Christmas movies are thought by some to be only a December kind of thing. But there is another kind of Christmas movie watcher out there.
Are you a summer Christmas movie watcher? Do you draw the blinds, crank up the A/C and put on something Christmas when it is blazing hot outside?
This, we have learned, is really a thing. A recent survey conducted by MyMerryChristmas.com reveals not only is summer Christmas movie watching a favorite way to pass some downtime when the heat is on it is actually part of a year-round Christmas movie watching ritual of many Christmas fans.
December, it seems, is not the only time we watch Christmas movies.
But even more interesting are the selections made during the summer during our Christmas movie binge marathons. Simply put, the Christmas movies of summer are not the Christmas movies of, well, Christmas.
This episode explores everything about the surprising tradition of off-season Christmas movie watching.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/xmasmovies.png335640Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2018-05-19 01:20:392018-05-19 01:20:39The Christmas Movies You Watch When It Is Not Christmas
Do you really point them in the direction of colored eggs and plastic grass?
This episode of the Merry Little Podcast tells the true story of an atheist who has had a spiritual experience.
Profoundly changed by this out-of-the-blue event, he wants to know how his celebration of Christmas and Easter should change.
What would you say to him?
It is always a little scary to approach the very personal topics of the spiritual connections to Christmas and Easter.
And yet, we can’t ignore or gloss over them.
For many years this man was one who alternated between anger and mocking when it came to things spiritual. And yet, he has always celebrated Christmas as a matter of tradition — and, for him, out of what he calls “stubborn nostalgia”.
He is not unusual. Many of the faithless celebrate Christmas.
But now, a mid-life experience has changed it altogether for him.
Christmas this year will be very different. And Easter — how does he wrap his head around that?
This episode tells his story — carefully — and explores the connections between Christmas and Easter.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/theatheist.png360640Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2018-03-26 20:02:502018-03-26 20:02:50The Atheist: A True Story of Christmas and Easter
Even in his day Jimmy Stewart was uncommonly decent. This fact seemed to jump out of the screen despite the role he played. But it was in his private life — which he tried to keep very private — that Stewart shined the brightest.
No matter how famous he became, no matter what role he played, no matter the age he was in his life — Stewart was constant. He oozed authenticity and yet seemed rare in nearly all he did.
When it comes to Christmas — Jimmy Stewart was a hero. He didn’t know it, he didn’t plan it and it wasn’t part of something accidental. It just happened. It endures because in Jimmy Stewart, both on-screen and off, we see ourselves.
That is quite the praise for just an actor. But Jimmy Stewart was much more than just an actor.
In this merry episode we take a look at Jimmy Stewart’s two Christmas movies and how they were shaped by the man inside.
We explore where he was in his life as these films were made and how the influence of his life made the Christmas in those movies so lasting.
A hundred years from now will It’s a Wonderful Life still be considered a classic?
We believe goodness endures.
And that’s what made Jimmy Stewart so great: simple goodness.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/jimmystewart.png347615Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2017-12-07 21:55:282017-12-07 21:52:59The Christmas Hero in Jimmy Stewart
We are pleased to participate in a historic Christmas podcast event knows as The House of Seven Santas.
The House of Seven Santas is actually a short story written in 1912 by John Kendrick Bangs. But it is presented to you by seven separate Christmas podcasters in an unprecedented collaboration to spread a little Christmas cheer.
The story has been divided in to seven parts — and we’ve got the exciting and heartwarming finish to the tale.
So, to begin, please visit the Christmas Past Podcast hosted by Brian Earl to hear Part 1 of the story.
We encourage you to listen to all episodes presented above and then come to My Merry Christmas to read the story for yourself.
The story is a classic in the sense that the vocabulary and terminology of the times in which it was written is quite evident. But in the end it is a heartwarming tale as most Christmas stories are — one you’ll be glad to read and to know.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/sevensantas.png448798Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2017-12-01 01:00:042017-11-28 21:26:51The House of Seven Santas
Christmas trees are one of the fastest evolving customs of Christmas. Frankly, Christmas trees are not as old as people suppose.
Unlike most symbols of Christmas the Christmas tree was born of Christian religious fervor (and not a byproduct of pagan holidays, as some say). Of course, the Christmas tree has been secularized, like most things of Christmas. And yet nobody seems to really mind. The Christmas tree is beloved by all.
This is what gives the Christmas tree its staying power. It has established itself as an enduring tradition.
Yet rarely does one generation keep and use Christmas trees as did the generation before. The Christmas tree is amazingly flexible, able to shift with the times and the beliefs of those who embrace it.
This festive episode explores the trees of Christmas past and traditions we just don’t do anymore when it comes to Christmas trees.
Some are traditions of an older time where technology just didn’t exist. Others are traditions that have just faded away…just because.
In this episode we take a look at myths surrounding Christmas tree history, the rise and fall of aluminum Christmas trees, the lost decorative art of Christmas light reflectors on trees, the defunct 19th Century tradition of blowing out the Christmas tree candles for the last time and why the real Christmas tree is losing its battle to the fake trees of today.
This episode also includes information about table top Christmas trees, putting presents ON the tree, cutting down Christmas trees with…um, firearms, and how the anti-slavery movement in the pre-Civil War era really brought Christmas trees into the American mainstream.
How’s that for an eclectic offering?
Ironically, the Christmas tree remains as magical now as when it really first burst on the world-wide stage of Christmas in the mid-19th century.
People seeing them for the first time then could not believe their eyes. That same wonder captures us as we look at Christmas trees of today, too.
The is a cheery episode filled with light, love and music.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/xtrees.png333750Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2017-11-25 22:10:122017-11-25 22:05:14Stuff We Don’t Do with Christmas Trees Anymore
If there is one thing more predictable than Christmas itself it is the complaining about Christmas. Here we sit two weeks before Thanksgiving and the world is complaining about hearing Christmas music on the radio, seeing Christmas stuff in the stores and seemingly ignoring the great American tradition of Thanksgiving to rush right into Christmas.
Those making those complaints really don’t know much about the history of either Thanksgiving or Christmas. You see, they just go together — and they have since this beginning.
In this episode we explore the wildly popular and insanely celebrated Thanksgiving traditions of old America — from when the Pilgrims hit the shores at Plymouth Rock until Thanksgiving really did, finally, become a holiday in 1870. It was more than a tradition — it was a way of life.
This special episode shares Thanksgiving through the eyes of the 17th, 18th and 19th century media. It explains how it worked then, why certain foods were so cherished and why the day of Thanksgiving itself was actually Christmas to New Englanders.
This is the history of Thanksgiving the historians won’t tell you. It is unfiltered. It has no agenda behind it. It carries nothing but love for the tradition of the day as it was held in such high regard by our ancestors.
We also see how Thanksgiving, while started in New England, was also extremely popular in the other areas of what would become the United States. Long before there was a United States, in fact, Thanksgiving was celebrated from sea to shining sea.
The common images of Christmas feature snow, Northern pines, cabins in the woods, and frosty climates made just for the likes of reindeer and Santa Claus. But there is another place where Christmas is warm — and where traditions are born. For Americans, that place is known as the South.
In this merry episode we explore elements of Christmas we celebrate that are distinctly southern and pay homage to the many great American traditions that are born in the South. Our continuing exploration of Christmas’ origins in America takes a stop on the tour in the South because Christmas today would not be what is it without them.
“Jingle Bells”, for example — a song filled with Northern snowy imagery — is actually very Southern.
We explore the origins of the song, as well as other important, traditional elements of the season.
We also share personal histories of Christmas in the 19th Century in the South. This isn’t the stuff of historians — this is from real folks who celebrated Christmas deeply, and often loudly.
Way before Dickens and A Christmas Carol the world had A Visit from St. Nicholas, or as most people know it, Twas the Night Before Christmas.
It is arguably the most recited and well known poem in the world — and it was the 19th century equivalent of something we would now call viral. From when it was anonymously published in 1823 the poem has never known a time when it wasn’t known and beloved.
In this merry episode we talk about the story of the creation of A Visit from St. Nicholas and the long reach it has had in shaping the modern, secular Christmas both in America and around the world.
And it introduces a broader topic, discussed now in episode #60 of the Merry Podcast, about Christmas in the 19th century and before in America and around the world.
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nightbefore.png375738Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2017-09-29 17:57:002017-09-29 17:57:00Twas the Night Before Christmas
Celebrating the religious Christmas is not a new idea. But it is hardly in fashion.
Statistics show that the America public — especially those under the age of 35 — have left religion in droves. As they do so, the celebration of Christmas turns from a season of peace to a season with few limits. The history of Christmas has demonstrated this time and again for the past 2000 years.
But what if we live in a world where the religious Christmas wasn’t just unpopular but also illegal?
Think it won’t happen?
Think again. This episode of the Merry Little Podcast takes a long look at the latest rant from the Freedom From Religion Foundation and what it means.
You should consider their actions very carefully and, if you are a person of faith, maybe think of ways you can make your religious celebration of Christmas more accepted.
This isn’t about causing offense where offense is not intended. It is about standing up for what you believe and insisting on your right to believe it.
This is pretty serious food for thought as this Christmas season comes upon us. Will you celebrate a religious Christmas this year?
https://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Christmas_Stories.jpg280429Merry Podcasterhttps://merrypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/logo1.pngMerry Podcaster2017-09-20 00:23:312017-09-19 20:33:49Christmas is Religious and That’s Okay
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