BONUS: The Christmas Goose & Our Favourite On-Screen Santa

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:16

Hello, and welcome to this bonus episode of America, a history podcast, recorded straight after our recently published episode of who Is Santa Claus? I'm joined now by the guests from that episode, Tom Smith and Brian Earl, to discuss this a little bit more.

Firstly, guys, thank you so much for joining me, and I really want to know a little bit more about how you celebrate Christmas and how you talk to your kids about Santa Claus.

Brian Earl: 00:00:40

Yeah.

So, Dashiell, my son, has just turned four last week, and I think this is maybe probably the first Christmas he's going to remember long term, and probably the first where he really has an understanding of Santa Claus.

I mean, I think when, you know, when they're really small, they see all these Christmas characters, you know, they kind of have a hard time telling them apart. They just see, you know, images of snowmen and elves, and that's all just Christmas. And then I think Santa Claus kind of emerges.

We also have our own tradition that I made up just out of thin air of the Christmas goose, who comes every night during the Christmas season and leaves a Christmas cracker in the tree with a little note and a little prize so that every morning he has something very small. And there's this whole legend we built around it where she lives at the Enchanted Pond with her friend, Ms.

Lavinia Tailfeather, and she writes little notes every day talking about their adventures on the enchanted pond. And so it's a fun little tradition, and I kind of feel it's nice to know that that's just for us and us alone. No one else really celebrates that.

Unless anyone listening to this podcast wants to feel inspired. But I feel like he might have trouble teasing that apart from Santa Claus.

So, yeah, I think we're still trying to understand how to talk to him about Santa.

The system of carrots and sticks doesn't seem to be doing anything to modify his behavior, I'm sorry to say, around just being good or bearing the wrath, because, well, the Christmas goose will sort of pick up any slack that Santa might leave for not bringing gifts. So, yeah, I mean, it's just. It's.

He's at that fun age where it's all starting to come together and we're starting to need to be, you know, in some ways, careful about how we talk about Santa, and then in other ways, you know, just really, really going all in and trying to get him super excited about it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:22

Tom, how about you?

Tom Ruys Smith: 00:02:23

Yeah, yeah. My kids are a bit older, so we have a less immediate relationship with Santa Claus than we once did. But, yeah, we still, we still hang stockings, we.

We still leave a mince pie and a carrot for the reindeer. So, yes, he remains a presiding spirit of the season in our house. Definitely.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:42

Yeah. My daughter is still only two and a half, so we're introducing her to Santa Claus this year.

Gonna take her to her first grotto to see how that plays out. But she still doesn't really understand what Christmas is or what's going on. So, yeah, we're getting there.

But maybe, you know, we'll introduce the Christmas goose and see what happens.

Brian Earl: 00:03:05

Please do.

Tom Ruys Smith: 00:03:06

I think that's your long term project, Brian, to build a new Christmas tradition here that will last the centuries. And then people in 200 years time will be trying to puzzle out where the Christmas goose came from on podcasts.

Brian Earl: 00:03:19

And I save all the little notes those will go in his little box of childhood memories.

Because that's the other thing is when you have something like this, like Santa Claus or Christmas goose, you never quite know how long it's going to last, you know, and you just want to.

I feel like you get that there's a period where they can start to remember it year to year and then the period where it no longer, you know, has the magic. And that's a short one that might like what, three, four, five Christmases max. So you kind of, you want to make the most of it while you can.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:46

Yeah. Are you, are you doing sort of sneaking downstairs on Christmas Eve to place presents and, you know, all of that jazz?

Brian Earl: 00:03:54

I haven't had the need to do that yet. I mean, Dash is out cold by 7pm on a good night and no sneaking required. Yeah.

Tom Ruys Smith: 00:04:02

This is the problem is they go to bed later and later. Yes.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:06

Yeah. All right. Well, I think one of the ways that we kind of helped perpetuate the idea of Santa is through TV and film. It certainly was in my household.

So I wonder what your favorite sort of Christmas movies are, what your favorite screen Santas are.

Brian Earl: 00:04:23

I know a lot of people from my age really love that Santa Claus C L A U S E trilogy with the guy from Home Improvement. I'm forgetting his name, Tim. I'm familiar with the images. He certainly looks like Santa Claus. I've never seen any of those movies, so I couldn't say.

The ones I'm most familiar with are those made for TV specials from the 60s and 70s and 80s.

So the Santa Claus in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is just when I think of an on screen Santa Claus, that little wooden puppet Santa is the one that always comes to mind or you know those. The Rankin Bass ones, the stop motion animation versions of Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. I wouldn't say they're my favorite.

Those are just the only ones that sort of come to mind when I think of on screen Santa Clauses.

Tom Ruys Smith: 00:05:08

, Santa Claus, the movie from: 1985

Because I have a very, very vivid memory of going to see that with my dad in our local cinema, which was normally empty, but was absolutely packed that year. So obviously that was a big deal at the time. Yeah. So I think that one's the one that I most associate with my childhood.

But I think that Kurt Russell did a pretty interesting job in terms of modern Santa Claus is in that one that he was in a few years ago, Christmas Chronicles. So I think he was a pretty good, good modern one. I think he brought an interesting edge to it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:50

Yeah, I think Kurt Russell does make a good Santa. But I remember. I remember the Santa Claus, the 85 film, because it was one of those, as I grew up, was always being played. They had.

My parents had a VHS event, so every Christmas it was being played and I was just. I was sick of it. So for me, for me, it has to be the early 90s miracle on 34th street and the Richard Attenborough Santa.

That's what Santa looks like in my head. But, yeah, I think it's always kind of a little bit defined by the Santa that we grew up with as kids, though, right?

Brian Earl: 00:06:29

Yeah, almost certainly.

Liam Heffernan: 00:06:31

If you could change in hindsight, or not so much in hindsight, but just knowing what Santa looks like. If you could change one thing about Santa, what would it be?

Brian Earl: 00:06:40

You mean the image of Santa?

Liam Heffernan: 00:06:41

The image or the. Anything, really.

Brian Earl: 00:06:46

Well, let's see. I'm not sure there's something I would change.

It's very interesting, something that happened a couple years ago because a visit from St Nicholas is now in the public domain. Anybody can republish it and change it in any way they like. And a woman did that.

I'm forgetting her name, but she just republished the story and took out the thing about him holding a pipe in his teeth. Basically just removed any references to him smoking because the pipe is, you know, the Dutch influence. He's smoking a Dutch pipe.

That's kind of how he looks in most of those images that include a pipe. I just thought that was an interesting take of, like, trying to.

And of course, it generated a ton of publicity, which was probably the point in the first place. And the woman actually did pretty well doing things like that. So I'M not sure.

I don't know if perhaps, maybe bringing back a little bit of the consequences to Santa Claus might be worthwhile because, yeah, there's always the threat that you'll leave. I mean, certainly growing up, I did plenty to deserve that lump of coal. And never doubt.

Liam Heffernan: 00:07:49

Yeah, bold, bold statement, Brian. Just bring back, bring back the punishment.

Tom Ruys Smith: 00:07:54

What should I say? I think, I think we should have. I think we should have resolved his marital status by now.

You know, I think, I think we should have had a consistent line on Mrs. Claus, her role in proceedings. You can see them.

You can see them really playing with this in the late 19th century when she first emerges as a figure. And there's some really great stories and poems about Mrs. Claus. Some of them.

She's like a women's rights activist and she wants, she wants her due, you know, she wants to head out on the sleigh with Santa. In one of them I've come across, he marries Mother Goose. I think that's rather neat, actually.

I quite like them being the kind of, you know, presiding Mr. And Mrs. Of American fairyland.

But, yeah, I don't think we're ever going to get to a point where we can actually decide, you know, agree on what, on Mrs. Claus's status or whether Santa is a confirmed bachelor. So I think it would have been nice if we'd resolved that one in the late 19th century.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:47

Fair enough. I asked this question, not having any clue what I would say myself, by the way.

So maybe I'd maybe give him a bit of a mascot, you know, like a kind of Olaf from Frozen sort of figure just to ride in his sleigh or something.

Tom Ruys Smith: 00:09:00

He's got Rudolph. Well, he's a. Rudolph has to be.

Liam Heffernan: 00:09:04

At the front, you know, putting things along, you know, work in the sleigh. I think it is a little like.

Brian Earl: 00:09:10

Where he has sort of a right hand elf, like, you know, the head elf. None of them spring to mind immediately, but I know they exist.

Tom Ruys Smith: 00:09:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like in central movie, Dudley Moore, you see, that was his mascot.

Liam Heffernan: 00:09:21

Exactly. Maybe. Maybe that's why the film stuck, really.

Right, I'm going to wrap this up, but thank you both Tom and Brian, for joining me for this and for the main episode as well, which I'll drop a link to in the show notes if you're listening to this. So, yeah, check that one out as well. And if you like what you hear, you can support the show from as little as one simple dollar.

So thank you for listening to the podcast and have a good Christmas. Goodbye.