Fastfacts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Things you always never wanted to know
Christmas was once illegal in England. In 1643, the Puritans outlawed all Christmas celebrations, banned the keeping of Christmas trees, and made the singing of Christmas carols a crime. These laws were maintained until the Restoration. Many Puritans in New England also adhered to these regulations, curtailing Christmas festivities to such a degree that even the making of mince pies was forbidden.
In Holland, Santa does not fly around in a preposterous sleigh drawn by eight magical reindeer on Christmas Eve. Instead, jolly ol' Saint Nicholas rides a goat named "Ukko."
Dec. 13 is called the Feast of St. Lucia in Sweden. Early in the morning, the youngest daughter in the house dresses in a white robe with a red sash, and puts on a crown holding nine lighted candles. She then presents her family with coffee and cakes.
"Kwanzaa" is Swahili for "fresh fruits." The holiday is based on African harvest festival traditions.
That memorable, often commercialized ditty "Jingle Bells" was originally written as a Thanksgiving Day song.
In the 1823 story "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" (the basis for "The Night Before Christmas"), the names of the last two reindeer are not "Donner" and "Blitzen." Their original names are "Dunder" and "Blixem," the Dutch words for "thunder" and "lightning." That's right, we got the names of Santa's reindeer from the Dutch.
A menorah, a special nine-branched candelabrum, is also known in Hebrew as a "Hanukkiyyah."
Hannukah celebrates the victory of the Maccabees over the Greek-Syrian ruler, Antiochus, about 2200 years ago.
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was the invention of a copywriter, Robert L. May, in 1939 for a Montgomery Wards Christmas promotion.