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Brian Laird on WNYC Studios.

Now we continue our WNYC centennial series, 100 years of 100 things. And today we hit thing number 50. We've come halfway in this series with today's episode special for the holiday season, 100 years of Christmas shopping. Our guests for this are Philip Olson and Julia Lorenz Olson,

co-hosts of the PBS series called Two Sense. Philip and Julia are a married couple who are certified and accredited financial planners and own the financial planning firm called The Art of Finance.

And to the point of this segment, they have a

PBS streaming video called The History of Christmas Shopping. Julia and Philip, it's so great

that you could do this with us. Welcome to WNMYC. Hello. Thank you so much for having us.

Thanks for having us, Brian. And yes, this series is called 100 years of 100 things,

but in your PBS video, you go back a little more than 100 years, like back 1700 years

to Christians moving Jesus' birthday to December 25th to match up with the gift-giving pagan holidays

that were already part of human culture,

I guess in parts of Europe.

So late December or winter solstice gift-giving goes back that far?

Yes, absolutely.

In the Roman days, you had what's called as Saturnalia,

and it was very typical for people to be exchanging gifts at that time.

There's actually a really interesting, there was a poet named Marshall who recorded what was being given to him.

And there was like a toothpicks and a pig. So it could really range as far as what

people were giving each other. And taking a minor leap in time forward, 1500 years, you peg the

origin of Christmas as we know it today as beginning to form in the early 1800s thanks to people like Charles Dickens and Oliver Cromwell.

What did they do culturally to redefine Christmas?

That's right.

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