Episode 70 – Yuletide Cheer! 2014 (Part One)
The first of our 2014 holiday episodes. This one features a lengthy discussion of Christmas monsters with a familiar voice.
(complete shownotes at http://www.newworldwitchery.com)
3 thoughts on “Episode 70 – Yuletide Cheer! 2014 (Part One)”
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New World Witchery - The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft 
Merry Christmas guys! It’s great to have a podcast out in time for Yuletide cheer. This one made me think about “elf on the shelf,” who I think of as a contemporary American version of the Ruprecht/dark Santa foil. I don’t use elf on the shelf with my kids but a lot of friends do, and at the same time there is a lot of pushback from other friends who think that its use represents surveillance culture — a little microcosm of the struggle as to whether Christmas should be all light or has some darkness in it too. I grew up in a Pennsylvania German family and Ruprecht was definitely a (scary) part of our Christmas eves — he would come and spook and pinch us if we weren’t asleep early on that night! This was especially important for my dad’s generation (his mom was born in Germany), because his parents used to not only put out all Santa’s gifts on Christmas eve but also to put up and decorate the whole tree that night while the (TEN) kids slept. Germans are not playing at Christmas!
What a wonderful episode – made that much better by Laine’s return! I have been digging into my PA-German roots from a genealogical point of view, and have been catching up on the folklore and traditions often using resources you cite in the podcast. Thank you for making me aware of what is in my own backyard!
Firstly, how delightful to hear your voice again, Laine!! (Cory, you too, but I’ve heard yours since I’ve heard hers! :-))
Secondly, I was thinking while you discussed the St Nicholas companion hitting the hands of “bad” children and the reference to Sants hitting the guy with a cane in “A Miracle on 34th St”. Do you think those parts of the legends might be tied to the story of the original St Nicholas (the 4th century bishop of Myra) hitting the “heretic” Arius with his staff during the council of Nicaea?