As the Christmas season is fast approaching, I thought it might be interesting to delve into the history of the holidays. It turns out that there are many myths, false tales, and little known facts about the Christmas
holiday and I thought I would share some of these. I present to you 12 things you (probably) didn't know about Christmas, in no particular order.
1) The tradition of Santa being pulled by reindeer begain in the 19th century when a group of people moved from Norway to Alaska with a herd of reindeer, who were later used to pull sleds with Santa on them for an advertising campaign.
2) Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer was invented in 1939 by a man working for a department store, previous to this there had only been 8 reindeer.
3) In North American tradition, Santa Claus lives at the North Pole. However, in Denmark folklore he lives on Greenland, and each country on the Scandinavian peninsula has an area in which he is told to reside.
4) The X in the abbreviation X-mas is derived from the Greek letter Chi which is the first letter of Christ's name in the Greek alphabet, rather than an attempt to remove the religious aspect of the holiday as some believe.
5) Although the birth of Jesus is celebrated on Christmas, it is cloudy as to whether he was actually born on December the 25th or not. This date was chosen to give Christian meaning to existing pagan rituals.
To read the full, original article click on this link: 12 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Christmas - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com
Author: Dan Peach
