By TR Robertson
The Holiday Season is upon us. Thought I would provide you with some fun information – some real and some theorized – about the Christmas season. Have fun reading and saying – I didn’t know that – about all things Christmas.
• Many of the popular Christmas traditions today began in Saturnalia, an ancient Roman pagan festival, which celebrated the agricultural god Saturn – also the god of gambling, partying and gift giving.
• Branches of the evergreen tree were used during the winter solstice from Saturnalia as a reminder of the green plants that grew in spring.
• The Germans are thought to be the first peoples to bring Christmas trees into their homes to celebrate the holiday (1531), putting cookies and candles on the tree. The first artificial trees were made by the Germans out of dyed goose feathers.
• In German, Christmas Eve is said to be a magical time when the pure in heart can hear animals talking.
• Christmas trees made it to the Americas in 1846. Germany’s Prince Albert married English Queen Victoria and a sketch was made of them in front of a Christmas tree. Trees were then used in England and eventually made it to the Americas.
• Because of its pagan roots, Christmas was not immediately accepted by most other religions. The pagan festivals occurred December 17-23. Because of this the Christian church disapproved of such celebrations and declared Christ’s day of birth as December 25, although there is no proof this is the actual date of birth. Many historians believe he was born in spring.
• In A.D. 350, Pope Julius I, bishop of Rome, proclaimed Dec. 25th the official celebration date for the birthday of Christ.
• Because the Puritans viewed Christmas as a decadent Catholic holiday, they banned all Christmas celebrations in Boston, Mass. From 1659-1681. You were fined if you were caught celebrating.
• Puritan Oliver Cromwell outlawed Christmas celebrations and carols in England from 1649-1660.
• Santa Claus comes from St. Nicholas, a Christian bishop living in Turkey in the fourth century AD. He was a wealthy man known for giving away his fortune to help the needy. When he was sainted he became the protector of children. He was also known as St. Nikolas of Myra, Nikolaos the Wonderworker, Bishop Saint Nicholas of Smyma and Nikolaos of Ban.
• Santa Claus delivering presents comes from Holland’s celebration of St. Nicholas feast day on Dec. 6th. Children would leave shoes out the night before and in the morning small gifts would be left.
• The look of Santa Claus today is from a 1804 meeting of the New York Historical Society, where John Pintard handed out wooden cutouts of jolly old St. Nick in front of stockings with toys.
• In the past Santa wore blue and white and green clothing, Santa’s traditional red suit comes from a Coca Cola ad from the 1930’s.
• Santa’s image in a sleigh began in 1819 from a story by Washington Irving, who also created the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
• Christmas stockings comes from a story about a poor man with three daughters. He couldn’t afford the dowry to have them married. One night St. Nicolas dropped a bag of gold down the man’s chimney so that his oldest daughter would be able to get married. The bag of gold fell into a stocking that was hanging as it was drying by the fireplace.
• One of the reasons we leave milk and cookies for Santa is Dutch children would leave Santa food and drink on feast day.
• Rudolph was conceived by the department store, Montgomery Ward, as a marketing gimmick to get kids to buy holiday coloring books.
• Rudolph initially didn’t have a red nose as this was a sign of alcoholism and Montgomery Ward thought this would make him look like a drunkard.
• Rudolph’s name was almost Rollo or Reginald.
• Of the eight reindeer named in the poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, Donner and Blitzen were first named Duner and Blixem, which in German means thunder and lightning.
• Reindeer are also known as Caribou.
• A reindeer can live up to 15 years in the wild.
• Reindeer usually stand 4-5 feet tall with antlers that are 3 feet tall and can weigh 240-700 pounds.
• No two reindeer antlers are the same.
• Reindeer are the only deer in which both male and female grow antlers. They shed them in the winter.
• Reindeer can run 50 mph.
• A male reindeer is called a Buck, a female is a Doe and a baby is a Fawn.
• A reindeer’s milk has more fat content than a cow’s.
• According to Guinness world records, the tallest Christmas tree ever cut was a 221 foot Douglas fir, cut in 1950 for the Northgate Shopping Center in Seattle.
• The traditional colors of Christmas are green, red and gold. Green is the symbol of life and rebirth, red the symbol of the bold of Christ and gold represents light as well as wealth and royalty.
• Each year there are approximately 20,000 rent-a-Santa’s across the U.S.
• Bolivians celebrate Misa del Gallo or Mass of the Rooster. Many bring roosters to midnight mass believing the rooster was the first to announce the birth of Christ.
• In Poland, spiders or spider webs are common Christmas tree decorations because according to a legend a spider wove a blanket for Baby Jesus.
• The Druids of England considered mistletoe sacred because it remains green and bears fruit during the winter when all other plants appear to die.
• The poinsettia is native to Mexico. The Aztecs felt the brilliant red color symbolized purity and used it medicinally to reduce fever.
• The poinsettia is not poisonous, but holly berries are.
• There are two conflicting stories on which U.S. President was the first to place a Christmas tree in the White House. Some say Pres. Franklin Pierce in 1856, others say Pres. Benjamin Harrison in 1889.
• The earliest known Christmas tree decorations were apples, nuts and dates.
• In the 18th century it was popular to decorate trees with candles.
• Electric Christmas tree lights were first used in 1895.
• Pres. Calvin Coolidge started the White House tree lighting ceremony in 1923.
• Pres. Teddy Roosevelt, an environmentalist, banned White House Christmas trees in 1901.
• The Irving Berlin song, “White Christmas”, is the best-selling single of all time with an estimated 100 million sales worldwide.
• There are over 21,000 Christmas tree farms in the U.S.
• The first person said to have decorated a Christmas tree was the Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546). According to legend he saw stars through the trees branches and tried to recreate this image.
• Approximately 30-35 million real trees are sold in the U.S. annually.
• Christmas is a contraction of Christ’s Mass, which is derived from the Old English “Cristes masse” (first recorded in 1038). The letter X in Greek is the first letter of Christ.
• The first Christmas stamp was issued in the U.S. in 1962.
• British illustrator John Callcott Horsley invented the first Christmas card in 1843.
• In 1836, Alabama became the first state in the U.S. to declare Christmas a legal holiday.
• Oklahoma became the last state to declare Christmas a legal holiday.
• In June of 1970, Christmas became a federal holiday in the U.S.
• More than 3 billion Christmas cards are sent /received in the U.S.
• If you received all of the gifts from the song, “the Twelve Days of Christmas”, you would receive 364 presents.
• The song “Jingle Bells” was written by James Pierpont in 1857 and was first called “One Horse Open Sleigh”. It was originally written for Thanksgiving.
• Years ago a traditional Christmas dinner in England included a pig head served with mustard.
• The tradition of naughty children getting a lump of coal originated in Italy.
• In 1610, in German, tinsel was made of real silver.
• There are two islands named Christmas – Christmas Island in the Pacific and one in the Indian Ocean.
• There are 3 towns in the U.S. named Santa Claus – one in Georgia, one in Indiana and one in Arizona. Other Christmas themed towns are Christmas, Florida; North Pole, Alaska; and Rudolph, Wisconsin.
• The first batch of eggnog in the U.S. was made by Capt. John Smith’s Jamestown settlement in 1607. It come from the word grog which refers to the rum used.
• “Silent Night” is the most recorded Christmas song in history with over 733 different versions copyrighted since 1978.
• The original lyrics to “Hark the Herald Angel Sings” were “Hark How the Welkin rings”. Welkin is an old English term for Heaven.
• Legend has it that “Silent Night: was written by Father Joseph Mohr in Austria who was determined to have music at his Christmas service after his organ broke. In reality, a priest wrote it while stationed at a pilgrim church in Austria.
• “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” has a depressing back story. Songwriter James Gillespie was broke, jobless and his brother had just died. He was asked to write a Christmas song. He originally was too overcome with grief but eventually found inspiration and used the death of his brother to remember the Christmas memories they had together.
• Boston church leaders tried to have the song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” banned in the 1950’s because they thought it promoted physical intimacy. Singer Jimy Boyd flew to meet with them to convince them otherwise.
• The highest grossing Christmas movies of all time is Jim Carrey’s version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”.
• Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” is considered to be the most popular Christmas song at this time.
• Christmas purchases account for 1/6th of all retail sales in the U.S.
• According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there are 2,106 million children under the age of 18 in the world. If there are on average 2.5 children per household, Santa would have to make 842 million stops on Christmas Eve, traveling 221 million miles. To reach all 842 million stops, Santa would need to travel between houses in 2/10,000 seconds, which means he would need to accelerate 12.19 million miles (20.5 billion meters) per second on each stop. Santa’s speed would make Flash look like he was standing still.
Hope you had fun reading these bits of fact, trivia, tall tales and folklore. From our Home to Yours – Have a great Holiday Season and a Safe and Happy New Year.
