Posts Tagged ‘Elf on the Shelf’

Answer Us Back: naughty elves and same-names

December 11, 2025

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Hello! Here is this month’s edition of Answer Us Back, full of your feedback on AMTs old and new – mostly pretty new. On today’s menu:

  • Olly Mann himself has a change of heart about Elf On The Shelf since AMT392.
  • Laura found a variety pack of stock, as yearned for by Olly in AMT407 – although is two flavours enough to count as ‘variety’?
  • Several people wrote in to chip in on AMT412‘s discussion of people with your same name using your email address; here we hear from Margaret and Daniel.
  • After hearing AMT411‘s question from Charlie from Canberra whose mother had lately found out she was the biological child of a prolific sperm donor and thus has 600+ siblings, we heard from many of you reflecting upon your similar experiences of finding you were the child of a sperm donor, or your parent learning that they were. David, Breanne and Jo share some remarkable responses.

If you’ve been storing thoughts about AMTs 1-412, send them to us for future episodes of Answer Us Back. And as always, send in your questions, in voicenote or written form to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, for all new AMT413 which will be in your podfeed 24 December 2025.

Help to keep AMT going by signing up at patreon.com/answermethis, where highest tier gets access to our ENTIRE back catalogue, including the paywalled episodes, the special albums, the Bonus Bits of Crapp on the AMT App (RIP) and all the Retro AMT episodes.

Thanks to Naked Wines for sponsoring AMT, and for providing bottles straight from world-class winemakers, cutting out the middleman, delivered to your door. Head to nakedwines.co.uk/answer to get a £30 voucher on your first 6 pack, including free delivery. 

EPISODE 392: holy foreskin

December 3, 2020

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Jingle those bells, it’s festive Answer Me This episode 392, and, as the episode contains Jesus porn, Christmas parental deceit/logistics, and swears, we’re just going to put this right here:

AMT392 Child-Friendly Rating: 1%.

Today’s inquiries include:

The Elf on the Shelf™
Christmas decorations made out of hospital supplies
the White House turkey pardon
swanky advent calendars
pen advent calendars
dog advent calendars (of and for)
the health impact of glitter
too many photo-based gifts
and
12x Jesus’s foreskin.

For more AMT festive content, there’s our Christmas album, with questions about Kwanzaa, kissing under mistletoe, and Rudolph’s red nose; and on the free feed check out AMT329 for our favourite festive friend the Shitting Log; AMT380 for candy canes, the history of eating turkey at Christmas, and artificial trees being invented in a bog brush factory; Zwarte Piet and other Santa/Father Christmas/St Nick sidekicks turn up in AMT368, and AMT328 whether you ever see pictures of Mary pregnant with Jesus; in AMT357 the fake or real snow in Home Alone 2…there’s a lot! Enough to keep you going till Twelfth Night.

In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – we have the Tale of Two Christmas Trees.

Hear our other work:
• Helen makes The Allusionist entertainment show about language – hear the festive episodes here and the swearalong quiz here – and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning – season 3 has begun!
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Week Unwrapped and The Modern Mann – hear the festive episodes here.
• Martin makes music – including a new EP – which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of every song by Tom Waits Tom Waits in Song By Song, and he produced and composed the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers, hosted by Maddie Moate.

Hang out with us online at twitter.com/HelenAndOlly and facebook.com/answermethis, send us pictures of elves on your shelves and your advent calendars.

This episode is sponsored by:
The Great Courses Plus, the streaming library of courses on topics from yoga to mystery fiction to formal logic to dog training. AMT listeners get a free month at thegreatcoursesplus.com/answer.
Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.

Buy AMT episodes 1-200, our six special albums including the all new Home Entertainment or the AMT Christmas, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.

Send us your QUESTIONS, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com for us to answer in 2021! We’ll be back with AMT393 on 7 January, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 17 December.

Helen & Olly

••• AMT392 Child-Friendly Rating: 1%. As aforementioned: questions about Jesus porn, and the secret mechanics of festive mythmaking etc. •••

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