Did you know?
1. Having robins on Christmas cards started as a joke 150 years ago when postmen wore red tunics and were named after them.
2. The abbreviation ‘Xmas’ isn’t irreligious. The letter X is a Greek abbreviation for Christ.
3. Christmas trees usually grow for about 15 years before they’re sold.
4. The music video for Last Christmas was the last time George Michael was filmed without a beard.
5. Singer Brenda Lee recorded the original version of ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ when she was only 13 years old. 6. Tinsel was once made of real silver. 7. There are three towns in the US that are named Santa Claus. One in Georgia, one in Arizona and one in Indiana.
8. Christmas pudding was originally a soup made with raisins and wine.
9. One of the reasons we leave milk and a snack for Santa is because Dutch kids would leave food and drink for St Nicholas on his feast day.
10. Santa used to wear blue, green and white - his red suit came from a 1930s’ Coca Cola advert.
11. Rudolph was almost named Rollo or Reginald.
12. Mistletoe is a parasitic plant that latches on to trees and feeds off them. Its use as a symbol of romance is a tradition dating back to ancient Norse mythology.
13. Telling scary ghost stories is an old Christmas Eve tradition that has largely died out over the past century.
14. Some zoos accept donated Christmas trees as food for their animals.
15. A large part of Sweden’s population has watched Donald Duck cartoons every Christmas Eve since 1960.
16. During the Christmas of 1914, a truce was held between German and British troops. They decorated their shelters, exchanged gifts across no man’s land and played a game of football.
17. An artificial Christmas tree would have to be reused for more than 20 years to be ‘greener’ than buying a fresh-cut tree annually.
18. The people of Oslo, Norway donate the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree every year in gratitude to the people of London for their assistance during WWII.
19. All the gifts in the Twelve Days of Christmas would equal 364 gifts.
20. US President Teddy Roosevelt, an environmentalist, banned Christmas trees from the White House in 1901.
21. In Poland at Christmas, spiders or spider webs are common tree decorations. Spiders are seen as signs of goodness and prosperity at Christmas.
22. The area of Christmas gift wrap used in the UK every year would cover the island of Guernsey.
23. The Santa Claus Foundation of Greenland voted Nelson Mandela its first Santa Claus of the year in 1995.
24. The first Christmas was celebrated on December 25, AD 336 in Rome.
25. Artificial Christmas trees have outsold real ones since 1991.
26. The Canadian province of Nova Scotia leads the world in exporting lobster, wild blueberries, and Christmas trees.
27. Roast turkey did not appear consistently on royal Christmas Day menus until 1851 when it replaced roast swan.
28. Electric Christmas lights were first used in 1854.
29. Santa’s reindeer are called Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.
30. France gifted the Americans the Statue of Liberty which stands in New York.
Disclaimer: While the Arran Banner has hoovered through the internet for most of these facts, the paper accepts no responsibility for any distress caused if these facts turn out to be fiction.