How “The Holiday” Impacted Travel | POSTCARD #6

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What are you talking about?

Well, it is December 6th.

We are gathered here in my apartment.

For a second, I was like, are we at church?

No, no, no, no.

We're gathered here today.

Yeah.

To spit the gospel of travel stuff.

But it is the festive season, so happy Christmas to those who celebrate.

Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, all those good things.

Katie, I don't think you are religious or, like, grew up religious.

No, I'm not a super religious person.

But you celebrated Christmas.

I celebrate Christmas just because of the traditions of it.

We like to gather as a family, give each other gifts, and just hang out and eat turkey.

That.

That's the main vibe.

I feel like when you live in North America, whether or not you are religious about Christmas or not, you're kind of forced to celebrate it because it's, like, so entwined culturally and socially.

Like, I have a couple Jewish friends here in Toronto who say, like, we don't celebrate Christmas, but, like, we were off of school, we're off of work.

Like, you kind of just have to make something with that time.

And Hanukkah doesn't always align with the dates of Christmas.

So definite.

Like, think about being in elementary school and, like, the Christmas concerts and everything Christmassy that we were just indoctrinated into, basically.

I wonder if schools are still like that.

I know.

I feel like they're more, like, culturally diverse these days or, like, they try to weave in, like, other holidays.

I hope.

I truly hope.

Yeah.

I have a random question for you.

Yeah.

Have you ever spent Christmas in a hot climate?

No.

Oh, you should do it one year.

Okay.

I've only ever spent the holidays with my family in Ontario.

Okay.

Yeah, I did it one time.

I'm kind of the same always with my family, but one year I was in Australia, Hong Kong, and it was such a wild experience.

It just feels like you're in the Upside Down.

You're like, nothing makes sense because it's, like, hot, but there's a guy in a Santa Claus costume.

Like, I feel like Hong Kong would be such a cool place to spend the holidays too.

It was.

It was.

Was the city, like, super festive and everything?

It was.

It was pretty festive.

Yeah.

Also speaking of Hong Kong, recently Spotify Wrapped came out, and I was looking at our curious tourism.

Spotify Wrapped.

And Hong Kong is one of the main cities that people are listening to our show on Spotify.

So Shout out to all of our Hong Kong listeners.

Yeah, I'm curious who they are.

Reach out to us.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I hear you have a story to tell me.

I do have a story to tell you.

Okay.

Should we actually say the premise of like this episode?

Because we wanted to bring each other a story gift for each other, but we wanted to try and make it holidays themed.

Yes.

I don't know if that's something you were able to do.

It was definitely difficult.

It was difficult.

I did something.

Okay, so did I.

Okay.

Oh, like, very familiar.

Obviously one of my all time favorites.

Feed line is glasses, Mr. Napkin Head.

Yes.

I'm a major weeper anytime.

Once I.

Once the snowfall hits, I'm quoting that movie nonstop.

Okay, glad you're familiar with it.

For anyone who hasn't seen the holiday, can you give a quick synopsis of the movie?

Two women, one based in la, one based in the countryside of the uk, are going through an emotional crisis ahead of Christmas and so they decide to home swap.

So the woman from the countryside of the UK goes to la, and the woman from LA goes to the UK and things happen.

Yes.

And so classic holiday rom com stuff ensues.

Yes.

And it's a great film.

Jack Black is very feel good.

Yeah, Jack Black, an incredible romantic lead in that movie too.

Like, he's so good.

Okay.

Anyway, and I love Kate.

I mean, Kate wins it.

I know.

Well, she's amazing in everything.

So the big thing to come out of this movie was Home Exchange, which is what these two women do.

Their characters names are Amanda and Iris.

So the website that they use, homeexchange.com I think was a real website.

Oh, really?

Yes, it's a very real website and not like a website that they created for the movie, but it's an actual company that they used.

And.

Well, they didn't use it, but they referenced it.

And this was not a paid partnership.

This was just like an organic choice by the writers of the film to use this home exchange website.

So this is an actual website you can go on to meet people to exchange homes with and do a home swap for a vacation kind of thing.

So just a few months after the movie came out, the popularity of home swapping was quickly on the rise.

So I'm willing to bet that this movie, or at least home Exchange, the rise of it, kind of like maybe sparked a little Bit of interest in Airbnb as well.

Well, it was such a mainstream movie that, like, it definitely would have brought, like, this probably niche at the time idea, like more visibility and just more people knew about it.

Yeah, this is my theory, at least.

Yeah, No, I think that's probably true.

Probably so.

More and more home swapping websites actually started popping up after this movie.

And it also became, like, so popular that the police in England actually issued a warning against home swapping because they said that there you were at risk for identity fraud and murder.

Oh, this was where I first thought I was going with this.

With this.

Digging into it for you.

I was like, oh, let's talk about some juicy murder, like, crime that has happened.

But in all of the Googling and, like, research that I did, I could not find one story of, like, any sort of crime happening as a result of a home exchange.

Huh.

So.

And they do happen with Airbnb all the time.

I know.

So I know you've done homestays, but I don't think you've ever done like a full.

A full on house swap.

So do you think you would?

I have, actually.

You've done a house swap.

It's not through an exchange.

I've done a swap with people, but always with people that I know.

Not always super well.

But for example, I have a very old friend.

Like, I don't even know if I would call her like a friend, just like an acquaintance.

Say that to her face.

No, no, she would say the same thing.

We never hang out.

Okay.

But we had the same.

To go back in time.

We had the same circle of friends in Ottawa when I was like a teenager.

And we would see each other occasionally in Montreal because we had mutual friends, but we never hung out, like, just the two of us.

We just always had this random connection.

And when I moved to Toronto, we just randomly one day were like, let's swap apartments.

Because she lived in Montreal and I lived in Toronto.

And neither of us wanted to spend money, but we both wanted to be in each other's city.

And so we've done that like two or three times.

I've done it with other people mostly, like around Canada, where it'll be like, we'll come stay in your place, you come stay in ours.

But it's always with someone that, like, I have someone's like, co signed that they're respectable and reliable and trustworthy.

Can verify.

I don't know that I would do it through, like a random online platform.

Yeah, I would do it for me, the blocker is my cat.

Yes.

Like crumpet.

Because if you're going to come stay at our place, you're staying with Crumpet.

Yeah.

If we didn't have her, if she was coming with us, I would be totally cool with it.

It's so interesting you bring this up, actually, because that's one of the things in the film, in the holiday, they switch homes, but Iris in the UK leaves her dog behind.

And so Amanda is in charge of, like, taking care of her dog and, like, is cuddling with the dog and everything.

I don't know if I could do that with a scene.

Well, you know, there's like a whole.

There's a whole industry around this.

Trusted house sitters.

Yeah, that's true.

And we've used it where, like, we've had a house sitter come stay in our apartment to take care of Crumpet for free while we're traveling.

Oh, and you trusted that?

I did.

But that platform has, like, layers of vetting and stuff.

And, like, you interview the person, there's insurance, like, provided through the platform.

It's not like, my favorite way to do it.

Like, I prefer to find someone we know to watch her, but we have done it and it was good every time.

Arguably, those pet sitters were better than, like, our friends.

They were, like, saying us updates, like, more than we needed.

It was great.

Yeah, because they don't need.

They can't have bad reviews or else they'll never get work again.

Exactly.

And, like, for people who, like, I know people in the travel space that really lean into it and literally travel all year.

Yeah.

Just going from, like, house sit to house.

Okay, love this.

So how about a solo home swap for the holidays?

Like, would you do a house swap for the holiday season?

Or maybe you and Luke do one for the holiday season?

The older I get, the more hesitant I am to be away during the holiday time.

I just, like, really care about my family and Luke's family.

So, like, probably not.

Others admitted to wanting to spend a holiday on a solo vacation instead of with extended family.

2 and 5 is, like, quite a lot of people.

I mean, prefer to be alone for the whole.

A lot of people romanticize the holidays.

Like, I know that the holidays can be very difficult time for a lot of people.

Like, a lot of people aren't comfortable talking about it publicly.

But like, you never know what's going on in the background with a family.

And so I understand when people choose to.

To opt out, for sure.

Also, it's like often like a lot of people and if you're not just like a social person, it can be like intense.

Very intense.

It very much depends on how your family goes about Christmas.

Yes, thousand percent.

I know many people that don't love the holiday season for that.

So.

So, yeah.

So I thought I hadn't met anyone who has done a home swap before until now, until I just talked to you about it.

I think I would be down to do it, but I think it would take a little bit of work to convince Mark.

But I think my parents would be really into it.

Cuz also they've like gutted their home.

They're like, we don't want anything in our house other than furniture.

So like, they wouldn't worry about any of their worldly possessions.

Yeah.

And I.

They love to travel.

This is like their, their life now is just like, where are we going to travel next?

And I think they'd be really interested in staying at somebody else's home and like doing sort of a local thing and swapping with someone.

So I'm interested.

And thanks to Airbnb's impact on like, the lack of housing around the world and just like how expensive it has gotten, I think people for the most part have just started, like ended up going back to hotels and you wouldn't think they would have really be thinking about home exchange.

But home exchange and home swapping in particular has been on the rise over the last few years.

So why do you think that is?

Well, because travel is becoming less accessible.

It's like too expensive, especially when you want to go to high cost of living areas.

Yeah.

And this is first, I'll say there is a key difference.

Like, I don't know if you can really compare Airbnb and home exchange just because the concept is different.

Like, if you're going to stay in an Airbnb, if, even if you're staying in someone else's home, like in a room in their home, you're not putting your own home up.

And there's a monetary exchange, the collateral.

Is totally different there.

It's different.

There's money exchanged.

Home exchange, like, I would argue actually is like the perfect scenario because it's like we're just sharing, sharing our homes with each other.

There's no money exchanged.

It's just like a contract of trust.

The thing with it, I find, though, is, like, it's harder to organize because you need two parties that will enter the contract of trust and are both in places that the other party wants to go to.

I think it could work for Lucha and I because we live in downtown Toronto, and so people want to come here, but you need to live in a place that people want to come.

And then we would want.

Have to want to go to, like, a similar place, like another high cost of living city.

Basically.

This is the reason why I was, like, skeptical about doing it, because I'd be down to do a home exchange.

But I truly don't know how many people would love to exchange exchange homes with me.

Like, how many people really want to come and hang out in Brantford.

But I think there's a case for it because it could be like you could home exchange with someone in Vancouver who has family in Brantford.

Yeah.

I think there's other scenarios.

It's not always like, for tourism, per se.

That's true.

It could be like, for example, one of our pet sitters who came through trusted house sitters.

She wanted to pet sit here because her family was based in Toronto and she was living abroad.

So she wasn't coming to be a tourist in Toronto.

It was her home city.

And she was just like, I'd rather stay with your cat than with my parents.

Yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way.

I was thinking mostly, I was like, this must be a thing for mainly people who live in cities or people who live in, like, cute little villages.

No, I think.

I think there's sleeper communities for it, like, for, like, people that have to go back to, like, their hometown type thing, you know?

Totally.

Yeah.

Okay, this is interesting.

So you were right on the money.

I, like, you walked into it as I expected, which is home exchange is on the rise, mostly due to the economy around the world.

Yeah.

And there's a growing trend for affordable tourism, but also sustainable tourism.

And a lot of people consider this a very sustainable way of traveling as well.

They're doing a lot of surveys out here, but it's all been done, like, very recently.

And they revealed that Canadians are making travel decisions driven by economic uncertainty and.

And a desire to make their vacation budgets last longer.

Only 6% of Canadians have actually tried home exchange, but 64% of them are actually aware and open to the idea.

That's like a lot of people who are actually like down to do it.

They just haven't really thought much about it at all.

And over this year, there was like a crazy boom of articles talking about home exchange and about the cost of travel and inflation on the rise and all of that, and how travelers are looking for cheaper options.

And the Independent featured a story about a retired couple who's done over 120 home exchanges in nearly a decade, estimating that they've saved at least €45,000 on accommodations.

This is blowing up right now and right.

And for context, Home exchange only costs an annual fee of euro 175 for members to list your home and then participate in an unlimited number of exchanges.

It's the same as trusted house sitters.

Yeah, it must be basically the exact same concept.

I wonder if it includes insurance.

Do you know?

I don't know, but I would assume it does because home exchange is really big on like establishing a community of trust.

They're a certified B corp.

They are really big on like responsible travel and making sure that this is a tight knit community of people.

Interesting.

Actually, I, I wrote down.

So one of the benefits of this is that people are actually treating the accommodations a lot better.

They say on the website, thanks to the platform's core values of respect and trust, 99.7% of exchanges are incident free.

And any of the incidents that do happen are typically for things like a broken vase or something like that.

You've really sold me on this.

Like, maybe I'll put our apartment up on this.

I do think that unlike Airbnb, I'm talking Airbnb in the early days.

In the early days, you felt like you were getting a deal.

Yes.

And so you treated the space well.

And I think this is the same concept.

It's like, because you've, like I said, entered this contract of trust with someone, you feel more.

Not indebted, but you feel more responsibility towards them in their space.

Like when I've swapped apartments with this girl in Montreal, I leave it in like pristine condition because I'm just like grateful to her that she was able to swap with me and give me a place to stay for free.

And this is the thing, like Airbnb used to be my original concept.

When I first signed up for Airbnb and was like renting people's homes, there was like, I'm entering someone's Home.

Home, where they, like, stayed in their home.

And I want to be respectful of the space.

But then over time, you're kind of like, okay, well, this isn't like, somebody's space anymore.

This is just, like a condo that some investor has, like, bought and is rented out.

The issue is when they switched from, like, the concept used to be you were staying in someone's home with them.

Yeah.

Like, when we were hosts.

Luke and I were hosts on Airbnb for, like, three years.

Yeah.

People stayed with us in our apartment.

Once they switched over to being able to rent someone's whole space, that's when, like, it changed.

It wasn't as good anymore.

This is the thing, Airbnb.

A lot of people have been complaining over the last few years that, like, you go and rent somebody's full space, and then you get a whole task list of chores and you have to pay for the cleaning fee, even though you've basically been asked to be the cleaner of this whole place.

But with Home Exchange, that's, like, sort of already an unwritten rule in the contract where, like, when you're switching homes, you live in this home.

Like, you are taking out the garbage.

So there isn't any, like, policy around that.

I don't.

I need to double check this.

But I think just, like, the culture of, like, home Exchange establishes a different set of expectations.

Like, if I'm exchanging my home, I would hope that somebody is gonna care for my home if they're gonna be staying in mine, and I'll do the same, rather than just, like, renting it out as, like, a tourism experience kind of thing.

Especially if I'm paying, like, a cleaning fee, because there's.

I don't think there's any fees on Home Exchange.

It's literally swapping homes for free, and you pay this annual fee, so you're not paying for a cleaner or anything like that.

So it's up to you to literally swap homes.

They must have some verbiage on this, though, like, that there's definitely insurance in a specific.

Because as much as, like, I want to believe in community, I also know that, like, there would definitely be people who would leave your home in a bad state.

Totally.

Totally.

Okay, So I also wanted to share this other interesting benefit that I.

That I discovered in people writing about this stuff over the last year, and that is that people are actually able to stay in places longer, and they've noticed it's been stimulating the economy of towns.

And here's a quote from travel and tour world.

Quote, the Rise in home swapping has also had a noticeable economic impact on the Balearic Islands, particularly in terms of lengthening the average stay of tourists.

While hotel stays typically last a few days, the average home Exchange lasts about 17 days, three times longer than the average hotel.

The longer duration of stay benefits the local economy as visitors have more time to explore the islands, engage in local activities and dine at local restaurants.

The extended stay also means more money is spent on non accommodation related experiences such as tours, activities and cultural experiences, providing a boost to the local businesses that support the tourism industry.

It's definitely conducive to like more slow, longer hall travel.

I know especially high cost of living places like people can only afford to go for so long.

I know when I used to go to New York City, I would stay with my friend who lived there for a week.

And when Luke and I look at going there together, we're like, we can afford maybe three days in New York.

This is the interesting thing when you're paying like six, six hundred dollars a.

Night, I thought that like due to the boom of Home exchange that you would actually not see a slow travel trend.

But like people swapping homes because they're like, oh, I can get all these accommodations for free, so I'm just going to bounce around from city to city to city.

I have extra money to spend, but that seems to be the opposite of what's actually happening here.

And people are staying longer in the same place and actually I guess really like sort of nesting into a space.

I think that's what it is.

Yeah.

Honestly, because if I was going to do it, I think I would want to.

If I'm going to go through the work of like organizing it and flying somewhere, I'm going to want to stay planted for a bit.

Yeah.

And like you have Internet probably at these homes like you there's maybe more chance of you to do like a working vacation.

That's definitely like the remote working communities in on this.

Oh for sure.

Those probably like the majority of the members on Home Exchange.

Yeah.

So some last things on this.

This year, Home Exchange announced that June 8th was officially the first Home Exchange Day.

They called it a quote, worldwide celebration of authentic and people first travel.

And here's how they explained it in their press release.

Quote, More than just a community initiative, Home Exchange Day is a bold statement.

A global real life demonstration that travel doesn't have to be transactional.

Built on a model of mutual trust and generosity, the event aims to show the world the power of a growing movement that's reshaping the way people experience the world together.

And essentially what you're supposed to do on Home Exchange Day is it's just a series of meetups that are happening around the world to learn more about Home Swapping and basically get you to sign up to Home Exchange.

I was going to say my social washing alarms are going off.

But, like.

But, like, I'm also not opposed.

Like, I'm not opposed to the message, but, like, you're still a business.

I know.

Because, like, also, if they're only making $200 a year per person, they need more people to sign up.

Yeah, but there's probably a lot of people.

Hold on.

It literally says, I think that's 400,000 members or something like that.

There's 360,000 homes available to swap.

Yeah.

That times 200.

That's a lot of.

That's a lot of money.

And Home Exchange just acquired another home swapping website called Home Love Exchange or something like that.

Oh.

So they're expanding.

They're expanding.

And this has all been happening over the last, like, couple of years, which is the most interesting thing to me is to see this, like, trend exploding.

I think this will be interesting to watch in how the tourism industry exists over the next couple of years and see, just because of how broke everybody is and still want to keep traveling, I wonder how much home swapping is going to be a part of, like, people's travel plans moving forward, because it seems to be on the rise.

I would agree.

It's definitely on the rise.

Like, I see more of trusted house sitters rising.

Like, I've definitely seen more and more people doing that and promoting that, but I honestly haven't seen a lot about Home Exchange.

But now I'm curious to see.

Yep.

And so I do think that in times where people are more strapped for money but want to continue, like, maintaining their lifestyle, they look for other ways to make travel accessible to them.

And so I could see a lot more people, like, entertaining, doing Home Exchange, for sure.

So you gonna sign up?

I would look at it.

I would look.

Yeah, I would look at it.

I would say, well, like I said, is crumpet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's all I have to say about Home Exchange.

I have one last fact, though, that was just very interesting to me about the movie, the Holiday.

So, you know Iris's little cottage country house in England.

What did you think about the house.

I thought it was cute.

Super cute, right?

Yeah.

It's not real.

They built it for the movie.

Oh, that's not surprising.

They built that entire thing for the movie.

So I think they found like a big plot of land.

So the land that it exists on was just like a big field.

The way I knew it wasn't real because it's like in the movie, they suggest that it's only like 40 minutes from London.

And I was like, that's impossible.

Like 40 minutes.

You're not even on the edge of London in London.

So I guess it's 40 minutes from the edge of London.

Yeah.

But I wonder also, because I don't know if you're.

This is a weird plot point in that movie.

Not to go on a tangent, but you remember how when Amanda first arrives, she the.

Her taxi driver is like, I can't go any further.

So you have to walk to the house.

And so she has to walk to the house.

But then later in the movie, Jude Law is picking her up and they're going back and forth, driving all over the place.

There's some continuity errors.

It's a very interesting.

But I was like, maybe that was a thing because of where they built it.

They literally couldn't physically drive up for a little while or something.

I don't know.

Yeah.

This is something to look out for in my upcoming holiday watch of the holiday.

My favorite Christmas rom com.

It's on the agenda for me as well.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, before we move on.

Yeah.

What is your favorite holiday movie?

Is it the Holiday?

I think the holiday is definitely one I put on every year, but also a traditional holiday movie is the Charlie Brown Peanuts Christmas movie classic.

Yeah.

And right now there's a weird trend of all this, like Peanuts and Snoopy stuff, like, trending everywhere.

I don't know if you've noticed this.

There's all sorts of Snoopy merch and everything happening right now.

And I'm like, how dare you take my traditional content and make it mainstream again?

I was obsessed when I was younger, though.

But yeah, Charlie Brown Christmas.

I like to practice the piano songs from the movie.

And we'll be doing that this year, so.

Yeah.

It's not really a Christmas movie, but I always watched it at Christmas.

Is it a Barbie movie?

No, it's just like a kind of like straight to TV movie.

You should watch it.

Okay.

My other favorite though, and it's more recent, is Klaus.

Did you see it?

No.

Did not see that.

No.

One has seen this.

Is it animated?

And it blows my mind that no one has seen it.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's 2D animated, so hand drawn, which is amazing.

Yep.

I cry every time I watch it.

It's like one of those movies that's for the kids, but as an adult you'll really appreciate it.

Cause it just has a heartwarming message and the music is so good.

I think maybe people don't know it because it's European made.

I thought I've seen it on Netflix, so I thought it was just a Netflix movie.

No, it's not.

I think it's on Netflix now.

Yeah.

Because it did the rounds for a while, but.

Oh, you know what you made me think of too.

The Christmas movies I do love that are really hard to come by now are the old like puppet stop motion ones.

Oh yeah.

So there's a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer one which has always been a classic, but there was one called Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Yeah, I've seen it.

That one.

All this stuff used to show on tv.

I know.

Like, I don't know what they show on tv.

TV to the kids anymore.

I know.

Do you want to know what Luke's favorite Christmas movie is?

What?

He makes me watch it every year.

What?

It is good.

A Muppet Christmas Carol.

I was going to mention.

So this is Mark's family's Christmas movie.

They watch the Muppet Christmas Carol every year when they were growing up at least.

And also they just went to go see it.

A bunch of his siblings went to go see it in concert.

Oh my God.

I think it was at Roy Thompson hall in Toronto.

So they saw the screening and then had the live orchestra playing it.

It's a classic.

You can't go wrong with Michael Ca.

It is a really good.

It was like I had never seen.

I don't know why.

I just had never seen it until I was with Luch and same now.

We watch it every year.

Okay, so now I'm gonna share with you my story gift, which isn't really a story.

It's more interesting facts.

Interesting.

I just wanted to share because this is stuff that interests me.

This is the best kind of gifts.

That was kind of my gift to you.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about some interesting Christmas traditions from around the world.

Oh, I love this.

Actually, I've been looking this up.

I was telling you recently that I'm trying to get more in tune with my Swiss heritage.

Okay.

And Switzerland seems to be have like a lot of interesting holiday traditions, but I'm still not sure what they are.

But I've definitely been like thinking about this already.

Like there's all these Swiss like Christmas cookie books and stuff that exist out there.

So I'm ready.

Okay.

So I'm gonna say the tradition and you're gonna guess where.

Oh, I love in the world this happens.

I love games.

This is the perfect gift for me.

So there is a place in the world where eating KFC around Christmas time is a modern tradition.

This is gonna be a bad guess, but I have a reasoning towards it.

Okay, I'm gonna guess Denmark.

No.

Okay.

And I only guessed this because my own Danish family was visiting around the holidays a few years ago and they were extremely adamant about getting kfc.

Now I think it's because KFC doesn't exist there.

And they were like, we just want kfc.

That would make sense.

Okay, so who is it?

Well, you gotta guess again.

Oh, we're thinking more east and eastern in the world.

I would obviously pick like the United States.

It's got to be the States now.

Kfc.

Where else does kfc?

Is it Japan?

Yes.

Ooh.

Yeah.

Oh.

So KFC had this arguably genius idea to lean into that curiosity by launching a campaign that basically if you translate it into English, the campaign was Kentucky for Christmas.

Genius.

And it suggested that a bucket of fried chicken was the closest thing you could get to an American holiday meal.

Because turkey isn't a thing in Japan really.

So kfc, even though it wasn't turkey, they were just like suggesting that it's a Christmas meal and it became a thing.

Families started pre ordering a Christmas chicken bucket.

Okay.

And it just became a nationwide custom.

So people will reserve their KFC like family meal weeks in advance.

I love this.

This is.

Do you know anything like, does it come with any sides, like American style sides?

No, I don't know the details of the meal.

We should look that up.

All I understand about it is that it's like a bucket, the classic bucket of chicken.

Fried chicken.

I love this.

Genius.

Absolutely genius.

You know what other brand has really Christmas ified itself?

Coca Cola.

Yeah, it's like super Christmasified to the.

Extent of always have been, though.

Yeah.

I remember the ads when we were Kids.

I wonder how that happened.

And also yesterday, I saw a AI Coca Cola Christmas ad, and I was like.

Like, no, I think it's just, like, all these companies tapping into, like, the capitalism that they can drum up around business.

Yeah.

Okay.

The next tradition is a tradition where on December 23, a city comes together to carve radishes.

Can you guess what city?

Try guessing the country first.

These are such fun facts.

Okay, I'm guessing Japan again, because I associate radish with, like, different continent radishes.

Where else are radishes?

I will tell you.

It's in North America.

It's gotta be Canadian, then.

No, it's not.

South.

More south.

Well, is it Mexico?

Yeah, but why?

It's in Oaxaca.

Mexico.

Okay, please elaborate.

I need to know more.

It's called the Night of the Radishes.

I love this.

So every year on December 23, people from around the city come together to showcase sculptures that they've made from oversized radishes.

I was wondering if it was like, the granny.

No, they grow them specifically for the Night of the radishes.

And it's really cute.

Like, if you look up photos, like, the artists and the families that carve them, they tried to, like, carve scenes into the radishes that reflect everyday Oaxacan life, that reflect, like, local legends and holidays.

Some of them are really intricate.

Some of them are just, like, kind of fun and playful.

Kind of like what we do for Halloween.

Oh.

And it just.

It snowballed.

I wonder about radishes, if there was any other vegetable that was getting carved as well.

But maybe they just had a surplus of radishes and just need.

I'm assuming they're just, like, a carvable.

Carvable plant.

What do you.

What is a radish?

Is that like a.

It's like a tubular.

What's it look at?

Like, is a radish like a potato?

Is a radish a gourd?

I think it's a gourd.

No, it's not a gourd.

It's a root vegetable.

That's what I thought.

Yeah.

But I don't think they have, like, pumpkins in that part of the world.

Pumpkins are more hemisphere root vegetables, though.

Potatoes, carrots.

That's the family we're thinking of.

Now that I'm looking at a radish.

Like, this would Be hard to carve.

I know.

Well, think about how you would carve like a potato.

Right?

It's the same thing.

Or how you carve a turnip or something.

I love this tradition.

I want to do this now.

I know.

I thought it was so cute.

Let me show you an example, because when you see it, you'll understand because it's not so much that they're being carved, it's that they're like being used to create sculptures.

Oh, wait.

Okay.

Let me describe what I'm looking at, because this is not what I thought it was going to be.

So I thought it was still going to be a round thing, a round radish that would have like a little face in it or something like that.

But no, these are like pulled.

These are like multiple radishes attached to each other to make a little man wearing a sombrero.

There's one that's holding like a full on guitar, like a full on mariachi.

Band of radish people.

There's a also a turkey made out of radishes.

So sliced in a variety of ways to come together to make a radish turkey.

This is highly impressive.

Very cute.

Very cute.

But they are all classic red radishes too.

Very festive.

Okay, so I have a third one for you.

Okay.

Now we're migrating to a region of the world that I can tell you want to go to.

Okay.

Because you keep mentioning it.

In this part of the world, this country, there is a long standing Christmas Eve tradition of hiding mops and brooms and anything else that is used for sweeping.

Is it Switzerland?

No.

Is it Germany?

No.

More north Austria?

More north Sweden.

Denmark.

Keep going.

What else?

Is it Norway?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Hiding mops and brooms around Christmas time.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's a custom that comes from old folklore.

It was believed that Christmas Eve was the night when spirits and mischievous forces were especially active.

So if you left brooms and mops out, these spirits could steal them and fly around and this would cause trouble for your household or for the wider community.

So it became tradition to start hiding brooms and mops and other, like, cleaning things before you went to bed on Christmas Eve to protect your home.

This must be a pagan thing if they're flying around on brooms.

Well, they didn't know.

Today, most people don't take this literally, although in the past they may have.

It's just a tradition that they carry on for the fun.

Oh, my God.

I've never met someone who does this, but when I was a kid, My parents on New Year's Eve would keep us up till midnight or tell us it was midnight when it wasn't.

And when it struck midnight, a bunch of us would go to the front door and a bunch of us to the back door of the house.

And first the people at the back door.

So, like me and my mom and my sister, we would open the back door to let the old year out, and then whoever was at the front door would open the front door after to let the new year in.

And I've never heard of anyone doing this.

I haven't heard of anyone doing that before.

But it is sounding familiar to me in some way.

I think there's a German tradition, because my mom's side is Swiss German, and I think there's this German tradition of, like, airing out the house in some capacity.

It might be a New Year's thing or a Christmas thing.

No, it's definitely a New Year's Eve thing.

I just thought of it because this broom hiding tradition just.

It's a similar vibe to me.

It's just like some random thing we're doing for something that's not real, but we're just doing it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I just checked this.

Like, letting the new year in and letting out the old year is an old Irish tradition.

Oh.

So it must come from my dad's side of the family.

Oh, that's so fun.

I'll have to ask him.

Well, that's all my Christmas traditions to share with you from around the world.

I love all of those.

All right, well, that's our postcard for today.

I hope you enjoyed.

I did.

This was super fun.

Yeah.

We wanted to keep it light this time.

Yeah.

As we head into the holiday season, to all of you listening, we hope you have a lovely holiday season, regardless of what you do or what you celebrate, and that you can rest and get ready for the new year.