Christmas History. Fun Christmas Historic Facts

Christmas History. Fun Christmas Historic Facts

Christmas was once a moveable feast celebrated many different times during the year. The choice of December 25 was made by the Pope Julius I in the fourth century AD because this coincided with the pagan rituals of Winter Solstice, or Return of the Sun. The intent was to replace the pagan celebration with the Christian one.

In 1752, 11 days were dropped from the year when the switch was from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. The December 25 date was effectively moved 11 days backwards. Some Christian church sects, called Eastern Orthodox, still celebrate Christmas on January 7 (previously Dec. 25 of the Julian calendar.)

Many of the traditions associated with Christmas (giving gifts, lighting a Yule log, singing carols, decorating an evergreen) hark back to older religions.

Some traditions described here are reminiscent of modern day customs, and others, like the Festival of the Radishes in Mexico, are bizarre and fascinating. You are invited to explore the rituals of past and present below:

Years ago, Dutch child took their shoes off at night and put them on a window sill until they rose the next morning. On Christmas Eve, they would put hay or straw in their shoes for the Wise Men's Camels. In turn the Wise Men (or the 3 King's) would leave treats or small gifts in the shoes.

A similar explanation comes from Burlington, North Carolina: The wooden shoe or "Sabot" was the traditional footwear in many countries. This footwear was great on the farm where the landscape was far from neat and clean. However, the wood in the shoes had to be dried out nightly so children would place the shoes next to the fire place to dry. On Christmas Eve, Pere Noel would place trinkets in the shoes for the good children and a mischievous elf would leave coal in the shoe for bad children.

In Germany, St. Nicholas used to carve toys out of wood and put them in shoes.

Before Christianity the Swedish people celebrated "midvinterblot" at winter solstice. It simply means "mid-winter-blood", and featured both animal and human sacrifice. This tradition took place at certain cult places, and basically every old Swedish church is built on such a place. The pagan tradition was finally abandoned around 1200 AD, due to the missionaries persistence. (Of course they were sacrificed too, by the Vikings, in the beginning.) Midvinterblot paid tribute to the local gods, appealing to them to let go of the winter's grip. The winters in Scandinavia are dark and grim, and these were the days before central heating. And the Gods were powerful. Until this day Thursday is named after the war god Thor. Friday after Freja (fertility) It is interesting to note that to this day the Swedish name for Christmas is Jul (Yule), and the Jul gnome has a more important role than Christmas father or the Christchild. You don't kill those pagan tradition easily. The old Viking religion with Thor and his friends is still practiced by some people, somewhat less bloodily.

Winter Solstice celebrations are held on the eve of the shortest day of the year. During the first millennium in what is today Scotland, the Druids celebrated Winter Solstice honoring their Sun God and rejoicing his return as the days got longer, signaling the coming of spring. Also called Yule, this tradition still lives today in the Wiccan traditions and in many cultures around the world.

A huge log -- the Yule Log -- is brought into an outdoor clearing and becomes part of a great bonfire. Everyone dances and sings around the fire. All the noise and great excitement is said to awaken the sun from its long winter sleep, hurrying spring on its way as the cycle begins once again and the days grow longer than the nights.

Full Moons of the Millenium
The Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, occurred on December 22, 1999. It was special due to the fact that the solstice will coincide with a Full Moon, and not just any Full Moon.

The Moon was within a few hours of its perigee, its closet point to the Earth. This made the Moon appear to be about 14 percent larger than usual.

The Moon also was only ten days from the Earth's perihelion, its closest point to the Sun, and since it shines with reflected sunlight, the moon appeared 7 percent brighter than usual.

These events occurring together are extremely rare. This was probably be the biggest, brightest Moon of the last Millennium. Rare indeed, since the next time these events coincide is around year 2130.

Here's what a friend from Stillwater, Oklahoma, tells me: I sometimes wonder why people are so fancinated with just a full moon and not all the phases. Each on has a significant meaning. I did some research and found that in the year 2000 on the 25th we will have a New Moon, which can be just as beautiful as the stars are easier to see and the moon has nearly disappeared from the sky. Sometimes if you look hard enough you can see the Halo of the Moon during a new Moon: it is beautiful.

Moving onward, we get a full moon on the Dec. 26th of 2004, and Dec. 24th 2007. In the Year 2009 on New Year's Eve we get a full moon. Again on Christmas Eve of 2011 we get a full moon and finally in the year 2015 we will get a full moon on Christmas Day.

The ancient traditions of Pakistan pre-date the Christian era. During winter solstice, an ancient demigod returns to collect prayers and deliver them to Dezao, the supreme being. During this celebrations women and girls are purified by taking ritual baths. The men pour water over their heads while they hold up bread. Then the men and boys are purified with water and must not sit on chairs until evening when goat's blood is sprinkled on their faces. Following this purification, a great festival begins, with singing, dancing, bonfires, and feasting on goat tripe and other delicacies.

Legend has it that the shepherds rejoiced when they learned of the birth of Christ and they waved their hooked staffs about and played Ganna. This is the origin of the game called Ganna that is traditionally played on Christmas Day (January 7 -- the older date of Christmas) by all the men and boys in Ethiopia.

This humorous tradition was documented in 1851in a London Newspaper. In Devonshire, England, on Twelfth Night (January 7), the farmers get their weapons and go to their apple orchard. Selecting the oldest tree, they form a circle and chant:
Here's to thee, old apple tree
Whence thou mayst bud and whence thou mayst blow
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow:
Hats full, caps full,
Bushels, bushels, sacks full,
And my pockets full too!
Huzza! Huzza!

The men drink cider, make merry, and fire their weapons (charged only with powder) at the tree. They return to the home and are denied entrance no matter what the weather by the women indoors. When one of the men guesses the name of the roast that is being prepared for them, all are let in. The one who guessed the roast is named "King for the Evening" and presides over the party until the wee hours.

True Story of Santa. How Santa Grew Over Time

The True Story of Santa
How Santa Grew Over Time--literally

Santa no longer travels in such punishing and hirsute company as he did in the German-speaking countries.

If the kids you know wonder why, you can say it's because Santa has derived much of his identity from his Irish and British ancestors, who believed that fairies and elves scampered invisibly through the woods, sometimes harming people, and sometimes giving gifts. During the 12 days of Christmas, these creatures were especially active.

Santa traveled to the United States in the 1600s, with Dutch settlers in New York. His name first got newspaper publicity here in 1773. Before there was television, newspapers were the media that created American idols.

Santa got his big break in 1809 when Washington Irving, in his satirical work, A History of New York, wrote about Santa riding a horse through town on the Eve of Saint Nicholas. Irving cut Black Peter out of the picture, though, leaving Santa as a solo act--not unlike Justin Timberlake is today.

Santa made it to the big leagues in 1823, with the publication of A Visit from St. Nicholas, which is better known as The Night Before Christmas. Even though he was a celebrity at this point, and had teamed up with an ensemble act of eight reindeer, Santa wasn't all that we now know him to be. Rather, he was described as an elf (one who would fit in a chimney, no less).

Nearly 40 years later, Santa's empire had expanded substantially. You might say that he had a monopoly, although the federal government has discreetly looked the other way.

In Harper's Weekly, the illustrator Thomas Nast depicted Santa in his huge workshop at the North Pole. What's truly remarkable about this is that the first explorers to reach the North Pole didn't get there until 1909, and rumor has it that they missed the actual spot (which would explain why they didn't get footage of Santa and his elves at work).

As his business grew, Santa attained physical stature as well. He was depicted as a full-sized man by 1931, when his image was used in Coca-Cola advertisements. Eight years later, he formed his partnership with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, as recounted in a poem written by a Montgomery Ward employee--a poem sent home with holiday shoppers back in the days when people who had red noses just lived with them instead of having plastic surgery.

Although it's not clear when Mrs. Claus came into the picture, some of Santa's detractors say it was a public relations stunt designed to divert attention from the fact that Santa lived with a bunch of elves. Nonetheless, the marriage seems to have endured. There is no record of any separation, legal or actual, and no family therapist has written a tell-all about any woes they might have endured.

Early Versions of Santa

Early Versions of Santa

It was Black Peter's job: keeping kids in line. If any modern kids doubt you, explain that you know he actually existed because versions of him showed up in many places in ancient Europe, especially Austria.

The Austrian version of Black Peter, who goes by the name of Klaubauf, is furry, and has fiery eyes, horns, and a long, red tongue.

Another member of the sinister Austrian holiday entourage is known as Krampus, or Grampus. (Make sure the kids don't confuse him with Grandpa.) Also, despite how his name sounds, Krampus's specialty wasn't giving stomachaches. Rather, he administered whippings to bad children, that is unless Saint Nicholas kindly intervened.

Austrian and German legends featured the character Knecht Ruprecht. His job was to make sure kids knew their prayers. If they didn't, it was punishment time.

A note to all children who may whine about not getting Chicken Dance Elmo in their stockings despite their fervent prayers for it: These are not the sort of prayers Knecht Ruprecht had in mind.

The Pennsylvania Dutch version of Santa's nasty sidekick was called Pelznickle, which translates to "furry Nicholas." Anyone who's encountered a tough brush with Daddy's whiskers knows not to cross Pelznickle. With a name like that, he could probably sand a small child's head down to a nub with just a few rubbings.

This isn't to say that the ancient European Christmases were nothing but traumatic. On the positive side, Saint Nicholas used to deliver presents on December 6, sparing kids 19 agonizing days of waiting. Later, though, after the Reformation, Protestants in Germany moved the gift-giving holiday to December 25, when the Christ child's birth was celebrated. His name in German is Christkindl, which morphed to Kriss Kringle, which is another one of Santa's aliases--and also Santa's means of retaining much of the holiday spotlight.

The True Story of Santa Claus

The True Story of Santa

When I was old enough to notice that Santa and my mother had exactly the same handwriting, my parents gave me a book called, Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.

The book was a reprint of an actual letter a girl about my age had written to the editor of The New York Sun in 1897, asking if there really was a Santa Claus. The girl reasoned that if the newspaper had printed it, it had to be true.

Shows how much Virginia knew. That same newspaper had printed a long article 60 years earlier about the winged creatures that lived on the Moon.

At any rate, the editor wrote back and said there was indeed a Santa Claus, and that he would continue to make kids happy for 100,000 years.

Leave it to the media to mislead small children. The true story of Santa Claus is something else entirely, as pieced together from his appearances in legend, newspapers, magazines, and advertisements.

Part of the tale is good and scary, which is actually a plus. Through experience with my nieces and nephews, I've learned that there's nothing like a frightening story to really get a kid's attention (and promote good behavior).

Note: This is not wise to do to your own children, unless you want to spend half the night comforting a shivering, bawling 7-year-old.

If any other people's offspring ask you whether Santa Claus exists, however, this is what you can tell them:

"Of course he does!"

"He flies through the sky on a horse with a sidekick elf named Black Peter, who will whip you senseless if you're bad. I swear, I read it in Encarta."

Once you've hooked them with Black Peter, tell them that, "in fact, Santa flies so fast you won't even see Black Peter coming until you have a sore bottom

by Martha Brockenbrough

True Story of Santa. Fun and Unsettling Santa facts

True Story of Santa. Fun and Unsettling Santa facts

Because of the Earth's rotation, Santa has 31 hours to deliver presents, assuming he travels from east to west. Researchers at the highly regarded, if unscientific, Spy magazine determined in 1990 that:

Santa's sleigh moves at 650 miles per second (3,000 times the speed of sound).
Even if kids get relatively lightweight gifts, like a two-pound box of Legos, the sleigh is very heavy, weighing about 321,300 tons. Santa would need 214,200 conventional reindeer to pull this size sleigh.

Add in Santa and all those reindeer, and the sleigh might weigh as much as 353,000 tons. Traveling at high speed, an object like this has massive air resistance. It's so much, in fact, that it's like what happens when a space ship reenters Earth's atmosphere. If it doesn't have a protective coating on it, it will burst into flames.

Spy concluded that Santa's reindeer would have made thundering sonic booms and then burst into flames almost instantaneously. They also said Santa himself would have been pinned to the back of the sleigh with a centrifugal force 17,500.06 times greater than gravity.

But this obviously hasn't happened. Christmas, and Santa, keep on coming. We can only conclude that they are either immune to the laws of physics or they all have on protective suits, not unlike the Space Shuttle and its astronauts.

The bottom line here is that Santa has managed to overcome a fairly shady past to achieve some magnificent feats.

Despite the fact that he's carrying some extra pounds--something that could easily happen to anyone who has endured centuries of scrutiny by the press and historians--he is able to travel much faster than the speed of sound.

We can really only hope that this generation of children behaves well enough, and appreciates Santa enough, to keep him on the straight and narrow. We've seen what happens when other celebrities fall off the wagon--or the sleigh, as the case may be.

That's something worth mentioning when you pass on this entirely true story to your favorite youngsters. Want to avoid the hurt of holidays past, and the sting of Black Peter's whip? It's up to you, kids. It's up to you.

How Did Christmas Cards Come To Be

How Did Christmas Cards Come To Be?

Henry Cole, an Englishman, was too busy to write personal greetings for Christmas 1843. Cole hired artist John Calcott Horsley to design a ready-to-be-sent card. The hand-colored card Horsley designed was lithographed on stiff, dark cardboard and featured adults and children raising wine glasses in a toast. The first Christmas card also had various religious symbols. Sprigs of holly symbolized chastity, while ivy symbolized places God had walked. Feeding and clothing the poor were also encouraged on the card's cover. Under the picture was written "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you." Printed in an edition of 1,000, Horsley's card was sold in London stores. Only one of those cards exists today. Two reasons for the initial popularity of Christmas cards are given: The custom may have caught on because greetings could be mailed for a penny each in 1843, London. The other reason is attributed to a scandal with Horsley's design. A family, surrounded with religious symbols, holding glasses of wine, offended some. The controversy is thought to have helped promote Cole's idea.

Louis Prang created the first American Christmas cards at his Boston factory in 1874.

American families sent and received an average of 28 Christmas cards each.

According to the Greeting Card Association, an industry trade group based in Washington, D.C., an estimated 2.1 billion paper Christmas cards will crisscross the country (United States) in 2002. Source: Butler Eagle, December 26, 2002.

In the Thomas Nast cartoon that first depicted Santa Claus with a sleigh and reindeer, he was delivering Christmas gifts to soldiers fighting in the U. S. Civil War. The cartoon, entitled "Santa Claus in Camp," appeared in Harper's Weekly on January 3, 1863. Source: WISR 680AM News Sheet