Holiday Facts You Never Knew

By: Jada Cooper 

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la. Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la." Almost everyone knows these iconic Christmas time lyrics. However, we'll bet you didn't know these 10 surprising things about Christmas!

1-Jingle Bells was once a Thanksgiving song! Yup! James Lord Pierpont first wrote a song called "One Horse Open Sleigh" for the Thanksgiving holiday. In 1857, the song was re-published as "Jingle Bells" and is now one of the most popular Christmas songs.

2-Every year, Christmas decorating send 15,000 people to the ER. Though decorating is all in good fun, people have been injured hanging lights outside, or simply making Christmas dinners. What's more, decorating cause about 100 fires, and 10 deaths.

3-America alone spends almost 720 billion dollars during Christmas time. Even though this may seem like an insanely large number, it makes lots of sense, considering the average american spends almost 1,000 on Christmas festivities.

4-The original Rudolf didn't have a red nose. When the original Rudolf was thought up, they designed him with a brown nose, because red noses were supposedly a sign of alcoholism. They also almost named him Reginald on Rollo!

5-"Jingle Bells" was the first song ever to be recorded by astronauts. Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra sung it in space on December 16, 1965.

6-Stockings have a weird background! The dutch used to leave shoes out with food for St.Nicholas' donkeys. We transitioned to stockings because of this story: A poor man with three daughters couldn't afford to have them married. So, one night, Santa dropped a bag of gold down the man's chimney so that his oldest daughter would be able to get married, and the bag fell into a stocking. What a strange story that started the tradition we know and love!

7-Santa can travel at super speed?! If Santa were to visit all the homes around the world in one night, he would have to hit 822 homes per second!

8-The traditional Christmas meal was not always a turkey. In fact, the traditional Christmas meal in England was mustard and a pig's head!

9-Christmas marks the birth of Jesus, but we don't actually know when he was born. There is no mention of December 25th in the bible, and most historians believe he was born in the spring. December 25th was most likely chosen because that was a day of an ancient pagan festival that was associated with partying and gift giving.

10-Last, but definitely not least; Santa Claus' story is a lot more complicated than you might of thought. Santa Claus comes from St. Nicholas, who was a Christian Bishop living in present day turkey around the 4th century. He inherited a LOT of money and was known for giving it to the poor. So, soon enough, he became known as the protector of children. After his death, his story spread quickly throughout Europe. St. Nicholas' name became Sint-Nicolaas in Dutch, or Sinterklaas for short, and after lots of years, and lots of translations, we know St. Nicholas as Santa Claus.

We hope you enjoyed learning this 10 interesting facts about this amazing holiday. Have a great rest of the holiday season and or as the famous holiday song suggests, " We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!"