas bulbs. The holly, they decided to symbolize the crown of thorns. So basically when Christians took over Europe, they took all these pagan beliefs, all these Norse beliefs, and instead of saying you can't do this anymore, they're just kind of like, hey, that thing you guys believe about the thing now means this instead.

And so they just kind of appropriated cultural things that were still there. Now Christmas in England up until 1652 was kind of a riotous party. Basically peasants could show up at the Lord's house and for a day or two, eat his food, kind of being in charge and the Lord just had kind of suck it. And if they didn't, they basically got a trick, a trick or treat.

They would play pranks on the Lord and do mean things if he didn't basically go by it. And you're not meaning the Lord Jesus Christ, you're meaning the Lord of the manor. I mean the Lord of the manor. There you go.

In 1652, Oliver Cromwell, when they deposed the monarchy, they actually outlawed Christmas in England for a number of years. Who's celebrated anyway? Right, people kind of celebrate it on the side. In the Americas, when the Americas first were colonized, the Puritans were like, yeah, we're not doing Christmas.

And so Christmas kind of creeped back in around the early 1800s, and St. Nicholas became Santa Claus, and the crappus kind of went by the way. They didn't like him because he wasn't a happy thing. Well, they're too busy drowning people and hanging for being with us and staking vampires.

They don't have time for a bad guy that's told children. They had to hunt down the witches. And interestingly enough, American Christmas is kind of a... It's hallmark.

But it's kind of worldwide at this point. We've kind of spread that commercialism everywhere. Right, but before that, like, pagan, the Eddle came first. So it was basically a political battle between the pagans and Christianity, and they kind of just decided to line up all the Christian holidays with all the pagan solstices.

And that's why we have Christmas on the 25th. It's because it's the pagan holiday for the winter solstice. Right, they actually just kind of, again, appropriated all the pagan holidays. Yeah, it was a political move to gain members into the church and what have you.

So when the witches were celebrating Sam Hain, the Christians were all, it's all Saints Day. You hold yourself ready with us. It just so happens, you know, that full thing. Exactly.

So there's your History of Krampus and a brief History of Christmas. Tim, do you have some Christmas ghost stories for us? So, what I have is kind of like the origin or why they used to tell Christmas ghost stories. If you ever heard the Christmas song by Andy Williams, it's the most wonderful time of the year.

There's a line in there where he says, they'll be scary ghost stories that tells the glory of Christmas long, long ago. Are you seeing that, please? They'll be scary ghost stories and tells of the glories of Christmas long, long ago. We can't just have one singer.

Excellent. Okay, you may continue. So I'm sure a lot of people heard that line and they're kind of confused about the scary ghost stories. Because it's not a tradition that's still done today.

So this was actually something that was, and I'm sure Peach is very familiar with this, because this is something that was popular that happened in England. It's something they did. They got together. Basically, every Christmas Eve, number 24, or 25th or whatever, was.

And they would sit by the camp, they would sit by the fire and they would tell different ghost stories that they've come up throughout the year. This one time at Family Tree? Yeah. So, basically, it's this article I've got, it basically talks about a little bit how modern Christmas traditions, kind of what you guys just talked about, were either borrowed from pagan winter festivals or invented by the English during the mid-19th century.

Things like that is like people still send Christmas cards, they decorate the evergreen trees, they go door door caroling and stuff, talking with candy. Most Christmas, at least the way we celebrate here in America, is a product of Victorian England. Exactly. Whoo hoo, go England.

So, it goes on and talks about how ghost stories were kind of one of the biggest parts of that practice. It says, they would gather around the fire on Christmas Eve to tell ghost stories, was much part of Christmas for Victorian English, as Santa Claus is for us. Traces of the now-forgotten tradition occasionally appear in those places of Christmas time, although their significance is generally overlooked. Like Christmas Carol?

Charles Dickens. Yes, exactly. That's where I'm dealing with the next. This is the most obvious example of how Victorian ghost stories have persisted to some degree in modern Christmas celebrations, is Charles Dickens.

Christmas Carol. In fact, we watched two versions of it the other day, and we still need to watch them up at Christmas Carol, because you can't have Christmas without them up at Christmas Carol. That has been on my wish list for like six years, and my family keeps not buying it for me on purpose. Okay, I'm gonna have to interject here.

It is not Christmas unless I watch Black Adders Christmas Carol. It's not Christmas unless you watch Die Hard. My family is Christmas with me. We watched the Christmas Carol instead of telling stories, we just watched the Christmas Carol.

So, it says, some people that argue Dickens Christmas ghost story, single-handedly saved the winter holiday from dying out during the Industrial Christmas Carol. Because at that time, England wasn't really celebrating Christmas. It was outlawed. So, he re-introduced many century old traditions with his instant holiday classic.

It's become so much a part of Christmas, and it's a very film adaptations and theatrical versions that people don't even wonder why Dickens chose of all things for spectacle visitors to bring about Ebenezer Scrooge, his transformation. It says there isn't a seeing. Most people, nowadays we kind of tell our ghost stories and celebrate the dead in October, but it was a huge part of the story. It was a huge part of December for them.

So, Tim, when you hear Christmas Carols, does it scare the Dickens idea? But, um, Bunch. Where's Hefei with his room shop? Yeah, he killed Black Adders.

It goes on to talk about what you said with Oliver Cromwell, abolishing Christmas. It also talks about what Peter talked about, how Christmas is on the 25th because of the winter solstice. It also says that the festival celebrated the death of light and a subsequent rebirth the following day. For obvious reasons, symbolic connotations that early Christians adopted date significant to pagan Roman and northern Europeans.

So basically, because of the whole winter solstice, it's basically the longest night of the year. So, it kind of represents the death of light more so that's part of the reason why ghost stories were a huge part of Christmas back in the day. It's just because of that time of year. It was also because December, it's a lot colder than it is in October.

And apparently in England, it was kind of like a murkier and kind of just kind of like solemn feeling. So, ghost stories were a huge part of Christmas traditions. We want to get to England. And then you'll see it talk about that.

And it was also very, again, kind of going back to our witches and vampires episodes, a very superstitious time. Where long as night of the day, you sit at home around, you can't fire, or your hearth fire, I guess you'd call it. And you worked about all the spirits and scary things outside and you kind of sat around at home and told Christmas ghost stories. Would this be a bad time to get a crampus in my leg?

Oh, good Lord. You know, someone's got some of the love of this. Yeah, corny dad jokes. Lord's just going to listen to the spot, he's going to bust up laughing.

Oh, crampus in my leg. It's so funny. I thought it was pretty good. Alright, anybody have anything else to watch?

So, that should be a new tradition for everybody. Instead of watching like Home Alone or some of those other Christmas movies. Die Hard. Yeah, Die Hard.

I guess is... Die Hard is a Christmas movie, Dan. No, no. There's Christmas music, there's Santa Claus.

There's a tree. There's a tree. I actually read an article that talked about how Die Hard is a Christmas movie than some of the Christmas movies. Because of those things that you just said, the Christmas party, the whole soundtrack, most of the soundtrack actually has Christmas songs on it.

Speaking of which, since this is going to be a little bit of a shorter episode, I'm going to make it not a shorter episode. What things have to happen for each of you for it to actually be Christmas? And I'll start to give you guys an idea. So, give you guys a minute to think.

For me, it is not Christmas unless I've watched Better Off Dead, which is also Christmas movie. And... Oh, my two dollars. Yes, it is.

And I have to watch Blackadder Christmas Carol. Which for those of those who never seen Blackadder Christmas Carol, stars Ronakinson, who's Mr Bean for those who don't know. And he's Ebenezer Blackadder. And he's the nicest man in the world in the Christmas coast visit to him and show him how he's so nice that he gets, basically, he becomes a floor rug.

And at the end of the Christmas Carol, he becomes an ass. Mr Bean is such a dork. I love Ronakinson. So, those two things have to happen for me for Christmas, the end.

Okay, so for me to have it be Christmas, I have to watch a Charlie Brown Christmas. And you have to watch some version of the Christmas Carol. You have to watch those Robody animatronic, Rudolph Riddo's reindeer and Santa Claus is coming to town. Oh, the stop motion from the 70s?

But you cannot watch, we'll remember why that one's done. You also have to have my mom's butter cookies. Those butter cookies are pretty good. I had your mom's butter cookies.

They're really good. And that's, if this happens, then it is Christmas. Don, what has to happen for it to be Christmas for you? Good question.

Oh, got to get the lights up, got to get the house decorated. I think that's a big part of it for me. I like to sit around and smell candles and pine candles and the tree. We have an artificial tree, so I like the pine scented candles or pine scents.

But I just like to sit there and have some candles and sit there with the Christmas lights. So, Don, I'm putting up Christmas lights and smart candles. That's easy to please. What do you have to have for it to be Christmas?

Since I'm English, we have a lot of traditions. So, most of it is... Right, the rich people's houses and stuff. We have to watch a few movies.

I always have my go-to. So, we always have to watch a Christmas carol. I do the night, night, night before Christmas because I'm a big timber and fan. Then we have to watch a Christmas story and the peanut's Christmas.

Those four main ones. I always have to have rum balls. My grandmother, Annie, came up with a recipe that's been handed down. So, we rum balls on Christmas Eve.

And we get to open one present on Christmas Eve and it's usually pajamas. So, I have to have my Christmas pajama thing. And then, yeah, pretty much we just make sure that we don't get a Krampus stick. Still, I do it with my kids too.

I get to get a Krampus in your leg. Tim! Krampus, switch. You know, unfortunately, I'm going to have to be the uppin' user screws of the group here.

I worked in retail for about 11 years, which means I did about 11 or 12 Black Fridays. Retail kind of killed Christmas for me because I was always at work dealing with all the people that were doing the last minute. Christmas shopping, getting all angry at you and yelling at you because you don't have the stuff that they want because they're procrastinators and don't get their shopping done early like Lauren Aaron do and have their Christmas shopping done. Hey, mine is done.

But it was just like for me, I was always working throughout my 20s and my 30s here. So, I personally, like for me, Christmas is I used to buy me on Christmas presents and give my mother a seat and she reimbursed me. Now, it's just, here's a list of all the movies I want and she buys them and then I let my nieces and nephews unwrap them because usually when they're done unwrapping their own presents, they start crying because they don't have more unwraps so they unwrap all the mine and that seems to kind of get them over. So, I guess that's why that's what makes Christmas for me is being able to see my nieces and nephew unwraps stuff.

Aw, cute. But then if and when I finally get the Muppets Christmas Carol, I'll start watching that every year and that's when it will be Christmas for me. So, until my family decides to stop playing this bean joke on me, it will be Christmas for me when I can watch the Muppets Christmas Carol. You're an adult and you can buy it yourself, right?

Yeah, that would be too easy. I honestly, how long they're going to keep playing this joke on me. So, for listeners out there, if you want to earn 10 points. You know, you're going to get a Christmas Carol.

I think they made a mistake of making it to where they can show me, it takes items off the list when they buy it. And they didn't make it so I couldn't see that, so I know they already got it for me. Yeah, what you're going to get about 70 copies. I have to have my manger up too.

I got a really pretty one, so I have to put that up every year. So, can I tell you the weirdest thing? My kids, when they were little little, I was at the store one day and they had those really cheap nativity or those countdown Christmas advent calendars that have the crappy little nasty chocolate in it. Well, I get it for them because they're like a dollar.

So, you buy it for them. Well, I gave them to them every year and about three years ago when they're very old for kids and still living in the home. I didn't buy them one year. And they complain it's like it was the worst Christmas ever for them.

So, I still have to make sure that I buy this cheap ass crappy candy so they can have the best Christmas ever. That's why you start getting the advent calendars to have different whiskeys in them? They're kids. Yeah, the alcohol ones, yeah.