Cool historical christmas facts

I can't help it... 

I'm fact freak.

These few things I've picked up along the way in research of Christmas.

The Biggest Christmas Present in History

 

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I thought this fact was cool.  

​It is common knowledge the Statue of Liberty was a gift from the France to the United States, but I didn't realize it was a Christmas gift, thus making it the largest present ever given.

Santa claus was real

To even write that makes me laugh, because as I child I never once for a split second thought that Santa Claus was real. My parents were hard core Christians and I grew up knowing it was all about the birth of Jesus, so for me to write this is a hoot.  As a boy I had to be told not to tell my cousins that Santa was a hoax, cause I'd get on my soap box and let the cat out of the bag and make a lot of kids cry. LOL!

​I knew he was based on living person. I just never really cared much, but the truth is he was based on a real person who happened to be a saint. He lived many moons ago in 300 AD in Myra which is now Turkey.  

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The coolest santa ever!

Male model Chris Nicols, aka Paul Mason is the face for Toronto's luxury Yorkdale Mall. They completely revamped the image of Santa, and turned him into the coolest icon ever. Santa was completely dressed from head to toe Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry and Givenchy making Santa a modern billionaire, cool and living the dream.  

Cool facts on Christmas Trees

The first decorated Christmas Tree

I found this interesting. It is reported the first person to decorate and light a tree was non other than great protestant church reformist, Martin Luther.  (1483-1546) He spent much of his time out with the stars talking to God. He said one night the stars twinkled from behind the branches of fir tree, it was so mesmorizing he wanted to recreate that look for his children at home and so he used candels to show them the beautiful sight that he had seen.  

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Real or not?

It takes 15 years for a fresh Christmas tree to reach the desired hight to be sold each Christmas.  

I remember as a kid seeing the weird colored aluminum Christmas trees. Now there are beautiful fiber-optic, illuminated Christmas trees. The Green Movement has apparently been around for awhile. Many cultures have had great respect for trees and woudn't think of cutting them down for a day's celebration. These cultures think it is bad luck to cut down a tree and then bring its dying body into the house, soooo...artificial ones were used as far back as the 19th century.

Germany has it's roots in Druidism. The Druids worshiped the trees, so they were one of the cultures that did not cut down trees. They created them out of wooden tree-shaped pyramids or with large dyed goose feathers fastened to it with wires. Don't discount its looks. The ancients were quite the artisans and although a feathered tree paints rather primative images...I bet it was quite beautiful.  

​History of candy canes

Everything has history including the candy cane. This peppermint candy was first created in Europe in 1670. It didn't appear in the United States til more than 100 years later. It was a Christian symbol handed out at churches representing the shepherd staff of Christ.They were made white for Christ's purity and red for his sacrifice. They didn't catch on in America until the 1800's.

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What's with the stockings?

Back in the day women came with dowrys, which was money  the bride's father paid a man for marrying his daughter. Men married for money, and women who were poor most likely remained single. Legend has it there were three sisters born to impoverished parents, and they knew their situation would never allow them to marry. One Christmas Eve the 3 sisters while doing their laundry were crying because they knew no man would want them without a dowry. They were so poor they only had one pair of stockings each. That evening they hung them on the chimney to dry. It is told that St. Nicholas knew their desperate situation and put a sack of gold in each of their stockings. Each girl awoke to find they had been given 2 bags of gold each, one to provide for a handsome dowry and the other to provide handsomely for their family.

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The 12 days of christmas

If you added all the gifts up from the 12 days of Christmas you would equal 364 gifts.  
​I could live with that.

Jingle bells wasnt written as  a Christmas carol

Yup...it's true. It was composed by James Pierpont in 1857. He wrote it to be sang at Thanksgiving.  Mr. Pierpont didn't factor in singing wasn't a part of the Thanksgiving festivities, so no one sang his song. Fortunately for him Christmas was right around the corner, and there he found the song's market and niche. He originally called it, 'One Horse Open Sleigh'. 'Jingle Bells' was an apparent afterthought. I would have thought that would have been the most obvious name for the song. Duh.

Christmas was once creepy

It's hard to believe the most loving and peaceful time on earth was once celebrated with horror stories by the fireplace, but it was. Less than 100 years ago, Christmas was as creepy as Halloween. Although Charles Dickens' 'Christmas Carol' happened on Christmas Eve, it's a classic ghost story.  Christmas Eve during that time was filled with stories of goblins, witches and ghosts that would threaten to kidnap them. The tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve predates the Victorian Era. Stories like 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' were told before the family went to bed.

Nope.  Give me little baby Jesus. I'm good.
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Is Jesus' actual birthday December 25?

  

Nope... I hate to break it to you, but Jesus wasn't born December 25th. Both modern scholars as well as scholars of antiquity agree Jesus indeed existed and he was born in 1 AD.  Where the disagreement lies is upon the month. Some lean to the Fall while others lean toward Spring.  According to my research the star of Bethlehem was seen from around the world for 9 months.  There is extensive astrological documentation by respected astronomers available to back the records with great detail of this heavenly event. It seems the star gleamed brighter each day as Christ's birth approached, and it was at its zenith on April 10, 1 AD. Records show the star dissappeared from the sky on the next day never to shine like that again. I don't know about you, but that screams Jesus' birth to me.  It had served its purpose guiding the magi to the Christ child. The reason the star disappeared after their arrival was Herod wanted the babe dead, and that star would have been a tracking device for the king. The verdict is still out as to the time of year the child was born some feeling it may have been closer to the season when we celebrate Easter and His death and resurrection. There is debate as to the season of Easter as well, which I will discuss closer to Easter. The most important thing to remember is He came born as a child to become the Saviour and resurrected after His crucifixion.

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The skinny on the subject of ad & bc

If asked the question what the initals BC & AD mean...  

Most people would say BC means before Christ, which is correct and that AD means after his death which isn't exactly right.  

AD is Latin for Anno Domini, meaning 'in the year of our Lord'.   Jesus altered human history and at his birth our calander structure was marked by his birth. Our calendar began the year Jesus was born and was marked with 1 AD meaning the first year of our Lord.  

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So do you know the exact number of years since Jesus was born?

The answer is much easier than one would assume.

To figure out the exact number of years ago when Jesus was born remember Jesus' birth marked year one.  1 AD marks the first year of our Lord.

So if 700 BC would mean 700 years before Christ was born.
While 2000 AD would mean 2000 years after Christ was born.  

So as I am writing this it is the 2016 AD which means that it has been 2016 years since Christ was born. That we know for a fact.

If you asked most people, even those well-versed in the Bible would fail to give the right answer when asked how many years ago was Jesus born. Your answers would range, give or take a thousand years or so when the answer is right under their nose.  Our present year is how long ago  Jesus was born.

Christmas was recognized as the birth of Christ 350 years after he was born

In 350 AD Pope Julius 1, bishop of Rome proclaimed December 25th as the official date of Christ's birth. The catholic church's mission was to overtake every pagan belief in the world at the time which was the universal belief system. The church set up residence right in the center of Rome, which was filled with occultic mystisim steeped in debauchery. Romans had commemerated December 25th as a sacred holiday as the birthdate of their god celebrating it for several hundred years. The church iniated a plan of diversion sending their missionaries to the people still allowing their revelry, but guiseing it under the worship of Jesus. It took many years of tireless and forceful application putting Jesus's birth at the center of their celebrations held on December 25th. In 350AD there was a serious situation. The birthday of the gods the Romans were honoring were those who glamourize lustful and immoral behavior. It was the time of the original Marti Gra and the city errupted in sin and the church knew it was their duty to extinguish it. They  couldn't get them to stop. Pope Julius 1 got the ball rolling to lay out thier plans to eliminate the belief structure of the perverted pagan ways. Eventually the catholic church gave in and allowed them to celebrate. They just gave them the new and glorious name of God. 

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A Big Christmas Misconception

Modern Americans have romanticized Christmas has surely been celebrated for 200 plus years. Most would think surely the colonists and pilgrims celebrated the holy holiday when that is far from the truth.

December 25th, 1776 congress was in session. Christmas had still been shunned by the beliefs of the Puritans which most of the founding father's came from. The colonists thought of Christmas as a time of ghosts and hauntings and was a time meant to entertain children.  In reality because it was an old world holiday Christmas was considered  unpatriotic. 

for 94 years America had one holiday, July 4th

Aparently the founding fathers were so busy setting up our new goverment they failed to remember to lay out holidays for the people to celebrate nationally. The country had gone 94 years before someone in the establishment realized there were no national holidays.   When the colonists left England, they left their traditions behind and never replaced them until President Ulysses Grant. So the country went through 18 presidents and no holidays. To put this into prespective in history, President Grant served 5 years after President Lincoln. This was the tale-end of the antebellum era, Charles Dickens had changed the course of Christmas in 1843, reinventing the way Christmas was to be felt in the hearts of men. Charles Dickens had already established 30 years of popular momentum after being published, bringing Christmas back into fashion for it to be officially accepted as a national holiday on June 26, 1870. 

Note: The greeting "Merry Christmas" came from a passage in Charles Dickens' 'The Christmas Carol'.  

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How did Scrooge get his name?

Charles Dickens came up with the name by combining the words screw and gouge. To Dickens Scrooge sounded like 'crude'. Ebenezer came about because it reminded him of Nebuchadnezzar, which of course was a king and had power. He also liked Ebenezer because it sounded like the word squeeze, which Scrooge was known to do. Ebenezer also sounded like the word old geezer in which all of those connotations leant toward the character.

Scrooge sketches

I thought it was cool to discover Dickens knew from the beginning he had created a timeless masterpiece, and because of it he wanted the book done with excessive illustrations. His publisher was not big on the idea due to costs, but he still forged ahead with making it into a beautiful book. His illustrator was cartoonist, Blah blah, who was also one of his closest friends, so together they created images Dickens for Dickens approval. Scrooge was  portrayed exactly as he had evisioned him.

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Humbugs are real

"Bah! Humbug!" Ebenezer Scrooge
A humbug is a person or an object that behaves in a deceptive or dishonet way often as a hoax or in jest. The term was first discribed in 1751 as student slang. If you refer to a person as a humbug, you are inferring they are an imposter or fraud. So when Scrooge bit back with "Bah! Humbug!" he was making the statement that Christmas was a fraud.

Humbug and the wizard of oz

Frank Baum used the word 'humbug' quite a bit in The Wizard of Oz in which the scarecrow refered to the wizard as a humbug and the wizard
​agreed.

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Alabama was the first State to jump on the christmas train

Christmas was recognized as a national holiday in 1870, but the great state of Alabama was the first state to officially recoginize Christmas as holiday in 1836. 

The last state to recognize Christmas surprised me, because it is my state and they are so tried and true here, but they are a working peeps, so maybe they were too busy to worry about a holiday.

​Oklahoma was the last state to declare Christmas a legal holiday in 1907, which was 37 after years it had been declared a national holiday by Congress. 
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Real life christmas crushers

The constant war on christmas

The puritans hated christmas

Believe it or not Puritans everywhere took issue with this holiday, regardless of it being centered around their Lord. What they took arms to was the reveling and lasciviousness that took place on that day of the year. Puritan's believed that those who celebrated Christmas were the enemy of the Christian religion. Puritan's ruled the New England States, and had fled England because of their radical religious beliefs of purity. This was long before the colonies declared their Indepence from the king. During that time America's little provinces and villages were all Puritan, and those that weren't were persecuted. This was the era of witch burnings...so those who were not Puritan feared for their lives in many places if they were seen defying the Puritan church. Back in England the Puritans were not allowed the liberties of burning at the stake as they were in New England. They were the law of that land...judge and jury. First offenders would be taxed with shillings, second offences would be much costlier.   

The Puritans despised anything that involved pleasure, for they believed it would lead you to being one step away from Satan. They knew Christmas had always been a coverup for much carousing and they hated it. 

In England Christmas celebrations including caroling was outlawed by the British Parliment headed by Puritan Olver Cromwell from 1649-1660.

The American Puritans banned all celebrations from 1659-1660. As you can see the two organizations stayed in close contact with each other indicated by the outlaw ban they administered.

There was such a thing as a natzi cristmas

Hitler went beyond being narcissistic when he tried to make himself the reason the season. Yup, he really did it.  He took Jesus out of the element and put himself in it. He outlawed all religious displays and swastikas were encouraged to hang from their trees or used as the tree topping star, and there were countless people who did it.







Authentic war time WWII ornaments.

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The Weird different foods of Christmas

the christmas royal menu

Since midevil times English nobility had been served a roasted boar's head as the centerpiece of their Christmas festivities. in the 1700's Roast swan became the centerpiece of their Christmas meals until 1851 until it has been replaced by roast turkey which is still served today. 

In Japan KFC is all the rage for a Christmas meals. 40 years ago KFC launched a marketing campaign so strong that KFC is now the staple Christmas dinner served. It is so popular that Christmas meals are ordered 2 months in advance. 

Christmas in Japan

KFC, Champagne, wine and strawberry short cakes

I don't know what kind of whammy KFC pulled on the Japanese peeps, but apparently 40 years ago they launched a marketing plan that convinced all of Japan that it was cool to eat KFC on Christmas Day and the whole country bought into it, AND THE CRAZY THING IS THEY DON'T EVEN CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS!  They just do it because they've been told that is what American's serve on Christmas day.  Yeah... poor ones.  LMBO~!!!

So they have the whole country of Japan believing  they need to celebrate a holiday that they know nothing about with their chicken and then top it off with their dessert which is the All American  strawberry shortcake served with a Pepsi and that  completes the whole 'American Christmas' dinner experience.  40 years ago KFC ran with the campaign slogan of, 'Kurisumau ni wa kentakkii! meaning,  'Have a Kentucky Christmas!' and Japan litterally ate it up! The Japanese serve wine, champagne with their KFC and strawberry shortcakes.  They are even encouraged to breakout the bubbly in the restaurants. 

Here in the states, I don't even know if they are open on Christmas day, but in Japan they are packed to the hilt with people waiting for hours to pick up their meals. Orders are taken for Christmas meals 2 months in advance.  

Iceland

The Icelandic pay no reverence to the legends of Santa as they serve roasted reindeer. Puffers really? First of all they are freaking cute as heck and then they are little birds and probably have as much meat on them as a pigeon. I mean how hungry do you got to be to snuff out one of these cute little critters just to eat it? Its Iceland wake up!  You ain't starving. I know ya'll got an Adi's out there!  Please stop eating puffers! You are just looking heartless!  Side note.  Iceland also has the tradition of gift giving to their young, instead of Santa Claus they have the legend of the Yule Lads, which are nature spirits that climb through childrens windows on Christmas Eve and either leave treats in their shoes or a rotting potatoe.

MERRY FREAKING CHRISTMAS KID!

​Note: It says it's a rotting potato, which means its worse than a rotten potatoe, because a rotting potato implys that it is continuing on its course to decompose, so really?  Your going to cultivate a rotten potatoe just to put it in ta kids shoe.  I don't care how bad the kids been lately, that's just straight cold hearted ICELAND.  At least a piece of coal would keep the kid warm.
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Slovakia

The Eastern Europeans love carp, so for festive occassions women make suerkraut soup and fried carp. For some reason it is served very much cooked like lobsters are cooked here in America and must be killed upon preperation, so the carp are kept live in a bath of water until its time to cook it.  
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egypt

All it takes to get an Egyptian in the mood for a holiday is serve them lamb with rice, bread and garlic.
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CHINA

China doesn't celebrate Christmas, but does exchange a gift with friends to mark the holiday.  Everyone gives each other a cellophane0-wrapped apple simply because the word for apple sounds like 'Christmas Eve' in Chineese. ​

Peru

Peruvians love turkey and hot chocolate. Chocolate is a delecacy that flows in abundance on Christmas, in fact Peruvians have festivlties called 'Chocolatadas' where poor children are looked after and given luxuries like all the chocolate they could eat along with other candies, sweets and toys.  


((Look and listen ICELAND.))