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Christmas Facts
Boxing Day
December26,
was traditionally known as St. Stephen's Day, but
is more commonly known as Boxing Day. This
expression came about because money was collected
in alms-boxes placed in churches during the
festive season. This money was then
distributed to the poor and needy after
Christmas.
Holly
The
sharply pointed leaves were to symbolize the
thorns in Christ's crown and the red berries drops
of his blood. Holly became a nativity tradition.
Lump of Coal
According
to tradition, giving a lump of coal in
the stockings of naughty children comes from
Italy.
Merry Christmas
Some priests in Australia advise you to say
"Happy Christmas" instead of "Merry
Christmas", because Merry has connotations of
getting drunk- which brings it's own problems.
Poinsettias
Poinsettias
were attached to Christmas starting in 1828. Joel
Roberts Poinsett, then the first Mexican
ambassador from the United States, imported the
plant from Mexico.
Presents The
tradition of gifts seems to have started with the
gifts that the wise men brought to
Jesus. The
exchanging of gifts between people started in
about the 1800's.
Royalty
In 1834, Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert
brought the first Christmas tree to Windsor Castle
for the Royal Family.
Reindeer
The reindeer probably came from stories of the
Norse God Woden who rode through the sky with
reindeer and 42 ghostly huntsmen. Clement
Moore's famous poem A Visit from St. Nicholas (T'was
the Night Before Christmas) sealed the image of
Santa Claus, his reindeer and the magical flying
sleigh loaded with sacks of presents.
Rudolph
Rudolph the
Red Nosed Reindeer was created in 1939 by a 34
year old copywriter named Robert L. May, who came
up with a poem about a misfit reindeer at the
request of his employer, Chicago based Montgomery
Ward ,for a Christmas story they could use as a
store promotional gimmick.
The Montgomery Ward store had been buying
preprinted coloring books and giving them
away at Christmas every year, and the thought of
creating their own would save them a lot of
money. May, who had a knack for writing
children's stories and limericks, was asked to
create the booklet.
Drawing in part on the tale of The Ugly Duckling
and his own background ( he was often taunted as a
child for being shy, small and slight), settled on
the idea of an underdog, teased by the reindeer
community because of his physical
abnormality: a glowing red nose.
Looking for an alliterative name, May considered
and rejected Rollo (too cheerful) and Reginald
(too British) before deciding on Rudolph. He
then proceeded to write Rudolph's story in verse,
as a series of rhyming couplets, testing it out on
his 4-year-old daughter as he went along.
Although his daughter was thrilled with Rudolph's
story, May's boss was worried that a story
featuring a red nose- an image associated with
drinking and drunkards- was unsuitable for a
Christmas tale. May responded by taking
Denver Gillen, a friend from Montgomery Ward's art
department, to the Lincoln Park Zoo to sketch some
deer. Gillen's illustrations of a red-nosed
reindeer overcame the hesitancy of May's boss, and
the Rudolph story was approved. Montgomery
Ward distributed 2.4 million copies of the Rudolph
booklet in 1939, and although wartime paper
shortages stopped printing for the next several
years, a total of 6 million copies had been given
away by the end of 1946.
The post-war demand for licensing the Rudolph
character was tremendous, but since May had
created the story as an employee of Montgomery
Ward, they held the copyright and he received no
royalties. Deeply in debt from the medical
bills resulting from his wife's terminal illness
(she died about the time May created Rudolph), May
persuaded Montgomery Ward's corporate president,
Sewell Avery, to turn the copyright over to him in
January 1947. With the rights to his
creation in hand, May's financial security was
assured. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer" was printed commercially in 1947
and shown in theatres as a nine minute cartoon the
following year. The Rudolph phenomenon
really took off, when May's brother-in-law,
songwriter Johnny Marks, developed the
lyrics and melody for a Rudolph song. Marks'
musical version of "Rudolph", recorded
by Gene Autry in 1949, sold two million copies
that year and went on to become one of the best
selling songs of all time, second only to
"White Christmas." The TV special
about Rudolph narrated by Burl Ives was produced
in 1964 and remains a popular holiday favorite.
May quit his copywriting job in 1951 and spent
seven years managing his creation before returning
to Montgomery Ward, where he worked until his
retirement in 1971. May died in 1976,
comfortable in the life his reindeer creation had
provided for him.
Santa
Claus
The original
Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, was born in Turkey in
the 4th century. He was very pious from an
early age, devoting his life to
Christianity. He became widely known for his
generosity for the poor. At the time, the
Romans held him in contempt. He was
imprisoned and tortured. When Constantine
became emperor of Rome, he allowed Nicholas to go
free. Constantine became a Christian and
convened the Council of Nicaea in 325.
Nicholas was delegate to the council. He is
especially noted for his love of children and for
his generosity. He is the patron saint of
sailors. He is also of course, the patron
saint of children. The Dutch kept the legend
of St. Nicholas alive. In the 16th century
Holland, Dutch children would place their wooden
shoes by the hearth in hopes that they would be
filled with a treat. The Dutch spelled St.
Nicholas as Sint Nikolaas, which became corrupted
to Sinterklaas, and finally, in Anglican, to Santa
Claus. The image of Santa was originally a
man in a long brown robe and furs carrying a
cross and wine flask with a holly crown on
his head. In 1885, a Boston printer, Louis
Prang, first devised the red-suited Santa and this
theme was later developed by the Coca Cola
advertising artist Haddon Sundblom in the
1930'sThis produced the modern image
of a jolly character in a red suit trimmed with
white fur. "Silent
Night"
In 1818, an Austrian priest Joseph Mohr, was told
the day before Christmas, that the church organ
was broken and would not be prepared in time for
Christmas Eve. He was saddened by this and
could not think of Christmas without music.
He wanted to write a carol that could be sung by a
choir to guitar music. He sat down and wrote
three stanzas. Later that night, the people
in the little Austrian Church sang "Stille
Nacht" (Silent Night) for the first time.
Stockings
hanging on your mantel...
According
to tradition, Saint Nicholas
left his very first gifts of gold coins in the
stockings of three poor girls who needed the money
for their wedding dowries. The girls had hung
their stockings by the fire to dry.
The tradition has modified itself, from gag gifts
, to small inexpensive but useful gifts.
The
Candy Cane
In the late
1800's, a candy maker in Indiana wanted to express
the meaning of Christmas through a symbol made of
candy. He invented the idea of bending one
of his white candy sticks into the shape of a
Candy Cane. He incorporated several symbols
of Christ's love and sacrifice through the Candy
Cane. First, he used a plain white
peppermint stick. The color white symbolizes
the purity and sinless nature of Jesus.
Next, he added three small stripes to symbolize
the pain inflicted upon Jesus before His death on
the cross. There are three of them to
represent the Holy Trinity. He added a bold
stripe to represent the blood Jesus shed for
mankind. When looked at with the crook on
top, it looks like a shepherd's staff because
Jesus is the shepherd of man. If you turn it
upside down, it becomes the letter J symbolizing
the first letter in Jesus' name. The candy
maker made these Candy Canes for Christmas, so
everyone would remember what Christmas is all
about. The
Cracker
Tom Smith who
owned a sweet shop in London was the originator of
the cracker. In the 1840's, while Tom was in
France, he discovered a variety of sweets wrapped
in a twist of paper that gave him an idea .
These bonbons were popular, so Tom decided to copy
them. When Tom noticed that young men were
buying them to give to their sweethearts, he began
to place "love mottoes" on small slips
of paper inside the sweet wrapping.
In 1846, Tom's thoughts turned towards
Christmas. Instead of sweets, he thought he
would place toys and novelties inside the twisted
wrapping. He experimented with this and
invented the idea of producing a wrapping that
could be pulled apart- just like the cracker as we
know it today! The
Christmas Tree
The Christmas
Tree originated in Germany in the 16th
century. It was common for the Germanic
people to decorate fir trees, both inside and out,
with roses, apples, and colored paper. (The
first printed reference to it was in Germany in
1531.) "The
Night Before Christmas"
In 1822,
Clement C. Moore composed his famous poem, "
A Visit from St. Nick" which was later
published as "The Night Before
Christmas." Moore is credited with
creating the modern image of Santa Claus as a
jolly fat man in a red suit. The
word Xmas
This
abbreviation for Christmas is of Greek
origin. The word for Christ in Greek
is Xristos. X is also the letter Chi
which is the first letter of Christ's name
in the Greek alphabet. During the 16th century,
Europeans began using the first initial of
Christ's name, "X" in place of the word
Christ in Christmas as a shorthand form of the
word. Although the early Christians
understood that X stood for Christ's name, later
Christians who did not understand the Greek
language mistook "Xmas" as a sign of
disrespect. Unfortunately, some people of
today use it as a disrespectful word on
purpose. It is unfortunate. |
