Merry Christmas! Here are 5 important facts you need to know for the season:
1. Santa is a psychedelic mushroom.
I love that video from the New York Times. They make a very compelling argument that the origin of Santa Clause was psychedelic mushrooms.
Hear them out: What we have here is a //bearded shaman\\ from near the //North Pole\\, who eats, then “becomes” a //red & white\\ psychedelic mushroom, rides a //reindeer-drawn sled\\, enters peoples houses //through the chimney\\ due to heavy snow, //goes on a “trip” and brings back gifts\\ to serve with a //huge meal\\. Oh, and his reindeer enjoy the same mushrooms because it gives them the sensation of //flying\\.
2. Why do we “dream of a White Christmas?”
Ever wonder why people “dream of a White Christmas?” Most Christmas songs and poems come from “The Little Ice Age” (which endedin the early 1900s) when the earth was in a cooler climatological period which saw snow common in December places like New York City, Boston & London. Movies & songs referencing snow and cold from the early 1900s are often based on memories of the author from their childhood, or stories told by their parents or grandparents born before the turn of the century. For details, read the blog I wrote in 2006.
- “Over the River and Through the Woods” (1840s)– November snow was common in Boston then.
- Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” (1840s)– London would often have snow cover in December.
- “Twas the Night Before Christmas” (1820s)– December snow was typical then in New York City, and reindeer (Arctic animals) aren’t found at this latitude anymore
- The Song “A White Christmas” (1942)– This song was done later but they were “dreaming” about stories their grandparents told them.
3. There is a map of where Mistletoe lives.
When I was a kid, we had the Christmas staple “Mistletoe” growing in the trees where I lived in northwest North Carolina. I assumed everybody did too, but I haven’t seen any since I’ve lived in Pennsylvania. This got me thinking… where is its native habitat? It turns out, there’s a map for that:
Wikipedia says: “Mistletoe is the common name for obligate hemiparasitic plants in the order Santalales. They are attached to their host tree or shrub by a structure called the haustorium, through which they extract water and nutrients from the host plant. Their parasitic lifestyle has led to some dramatic changes in their metabolism.” Creepy, huh?
4. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a girl.
I’ll let Neil deGrasse Tyson ruin this one for you:
5. Yes, that AccuWeather Christmas graphic from 1988 is real.
(This is copied from my WeatherMatrix Blog) AccuWeather created a hand-dranw graphic called “Today’s Worst Weather” in the mid 1980s, picking on a city (typically with a funny name). It ran until 2015, and various versions are archived on a Tumblr. Christmas 1988 was apparently icy in Bradford, Pennsylvania, according to this early computer graphic from AccuWeather (part of an “AccuHistory” video which was featured on “Late Week Tonight” in 2018):
In 1988, AccuWeather had just Introduced “UltraGraphix,” ultra-high spatial (400×300 pixels) and color resolution (4-bit) ready-for-air weather graphics. today, they contain millions of colors and are created in HD format, 1920×1080.
Anyway… this is what you get when travel is not recommended during the 2020 Pandemic. Merry Christmas!
