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On December 24, 1966, at 9:30 PM,
the New York City television station WPIX
broadcast three hours of this.
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A log in a fireplace on a fire for three hours.
No commercials, no interruptions.
Just log-- the yule log.
And if you think that's amazing, I hope you're sitting down,
because guess what.
They still do it.
Well, they stopped for a while, from 1990 to 2001.
But since 2001, and including this year, on December 25,
from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, yule log, which
PIX has updated, by the way.
It looks a little nicer.
Other stations also broadcast the log.
Many of them even make it available on demand.
It's nice, because it's television
that's meant to be almost background decoration.
The yule log can be seen as an ancestor of slow television,
a style of simple, long-form programming that shows
the entirety of one event, like Germany's Bahn
TV's driver's-eye view of train lines or Norwegian station
NRK's broadcasting of the entire 134-hour journey of the MS
Nordnorge, which I'm sure I'm saying just, like, super right.
Originally-- like, originally originally-- the yule log
was a pagan ritual like the Christmas tree.
There would be a log or a block that
would be burned for celebration, and, duh, warmth.
Over time, the yule log and-- abstracted
even further-- the open fireplace
became a holiday symbol of home and gathering family.
Fred Thrower, the CEO of WPIX in 1966,
didn't want city folk-- people who generally don't
have fireplaces-- to miss out.
And so the televised yule log was born-- or sparked, I guess.
And hey, TV log goes for three hours, four hours this year.
That's so much a soothing yule-- no poking or bellowing
necessary.
In some ways, the simulacrum is better than the real thing.
Except it's not actually warm, unless you're
hugging your television.
And hey, if you are, that's great.
You do you.
It's kind of perfect, really.
In 1947, there were only about 45,000 television sets
in the entire United States.
But by 1966, 93% of American households had at least one.
Television quickly became not only a pastime
but a seeming necessity, the thing
around which, like the kitchen table or the hearth,
the family gathered.
So it only makes sense that the yule log
would make its way eventually to the newest
thing around which so many of us gather-- le internets.
Starting in 1997, WPIX put the yule log online.
And since then, no shortage of people
have followed suit, including, as of this year, Idea Channel.
For everyone celebrating the holidays
or just gathering with their family around various screens,
we have done two things.
First, we made a playlist of all of our most favorite YouTube
yule logs.
They're long.
Huge!
It is hours of material.
So even if the family is around all day, you'll be covered.
And second, the playlist starts with our own yule
log-- an Idea Channel yule log, an Idea Log, if you will,
which if you won't, that's perfectly fine.
I understand.
It's a very bad pun.
If you need them, there are links
to both the yule log playlist and the Idea Log
in the doobly-doo.
If you're in the southern hemisphere,
I'm hoping they will be doubly useful, because I'm assuming
at this time of year you have no interest
in hanging out in front of a roaring fireplace.
We'll be back in a two weeks on January 7
with a new full episode and common responses
to our morning ritual video.
Until then, safe travels.
If you're traveling, tell your friends and family we said hi.
Happy holidays.
And on with the yule.
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