Christmas is a very special time of year to celebrate. Here are some fun facts about the holiday that you can share with your family and friends:
- Santa is having a hard time keeping up. This year, the US Postal service expects to help him by delivering over 200 million packages.
- The Montgomery Ward department store created Rudolph the Reindeer to help them market Christmas coloring books. However, the original Rudolph did not have a red nose. Back in those days, red noses were seen as an indicator of chronic alcoholism, and Montgomery Wards didn’t want him to look like a drunk!
- Thomas Edison created the first string of lights in 1880. He and his business partner, Edward H. Johnson, were the first to wrap a string of lights around a Christmas tree in 1882.
- Jingle Bells was the first song ever to be sung by astronauts in space. Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra did the singing on December 16, 1965.
- America’s first batch of eggnog was made in the Jamestown settlement, in 1607. In those days, rum was referred to as “grog”. The drink was first called “egg-n-grog”, and later it became known as eggnog.
- The Germans invented tinsel in 1610, and it was originally spun from real silver. Lead tinsel was later used for decades, until the US banned it in 1971. Don’t worry, all of our tinsel is now made of plastic.
- Bicycle, the US playing card company gave boxes of cards to POWs in Germany, during WWII, as Christmas presents. When those cards were soaked in water, they revealed an escape route. The Nazis never had a clue!
- Some say that Paul McCartney’s Christmas song is the worst song he ever recorded. But he still earns over $400,000 a year from it!
