💡 ’Twas the night before Christmas… but who really wrote the rhyme?

This week on Cursed Keepsakes, Kristin & Seleena unwrap a festive mystery involving the world’s most iconic Christmas poem. For 200 years, families have recited A Visit from St. Nicholas — but the question of who actually wrote it remains unsolved.

Was it the scholarly Clement Clarke Moore? Or was it Henry Livingston Jr., a jolly Dutch-descended poet who never received credit?

🎄 Authorship battles, forensic poetry, and reindeer name conspiracies — this is one holiday tale you didn’t know was a mystery.

⚡ And for game time? We write our own twisted Christmas rhymes — live.

🎙️ File:008 – What’s Written Isn’t Certain is now open.

In This Episode:

• The mysterious origins of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas

• Clement Clarke Moore’s claim to the poem — and why some say he lied

• The Livingston family’s fight to restore credit to their ancestor

• Literary sleuthing, rhyming clues, and reindeer name mix-ups

• A poetic battle of Christmas authorship

• Game Time: A rhyming improv showdown 🎄

Keywords:

Beautiful Sunday Podcast, Society of BS, Cursed Keepsakes, Christmas poem mystery, Who wrote Twas the Night Before Christmas, Henry Livingston, Clement Moore, holiday folklore, Christmas conspiracy, anonymous authorship, poem dispute, Santa’s reindeer names, poetry mystery, podcast with games, festive folklore, literary whodunit, Not Your Average Sunday

Episode Chapters:

• 00:00 – Welcome to Cursed Keepsakes

• 01:00 – A Christmas Poem Arrives

• 04:20 – Moore vs. Livingston: Who Wrote It First?

• 08:40 – Forensic Poetry & the Reindeer Name Theory

• 11:50 – Game Time: Rhyming Christmas Tales

• 15:30 – Final Theories & Outro

Resources & References:

• [The Story Behind the Most Famous Christmas Poem of All Time – Columbia Magazine](https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/story-behind-most-famous-christmas-poem-all#:~:text=As%20the%20story%20goes%20(and,book%20of%20his%20own%20poems)

• Henry Livingston Jr. Family Website

• Poetry Foundation – Clement Clarke Moore

💡 What if the lights in the sky aren’t stars… but something watching you back?

This week on Weird Science & Wonders, Kristin & Seleena travel to a secluded valley in Norway where strange lights have baffled scientists and locals for over 50 years.

The Hessdalen Lights flicker, dance, and hover with no clear cause — witnessed by hikers, filmed by scientists, and feared by those who see them too closely.

Are they natural electrical discharges? A “natural battery” beneath the soil? Or is it… something else entirely?

⚡ Plus: a game of “Explain the Unexplainable,” where you must invent logic for the illogical.

🎙️ File:007 – A Matter of Light is now open.

In This Episode:

· The 1972 sighting that sparked decades of scientific and paranormal interest

· How the Hessdalen Lights behave — glowing, pulsing, hovering, flashing

· The Natural Battery Theory, Tectonic Strain, and Ball Lightning hypotheses

· Alien theories, eye-witness reports, and a glowing orb that lit up a mountainside

· Kristin’s brain slowly melts from science overload

· Game Time: “Explain the Unexplainable” – you get the weird, you make it make sense

Keywords:

Hessdalen lights, Beautiful Sunday Podcast, Norway UFOs, unexplained phenomena, strange lights in sky, plasma bubbles, natural battery theory, alien sightings, paranormal podcast, Weird Science & Wonders, scientific mysteries, ball lightning, glowing orbs, sci-fi folklore, Scandinavian mysteries

Episode Chapters:

• 00:00 – Welcome to Weird Science & Wonders
• 01:00 – The First Hessdalen Sightings
• 05:15 – Scientific Theories (Battery, Strain, Lightning)
• 10:40 – Alien Theories & Personal Accounts
• 17:05 – Game Time: Explain the Unexplainable

🔗

Resources & References

• Hessdalen Project Official Site
• Hessdalen Light Reports
• YouTube – Hessdalen Sightings Compilation
• Ball Lightning – Britannica

✉️ A letter appears. Then another. Then hundreds.

This week’s Mini Mystery takes us to Circleville, Ohio, where in 1976 a small-town scandal erupted into one of the strangest unsolved cases in U.S. history.

Kristin & Seleena follow the trail of the anonymous Circleville Letter-Writer — a mysterious figure who sent thousands of threatening letters over two decades, implicated a school scandal, and possibly caused a man’s death.

The letters didn’t stop. Not even after someone was arrested. Not even when he was in solitary.

Was this a lone vigilante seeking justice? A clever frame job? Or something darker?

🎙️ File:006 – The Case That Wrote Itself is now open.

🕵️‍♀️ Plus: a mystery mini-game — can you solve the sabotage?

In This Episode:

· The 1976 arrival of the first Circleville letter

· The mysterious death of Ron Gillespie after a cryptic phone call

· Dozens of residents targeted with graphic threats

· A murder attempt using a booby-trapped sign and a gun

· The arrest and trial of Paul Freshour — and why many think he was framed

· The letters that kept coming, even after he was locked up

· A classic Beautiful Sunday game: Solve the Sabotage 🕵️‍♂️

⏱️ Episode Chapters:

· 00:00 – Welcome to Mini Mysteries

· 01:00 – The First Letter Arrives

· 05:33 – The Mysterious Death of Ron Gillespie

· 09:05 – A Gun in a Box: Attempted Murder

· 13:32 – The Trial of Paul Freshour

· 17:15 – Letters from Solitary

· 20:40 – Mini Mystery Game: “Solve the Sabotage”

🔗

Resources & References

· CBS News – The Circleville Letters

· Crime Junkie Podcast – Circleville Letters

· All That’s Interesting – The Circleville Letter Writer

· Medium – The Eerie Case of the Circleville Letters

· Interview with Martin Yant

Something’s howling in the Alaskan wild… and it’s not a bear.

In this episode of Campfire Bites, Kristin and Seleena take you deep into the frozen frontiers of folklore with three terrifying tales of towering beasts. From the weeping child-turned-giant known as the Urayuli, to the Kushtaka, a foul-smelling otter-like predator feared by the Tlingit, and finally the Nantiinaq — the thing that terrified an entire town into abandoning their homes forever.

These aren’t your average Bigfoot stories. These creatures haunt not just forests, but memory.

Plus: a global cryptid quiz, “Find That Foot,” where Kristin tries to match mysterious Bigfoot cousins to their origins.

🔥 File:005 – A Cold Case of Big Feet is now open.

In This Episode:

The Urayuli, a haunting Alaskan Bigfoot said to be the ghost of a lost child

The Kushtaka, an otter-like shapeshifter feared for its vicious attacks

The Nantiinaq, a creature so terrifying it reportedly emptied the village of Portlock

Discussion on global Bigfoot variants and the overlap between myth and mystery

A fast-paced quiz game: “Find That Foot” – featuring the Hibagon, Yowie, and Barmanou

⏱️

Episode Chapters:

00:00 – Welcome to Campfire Bites

01:00 – The Cry of the Urayuli

05:33 – The Savage Kushtaka

09:05 – Nantiinaq and the Portlock Abandonment

13:32 – “Find That Foot” Bigfoot Quiz

🔗

Resources & References

• Bigfoot Encounters – Alaska
• National Park Service: Southwest Alaska
• Portlock, Alaska - Abandonment Legends
• Alaska Adventurers – Portlock

#SocietyOfBS | #CampfireBites | #CryptidLore | #NotYourAverageSunday

Cursed Keepsakes File:004 | The Sorrow That Spreads: Portrait of a Crying Child

It survived the fire — again. A child’s tear-streaked face, untouched while everything else burns. This is the tale of “The Crying Boy,” a cursed painting blamed for a string of bizarre house fires across 1980s England.

🎨 Art or artifact?

🔥 Coincidence or curse?

🗞️ Tabloid myth or tragic truth?

Kristin & Seleena unravel the lore and ask the ultimate question: Would you hang this in your house?

🎮 Game Time: “Burn It or Keep It?” – A cursed locket, a magical tea cup, and a brooch that steals your time. Play along.

🖼️ Tag #CursedKeepsakes if you’ve ever owned an object with a secret.

Weird Science & Wonders File:003 | The Story That Resonates: The Taos Hum

Do you hear it? A hum in the walls, in your chest, in your bones. This week, the Society investigates the Taos Hum — a mysterious low-frequency noise reported by a select few in Taos, New Mexico… and maybe, just maybe, in your town too.

🎧 Can science explain it?

🐟 Is it mating fish?

🏭 Or is it something deeper — a resonance not meant to be heard?

Kristin & Seleena explore theories and compare creepy recordings (headphone warning!) to test your tolerance for the strange.

🎮 Game Time: Listen to 3 hums. Can you pick the real one? Or is that just your appliances whispering back?

💬 Tell us if you’ve heard something you can’t explain → @societyofbs with #WeirdScience

Mini Mysteries File:002 | What’s Come to Pass: The Dyatlov Mystery

A torn tent. Frozen footprints. Bodies with shattered bones, missing eyes and a missing tongue. In this snowbound case file, we descend into the shadows of “Dead Mountain,” unearthing one of history’s most unsettling unsolved mysteries — the 1959 Dyatlov Pass incident.

Was it an avalanche?

A military cover-up?

Or something not of this world?

🌀 Kristin & Seleena unpack conspiracy, science, and speculation — then go head-to-head in a “Spin the Theory” challenge where you vote for the winner.

🎮 Game Time: Visit our Instagram to choose who argued the weirdest theory best.

📍Tag #MiniMysteries + @societyofbs if you’ve got a theory of your own — or a mountain you avoid hiking.

Under the glow of desert stars and a crackling fire, Kristin & Seleena gather you for the first tale in the Beautiful Sunday archives — a haunting legend buried beneath the peaks of the Superstition Mountains. Gold, greed, and ghostly disappearances converge in the story of Julia Thomas, Jacob Waltz, and the cursed Lost Dutchman’s Mine.

🌵 Is the treasure real?

💀 Why do skulls keep turning up in the sand?

🧭 And can you solve the clues before the mountain claims another soul?

🎮 Game Time: Join the treasure hunt as Kristin plays “Real or Planted Clue.”

🔎 IRL Mystery Mention: The ongoing disappearance of Khayman Welch — search “Bring Khayman Home.”

🔁 Subscribe, Like, Review, and tag us with #SocietyOfBS to tell us your theory… or your treasure map.

#SocietyOfBS | @societyofbs | #BeautifulSundayPodcast | @BeautifulSundayPodcast