Hi, everyone and welcome to our Christmas Special. 欢迎来到酒馆的【圣诞特辑】.

Now you probably notice that usually with these seasonal specials, I would be the only one doing the recording. But today, we're going to connect with 安澜. And as some of you probably already know, 安澜went back for the holiday, finally.

So hi, 安澜.

Hi, Lulu, hi, everyone.

So finally back with your family.

Yes, after 3 years, I'm finally back in the UK with my family.

And tell us how do you feel? Sure excited.

Very excited. To be honest it's a bit strange being back in the UK after such a long period of time, and obviously there's lots of changes in those 3 years which don't need to mention.

But I'm really really excited, spending my time with my family and my friends and also getting ready for Christmas.

You must really feel like the festive mood in London, right? Because I mean in China it’s not really a thing.

Yeah, absolutely, all the decorations are up, all the shops now are quite busy with people doing their last minute Christmas shopping. It's really festive.

We've done Christmas episodes before, so I’m quite curious as in what do you want to talk about today?

Today I thought what we could do, we could talk about one of the main figures for Christmas and that is, of course, Father Christmas.

Father Christmas? You mean Santa Claus?

No, Santa Claus is in America. Father Christmas is what we traditionally call.

所以你们的圣诞老人叫 Father Christmas. That's pretty cute. And either way, it's the same person.

Pretty much. They come from different routes, but generally the idea of a Father Christmas or a seasonal gift giver comes from Saint Nicholas.

Yes, I've heard of Saint Nicholas, so sometimes people would nickname him, Saint Nick.

Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of children.

Patron saint其实就是有点像守护神的这种感觉. 孩子的守护神, that's why he brings the gifts.

Yep. The original story is that Saint Nicholas was a bishop in modern day Turkey, and he would secretly deliver bags of gold so that poor girls could have a dowry and get married.

Dowry 是嫁妆, so the gifts weren't gifts. They were just literally bags of gold.

They were just bags of gold, and back then there were no chimneys so he used to through the window.

I would like to be waiting for Christmas by the window and just have some strange man chuck bags of gold at me.

I know it's a bit strange. And to be honest, the original story a lot of people have forgotten. There is one tradition that we still observe. People really generally forget where it comes from. At Christmas time it can be traditional to give gold chocolate coins to children.

那种巧克力金币. That was from the tradition when Saint Nicholas used to actually give bags of gold. Yeah. I see.

And Saint Nicholas, how did saint Nicholas become Santa Claus?

Basically it was through the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, they celebrate Saint Nicholas's day, which is in early December, but they call him Santa Claus.

And obviously if you know history, a lot of American tradition was actually affected…was originally from the Netherlands.

You think that New York was originally called New Amsterdam.

True.

对, 美国它有很多风俗是最开始是从荷兰这边过去的, so now they call it Santa Claus.

Yes. But getting back to Father Christmas, there's always been a figure associated with Christmas all the way back to the 17th century when actually he was banned.

For what? I thought Father Christmas was harmless and it's not even religious. He just brought gifts and toys.

That's precisely why it was banned. In the 17th century we had the puritans and they actually banned Christmas because they said it was nothing to do with religion. It was just a pagan holiday. It was just an excuse for people to have fun.

And that was not good in the views of the puritans. Not good at all. You're not supposed to just have fun. It has to have a religious meaning.

Yeah, so as you can imagine that wasn't very popular. And in 1660, Christmas was allowed again. But technically if you celebrated Christmas during that time, you could have been arrested.

Yeah, I mean, they were such buzzkills.

Yeah, that's why we call someone who doesn't like fun or is very stern, we call them puritanical.

I see, because they like the sort of almost苦行僧一样的生活. I see, they didn't want any fun.

The other thing, I think most people whether you celebrate Christmas or not, just from all the cards and movies TV cartoon, you probably think of Santa Claus is as this old man with white beard dressed in red.

Well, yeah. But originally there was no particular color associated with Father Christmas. He would be dressed in green, yellow, all sorts of colorful clothes. It was only because of an advert from Coca Cola that the image of Father Christmas or Santa Claus as we see him now.

It’s consumerism. 所以其实现在大家脑子里面能想到的圣诞老人穿着红色的衣服, 最初就是个广告. Pretty much. It was just consumerism. It has nothing to do with tradition.

That's why that red associated with Father Christmas is pretty much the same red as Coca Cola.

I would say it's exactly the same red. All right but coming back… for bringing it back a little bit, the whole idea of Father Christmas, Santa Claus why it's so popular it's obviously it brings joy especially it brings presents or he brings presents to all the kids.

But originally there was always the idea that Father Christmas gave presents based on if a child has been naughty or nice. If you have been good, you get presents. If you've been bad, you get a lump of coal.

就是一个煤球. I think it's just how parents want to use this as a way to restrict their child and basically saying that “Behave, otherwise you're not gonna get any presents.” Pretty much. How was it for you? Did you ever get a lump of coal?

No. But I was threatened if I don't behave then…or if I don't go to bed, then I won't get any presents.

Do kids, I mean, did you actually believe Santa Claus or Father Christmas was real?

Yes.

Up until I was about five or six, your parents say Father Christmas is real and you go to bed and then all of a sudden you just find lots of presents and you don't quite understand where they come from.

When you were little, did your family have any like traditions? I know every family does it slightly differently.

Every family does it very, slightly differently, but the traditions remain the same. When I was a child and also when my niece was a child, what we would do is we would leave a mince pie, a carrot for the reindeer and a glass of beer for Santa Claus.

A glass of beer?

Yeah, a pint of beer.

Is that traditional?

It was in our family.

But when I was a kid, I wake up and the first thing that my parents would say is “Oh, go and check, make sure that Santa Claus or Father Christmas drunk the beer.” and invariably the beer would’ve been drunk.

By your father.

By my dad and the mince pie there were a few crumbs which was also eaten by my dad.

And the carrots?

And the carrots. Basically, they just chop the end off and then put the carrot back in the fridge.

So the reindeers ate it. Yes. That is so cute, but I mean, drunk driving much was your father as a drunk Father Christmas. Exactly.

But talking about reindeers, there’re poems and songs that saying all these Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen And Rudolph.

I would think they're like eight reindeers, but then Rudolph the red nose reindeer.

Rudolph is the most famous, but to be honest, I think the reindeer is more of an American thing. I don't think we really think that much about it. Only one of them.

But you left carrot out. Only one carrot.

For the entire gang of reindeers. Exactly.

And when it comes to Santa, obviously you think Santa or Father Christmas, they need to deliver gifts to all the kids in the world. That's an impossible task. So he has these reindeers. He also has many little helpers, elves.

He has those elves as well. But in the past, there were a few very bored scientists that actually worked out that Santa or Father Christmas would have to make 842 million stops every Christmas Eve and only 31 hours to do it because of different time zones. He would need to move 1,800 miles a second. In order to drop the gift to everybody.

Yeah, and this sleigh would have to carry around 400,000 tons of toys. And his reindeers are magical, obviously, but if he had to use real reindeer, it will take 360,000 normal reindeer to pull his sleigh.

Who was so bored?

There's a lot of people like the idea, Christmas cheer.

Okay, and whether you celebrate Christmas or not? I hope you've been good this year. So whether it's Christmas or coming Chinese new year, you’ll get some presents. Exactly. And 安澜 you have been good? Hopefully I'll find out soon enough.

All right. And Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone.

We'll see you in the next episode.

Bye.

Bye.