Festive Facts About Christmas
Christmas is one of the most celebrated holidays around the world.
For Christians, this day, usually December 25, is the religious celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, but it has also been adopted by many non-Christians as the most wonderful time of the year for feasting, gift-giving, festive décor, and family time.
Here are 60 festive facts about everyone's favorite holiday.
Christmas Facts
60. Family Sauna
Nothing says Christmas like getting naked with your family! In Estonia, it’s traditional for the whole family to take a sauna together on Christmas Eve before church.
59. Frisky Ferns
Bringing a whole new meaning to the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe, people used to believe that this plant was an aphrodisiac. Mistletoe, now commonly used as a holiday decoration, was believed by the Druids to be a symbol of fertility and virility. On a slightly less arousing note, the name mistletoe comes from the Anglo-Saxon word mistletan, which translates essentially as “dung on a twig,” because the plant was commonly spread via bird droppings.
58. Ghosts of Christmas Past
It was a commonly held belief throughout Europe that both good and evil spirits were active during the “twelve days of Christmas.” Prior to the 1900s, there was a tradition of telling scary ghost stories on Christmas Eve. Many think the idea of Santa’s elves evolved from these early beliefs, helped along by Clement C. Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” more commonly referred to as The Night Before Christmas, which refers to Santa as “a jolly old elf.”
