These are some fun and interesting facts about Christmas I've collected. Enjoy, and have a very merry holiday season filled with getting drunk and slapping hookers, or whatever it is you crazy kids are into these days.
1) The word Christmas is Old English, a contraction of Christ's Mass. (Cristes Maesse)
2) Scientists in America calculated that Santa would have to visit 822 homes per second to deliver everyone's presents worldwide in one night. That means Santa would have to travel 650 MPH.
3) The phrase "War on Christmas" originated during an interview on CNN between Christopher Hitchens and Mat Staver. The conversation, centered around the right of Christians celebrating Christmas inside of government buildings, was captioned with the headline "War on Christmas". The controversy is still on-going, mostly perpetuated by the media and false word of mouth.
4) Iceland doesn't have just one Santa, they have thirteen. Starting on December 12th, they begin to come down from the mountains one-by-one, leaving gifts for the children. One of their names translates in English to "Door Sniffer" and another one to "Meat Hook".
5) Christmas is not the literal celebration of Jesus Christ's birth. If it were, celebrations of Christmas would be sometime between March 28th and April 13th. (The time after Herod the Great died, but before The Passover is the most accurate historians are able to be to his exact birth.)
6) The poem "The Night Before Christmas" was originally entitled "A Visit From Saint Nicolas" and was written by Clement Moore for his children and guests during a Christmas party. One of the guests anonymously sent it to a New York newspaper for publication and the rest is history.
7) Christmas originated from two much older holidays; one celebrating the increase of sunlight, paying tribute to the Roman Sun God, and the other was to close the Pagan tradition of one week of lawlessness, which ended on the 25th of December. When Christianity was declared the official religion of Rome by the Emperor Constantine, Christians attempted to assimilate the two most celebrated holidays into one, in order to make the transition into Christianity easier on the population.
8) Rudolph was actually created during the late 1930's for a holiday promotion.
9) The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe is a Pagan tradition. The Pagans thought the white, sticky substance that oozes from the berries that grows on mistletoe were droplets of sperm from the Pagan God Baal. Pagans would hang the mistletoe to increase their chances of conceiving a child. So when you're kissing under the mistletoe you're actually a few inches away from a God's jizz droplets and when men make jokes about hanging it just above their crotch, they're not really that far off the core truth of the tradition.
10) If you added up all the gifts in the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" you would be left with 364 gifts.
11) Just like with mistletoe, holly as a Christmas decoration stems from a Pagan tradition. The red that grows on holly plants was thought to be the menstrual blood of the Goddess of Heaven, Diana. Sort of like the modern day Christian story of the red berries being droplets of Christ's blood, the only difference is Christians like drinking the blood of Christ each Sunday, whereas they don't drink menstrual blood nearly as frequently.
12) The date of December 25th being Jesus Christ's day of birth wasn't chosen until the year 440 AD, when leaders of the church declared it to be so.
13) The approximate amount of US dollars made from pictures with Santa Clauses throughout US malls is $2,255,750,000.
14) Christmas trees were a phallic symbol, again, thought to increase chances of conceiving children. Those Pagans just wanted to settle down and have kids as soon as possible. They were practically Christians before Christians existed, evidently.
15) Contrary to popular belief, poinsettia plants are non-toxic. Holly berries are very poisonous however.
16) Four million tonnes of trash are generated from Christmas gift wrap and holiday bags annually in North America.
17) The idea of elves comes from "nature folk", which were worshiped by the Pagans.
18) Spoiled Christmas leftovers are responsible for over 400,000 cases of post-Christmas related hospital visits.
19) In 1643, the British parliament officially banished the holiday of Christmas. Puritan leaders believed that indulging on such a holy day was immoral.
20) Speaking of Puritans! In America, Puritans tried to make Thanksgiving the biggest holiday of the year. They failed, likely due to the fact that people enjoy getting gifts more than entertaining in-laws over turkey dinner, and the fact that nobody cares about Puritanism, except the Puritans.
21) Before turkey, a pig's head with mustard was the traditional Christmas dinner in England.
22) The idea of saying "Happy" as opposed to "Merry" Christmas comes from Austrian priests, who feel that "Merry" is associated with getting drunk.
23) Christmas dinner in Japan is almost always KFC dinner. It is so popular in Japan that reservations have to be made months in advance just to eat in a KFC restaurant on Christmas Eve.
24) In 1752, 11 days were dropped from the calender due to the switch from the Julian calender to the Gregorian calender. Some church sects, known as 'Old Calenderists', still celebrate Christmas on January 7th.
25) During the Christmas of 1914, an unofficial Christmas truce was formed between Allied and Axis forces. For a week leading up to Christmas, troops on both sides of the trenches in WWI would exchange Christmas greetings. It climaxed Christmas Eve when troops bravely walked into 'No Mans Land' to sing Christmas carols to one another and enjoy a night off from the war. This is also, in my opinion, the very last time the true spirit of Christmas was ever recognized and honored on this planet. After Christmas Day, fighting resumed, and the rest is, as they say, history.
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