Bones

One of the Santas in the temp office is an obvious look-alike of Burl Ives and even sounds like him. After the murder suspect is outed by Booth and Brennan and dogpiled by the other Santas, he's the one that starts sardonically singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," then the others joined-in. Burl Ives was a well-known actor and folk music singer, also known for his 1965 hit single "Have a Holly, Jolly, Christmas," which was also used as part of the music package for this episode. Burl Ives passed away in 1995.

Max: I wanted to be Scrooge, but some triple homicide in cell block H got the part. Prisoner: Cell Block H was a long running Australian soap set in a fictional women's prison that ran to over 600 episodes, and was shown on ITV in the UK in the early eighties.

Cam: This is not Miracle on 34th Street. ...and later... Zack: Kristopher Kringle. Cam: According to AFIS, it's his legal name. These quotes refer to Miracle on 34th Street, a 1994 movie in which a little girl is losing faith in Santa Claus. After meeting one that might actually be the real deal, she starts reconsidering what is true and what is worth believing in. In this movie, Kris Kringle is the Santa Claus's real name.

Caroline: Because you are all "Dr. Brennan" and "Special Agent Seeley Booth". It's Christmas and I have a Puckish side. Puck is a character from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. He is a mischievous fairy charged by the king of fairies to procure a juice from a flower that when applied to a person's eyes makes that person fall in love with the first person they see.

Caroline: You want me to write that letter, you kiss Booth on the lips for no less than ... one steamboat, two steamboats - five steamboats! "One steamboat, two steamboats" is a variation on the tradition of counting by "Mississippi's". This method is used to make sure that each second counted; the time it takes to say "one steamboat" lasts as long as one second tick on a clock.

Brennan: Was that enough steamboats? Caroline: Plenty. A whole flotilla. A flotilla is a small fleet (in this case, a small fleet of steamboats). It is an allusion to Caroline's earlier request that Bones kiss Booth for at least "five steamboats". Caroline means here that the kiss lasted sufficiently longer than the required five steamboats.

Bones refers to the Dutch Santa ("Sinterklaas"), who has an assistant called Black Pete ("Zwarte Piet" - the black part is because he climbs down the chimney to deliver the presents) who punishes children with a whip. Actually it's not a whip but a "roe", a bunch of twigs bound together. Alternatively he also carries a big jute bag to put the naughty kids in, so he can take them back with him to Spain (where Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet live) and they will never ever see their parents again. Nowadays the big jute bag and the roe are no longer used because of all the frightened kids and Zwarte Piet became a generous character. Sinterklaas is celebrated in The Netherlands on December 5th and in Belgium on December 6th.