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Stuff You Should Know

Short Stuff: Why is holly a holiday thing?

24 Dec 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 21.334 Unknown

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet.

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22.135 - 38.794 Unknown

I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stephen Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut.

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38.814 - 48.022 Unknown

I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

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48.643 - 65.037 Stephen Curry

Visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com for your nearest Total Wines or BevMo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly.

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69.32 - 76.348 Josh Clark

Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and it's ho-ho short stuff here on Short Stuff.

77.029 - 98.677 Chuck Bryant

That's right. We're stealing one potential thing from our Christmas episode just to do a Christmas-style shorty to get in the spirit of things. And we're going to be talking about holly today, like, you know, the plant. It's a shrub. It can be a tree. It's in North America. It's in Asia. It's in Europe. There are a lot of different species. And like I said, some can be little shorty shrubs.

99.338 - 110.616 Chuck Bryant

Some can be big old trees. But everyone knows holly for those waxy leaves that will draw blood and those little crimson berries that grow on them.

110.798 - 121.982 Josh Clark

Yeah, but there's something about holly that I did not know until I was studying was that they bloom in the spring and early summer. Have you ever seen a holly plant bloom white flowers?

122.804 - 131.322 Chuck Bryant

I don't know. My dirty secret is I don't love holly just because it's so pointy and sharp. It's almost like a thorn bush, you know?

Chapter 2: What is holly and why is it associated with the holidays?

197.063 - 199.508 Chuck Bryant

German, I know this one is Steckpalme.

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199.949 - 201.292 Josh Clark

Yeah, I like that one.

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201.312 - 210.392 Chuck Bryant

But it all probably comes from Proto-Indo-European languages at the base, which is Q-E-L, which means prickly or to prick.

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211.334 - 216.161 Josh Clark

Yeah. There you go. End of root word segment. Yeah.

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216.181 - 216.881 Chuck Bryant

Wake up, everyone.

218.363 - 240.148 Josh Clark

So one thing I didn't know is apparently in longstanding tradition, because this is, holly is another great example of how you associate with Christmas. Christians have kind of adopted it with their own kind of symbolism associated with it. But it goes back way further than that. And it's kind of from all over the place because holly grows in not just Europe,

240.128 - 261.143 Josh Clark

Not just North America, but Asia as well. It's a really well-traveled, well-trod shrub that because it stands out so much in winter, it's usually evergreen. Those leaves are unmistakable. The berries are just so bright red against like a snowy background. It does make a lot of sense that cultures from around the world and over the course of time would have been like that.

261.784 - 264.128 Josh Clark

I'm going to drape a bunch of symbolism on that plant.

264.277 - 288.45 Chuck Bryant

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of times it's associated through ancient cultures with good luck. In this case, good luck for men specifically because for good luck for women, ivy is that counterpart. And if you've ever heard the English Christmas carol, the holly and the ivy, that's what they're talking about. Yeah, it is, again, a sacred plant from the Druids.

Chapter 3: What is the symbolism of holly in different cultures?

731.663 - 755.005 Chuck Bryant

No, don't do that. But what you could do if you're into carving things, apparently the holly's wood is very hard, great for carving. And a lot of chess pieces can be made out of holly wood because holly wood, which I think is kind of cool because I, my friend, have started playing chess for the first time since probably high school.

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754.985 - 777.964 Chuck Bryant

Because Ruby is in chess club, and she's asked me to play chess with her. So we've been playing every night, and I'm having a ball playing chess with her. Is that why you picked this episode? No, it's not why, but it's pretty interesting because I dabbled in chess in high school. I was never good or learned any chess. strategy or technique or took any classes or clubs.

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778.706 - 799.8 Chuck Bryant

So it's all just intuition. And so I'm basically at the point where she is at 10 years old and her, you know, kind of learning strategy a little bit. And so we're like pretty evenly matched and it's just a lot of fun. Like I'm, it's opening brain pathways that I did like strategical pathways that aren't tapped into very much for me. And so I'm really digging it.

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799.86 - 805.125 Chuck Bryant

And for Christmas, I already threw Don in like a really nice hand-carved chess set for us as a little surprise.

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805.385 - 805.926 Josh Clark

That's cool.

Chapter 4: Where does holly grow around the world?

806.026 - 813.953 Chuck Bryant

How'd she get into chess? Just chess club at school. She signed up for, I have no idea why. Probably some boy was in it that she had a crush on would be my guess.

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813.973 - 817.516 Josh Clark

Has she, she's like, this is going to make his bow tie spin when I join.

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817.657 - 818.177 Chuck Bryant

I think so.

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818.537 - 820.359 Josh Clark

Has she seen the Queen's Gambit yet?

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821.84 - 828.006 Chuck Bryant

No, I don't know how much you get into that yet. I bet searching for Bobby Fisher could be a good one though for her.

828.222 - 847.207 Josh Clark

Okay. All right. We'll start with that. Make sure she sees the Queen's Gambit at some point. All right. One other thing you can do with Hollywood because it's so dense and sturdy is create a walking stick out of it. Oh. And if you carve a walking stick out of Hollywood and there's not a druid on the end, throw it away and start over because you did it wrong.

848.95 - 849.571 Chuck Bryant

That sounds great.

850.492 - 851.093 Josh Clark

You got anything else?

851.373 - 852.454 Chuck Bryant

I got nothing else.

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