[25:00]
(Santa Claus is pronounced in American accent here)
J: It’s Santa.
L: I think in America they call him Santa Claus and I think that in the UK we tend to call Father Christmas.
J: Yeah. Well… either will do.
L: We do say Santa Claus.
J: We don’t say “Santa, Santa”.
L: “Santa Claus”.
J: We should be careful not to joke about the Americans too much…
L: We like them.
J: …or anyone else.
L: I don’t know what they are saying in Australia.

(Australian accent here)
J: “Yeah mate, the Santa Claus is coming.”
L: “And dressed up as Santa”. I can’t do the Australian accent very well. What about New Zealand?
J: New Zealand – they like Santa.
(laugh)
L: That’s rubbish. That’s the worst kiwi accent I’ve ever heard.
J: Anyway. Let’s… enough of the cultural stereotypes.
L: Did you… Do you think that’s anything strange about Santa Claus or Father Christmas.
J: A big, massive guy with a big, white beard, creeping into your bedroom late at night, being driven by a herd of magic reindeer to take presents and put them in your sock, which hangs at the end of your bed and then drink a glass of sherry, eats a mince pie and then fly of to do… not to do… sorry… to do the same thing to every child in the world, all in one night. No, it sounds perfectly reasonable.
L: I mean it’s a pretty odd. The weird thing and I’ve mentioned this before in this podcast, for me about Santa is that idea that in the middle of the night, when you’re asleep there’s been like a big, old, fat, grey-head, bearded drunk, hanging around in your bedroom.
J: But in Luke’s case that was true, because…
L: It was my dad.
J: Our dad.
L: Yeah.
J: No. Let’s be fair. He wasn’t that fat.
L: But he definitely had a beard and he was probably a bit drunk, because it was Christmas.
J: Because it’s Christmas Eve and that’s fine and that’s… they know about Santa, we don’t need to tell them about Santa.
L: Do you remember when you learned that father Christmas was not real?
J: Yes, I do and it was a note left by Santa.
L: Santa left a note.
J: Santa left a note saying…
L: (in sound of stereotype Santa Claus) “Hello James, I noticed that you ordered a BMX for Christmas and unfortunately I can’t afford to buy you one. So I hope that this small kinder egg would do in place, ho ho ho.”
J: I wasn’t quite like that. It was a note saying “Merry Christmas, love from Santa and Rudolf” and there was a sort of little note from Rudolf, there was a crumb left from the mince pie, just one crumb. This is a small chunk of pastry or other food, which is left on your plate, when you finish eating. A crumb – a small little tiny piece of food.
L: Tiny little piece of food. So you get a crumb, if you eat a biscuit. You might get little crumb of the biscuit left. You’re also if you eat a cookie, because that’s American. Cookie. Right?

(in American accent)
J: “Mommy, can I have some cookies?”
L: “Can me get some more cookies, mommy, please.”

(in normal accent again)
J: “No, because you’re morbidly obese.”
L: Yeah. So, if you eat a biscuit or cookie. It might be a crumb left if you eat toasts you might get crumbs left on the plate.
J: They know about crumbs.
L: They don’t necessarily know. I’m the English teacher here, I’m a qualified professional, 10 years of teaching experience.
J: All right!.
L: I think I know, when my listeners know what the crumb is or not.
J: Or they do now.
L: I expect that they probably didn’t know what the crumb was until they listened to this.
J: So, I’m glad your psychic capabilities they’re kicking in right now.
L: It’s called professional experience. It isn’t psychic capabilities.
J: Alright. Skip to the end.
L: Alright. A crumb, so basically…
J: There was note a note as well, put down note…
L: They know what the note is. (laugh)
J: So there was a note from Santa saying “Thanks for the mince pie” and the thing is that was in my mum’s handwriting.
L: What’s a mince pie?
J: A mince pie is a traditional Christmas pie… which is bloody international, they all know about mince pie.
L: Well, they don’t know what the pie is.
J: They were used to be made from mince meat. And then the… oh, God…
L: What’s mince meat?
J: In the early days, I was going to say it “early days”, Victorian, pre Victorian times in Britain, what we consider savoury and sweet weren’t as different. So mince meat could be both sweet and savoury, so we could have meat in there and also dried fruit, suet, you know, that was a kind of staple food. But now our mince meat is actually just the fruit and a bit of fat.
L: Essentially though mince meat is like meat which has been ground up, you know, like you have bolognaise, spaghetti bolognaise, you use mince meat. Right? So you’re saying these mince pies…
J: Would have once had meat in them.
L: Would have had mince meat…
J: As well as dried fruit and things like that…
L: But now…
J: A bit of suet which is animal fat.
L: But now mince pies are like little pies and they contain… they don’t contain any meat anymore. They’re sweet and they’re contain dried fruit and sugar and maybe bits of nut and stuff like that. They’re delicious.