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Christmas Questions Answered (With Katherine and Hank)

2017-12-22 · Q&A · Hank, Katherine Green · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities (also: Pop culture, Everyday life) · mode: Q&A & conversation · tags: calendar ritual, guest or collab, self promotion

Hank and Katherine banter through viewers' Christmas questions: Christmas is 'exactly like Die Hard', trees came from Germanic folk wanting green in midwinter, fruitcake was a way to have fruit in winter, Americans don't do Boxing Day, and nobody knows the Christmas pickle; Hank plugs Turtles All the Way Down's best-of-year lists.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting: Hank and Katherine answer Christmas questions

00:00:11 — Is Christmas like the films? Die Hard and It's a Wonderful Life

  • ★★ Asked whether Christmas is like the films, Hank says it is exactly like Die Hard. (joke) — 00:00:16 · Christmas
  • ★★ Asked for another good Christmas movie, Hank names It's a Wonderful Life. — 00:00:22 · Christmas
  • ★ Katherine Green: Katherine has only seen parts of It's a Wonderful Life; she sensed it was a downer, which is not what she wants at Christmas. — 00:00:29 · Katherine Green, Christmas
  • ★★ Answering the films question, Hank says real Christmas has feasts, presents and stockings: all the tropes are there. (playful) — 00:00:36 · Christmas

00:00:45 — Why bring a tree inside: Germanic folk, trees hung from ceilings, pine boughs

  • ★★ Asked whose idea indoor trees were, Hank and Katherine credit Germans, or rather Germanic folk, since Germany didn't exist yet. — 00:00:49 · Katherine Green
  • ★★ Hank thinks the idea was that in the middle of winter people were depressed and needed some green, with spring a long way off. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:53
  • ★ Hank has read that people would hang trees from the ceiling. — 00:01:03
  • ★★ Before trees, and among people who couldn't afford a full tree, people would just have pine boughs. — 00:01:11

00:01:20 — Katherine's love of Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas

  • ★★ Hank says Katherine has a real love affair with Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas and talking about it makes her cry. (playful) — 00:01:22 · Katherine Green, Christmas

00:01:31 — When Christmas ends: leaving decorations up, dried-out trees and tree fires

  • ★★ Katherine Green: Katherine's problem with Christmas is that after long preparation it is suddenly over, leaving her to put everything away. — 00:01:31 · Christmas, Katherine Green
  • ★★ Katherine Green: Leaving a tree up until the needles fall off when blown on is too late and really dangerous. — 00:01:53

00:02:02 — Last-minute presents: soap from the cupboard

  • ★ For last-minute presents, Hank suggests unused soap from the cupboard, such as Irish Spring. (joke) — 00:02:04

00:02:17 — Turtles All the Way Down on many best-of-year lists

00:02:36 — Christmas in warm climates, fruitcake, Boxing Day, the Christmas pickle

  • ★ People in warm climates do the same stuff at Christmas, probably minus the sweaters. (playful) — 00:02:36 · Christmas
  • ★★ Fruitcake was traditional because fruit was special at this time of year: dried fruit soaked in booze is the closest thing to fresh fruit in midwinter. (hedged) — 00:02:46
  • ★★ Americans don't observe Boxing Day: they call it the day after Christmas and go back to work. (playful) — 00:03:09 · Christmas
  • ★ Several viewers asked about the Christmas pickle; Hank doesn't know what it is and wonders if they are being messed with. (unsure) — 00:03:19 · Christmas

00:03:34 — Thanks, sign-off and wassailing outtakes

Humor (significant)

  • Asked whether real Christmas is like the films — 00:00:16

    “'Cause it's exactly like Die Hard.”

  • Last-minute present advice: find unused Irish Spring soap in the cupboard — 00:02:08

    “Carve it with a knife.”

  • Asked why fruitcake is traditional — 00:02:43

    “Because the world is terrible.”

  • Explaining Boxing Day to Americans — 00:03:12

    “You bring the boxes out, you put all your Christmas decorations in them, and that's Boxing Day.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Christmas · Christmas tree · Katherine Green

Also: Works: Die Hard · Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas · It's a Wonderful Life · Turtles All the Way Down

Organizations: Amazon · Barnes & Noble · Booklist · BuzzFeed · Entertainment Weekly · NPR · Publishers Weekly · The A.V. Club · The New York Times · The Onion · The Wall Street Journal · Time

Places: Germany

Events: Boxing Day

Products: Irish Spring

Only in the description or credits: Hawaii

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