8 Things You Definitely Didn’t Know About Christmas

Today is a day dedicated to sharing time, joy, and gifts with those we love most, but December 25 hasn’t always been that way.

Christmas was illegal

Between 1659 and 1681, showcasing your holiday spirit in Boston could cost you a fine; as much as five shillings, in fact. Christmas was considered such a trivial event in early America that Congress didn’t even bother to take the day off, which, led to its first meeting on Christmas Day, 1789. Nearly a century later, Congress proclaimed Christmas a federal holiday.

Kiss me, it’s Christmas!

According to Teutonic and Celtic legend, mistletoe is magical – it can increase fertility, heal wounds, ward off evil spirits, and bring good luck. The tradition of kissing underneath the mistletoe began during the Victorian era.

Christmas Literature

In 1819, Headless Horseman creator Washington Irving sketched the first image of Santa flying in a sleigh. Irving included the image in a series of short stories entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, in which Irving described a dream where St. Nicholas sailed across the sky in a weightless carriage. Irving’s stories became so popular that they spawned a Christmas revival – even Charles Dickens is rumored to have credited his stories as inspiration behind his classic tale A Christmas Carol.

NASA Christmas sighting

In 1965, two astronauts (Walter M. “Wally” Schirra, Jr. and Thomas P. Staffor) saw something they couldn’t identify on their way back to orbit. Frantically, they radioed mission control. Several minutes passed before engineers at Cape Canaveral began to hear the faint sound of jingle bells followed by a harmonica rendition of the famous Christmas carol “Jingle Bells,” played by the “frantic” astronauts themselves. The harmonica and bells now sit on display at the National Museum of Space & Aeronautics in Washington.

War on Christmas

Five months into the first World War, troops lined up along the western front on Christmas Eve began to sing carols to one another across the battlefield. On Christmas morning, German soldiers rose from the trenches and called out “Merry Christmas” and sent over beer to Allied troops.

You can thank the Germans for Christmas trees

Before Christianity arrived, the Germans decorated evergreen trees to brighten the gloomy, dark days of the winter solstice. In fact, the very first “Christmas trees” appeared in Strasbourg in the 17th century and then spread to Pennsylvania in the 1820s with the arrival of German immigrants. England adopted the tradition in 1840 when Queen Victoria wed Germany’s Prince Albert. Eight years later, an American newspaper ran a front-page photograph of the royal Christmas tree – and America followed suit.

Advertising Christmas

Just like the Energizer Bunny, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer got his start in showbiz as an advertising gimmick. Robert L. May created Rudolph in 1939 as a way to lure shoppers into the Montgomery Ward department store. Frosty the Snowman also fell victim to the advertising industry; in 1890, a whiskey maker used Frosty to showcase an entirely different kind of holiday cheer. When the prohibition era ended, Frosty became the poster-snowman for alcohol ads, appearing in posters for Jack Daniel’s, Miller beer, Ballantine ale, Schlitz beer, Oretel’s lager beer, Mount Whitney beer, Chivas Regal scotch, and Four Roses.

Christmas around the world

Christmas traditions vary from culture to culture. The Portuguese, for example, hold a feast on Christmas Day for the living and the dead (where place mats are set for the spirits of the deceased). In Greece, some believe that goblins – called kallikantzeri – run rabid during the 12 days of Christmas, and most Greeks wait until Jan. 1 to exchange gifts. New Zealanders and Australians enjoy Christmas on a sandy beach or at barbecues. Meanwhile, Spain is hosting the world’s largest lottery.

[Feature Image by A-Basler/Thinkstock]