Weird Christmas Podcast

SURPRISE CHRISTMAS IN JULY PODCAST!

I never quite got this show finished during the season, so my humble apologies. All is now well.

Thank you to Meghan Arcuri for talking to me about Charlotte Riddell! Her collection of Riddell’s stories will be out very soon. And here are some links to her work, which I encourage everyone to check out:

• A Little Purple Book of Sharp Wit by Charlotte Riddel, ed. Meghan Arcuri

• “Because You’re Mine”

• Her bio: Meghan Arcuri is a Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author. Her work can be found in various anthologies, including Borderlands 7 (Borderlands Press), Madhouse (Dark Regions Press), Chiral Mad, and Chiral Mad 3 (Written Backwards). She is currently the Vice President of the Horror Writers Association. Prior to writing, she taught high school math, having earned her B.A. from Colgate University—with a double major in mathematics and English—and her masters from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She lives with her family in New York’s Hudson Valley. Please visit her at meghanarcuri.com, facebook.com/meg.arcuri, or on Twitter (@MeghanArcuri).

Readers who were so gracious and generous with their time this year, as well as being totally patient and not complaining at all when I ghosted them:

• Tessa

Bumper music for this episode:

• Usual opening: “O Holy Night” by Tiny Tim, “Christmas Doesn’t Last” by Make Like Monkeys, “Santa Claus Boogie” by Hasil Adkins, “Space Age Santa” by Ross Christman

If you’re feeling generous, check out my Patreon page here where you can get all kinds of bonuses throughout the year. You can also buy me a “coffee” ($3 gifts) at Ko-Fi.com.

Or PLEASE LEAVE A WEIRD REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS OR YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP! Send me a note that you did ([email protected]), and I’ll send you a sticker!

I chat with Thomas Ruys Smith, editor of Christmas Past: An Anthology of Seasonal Stories from Nineteenth Century America and Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of East Anglia.

Links from the show:

• Christmas Past: An Anthology of Seasonal Stories from Nineteenth Century America [publisher] [Amazon]

Bumper music:

• Usual opening: “O Holy Night” by Tiny Tim, “Christmas Doesn’t Last” by Make Like Monkeys, “Santa Claus Boogie” by Hasil Adkins, “Space Age Santa” by Ross Christman

If you’re feeling generous, check out my Patreon page here where you can get all kinds of bonuses throughout the year. You can also buy me a “coffee” ($3 gifts) at Ko-Fi.com.

Or PLEASE LEAVE A WEIRD REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS OR YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP! Send me a note that you did ([email protected]), and I’ll send you a sticker!

It’s out later than I would have preferred, but like the inevitability of New Year’s following Christmas, it is here.

To read the stories, get bio information and links on the authors, and for all other show notes, please check out WeirdChristmas.com.

Results:

• Overall Winner: “The Fight” by Elizabeth Guilt

Honorable Mention (in no particular order):

• “The Second Coming” — Michelle Christophorou

Please help support the contest, the podcast, and Weird Christmas website by buying a “coffee” (a gift in increments of $3) at Ko-Fi.com (click here). For even more support, please consider joining my Patreon page (click here) where for $2 or $5/month, you’ll have access to extra content and bonuses like physical postcards mailed throughout the year. With more support, I can offer more and bigger prizes for the contest next year.

A big thank you to my volunteer readers this season: my work buddy Lisa and LW Salinas (@sithwitch), both of whom stepped in at the very last second. Otherwise, almost all the authors wanted to read their own work this year, which was fun!

Bumper music:

• Usual opening: “O Holy Night” by Tiny Tim, “Christmas Doesn’t Last” by Make Like Monkeys, “Santa Claus Boogie” by Hasil Adkins, “Space Age Santa” by Ross Christman

Contest results from previous years: 2020, 2019, 2018.

Talking with Christopher Philippo, editor of Volumes 4 and 5 of the Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories.

• Chris' Goodreads site

Links to the poems and other goodies from the show are at WeirdChristmas.com.

If you’re feeling generous, check out my Patreon page here where you can get all kinds of bonuses throughout the year. You can also buy me a “coffee” ($3 gifts) at Ko-Fi.com.

Or PLEASE LEAVE A WEIRD REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS OR YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP! Send me a note that you did ([email protected]), and I’ll send you a sticker!

Al Ridenour is back after talking to us last year about Krampus, but this time to help unpack the lore and traditions around the Perchten, Krampus-esque goblin-ish creatures tied to both Krampus and Frau Perchta.

Links mentioned on the episode:

• Bone and Sickle Podcast

• Ep. 80 "America and the Old, Dark Christmas"

Bumper music:

• Usual opening: “O Holy Night” by Tiny Tim, “Christmas Doesn’t Last” by Make Like Monkeys, “Santa Claus Boogie” by Hasil Adkins, “Space Age Santa” by Ross Christman

If you’re feeling generous, check out my Patreon page here where you can get all kinds of bonuses throughout the year. You can also buy me a “coffee” ($3 gifts) at Ko-Fi.com.

Or PLEASE LEAVE A WEIRD REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS OR YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP! Send me a note that you did ([email protected]), and I’ll send you a sticker!

Happy Thanksgiving! We dive deep into the history of Christmas murder ballads with my friend (and cohost from the ReReading Wolfe Podcast) James Wynn.

I'll get links to all the songs from the episode up here shortly. But for now, here are links for James:

• ReReading Wolfe Podcast

Bumper music:

• Usual opening: "O Holy Night" by Tiny Tim, "Christmas Doesn't Last" by Make Like Monkeys, "Santa Claus Boogie" by Hasil Adkins, "Space Age Santa" by Ross Christman

If you’re feeling generous, check out my Patreon page here where you can get all kinds of bonuses throughout the year. You can also buy me a “coffee” ($3 gifts) at Ko-Fi.com.

Or PLEASE LEAVE A WEIRD REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS OR YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP! Send me a note that you did ([email protected]), and I’ll send you a sticker!

La Befana, Perchta, Holda, and so many more! We chat with the always encyclopedic Benito Cereno about all the Christmas witch folklore in Christmas history.

Links:

• Benito's Christmas history videos

Music:

• "La Befana" by Make Like Monkeys

If you’re feeling generous, check out my Patreon page here where you can get all kinds of bonuses throughout the year. You can also buy me a "coffee" ($3 gifts) at Ko-Fi.com.

Or PLEASE LEAVE A WEIRD REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS OR YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP! Send me a note that you did ([email protected]), and I'll send you a sticker!

Full text of all the winners are at WeirdChristmas.com along with bios, information, and links for all the authors.

All fiction copyright 2020 by the authors.

Please visit WeirdChristmas.com for full information.

Sometimes when you have a podcast, you talk to people who interest you and you don’t worry so much about how it relates to the show or your topic or what your hard-won audience really cares about. So you put out a show that’s all about really, really narrow interests you have. This is half that. The other half is about an amazing book about whether or not you should believe in Santa.

Links from the show:

• Does Santa Exist: A Philosophical Investigation (buy on Amazon)

Music from this episode:

• “Science Christmas Carols”

>>>>>

If you’re feeling generous, check out my Patreon page here where you can get all kinds of bonuses throughout the year. You can also buy me a “coffee” ($3 gifts) at Ko-Fi.com.

Or PLEASE LEAVE A WEIRD REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS OR YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP! Send me a note that you did ([email protected]), and I’ll send you a sticker!

“…And scary ghost stories of Christmasses long, long ago!”

Ghost stories from previous years if you’re in a spooky mood: 2019, 2018, 2017

Next year, we should break open this boys’ club with a tale from this…

Links from the show:

• Full text of the story, “Between the Lights”

Our narrators this year:

• Christohper Stanley (@allthosestrings, author of The Lamppost Huggers which has a a couple Xmas ghost stories of its own)

>>>>>

If you’re feeling generous, check out my Patreon page here where you can get all kinds of bonuses throughout the year. You can also buy me a “coffee” ($3 gifts) at Ko-Fi.com.

Or PLEASE LEAVE A WEIRD REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS OR YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP! Send me a note that you did ([email protected]), and I’ll send you a sticker!