The Box of Oddities

Holiday Oddities: Stolen Santa Bones, Pooping Logs, and the Strangest Christmas Traditions on Earth This holiday bonus episode of The Box of Oddities unwraps the weirdest, darkest, and most unexpectedly heartwarming Christmas stories from history. Kat and Jethro explore the true fate of Saint Nicholas’s bones, including the medieval relic theft that scattered Santa’s remains across Europe—and the unsettling legend of “Santa juice” still collected from his tomb. From there, the episode sleighs straight into bizarre holiday traditions from around the world: Catalonia’s infamous pooping nativity figure, the gift-pooping Christmas log that children beat with sticks, Iceland’s child-eating troll Grýla and her terrifying Yule Cat, and the unsettling folklore behind Santa once writing threatening letters to children instead of the other way around. Balancing the strange with the sincere, the episode also highlights true stories of compassion and humanity during wartime, including the Christmas Truce of 1914, enemies sheltering together on Christmas Eve during World War II, George Washington returning an enemy general’s dog, and a Japanese pilot gifting his ancestral samurai sword to an American town decades after bombing it. It’s a holiday episode filled with macabre history, unsettling folklore, absurd traditions, and genuine hope—a reminder that even in the darkest seasons, people can still surprise us. Listener discretion advised… and Merry Weird Christmas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In one ICU room, patients repeatedly report seeing the same silent man standing in the same corner—often just before sudden clarity, recovery, or death. Nurses notice the pattern. Doctors document an unusual concentration of terminal lucidity. The room keeps being used. In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore a real medical mystery involving repeating end-of-life visions tied to a single hospital room, and why science struggles to explain why place—not patient—seems to matter. Then, we examine ancient Christmas folklore warning that animals speak at midnight—and that overhearing them reveals forbidden knowledge, often about death. From hospital wards to medieval superstition, this episode asks: what if clarity at the end comes after something leaves? Listener discretion advised. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From roadside alligators and paranormal children to phantom music in office vents, this Inbox of Oddities is packed with listener stories that blur the line between coincidence, the paranormal, and pure “what the hell just happened?” Kat and Jethro share unsettling and heartfelt emails from the Freak Fam, including a young child casually chatting with a grandmother who passed before he was born, a mysterious 1940s ballad heard only by one overnight janitor, and a chilling brain-surgery encounter where a deceased loved one may have appeared in the operating room. You’ll also hear classic BOO Effects, eerie synchronicities, haunted roads in England, ghost tours gone strange, cursed dolls no one asked for, rats with impeccable comedic timing, and a very real reminder that quicksand is not just a cartoon problem. Add in Florida alligators, Canadian border misunderstandings involving shovels and tarps, creepy toys, and inexplicable moments that stop the second you notice them—and you’ve got an Inbox episode that delivers equal parts humor, heart, and goosebumps. As always, these stories come straight from listeners around the world and remind us why the weird finds us when we least expect it. Keep flying that freak flag. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do we still dial phones with no dials, roll down windows that don’t roll, and store things in cupboards that hold no cups? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore linguistic ghost limbs—words and phrases that outlived the objects they once described. From cupboard, dashboard, and glove box to carbon copy, footage, horsepower, and deadlines, language refuses to let go of the past. These verbal fossils reveal how history lingers in everyday speech through semantic shift, fossilized metaphors, and semantic bleaching. Then the show heads deep into New England folklore with the chilling legend of the Melon Heads of Connecticut—grotesque figures said to haunt back roads like Velvet Street and the edges of Roosevelt Forest. Are they escaped asylum patients, outcasts turned monsters, or something far darker? Language is haunted. So are the woods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Awake brain surgery sounds impossible—until you hear about musicians who play instruments while surgeons operate on their exposed brains. In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore the true medical phenomenon of awake craniotomy, including the astonishing case of a professional violinist who played during brain tumor removal to protect the neural pathways that control her music. Then, things take a historical turn as we dive into the bizarre wellness craze known as the Grape Cure, once promoted as a treatment for cancer, tuberculosis, and nearly everything else—despite zero scientific evidence. From neuroscience and identity to medical quackery and human absurdity, this episode asks: How do you protect the part of yourself that makes you who you are? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices