Festive Frights: Unpacking A Very Supernatural Christmas

Joshua Noel: 00:01:10

ot more as we're starting the: 2025

You know, we do drive in a few times a year. Our Christmas ones, you know, have had different themes in the past as classics, 50 year old movies or older. We've had an animated Christmas year.

This year we're doing TV specials. So the Drive in is each week doing a double feature. That's the part I don't think everybody knew to fill out our time.

So you guys voted on Facebook which topics we're doing today. We are starting off the Drive in discussing a very supernatural Christmas from the show Supernatural. I'm Joshua Noel.

I'm here with the one and only Christian Ashley, leader of the rebellion against me. I am on his side. I hope he takes me down one day. Yeah. All right, ready to jump in? Because, you know, we don't have a lot of time.

This is, this is like the Drive in special at the end. You guys want to sit, enjoy the movie? You don't want to just like hear us talk about the movie? Well, wait a minute. That's. That's all this.

Okay, so Christian, we sat there, we watched a double feature. We don't know what the other film was yet, but we watched a very supernatural Christmas at the drive in.

As soon as it ends, we're in the car together. You're looking over to me. What's the first thing you say after this Christmas special airs?

Christian Ashley: 00:02:33

You know what, man, that was fun. Got to see. You know, it's.

It's not only like an anti Christmas episode, but it's like a way of deconstructing something while at the same time reconstructing like why we enjoy Christmas specials, why we enjoy that time of year and stuff like that, but also the terrible things that exist in the world, especially in the world of Supernatural.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:53

Yeah, I don't know. I like, I feel like I'm just laughing. I might like look over at you and be like, oh, no, I think I might. I'd be struggling with. To find what to say.

I'd be chuckling. I might have told you. I can't wait to make my little brother watch this. It depends. When we went.

When I first watched, I was in college and my brother was like, not old enough yet to, you know, to be considered an adult. And I was like, ah, this will be great. Because I've. Full disclosure, I've never been a huge fan of Christmas.

I mean, when I was a kid, probably Because I liked presents.

But then like, once I got older and I was like, oh, wait, this is the time of year I have to travel everywhere in America and a month somehow, and also have to pay all these extra things. I'm like, ah, this isn't. This isn't great. That's just my take. Sorry. You know, I'm Josh with bad opinions. It's not my favorite.

Christian Ashley: 00:03:38

T. Humbug.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:39

Yeah, ba humbug. Does the Grinch have a saying? I don't know.

Christian Ashley: 00:03:44

It's got plenty of songs about him.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:45

Yeah, that's me. But I mean, not really. I don't. I don't dislike it. It's not my favorite. But I. I was waiting for my.

My brother to be like, hey, Josh, I want to watch a Christmas movie, a Christmas special. And I was like, great.

As soon as I had seen this, I had waited for the moment that he said that so I'd be like, I have a perfect Christmas show for us. And what's crazy is I was expecting to be like, what the heck did you just make me watch? Or to be like scared or to like.

Like I was doing it to mess with them and turned. It turned into him going, let's watch all of this. And then we did, which was great. Yeah.

Oh, so Christian, for those who don't know what is Supernatural and what's going on in the show at the point that this episode comes out, because I think it's important for context. That's a problem with just watching specials. Some context is needed.

Christian Ashley: 00:04:34

Yeah, actually, I mean, other than some things brought up about earlier events, this is pretty standalone to an extent. I think they do a well enough job there.

But overall, Supernatural is a story of two brothers, Sam and Dean, and their journey originally to find their father who was. Was known as a hunter, someone who kill mythical, well, not so mythical creatures that cause problems around the world.

Your vampires, your werewolves, your demons, so on and so forth. And they find through a lot of machinations that there is this yellow eyed demon that we find.

His name is Azel, who has been messing with children over the years to imbue them with supernatural abilities for some goal. And they've managed to kill him. Their dad is dead, but as a result of what has happened, Sam had died.

Dean, if I'm remembering correctly, had made a deal with the crossroads demon to bring Sam back to life. Which means he only has one year left to live. Which is very weird because there's what, 12 more seasons of the show?

And through the process of this, they're still doing their jobs. They're trying to figure out what's going on with what hell wants to do, with what they're able to do to fight it with this.

The cult gun that they have that's actually able to kill demons and higher beings like that. And they're also dealing out of universe with the writers strike, which is why season three isn't as tight as it could be at times. But you know what?

That is what it is. So they are just doing their job.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:54

I do also, I want to just like, quick little side note. One of the things I like about Supernatural is also something a lot of people complain about. So people always come back from the dead. But the.

The having the whole afterlife system allows there to be real stakes. Like watching the season, even knowing that there's 14 more, you're still not sure that Dean's. If he's going to die or not.

Like, he could actually die. Season because it's a wacky, fun world. I say fun, creepy, you know, it's quirky, entertaining. I think it's fun. But dark fun.

Christian Ashley: 00:06:25

Yes.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:26

The one thing that is interesting going into this is in this season at this point, Sam is trying everything. He's like, we're going to kill the demon who made the deal and that'll break the deal. We're going to do like, he's trying everything.

And Dean's like, I'm gonna die. And he's just looking at it. He's accepted it. It's kind of like that finitude thing that we talk about sometimes. Existential crisis, et cetera.

And when this episode starts, what Christian's about to get into, Dean's like, I want one more Christmas. He's like, I actually do want this. And Sam's like, who cares about this? We gotta save you. We gotta do this whole thing with the demon.

And Dean's like, dude, I'm gonna die. Let's just one more Christmas, okay? And I think that actually is a fun. Like, if you do know the show so far, like, that context really helps.

But anyway, yeah.

Christian Ashley: 00:07:08

So we start off with a little bit of a cold open where a man is. The grandfather has gone to his grandchild's house. He's dressing up with Santa to deliver gifts.

And he hears something like messing around in the chimney, goes to investigate it. The grandchild has come to go witness him, sees him as Santa, but, oh, no, he gets taken through the roof, horribly mangled and dies.

And we get Supernatural opening. Sam and Dean are going to the town, investigating these murders, pretending to be FBI agents.

This happened several times over in this town of Michigan that they're in which is unseasonably warm at this time of year. And through the process, they go down a false lead, end up figuring out that all these houses had a wreath inside of it.

And all the houses that have this wreath inside it, they're the ones that end up being attacked by this figure who is dressed up in a Santa Claus kind of way. So they mistakenly think that this. Oh, it's gotta be someone like Krampus or Black Peter or the Sackman or something like that.

I don't think they say the Sackman, but that's another one from mythology. And they go there under depression. Nope. It's this nice couple, older couple who just seemed like the perfect 50s kind of couple.

And they're actually old pagan gods who don't get named. They have, like, human names, but their actual names aren't shown to us. We don't know, like, which pantheon they come from.

But the point is they used to get human sacrifices every year. People used to worship them. Now Jesus came on the scene and ruin it for everyone else. And people aren't dying as much as they used to.

So they, in their own way to protect towns and give them, like, better weather and stuff like that. People will be sacrificed to them whether they recognize it or not.

And Sam and Dean eventually had to fight their way out of them, kill the pagan gods. And the whole time we also have flashbacks where Sam and Dean, when they were younger.

Sam is trying to figure out what his dad's about because he's hiding it from him. And he's learned that their dad is a hunter, that these legendary beings exist.

And Dean is trying to give him a good Christmas because one of the things that Jester would do is he wouldn't always be there for his sons because he would constantly be on the job. And they're feeling the lack of that. But they have a nice little Christmas between them in the past and in the present.

Joshua Noel: 00:09:15

Yeah. Yeah, well. And it does help with some of the context. It's. It's.

I don't know, Christmas wise, it might be relatable to some people, like, from Sam's perspective. That's when he first found out that his dad had been lying and conning monsters, all this stuff. And he's like, I don't know if I love Christmas.

And Dean's perspective is he had always done everything to make a good Christmas for Sam and that's why it's actually meaningful to him. Not because he had a good Christmas, but because he had always tried to make it something special. Which again, I. I just love Dean. And Sam sucks.

But that's. Besides what? Well, sometimes Sam. Well, Sam is just not my favorite. Like Dean, Cass Crowley, I love them, but. Okay, we'll go. We'll move on.

Christian Ashley: 00:09:52

Okay.

Joshua Noel: 00:09:53

Yeah.

So one of the things that really focuses in on here, and I can't tell how much it's trying to poke fun or if it's actually just doesn't understand the lore or like, I don't know what's going on is because also, Supernatural very rarely mentions Jesus. This is like one of the only times I can think of. Yes, because it doesn't want to touch. Is Jesus God or not?

And even here they don't mention if he is in any way related to God. They just don't bring that up.

Christian Ashley: 00:10:21

And to their credit too, I mean that the idea is that they want to be a little careful about this idea of, you know, talking about Jesus. At the very least, one thing to say about God is divine because, like, by the very nature of God being God, divine.

But then you bring Jesus to the equation. That raises questions. They don't want to do it too much not to offend audiences.

Joshua Noel: 00:10:40

I also. Yeah. So I think part half of that is they don't want to offend people who actually believe in Jesus.

And I think half of it is actually adding Jesus really complicates the message they try to do in this show of like, free will and not a controlling, overbearing God. Whatever.

If you bring Jesus into it, it's all of a sudden hard to paint the picture that God who's just strict, overbearing, whatever, because that Jesus is the God who stepped into the story. And it's kind of like, yeah, that just makes their. I'm not sure they're something Christian would probably like to hear me say.

I'm not sure they're good enough writers to make that work. If they had to avoid Jesus, I doubt it anyway. But so they talk a lot about, like, this whole pagan thing.

And I can't tell if they just don't know the lore or if they're trying to poke fun because you always have this time of year. I get aggravated at other Christians who are actually Grinches and Scrooges, and they're like, no, this is pagan. You can't celebrate Christmas.

And then they start throwing stuff out. And then you have the other Christians who are like, oh, it doesn't matter. It's about this and this.

And then you have the Christians who are like, you can't do Santa Claus. It's because it's about Jesus.

And then you just get a lot of really annoying misinformation and stuff around this time of year in Christian circles that I happen to be really plugged into, which maybe is also part of why I'm like, this isn't my favorite, because I'm really tired of hearing people talk about. So let me throw out some of the stuff that they call pagan in supernatural. Just incorrect.

Also, when you get some of those people who are taking, like, old historical records and trying to say this is pagan or this is pagan and this is how. Whatever.

When you read those old documents, remember in the old documents, especially if it's coming from Rome, Christians are the ones that they're calling pagans. Christians are the ones they're calling atheists because you don't believe in the gods.

Pagan just means not mainstream religion, which Christianity was not at that point. So the Roman gods weren't the pagan gods when you read those old documents, they were just the gods. That's just a little side. I'm a grump note.

But when you go through a lot of your Christmas or Christmas trees. Yeah, that was just a pastor using an illustration at some point, like forever ago, of how evergreen trees represent eternal life in Christ.

Wreaths were a common thing in Rome and Greece. They weren't necessarily religious. They were just around. It was just a thing that people did.

So it was natural for the church to then say, hey, here's this thing that's already here. Let's use it as a symbol and talk about just like we do our wedding bands. The circle representing no beginning, no end.

And then lights came from actually German Christians putting candles and the thing to represent Christ being the light of the world. And some of this stuff coincides with paganism.

Most of the stuff that people call pagan actually did just start from the church, though, isn't actually pagan. But that's just my, like, little. Rant for the day. Old man Grouch.

Christian Ashley: 00:13:26

Yes.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:27

Yeah.

Christian Ashley: 00:13:27

So better you than me.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:29

All right, we summarize episode a little bit. I want you to give me two highs and two low points of the episode. Like, what if you had to pick, like, a couple favorites? A couple.

Yeah, I could have done without that.

Christian Ashley: 00:13:38

I'm going to throw. I want to throw the confrontation with the pagan gods in there of, like, what their motivation is.

Yeah, there's the bond villain stupidity of leaving them alive when they could just kill them. You know, because they're our main characters, have to survive. That's its own thing.

But, like, actually showing why they do what they do, how hard it is to take them down the specific way it has to be done, and how just nice and fearful they are because it's always nice to have a villain who's just so affable and like, yeah, I'll kill you because I need to do this thing. No, no, no personal feelings in the matter. And I'll also throw, like.

Because this could easily be one of those terrible Hallmark moments of, why do you hate Christmas? Blah, blah, blah. Well, it's because of my terrible backstory, but no, it is because of the terrible backstory.

And they utilize that to further the two characters of Sam and Dean, showing how Dean always tried to make a good Christmas for Sam. He was always looking out for him. He was rough in a big brother kind of fashion.

Especially one who's been abused himself in ways that, like, yeah, like, John never, like, beat them to a bloody pulp or anything, but he wasn't present as much as he should be. And he definitely used a little more violence than he should have on him.

But they were looking out for each other, and this means something now, especially since, as far as they're aware, Dean's gone in a year. So let's have this one final Christmas together. And they don't make it sappy, like, hey, I'm glad we're having this together.

They just, like, look at each other. Like, they don't need to say it out loud.

Joshua Noel: 00:15:00

I'll just agree with you. I was gonna say one of the things the show does in general that I just like. It reminds me of CS Lewis when he talks about, um, the Four Loves.

He talks about, like, friendship and stuff. He says, like, there's a lot of times you get to a point in, like, real relationships, you don't actually need the word sorry. Sometimes it's helpful.

It's good.

But sometimes the real apology comes in something simple, like, you know, still giving each other that handshake that you always do, or, you know, like, something that's like, oh, hey, okay, we're still good. Because he did this thing that we always do.

And I think, like, for Sam and Dean, sometimes, weirdly enough, it's when one of them was jerk and the other one turns back and says bit. You know, I don't want to say the word family, family friendly, drive in. But it's like, there's.

Yeah, even this one, like, at the end, it's like, maybe it's not your stereotypical Christmas, but them sitting down and having a can of beer, giving themselves the worst presence ever, I think to them is probably more meaningful than if it was a giant tree and all the lights and, you know, like, for them, I think this was probably more meaningful. Yeah.

Christian Ashley: 00:15:59

But as far as the two low points are concerned, and then we preface this with, I don't hate the actors just because they're children, but the child actors aren't really the best. And I'm not going to be like, if I had been there, I would have done this differently because I'm not an actor.

But I can also tell this is someone who. Or. Or maybe it was just an off day. They were just kind of new and getting things right. Maybe they weren't directed well, I don't know.

It just didn't like the idea got to me. The acting didn't get to me for those flashback scenes, I'll put it that way. And then there's that one. The other one I'll throw out.

There's not really a lot that I don't like about this one.

It's one of their tighter episodes is the scene when they're in the Santa's workshop kind of place and they're talking to the woman who's playing one of the elves there. And like, so why are you here? And Sam says, oh, we just like to watch. It creates that awkward joke with like. That's like Sam of maybe season one.

But that's what I'm saying.

Sam in season one would have made that joke because he's not as used to, like, thinking on the fly and making up stuff for why they should be there to be like, he just said something.

Joshua Noel: 00:17:00

Something.

Christian Ashley: 00:17:00

I don't know, like, oh, we're looking to buy this place, or something like that. That didn't just create that cringy kind of humor for that moment.

Joshua Noel: 00:17:06

Yeah, I mean, I think they just did that for the bit that don't think it actually fit the character as well as I would like it to have at this point in the show. But yeah.

Christian Ashley: 00:17:14

Yeah. So as you were saying.

Joshua Noel: 00:17:15

Oh, man, this is hard. For the two high points. Really weird. I'm going to choose two really strange. Three really strange. Sorry. Christian always cheats. It's my turn. One.

I actually love that the. The spike they had to use from was like, from a certain type of evergreen tree. Like. Like something about that.

It was a really good way of tying in, like, Christmas lore and horror together. And I was like, that. That was nice. I really enjoyed when they were just listing off random, you know, Christmas villains.

It could be from the supernatural world. I was like, okay, that was fun. Just to kind of hear the lore, even if it was just for a second. That was nice. So those two canvas we have.

So that's one. My other high point, of course, is at the end when they're gifted each other.

And I feel like, I think like Dean's gift was like a gas station apple pie or it's like these like terrible gifts that I'm like. But to see it actually means something to them. It brings my heart back to Thanksgiving.

And I'm like, yeah, just being thankful, even if it's not like a huge gift, because it's not about what it is. It's not about the presence. It's about just being thankful for who is around you. So those are. Those are my two high points. Low points, man.

Low points are actually difficult. For this one, I think I'm going to go with Sam's attitude in the beginning where he just is like, I don't want to do stuff because he's just.

He just comes off so whiny and just irritates me. And I know that is the character. Like, that is what's supposed to be happening, but it still irritates me. And I have to pick two low points.

So that's one of them. Okay. The other low point is actually something that irritated me.

I think they did a really good job with the mystery of it and figuring out, oh, who is the real bad guy. But the fight was too easy. You're gonna have either two gods and then two regular humans.

And I know they've been doing it for a while, but I think that's generally my complaint when Supernatural does other gods is like, the other gods are like a one off episode. And I'm like, I just wish they were more powerful. You know, I'll push back just a.

Christian Ashley: 00:19:04

Little bit because I think the idea is they're not as strong as they used to be. They're still stronger than regular people because they're not getting the worship and the blood sacrifices and everything that they used to.

So they have to do it in themselves now, as opposed to, what is it, season four, when all the other gods show up on the scene and Lucifer just kills them so easily. That's when I get a little, okay, yeah, some of the powerhouses you brought here, there's no way they went down that easy.

Joshua Noel: 00:19:29

Yeah, Like, I'm okay with the angels being more powerful than the lowercase cheat. Yeah, yeah, but like, that much more powerful. Come on. Yeah, but that's just because I had to pick low points.

It's just, you know, it's not easy in this one. That's fair. All right, I do want to move on since this is the Christmas drive in and it's just TV special I mentioned earlier.

They all need to be double features to really fill out the block. So, Christian, what other TV special do you think should go with this one to fill out the full movie block at the drive in?

Christian Ashley: 00:19:59

Well, now I'm gonna be honest. I forgot this question existed. I am bad at pairing things up, especially when. When you open up the floodgates. Yeah, I'm crippled by choice right now.

So go ahead.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:13

I gotta look up the actual name of the episode. I think it is just the Snowmen. Yeah, the Snowmen. Doctor who, Season seven, Episode six.

Not Doctor who's Best, but if you have to have, like, an episode before this, you don't want it to outshine this episode. If this is, like the highlight of your Drive in experience. And that one's still kind of quirky, it's still a little bit scary, but also silly.

So I'm like. I feel like it would go well. And Alex. Doctor.

Christian Ashley: 00:20:36

Okay, this is for the sake of answering a question, because I don't remember if this is actually a Christmas episode and it's from a show that I'm not that big on anyways. But you know what? I'm going to answer the question.

In the Ultimate Spider man cartoon, I think there was a Christmas episode where Nightmare was doing some stuff and I think Doctor Strange was in it. I have to remember that it's been so long since I watched it and I wasn't that impressed with it to begin with. So I'm going to say that.

And if I'm dead wrong, I'm dead wrong. You can laugh at me in the comments.

Joshua Noel: 00:21:03

I like your answer still. All right, one more before we start wrapping this up.

Then I want to go back to the whole pagan Jesus thing, because I think this actually does something interesting, at least for me, since I'm in Christian circles a lot. I only hear this question of, well, why are we letting paganism filter our holiday?

To hear it kind of flipped in this episode of, like, man, Jesus really ruined our holiday was actually kind of interesting. It was kind of funny. So I think they did that just for the joke. But it's also kind of interesting to think, like, which way does it actually go?

You know, like, because a lot of the times Christmas does ruin Hanukkah for some people. Right.

I just, I don't want to prioritize holidays, but I do think it is an interesting question of like, at what point are we propagating other cultures into Christmas so much that it is no longer Christmas? And to what point are we pushing Christmas on everyone so much that it's kind of ruining their, you know, whatever?

But yeah, Christian has the answers to all things. He's mastered the divine. He'll let us know, of course.

Christian Ashley: 00:21:59

Well, first thing, real quick, one thing that they do get really wrong in this show when it comes to pagan deities, and that's a very egregious in certain ways anyway, is that not every pagan God demanded blood sacrifice or human sacrifice of any kind. But it makes the monster scarier. It makes a God scarier. If you say that. So that's why the show went with that.

And some Christians are very wrong in saying that every pagan religion did this. Like, no, I mean, if you want to talk about BAAL or Molech or any of the Aztec gods that required it, yeah, sure, we can talk about that.

But Zeus wasn't requiring this of his servants. Mithras wasn't requiring it of his servants or anything like that.

So moving on from there to actually answer the question, did Jesus ruin pagan celebration and pagan holidays? Yeah. Yes, he did, because he overcame the reason for why they existed. Like there's something to be said about why we celebrate these things. Yeah.

Why do we need to. Some people say co opt and take over and destroy. It's like, you know, like, sure, this is syncretization of a good kind.

Say people are already celebrating something here. So God has commanded us to have holidays in the law back in the day. And he wants us to spend time with each other and hang out with each other.

So why don't we use something pre established? Yeah, Jesus probably wasn't born on December 25th.

I hate to tell you, but we can say since we don't know anyways, we'll just celebrate this one day as a kind of catch all for the whole thing and then spend time with each other.

And yeah, there's these Christmas trees that get used wreaths and you know, drinking these drinks or eating this food or something that an earlier pagan group would have celebrated. Yeah, sure. But that's not what it's about anymore. It's become something new.

It's been superseded by a desire to have community, desire to recognize why we can celebrate. And that celebration is that a little baby was born who had no Business becoming exactly what he became, and then saved the entire world.

Like, I can get behind that.

Joshua Noel: 00:23:57

First, I want to say the old December 25 thing. A lot of people are, like, want to attribute that to pagan stuff, too.

Especially they want to say it was like, oh, this was actually the birth of some other gods. Usually what they point to. Look up the dates.

The stuff that they're talking about usually happened after Christians started celebrating Christmas on December 25 anyway.

Christian Ashley: 00:24:14

Or they were part of mystery cults that by their very nature were mysteries to the people outside of them. So very little was actually written about them.

Joshua Noel: 00:24:22

A lot of the stuff that people try to be like, oh, Christmas is bacon. It's just not true. That should be my next. Like, I'll just do a random series of me complaining about stuff. But then.

I want to be annoying with this question and kind of do a both and a little bit. I don't think Jesus ruined Chris, you know, other pagan holidays necessarily. I think rather. And this.

What's something I think the church used to be really good at that now kind of sucks that, in my opinion, where, like, a lot of Viking stuff did become part of Christmas. Not because we took on the pagan gods and we were trying to take over their religion.

Some of the, like, the stuff that pulled over was actually because they were converting to Christianity but still had these parts of their culture that meant a lot to them. And they were like, what do I do with this? And the church said, okay, well, you can still do that, but now let's recontextualize it.

And it was helping people hold onto their culture and still be Christian. It wasn't taking over their culture and making their culture turn into Christian.

Sometimes it was, but a lot of the times it was the latter, especially when we go to, like, Halloween, the Day of the Dead, Mexico, a lot of that stuff.

Christian Ashley: 00:25:26

It was.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:27

The church already had a holiday for celebrating, you know, the passing of the saints. We saw this good thing in Mexico.

A lot of people were becoming Christians from this Latino culture, and they wanted to know, what do we do with this day that's still important to us? We don't want to worship false gods, but this is part of our culture. And the church came up with a really good answer to that.

And I think it's important to distinguish between synchronism and contextualizing, especially when we're talking about mission field, evangelism, all that kind of stuff.

And I think contextualizing is a really important thing that people need to be able to do because it's important that we bring our culture with us, not leave it behind. We're not trying to force European, white, Christian culture on everybody.

What we're trying to do is say Christianity is important and let's bring in all the cultures into this for one united, diverse church. Of course, I'd be the one to.

Christian Ashley: 00:26:12

Say that it helps, too, that, like, just from, you know, an Anglo Saxon kind of view, just the idea itself of hell as a term for the underworld, as it were, for where the bad people go at the end of the day. Yeah. The word hell is not in the Bible. You know what. What was there?

Hades, which was Jesus speaking to the audiences around him to help them understand the concept of hell. This is what you think it is. Here's how I'm going to help you understand it.

So that's when missionaries were going that way and intermingling with cultures there. They use the same thing. So if Jesus can get away with it, I think we can too, if we're careful.

Joshua Noel: 00:26:51

Well, yeah. And again, get away with it. Not trying to sink in.

I actually like when Starbucks and stuff do things that just say happy Holidays or a red cup to celebrate. Because you know what?

I want my Jewish neighbors to have the right and ability to celebrate Hanukkah and to not feel like they have to celebrate Christmas everywhere they go if they don't want to, that's cool, you know, And I think some of that stuff is actually important, not just from, like, a marketing standpoint, but just to be kind to your neighbor, like, not forcing your religion on them. But if they want to be Christian and they're like, well, what do I do with this Jewish heritage that I have?

Cool, let's celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas together. But don't try to force it on people. I think that's my thing. I want to throw out Acts 17 to wrap this part of the conversation up.

Paul goes to a place where there's all these statues of different gods and there's an unknown God. And he goes, cool. Let me tell you about the unknown God. It's actually Jesus. And I think we can still do stuff like that.

When I think when it comes to, like, the winter solstice, I don't know a lot about it, but when we see a celebration that happens in the darkest time of the year to remind us that there is still hope, it's kind of natural to put that with a story of God himself taking on flesh in the form of a baby in a manger in. In one of the darkest Points of history under the rule of an oppressive empire and saying, hey, there's still hope.

Those two things kind of pretty naturally fit together, actually. And I think it's an important message for us right now, especially in America.

I feel like we're in a pretty dark time, kind of seeing a lot of oppression going on. And I'm thinking, hey, man, what a good time to remember that there's still hope in the form of a little baby in a manger born 2,000 years ago.

That's great. Anything to add, Chris?

Christian Ashley: 00:28:28

That's a fun episode. I mean, this doesn't totally stand alone, but there's enough there if you just wanted to check it out. You'd be fine.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:35

Oh, yeah, yeah. As far as Supernatural goes, this, it's fantastic. They don't go heavy on the Jesus thing. They make fun of the pagan stuff.

And they just kind of have fun with this one and remind you that Christmas isn't about the big lights, but it's about family. It's about family. Dean, Jose, Sammy, Sam's family. Okay.

Christian Ashley: 00:28:53

Wow. It's like he's here with me right now. Thank you, Jensen.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:56

Christian, if you were to design your own Christmas treat for the drive in concession stand that's. That's happening during this showing, specifically, what design and what food would this be like? We're at the drive in. Okay.

They have a special treat just for the showing.

Christian Ashley: 00:29:13

I guess you'd already sharpened candy canes with an evergreen scent to them. So if the pagan God comes in the middle of the drive through, you're pre prepared to take them out.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:24

I like it. I like it. Yeah. I think you definitely need something that kind of has that evergreen thing to it. I'm gonna go a little bit weirder.

I'm gonna go with a drink. I. I want there to be. Why can't I think of what that's called? Mistletoe margaritas. That's what I think we need. Okay. Yeah.

So you got like the mistletoe. You got a little bit of like the green garnish so it like, looks real Christmassy. Goes with like the pine green kind of color still. And you're like.

And it's delicious. And I think Dan want us to drink no matter what holiday.

Christian Ashley: 00:29:54

And if you hold it up over two people, they have to kiss.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:57

That's true cheer. All right, well, with that, I had a lot of fun. Hope you guys had a lot of fun. I hope you guys do check out a very supernatural Christmas.

Even if you don't watch the show, it's a worthwhile episode on its own. Like Christian said, be sure you rate and review our show. Wherever you do listen. It helps us a lot. It only takes a couple seconds.

Remember to check the show notes for the playlist of past Christmas drive ins or past drive ins. And soon we'll have a playlist of this Christmas drive in of TV specials that you guys can follow as well.

And remember that we are all a chosen people, a geekdom of priests.