The perfect podcast for the Christmas season! This is a special Christmas episode of The Science of Creativity. Many of the traditions that we love—gift-giving, Santa Claus, kissing under the mistletoe—were invented across the generations, and are always evolving. This special holiday episode gives you the creation story of the secular, non-religious traditions that we celebrate at Christmas. The collective creation of these Christmas traditions is what I call social innovation, a kind of collective creativity where everyone plays a role. Five hundred years ago, Christmas was a wild party, where young men got drunk and roamed in packs around town. Children didn’t start getting gifts until about 200 years ago. In the late 1800s, the Santa Claus myth was invented, along with the elves and the sleigh and the workshop at the North Pole. It started two thousand years ago, in Ancient Rome, it picked up steam in the 1800s, and we’re still creating new Christmas traditions today.
Chapters
0:00 Teaser
1:11 Introduction to the Special Episode
2:12 Tradition and Invention
5:28 Wassailing
12:23 Toys
16:06 Santa Claus
21:25 The War on Christmas
25:24 The Holiday for Everyone
27:54 Closer
28:44 Outro
Music by License from Soundstripe:
Notes
Wikipedia entries: “The war on Christmas” and “Wassailing” and “Syncretism”
Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer
