General: 30+ Fun Christmas Facts ...

We share 37 fun facts about Christmas.

Today is Christmas Eve and here at the Kung Fu Drafter and thus the time of the year when we turn our attentions to more festive activities. We have got the stocking hung under the HDTV with care and the Kung Fu Dog is ready for his Christmas treat. With that kind of preparation, the last thing on our list is to share 37 fun Christmas-related facts with our readers. So go grab one those cookies the kids made for Santa, sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labors.

1. The first electric lights used to decorate Christmas trees appeared in 1895
2. Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol” was written in only six weeks during 1843
3. Christmas did not become a national holiday in the United States until 1870
4. In the late 1930’s, as part of a holiday promotion, Montgomery Ward department store introduced "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" to the public
5. Christmas is the “first day of Christmas”
6. Alabama was the first state to officially recognize Christmas as a state holiday
7. In Finland, Santa is known as “Joulupukki”
8. Austria issued the first official postage stamp to commemorate Christmas in 1937.
9. In Hungary, the Christmas meal cannot be served until a twinkling star is seen in the sky.
10. Department store retail sales in December 2007 topped $30 billion
11. The “12 Days of Christmas” ends on January 5^th.
12. The popular Christmas beverage, eggnog, was first made in America
13. The world’s largest exporter of Christmas trees is Canada
14. In 1610 threads made of stretched silver were used to first decorate German Christmas trees with “tinsel”
15. Bin Crosby’s "White Christmas," was released in 1942
16. In the U.S there are more than 10,000 farms where you can cut down your own Christmas trees
17. The average American household will send and receive 28 Christmas cards each year
18. “Bah Christmas” was Charles Dickens' original idea for Scrooge's trademark statement in “A Christmas Carol”
19. In Germany Christmas trees have been popular as far back as the sixteenth century
20. In the U.S. shoppers will a Visa credit card 5,340 times per minute on average
21. Five years after the company was founded, Hallmark introduced its first Christmas cards in 1915
22. The traditional Christmas decoration in Sweden is a small straw goat called the “Julbock”
23. Christmas shoppers will purchase 31% of all diamonds sold annually.
24. In Scandinavia a variety of Christmas gnomes replace Santa Clause as the giver of gifts
25. In Italy a kind witch known as La Befana replaces Santa Clause
26. The earliest known references to Christmas trees appear in German prints dating to 1531
27. Eastern Europeans were permitted to celebrate their first Christmas openly in 1989
28. In the U.S. more than three billion Christmas cards are sent annually
29. In Syria Christmas gifts are brought by the smallest of the Wise Men's camels
30. Toys for Tots was founded in 1947 to collect toys for needy children
31. In the Pacific Ocean there is a island names “The Christmas Island”, formerly known as Kiritimati
32. Christmas was outlawed by Parliament in 1647
33. Americans buy 37.1 million “real” Christmas trees annually according to the National Christmas Tree Association
34. In the Ukraine families decorate Christmas trees and include an artificial spider and web for luck
35. In 1907, Oklahoma was the last U.S. state to declare Christmas a state holiday
36. Mince pies have been a Christmas tradition since the 16th century
37. Queen Elizabeth's first Christmas message to Britain was televised on December 25, 1957

We hope that you have enjoyed our little list of holiday factoids. Have some fun and whip out a few of those tomorrow at Christmas dinner. Trust us, these will go over way better than those jokes that your crazy Uncle Harold likes to tell when your aunt isn’t looking. As for us, well we still have shopping to do. Which means if the stores close early, then this post is all that lots of our friends will be getting for Christmas this year …

- KFD -