The Inflatable Santa Surprise

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. Hi there, I'm Johnny Mack with five good news Christmas stories. A nonverbal boy baked dozens of Christmas pies to replace a chef's stolen holiday batch. Yeah. A Christmas market called the Saint Nicholas Fair in York City, not New York City. York City was said to feature a twenty five hundred pies baked by chef Tommy Banks. However, the van transporting the pies to the event was stolen. Eleven year old Joshi was reading the news with his father, and although he's nonverbal, he understood what was happening. That a man was sad and that pies needed to be baked.

0:45 Joshi held up an iPad, which he uses to communicate. On it, he wrote, I see sad man. Pies finished. Josh's father, Dan told the BBC Joshi doesn't speak, but cooking and baking is his way of showing creativity. He wanted to show, especially Christmas, that these kinds of things shouldn't be happening. Since then, Joshi's been busy baking dozens of pies and all different flavors and especially his personal favorite apple pie. Dad's been in touch with chef banks. Any pies that the chef can't use will be donated to a local food bank. A man went online and ordered a four foot inflatable Santa. Well a twenty foot inflatable Santa showed up. Dave said, as soon as it arrived, I thought the box was a little bigger than expected, but just rolled with it. And as soon as I started getting it out, I realized, oh, it was much bigger than what we had ordered, and I thought, let's go with it, because it's such a pain to send these things back. It took ten minutes to a flate, and it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and then it was taller than the house. So what do you do? You post this on social media? Right the clip's been seen more than thirty five thousand times. Dave said.

1:43 We were having good laugh with it, and people are amazed at how big it kept getting. And then as it kept growing, people started to pass by. And our road is a bit of a dead end. Usually it's quiet, but as soon as we were putting it up, several people started passing by. We started getting lots of comments. One person walking their dogs said they could see it from the bottom of the road. Another neighbor was laughing at it as well. There were a few people who started taking photos of it, like it was a tourist attraction. It's not all fun and games though, with an inflatable Santa. Dave says, it's a real dilemma because of the more practical side of it. With windy weather, it keeps blowing all over the place, and I've got a fear that will blow down the street and do some damage. Another thing we didn't think about at first is now we can't park our cars on the driveway. I personally want to keep it, but my wife is being more realistic it wants to send it back. A four year old boy with leukemia has dropped off more than four hundred bags of Christmas presents at the children's hospitals where he received care. Elliott and his mother, Harley, decided to give back.

2:34 They set up an Amazon wishless so members of the community could purchase gifts. They ended up with three hundred and forty six items, including party bags, chocolate, games, bubbles, stickers, stationary and more. Harriy said, from what I've experienced, you're stuck in a room and you're unable to leave because the viruses and it gets very boring. The reception from the patients was brilliant. The nurses were all amazed by how much there was. We wheeled in this huge creative presence. The kids love it, and it's nice to know other people are with you, standing along side to you. The community's been amazing. It was heartwarming to see how many people got involved. Gary and Anna say it takes them twelve months to get their home ready for Christmas. They have a twenty four thousand light Christmas display. They link all them through Gary's laptop and are synchronized in time with music. It's not only all the planning. It takes six weeks to build the thing. Gary says, as soon as one show's finished, we start planning for the following year.

3:24 Even during the time we're running a Christmas show, we start thinking about next year, about the songs, the sequences, the props. It really does start in January. Over the summer, Gary will take us time to build and repair the props from the previous year and use his computer programming skills to light them up in time with the music. Gary says from October it's all I do as soon as I finish work, I goes straight into getting it already. It's a huge amount of work setting it up. It's a thirty minute light show. It plays every Thursday to Sunday night through the month of December. They'll also run the show on Christmas Eve. Over the past four years, they've raised thousands of dollars for cancer research, the British Heart Foundation and a local charity. This year they are fundraising for Alzheimer Scotland in memory of Anna's grandmother, who had dementia. Gary says, every year we get folks saying I wouldn't want to have your electricity bill. It's not about the cost for us, It's about what we can raise for charity, all right, parents, When we come back, Sanna sent me another note. You know, Santa has been sending me notes. He's working out some stuff for the kids for Christmas and he doesn't want the kids surprise to be ruined. So let's not ruin Christmas. Okay. So, parents, if you listen to this program with the kids, wants you hit stop on the episode everybody else, I'll be right back. Okay, parents, The kids aren't listening right now, are they? If they are hit stop, okay, cause Sanna sent me a note and I don't want to ruin Christmas and everybody I want to get a note going Johnny Mack and your podcast? Are you crazy? How did you do that story? Are you nuts? So? Hit stop? Okay?

4:44 All right, here we go spoilers. Scientists have figured out the face of the man behind Santa Claus Saint Nicholas of Myra, an early Christian. No depiction of the man behind the myth survives from his lifetime, with most representations of old Saint Nick dating two centuries after his death and three forty three a d Now his living face can be seen for the first time since the days of the late Roman Empire, after experts forensically rebuild his features using his skull. Cicero is the lead author of the study and said the skull is a very robust appearance, generating a strong face as the dimensions on the horizontal access are larger than average. This resulted in a broad face curiously compatible with the eighteen twenty three poem. This characteristic, combined with a thick beard, is very reminiscent of the figure we have in mind when we think of Santa Claus.

5:29 Josh Luis Lera is an expert in these things and reminds us he was a bishop who lived in the early centuries of Christianity and had the courage to defend and live the teachings of Jesus, even at the risk of his life. He challenged the authorities, including the Roman Emperor, for this choice. He helped those in needs so frequently and so effectively that when people sought a symbol for kindness for Christmas, the inspiration came from him. His memory is universal not only among Christians, but among all peoples. And those are your five good News Christmas stories for today. Normal episode tomorrow. Will keep doing this Christmas episodes on the extra four days, and then after Christmas, I'll settle back into a Monday, Wednesday, Friday rhythm as I have done throughout the year. I appreciate you listening. If you enjoy the program, share it with a friend that helps grow the show. All right, see you tomorrow. Thank you.