The Fab & The Furious

Fab and Furious writes…

It’s that time of the year again guys n’ gals – the season for giving and sharing in celebration of Jesus’ birth. So just in time for Christmas, we are sharing with you some cool facts that we bet you didn’t know about this holiday. Enjoy!

• On Christmas morning since medieval times, church bells have been rung to announce to the world the coming of the savior. It was customary from the 18th century to wear clothes and carry a small bell to signify the birth of Christ. The ringing of the bells was to signify the importance of His Birth.

• An artificial spider and web are often included in the decorations on Ukrainian Christmas trees. A spider web found on Christmas morning is believed to bring good luck. (We wonder why…)

• The tradition of gifts seems to have started with the gifts that the wise men brought to Jesus. The exchanging of gifts between people started in about the 1800’s.

• December 25th was not celebrated as the birthday of Christ until the year AD 440 because according to some experts, Jesus’ birthday must have been on April 5 BC. To know more about the “real date” of His birth you can visit this site.

• In 1647, the English parliament passed a law that made Christmas illegal. Christmas festivities were banned by Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell, who considered feasting and revelry on what was supposed to be a holy day to be immoral. Anybody caught celebrating Christmas was arrested. The ban was lifted only when the Puritans lost power in 1660. (Now that’s what you call a party pooper!)

• St. Francis of Assisi introduced Christmas Carols to formal church services.

• The popular Christmas song “Jingle Bells” was composed in 1857 by James Pierpont, and was originally called “One-Horse Open Sleigh.” It was actually written for Thanksgiving, not Xmas.

• An old wives’ tale says that bread baked on Christmas Eve will never go mouldy. (If this was true, then bakeries would just have to make all their bread on Christmas Eve and they will never have to put best before dates ever again! )

• Christmas pudding was first made as a kind of soup with raisins and wine in it. Christmas Pudding originates from an old, Celtic dish known as ‘frumenty’.

• Each year between 34-36 million Christmas trees are produced to cope with the holiday demand.

• The abbreviation of Xmas for Christmas is not irreligious. The first letter of the word Christ in Greek is chi, which is identical to our X. Xmas was originally an ecclesiastical abbreviation that was used in tables and charts. In the early days of printing, when font sizes were limited and type was set by hand, abbreviations and ditto marks were used liberally. Xmas came into general use from the church.

• Not all nations recognize Santa Claus as the one who brings presents on Christmas, here’s a list of what other countries believe in:

England: Father Christmas
France: Pere Noel (Father Christmas)
Germany: Christkind (a beautiful fair-haired girl with a shining crown of candles)
Russia: In some parts – Babouschka (a grandmotherly figure), other parts it is Grandfather Frost.
Scandinavia: A variety of Christmas gnomes. One is called Julenisse.
Spain and South America: The Three Kings
Italy: La Befana (a kindly old witch)

• Early Christmas trees were decorated with fruits, flowers and candles, which were heavy on the tree branches. In the 1800′s German glass blowers began producing glass balls to replace the heavy decorations and called them bulbs.

• In India, they decorate banana trees at Christmas time.

• Kissing under the mistletoe possibly began in old England. One theory is that the Druids started it all. They believed the mistletoe was sacred and therefore a charm against evil. They used golden sickles to harvest it and, to keep it from touching the ground, caught it in the folds of their priestly garments. Another theory is that the custom was started by the Scandinavians, who considered mistletoe to be a symbol of peace. When enemies chanced to meet under it, so the story goes, they would be required to declare a truce for the day and seal it with a kiss of peace.

• The origin of hanging Christmas stockings comes to us from southern Europe. One legend says that an old man was in despair because he had no money for his daughter’s dowries. St. Nicholas dropped a bag of gold down the chimney, which happened to fall into a stocking hung up to dry. (Gee, we wish Santa would bring us a bag of gold too! Ho Ho Ho!)
  

• The biggest selling Christmas single of all time is Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. Watch the movie clip where Bing Crosby sang this song here. They don’t make movies like that anymore.

• French peasants believed that babies who come into the world on Christmas are born with the gift of prophecy. (Tell us those of you who were born on Christmas Day, is this true?)

• During the Christmas buying season, Visa cards alone are used an average of 5,340 times every minute in the United States. (OMG!)

• In America, the weeks leading up to Christmas are the biggest shopping weeks of the year. Many retailers make up to 70% of their annual revenue in the month preceding Christmas. (So maybe it’s a smart move to start a business during this season )

• More diamonds are purchased at Christmas-time (31 percent) than during any other holiday or occasion during the year. (Does this mean that most marriage proposals happen around this time of the year?)

• Some priests in Australia advise you to say “Happy Christmas”, not “Merry Christmas”, because Merry has a connotation of getting drunk – which brings its own problems. One should say “Happy” instead.

That’s some of what we have gathered so far. Feel free to share your own Christmas trivia F&F friends! We wish all of you a very, very Happy Christmas!

Tags: Christmas, cool, facts, holiday season, interesting stuff, Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, trivia, Xmas