“The Twelve Crimes of Christmas: History’s Strangest Holiday Criminals, Riots & Festive Fiascos”

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome back, dear listeners to the Strange History Podcast. The only show that insists history is that it's most unhinged precisely when everyone else is trying to be wholesome. Tonight, I bring you a Yuletide feast of crimes so bizarre, so festive, and so aggressively unnecessary that even Santa would need a drink. These are the twelve Crimes of Christmas, stories spanning centuries, filled with riots, poultry duels, sacrilegious ham placements, goose based vigilantism, and Florida ninjas. Yes, Florida, of course Florida is involved.

0:38 Speaker 1: So grab your cocoa, adjust your holiday lights, and maybe bolt your doors, because these crimes are about to make you feel very normal.

0:46 Speaker 2: By comparison the medieval caroling riot of thirteen seventy seven, our story begins in Gloucester, England, where Christmas caroling was less silent night and more battle of the band's dark age. Is addition, two rival caroling factions, the Holy Harmonists and the Merry Minstrels, had spent the season trying to outsing each other for the honor of performing in the Mayor's house. The prize warm ale a decent meal and bragging rights for the entire year. Medieval people took that extremely seriously.

1:21 Speaker 2: On Christmas Day, someone from the Harmonists accused the minstrels of singing intoned like pigs with colds, to which a minstrel replied that the Harmonists had the vocal quality of strained porridge. Insults escalated with astonishing speed, Rocks were thrown, loots were smashed, and then, in a historic escalation, a fishmonger rushed in wielding a frozen eel as a weapon. The eel, described in town records as stout and aggressive, cracked against skulls with alarming force. Luckily, no one died, though several participants complained of lingering, humiliation, and eel bruises.

2:02 Speaker 2: One loot was declared beyond saving. Thus ended the Great Gloucester Christmas Riot, a reminder that medieval Europe could turn literally anything into a weapon.

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2:51 Speaker 2: The Christmas pudding Arsonist sixteen fifty nine.

2:55 Speaker 1: When the Puritans outlawed Christmas in Boston, calling it sinful, wasteful, and excessively merry. Many colonists grumbled but complied, But one man decided he would not be denied his festive spirit or his pudding, so he baked the largest Christmas pudding he could manage, placed it ceremoniously on his front step, and set it on fire, a protest a dessert, a beacon of seasonal rebellion. Neighbors gathered and whispered nervously as the flaming pudding sputtered like a tiny, fruity beacon of insubordination.

3:30 Speaker 1: When town officials arrived, he sat calmly in a chair watching the burn, remarking that he was merely allowing the pudding to ascend to its final glory. Officials find him for unlawful celebration, unlawful fire setting, and in a phrase only Puritans could invent, wilful merriness. The next year, he allegedly lit two puddings on fire. Some rebellions are small, but they are glorious.

4:00 Speaker 2: The Texas Santa Side of nineteen twenty seven.

4:04 Speaker 1: In Cisco, Texas, bank robber Marshall Ratliffe thought he had found the perfect disguise, Santa Claus. Surely no one suspects Santa. Santa is innocent, jolly, beloved by children and depositors alike. Unfortunately for Ratliffe, his plan relied heavily on children not following him into the bank, which they immediately did as he pulled out a gun. Children screamed, adults panicked, and one woman fainted dramatically into a sack of deposit slips. Police surrounded the bank, and a chaotic shootout erupted between officers and again, and let me emphasize this, Santa.

4:42 Speaker 1: Eyewitnesses later said it was the most emotionally confusing Christmas event they had ever experienced. Ratlift did not escape quietly. Dragged out wounded, still in his Santa suit, he muttered something about elves failing their duties. The event became known as as the Santa Claus Bank robbery, and it is still considered one of the most chaotic crimes in Texas history, which is really saying something.

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5:40 Speaker 2: The Great Canadian Goose Heist nineteen o seven.

5:44 Speaker 1: Toronto's beloved Hartley Butcher shop awoke on Christmas Eve nineteen o seven to a tragedy. Every goose, all forty of them, had been stolen in the night. These were high end geese, raised on the finest scraps and selected by families days in advance. Toronto was outraged, absolutely furious, as furious as Canadians get, which is to say polite but very determined. Police immediately noticed the trail of goose tracks dragging through the snow. The thieves had tried to carry them, but apparently gave up and allowed the birds to waddle alongside them.

6:24 Speaker 1: Unfortunately, geese are, as we all know, deeply vindictive. Every thief had been pecked, bitten, clawed, and honked at so ferociously that officers simply followed the trail of blood and feathers. They found the thieves cowering in a shed, covered in wounds, while the geese strutted triumphantly around them like victorious soldiers. The geese were returned to the butcher's shop. The thieves were treated for injuries and likely reconsidered every decision that led them to steal Christmas geese.

6:58 Speaker 2: The Victorian tree anchor eighteen ninety five.

7:03 Speaker 1: Victorian England loved Christmas trees, sentimental, symbolic, and ideally stolen. If you were mister Henry Collyweather. Late one night, Collieweather, an amateur spiritualist known for communing with forest auras, spotted his neighbor's beautifully decorated tree through the window. Something inside him snapped. He marched onto the property, dragged the tree out, ornaments and all and hauled it down the street like a man determined to win custody of botanical property. Passersby asked what he was doing, and he simply said, the tree desires freedom and a more spiritually harmonious parlor.

7:42 Speaker 1: Police arrived and found him arranging the ornaments in a perfect Victorian starburst pattern, humming carols in an off key falsetto. The newspapers exploded with outrage, declaring it the symptom of a moral collapse. Cartoonists drew mister Collyweather as the Yule tie tree thief, complete with a crazed stare and a pine branch sticking out of his hat. Victorians loved moral panics. This was their super Bowl.

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8:38 Speaker 2: The Nativity hem Swap nineteen seventy three.

8:43 Speaker 1: Knoxville residents arrived Christmas morning to a shocking site. The Baby Jesus figurine had been removed from the town nativity scene. In its place, nestled lovingly on the hay, was a perfectly glazed, spiral cut honey baked ham. The ham had been positioned with the utmost care tilted slightly forward, as if gazing beatifically at the wise men. Police were baffled. There were no footprints, no signs of tampering, and no witnesses besides missus Douglas, who claimed she felt a disturbance in the spirit realm around midnight.

9:19 Speaker 1: The ham itself was pristine, studded with cloves in a decorative pattern that one officer described as unsettlingly festive. Suspicions immediately turned to the Ladies Church baking committee, because frankly, those women were competitive and armed with free time and powerful casserole based alliances. The perpetrator was never identified, making this one of the most adorable unsolved crimes in Tennessee history.

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10:19 Speaker 2: The drunken Reindeer Ride of nineteen thirty.

10:22 Speaker 1: Two at a Stockholm Christmas market, one man consumed far too much glug, which is already a dangerous beverage because it's mulled wine that tastes like a hug but hits like Viking mead. Feeling spiritually aligned with the holiday, he spotted a reindeer tied to a sleigh and announced to everyone, I shall ride to the Auroras. He attempted to mount the reindeer. The reindeer, deeply unimpressed and possibly offended by the man's energy, launched him into a snowbank with the force of a furry tribuche.

10:56 Speaker 1: Spectators described the scene with the polite understatement, and Sweden is famous for. He flew farther than expected After being extracted from the snow, the man apologized profusely to the reindeer, petting its nose and calling it a noble beast. The reindeer, named Stierna Star, became a minor local celebrity and appeared in the following year's Christmas parade wearing a smug expression.

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11:52 Speaker 2: The Turkey Duel of eighteen sixty seven.

11:55 Speaker 1: In rural Pennsylvania, two farmers, Jacob Miller and Thomas Green entered into a heated argument over whose Christmas turkey was larger. This was apparently a matter of enormous pride. After exchanging insults such as your turkey is thin of spirit and your bird is but a feeble puffball, the men decided that only a duel could resolve the matter. However, being devout men who didn't want to use guns on Christmas, they instead seized their turkeys and threw them at each other with all the force their holiday outrage could muster.

12:31 Speaker 1: The turkeys, understandably horrified, screamed, flapped, and fled, making the duel impossible to continue. Witnesses later recalled it as the least dignified Christmas confrontation in county history, which is quite something considering there had been at least three sled related fistfights that same winter.

12:52 Speaker 2: The Christmas Cookie heist Kid nineteen sixty four.

12:56 Speaker 1: Tommy from New Jersey was a seven year old boy with both a sugar addiction and the ingenuity of a young mcgever. His neighbor always baked extravagant Christmas cookies, glossy icing, frosted masterpieces, and Tommy wanted them, so he devised a full blown burglary plan. He tied shoelaces together to form a climbing rope, fashioned a window latch pick out of a bent wire hangar, and used his sled as an escape vehicle. He broke in, stole a tin of cookies, and sprinted home like a criminal mastermind, escaping the scene of the crime.

13:32 Speaker 1: Unfortunately for Tommy, Officer Daniels lived on the street and watched the entire operation from his patrol car. Too stunned to intervene, he knocked on Tommy's door ten minutes later and gently returned the boy to his parents with the note promising engineer or future criminal mastermind. Time will tell. Tommy was grounded until January fifteenth.

13:57 Speaker 2: The Cincinnati Tinsel Bandit nineteen ninety two.

14:02 Speaker 1: In Ohio, a man decided to execute a series of Christmas Eve burglaries while dressed in tinsel garland, blinking fairy lights, and, according to one victim, a tree skirt worn like a ceremonial cape. He took his role seriously, shouting Santa Demand's tribute as he rummaged through gift piles. He wasn't subtle, he wasn't quiet, and he absolutely wasn't sober. The blinking lights on his chest created a strobe effect that alerted every dog in the neighborhood. His garland cape caught on doorknobs, his boots tracked glitter down every hallway he passed.

14:40 Speaker 1: Police caught him when he tripped over his own extension, cord fell face first into a poinsettia and began sobbing. Officers described the arrest as visually chaotic.

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15:17 Speaker 2: The seventeen forty nine Milk Made Stampede.

15:21 Speaker 1: In London, milkmaids would participate in a cheerful Christmas procession, dressed in ribbons and leading beautifully decorated cows through the streets. It was wholesome, festive and admired by all until someone history never identified them untied the cows. Cows stampeded down the streets, overturning market stalls and barging into shops. People ran screaming, while others tried to catch the cows, only to be shoved aside by a determined holstein with an agenda. One cow walked calmly into a tavern and refused to exit until a bartender placed a mug of ale on the floor.

15:59 Speaker 1: Contemporary accounts suggest the cow drank deeply. Newspapers called the incident the bovine betrayal of Christmas and honestly accurate.

16:11 Speaker 2: The Florida Christmas Tree Ninja's two thousand and nine.

16:17 Speaker 1: Who else but Florida? At two am, two men dressed head to toe in dollar store ninja outfits attempted to steal Christmas trees from a wal Mart parking lot. They somersaulted, rolled, and leaped through the shadows with all the grace of overcaffeinated raccoons. Their plan unraveled when one attempted a dramatic backflip, pulled a hamstring, and collapsed like a festive sack of potatoes. The second ninja tried to help him escape, but instead slammed both of them into a cart corral. Security cameras captured the entire fiasco, which later aired on local news under the caption Ninjas foiled by shopping carts.

16:59 Speaker 1: The men were arrested, fined, and banned from Walmart for life, which in Florida is a punishment bordering on exile.

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17:32 Speaker 1: And there you have it, Twelve crimes filled with chaos, poultry, ham tinsel, and an alarming number of animals making better decisions than humans. If these crimes prove anything it's that Christmas brings out our strangest instincts and history is all too happy to write them down. If you enjoyed this festive nonsense, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs a reminder that they're holiday gathering could be much, much weirder. Until next time, dear listeners, stay warm, stay merry, and as always, stay strange,