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At the end of the 19th century, the illustrator Thomas Nast popularized our current version of Santa Claus: a fat, jolly man with a white beard and a red suit who lives at the North Pole. Nast’s cartoons in publications like Harper’s Weekly also helped spread the idea of sending St. Nick mail. By the late 1870s, American children had begun mailing their Christmas wish lists to Santa, but the Post Office considered these letters undeliverable. Around this time, newspapers started prompting children to send wish lists to them, which would then be published so that Santa (and parents, and philanthropists looking to offer gifts to needy children) could read the letters all in one place. We’ve collected 23 funny historical letters from children to Santa Claus, as printed in newspapers across the U.S.

1. CONRAD FROM NEBRASKA (1896)

Conrad tries to mask his violent tendencies by interspersing the weapons between non-threatening gifts, but he shows his hand with that threat at the end.

2. CLIFFORD FROM NEBRASKA (1896)

Clifford sounds … intense.

3. MARIE FROM NEBRASKA (1896)

“As I can not have it I will not ask for it, but just in case, I will mention it…”

4. LYNWOOD FROM VIRGINIA (1903)

“I smashed everything you sent me last year. I won’t tell you what I want this year, but you better not mess up.”

5. PAUL FROM VIRGINIA (1903)

This 4-year-old is very concerned about his infant brother’s lack of teeth. Since the local doctor has proved useless to rectify the situation, Paul hopes Santa might be able to lend a hand. He is magical, after all.

6. HARRY FROM MONTANA (1903)

Who knew keeping your feet dry was such an important part of staying off the Naughty List?

7. RAYMOND FROM WEST VIRGINIA (1907)

Clarence doesn’t sound very nice.

8. PERCY FROM WEST VIRGINIA (1907)

Poor Opal and Mildred. They’re just girls. Do girls even have preferences?

9. VIRGINIA FROM MISSOURI (1907)

Virginia understands that sometimes Santa needs to delegate.

10. ROBERT FROM TENNESSEE (1913)

Old people get lonely.

11. WILLIE FROM FLORIDA (1915)

Sure, an axe sounds like an age-appropriate gift for a 5-year-old.

12. ELEANOR FROM FLORIDA (1915)

“Bring both if possible.”

13. UNSIGNED LETTER FROM FLORIDA (1913)

This transplant from Maine would really like a basketball, but he’s doesn’t quite believe that a Santa Claus can exist in Florida, where there isn’t even any snow.

14. WALTER FROM FLORIDA (1915)

Good choice not to act a pig, Walter.

15. MERLA FROM FLORIDA (1915)

Now listen good, Santa: Merla will not be ignored!

16. ROY FROM FLORIDA (1915)

A doll dressed in a cowboy suit could not be called Raymond. A lack of sailor suit is a dealbreaker.

17. MAXWELL FROM FLORIDA

Ways to improve your chances of getting a pony from Santa, according to Maxwell Hudson: 1. Admit right off it’s expensive. 2. Say you will use it to take your sisters to school. 3. Promise to be grateful for anything Santa brings, so as not to seem greedy. 4. Make yourself seem extra kind-hearted (and thus deserving of a pony) by showing concern for your fatherless neighbors. Did it work? We will never know.

18. MOXIE FROM TENNESSEE (1916)

Perhaps a kid known for being mean shouldn’t be given a firearm.

19. DICK FROM SOUTH CAROLINA (1916)

No, Santa certainly wouldn’t want to get “fastened in” the chimney.

20. JOHN FROM NEW MEXICO (1918)

World War I devastated Western Europe, decimating a generation of young men—and apparently killing the French Santa Claus.

21. MARY FROM NEW MEXICO (1922)

Come on, Mary, Santa’s not a mindreader.

22. JEWEL FROM NEW MEXICO (1922)

No apology for the door-slamming incident. That might have helped your cause, Jewel.

23. R.B. FROM NEW MEXICO (1922)

R.B. is very thoughtful to provide such specific instructions; otherwise, Santa might get confused.

B.F. (Burrhus Frederic) Skinner was one of the most eminent American psychologists of the 20th century. Skinner founded “radical behaviorism”—a twist on traditional behaviorism, a field of psychology that focused exclusively on observable human behavior. Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions were cast aside as unobservable.

Skinner dubbed his own method of observing behavior “operant conditioning,” which posited that behavior is determined solely by its consequences—either reinforcements or punishments. He argued that people can be manipulated to exhibit or inhibit a behavior based on these consequences.

To Skinner’s critics, the idea that these “principles of reinforcement,” as he called them, lead to easy “behavior modification” suggested that we do not have free will and are little more than automatons acting in response to stimuli. But his fans considered him visionary. Controversial to the end, Skinner was well known for his unconventional methods, unusual inventions, and utopian—some say dystopian—ideas about human society.

1. HE INVENTED THE “OPERANT CONDITIONING” OR “SKINNER” BOX.

Skinner believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of an action and its consequences, responses to stimuli. He called this approach “operant conditioning.” Skinner began by studying rats interacting with an environment inside a box, where they were rewarded with a pellet of food for responding to a stimulus like light or sound with desired behavior. This simple experiment design would over the years take on dark metaphorical meaning: Any environment that had mechanisms in place to manipulate or control behavior could be called a “Skinner box.” Recently, some have argued that social media is a sort of digital Skinner box: Likes, clicks, and shares are the pellet-like rewards we get for responding to our environment with certain behavior. Yes, we are the rats.

2. HE BELIEVED ALL BEHAVIOR WAS AFFECTED BY ONE OF THREE “OPERANTS.”

Skinner proposed there were only three “operants” that had affected human behavior. Neutral operants were responses from the environment that had a benign effect on a behavior. Reinforcers were responses that increased the likelihood of a behavior’s repetition. And punishers decreased the likelihood of a behavior’s repetition. While he was correct that behavior can be modified via this system, it’s only one of many methods for doing so, and it failed to take into account how emotions, thoughts, and—as we learned eventually—the brain itself account for changes in behavior.

3. HE’S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TERM “POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT.”

 
Skinner eventually moved on to studying pigeons in his Skinner Box. The pigeons would peck at a disc to gain access to food at various intervals, and for completing certain tasks. From this Skinner concluded that some form of reinforcement was crucial in learning new behaviors. To his mind, positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding. He concluded that reinforced behavior tends to be repeated and strengthened.

4. SOME CRITICS FELT THIS APPROACH AMOUNTED TO BRIBERY.

Critics were dubious that Skinner’s focus on behavior modification through positive reinforcing of desired behavior could actually change behavior for the long term, and that it was little more than temporary reward, like bribery, for a short-term behavioral change.

5. “NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT” ISN’T WHAT YOU THINK.

Skinner believed negative reinforcement also helped to strengthen behavior; this doesn’t mean exposing an animal or person to a negative stimulus, but rather removing an “unpleasant reinforcer.” The idea was that removing the negative stimulus would feel like a “reward” to the animal or person.

6. SKINNER TAUGHT PIGEONS TO PLAY PING PONG.

 
As part of his research into positive reinforcement, he taught pigeons to play ping pong as a first step in seeing how trainable they were. He ultimately wanted to teach them to guide bombs and missiles and even convinced the military to fund his research to that effect. He liked working with pigeons because they responded well to reinforcements and punishments, thus validating his theories. We know now that pigeons can be trained in a whole host of tasks, including distinguishing written words from nonsense and spotting cancer.

7. HIS FIRST BOOK, THE BEHAVIOR OF ORGANISMS, BROKE NEW GROUND.

Published in 1938, Skinner’s debut tome made the case that simple observation of cause and effect, reward and punishment, were as significant to understanding behavior as other “conceptual or neural processes.”

Skinner believed behavior was everything. Thoughts and feelings were just unreliable byproducts of behaviors, he argued—and therefore dismissed them. Many of his fellow psychologists disagreed. Regardless, Skinner’s theories contributed to a greater understanding of the relationship between stimuli and resulting behavior and may have even laid the groundwork for understanding the brain’s reward circuitry, which centers around the amygdala.

8. HE CREATED “THE BABY TENDER.”

Skinner was fond of inventions, and having children gave him a new outlet for his tendencies. He designed a special crib for his infant daughter called “the baby tender.” The clear box, with air holes, was heated so that the baby didn’t need blankets. Unlike typical cribs, there were no slats in the sides, which he said prevented possible injury. Unsurprisingly, it did not catch on popularly.

9. HE ALSO DEVELOPED HIS OWN “TEACHING MACHINE.”

 
You may have Skinner to thank for modern school workbooks and test-taking procedures. In 1954 Skinner visited his daughter’s classroom and found himself frustrated with the “inefficiencies” of the teaching procedures. His first “teaching machine”—a very basic program to improve teaching methods for spelling, math, and other school subjects—was little more than a fill-in-the-blank method on workbook or computer. It’s now considered a precursor to computer-assisted learning programs.

10. SKINNER IMAGINED AN IDEAL SOCIETY BASED ON HIS THEORIES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR.

Skinner admired the work of Henry David Thoreau’s famous book Walden, in which Thoreau writes about his retreat to the woods to get in greater contact with his inner nature. Skinner’s “Ten Commandments” for a utopian world include: “(1) No way of life is inevitable. Examine your own closely. (2) If you do not like it, change it. (3) But do not try to change it through political action. Even if you succeed in gaining power, you will not likely be able to use it any more wisely than your predecessors. (4) Ask only to be left alone to solve your problems in your own way. (5) Simplify, your needs. Learn how to be happy with fewer possessions.”

11. HE WROTE A UTOPIAN NOVEL, WALDEN TWO.

 
Though inspired by Walden, Skinner also felt the book was too self-indulgent, so he wrote his own fictional followup with the 1948 novel Walden Two. The book proposed a type of utopian—some say dystopian—society that employed a system of behavior modification based on operant conditioning. This system of rewards and punishments would, Skinner proposed, make people into good citizens:

“We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled, though they are following a code much more scrupulously than was ever the case under the old system, nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That’s the source of the tremendous power of positive reinforcement—there’s no restraint and no revolt. By careful cultural design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave—the motives, desires, the wishes.”

12. SOME FELT HIS IDEAS WERE REDUCTIONIST …

Critics, of which there were many, felt he reduced human behavior to a series of actions and reactions: that an individual human “mind” only existed in a social context, and that humans could be easily manipulated by external cues. He did not put much store in his critics. Even at age 83, just three years before he died, he told Daniel Goleman in a 1987 New York Times article, “I think cognitive psychology is a great hoax and a fraud, and that goes for brain science, too. They are nowhere near answering the important questions about behavior.”

13. … OR WORSE. HIS ACADEMIC COLLEAGUES WERE HORRIFIED BY WALDEN TWO.

Astronomer and colleague JK Jessup’s reaction is a good example of their take on his idealized world. Jessup wrote, “Skinner’s utopian vision could change the nature of Western civilization more disastrously than the nuclear physicists and biochemists combined.”

14. HE IMPLIED THAT HUMANS HAD NO FREE WILL OR INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS.

 
In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Skinner wrote several works applying his behavioral theories to society, including Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971). He drew fire for implying that humans had no free will or individual consciousness but could simply be controlled by reward and punishment. His critics shouldn’t have been surprised: This was the very essence of his behaviorism. He, however, was unconcerned with criticism. His daughter Julie S. Vargas has written that “Skinner felt that by answering critics (a) you showed that their criticism affected you; and (b) you gave them attention, thus raising their reputation. So he left replies to others.”

15. HE DIED CONVINCED THAT THE FATE OF HUMANITY LAY IN APPLYING HIS METHODS OF BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE TO SOCIETY.

In 1990, he died of leukemia at age 86 after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association. Proud of his work, he was nonetheless concerned about the fate of humanity and worried “about daily life in Western culture, international conflict and peace, and why people were not acting to save the world.”

First published in English in 1780, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (actually the 12 days after Christmas) is thought to have originated in France as a children’s forfeit game with ever more elaborate gifts added to the collection, verse by verse, as a test of memory. Whatever its origins may be, however, as the carol grew in popularity throughout the 19th century, numerous different versions and variations of its lyrics began to emerge.

Some of these differences still survive in different versions sung today: the traditional “five gold rings” are sometimes described as “five golden rings,” and while some performances describe what “my true love gave to me,” others say the gifts were “sent to me.” But these kinds of subtle differences are nothing compared to some of the gifts in the song’s earlier incarnations.

1. A VERY PRETTY PEACOCK

One early version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was recorded by the Scottish poet and artist William Scott Bell in 1892. Although most of Bell’s lyrics are identical to what we sing today, in his version each verse concludes not with “a partridge in a pear tree,” but with a considerably more ostentatious “very pretty peacock upon a pear tree.”

2. FOUR CANARY BIRDS

In the original 1780 version, the “four calling birds” are instead described as “four colly birds,” colly—literally “coaly”—being an old English dialect word meaning “soot-black.” By the mid 19th century, however, the word colly had largely fallen out of use, leaving several Victorian editions of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to come up with their own replacements. “Colour’d birds” and even “curley birds” were used in some editions, while an exotic “four canary birds” were added to the lyrics of one version. The now standard “four calling birds” first appeared in the early 1900s.

3. AND 4. EIGHT HARES A-RUNNING AND ELEVEN BADGERS BAITING

In 1869, an article appeared in an English magazine called The Cliftonian that described a traditional Christmas in rural Gloucestershire, southwest England. The author of the piece wrote that he had heard some local carol singers singing a curious Christmas song, which he noted for the “peculiarity and the utter absurdity of the words.” After outlining the first two of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” he went on to explain that the carol “proceeds in this ascending manner until on the twelfth day of Christmas the young lady receives … [an] astounding tribute of true love”—among which are “eight hares a-running” and “eleven badgers baiting.”

5., 6., 7., AND 8. SEVEN SQUABS A-SWIMMING, EIGHT HOUNDS A-RUNNING, NINE BEARS A-BEATING, AND TEN COCKS A-CROWING

One of the earliest American versions of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was listed in The American Journal of Folklore in 1900. Credited to a contributor from Salem, Massachusetts, and dated to “about 1800,” there are no pipers, drummers, maids, or swans here (and lords and ladies had a number change). Instead, in their place are “ten cocks a-crowing,” “nine bears a-beating,” “eight hounds a-running,” and “seven squabs a-swimming.”

9. AND 10. TEN ASSES RACING AND ELEVEN BULLS A-BEATING

An edition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” included in an anthology of Folk Songs From Somerset published in 1911 [PDF] discarded the “pipers piping” and “lords a-leaping” in favor of “eleven bulls a-beating” and “ten asses racing.” In fact, not even the partridge in the pear tree made the final cut here: in its place was a “part of a mistletoe bough.”

11. AND 12. TEN SHIPS A-SAILING AND ELEVEN LADIES SPINNING

In an 1842 edition of Specimens of Lyric Poetry, out went the “ten drummers drumming” and the “eleven lords a-leaping” (downgraded to only nine lords, still a-leaping) and in came “ten ships a-sailing” and “eleven ladies spinning.” Not only that, but this edition also explained in a footnote how “The Twelve Days of Christmas” might once have been used: “Each child in succession repeats the gifts of the day, and forfeits for each mistake. The accumulative process is a favourite with children.”

13. AN ARABIAN BABOON

An alternative Scots version of “The Twelve Day of Christmas” was reported in use in Scotland in the first half of the 19th century, before finding its way into a collection of Popular Rhymes of Scotland published in 1847. Although there are a handful of similarities between this version and the version we’d sing today (“ducks a-merry laying” and “swans a-merry swimming” both make an appearance), relatively little of what we’d recognize remains intact. “The king sent his lady on the first Yule day,” is the new opening line, and many of the gifts are given in sets of three rather than as part of a larger 12-part sequence—but it’s what the gifts themselves are that is the most striking. Alongside the swans and ducks, the king sends his lady “a bull that was brown,” “a goose that was gray,” “three plovers,” “a papingo-aye” (an old Scots dialect word for a parrot, although occasionally translated as peacock)—and, just when things can’t get any stranger, “an Arabian baboon.”

Don’t miss an episode—subscribe here! (Images and footage provided by our friends at Shutterstock. This transcript comes courtesy of Nerdfighteria Wiki.)

1. Hi, I’m Mike, this is mental_floss on YouTube, and did you know that in the ’50s the Catholic church condemned the song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus?” So the record label flew the 13 year old Singer, Jimmy Boyd, out to Boston to meet with the archdiocese. Afterwards, they determined that the song was okay after all.

And that is the first of many facts about holiday songs that I’m gonna share with you today. Sorry, it’s gonna get pretty Christmas-y up in here, but don’t worry, we’ll be back to our secular ways soon enough.

2. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” and “Run, Rudolph, Run” were all written by the same man, Johnny Marks, who was Jewish.

3. “The Little Drummer Boy” was originally known as “The Carol of the Drums.” The von Trapp singers are credited with popularizing the song—yes, those von Trapps.

4. “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” from The Nutcracker, was written in 1891 for the celesta, an instrument that was invented only five years earlier. Oh hi Nutcracker! This is a great outfit. Where do you shop?

5. In 1906, “O Holy Night” became the second song to ever be broadcast on radio.

6. The singer of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” might sound old, but that is Brenda Lee—who was 13 years old at the time.

7. The first Christmas song to mention Santa Clause was “Up on the House Top” in 1864. These guys are slightly younger than that.

8. “Do You Hear What I Hear?” was written by two people with the most Christmas-y sounding names of all time: Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne. It is also, as it turns out, about the Cuban Missile Crisis. So next time you listen to “Do You Hear What I Hear?” just keep that in the back of your mind.

9. “Joy to the World” was originally a song about Christ’s resurrection and his second coming on Easter, not his birth.

10. And the popular New Year song, “Auld Lang Syne,” was never supposed to be associated with the holiday at all. One live band in New York coincidentally played it just after midnight on the radio, then it became a tradition. Not long after it also became a tradition to turn to someone next to you at the New Year’s party and say, “What does ‘Auld Lang Syne’ mean anyway, I don’t even know.”

11. The song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” mentions that there will be scary ghost stories, which doesn’t seem Christmas-y—but in fact it was a holiday tradition that started in Victorian England and has since died out. Spending all of that uninterrupted time with your family is scary enough so there’s no need for ghost stories. Just kidding, Mom and Dad, very excited to come home for Christmas.

12. Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr Grinch.” He was also the voice of Tony the Tiger for 50 years. Not going to make a grrr-eat joke.

13. During World War I, there was a Christmas Truce, in which the French, English, and German troops sang “Silent Night.”

14. On the other hand, the BBC would not play the song “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” during World War II because they didn’t want to lower the morale of their troops.

15. Songwriter Meredith Wilson wrote “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” in addition to the University of Iowa fight song and The Music Man. That guy had range.

16.The group recording of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” brought a feud between Boy George and George Michael to popular consciousness. Of George Michael’s recording, Boy George said, “God, he sounded camp.” But then, he is.

17. George Michael actually wrote the Wham song “Last Christmas.” He also got sued for it because of its resemblance to the Barry Manilow song “Can’t Smile Without You.” It was settled out of court.

18. Irving Berlin, who wrote “White Christmas,” hated Elvis’s cover of his song. In the ’50s, he started a campaign to ban Presley’s version of the song from the radio, a process that proved akin to banning snow from falling.

19. And speaking of which, “Let It Snow” was written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne during a 1945 heat wave in California.

20. Another song that was written in the heat: “The Christmas Song,” also known as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” Apparently songwriter Bob Wells was overheating, so he wrote a list of things that reminded him of cold weather. Chestnuts roasting, Jack Frost nipping, yuletide carols, et cetera. And then, it became the star of a song.

21. The residents of Armonk, New York believe that the song “Frosty the Snowman” was written about their town. They even hold an annual parade in honor of it.

22. “We Three Kings” was originally written in 1857 for a Christmas pageant at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. I imagine that’s a little bit different than the one that you would find in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

23. The original Yiddish version of “I Have a Little Dreidel,” the dreidel is made out of bley, which means lead. It was translated to clay.

24. “Deck the Halls” started as a dance tune, the lyric “follow me in a merry measure” means “join me in dance.”

25 “Silver Bells” was originally called “Tinkle Bells.” Then the song writer Ray Evans told his wife about it, who responded “Are you out of your mind? Do you know what the word tinkle is?”

26. There are three, count them, three separate music videos for the Mariah Carey song “All I Want for Christmas is You,” and for some reason, I’m not surprised.

27. When “Winter Wonderland” was written in the ’30s, some people were offended by the bit about Parson Brown marrying people on a whim. The line was replaced with “In the meadow we can build a snowman, and pretend that he’s a circus clown.”

28. “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” was originally sung by Elmo Shropshire, a veterinarian, which I guess means that there’s some kind of professional expertise supporting the described results of when grandmas and reindeers collide.

29. Paul McCartney wrote, sang, and played every instrument for “Wonderful Christmastime.” He still earns between $400,000 and $600,000 every year in royalties for the song.

30. If you really received all of the gifts from “The 12 Days of Christmas,” there would be 364 presents total. Someone did the math in 2013, and determined that it would cost around $114,651.18.

31. Finally, I return to the salon to tell you that “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was written for the Judy Garland film Meet Me in St. Louis, originally it contained lines like “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last, faithful friends who were dear to us will be near to us no more,” but Garland insisted that the songwriter change them, because she was supposed to sing it to a 7 year old and didn’t want to seem like, I quote, “A monster.”

Thanks for watching mental_floss on YouTube, which is made with the help of these nice people. My name is Mike Renetta, if you like my face, you can find more of it on YouTube at PBS Idea Channel, and if you like my voice, you can find it on my podcast, Reasonably Sound, links to those things in the Dooblydoo, and hey, DFTBA, and happy holidays!

The first time a pie was thrown in someone’s face on film was in 1909. The movie was called Mr. Flip.

In 1980, C-3PO and R2-D2 visited Sesame Street. They played games, sang songs, and R2-D2 fell in love with a fire hydrant.

God and Jesus are the only characters on The Simpsons with a full set of fingers and toes.

A working title for Gone With the Wind was Baa! Baa! Black Sheep.