Merry Christmas you pinpricked Vincent's

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Merry Christmas, you pinpricked Vincents.

Welcome to the Blind Buy Podcast.

Thank you for all the wonderfully kind messages I've received this week.

People asking me to take the day off because it's Christmas.

But it's a Wednesday.

And at this point,

it would just feel strange if I missed a week.

After seven years, it would feel very strange missing a week.

So I wanted to toggle.

I can't say tog out without laughing.

I wanted to tog out.

I wanted to tog out for Christmas.

I don't know why that's so funny.

Why is tog out so funny?

Tog out and tog off.

I once worked with a fellow who was a notorious liar.

And we'd to go work on a gig in fucking New York.

And he was very late at the airport.

Very late, like almost missed a flight late.

But when he came to the airport and we were all waiting with our bags now as far as i'm concerned at this point we're missing the flight he's that late we're missing the flight now but suddenly he arrives with a big red face out of breath and he says sorry lads i've just come from a threesome very good excuse so we run to get to us fucking immigration and as we're running he's describing the threesome but while describing the threesome he said the two women togged off beside the bed.

They togged off beside the bed.

And that's how I knew he was lying about the threesome.

I knew I was being told a lie.

Because he was underselling the threesome, he was underselling it.

I almost missed my flight to New York.

Because last night I was in a hotel and I found myself in a threesome with strangers.

That's a good fucking excuse.

That's a good excuse.

But it's also a boast.

Why undersell it?

Why do you need to tell me that the women togged off?

Why desexualise the situation?

Rugby players tog off.

Harlers tog off.

People in threesomes, they disrobe, they take their clothes off, they strip, they don't tog off.

So what you're doing is you're mit you're trying to make this lie more believable by underselling it.

Yeah man, I met these two women down at the bar, right?

And then before you know it, we were up in we were up in my room, right?

And and then they togged off.

No, no, no, you're lying.

You might have had a wank about a threesome, and that's why you're late.

You're not late because you had a threesome with two women you met at the bar of the Dublin Airport Maldrin.

You ever stayed in the Dublin Airport Maldrin?

It smells like jet fuel, and everybody there is unbelievably stressed.

I don't think anybody has ever had a threesome.

in the Dublin Airport Maldrin.

It's this weird square building.

All the rooms are at ground level.

It's a very disorienting hotel.

If you step out a side door, you can find yourself getting lost in a business park.

Like, you know, a business park,

a formalised area where offices are with planned shrubbery.

That happened to me one morning in the fucking Dublin Airport Maldron.

It was about five in the morning.

I was getting ready for a flight.

I stepped outside a door to have a cigarette, went for a little wander, and I was lost.

Pitch dark.

Early morning.

Lost in a business park.

Jets flying overhead.

Very close.

And then you know what I fucking saw?

Like a hare.

Like a rabbit.

There's wild hares that live in the grounds of the Dublin Airport Maldrin.

And they're not cute little bunnies.

Fucking watershipped down cunts who give you a decent stare.

And when you get your breakfast in that hotel, the rashers are biled.

They have curly boiled rashers.

No one's having threesomes in that hotel.

It's as sexual as an NCT center.

They just want you to get in, sleep, fuck off, get on your plane.

It's not even a hotel.

It's a three-minute walk to the doors of Dublin Airport.

That's the only reason you stay there.

If you have an early flight, that's it.

Sorted.

And you'll put up with anything.

Dirty carpets, the smell of jet fuel, wild hairs in the lawn.

The ceilings in all the rooms in this hotel are like a foot and a half shorter than regular ceilings.

So when you're in the hotel, it feels like being in like a fallout shelter or a bunker.

A profoundly hostile environment for a spontaneous threesome.

Terrible sleep because it's so noisy, but you just put up with it.

You're three minutes from the door of Dublin Airport.

My idea of purgatory.

would be having a threesome in the Dublin Airport Maldrin Hotel with the stench of jet fuel fuel and hares fighting in the lawn outside, suffocating from the short ceilings, unable to perform sexually because I'm thinking about Carly Biled Rashers.

What the fuck am I talking about?

This is supposed to be a Christmas episode.

What the fuck am I talking about this shit for?

Togging out.

Yeah, togging out.

Togging off.

Alright?

And oh yeah, the fella...

It did turn out to be a lie.

It was a lie.

Because the next time, like a year later, that this fella had gone on tour with us, he'd forgotten the time last year when he almost missed his flight because he had a threesome in the Dublin Airport Maldrin Hotel.

Like if you, if you almost miss a flight, or if you miss a flight, you fucking remember, you remember the reason why.

So yes, I am togging out for this week's episode.

I'm togging out

to do some type of Christmas shit.

Alright?

Actually, that's not the first time that I almost missed a flight because of someone else's sexual activity.

I had someone who was doing tour managing once and they were flying with me abroad for a gig.

But anyway, we'd gone through security.

And then after we'd gone through security, everything was fine.

But then he got held back.

Not only held back, but security took him away to a private room.

And he was there for about 40 minutes.

And I'm I'm like fuck am I gonna have to go on tour without a tour manager?

Eventually he came out and I'm like what the fuck happened?

Why did security hold you back for that long?

What happened?

So anyway they swapped his bag and he got flagged for bomb making materials and then they took him into a private room and like strip searched him and swapped his body.

So whatever happened, there were chemicals on his body that were associated with making bombs and they were asking him all these questions about, have you been in contact with like fertilizer?

Do you work in the agricultural industry?

Have you had any reason to be near dynamite or explosives?

He's like, no, I'm a fucking tour manager.

I'm not near any of this stuff.

And then they keep asking him questions about, has he been in contact with chemicals and why is his body showing up with these chemicals?

And then finally he goes, ah, you know what?

I've been having sex with a woman who's a chemist.

And then airport security had a big old laugh and said okay that makes sense and they let him go.

Now that's a good fucking lie.

Now that wasn't a lie, it was true.

But that's a good fucking lie.

Why are you late for this flight?

I've been riding a chemist recently.

I've been riding a chemist so much that Airport Security detected bomb-making chemicals on my body.

And that's why I'm late for the flight.

Like if that was a lie, I'd have taken that hook line and sinker.

I'd have wanted that to be true.

I'd have proudly missed my flight for that just for the story.

So I'm togging out this week.

I'm togging out this Christmas day.

I'm half togging out.

I'm half togging out.

I've...

I'm wearing shorts and maybe one

shoe.

This is an unplanned podcast.

This is a phone call.

I did want to take some time off.

I didn't want to spend the days before Christmas prepping and writing and researching.

My favorite part about Christmas is I have no emails, no one fucking emails me over the Christmas period and I love that.

I adore the quietness of it.

So I want to use that time to relax, to do fuck all.

But also I'm conscious of...

I'm conscious of all the listeners who not everybody's with family at Christmas.

Not everybody enjoys Christmas.

Some people are working today.

Other people are by themselves today.

Some people are very content and happy to do that.

They prefer to be by themselves on Christmas Day.

But society tends to shame that a bit.

To put this huge pressure on people to be with friends and family in particular on Christmas Day.

And for some people, they're better off just staying by themselves.

I know there's a lot of listeners and today is just Wednesday.

It's just another Wednesday.

And I want to honor my Wednesday commitment of delivering a podcast.

I want to tell you a story about a bicycle.

I had a very stressful situation with my bicycle yesterday on Christmas Eve.

I haven't been looking after my U-lock.

I've been leaving my U-lock out in the rain.

So yesterday evening I locked my bicycle in town and when I tried to unlock it I couldn't.

The fucking the key was jamming in the lock.

So I was like, fuck.

I'm gonna have to leave my bicycle locked to a railing in the middle of Limerick city centre over Christmas.

Now I don't know what it's like where you live, but in most cities, in Limerick anyway, definitely Dublin,

if you leave your bike locked overnight, just forget about it.

Forget about it.

There's gangs of children and teenagers who steal bicycles.

And if they can't break the lock, they'll just smash the bike up.

They'll twist it into bits so if you leave your bike in town overnight it's gone just as a given maybe a 10% chance but if you have to leave your your bike is gone someone's gonna fuck it up and I've always known this to be the case for years and years if I was getting a new bicycle I'd never buy a new bicycle I'd get a second hand one for 90 quid I'd buy a second hand bike for 90 quid because I knew if I leave this thing tied up it's going to get robbed eventually so don't get a good bike.

So I was in this cycle for years and years of bicycles getting robbed or vandalized and then finally about five years ago when I started earning a living from this from this podcast I said you know what I'm gonna I'm actually gonna buy a bike.

I'm gonna buy a bicycle, one that I like, one that meets my needs.

A road bike.

that takes me in and out of work every single day.

Nice and quick, nice and easy.

So I did.

I bought a bicycle.

Bought a bicycle five years ago.

Wasn't that expensive, but five or six hundred quid.

That is expensive, but some people have bikes that are three or four grand.

This is five or six hundred quid.

So yesterday, Christmas Eve,

the fucking lock is broken.

I can't open it.

The key is jamming, the key is getting stuck.

I knew if I force it, I'm gonna break the key.

My bicycle is locked to a fence in the middle of town.

It's Christmas Eve, so I can't ring a company to come and break the lock.

Not on fucking Christmas Eve.

And on Christmas Day, town is just going to be empty.

And all the gangs of young fellas are going to come out looking for bikes to break.

So that's it.

It's fucked.

It's gone.

I couldn't think of a solution.

I'd given up.

And I immediately start to catastrophize.

I start to think about just how absolutely awful and painful and terrible it will be when when my bike gets robbed.

I started to fantasize about not being able to eat food, not being able to feed myself over the Christmas period because I don't have a bicycle to go and do my groceries.

Then this anger comes up in me.

I want to grab that ULOC and I want to try and pull the bike off the railing.

I want to vandalize my own bike.

And then this this much sadder, darker emotion bubbles up.

This deep, sad feeling of unfairness.

This theme or narrative starts to emerge in my mind where I haven't just broken my ewock because I allowed it to get rusty, but rather

the universe is conspiring against me at Christmas time in particular.

This is so unfair.

Unfairness and unhappiness is

befalling upon me specifically at Christmas time.

Of course it is.

Of course it is.

I'm so unlucky.

Everything is so unfair.

Everything is against me.

This is all so unfair.

Now at the end of the day lads, we're talking about a fucking bicycle.

It's a fucking bicycle.

Now maybe three or four minutes have passed.

But within these three or four minutes, the extremity of emotions that I'm feeling.

Now it's a genuine...

That's a stressful situation.

That's a genuinely stressful and annoying situation.

My bike is is about to be locked to a fence in the middle of town over fucking Christmas.

It's Christmas Eve.

I can't ring a locksmith.

There's not much I can do and it's probably going to get robbed.

Shit situation.

Stressful and deeply inconvenient, but certainly doesn't doesn't merit the scale of catastrophizing.

Because I started off with catastrophizing.

This is awful.

This is terrible.

Then I start to fantasize about like not being able to feed myself, which is mad.

And then the deep dark theme of this is so unfair.

It felt like a script.

Like the universe has a script written around Christmas time in particular where bad things happen to me.

Now here's the thing about emotions.

All I want for Christmas.

All I want for the new year.

All I want from life.

And I say this as a middle-aged man who's been around the block.

I want to have the ability to respond to my emotions, not to react to them.

It's that simple.

That's what I want out of life.

If I can work towards that, all the other shit falls into place.

I want to notice my emotions and have the choice to respond to those emotions.

And that choice comes from it comes from a calmness.

It comes from having high self-esteem, feeling that I'm a good person, liking who I am.

Being that way allows me to to

observe and critique my emotions as they pop up so that I can decide how to respond to those emotions.

And the big one that popped up.

So feeling angry with my Eulock, I wanted to rip it.

That's fair enough.

This is a frustrating situation.

I can see why I'd want to get so angry.

that I vandalize my own bike.

Then the catastrophizing.

Oh no, I won't have a bike.

What an inconvenience.

This bike is how I get to the shop to do my groceries.

Oh no, if I have no groceries I'll starve.

That's catastrophizing.

That's anxiety taking the front seat and thinking of worst case scenarios.

So I have a choice to go.

That's probably not going to happen.

That's bullshit.

I could get a taxi.

I could walk.

It'll be grand.

But the one emotion that I couldn't really understand was that deep dark feeling of unfairness.

My bike is going to get stolen at Christmas because unfair and bad things happen to me at Christmas.

Christmas is an unfair time for me specifically.

That was the one where I stepped back from it and was like, what the f- what's that about?

That's a bit of a strange one.

Would I feel this way two weeks ago?

If my bike lock broke two weeks ago, would I be focusing on how unfair this is for me me specifically?

I don't think I would.

What's going on here?

And then, of course, it dawns on me, sure.

My dad, my dad died at Christmas time.

16, 17 years ago.

My dad was on Christmas Day.

My dad was in hospital with terminal brain cancer.

With maybe a week left to live when I was quite young.

And that fucking ruined Christmas.

Like if you're listening to this and a loved one has died, someone in your family has died around Christmas

That fucks up Christmas.

That really makes a bollocks out of Christmas for you this time which is all about Family and connection and ritual and tradition

if if one of your family dies at Christmas time it flips it all and onto its head it becomes a time of misery and mourning when society is specifically telling you to be happy.

It's really difficult.

And my dad's dead 17 years, and 17 years is.

It's enough time to pass where

I don't think about him every single day.

It's enough time to pass where I don't consciously associate Christmas with my dad dying anymore.

The first 10 years,

definitely.

I did, but now I don't anymore.

But now here I am.

And my my bicycle, my U-lock is broken and I can't get my bike away from this railing.

And now I'm experiencing a very dark feeling of this is so unfair to me specifically.

I felt isolated, I felt lonely, I felt angry, I felt jealous of other people's happiness.

About a fucking bicycle?

It had nothing to do with a bicycle.

That was grief.

That was grief.

It's the difficult, complicated, painful, raw feelings that I felt when my dad died.

It's the feelings I felt when I was a fucking kid and I'm spending Christmas Day in a hospice watching my dad die and Christmas isn't something we can enjoy anymore as a family.

It's the difficulty of the Christmas the year after.

It's the question of Should we enjoy Christmas?

Because dad died this time last year.

And it's that it's the big existential unfairness that you experience when your fucking parent dies or when someone close to you dies that that big big unfairness this is so unfair why me why now why christmas this is so unfair and other people's christmas joy of being with family it it becomes something that It's painful.

It's painful to hear about it.

It's painful to watch.

And it's painful to participate in conversations about it because you don't want to burst their bubble.

No, I don't really like Christmas because my dad died at Christmas so I don't really like Christmas anymore.

I'm not saying that to a person who's having a wonderful time with their family at Christmas.

That's not happening.

But that business with the bike lock yesterday.

The sadness did the big big script that theme of unfairness.

This is so unfair to me.

Of course my bike is going to get stolen at Christmas.

Of course Christmas hates you specifically that was all grief that was grief about my dad that it found that it projected into the lock on a bike but the thing is

I had the calmness I had the calmness to observe that feeling of unfairness but when it popped up it was so strange that I went hold on a second what's that about And I felt this little catharsis because I went, oh yeah,

my dad died at Christmas like 17 years ago.

Oh yeah, remember that?

Remember how unfair that felt.

Okay, that explains why I'm getting these feelings here.

And using emotional literacy to navigate those feelings, that instantly, that that calms me immediately.

Because you see, I've just responded to my emotions.

I catastrophized, I felt anger, and I felt that

unfairness.

I responded to all of those emotions.

I didn't react.

If I was reactive, what would I have done?

If I was reactive, I'd be a man in the middle of Limerick City breaking his own bicycle.

That's what reactive is.

I'd have given into that initial feeling of rage and tried to break my own bicycle.

I didn't do that.

Now I'm looking at the entire situation really calmly and rationally.

So I'm going, okay, can't open the bike lock.

Definitely can't ring someone to fix it because it's fucking Christmas Eve.

Fuck it.

That's an awful shame.

It probably will get nicked.

That's a terrible fucking shame.

But I'll get over it.

I'm healthy.

So what?

I'll get a new bike.

I'll be inconvenienced.

Is this unfair?

Is it unfair?

Is it unfair that I'm healthy?

Is it unfair that I have a job that I adore?

Is it unfair that I'm not worried about paying my bills?

Is it unfair that I'm going to go to a lovely, cozy warm bed tonight?

No, it's not unfair that my bicycle lock broke on Christmas Eve.

It's just unlucky.

So because I'd responded in this way to emotional triggers, I'm not feeling emotional anymore now.

I'm

feeling critical.

And because I'm not feeling emotional, now my brain isn't...

I'm not narrow-minded.

You see, when I'm catastrophizing, all I'm thinking about is the catastrophe.

I'm going to starve over fucking Christmas because I won't have a bike to cycle to the shop.

Utterly ridiculous.

I'm gonna get so angry with this lock that I'm gonna break my own bike in the middle of town and create a spectacle.

I won't arrive at any solutions when my brain is reacting to emotion.

But now that I'm calm, I'm thinking, right, what time is it?

Three o'clock.

Definitely not going to be able to ring a locksmith.

Fuck it.

Ten minutes up the road is a hardware shop.

Why don't I at least try?

I'm going to walk up to that hardware shop and buy a can of lubricant.

I'm going to buy a can of lubricant.

I'm going to spray it into the lock and I'll give it one last shot.

And if it doesn't work, fuck it.

At least I tried.

I'm inconvenienced.

So I walked up to the hardware shop, came back with the can of oil, sprayed it into the lock, and then boom, it opens.

I've got my bicycle.

And I cycled home feeling fucking magnificent.

And that's not a story about a bicycle.

I wasn't feeling magnificent because I got my bicycle back.

I felt really happy and confident.

I really, really liked who I was yesterday.

I was very happy with me as a person yesterday because I was presented with a genuinely stressful situation and I responded to all of my emotions.

I didn't react to them.

I responded to my emotions and every time I do that

I just feel like a very capable

calm functional human being.

And none of this is autism stuff.

This isn't anything to do with being neurodivergent.

This is the human condition and emotions.

That's what this is.

Any one of us could get into that exact situation.

The next time you lose your wallet or lose your phone or lose your car keys or get locked out of your gaff.

When the simple little accidents of life threaten your feeling of safety or security in any way.

And I work.

I work to be that way as much as possible.

I work very hard to be a person who responds to emotions rather than reacts to emotions.

And that's all I want.

That's all I want from life.

If I have that, everything else falls into place.

If I have that, I can enjoy the present moment.

Calm, cool, critical, mindful, happy, pleasant.

That's how I experience life when I'm emotionally responsive.

When I'm emotionally reactive, when I'm reacting to my emotions, then I'm anxious, jittery, fearful and living in my head, living in my thoughts, not noticing the world around me because I'm living in my thoughts and the thing is with becoming someone who responds to emotions

like that's that for me is the cornerstone of my mental health right

it's not something you arrive at

and this is something I've realized over the years no amount of work is gonna get me to one singular point where I'm emotionally responsive and then I don't have to do the work anymore.

It's like having sound mental health is a bit like eating food.

Let's just say today I eat really well and because I eat well I'm not hungry but I will be hungry tomorrow.

I'm not gonna eat a big nutritious meal now and then say that's it I'm never gonna need food again for the rest of my life.

No, I'm gonna eat good food today and then tomorrow I'm gonna be hungry and gonna have to eat good food again.

Yesterday on Christmas Eve, I thought my bike was gone and I'm really happy with how I handled that stressful situation.

I'm really fucking happy, very pleased with myself that I responded to that stressful situation in a calm and critical way.

Tomorrow some stressful shit could happen and I react to it.

I'll be emotionally reactive and make poor choices.

So every single day, every single day for the rest of my life, I have to wake up in the morning and work on

being calm enough that when emotions arise, I can step back, observe the emotions, and choose how to respond.

And that daily work.

In the same way that it's daily work to make my breakfast, it's daily work to make my lunch.

I'm gonna be hungry tomorrow, and I'm gonna have to eat food.

Okay, let's have a little ocarina pause now for this little Christmas phone call.

Instead of an ocarina this week, I'll think I have a sleigh bell.

So let's let's do a sleigh bell.

The only festive thing about this fucking podcast.

This podcast has been about

a tracer in a depressing hotel and a bicycle, right?

Not very festive.

Here's a sleigh bell for some festive bullshit and you're gonna hear an advert.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratches from the California lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

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There you go now.

For all you Rudolph cunts.

That was the Sleigh Bell pause.

You'd have heard an advert.

Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast.

If this podcast brings you mirth, merriment, enjoyment, whatever the fuck, please consider paying me for the work that I do because this podcast is my full-time job.

It's how I earn a living, it's how I pay all my bills, it's how I have the time and space to deliver a podcast each week, it's how I have the time to to fucking research this podcast

and to rent out my office, to rent out everything this podcast is how I live and survive I adore this job I absolutely adore it I'm so unbelievably grateful to get to deliver this podcast each week and that's why I don't miss I don't fucking miss I deliver a podcast each Wednesday without fail for the past seven years and long may it continue so all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it and if you can't afford that you can listen for free Listen to the podcast for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free.

So everybody gets a podcast, the exact same podcast, and I get to earn a living.

It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness.

So that's patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast to become a paid subscriber.

And if you're if you're an iPhone user, please don't subscribe to my Patreon on the Patreon app on the iPhone because Apple are greedy bastards and they take 30%.

So go to a desktop patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast if you'd like to become a patron.

Also quite importantly, it keeps this podcast independent, completely fucking independent.

No advertiser can tell me what to what to speak about or what the content should be or put me under pressure for the podcast to be popular.

I don't give a fuck how many people listen to this podcast.

I can have four times the listenership with content I don't enjoy and listeners who couldn't give a shit.

I could just do podcasts, bring on viral guests, speak about viral topics.

Have these people who show up and listen to one podcast just inflate the listenership and keep advertisers happy.

Fuck that.

Fuck it.

I want to make

podcasts that I love making.

I want to speak about what I'm curious about.

I want to enjoy coming here each week and exploring curiosity and then knowing that you who's listening, you're genuinely here because you want to be, because you like this podcast.

So that's only possible when it's independently funded, when it's listener funded.

That's the only way that that's possible because advertising fucks everything up.

So please become a patron if you can afford it.

Some gigs for the new year.

Vicar Street on the 27th of January.

That's a Monday night gig.

Very nearly sold out.

A lot of people bought tickets for that at Christmas.

But my Vicar Street gigs up in Dublin.

People travel from abroad to come to those gigs.

I do a few of them a year.

I just love them.

They're really intimate.

It's a wonderful fucking venue.

Monday night, nice and quiet.

Come along to that.

There's a few tickets left.

February on the 9th.

I'm in Leisureland in Galway.

I've got a great guest for that.

Few tickets left for that.

Then, Drahada on the 21st in the Crescent Hall.

Belfast Waterfront Theatre 28th of February up there in Belfast.

Come along to that.

March INEC down in Killarney on the 7th.

Cork Opera House there on the 13th of March.

April there I've got fucking Australia and New Zealand that sold out.

Wednesday the 23rd of April.

My biggest ever gig.

in my home city of Limerick in the University Concert Hall.

Never thought I'd be be saying that.

Never thought I'd be playing the fucking University Concert Hall in Limerick.

But fuck it, here we are.

Then June next summer, my big gigantic tour of England and Glasgow.

Not Glasgow, Scotland.

England and Scotland.

This tour is now almost sold out.

A lot of people buying tickets for this.

But June 25, there are some tickets left.

Bristol, Cornwall, Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, York, London, East Sussex, and Norwich.

Alright, so come along to that tour.

I was gonna do something this week, but again I didn't want to go deep into the research.

I was gonna do something on the pagan origins.

Orangins?

The pagan origins of Christmas.

I'll throw a few potential facts off the top of my head.

There's no like Christmas is supposed to be the birth of Christ, right?

There's no mention of Christ's birth in the Bible.

None at all.

Christ's birthday being in December, that was a decision that was made by the early church 400 years after Christ's birth.

You see, because the 21st of December, that's the shortest day of the year, that's the solstice.

And in Europe,

this had huge importance to pre-Christian societies.

Winter was dark and cold and terrifying.

and there was no

there was no artificial light so these short fucking winter days were quite depressing and people had to live off food that they had stored.

They couldn't grow anything.

So people really, really wanted the sun to return.

They wanted the days to get longer.

Like in Ireland, we've got structures like Newgrange, which is 5,000 years old.

And this structure, the sun on the winter solstice shines through a little slit and illuminates a central chamber on the 21st of December.

Our ancestors in Ireland 5,000 years ago knew the significance of the 21st of December.

It meant the days were getting longer.

It meant that you could start planting food again.

There was going to be harvest.

There was going to be plenty.

This was really, really fucking important for survival.

So all around Europe, in pre-Christian societies, there was mad celebrations around the 21st of December.

There was celebrations because it meant the sun is being born again.

And that's what Christmas is.

The Christian church said, right, all of these fucking pagans all over Europe, they have these big festivals around the 21st, around the time of the solstice.

So let's just say Christ is born on the 21st of December or thereabouts.

So that's why Christmas is on the 25th.

It's the solstice.

The sun is born again.

And I love that about Christmas.

I love that the solstice was a couple of days ago and it's not noticeable, but the days are getting longer.

I like that.

I want longer days.

It's a bit bleak right now.

Then Christmas trees.

Christmas trees most likely come from

Yule.

Yule is like a Nordic celebration of the solstice.

And Yule would have found its way into fucking Ireland and England via the Vikings.

But again, Christmas trees probably have pre-Christian origins that go back a long, long time.

It's winter.

You can't grow anything.

You're relying upon food that you have stored away from the last harvest the sun is born again you celebrate the sun being born again by finding an evergreen tree like a fucking spruce and then you hang decorations on it and these decorations represent fruit so you're willing into existence longer days more sun and the ability to grow food again now my favorite my favorite christmas theory

about pre-christian origins is Santa Claus.

Now again, this is just a theory, but it's a very interesting one if you look it up.

Santa Claus and his red hat and the red and white that it comes from indigenous practices around the North Pole regarding psychedelic mushrooms, specifically the flyagaric mushroom.

It's a bright red mushroom with white spots.

So in indigenous communities close to the North Pole, right,

they would celebrate the winter solstice.

They'd celebrate the shortest day of the year, the rebirth of the sun.

But they would celebrate it with these magic mushrooms, these fly agaric mushrooms, which are bright red with white spots.

And the shamans who would administer these mushrooms, they used to dress up in red and white to look like the mushrooms, the Santa Claus colours.

But the thing is with flyogaric mushrooms, they're not like magic mushrooms in Ireland that you can just eat.

Phlyogaric mushrooms, they're psychedelic, but they're actually quite poisonous.

So they used to feed the flyogaric mushrooms to reindeer.

The reindeer would eat the mushrooms.

And then the shamans, they'd collect the reindeer's piss.

And people would drink reindeer piss.

And they'd get high off that.

Because the reindeers had eaten all the mushrooms.

And then the people would, they're having their solstice celebration, 21st of December, and they'd have deep intense hallucinations about being reindeer and flying up into the sky towards the North Star in search of knowledge.

And a huge amount of this Santa Claus shit, specifically the stuff to do with red and white, which people previously believed was Coca-Cola invented that.

The red and white, the reindeers, the reindeers flying in the sky, Rudolph and his red nose.

There's a plausible, a plausible theory that it has its roots in

indigenous folklore around magic mushrooms.

That's all I've got time for this week, you glorious cunts.

I hope you enjoyed that chat.

I hope if you're NeuroDivergent, there's a couple of nice facts there about Christmas.

If you want to avoid small talk with family members, I hope you enjoyed this little chat.

I'll catch you next week, hopefully with a hot take.

In the meantime, wink at a swan, pick up a worm, rub a cat, drink the piss of a reindeer.

God bless.

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