Christmas is the time of year when everyone gets together to really appreciate each other and celebrate this festive period with gifts and food. Take a look below for 15 incredible and interesting facts about Christmas.
1. In Armenia, the traditional Christmas Eve meal consists of fried fish, lettuce and spinach. Many Armenians fast for a week before Christmas Eve, so the menu for the Christmas dinner is pretty light.
2. Japanese people traditionally eat at KFC for Christmas dinner as it’s the closest food to turkey that you can get in Japan – It’s so popular they usually have to have place their Christmas orders 2 months in advance!
3. The first artificial Christmas tree wasn’t a tree at all. It was created out of goose feathers that were dyed green – artificial trees were first developed in Germany in the 19th century due to major continuous deforestation.
4. “Jingle Bells” was originally a thanksgiving song – James Lord Pierpont wrote a song called ‘One Horse Open Sleigh’ which he performed at his church’s thanksgiving concert. It was then in 1857, that the song was re-published under ‘Jingle Bells’ and eventually became one of the most popular Christmas songs ever.
5. Santa Claus has different names around the world – Kriss Kringle in Germany, Le Befana in Italy, Pere Noel in France and Dushka Moroz (Grandfather Frost) in Russia.
6. There is a village in Peru where people settle the previous year’s grudges by fist fighting. They then start the near year off on a clean slate.
7. 4.25 million British people travel abroad for Christmas.
8. £700 million is spent on unwanted Christmas gifts. Make sure to spend your money wisely!
9. Around £18 billion is with withdrawn from UK cash machines over Christmas.
10. 3 billion Christmas cards are sent in the USA every year.
11. Around 230,000 tonnes of Christmas food is wasted and thrown away each year.
12. £48 million is spent on Christmas puddings by UK families.
13. Around 300 million mince pies are eaten over Christmas.
14. The worlds tallest Christmas tree was put up in a Washington shopping mall in 1950 – This tree reached 221ft high.
15. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that 14,700 people visit hospital emergency rooms each November and December from holiday-related decorating accidents.
