CHRISTMAS TRIVIA

 

• The first commercial Christmas card sold was designed by London artist John Calcott Horsley. He was hired by a wealthy British man to design a card that showed people feeding and clothing the poor with another picture of a Christmas party. The first Christmas card said, "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you." Of the original one thousand cards he printed for Henry Cole, only twelve exist today.
• The first president to decorate the white house Christmas tree in the United States was Franklin Pierce.
• The first printed reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.
• The first reindeer Santa mentioned in The Night Before Christmas is Dasher
• The first US state to recognize the Christmas holiday officially was Alabama.
• The four ghosts in Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" were the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Yet to Come, and the ghost of Jacob Marley.
• The green Grinch stole Christmas in Whoville and also used his dog as a substitute for reindeer
• The holiday drink Egg Nog contains sugar, milk, and eggs
• The holly's symbolic meaning to Christians is that the berries are symbolic of Christ's blood, and the thorny leaves suggest the thorns in His crown.
• The last ghost in A Christmas Carol is called The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
• The Little Drummer Boy gave a song on his drum to the Christ Child
• The Littlest Angel did not wear his halo correctly
• The modern Christmas custom of displaying a wreath on the front door of one's house, is borrowed from ancient Rome's New Year's celebrations. Romans wished each other "good health" by exchanging branches of evergreens. They called these gifts strenae after Strenia, the goddess of health. It became the custom to bend these branches into a ring and display them on doorways.
• The most famous Christmas ballet is the Nutcracker
• The movie "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000) features more than 52,000 Christmas lights, about 8,200 Christmas ornaments, and nearly 2,000 candy canes.
• The name of Santa Claus not used at all in "The Night Before Christmas"
• The name of the little girl in most versions of The Nutcracker is Clara.
• The New York Sun assured a reader: "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus?" A famous editorial on Sept. 21, 1897, by Francis P. Church answered a letter by 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon. The paper ceased publication in 1950.