It's that time of year again!
Did you know...
The idea for using electric Christmas lights came from an American named Ralph E. Morris in 1895. The new lights proved safer than the traditional candles, which often started fires by falling in the dry Christmas trees.
The use of a Christmas wreath as a decoration on your front door, mantel or bay window symbolizes a sign of welcome and long life to all who enter.
Today poinsettias are the most popular Christmas plant and are the number one flowering potted plant in the United States.
The poinsettia, atraditional Christmas flower, originally grew in Mexico, where it is also known as the 'Flower of the Holy Night'. Joel Poinsett first brought it to America in 1829.
The first printed reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.
Real Christmas trees are an all-American product, grown in all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. California, Oregon, Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina are the top Christmas tree producing states. Oregon is the leading producer of Christmas trees - 8.6 million in 1998.
Christmas trees are edible. Many parts of pines, spruces, and firs can be eaten. The needles are a good source of vitamin C. Pine nuts, or pine cones, are also a good source of nutrition.
The best selling Christmas trees are Scotch pine, Douglas fir, Noble fir, Fraser fir, Virginia pine, Balsam fir and white pine.
For every real Christmas tree harvested, 2 to 3 seedlings are planted in its place. Each hectare provides the daily oxygen requirements of 45 people.
Artificial Christmas trees have outsold real ones since 1991.
Candy canes began as straight white sticks of sugar candy used to decorated the Christmas trees. A choirmaster at Cologne Cathedral decided have the ends bent to depict a shepherd's crook and he would pass them out to the children to keep them quiet during the services. It wasn't until about the 20th century that candy canes acquired their red stripes.
During the Christmas/Hanukkah season, more than 1.76 billion candy canes are made.
Candy canes have been around for centuries, but it wasn't until around 1900 that they were decorated with red stripes and bent into the shape of a cane. They were sometimes handed out during church services to keep the children quiet. One story (almost certainly false) that is often told about the origin of the candy cane is as follows:
In the late 1800's a candy maker in Indiana wanted to express the meaning of Christmas through a symbol made of candy. He came up with the idea of bending one of his white candy sticks into the shape of a Candy Cane. He incorporated several symbols of Christ's love and sacrifice through the Candy Cane. First, he used a plain white peppermint stick. The color white symbolizes the purity and sinless nature of Jesus. Next, he added three small stripes to symbolize the pain inflicted upon Jesus before His death on the cross. There are three of them to represent the Holy Trinity. He added a bold stripe to represent the blood Jesus shed for mankind. When looked at with the crook on top, it looks like a shepherd's staff because Jesus is the shepherd of man. If you turn it upside down, it becomes the letter J symbolizing the first letter in Jesus' name. The candy maker made these candy canes for Christmas, so everyone would remember what Christmas is all about.
Two hundred years before the birth of Christ, the Druids used mistletoe to celebrate the coming of winter. They would gather this evergreen plant that is parasitic upon other trees and used it to decorate their homes. They believed the plant had special healing powers for everything from female infertility to poison ingestion. Scandinavians also thought of mistletoe as a plant of peace and harmony. They associated mistletoe with their goddess of love, Frigga. The custom of kissing under the mistletoe probably derived from this belief. The early church banned the use of mistletoe in Christmas celebrations because of its pagan origins. Instead, church fathers suggested the use of holly as an appropriate substitute for Christmas greenery.
The tradition of gifts seems to have started with the gifts that the wise men (the Magi) brought to Jesus. As recounted in the Bible's book of Matthew, "On coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh."
In 1836, Alabama was the first state in the USA to declare Christmas a legal holiday.
In 1856, President Franklin Pierce decorates the first White House Christmas tree.
In 1907, Oklahoma became the last USA state to declare Christmas a legal holiday.
Snow globes are collected by many and are available with thousands of different scenes.
Due to the time zones, Santa has 31 hours to deliver gifts? This means that he would have to visit 832 homes each second!
In 1937, the first postage stamp to commemorate Christmas was issued in Austria.
The biggest selling Christmas single of all time is Bing Crosby's White Christmas.
St Francis of Assisi introduced Christmas Carols to formal church services. Christmas caroling began as an old English custom called Wassailing - toasting neighbors to a long and healthy life.
The word carol is derived from the old French word caroler which derives from the Latin choraula. This itself was derived from the Greek choraules.
A traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard.
According to a 1995 survey, 7 out of 10 British dogs get Christmas gifts from their doting owners.
After "A Christmas Carol," Charles Dickens wrote several other Christmas stories, one each year, but none was as successful as the original. The four ghosts in Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" were the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Yet to Come, and the ghost of Jacob Marley (former partner of Scrooge).
American billionaire Ross Perot tried to airlift 28 tons of medicine and Christmas gifts to American POW's in North Vietnam in 1969.
The first Christmas card was created in England on December 9, 1842. Hallmark introduced its first Christmas cards in 1915, five years after the founding of the company. An average household in America will mail out 28 Christmas cards each year and see 28 eight cards return in their place. More than three billion Christmas cards are sent annually in the United States.
In America in 1822, the postmaster of Washington, DC, complained that he had to add 16 mailmen at Christmas to deal with cards alone. He wanted the number of cards a person could send limited by law. "I don't know what we'll do if this keeps on," he wrote.
He is known throughout the world, by various names; Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Saint Nicholas, Sinterklaas, St. Nick, and Pere Noel. On Christmas Eve, countless children all over the world lie in their beds while "visions of sugarplums dance in their heads." When they awake they will excitedly check to see if Santa Claus has come to bring them gifts.
One town in Indiana is called Santa Claus. There is also a Santa, Idaho.
The original Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, was born in Turkey in the 4th century. He was very pious from an early age, devoting his life to Christianity. He became widely known for his generosity for the poor. But the Romans held him in contempt. He was imprisoned and tortured. But when Constantine became emperor of Rome, he allowed Nicholas to go free. Constantine became a Christian and convened the Council of Nicaea in 325. Nicholas was a delegate to the council. He is especially noted for his love of children and for his generosity. He is the patron saint of sailors, Sicily, Greece, and Russia. He is also, of course, the patron saint of children. The Dutch kept the legend of St. Nicholas alive. In 16th century Holland, Dutch children would place their wooden shoes by the hearth in hopes that they would be filled with a treat. The Dutch spelled St. Nicholas as Sint Nikolaas, which became corrupted to Sinterklaas, and finally, in Anglican, to Santa Claus. In 1822, Clement C. Moore composed his famous poem, "A Visit from St. Nick," which was later published as "The Night Before Christmas." Moore is credited with creating the modern image of Santa Claus as a jolly fat man in a red suit.
The snowman is a fun way for children to play in the snow. Made from large snowballs and accessories for decorating - a carrot for a nose, buttons for eyes and sticks for arms.
The original German nutcrackers were made to resemble kings, soldiers, and other authority figures. Since Germans sometimes say someone has "a hard nut to crack" if they mean that the person is having difficulties, the 18th century woodworkers who created the now traditional form of nutcracker made the figures in the shape of the people who made life difficult. While in life the lower classes were at the mercy of sometimes-harsh authorities, in their homes the tables could be turned by making figures of those authorities perform work for the poorer people. This also suggests another very old holiday tradition, found in many countries, that at Christmas the social order should be reversed, and those with lower status be served by those with higher status. Some people further claim that the fierce expressions and authoritarian costumes on old nutcrackers were also intended to scare away evil spirits.
Collecting nutcrackers has only become popular in America within the last 50 years. Nowadays, nutcrackers come in all different subjects, not just the traditional ones. The old-fashioned soldier model remains the most popular, however.
Many modern collectors create a virtual kingdom of nutcrackers by starting with a King figure, adding guards and drummers, and finishing their collection with workers and tradesmen. Sometimes a particular figure is added because the owner feels it will bring good luck. Many collectors make it a point to find a nutcracker that represents their own profession. Other people keep to the traditional German-style designs. There is no one right way to collect nutcrackers, so long as the collector is happy.
Animal Crackers are not really crackers, but cookies that were imported to the United States from England in the late 1800s. Barnum's circus-like boxes were designed with a string handle so that they could be hung on a Christmas tree.
During the Christmas buying season, Visa cards alone are used an average of 5,340 times every minute in the United States.
In 1947, Toys for Tots started making the holidays a little happier for children by organizing its first Christmas toy drive for needy youngsters.
Santa's reindeer are named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. Oh - and of course, Rudolph.
A note from a visitor has added a correction to one of the reindeer:
The name Donner is actually "Donder." It was mispronounced in a song many years ago and never changed back to it's original form. You may follow this link for more information about what happened: http://www.donder.com (from Mike Smullen)
The Christmas season begins at sundown on 24th December and lasts through sundown on 5th January. For that reason, this season is also known as the Twelve Days of Christmas.
The idea to celebrate Christmas on December 25 originated in the 4th century. The Catholic Church wanted to eclipse the festivities of a rival pagan religion that threatened Christianity's existence. The Romans celebrated the birthday of their sun god, Mithras during this time of year. Although it was not popular, or even proper, to celebrate people's birthdays in those times, church leaders decided that in order to compete with the pagan celebration they would themselves order a festival in celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Although the actual season of Jesus' birth is thought to be in the spring, the date of December 25 was chosen as the official birthday celebration as Christ's Mass so that it would compete head on with the rival pagan celebration. Christmas was slow to catch on in America. The early colonists considered it a pagan ritual. The celebration of Christmas was even banned by law in Massachusetts in colonial days.
The movie "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000) features more than 52,000 Christmas lights, about 8,200 Christmas ornaments, and nearly 2,000 candy canes.
All modern references of Santa coming down the chimney can be traced to the famous poem 'The Night Before Christmas' written in 1822 by the Clement Moore. In it he describes 'And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof, the prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head and was turning around, down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.'
In North America, children put stockings out at Christmas time. Their Dutch counterparts use shoes.
The Santa Claus' suit was developed in the 1930s. The Coca-Cola Company hired American artist Haddon Sundblom in 1931, to redesign Santa Claus. Sundblom chose the official colors of Coca-Cola, red and white.
Hannukah is celebrated around the world for eight days and nights.
Hannukah celebrates the victory of the Maccabees or Israelites over the Greek-Syrian ruler, Antiochus about 2200 years ago.
A Menorah is a special nine-branched candelabrum, also known in Hebrew as a Hanukkiyyah.
Each night of Hannukah, an additional candle is placed in the Menorah from right to left, and then lit from left to right. On the last night, all the candles are lit.
A dreidle, or sivion is a four-sided top that has a Hebrew letter on each side.
During Hannukah, families eat latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiot (jelly donuts), or other foods which are fried in oil, to celebrate and commemorate the miracle of the Festival of Lights.