Advent 2025 E4 - Here Comes Santa Claus...

Just for you. A micro-dose of smart-ass notes to listen while it snows.

December 4th. So if there are any children listening, please,

one, stop listening to our show, period.

What the fuck are you doing? But the next topic will be... Earmuffs, earmuffs.

The next topic will definitely be... Will ruin your life. Will ruin your life.

But, Jen Pancake, when did you first realize Santa wasn't real?

So, I think I was either three or four. Oh, my God. I know. That's early. Wow.

So. That's got to be a record. I could only. Well, this is a testament to one,

my insane, ridiculous memory, like, from very young. And also, my insane childhood.

Desire to just know everything that i shouldn't know um and always what did

your grandma call you she called me the snoop.

So i'm three or four whatever it was i don't even know but it was definitely

before kindergarten i know that um and i i know it's nuts so i was always fascinated

with my mom and dad's bedroom I don't know if that was a thing for anybody else,

but it was all the mysteries of the world were in there.

They locked it a lot. I needed to be in there all the time.

Well, they should. You don't need to see the things that I saw in my mom and dad's bedroom.

My parents' bedroom all was locked. I barely saw the inside of them.

That's where they locked all the Christmas gifts, too. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The closet.

It was right in their closet.

But my mom, much like I do now, it's so funny. That is I this I'm just realizing

this right this moment that my closet looks exactly like my mom's did when I was little.

It was just a mound of shoes and no organized piles of everything. Just a pile of shoes.

But I loved it because it was mostly shoes she didn't wear much also like mine.

And I would just go through them and look at all the shoes and try the shoes

on. And so one day I just went into the closet to look at the shoes,

the comforting pile of shoes.

And in there were a bunch of toys that I'm like, well, what's all these toys doing in here?

That's, I feel like I knew immediately, but of course the, the confirmation

came on Christmas morning when, Oh, here's all that.

Well, I will say that.

In our parents' defense, it took an amazing amount of patience to,

like, because sometimes they would store those toys for, like, a half of a year.

We had a really small house, so I'll say that, too. My parents did that once

and hid it in plain sight, and I feel this, I still feel stupid for not catching on to something.

Oh, my gosh, they hid him in plain sight? Are you Jerry Pancake?

He can't find anything, ever.

I had known that Santa wasn't real by this point. I think it was like when most

kids find out, like nine or ten, you know, the school. Not four?

No, but, you know, it's the typical, like, at school, well, you know,

Santa's not real. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, someone ratted it out for you? Yeah, oh, I found an Atari in my mom's closet

or whatever. I was a very...

Kids, if you are listening, don't tell your friends. Yeah, but I was very...

Like, I used to go through, like, the catalogs and, like, this is what I want,

my list. This page, this item number, this cost. The wish book.

Yeah. So one year I wanted the shelf stereo system with the CD changer and all that shit. Of course.

I picked out one I didn't want. I'm like, hey, I want this massive one.

I'm like, here's one. It'll work. Here's a range.

Yeah. So my mom worked as a district manager in retail and she bought a different

stereo, a better one, and had it under her desk. And I'm like,

this will tell you how old this was. It was from the Spiegel catalog.

Ooh, that Spiegel was a high end. Well, she worked for Eddie Bauer,

which at the same point was connected. And then she had a discount.

So she bought the stereo.

And I'm like, well, that's not what I was wanting.

And she's like, oh, no. And this was like July.

I don't know why I... July! Because I just wanted one, and I'm like,

hey, can we get this? Whatever. Anyway.

So, picked it out, and they bought this different one. It was massive.

The box was huge, like probably two feet by four feet, because all the styrofoam and shit.

And they just had it crammed under the desk. And they're like,

oh, no, that's not yours.

That's for a store where we're remodeling. That's going to be the new stereo

for the audio. You asked them if it was yours?

No, I'm like, because I thought that's not the one that I had picked out in the catalog.

Then it came, and they're like, oh, no, we ordered a different one.

Oh, so they tricked you. Oh, no, they didn't trick me. They lied.

They just flat out lied to my face. Oh, that's tricky.

So months and months go by, and my dumb ass doesn't catch on.

I was like, oh, yes. Because she used to bring shit home from the stores all the time.

Christmas morning, walk down. There it is.

Wrapped. I unwrapped this thing. And I don't even, like, get happy.

I just look at it. I'm like, you told me this was for one of your stores.

About in the same tone and you're like and you didn't but you believed it too

like so low effort I gotta say yeah such little effort I don't know like I don't I,

think I probably had to be,

I was older when I figured it out. I didn't let on. Like probably nine.

I didn't tell anybody that I knew. I want to say nine, 10 is what I know.

I played their game for the next few years.

But I didn't, I didn't tell my brother or sister.

Cause I'd like to do that as much of a dick as I am in real life.

Kids at school. Cause I'm not an asshole.

Yeah. Like I was like, they need to believe in this.

Yeah. You saved it for like, so what I would do, because I did eventually figure

it out I would influence my brother and sisters what they circled in the book,

so that it maybe would the one,

I think was when the Nintendo first came out and I told my little brother I'm

like you should ask for that Nintendo because.

Then I would get a benefit from their gifts And I had my sister get a Teddy

Ruxpin or ask for that because I thought.

Because you wanted to play Metallica. Yeah, I wanted to play like Van Halen

tapes in it and see what it did or whatever. Psycho.

Yeah. So anyway, the pancake house.

Every year there was little less and less effort being made in to hide the gifts.

I mean, it was, I didn't give a shit. One day we came home for my grandparents,

which is always where we had Christmas.

And we, I was, I don't even remember. I was having maybe a late night snack

of a bowl of cereal or something. I don't know.

But either way, the gifts had now moved from the basement because she,

eventually she started putting them in the basement rather than in her closet.

Yeah. But now she had moved them from the basement up to just under the kitchen table.

So I was eating a snack and under the table there were all the gifts.

I'm like, well, this is just bullshit.

Yeah. At eight or whatever. Probably not even eight.

Probably five, six. Well, there's, I mean, a household of children.

They're going to find it. Yeah. My mom did the Santa Claus bullshit until we were teenagers.

You know, like. And then it'd be like, all right, if you, if you,

yeah. It's a carton of camel. Yeah.

No, you get the cigarettes for Easter.

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