Bob Smith 0:00
This episode of the off ramp is an encore performance of an earlier holiday show. Hope you enjoy it. What

Marcia Smith 0:07
music has remained popular to this day, since it debuted in 1742 for a charity fundraiser? Oh, that’s

Bob Smith 0:15
a good one. And what holiday was once synonymous with, riots, burglary

Marcia Smith 0:20
and street gags, not my birthday. No, no.

Bob Smith 0:24
The answer to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. You

Unknown Speaker 0:39
Music.

Bob Smith 0:47
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. Okay, Marcia, let’s get to that interesting question of yours.

Marcia Smith 0:59
There it is interesting. The question is, what music that debuted in 1742 for a charity fundraiser has remained popular to this day?

Bob Smith 1:10
So this is something that’s still played to this and popular 1742 Gee, my pop charts don’t go back that far. So I’ll just say, what is the answer? Marshall,

Marcia Smith 1:21
okay, hallelujah. Hallelujah. Oh,

Bob Smith 1:25
Handel’s Messiah, that’s it. Okay? The

Marcia Smith 1:28
oratorio debuted at a Dublin Ireland benefit for three charities, prisoners, debt relief, a charitable infirmary, and Mercer’s hospital. I

Bob Smith 1:38
knew it was in Ireland, but I didn’t understand that and

Marcia Smith 1:41
get this, okay? Handel wrote it for a very small group of people, not hundreds of voices, like we often hear it today. It was scored for just eight instruments and was sung by 32 people. Wow,

Bob Smith 1:53
that is amazing. That’s like a normal sized choir for some church, and they wanted

Marcia Smith 1:58
to get as many people in as possible, so women were encouraged not to wear those big hoop skirts so they could smash more people. Oh, really, yeah. And 700 people attended, and they took in 400 pounds for the three charities, and they were able to set free 142 indebted prisoners. Wow. What

Bob Smith 2:21
a legacy. They’re dead. That is amazing. So they let these guys because people were thrown in prison because they were poor in England and Ireland, just because you’re poor, you were thrown in prison sometimes. Wow, that’s amazing. Well, I’ve sung parts of the Messiah, as you know, and it’s beautiful. Did you know that he wrote that entire thing in just like three to four weeks, I think 24 days. Amazing. It’s gorgeous. I

Marcia Smith 2:45
can’t write a letter in that. And, in fact, it’s such a large composition that NPRs music expert miles Hoffman estimates there are a quarter of a million notes in the Messiah.

Bob Smith 2:59
Wow, with all the parts, it’s a quarter. Well, yeah, can that be? Well, you have parts for each orchestra, you know, instrument, and you have, you have parts for four, at least four, probably six voices, six different levels of voices, you know, bass, tenor, alto, soprano. Then there’s other ones. So when you put all those together, and it’s, I don’t know how many pieces it is, how many pieces of music, it’s many different scenes that makes sense, but wow, what an accomplishment, and what a legacy. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 3:25
for charity, it’s beautiful. Still tingles me.

Bob Smith 3:29
Did you know this? This is a related fact, okay, okay, at one point in history, Italian opera was illegal in Italy.

Marcia Smith 3:38
Why? Well, well, a lot of people hate it opera period. No, that

Bob Smith 3:42
wasn’t it. Opera performances in Rome were forbidden by the pope because many operas had sexually suggestive content. Oh, yeah, that’s one reason Handel’s Messiah was controversial when it debuted in England, controversial because where they debuted, it wasn’t in a cathedral, but in an auditorium where opera was performed. Okay, that’s interesting. So the church frowned on performing religious works in auditoriums or music halls where some suggestive comedy might be performed tonight later. And that’s one reason Handel debuted his Messiah in Ireland, to get away from the English bishops. Okay, very, very critical English bishops. Well, anyway, that’s that’s very good. Well, I’ve got a good one for you

Speaker 1 4:20
too. Okay, the judge Bob was I like to say, well, yes, you do say that a

Bob Smith 4:24
lot. All right. All right, here’s mine. This holiday. Uh huh was once synonymous with riots, burglary and street gangs. I’ve got a hint,

Unknown Speaker 4:35
not my birthday. No, no, it’s not your birthday.

Bob Smith 4:39
Although that was pretty wild at times. As I recall back in the day, the commercialization of this holiday may have saved it from anarchy,

Unknown Speaker 4:48
really, yeah,

Bob Smith 4:51
commercialization of this wild, riotous street Christmas, that’s exactly right. Isn’t that amazing? No. I didn’t know about this. This came in an article in the Wall Street Journal by Jason Zweig, and apparently Christmas, if not for the business of gift giving, might still be what it once was, a riotous Bacchanalia. You know, wild wild parties drinking a time when drunken gangs brawled in the streets and sometimes bashed their way into homes demanding money and alcohol.

Marcia Smith 5:21
Sounds like my family. They still have that,

Bob Smith 5:24
that tradition, don’t they? Yeah, that was what always set your family apart. In my

Marcia Smith 5:30
mind, this year, COVID put them down. No, but seriously, according

Bob Smith 5:33
to Jason Zweig, writing in The Wall Street Journal for centuries, December was downtime for most people, and it had been that way for Europeans, going all the way back to the rowdy pagan holiday Saturnalia in ancient Rome. You know, the harvest was over, they couldn’t do a lot of stuff in the winter, so when Christmas came around, hey, here’s a chance to celebrate. So get rowdy. It went off the rails. And this makes sense now. This is why Puritans made it illegal to celebrate Christmas in 17th century America. It wasn’t because they were killjoys. Christmas was not like it is today. The Puritans were upset with the disorder and anarchy that surrounded Christmas, the feasting, gambling, drunken partying that all went on at Christmas time. Wow. Well, that’s this was for at least three centuries in Europe. This was the tradition, no kidding, yeah, see, I never knew any of that. A historian named Steve Nissen bomb, his book The battle for Christmas, describes the shenanigans that once surrounded the holiday. Now, remember this, you’ve seen those, those great paintings of the Dutch and Flemish artists. They show Drunken Peasants, carousing in the snow and ice with Grog and everything. Beard that was, that was a depiction of the Christmas season in those days. You could see it in plays of Shakespeare too. You’ve heard of 12th Night, yeah, that is a very rowdy party. It’s a 1601 play about the 12th Night, or the last night of Christmas. 12th Night is not celebrated much in Christendom today, but it was in Elizabeth in England, and these weren’t your grandma’s Christmas parties. They were raucous, noisy events full of drinking, mischief making. One tradition was cross dressing men dressing up as women, women dressing up as men. And in Shakespeare’s 12th Night, cross dressing characters binge on Christmas cakes and Ale so over time, until the late 1800s Christmas was synonymous with carousing and drunkenness. Now one more thing on this, okay, you know the term Merry Christmas? Yeah, that was not a good term years ago, because Mary once meant drinking Mary. So what changed all this? What

Marcia Smith 7:36
changed? It wasn’t prohibition. No,

Bob Smith 7:39
it wasn’t prohibition. This is a unique way to look at it, because we all think of Christmas being over commercialized, right? But these historians are saying, No, it was the commercialization of Christmas that saved Christmas, Santa Claus. All of these traditions came in of gift giving, not gift taking, not people coming into your apartment and, you know, knocking things around and stealing your alcohol. You notice in the night before Christmas, the narrator said, of Santa, I had nothing to dread. That reflected the fact that at Christmas, people in the streets used to break into houses. But even though Santa broke into his house, he had nothing to dread. And at the end of that poem, he didn’t say Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. He said, Happy Christmas again, because merry was a negative term. So these people all say that the commercialization of Christmas, gift giving stores starting to have their own Christmas hours at night, all the mobs and the crazy people went away, and then the advertisers and the newspapers all promoted because everybody wanted to get rid of all this violence at Christmas time. What about churches? Churches wanted to get rid of the violence at Christmas time too. They were broken into by the thugs as well. Good heavens. Well, Marcia, I think we’ve all heard of the Roman Holiday of Saturnalia. Parts of the Christian tradition date from that. So do you know what some of those traditions are that became part of Christmas celebrations. The tree, the tree was that one of them, no, that wasn’t okay. I have three here. Okay. So it was an ancient Roman festival that honored the agricultural god Saturn that’s why it’s called Saturnalia. And it occurred around mid December, the winter solstice, and lasted for a

Marcia Smith 9:19
week. That’s pretty much why they picked Christmas date, isn’t it?

Bob Smith 9:23
Historians believe that the festival involved three things. Any idea what they are,

Marcia Smith 9:27
all right, it wasn’t a tree. What else presents? Yes, okay, exchange

Bob Smith 9:31
of gifts. Yes, food, lots of food. Yes, feasts, right? Okay.

Marcia Smith 9:35
And three is Santa Claus.

Bob Smith 9:38
No, no, no, no. Singing, door to door. Oh, really all those things, yeah, feasts, the exchange of gifts, and even singing door to door and house to house, all traditions that are now part of the Christmas season came from the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. Santa

Marcia Smith 9:53
went look right in a togo. No, no, I don’t think so.

Bob Smith 9:58
All right, Bob, I have some. Questions on other holidays that happen and occur in December. Okay, all right, Marcia, what are the roots of Christmas Boxing Day? Now this is something we don’t really celebrate here in the United States, England, yeah, so, what are the roots of Christmas Boxing Day? This goes back to the 1830s

Marcia Smith 10:16
I read it in a novel, okay? And I can’t remember the answer. It had charitable roots. Charitable box up left leftover things or food or presents and take them to the poor houses.

Bob Smith 10:31
There are theories. Nobody really knows for sure, apparently. But it started with members of the upper crust distributing Christmas boxes with food gifts and money to their servants and other employees, and then it became a different celebration. It’s like post holiday sales, you know, you take, okay, take the stuff back that you didn’t like and take it back. So that’s, that’s what it becomes known as now. What started in the 1830s it celebrated in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Yeah, I see it on the calendars here, yeah, by the u2 1000, many retailers began expanding their offerings for a full boxing week, running from december 26 to the 31st four returns. So that’s what it became known as. Okay, here’s another celebration that occurs at this time of the year, Hanukkah. Our Jewish friends have that. What is Hanukkah? Also known as? I’ll give you some choices, the festival of feasts, the Festival of Lights, the festival of freedom, Festival of Lights. How did you know that? Because I’ve always known that. What does that mean? Why is it called the festival? Lights the

Marcia Smith 11:32
Hanukkah, lights the candles, the oils, the oil that kept going,

Bob Smith 11:37
the oil in the temple that kept the menorah candles burning for eight full days. You’re right, that’s right. All right. Now follow up question on Hanukkah, which of the following is not a traditional Hanukkah food, Christmas, chocolate coins, jelly donuts, pork loin, or latkes?

Marcia Smith 11:55
I think jelly donuts are a part of it. Which of the

Bob Smith 11:58
following is not? It is not latkes pork loin jelly donuts or chocolate coins. Chocolate coins, no, you’re wrong. It’s pork, of course. Latkes, they’re potato pancakes, oh yeah, fried jelly donuts and chocolate coins are all Hanukkah treats, but consuming pork goes against Jewish dietary restrictions and is not commonly consumed during the holiday celebrations. However, brisket is often consumed as a meat dish in its place. Okay, what does the European holiday Krampus knocked, translate to Krampus knocked. Krampus knocked. And I’m gonna give you some choices. Krampus night, Krampus knocking, Krampus nose or Krampus naughty. Let’s go with naughty. It isn’t it’s Krampus night. It’s what it means the night that an evil character named Krampus visits children who behave badly, bringing them coal and mischief. What country is this? It started in Germany. Apparently, Krampus comes from the German word krampen, which means claw. So Krampus was a half goat, half demon figure, and the myth is believed to have originated in Germany. This, again, this is stuff that happens during December, during the holiday season. Again, Krampus is the central figure of the Krampus Nacht celebrated December the fifth in Austria, Germany and many parts of Central Europe. So now, what is celebrated on December the sixth?

Marcia Smith 13:24
That’s what’s his name. Our kids found out about it, and then we had to do it, St Nicholas Day.

Bob Smith 13:32
Yes, St Nicholas Day for good little girls and boys, swallows, krumpus Knock for bad little girls and boys. It celebrates a holy figure, the actual St Nicholas was a bishop and was famous for his generosity, and it’s observed in many northern European countries on St Nicholas Day, December the sixth, St Nicholas visits and leaves gifts for good children, often under their pillows or in shoes or stockings. I’ll

Marcia Smith 13:56
never forget that day, the afternoon, the kids came home from school and said, Why don’t we have stockings up for St Nicholas? I said, say, what? Everybody else in class has it? Well, good God, I didn’t get the memo, but from then on, we did it. So

Bob Smith 14:13
St Nicholas, day, so that was a major crisis for you. Is that right? Yes,

Marcia Smith 14:18
that’s when I called you at work and said, Hey, come home, bring some candy. Okay?

Bob Smith 14:26
There is a seven day holiday that starts on december 26 called Kwanzaa. Yes. What is that dedicated to? And here are the questions, oh, okay, traditional foods, prayer, black cultural figures, a different philosophy for each of the seven days. Which one is it?

Marcia Smith 14:43
Well, I don’t know if it’s cultural. I’ll go with that. That’s exactly

Bob Smith 14:47
what it is. Kwanzaa celebrates African American culture for seven days, and each of the days is dedicated to one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa, unity, self determination, collective response. Ability, cooperative, economics, purpose, creativity and faith, all good things. Now I got a question for you. There was a popular 1980s song that mentioned the Kwanza feast of karamu. Karamu. Now you will know this song, but you probably didn’t know this is even mentioned there. So what is it? Part time? Lover, by Stevie Wonder, all night long, by Lionel Richie. I’m coming out by Diana Ross or human nature, by Michael Jackson. I’ll go with Stevie Wonder. It’s Lionel Richie’s all night long, really. He pulled from different cultures for the lyrics, including karamu, the Swahili word for a feast or banquet. That’s also the name of a family and community meal that takes place at the last day of Kwanzaa. So we have a lot of different celebrations that take place during this time of the year, other than Christmas and Hanukkah. I think it’s time for a break. All right, let’s take it. All right. We’ll be back. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob

Marcia Smith 15:56
and Marsha Smith. I dozed off there. I’ll

Bob Smith 15:59
be back in just a moment with more of the off ramp, just me, nobody else, just me. It wouldn’t

Marcia Smith 16:04
be any fun without me, honey.

Bob Smith 16:06
I don’t know. We’ll see. Okay, we’re back, and Marcia is back too, with the off ramp here for the Cedarburg Public Library and for our podcast platforms around the world. Okay, here’s a good trivia question, which Christmas novelty record used the names of three record company executives in its lyrics. In fact, it made these three record company executives names famous. The hint is first names only any idea it’s remember the Christmas song by David Seville and the Chipmunks? Okay? Simon, okay. Theodore,

Unknown Speaker 16:50
okay, Alvin,

Bob Smith 16:57
David Seville and the Chipmunks. David Seville’s real name was Ross bag to zarian. He was a record producer and Alvin Simon Theodore. These are the names of executives at Liberty records, which produced the song. Oh,

Marcia Smith 17:12
see, I love that. See, I start out every Christmas morning with that guilty okay, maybe you like the chipmunks. Okay. No, guess here in the mood. You know, I got

Bob Smith 17:22
that. I remember my dad went out the night before Christmas in 1958 and the story came back later was that he went out to find this record at the last minute, and he went all over town in Worcester, Ohio, and finally found it at a drug store where they sold, you know, records, along with everything else, Christmas time is, yeah, did he love it? Or did he think? No, he got it because of me and my sister. That’s pretty cool. Yeah, it was pretty neat.

Marcia Smith 17:47
So you must be what, 8090,

Bob Smith 17:49
I’m 95 years old, right? Absolutely. Okay. You like that song, though. And then you start every Christmas with that, very interesting,

Marcia Smith 17:57
no, I don’t. Oh, kid was lying. What Christmas plant? And there aren’t that many. So I don’t think you’ll miss this one. What Christmas plant was named after an American diplomat who brought the plant back to the US after he served in a foreign country.

Bob Smith 18:12
That must be the Christmas dandelion. Albert dandelion brought that

Marcia Smith 18:16
back. There aren’t that many Christmas plants. Obviously, the dandelion is not a Christmas No, that is wrong. We have two plants in the house at our Christmas we do. It’s

Bob Smith 18:28
not the Christmas tulip. Those red plants, what are they called? I never can think the names, so that’s the answer, oh, the red plant, the Christmas red plant, and that was by Albert red and that would be

Marcia Smith 18:39
called the poinsettia plant. Oh, okay. And it came to the US from Mexico via a guy named Dr Joel Roberts, P, O, I n, s, e, t, t, of South Carolina, and he was the American diplomat in Mexico. He discovered the starry red flower in the early 1800s the Mexican legend associated with the plant involved a poor little boy who went into the church with no present for the holy child. And just before he went inside, he knelt and prayed in tears, wishing he had a present to give for the baby Jesus. And when He rose from his knees, he found a green plant with red blooms springing up at his feet. He broke off some of the blossoms and ran into the church to present the flowers as gifts to the Holy Child, the poinsettia plant. I’ll be darned. Mexicans must have had a name for

Bob Smith 19:35
that, but they didn’t call it Poinsett. I call it the red flowering plant, all right? Well, here’s something that we associate with winter, not necessarily Christmas, but it was an accident, the accidental discovery of artificial snow. Ever wonder what happens when you spray water on a cold running jet engine in a wind tunnel? Well, that’s what

Marcia Smith 19:57
happened. Well, just the other day, it’s. Happened to you in the 1940s Canadian scientist Dr Ray Ringer was trying to replicate conditions that caused icing on planes. He

Bob Smith 20:10
and his colleagues tried spraying water into the air of a lower temperature wind tunnel directly in front of a jet engines intake.

Marcia Smith 20:18
The objective was to create ice, but instead, they got snow, lots and lots of it. They got

Bob Smith 20:23
so much snow that Dr ringer and his researchers had to stop the experiment to repeatedly shovel snow

Marcia Smith 20:30
out the back of the wind tunnel. They could have just went and got some sleds, but No, you’d think at

Bob Smith 20:34
some point someone would say, we’re making snow. Think of how much money we can make doing this for ski slopes? But no, they didn’t. They were scientists, so they

Marcia Smith 20:44
kept shoveling, yeah, over and over again. Dr ringer had no interest in creating a snow making machine. Neither he or his lab patented the work, but they did publish their results in scientific journals, and

Bob Smith 20:57
surprise commercial folks picked up on it in 1949

Marcia Smith 21:01
and over the next 60 years, scores of commercial snow making systems were built all over the world using Dr rings discovery. He could have been one rich dude, yeah,

Bob Smith 21:11
he was just trying to replicate the conditions that caused icing on airplanes, and he accidentally invented artificial snow. Now, can you imagine that it’s like, oh, we made snow. Let’s go on to the next experiment. You know? Well,

Marcia Smith 21:23
that’s, that’s lack of imagination. Oh, yeah. But it took people

Bob Smith 21:27
who ran ski resorts go, Hey, wait a minute

Marcia Smith 21:30
here. Yeah, just thinking, and it’s constantly is now more than ever.

Bob Smith 21:33
You know, it’s funny. I think now you think about all the startups and all the entrepreneurs, people today who are inventors, automatically think, How can I make money with this? That’s just the way. People have changed their minds about this. It’s like, Hey, here’s something we could use. Here’s an app we could use. So, so the artificial snow making app, okay,

Marcia Smith 21:54
yeah, that, well, that’s down the road yet.

Bob Smith 21:56
St Lucia’s or Lucius day, l, U, C, I, a, is a December celebration in which of these countries? Marcia, Brazil, Sweden, Germany or Mexico. Saint Lucia, Brazil, just a moment, which country, Brazil? And you’re wrong. Marcia, it’s celebrated in Sweden, Norway and some parts of Finland and Italy. It’s also known as St Lucy’s day. But Lucia, l, U, C, I, a, on December 13, Lucia, or Lucia or Lucy was an ancient mythical figure who was known as a bearer of light for dark. Swedish winters, modern Swedish celebrations, appoint someone to play her role. She leads a procession of children dressed in white and wearing wreaths of light in their hair on December 13, okay, all right, okay. Marcia, I have a Buddhist holiday that also takes place in December. It’s called body day, B, O, D, I. Body day. What does that celebrate? Siddhartha birth, Siddhartha death, the creation of Buddhism, or the date of the Enlightenment. What’s

Marcia Smith 23:04
the date called, again, body day, I’ll say the last one, the enlightenment. That’s

Bob Smith 23:09
exactly right. Yeah. It’s celebrated by Buddhists in China, Japan and parts of India on December the eighth. So it’s another December holiday in the world. It marks the moment in 596, BC, when Buddhism’s founder, Siddhartha Gautama, attained enlightenment, becoming the Buddha, or the awakened one, he’s said to have achieved this while sitting under the body tree. The day is marked in peaceful ways, such as meditation chants and traditional meals of tea and cake. That sounds good to me. Lot of cake and hot drinks at any time you’re celebrating anything this time of the year around the world, it’s interesting. Nothing wrong with that. Okay? Marcia, here’s another holiday. This is in Japan. What does Japan’s almost Soca holiday celebrate? Does it celebrate New Year’s Eve, Constitution Day, Hiroshima, or a complete house cleaning?

Marcia Smith 24:00
Does it bring you joy? Bob, all right.

Bob Smith 24:04
Well, I got to tell you, it is the house cleaning. Yes, it is. That goes along with what was the book tidying up, right? Well, tidying up goes way back apparently. Al misogy, one of Japan’s most important traditional holidays, occurs December 31 it’s marked with rice straw, Robe decor, the ringing of bells and a complete cleaning of the house. To bring good luck. It’s to welcome the Shinto god, who is said to enter the house at midnight, apparently wants a clean house when he enters.

Marcia Smith 24:35
Good to know doesn’t live here. Yeah,

Bob Smith 24:36
no, okay, we’d have a little trouble with that. All right, why

Marcia Smith 24:40
is it rude to put your elbows on the table when dining Oh, this

Bob Smith 24:44
is perfect for the holiday season. I remember as a kid getting called off on them. I thought, What’s wrong with putting my elbows on the table? What’s that problem here? Well, Bob is the problem. I mean, I would love to be able to go to a Christmas or a holiday dinner and put my elbows. On the table. Why is that a bad Well,

Marcia Smith 25:01
where do many of these things come from? If it’s not Dickens, it’s who, Shakespeare, yeah, or, I mean, if it’s not Shakespeare, it’s who

Bob Smith 25:09
Dickens, the Bible, that’s it. It’s from the Bible, yeah,

Marcia Smith 25:13
the Old Testament, so the Jews and the Christian it includes the line, be ashamed of breaking an oath or a covenant and of stretching your elbow at dinner, be ashamed of that explain that many have translated this directive as a warning to keep elbows off the table. It’s the translations of people that have screwed up everything anyway, but table manners were originally introduced to prevent meal time fights, and that’s why the knife and the fork helped establish boundaries at the table, right? Yeah, and keeping your elbows off the table also allowed you to see the person down the road from

Bob Smith 25:52
you, if they had their knife or fork ready to kill you. Dinner must have not have been as the fun time we have today. No, no, not. So there’s all these weapons and people are eating but somebody might kill you with their weapons. There were

Marcia Smith 26:04
a lot more fights at the dinner table. Holy cow, never discuss politics.

Bob Smith 26:09
If the discuss politics or religion, thee shall fight. Oh my who knew that? Wow, there’s enough rules in the Bible. Anyway, I don’t need to be told to keep my elbows off the table. Okay, okay,

Marcia Smith 26:21
good. I’ll finish with a quote, okay, Hanukkah, as we were talking about before, is upon us as Adam Sandler, so beautifully, sings, put on your yarmulke. Here comes Hanukkah. So much Hanukkah, okay, but here’s some meaningful words from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Hanukkah is about the freedom to be true to what we believe, without denying the freedom of those who believe otherwise. Very

Bob Smith 26:50
good. And since you mentioned that, what is the alternative festival that was invented by a TV show because of Christmas being so commercial,

Marcia Smith 26:58
there was an alternative what? Oh, Festivus. Festivus, Festivus

Bob Smith 27:02
on Seinfeld, an alternative to overly commercial Christmas season. Festivus for the rest of us, yes. And do you remember what that’s celebrated with? Yes, it’s a pool, an aluminum pool, and the activities include the airing of grievances and feats of strength. I love

Marcia Smith 27:17
it. I’ve got a Festivus pool on the hearth in the family room.

Bob Smith 27:22
So I think we’ve covered everything today. Hanukkah, Festivus, Kwanzaa, Christmas. There

Marcia Smith 27:27
are a few more things in the world, Bob, but let that be enough for today. That’s enough for

Bob Smith 27:30
now. I’m Bob Smith. I’m Marcia Smith. Join us when we return next week with more fun facts and trivia here on the off ramp. You the off rep is produced in association with the Cedarburg Public Library. Cedarburg, Wisconsin, the.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai