262: Santa Claus (with Emily VanDerWerff)

When you think of Santa Claus, what do you picture? The big guy in red is this malleable, larger than life figure that has origins that might surprise you. Luckily, we have Emily VanDerWerff to guide us through the labyrinth of who Santa is.   Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of illness, racism, religious persecution, violence, child death, cannibalism, family dysfunction, economic anxiety, and sex.     Guest Emily VanDerWerff is Critic at Large for Vox and co-creator of the podcast Arden. Follow her on Twitter @Emilyvdw.   Housekeeping - MERCH! Get the Mothman Crewneck at spiritspodcast.com/merch! - Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood - Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books - Call to Action: Have you heard about the MultiCrew?! This is our membership program that lets you help us invest in Multitude as we try weird new stuff. Plus, you get a members-only weekly podcast: Head Heart Gut, our weekly friendly debate show. Join for as little as $5 a month at multicrew.club and get access to Head Heart Gut!   Sponsors - Doordash is a fast, convenient food delivery app. Get 25% off and zero delivery fees on your first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter code creepycool.  - Skillshare is an online learning community where you can learn—and teach—just about anything. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com/spirits and get a free trial of Premium Membership. This week Julia recommends “Unlocking Your Potential: 5 Exercises to Build Creative Confidence” by Emma Gannon. - Brooklinen delivers luxury bed sheets, pillows, comforters, & blankets straight to your door. Go to Brooklinen.com right now and use promo code “spirits” to get $25 off when you spend $100 or more, PLUS free shipping.   Find Us Online If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/spiritspodcast) to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more. We also have lists of our book recommendations and previous guests’ books at http://spiritspodcast.com/books. Transcripts are available at http://spiritspodcast.com/episodes. To buy merch, hear us on other podcasts, contact us, find our mailing address, or download our press kit, head on over to http://spiritspodcast.com.   About Us Spirits was created by Julia Schifini, Amanda McLoughlin and Eric Schneider. We are founding members of Multitude, an independent podcast collective and production studio. Our music is "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0.