From:
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Christmas wasn't
always on December 25.
Though Christmas
celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, there is no mention of December 25 in the
Bible. Most historians actually believe Jesus was born in the spring, not the
winter. And his birthday itself didn't become the official holiday until the
third century. Some historian posit that the date was actually chosen because
it coincided with the pagan festival of Saturnalia, which honored the
agricultural god Saturn with celebrating and gift-giving. Sounds familiar,
doesn't it?
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You might want to brew a cup o' tea when decking your
halls this year. The origin of Christmas trees goes all the way back to ancient
Egyptians and Romans, who marked the winter solstice with evergreens as a
reminder that spring would return soon. But it wasn't until Prince Albert of
Germany introduced the tree to his new wife, Queen Victoria of England, that
the tradition really took off. A drawing of the couple in front of a Christmas
tree appeared in Illustrated London News way back in 1848 and as we say today,
the idea went viral.
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St. Nick was more generous than jolly.
You probably already knew that the idea of Santa Claus
came from St. Nicholas, but the real saint wasn't a bearded man who wore a red
suit and had a long, white beard. That all came much later. According to
legend, the fourth-century Christian bishop gave away his abundant inheritance
to help the needy and rescued women from servitude. As the tale made the
rounds, his name became Sinter Klaas in Dutch. That later morphed into Santa
Claus, and the rest of the trappings followed.
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Coca-Cola played a huge part in Santa's image.
Craving a Coke yet? Give it a second. According to
Coca-Cola, Santa used to look a lot less jolly — even spooky. Go ahead, Google
early images of Santa. We'll wait. It wasn't until the beverage company hired
an illustrator named Haddon Sundblom in 1931 to create images of Santa for
magazine advertisements that we got the warm and friendly Santa we know today.
Now, kids wouldn't fear interrupting Santa's nightly work.
Comment by moi:
Some examples of early (creeoy ) Santas:
1880
1910
1885
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Hanging stockings started with an accident.
According to legend, we hang out stockings by the
chimney with care thanks to a poor man who didn't have the money for his three daughters'
dowries. Generous old St. Nick (remember, that's his trademark!) dropped a bag
of gold down their chimney one night, where the girls had hung their stockings
to dry by the fire. That's where the gold ended up, and allegedly how the
tradition began.
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"Jingle Bells" was originally a Thanksgiving
song.
Turns out, we didn't originally go dashing through the
snow for just Christmas. James Lord Pierpont wrote a song called "One
Horse Open Sleigh" and performed it at his church's Thanksgiving concert
originally. Then in 1857, the song was re-published under the title it still
holds today, and it eventually became one of the most popular Christmas songs.
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This prank almost went too far. Nine days before
Christmas in 1965, the two astronauts aboard Gemini 6 suddenly sent an odd
report to Mission Control that they saw an "unidentified flying
object" about to enter Earth's atmosphere, traveling in the polar orbit
from north to south. They interrupted the tense report with the sound of
“Jingle Bells” with “Wally” Schirra playing a small harmonica and accompanied
by Tom Stafford with a handful of small sleigh bells they had smuggled aboard
for that very occasion.
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By the time the Puritans settled Boston, celebrating
Christmas was outlawed. Talk about missing the Christmas spirit! From 1659 to
1681, anyone caught making merry would face a fine for celebrating the
once-pagan day. And after the Revolutionary War, the new Congress found the day
so unimportant that they even held the first session on December 25, 1789.
Christmas wasn't proclaimed a federal holiday for nearly another century,
proving that the Grinch's notorious hatred of the holiday was alive and well
long before he was.
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The settlers created the first American batch of
eggnog.
The Jamestown settlers created the first American
batch of eggnog, although it may not have tasted quite the way the egg-centric
concoction does today. The word nog comes from the word grog; that is, any
drink made with rum. So technically, an early nog didn't really require the
rich, milky base we now recognize on grocery store shelves and ladle out of
grandma's cut-crystal punch bowl
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If you've ever watched Clark Griswold try to decorate
his house in Christmas Vacation (or any number of other holiday movie mishaps),
that probably doesn't come as much of a surprise. In fact, the Consumer Product
Safety Commission estimates that 14,700 people visit hospital emergency rooms
each November and December from holiday-related decorating accidents. So
please, be careful when you're decking the halls.
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Santa has his own zip code in Canada.
Every year, letters to Santa Claus flood post offices
across the world and every year, parents have to find a way to either answer
them or explain to the kiddos why their letter got, um, lost in the mail.
Further cementing their reputation as one of the nicest countries going, some
big-hearted Canadian Post Office workers even started answering them. As more
letters arrived, they set up a special zip code for Santa as part of a
"Santa Letter-Writing Program" literacy initiative. The zip code? HOH
OHO.
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Dry Christmas trees spark more than joy.
For the love of Christmas, don't forget to water your
live tree. Dried Christmas trees spark about a hundred fires each year, cause
an average of 10 deaths, and result in $15.7 million in property damage, the
Consumer Product Safety Commission reports. Not only will an errant spark ruin
your holiday, it can put both you and firefighters who respond to the blaze in
danger. Are you convinced to switch to an artificial Christmas tree yet?
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