Luke Skywalker, shut up and eat your jelly! As everyone knows, Christmas is like Cursed Objects Christmas, and so sure enough: it’s the long-awaited CO Christmas Special. REJOICE!

This year, we are talking about childhood experiences of Christmas, then and now. Starting off with toy crazes, from Optimus Prime to Cabbage Patch Dolls, and therefore, the true meaning of Christmas: supply-chain economics. “Kids used to be satisfied by a promissory bond!” Kasia rightly complains. We discuss our own childhood moments of WONDER and AWE, Dalmation-related magick, votive offerings to Father Christmas, and the varied acts of parental pageantry required by the season.

We learn that Wu-Tang Clan are not just for Christmas - Raekwon is a year-round commitment - ask whether Darth Vader is the original Grinch, why children are such sticklers for the rules (and such fans of Dostoevsky), and introduce perhaps correctly overlooked festive characters Krampus and Farmhand Rupert, Santa’s designated driver and NPC.

Have a wonderful holiday, love from Kasia, Dan, Nick and Archie - see you in 2026! x

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Christmas is a time of giving, so do please consider supporting our Patreon:

To access a back catalogue of over 30 exclusive bonus eps it is STILL ONLY £4 a month to sign up, and support your favourite cultural historians: https://www.patreon.com/c/cursedobjects

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Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

What would Christmas be without a tour of London’s lights? For the first of our free xmas podcasts, Kasia and Dan go UP TOWN for an outside (!!) walking tour through Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. Known as stressful hot-spots for holiday season breakdowns, these Central London capitalistic hell-holes must have some redeeming features, right?!

We find out what London’s markets were like in 1870, and why Covent Garden has become London’s epicentre of festive fun. And we ask: why have Germanic Christmas markets sprung up everywhere via American films that make Christmas seem more idyllic than it really is? Admiring the neat Bratwurst, surprisingly acceptable beer and very poor puns, we throw ourselves into the Leicester Square ‘experience economy’. Finally, given that they want us to look up and marvel at the Christmas lights (rather than be terrified of oncoming traffic), why has the City of London not just pedestrianised central London?

Christmas is a time of giving, so consider supporting our Patreon:

To listen to this episode and all the rest too - including a back catalogue of over 30 exclusive bonus eps - it is STILL ONLY £4 a month to sign up, and support your favourite cultural historians:

https://www.patreon.com/c/cursedobjects

Not the Queen of Hearts! Greetings, England's roses, and welcome back to the People's Podcast - this week, it's the original parasocial relationship: ROYALTY.

Kasia is being pursued by a stream of Lady Di-themed cursed objects, and with Dan explores the universe of royal tat, Diana standom, 90s tabloids and the media hysteria around her death and funeral, when Britain discovered EMOTIONS and behaved like honking loons. Some younger listeners may not realise that in the days before TikTok and BBC News 24, commemorative plates were the primary means of news dissemination, and mass-produced soft toys could be a profound avatar for loss.

So it's a wild ride in a white Fiat Uno, discussing dark souvenirism, the anatomy of a Beanie Baby, royal grief in Harvester, the hoarding of historic newspapers, a riot in Woolworths over Candle in the Wind '97, and er ... whatever happened to jacket potatoes?

Regular free and regular Patreon-exclusive episodes are back, baby!

To listen to this episode and all the rest too - including a back catalogue of over 30 exclusive bonus eps - it is STILL ONLY £4 a month to sign up, and support your favourite cultural historians:

https://www.patreon.com/c/cursedobjects