The Top 50 Amazing-but-True Holiday Facts for 2007

[Elphaba]

Posted: 12/26/07 at 10:33pm

(take this all with a grain of salt...sent to me by a Florida librarian)


Broken ornaments cause an average of 150,000 stitches in emergency rooms between December 24-26.

"O Christmas Tree" was originally a love song, written by German composer Otto Krupf as an ode to his lover, Fritz Tannenbaum.

Prior to the birth of Christ, various cultures celebrated December 25th as Faeriemas, Gloggtag and St. Charmin's Day.

Every time somebody says "Rockefeller Center Christmas tree," Senator Jay Rockefeller earns five cents in royalties.

If all the holiday lights on Earth were joined end to end in a single strand, the entire globe could be wrapped like a giant glittering Christmas ball, and that ball would actually outshine the sun.

Mrs. Claus is Jewish.

Contrary to the rosy picture painted by the song, the little drummer boy was in fact taken behind the manger and beaten by the three wise men for repeatedly making the baby Jesus burst into tears with his loud drumming.

For the first time in history, Santa Claus is being forced to relocate his North Pole headquarters. The reason? Global warming. The irony is that global warming is rapidly accelerating due to a small percentage of Americans who insist on decorating their homes with tens of thousands of Christmas lights.

Stuffing a turkey dates back to ancient China when children would hide their holiday opium in the body cavities of animals to keep their parents from finding it.

For decades, the least-productive workshop elf became the roasted centerpiece of the post-Christmas feast, complete with a plum in his mouth. That tradition was done away with in recent years when it was deemed politically incorrect.

Although the popular song, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," is meant to be whimsical, 20-30 people are tragically killed every year in reindeer collisions -- more than half of them elderly women.

The Norwegian word for "fruitcake" translates literally to "delicacy of questionable sensibilities."

The white fur that trims the lapels, cuffs and hat on Santa's suit is made from genuine rare albino ermine winter coat.

There is a cluster of eastern Ohio townships which, during leap years (such as 200, eschew recognizing February 29th in favor of holding a day-long "January 0th" festival before actually starting the new year the next day. Subsequently, for the first two months of the year, they are one calendar day behind the rest of the country.

The only human to ever be awarded honorary status by Santa's elves is film composer and former Oingo Boingo front man Danny Elfman.

In 2006, three shopping-mall Santas suffered severe facial lacerations while using cats as beards.

Santa's Christmas Eve schedule now takes into account his mandatory TSA inspection upon entering the U.S., as well as airspace congestion over New York La Guardia, Chicago O'Hare and London Heathrow airports.

Poinsettias are in fact a powerful hallucinogenic. The rumor that they are poisonous was spread by the government to stop young people from smoking the plant's dried leaves.

The film "White Christmas" played to empty theaters in Harlem, as African-American residents there considered the title racist.

J. Edgar Hoover always insisted on playing Mary in his grade school Christmas plays.

Mrs. Claus only married Santa years after an unfortunate rooftop accident claimed the life of her original fiance, Santa's brother Herschel.

When Good King Wenceslaus went out, historians have proven that he took with him an ancient form of the current-day treat, cole slaw.

The legend of a ringing bell signifying that an angel has just earned its wings came about because of Angel Ramirez, a bartender at Manhattan's famous White Horse Tavern in the 1930s, who began the now-common practice of a bartender ringing a bell when given a tip considered to be exceptional.

In most of the world, dreidels spin clockwise, except in Israel, where they spin counter-clockwise.

Burl Ives was turned down as a possible actor for the role of Santa Claus on "Miracle on 34th Street" because producers considered him more creepy than jolly.

Played in reverse, the opening line of "A Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...") eerily predicts John Lennon's untimely demise.

Working for the Allies during World War II, Santa Claus lifted sensitive documents from the homes of Nazi officials each Christmas Eve.

Throughout the 1930s, Santa had a lucrative endorsement deal with Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Seventy-five percent of holiday plane crashes are caused by pilots mistaking for overly decorated neighborhood streets for airport runways.

Actress Holly Hunter was named in honor of her grandfather, a gatherer of wreath components.

The amount of energy released by a melting snowman is enough to power a typical Christmas tree's lights for 1.3 seconds.

All jingle bells are pitched in the key of G.

The Christmas classic "Silent Night" is impossible to translate into American Sign Language.

Despite his ongoing condemnation of the "War Against Christmas," political commentator Bill O'Reilly has a Festivus pole in his front yard.

Actual elves commonly grow to six feet or more in height, and one, Ron Topbuilder, was for a short while in 1964 on the roster of the NBA's New York Knicks.

"Ethanol," the hoped-for renewable fuel of the future, is named for the original Hebrew word for the Hanukkah oil that lasted for eight days, "Etan-El."

Jazz great Buddy Rich played one of the drummers drumming in his kindergarten Christmas pageant.

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" was originally thirteen days. Superstition resulted in the modern version leaving off the verse about "thirteen broken mirrors."

Due to time constraints and the ever-growing population, much of the Asian segment of Santa's gift-delivery route these days is out-sourced to a firm in Mumbai.

Nowhere in the Talmud is Hanukkah spelled the same way twice.

The traditional Norwegian version of Santa Claus is the portly, purple-suited elf Lared Az, whose name eventually made its way into colloquial English.

During the long, cold Decembers of the Great Depression, many parents encouraged their kids to misbehave because they needed the coal.

The Christmas tree tradition was started in 1852 to commemorate the death President Millard Fillmore's infant son, who died when a large pine tree fell on his house on Christmas morning.

The well-know "Physics of Santa" article was actually authored by Professor Stephen Hawking of Oxford University. He awoke one night in a trance-like state, completely able to speak and gesture, and began to relate the "Physics" in a rapid manner, lapsing back into sleep moments afterward. His night nurse quickly transcribed the entire one-sided conversation and submitted it to Hawking's Graduate Assistant the following morning. Hawking now claims to have no recollection of the nocturnal event.

Mrs. Claus was once a runner-up for Miss North Pole, but lost to Miss Finland.

Roasting chestnuts on an open fire can produce noxious gases -- and if Congress passes a bill that is currently in committee, the practice would require special permit issuance in all states but Montana and Utah.

The names of seven of Santa's reindeer in "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" originate from an ancient Pagan chant; "Blitzen" was an in-joke, as it was the derisive nickname given the poem's author, Clement Clarke Moore, who often drank himself into a stupor at the Blixem Public House.

South Pole elves are forbidden by law to marry North Pole elves.

The holiday wreath tradition began in Old Europe and initially had families of less-than-modest means bringing unwanted children to a forest and leave them there. However, when the population declined too rapidly, the tradition was abandoned and families began making wreaths so they'd have an excuse to continue visiting the forests in the dead of winter.

The region of Scandinavia known as Lapland is so named because the custom of taking children to see Santa originated there.