Short Stuff: Why is holly a holiday thing?

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Speaker 1 Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and it's ho-ho, short stuff.

Speaker 1 You're on short stuff.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 2 We're stealing one potential thing from our Christmas episode just to do a Christmas-style shorty to get in the spirit of things. And we're going to be talking about holly today.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, the plant. It's a shrub.
It can be a tree.

Speaker 2 It's in North America. It's in Asia.
It's in Europe. There are a lot of different species.
And like I said, some can be little little shorty, shorty shrubs, some can be big old trees.

Speaker 2 But everyone knows holly for those waxy leaves that will draw blood and those little crimson berries that grow on them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but there's something about holly that I did not know until I was studying was that they bloom in the spring and early summer. Have you ever seen a holly plant bloom white flowers?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 My dirty secret is I don't love holly just because it's so pointy and sharp. It's almost like a thorn bush, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I have a big old holly tree outside the house.
And

Speaker 1 it was getting a little thin, so I've started to fertilize it twice a year. And it is not fun to get under there and fertilize the holly.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's no good.

Speaker 1 But it is pretty, and I love all the berries, and I love the birds coming to eat the berries, and I love that the birds love that I love the birds coming to eat the berries, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1 So I do have a special place in my heart for Holly.

Speaker 2 Well, we'll go over the most boring part of this all, which is root words.

Speaker 2 Holly, it's a Christmas thing, obviously, but it didn't come from the word holy, which you may be surprised about.

Speaker 1 I wasn't.

Speaker 2 Old English will translate it as holgen.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 2 Old Norse, Holfer.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 2 Dutch, holst.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 2 French, what would that be? Frenchy?

Speaker 1 Ho.

Speaker 1 Ho?

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 2 Sound like you're from Philly. Hagie.

Speaker 2 And then Welsh is a Salin and German.

Speaker 1 I don't think that's how you say that, but

Speaker 1 I don't spell it. I have no idea.
There's only like 10 people who can pronounce Welsh.

Speaker 2 German, I know this one is Steckpalma.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I like that one.

Speaker 2 But it all probably comes from Proto-Indo-European languages at the base, which is Q-E-L, which means prickly or to prick.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 There you go.

Speaker 1 End of root word segment. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Wake up, everyone.

Speaker 1 So one thing I didn't know is apparently in long-standing tradition, because this is Holly is another great example of how you associate it with Christmas.

Speaker 1 Christians have kind of adopted it with their own kind of symbolism associated with it, but it goes back way further than that.

Speaker 1 And it's kind of from all over the place because Holly grows in not just Europe, not just North America, but Asia as well.

Speaker 1 It's a really well-traveled, well-trod shrub that because it stands out so much in winter, it's usually evergreen, those leaves are unmistakable, the berries are just so bright red against like a snowy background.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, that it does make a lot of sense that cultures from around the world and over the course of time would have been like that. I'm going to drape a bunch of symbolism on that plant.

Speaker 2 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of times it's associated through like ancient cultures with good luck.

Speaker 2 In this case, good luck for men specifically, because for good luck for women, ivy is that counterpart and if you've ever heard the English Christmas carol the holly and the ivy that's what they're talking about

Speaker 2 yeah it is again a sacred plant from the druids a lot of cultures thought it was like good luck to put it in your house because it's hardy and strong and again those bright red colors when it's harsh outside means it's got to be good luck to put it on your house but it gets even more specific sometimes that like it'll ward off lightning in a lightning storm pretty cool it'll It'll protect your house.

Speaker 2 If you were in Rome, they would associate it with Saturn. So it obviously came about during their Saturnalia festival a lot.

Speaker 1 Which has a huge influence on Christmas. That was the Romans' mid to late December winter festival.
Yeah. So they used holly.

Speaker 1 And then when the Christians came around, the Romans were like, you're not allowed to use holly for your Christmas celebration, whatever that is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It was banned, apparently, at least at first.

Speaker 1 And then, like you said, the Druids also had their own thing going on, too. So, this is all happening at different times.

Speaker 1 I mean, the Romans would have been celebrating Saturnalia while the Druids would have been celebrating their own thing. I don't know that one influenced the other.

Speaker 1 I know that they were connected via Rome at one point in time, but I feel like the Druids' celebration and use of Holly in the wintertime was contemporaneous and not influenced by the Romans.

Speaker 1 I could be wrong, though. All right.

Speaker 2 I bet someone knows.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'd love to know.

Speaker 2 You did mention some Christian symbolism.

Speaker 2 You know, anytime you see anything red, generally in Christianity, that's going to symbolize the blood of Christ from the crucifixion.

Speaker 2 The legend was that those berries were white, but then Christ's blood stained them red as a reminder.

Speaker 2 And then the pointed, you know, the pointy points that I hate so much symbolize the crown of thorns during the crucifixion. And, in fact, in German,

Speaker 2 it is known as Christstorn or Christ's thorn. So that's pretty obvious.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 2 Should we take a break?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we should.

Speaker 2 All right, enough of of that. Let's talk after the break about the plant itself, right after this.

Speaker 2 With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One.

Speaker 2 If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs.

Speaker 2 Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about.
In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply.
See capitalone.com slash bank. Capital One, N.A.
member, FDIC.

Speaker 1 You know, everyone living with a rare autoimmune condition has their own story to tell.

Speaker 1 And that's why in season five of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio Production, in partnership with Argenix, you'll hear powerful, real-life perspectives.

Speaker 2 That's right. This podcast explores stories of what life is really like with MG or CIDP.

Speaker 2 Host Martine Hackett sits down with people who faced it all: the early signs and symptoms, the search for answers, and the strength it takes to keep moving forward.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and this season, the stories go even deeper, showing us what resilience truly looks like through setbacks, breakthroughs, and the communities that make all the difference.

Speaker 1 So, listen to Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 Okay, Chuck, you made a lot of big promises about talking about the holly plant itself before the break, and I feel like we have to deliver on them.

Speaker 2 Yeah, uh, I mean, it's generally an evergreen, but not always, it can also uh be deciduous, which is kind of cool, weird, yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, is that it? Yeah, that's all I got. The most of them are evergreen, though, like I said, around the world, which is why people are like, I really like that plant in wintertime.

Speaker 1 I guess that they are good in shade, they're good in sunlight, they do like well-drained soil. Um, and they are either a male plant or a female plant, which means they're dioecious.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, dioecious. I nailed it.

Speaker 1 And the male plants and the female plants both flower, which is how they pollinate, but only the female plants are the ones that produce berries. That's right.

Speaker 2 And, you know, they need to be close to one another, obviously, for that production to occur. So the male plant has to be near enough to a female plant

Speaker 2 that pollination happens thanks to our little bee friends.

Speaker 2 And also, as it turns out, well, not cross-pollination, cross-pollination, but as far as spreading that seed, that's thanks mostly to birds, obviously.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, the birds like to eat

Speaker 1 the berries with the four seeds in them, and they go poop them out, and a new holly plant grows. Have you ever looked down and seen a little holly plant sticking up out of the ground? Yeah,

Speaker 2 I stomped that thing out.

Speaker 1 That means that a bird pooped there at some point.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I've never thought of it that way, but I can only think of it that way from now on, though.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, it's true.

Speaker 2 There's really no other way to look at it uh you know who doesn't like to eat those red berries who uh humans because

Speaker 2 it's no good for you it's uh it's toxic to us um i mean you i don't know if it could kill you you'd probably have to eat a ton of those uh and you'd probably be vomiting long long before you died

Speaker 2 such that you would say hey maybe don't eat those but uh yeah nausea bad bad stomachache so don't eat those red berries which is you know big for kids because when you see that red berry in your kid it looks like something you should pick off and eat

Speaker 1 it does for sure. Yeah.
There's an old druid legend that if you eat a holly berry, it'll upset your stomach. Yeah, pretty good.

Speaker 1 There's also, I had not heard of this, but there's something called bird lime that you can make by boiling the bark of a holly tree specifically.

Speaker 1 And it makes this sticky substance that you can then take and like paint onto the limbs of, say, a holly tree or anything. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 And it's so sticky, it'll trap small birds that alight on those limbs. I guess the only reason you would want to do this if you want to capture a bird, which you shouldn't be doing anyway.

Speaker 1 But if you don't get to the bird in time, the bird will starve to death. It's that sticky and holds that fast.
So it's illegal, actually, in some countries.

Speaker 1 So please don't start making bird lime because you heard about it on this episode.

Speaker 2 No, don't do that. But what you could do if you're into carving things, apparently the Holly's wood is very hard, great for carving, and a lot of chess pieces can be made out of

Speaker 2 Hollywood because Hollywood.

Speaker 2 Which I think is kind of cool because I, my friend, have started playing chess for the first time since probably high school because Ruby is in chess club and she's asked me to play chess with her. So

Speaker 2 we've been playing every night, and it's having a ball playing chess with her.

Speaker 1 Is that why you picked this episode?

Speaker 2 No, it's not why, but it's pretty interesting because I was I played, I dabbled in chess in high school. I was never good or learned any strategy or technique or took any classes or clubs.

Speaker 2 So it's all just intuition. And so I'm basically at the point where she is at 10 years old

Speaker 2 and her, you know, kind of learning strategy a little bit. And so we're like pretty evenly matched and it's just a lot of fun.
Like I'm, it's opening brain pathways that

Speaker 2 I did like strategical pathways that aren't tapped into very much for me. And so I'm really digging it.

Speaker 2 And for Christmas, I already threw Don in like a really nice hand-carved chess set for us as a little surprise that's cool how'd she get into chess just chess club at school she signed up for I have no idea why probably some boy was in it that she had a crush on would be my guess has she uh she's like this is gonna make his bow tie spin when I join I think so has she seen the queen's gambit yet uh no I don't know how much you get into that yet

Speaker 1 I bet searching for Bobby Fisher could be a good one though for her okay all right we'll start with that make sure she sees the queen's gambit at some point all right uh one other thing thing you can do with Hollywood because it's so dense and sturdy is create a walking stick out of it.

Speaker 1 Oh. And if you carve a walking stick out of Hollywood and there's not a druid on the end, throw it away and start over because you did it wrong.

Speaker 2 That sounds great.

Speaker 1 You got anything else? I got nothing else. Oh, everybody then.
That means this happy holiday edition of Short Stuff is out.

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