Bob Smith 0:00
This episode of the off ramp is an encore performance of an earlier holiday show. What charming, colorful Christmas tradition was actually invented for efficiency? Okay,

Marcia Smith 0:12
in the classic movie, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch was described with three words, what were they bob answers

Bob Smith 0:21
to those and other questions as we head for the holidays in this edition of the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith, you

Music. Welcome to the off ramp. A chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy, take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. Well, the holidays really do tend to give you some good perspective on the things that really matter. And I have a question for you, Marcia, about the holidays and what charming, colorful Christmas tradition was actually invented for efficiency, for

Marcia Smith 1:09
trying to think the fruitcake makes absolutely no sense. I don’t know. Bob

Bob Smith 1:15
the Christmas card. Oh, okay. It was invented by a man named Harry Cole. He was a very distinguished British civil servant, very busy man. Very busy man. He actually organized the British postal service and designed the first postage stamp. So he knew a lot about mail, I guess so. And he was very busy. And in those days, people wrote long holiday

Marcia Smith 1:35
letters to follow, okay, yeah. Now I remember this guy, yeah. So

Bob Smith 1:39
it was 1843 he had no time for that, so he came up with a solution to reach out to his large circle of friends. He hired an illustrator, John Calcot hoarsely, and they invented the Christmas card. They were so popular, he actually set up a little company to sell them. And they took England by storm from the beginning of 1000 Christmas cards which were hand colored, wow. To an industry we have today. And he signed

Marcia Smith 2:03
1000 Christmas cards. Wow, yeah,

Bob Smith 2:05
yeah. 1000 you think you gotta, like, stitch big, yeah?

Unknown Speaker 2:08
Really?

Bob Smith 2:09
How he started selling them was through newspaper ads to sell people for the next Christmas season. So he invented a whole new industry, a labor saving device, the Christmas card. Most of us don’t think of it being a labor saving device. It’s like, I’ll tell you what’s

Marcia Smith 2:25
sending a Christmas email. That’s what’s labor saving.

Bob Smith 2:30
So Marsha Smith invented the Christmas email, that’s

Marcia Smith 2:33
right, and who, I didn’t even have time for that. Okay. This is short and sweet Bob in the classic Christmas movie, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a perennial favorite, the Grinch was described in three words. What were they?

Bob Smith 2:47
You know, I never really watched that show. I mean, I’ve heard of it, I’ve heard the songs, but I never, let’s watch it tonight. So tell me what the three words were,

Marcia Smith 2:55
Stink, stank, stunk.

Bob Smith 3:00
That is fast? Yes, it is. That is fast. Well, I got a few fast ones too. Okay, good. First fast ones in the early 1800s the first gingerbread houses were reportedly inspired by what famous fairy tale The first gingerbread houses? Was

Marcia Smith 3:17
it the it’s a German fair. Yeah, I was gonna say, was it a Mother Goose thing? Was one of those? Was the, not the lady in the cupboard, or the Hubbard, or whatever? No, no, not Mother Hubbard, yeah, Hansel and Gretel. Oh, of course, they had a gingerbread house. Yes, that’s how, that’s where most people think that gingerbread houses were, became a tradition inspired by, okay, how many reindeer are featured in the poem Twas the

Bob Smith 3:39
Night Before Christmas? Okay,

Marcia Smith 3:40
all of them, which that’s where Rudolph was introduced. Nine of them. No,

Bob Smith 3:44
just the opposite. There were eight of them. Rudolph wasn’t there. When did he

Marcia Smith 3:49
come? Where did Rudolph come from? I

Bob Smith 3:51
just happen to have some information on that. Course, you do. Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer, came from a song that Johnny marks wrote. It was based on a book by a man named Robert May and of course, Gene Autry is remember for the first recording. Oh, that’s right,

Marcia Smith 4:07
yeah, I had a little red record that he sang.

Bob Smith 4:10
How long ago do you think that was? When did he record it? That’s my question. Oh,

Marcia Smith 4:14
when he introduced

Bob Smith 4:16
the song at Madison Square Garden in December 1949 the Christmas season, 49

Marcia Smith 4:23
oh, so it had been around by the time you and I were kids, yeah, and

Bob Smith 4:27
his recording of the song sold over 8 million records. Well, it’s probably gone well beyond that. That was the first 30 years. And the total record sales by all artists amount to well over 110 million copies, second only to White Christmas, really? Yeah, so Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer, came from a song based on a little book, and it’s not from the original Dasher and dancer Prancer, I’ll be darned. Okay, what traditional Christmas decoration is actually a parasitic plant?

Marcia Smith 4:55
Oh, that sounds so sweet. Paris. Plant Christmas decoration. It’s not Holly, is it? No, not mistletoe. Yes, really,

Bob Smith 5:06
mistletoe is a parasitic plant. Oh, I

Marcia Smith 5:10
kiss you under that, okay. But what is it parasitical, too? I

Bob Smith 5:14
don’t know. I think it’s just one of those. It’s like a weed, I guess. I don’t know. Have to look into that.

Marcia Smith 5:19
You should Google that later, yeah. Well, let’s get our facts down. Okay, Bob, how many Americans celebrate Christmas? How many out of 10? Just

Bob Smith 5:28
okay, so you’d have to be from the Christian tradition, loosely, at least in some way, I would say seven out of 10.

Marcia Smith 5:36
That’s pretty high. I was stunned at this. Number nine out of 10, Oh, you’re kidding. 55% consider it a religious holiday, and 33% think of it as more of a cultural celebration. I

Bob Smith 5:50
think it’s become more of a cultural celebration. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 5:53
even the Jewish in our family celebrate Christmas. It is a great celebration. What about the merchants

Bob Smith 5:59
who think of it as a commercial celebration. Well, then there has to be some of those nine of 10. It’s got to be, it’s got to be some of those

Marcia Smith 6:07
people. Yeah, I just found that that’s from country living.com Oh, that’s funny. Nine out of 10, okay, all

Bob Smith 6:13
right, what was one of the great Christmas Eve traditions of the 19th century? I didn’t know about this until I read it in an article in the Wall Street Journal. So you can see this great tradition in the works of literature. What was one of the great Christmas Eve traditions of the 19th century? The

Marcia Smith 6:32
19th century, Christmas Eve tradition making Tom and cherries. No,

Bob Smith 6:40
there you go again with the Tom and Jerry’s, I don’t know my favorite drink, no, it’s telling ghost stories. Oh, really, yeah. And this comes from a Wall Street Journal story the darker side of Christmas, by Regina Hanson. So apparently, in the 19th century, one of the big things people did, especially in America and Britain, was tell ghost stories at Christmas time, and you can see that in the works of authors by Henry James, for instance, the most famous example is Scrooge Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. He was visited by three ghosts. That’s right, that’s right. But Charles Dickens didn’t just write one ghost story for Christmas Eve. He wrote a series of ghost stories published yearly at Christmas. I didn’t know that. I didn’t either. Another one was called the signal man, in which a railway worker received ghostly warnings of impending accidents. So ghost stories on Christmas Eve were a thing. They weren’t invented by artists like Charles Dickens. They were reflected in their

Marcia Smith 7:34
work. I’ll be doing that, little Dickens. I had no idea this is

Bob Smith 7:37
there’s some really other sad things about Christmas, dark things, when you think about, let’s

Marcia Smith 7:42
not go there. Okay, there’s so much dark things right now. Bob, okay, you know how the day after Thanksgiving every year, I put our little electric candles in the windows in the front of our house. Yes, I do that. And they stay there till they till they just burn out, which is usually around Easter they I just never turn them off. It’s just a lovely glow in an early night. That’s the way I look at it. But the question is, where did the tradition of putting candles in the window start?

Bob Smith 8:16
Hmm, I have never thought of that. Is that a Christmas tradition. Is that what you mean?

Marcia Smith 8:23
Don’t know. Well, I was thinking, this is another one of those things that goes back to Victorian times, and you know, all this and that, no Nay. Nay goes back farther than that. No, no 1930 Tell me about that. Yeah, it was from Colonial Williamsburg. You’ve been there, right? Yes, yes. Okay, so a Williamsburg historian put lit candles in the window of historical buildings that were open for business during Christmas. He wanted the shoppers to know where they could shop. Oh, no kidding, during Christmas. So that’s how he did that, and people who visited thought it looked charming. It took the idea home with them, and that’s why Marcia Drew and Smith has done it. You know how many years later, 90 years later, a commercial

Bob Smith 9:10
thing. Yeah, that started on

Marcia Smith 9:12
Christmas, but I thought it was some charming ancient tradition. Had

Bob Smith 9:15
no idea, no idea.

Marcia Smith 9:18
I’m still gonna do it. That means people can come over here and shop. It’s fair.

Bob Smith 9:22
Yes, they can shop. How may I buy any of the toys we have under the tree? So you know the story of the sleeping children in Clement Moore’s poem The Night Before Christmas? Yes, remember, there’s this line visions of sugar plums danced in their head. Indeed. So what are sugar plums? Well,

Marcia Smith 9:39
they’re plums with sugar on them. Bob, no, they’re not okay. I knew that was too easy. Okay? Sugar plums,

Bob Smith 9:49
raisins, well, they are no actually a fruitless candy, believe it or no. Strange, yeah, yeah. So they were long forgotten candy, very labor intense. So this comes from Michelle. Al debzack writing for Mental Floss. So according to the Atlantic, the sugar plums English speakers ate from the 17th to 19th century contained mostly sugar and no plums. They were made by pouring liquid sugar over a caraway seed or an almond, allowing it to harden, and then repeating the process. This candy making technique was called panning, and it created layers of hard sugar shells, and the final product was roughly the size and shape of a plum, which is how it became associated with real fruit. What year

Marcia Smith 10:30
was this 17th century? Okay, yeah, so that was a thing. So

Bob Smith 10:34
this was before the day of candy factory. So these sweets could take several days to make, and that’s why their labor intensive production explains why they were a luxury good for special occasions. So children would be dreaming, maybe we’ll get sugar

Marcia Smith 10:47
plums. That’s sweet. Have you ever made candy of any kind? I don’t. Yeah, I’m sure I did when I was a kid. I don’t remember ever making candy, but it’s my mom

Bob Smith 10:56
used to make fudge and all those kinds of things. So yeah, and cookies and Okay,

Marcia Smith 11:00
well, that’s, I had no idea. That’s very interesting. All right, Bob, although Shabbat is the most important holiday in the Jewish faith, many of us are more familiar with Hanukkah because it falls near Christmas, so we’re aware of it. Yes, the eight days of Hanukkah has just passed, and the menorah displays nine candles with four candles on each side of the middle one. Why are there nine instead of eight? To celebrate the eight days of Hanukkah?

Bob Smith 11:29
I never thought of that. I’m just used to seeing that the beautiful symmetry of those candles, yeah, that one in the middle being the biggest one.

Marcia Smith 11:35
Actually, it’s just taller. It’s just up taller. Okay, it’s the same size as the others

Bob Smith 11:40
placed higher, yeah, okay, oh, you don’t know. Do No, I don’t know the answer. You want to guess Yes? What’s the answer?

Marcia Smith 11:47
The middle candle is called Shamas. You light it first, and it’s used to light the other candles. It’s just the helper candle.

Bob Smith 11:55
You know, I wonder if the Advent candle tradition came from that Jewish tradition. Well,

Marcia Smith 11:59
me too. I was just thinking about that. And our church, they have that big candle in the middle that’s for Christmas Day, and then you light all the weeks around it, right?

Bob Smith 12:07
Yeah, yeah, the Sundays prior to that, yeah, Huh, interesting,

Marcia Smith 12:11
so, but I, I’ll bet it did. I bet they did too. Lot of Christian things came from the Jewish traditions, I think.

Bob Smith 12:17
All right, I have two questions. It’s one question and then a follow up question. Oh, I’m all ears. What modern day country in what modern day country was St Nicholas born?

Marcia Smith 12:29
Oh, that was Germany, Austria, Germany. Which one Germany wrong? Austria? Wrong.

Bob Smith 12:38
They’re both wrong. Okay, I’m toying with you here. It’s like a cat toying with a mouse. Turkey. But Turkey, yes, St Nicholas was a Christian saint. He was called Saint Nicholas of Myra. He’s also known as Nicholas of Barry. He was an early Christian bishop from the maritime city of Myra, which is the modern day city of Deborah in Turkey, and it was during the time of the Roman Empire. It’s believed he lived from 270, to 343, AD, now, how did he come to be known as St nick or St Nicholas? Wasn’t

Marcia Smith 13:10
he really benevolent? He was always giving out toys to kids and food and treats. He was

Bob Smith 13:17
a gift giver. Yeah, he was many miracles are attributed to him. He was known as Nicholas, the wonder worker.

Speaker 1 13:23
Did he come down to chimney? Not that I know of. Oh, okay, but he was a patron

Bob Smith 13:27
saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, prostate prostitutes, okay? Children, brewers, pawn brokers, unmarried people and students in various cities and countries. They almost covered everything, everybody but the retired people.

Marcia Smith 13:42
Yeah, that’s a cross section. Is that interesting? Wow. And his

Bob Smith 13:44
reputation evolved among the faithful because he had a legendary habit of secret gift giving. So that gave rise to the model of Santa Claus, Saint Nick or Sinterklaas. So that I thought that was kind of interesting, but there was actually a person named Saint Nicholas. He was a bishop in the Christian church. 270, ad to 343, ad was his lifespan.

Marcia Smith 14:06
Wow. Look how long ago that Turkey? Yeah, yeah, probably wouldn’t think of that. No, no, I’ll be talking a little add

Bob Smith 14:13
on to that one. Whoa. What does St Nicholas or Santa Claus and pawn brokers have in common? Well,

Marcia Smith 14:20
there’s not where Santa gets all his toys, doesn’t he get him from the pawn shop? No, he doesn’t get his toys from Good lord Marsh.

Bob Smith 14:28
They’re made in the workshop, not the pawn shop. The workshop I

Marcia Smith 14:35
Will Ferrell in friends and

Bob Smith 14:36
apparently, legend has it that the bishop Nicholas once brought a poor man three bags of gold as a dowry for his daughters, and those three bags of gold can be seen today, symbolized as the three golden balls hanging outside pawn shops in the sign,

Marcia Smith 14:51
come on, yeah. Pawn shops have three golden balls. Well,

Bob Smith 14:56
that’s the traditional sign, yes, maybe not the ones you go to. Bob, where do you pawn off your things? But just

Marcia Smith 15:02
the things you give me what?

Bob Smith 15:06
We’ll be back with more of the off ramp in just a moment with Bob and Marcia Smith. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith.

Marcia Smith 15:16
Let’s talk New Year’s Eve. Okay, in 1908. What classic New Year’s Eve tradition was begun

Bob Smith 15:24
1908, what classic new Oh, that must have been when the ball first was dropped from Times Square. You know,

Marcia Smith 15:30
you really get on my nerves. Oh, sorry, okay, okay, course, there aren’t that many New Year’s Eve traditions, raw beef, noise makers, yeah, and all midnight, but yes, you got it the first time that it’s called time ball. The first time ball in Times Square, New York City was dropped in 1908. Wow. It was all made possible by the invention of a Victorian contraption in England called the chronometer, the chronometer, which helped sailors at sea navigate, and a British Royal Navy officer named Robert was hope brought it our way for a New Year’s celebration that continues to this day. What did the chronometer do? It helped them navigate.

Bob Smith 16:18
So what did that have to do with the ball dropping from Times Square. It comes

Marcia Smith 16:21
down for an hour right ticks off. If you saw a picture of this contraption, you’d see, oh yeah, I guess you could do a time ball drop to the chronometer depth, interesting. Just, just take my word. It came from England, Victorian England and the sea Royal Navy, and he brought it over here, and then New York City had already started celebrating Times Square in Times Square, but they didn’t have any big thing that happened at midnight. So that

Bob Smith 16:51
was it, yeah, well, over 100 years ago. Geez, I never think of it being that long ago. I think of the 20s or something. Yeah. Okay, I’ve got some more on mistletoe. Okay, did you know a mistletoe was considered sacred in the pagan rites of the Druids, not the druins, your family, but the Druids. They thought it had magical powers of healing, and in ancient Roman legend, when enemies met under the mistletoe, they were forced to lay down their weapons, kiss and declare a truce until the next day. So that’s when Christianity arrived in Britain. The bishops outlawed mistletoe from church decorations, mistletoe and Christmas kisses. But this whole idea of kissing under the mistletoe became kind of a Christmas thing, really, yeah, even though it was not that the holly bush. Where do you think that came from? What country the

Marcia Smith 17:38
holly bush? What country? Well, was it Scandinavian? It

Bob Smith 17:42
may have been, but in medieval England, is where they trace it back to. And superstition had it that the holly bush had special powers against witchcraft. So unmarried women fastened sprigs of the holly bush. It’s always unmarried. Unmarried women always waiting for the men. Yeah. How come not the unmarried guy men’s men never worried about it, but unmarried women fastened sprigs of the holly bush to their beds at Christmas time to keep themselves from being hexed Yeah. And to early Christians, the holly bush symbolized the burning bush of Moses, and its prickly points and red berries reminded the faithful of the infant born on Christmas Day would someday wear a crown of thorns. Again, going back to the darkness of Christmas, this is another one. You think of the three wise men. They came to the Bethlehem Baby Jesus and gave him gold, frankincense and myrrh. What’s the darkness of that story? There’s a darkness there. Well,

Marcia Smith 18:40
are one of those things, uh, to ward off

Bob Smith 18:43
evil. One of those things is used in embalming. Oh, myrrh, myrrh, yeah, so that was considered like a foretelling of what was to come. Oh, really, yeah. Isn’t that interesting? I didn’t know that. For instance, one of the verses of the hymn, We Three Kings, you know you, they start talking, We Three Kings of Oregon. They’re almost marching slowly, you know. But there is one verse that says, myrrh is mine. Its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering, Doom, suffering, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in a stone, cold tomb. Oh, that is cheery. Well again, darkness of you know Christmas, there are some darkness, here’s

Marcia Smith 19:22
some lightness. Bob, okay, how many Santa’s reindeer Can you name?

Bob Smith 19:27
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, victim donner, victim fixing, sorry, fixing that. That’s, that’s a name for sexy young ladies. Uh, Cupid, donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. Comet.

Marcia Smith 19:40
You forgot comedy? Oh, comets in there too. Yeah, yeah. Very good. All, but one that, yeah. See, it stays with you, even when you’re a senior citizen. So who created the jolly fat man that we think is we as we see Santa Claus today?

Bob Smith 19:55
Who created him? Yeah? Oh, that was a cartoon, wasn’t it?

Marcia Smith 19:59
He said. Drawing of the fat Santa with a red suit and a wide Bell and a white beard.

Bob Smith 20:03
Was that a Thomas Nast cartoon? Very good. I’m

Marcia Smith 20:07
impressed. This is why I married you. This arcane, useless information. Yes,

Bob Smith 20:12
I have plenty of it. I know lots of it. Never feels he also did Uncle Sam. So that’s he cartoonist who did that too, yep.

Marcia Smith 20:19
And I think, I think actually, and he had first, I think it came out through Coca Cola, and was the first time we saw that vision. Well, that’s

Bob Smith 20:32
one of, one of the modern visions, yeah, yeah, that was one of my was going to be one of my questions to you, what beverage brands been using Santa in its advertising for 90 years. Yeah, that was, that was Coca Cola. Coca Cola. They started in 1931 okay, here’s a, I got a few more here.

Marcia Smith 20:48
You know, the birthday of Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer. No, take a guess.

Bob Smith 20:53
Oh, he was born on Christmas Day. Yes, very good. Okay, I figured that makes deduction, Bob, good for you. Thank you. Now, let’s talk about the Yule Log. Where does that come from? Ah,

Speaker 2 21:04
the Yule Log, and it’s a

Bob Smith 21:07
pre Christian tradition, yeah. It comes from Scandinavia, okay, where a log was burned at the end of each year as a way of doing away with the old years evil and to rekindle the hearth fire, which was the center of family life. Uh huh. The Vikings carried the custom to Europe, where firewood that burned during the holy night on Christmas Day took on special significance. So with great ceremony, families chose the biggest log they could find, sometimes the whole trunk of a tree, and brought it into the house.

Marcia Smith 21:36
All those Vikings, if they’re not slaughtering, they’re making, they’re bringing

Bob Smith 21:40
entire trees into the house. And each year, a part of the Yule Log was saved to light for the next season’s fire, and its ashes were scattered to bring good luck. So that was the tradition of the Yule Log came from Scandinavia. There’s a all those traditions come from all over the world. You have

Marcia Smith 21:57
a whole Christmas file over there? Yes, I do. Good lord.

Bob Smith 22:00
Any good trivia expert would have, okay, according to legend, what holiday goodies were shaped to resemble a shepherd’s staff as a way to candy canes? That’s exactly right, as a way to remind children of the shepherds who visited baby Jesus, because candy canes go back centuries and centuries and centuries. All right? What well known Christmas Carol became the first song ever broadcast from space in 1965

Marcia Smith 22:24
in space, the first,

Bob Smith 22:25
oh, we talked about it last week on the show, yeah.

Marcia Smith 22:28
So why are we talking about it again? Because this

Bob Smith 22:31
is the first Christmas carol broadcast from space

Marcia Smith 22:35
space. Okay, think I could remember last week. Was it religious or holiday ish? It was

Bob Smith 22:44
holiday ish. Jingle Bells. Jingle bells, yeah, which doesn’t mention Christmas. And our friend Steven short, who was listening the show in San Francisco, said it doesn’t mention Thanksgiving either. Bob,

Marcia Smith 22:54
yeah, yeah, it was, it was written for Thanks. It was written for Thanksgiving, but it’s just

Bob Smith 22:57
about Jingle Bells. Let’s go to grandma’s house and have a good time. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, let’s hang out with the bells. Now here’s another question. Twas, the night before Christmas, we talked about that that was originally published under what name? What was the original name of that poem? Why would I know that? Because you are married to me. We made this clear a while ago. I have no idea. Okay. Twas, the night before Christmas. Was originally published as A Visit From St Nicholas. That’s the name of the poem,

Marcia Smith 23:26
okay, that makes sense. We

Bob Smith 23:28
take the first verse, the first line of the first verse, and we say, well, that’s what it’s called, right? Was the Night Before Christmas? Well, okay, and here’s my question, my last question for you on the Rapid Round of Christmas. Okay, the weapon wound the weapon, a weapon. Round of Christmas questions. Thank you. Go. This is the final. Are you ready? Thank you, or should I say, are you ready? What holiday movie sequel includes a cameo by a future president?

Marcia Smith 24:00
Oh, actually, it was Donald Trump.

Bob Smith 24:02
And what was the movie? Home Alone. Home Alone two, okay, yeah, featured a cameo by Donald Trump. All right, I got it. All right. Now you’ve got something to wrap it up. Marsh, I

Marcia Smith 24:13
do my my final question, Bob is, can you tell me who was Virginia O’Hanlon? That

Bob Smith 24:19
must have been the Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Boy,

Marcia Smith 24:23
you just went right there, didn’t you? Well, Virginia, Christmas,

Bob Smith 24:27
Santa Claus. Of course, I believe in Santa Claus. Well, so do I? I believe in Virginia.

Marcia Smith 24:33
She is, she is the eight year old girl who, in 1897 wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Sun, and she asked him to please tell the truth, is there really a Santa Claus? And I read his response every Christmas, every year, I just do, yeah, it was a long, lengthy, wonderful response, but I’d like to have just the first two paragraphs, and that’s how I’d like to end the show. And. Because I know I’ll cry. I want you to read it. Oh, really, yeah, okay, I got it here. It’s just those first two paragraphs, but the parentheses, Virginia,

Bob Smith 25:09
your little friends are wrong. They’ve been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little in this great universe of ours. Man is a mere insect, an ant in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world around him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas, how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus? It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith. Then no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence we should have no enjoyment except in sense and sight. The Eternal Light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. No Santa Claus. Thank God. He lives and he lives forever 1000 years from now, Virginia, nay, 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart

Speaker 2 26:34
of childhood. Amen, okay,

Bob Smith 26:37
Bob, thanks. Some letter, and that’s only an excerpt from it, I know. Thanks for reading that. That’s from the New York Sun, September 21 1897

Marcia Smith 26:47
as I sit here weeping.

Bob Smith 26:50
Well, that’s it for this Christmas edition of the off ramp. We hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday if you celebrate it, and we hope you’ll join us again when we come back for another episode. I’m Bob Smith. I’m Marcia Smith, happy holidays, everyone. Bye, bye.

The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio and the Cedarburg Public Library. Cedarburg, Wisconsin, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai