Been watching SGS since the PT days. Great way to start 2025!

I didn't know I was guarding myself against elves at social functions my whole life!

Yall don't know how much I wanted to see SGS to play this DLC!!!!

The mari lwyd is a Welsh tradition in which a person had a horse skull & white sheet, usually decorated with dried flowers. They come to your house & you essentially have to defeat them in a rap battle or they'll drink all your alcohol

I am laughing over the call about the gingerbread postman being an animation.

Little guy went postal, lol

You know, Hudson comes off as a bit of an asshole at first, but then you remember he's the head of Pest Control, and in the universe of Home Safety Hotline, "pest" includes literal avalanche-causing mountain wizards. He's a total badass, he's John Constantine, or basically an anime character.

"I've never heard off a Yule Goat"
Yule goat is a common decoration in Sweden and in Gävle we have a Julbock (Yule goat) that is very very big and it get built every year, and burned down almost every year.
Tom Scott has a video on it.
Gävlebocken has not burned down this year.

Oh god, please don't ever stop doing this series.
I wanna see four graybeards playing Resident Evil 11 Electric Boogaloo, screaming like a banshee, not completing bonus objectives, lusting after every villainess and making absurd theories that somehow turn out to be correct.

Jesse was trying to pull a Game Grumps on the snow forts part, all the info is there, just gotta read, but he wanted to make assumptions. Never Game Grump yourself gamers. Glad they pulled back from the abyss after that close call.

So here is the deal Jesse.  A LOT of the fun from this game comes from getting things wrong.  Each time you get an answer wrong in either game you will get a call back later and can witness the horror and insanity.   I would recommend watching a compilation video of the wrong answers or even playing the game again.  Name the title something along the lines of "Wrong answers only"

New Scary Game Squad for the new year? That's big million right there.

1:49:30 the cadence made me think "are you telling me a ginger bread this man?"

What me taught this video is: They REALLY want to meet a mountain warlock

Alex: "I see the connection, I'm not foolish!"
Also Alex: Continues following foolish trains of thought instead of picking the obiously right answer.

1:31:58 GRANNY MADE IT IN THE GAME YAAAAY

"What about my band, The Coxes?"
"Just call'em Strokes"
Holy shit, Alex is the funniest guy

For those interested, here's all the folklore and Christmas pop culture references I've been able to identify in this game so far!

- The Saint and Sinner are obviously Santa and Krampus (with the Saint specifically being modelled after the Dutch Santa, Sinterklaas, who wears a bishop's miter and rides a white horse), except they're equally dangerous. In the HSH universe, Santa's gifts are left to protect seemingly random homes with children from Krampus, but if accepted, the recipient is also locked into a Faustian bargain they have no escape from., Meanwhile, the Gift Hag coming down the chimney while happily chuckling and leaving her own approximation of handmade toys makes her this setting's basis for the lore of Santa. With the way she has such good-natured intentions but fails to realize how frightening her actions are and how harmful her toys can be, I also can't help but be reminded of Jack Skellington.
- We all know what elves are, but a bit of history on them anyway: Elves were originally described by the Vikings as humanlike beings that more or less represent the Vikings' idea of unattainable beauty. Tolkien drew from traditional Norse elves for the elves of Middle Earth, with things like D&D, a lot of Japanese media, etc. following his example, whereas the typical Christmas elf is actually inspired more by old Finnish depictions that later caught on in Scandinavia after the fall of Viking culture. The appearance of the well-meaning elven folk in HSH matches up with many fantasy media depictions of elves, which would of course allow them to blend in with groups of humans quite well, but in this setting, it seems their uncanny physiology has negative effects on humans who spend too much time near them. Additionally, Tolkien's elf lore states that they're immune to all illnesses that plague humans, dwarves and hobbits, but they're prone to grief, exhaustion and loneliness and thus prefer to be included in lively social gatherings.
- The Mare is Mari Lwyd, the Welsh caroling tradition of putting a horse skull on a stick, draping a sheet over it, and carrying it to homes to puppeteer it in what's essentially a rap battle with the homeowner until permitted entry for food and drink.
- The Mouse King is the nemesis of the Nutcracker; sometimes called the Rat King instead. The specific use of the phrase "traitorous clan" may also be a reference to the Skaven from the Warhammer franchise.
- The Yule Men and the Ogress are the increasingly popular Yule Lads and their evil child-devouring mom Gryla, who gained all the more attention thanks to being the main villains of the film Red One, and the Yule Cat is Gryla's giant vicious cat of the same name.
- Perchta is an actual Germanic Christmas folklore character, known in full as Frau Perchta, who's said to tear out bad children's insides and stuff the empty body cavity full of straw and pebbles.
- The Hunt refers to the Wild Hunt, associated with the fae, the Norse gods, and even Saint Nicholas. From the description of what it does to people, we also learn that the Hunt is what causes wendigos in this setting.
- I could almost swear the Mountain Warlock is meant to be the Grinch. His singing even sounds a bit like a distorted Thurl Ravenscroft, the man who famously sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch". Given the presence of Gryla in the form of the Ogress, he may also be Leppaludi, the lazy cave-dwelling husband of Gryla.
- The Locomotive is a nightmarish take on the Polar Express. Worth noting is that the Locomotive allows the children it takes to return home if their faith is strong--this references The Polar Express having the theme of the main kid having to rekindle his belief in Christmas magic and clear all doubts about Santa from his mind, that belief wavering being the entire reason the train came for him. In this twisted version of the story, having faith doesn't allow a child to hear Santa's sleigh bells, it just allows them to continue living.
- The False Carolers may in fact be a reference to the Irish holiday tradition of Wren Day.
- The Sugar Wisp takes the concept of "visions of sugarplums" from Twas the Night Before Christmas and runs with it in a terrifying direction.
- The Time Wisp is the ghosts from A Christmas Carol as a single entity, and their appearance resembles a parol, a Filipino paper lantern created as a Christmas decoration.
- The Yule Goat is a reference to the big straw construct of the same name that's put up every year in Sweden and constantly gets burned down.
- Lussi is Lussi Langnatt, an evil female demon said to ride through the air with her followers on the night of December 13. She's said to steal away naughty children, and certain Yuletide tasks had to be done or she'd enter the home through the chimney and punish the entire family inside.
- Belsnickel is a Christmas gift giver from southwestern Germany, an old man wearing furs and a mask. He has a long tongue, is armed with a wooden rod used to punish naughty children, and gives away festive treats like candies, nuts and berries that he hides in his pockets. Belsnickel is said to be Saint Nicholas' servant who checks on children a week before Christmas, always knowing which ones have misbehaved.
- The red nose is the HSH universe's explanation for Rudolph.
- Hans might be named after Hans Gruber, the main villain from Die Hard. He may also be named after Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote the tragic Christmas story The Little Match Girl.
- The antler growths are basically cordyceps, ie. the fungus that takes over its victim's brain and essentially zombifies them, which served as the inspiration for The Last of Us. The way the corpses taken control of by them behave and the caller mistaking one for a drunk fratboy also draws an obvious parallel to people who take part in wild parties at Christmastime and wear silly headgear like felt antlers and such.
- The call about gingerbread people becoming Animations is almost certainly inspired by the Gingerbread Man.
- A cloch (the "ch" pronounced as a K) is a stone associated with fae rituals in Irish folklore.
- Frost Wisps cause effects similar to Seasonal Affective Disorder.
- This might be a stretch, but hey, I'm counting it anyway--the Snow Golems, snowmen come to life via magic, strike me as essentially a violent mass-produced Frosty the Snowman. They could also be a much more sinister take on the bittersweet and somewhat wholesome Russian fairytale about the snow girl. In that story, a couple wishes for a child, and after creating a snow figure, they're met with a little girl who's then seen as their daughter. When winter ends, she melts away, but then she returns every winter from then on.

So to explain the gingerbread animation. Both families take part in the competition. So it’s the enemy gingerbread man from the other family invading the grandma’s home to destroy her gingerbread post office creation.

I love listening to them overthink simple answers. They talked themselves out of answering the avalanche one correctly.

I was looking forward to you guys getting Granny! @ 1:31:50 ! Chortling that she was referred to as a Wallace and Gromit character.... hehehe! She actually streamed playing this DLC along with 'Carol' herself!
This game is such a cool premise, I love seeing everyone's takes on the fae characters!