We’ve talked a lot much about Christmas and all the traditions and legends behind the festival. Now it’s time to read a bunch of trivia facts about the season that you might not know. Like when is Jesus’s birthday, or where stockings for Christmas came from and loads more!
Using the Internet, we’ve compiled a few of these.
10 Trivia Facts about Christmas You Might Not Know
Is December 25 really Jesus’ date of birth?
Interestingly, there is no mention in the Bible that the 25th of December is actually when Jesus was born. In fact, it wasn’t declared the official holiday until the 3rd century. It’s possible that the date was picked because it coincided with the pagan festival of Saturnalia, celebrating the agricultural god Saturn with merrymaking and gift-giving.
The 3 Christmas colours
The traditional three colours of Christmas are green, red, and gold. Green has long been a symbol of life and rebirth; red symbolizes the blood of Christ, and gold represents light as well as wealth and royalty.
Spiderwebs seen as good luck charms at Christmas
In Poland, spiders or spider webs are common Christmas trees decorations because according to legend, a spider wove a blanket for Baby Jesus. In fact, Polish people consider spiders to be symbols of goodness and prosperity at Christmas.
Evergreen trees a symbol of hope and renewal of life
Evergreens (from the Old English word aefie meaning “always” and gowan meaning “to grow”) have been symbols of eternal life and rebirth since ancient times. The pagan use and worship of evergreen boughs and trees has evolved into the Christianized Christmas tree.
Stockings at Christmas
The tradition of hanging stockings comes from a Dutch legend. A poor man had three daughters for whom he could not afford to provide a dowry. St. Nicholas dropped a bag of gold down his chimney and gold coins fell out and into the stockings drying by the fireplace. The daughters now had dowries and could be married, avoiding a life on the streets.
Who decorated the first Christmas tree?
The first person to decorate a Christmas tree was reportedly the Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546). According to legend, he was so moved by the beauty of the stars shining between the branches of a fir tree, he brought home an evergreen tree and decorated it with candles to share the image with his children.
Santa Claus has his own zip code
Every year, letters to Santa Claus flood post offices across the world. Some Canadian Post Office workers even started answering them — but 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? ‘H0H 0H0’.
Not a Christmas song?
‘Jingle Bells’ – the popular Christmas song was composed by James Pierpont in Massachusetts, America. It was, however, written for Thanksgiving and not Christmas.
The best selling Christmas carol
‘White Christmas’ by Bing Crosby is the best-selling Christmas song ever. It has sold more than 50 million copies around the world.
The 12 Days of Christmas
December 25 – January 5 is referred to as ‘Christmastide’ or ‘Twelve Holy Days’.
If you want to know more Christmas trivia you can visit any of the below websites for a whole bunch of strange and interesting facts about Christmas.
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/christmas-ideas/g2972/surprising-christmas-facts/
https://www.factretriever.com/christmas-facts
http://thefactfile.org/interesting-facts-christmas
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