Amazing Facts » Little Known Facts About Christmas

Little Known Facts About Christmas

Christmas is so popular that you might feel you know everything about it. But do you? Here are some little known facts about Christmas.

• Christmas is celebrated all over the world. But do you know when the first Christmas was celebrated? It was on December 25, AD 336 in Rome. Pretty far back, isn’t it?
• Santa Claus wears a red suit, right? Well, he did not wear red all the time. Santa wore a variety of colorful suits till the early nineteenth century, including white, green, blue and red. But a 1930s advertisement by Coca Cola fixed Santa’s coat as red, forever.
  
  Image courtesy: goodhousekeeping.com
• Did you know that you can have your Christmas tree and eat it too?! Christmas trees are actually edible. Several parts of pines, spruces, and firs can be eaten. Pine needles are a good source of vitamin C.
• What is your favourite Christmas carol? It turns out that Silent Night” has the enviable distinction of being the most recorded Christmas song in history. Since 1978, it has had over 733 different copyrighted versions.
• But which is the most popular Christmas song sung by a celebrity musician? Well, the credit goes to none other than Mariah Carey, for her “All I want for Christmas is you’. In the music video of the song, Santa is played by Mariah’s then husband Tommy Mottola.
• Christmas has enough power to turn enemies into friends, even in the midst of bitter war, it seems. Five months after the First World War began, troops stationed along the Western Front took a break for Christmas Eve. They sang Carols to one another across the battlefield. That was not all. The following morning, German soldiers approached Allied troops from their trenches, and called out Merry Christmas in English. It was not a trick. Soldiers from both sides greeted each other, and some even exchanged cigarettes as gifts. It was one of the last examples of true wartime chivalry, later dubbed as the Christmas Truce of 1914.
• Who said Christmas is just for human beings? Across the world, seven out of 10 pet dogs get Christmas presents from their owners!
• Strange are the customs of Christmas, aren’t they? In Poland, for example, spiders or spider webs are common Christmas tree decorations. Why? Because spiders are considered signs of goodness and prosperity!
• Well, talking about strange Christmas customs and traditions, a traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig, prepared with mustard.
• Does Christmas make people sick? It seems that it does. It is estimated that 400,000 people become sick annually, from eating tainted Christmas leftovers.