BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Adam Felber, Amy Dickinson and Brian Babylon. And here again is your host...
(APPLAUSE)
KURTIS: ...At the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Right now, it's time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff The Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
MATTHEW LARKIN: Hi, Peter. This is Matthew Larkin from Providence, R.I.
SAGAL: Hey, Matthew, how are things in Providence?
LARKIN: It's the greatest city on Earth.
SAGAL: It is?
LARKIN: Absolutely.
SAGAL: What do you do there?
LARKIN: I design and fabricate high-end architectural metalwork.
SAGAL: So you - like, the cool things that rich people put in their homes.
LARKIN: That's correct, yes.
SAGAL: Yeah, that's awesome.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's nice to have you with us, Matthew. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Matthew's topic?
KURTIS: All I want for Christmas is lies.
SAGAL: We love...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...Holiday traditions - decorating the tree, opening presents, pretending that spinning a dreidel is fun.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This Christmas, there's a new tradition to enjoy. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Only one of them, though, is, as far as we know, real. Pick the one who's telling the truth, you'll win our prize, Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
LARKIN: I am.
SAGAL: All right. First, let's hear from Adam Felber.
ADAM FELBER: The best-kept secret in casual dining is out. For the fifth straight year, although your neighborhood Buffalo Wild Wings is technically closed on Christmas, its doors will be unlocked and a pot of coffee will be waiting for any holiday celebrants seeking a well-deserved break from their families.
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: When asked what originally gave him the idea for the event, Wild Wings CEO Griff Adams said, quote, "I have a family."
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: And apparently, when he needed some me time during Christmas back in 2010, he went and sat in one of his closed stores. Soon, other overstimulated celebrants came by and, seeing the lights on, begged for sanctuary from their loved ones.
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: A tradition was born. This year, however, select Wild Wings restaurants will be stepping up their game with some volunteers playing improved families. Imagine having a civil conversation with your suddenly nonracist uncle.
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: Or your unjudgmental mom. Sound nice? Now throw in some free wings, and you'll really be in the spirit. Quote, "it's become kind of its own thing," says Adams. It just goes to show that people really do want to be around family for the holidays, just not their own.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Buffalo Wild Wings, providing sanctuary for those who need a break from their beloveds. Your next story of a new holiday ritual comes from Amy Dickinson.
AMY DICKINSON: This year's new holiday trend, which is now being spread through the Christmas magic of the internet, is the reindeer boob.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: A celestial angel might have conceived Jesus, but it took humans to give birth to the reindeer boob.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: The reindeer boob works like this. A woman exposes one breast, and she decorates that breast with a strategically placed red pasty for a nose.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: This nose is put over the spot where Mary, for instance, might have fed the baby Jesus.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: Add black dot eyes and cute little reindeer antlers, and you have reindeer boob.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: It's a face on a boob.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: A Reindeer in the headlights, as it were.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
DICKINSON: These decorations make the breast look either somewhat like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or, in some cases, sort of like a bag of sand that fell...
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: ...Onto a dirty sidewalk. Then - and this is important...
BRIAN BABYLON: (Laughter).
DICKINSON: ...The reindeer boobist (ph) takes a selfie of her reindeer boob, posts it on social media and then waits for the compliments to roll in.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: And her children to disown her.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: The reindeer boob, sort of like an elf on your own shelf.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Your last story of an X-mas update comes from Brian Babylon.
BABYLON: Every year around this time, we hear about the war on Christmas. It's a battle that affects malls, park districts and, of course, office parties. The easiest solution is to call your Christmas party a holiday party. But that was not good enough for Sarah Lane, CEO of the Santa Monica company Mediageek B. This war on Christmas is so ridiculous. Santa Claus has nothing to do with baby Jesus, or even handsome twenty-something Jesus.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: So Sarah came up with a plan to have a Christmas party that wouldn't offend anyone. I decided to remake Santa so that he'd untouchable to the PC police, and she had the antidote to do it. She dressed her assistant Travis as Senor Santa Kwanzukkah (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: That's right, Senor Santa Kwanzukkah - part Latin, part Black, Christian and Jewish, but all Santa. Travis wore a West African dashiki, a Native American dream catcher, German lederhosen, a yarmulka and skinny jeans so he would not offend the white girls.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: They even had him ride in on a two-wheel hoverboard because using reindeer was offensive to animals.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: But that's when things got out of hand. Senor Santa Kwanzukkah rolled his two-wheel hoverboard into the Kwanzaa-Hanukkah candles, lit them and then proclaimed, it's lit.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: But the candles were not the only thing that was lit. The lithium battery in his hoverboard also caught fire...
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: ...And sent the reenactment of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" into flames. And if you think a normal environmentalist is bad, wait till you meet a partridge in a pear tree-hugger.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right. Here are your choices. One of these is a new Christmas tradition somewhere. Is it, from Adam Felber, Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants opening on Christmas just to let people in and take a break from their own family festivities? From Amy, the reindeer boob, the slightly distressing craze on Instagram? Or from Brian, the most eclectic Santa ever, Senor Santa Kwanzukkah? Which of these is a real new holiday tradition?
LARKIN: These all seem relatively plausible, actually.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: Oh, God.
SAGAL: Sad but true.
LARKIN: But I think I have to go with Amy's boob.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
DICKINSON: Oh, if I had a nickel for every time I'd heard that.
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right. Your choice is Amy's story of the reindeer boob. Well, to find out the correct answer, we spoke to someone participating in the real new tradition.
BOO BOO DARLIN': I was, like, I have a couple of things I could throw together and make reindeer boob.
(LAUGHTER)
BOO BOO DARLIN': I put a red pasty on as the nose, cut out felt antlers and googly eyes.
SAGAL: That was Boo Boo Darlin'. She is a burlesque performer in New York City talking about, of course, her very own reindeer boob. Congratulations, Matthew. You did get it right.
(APPLAUSE)
LARKIN: Thank you so much.
SAGAL: You've earned a point for Amy. You've won our prize, Carl Kasell. His voice is all yours for Christmas. Well done.
FELBER: But you know what, though?
SAGAL: What?
FELBER: I researched Amy's story just 'cause I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
SAGAL: As it were.
DICKINSON: Of course.
FELBER: I saw some of these pictures. And everybody was - you know, the feedback on Instagram is so positive towards those reindeer boobs. And yet when I wear my jingle balls costume, it's a...
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: ...It's a restraining order. So hello, double standard.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know. Congratulations, Matthew. That was well done. Thank you so much for playing.
LARKIN: Thank you so much. Thanks, guys.
(APPLAUSE, SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER")
GENE AUTRY: (Singing) Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.