Tis the season to be…well informed. We all love Christmas, but how much do any of us actually know about why Christmas is the way it is? Here are 20 facts about Christmas trees, Santa Claus, and Rudolph that you (probably) didn’t know. Smarten up!
1. Santa Claus comes from St. Nicholas, a Christian bishop living in (what is now) Turkey in the fourth century AD. St. Nicholas had inherited a great deal of wealth and was known for giving it away to help the needy. When sainted, he became the protector of children.
2. After his death, the legend of St. Nicholas spread. St. Nick’s name became Sint-Nicolaas in Dutch, or Sinter Klaas for short. Which is only a hop, skip, and jump to Santa Claus.
3. Santa Claus delivering presents comes from Holland’s celebration of St. Nicholas’ feast day on December 6th. Children would leave shoes out the night before and, in the morning, would find little gifts that St. Nicholas would leave them. One of the reasons we leave milk and cookies for Santa is because Dutch kids would leave food and drink for St. Nicholas on his feast day.
4. Though Santa Claus has worn blue and white and green in the past, his traditional red suit came from a 1930s ad by Coca Cola.
5. And the image of him Santa Claus flying in a sleigh started in 1819…and was dreamt up by the same author who created the Headless Horseman, Washington Irving.
6. Germans are thought to be the first to bring “Christmas trees” into their homes at the holidays and decorate them with cookies and lights. The Christmas tree made its way to America in the 1830s but wasn’t popular until 1846, after Germany’s Prince Albert brought it to England when he married Queen Victoria. The two were sketched in front of a Christmas tree and the tradition instantly became popular. (Royal fever was real even back then!)
7. Christmas trees usually grow for about 15 years before they are sold.
8. There are approximately 21,000 Christmas tree farms in the United States. In 2008, nearly 45 million Christmas trees were planted, adding to the existing 400 million trees.
9. Approximately 30-35 million real (living) Christmas trees are sold each year in the U.S.
10. The well-known reason we give presents at Christmas is to symbolize the gifts given to baby Jesus by the three wise men.
11. During the Christmas season, nearly 28 sets of LEGO are sold every second.
12. And stockings come from this story: A poor man with three daughters couldn’t afford the dowry to have them married. One night, St. Nicholas dropped a bag of gold down the man’s chimney so that his oldest daughter would be able to get married, and the bag fell into a stocking that was drying by the fire.
13. Rudolph was actually conceived by a department store, Montgomery Ward, as a marketing gimmick to get kids to buy holiday coloring books.
14. Rudolph was almost named Rollo or Reginald. Reginald the Red-Nosed Reindeer doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
15. According to data analyzed from Facebook posts, two weeks before Christmas is one of the two most popular times for couples to break up. However, Christmas Day is the least favorite day for breakups.
16. Christmas is a contraction of “Christ’s Mass,” which is derived from the Old English Cristes mæsse (first recorded in 1038). The letter “X” in Greek is the first letter of Christ, and “Xmas” has been used as an abbreviation for Christmas since the mid-1500s.
17. In A.D. 350, Pope Julius I, bishop of Rome, proclaimed December 25 the official celebration date for the birthday of Christ, although historical records indicate that Christ’s birth was probably around springtime in March.
18. Ancient people, considered mistletoe sacred because it remains green and bears fruit during the winter when all other plants appear to die.
19. “Silent Night” is the most recorded Christmas song in history, with over 733 different versions copyrighted since 1978. Legend has it that “Silent Night” was written by a 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.
20. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is considered to be the most popular Christmas song now. In the music video, Santa is played by Mariah’s then-husband, Tommy Mottola and the highest-grossing Christmas movie of all time is How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Jim Carrey version.