Bishop Teague Of Nova Scotia Jurisdiction

Bishop Teague Of Nova Scotia Jurisdiction

Bishop Teague Of Nova Scotia Jurisdiction

You may know the important things about Christmas - sprung from Christiantiy, the season of giving, hope and joy (or, a time where you have to give and get presents), but do you know these facts? Quiz yourself with these funny trivia questions!

Fun Christmas Season Trivia and Facts

  • Although many mistake Christmas as being the day that Jesus was born, there's no evidence of that. Instead, it may have been chosen to correlate with the winter solstice, with a pagan winter festival, or even to be on the date that some early Christians believed Jesus was conceived.
  • The season surrounding Christmas is called Christmastide, running from sundown on December 24th to January 5 (also known as the Twelve Days of Christmas). In some places, people believe it is bad luck to keep decorations up after Christmastide.
  • Christmas actually comes from Middle and Old English words meaning "Christ's Mass." In Greek, the first letter of Christ is "X", which is where the abbreviation Xmas (or X-mas) comes from.
  • According to the National Christmas Tree Association, Americans buy 37.1 million real Christmas trees each year; 25 percent of them are from the nation's 5,000 choose-and-cut farms.
  • The first Christmas hymns we know of were sung in 4th century Rome.
  • The busiest day of the year for shopping in the United States is not the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) as most people think. Instead, it is usually the Saturday before Christmas, when both sales and customer traffic is at its highest point for the year.
  • The first national Christmas tree was lit in 1923 during Calvin Coolidge's presidency and is maintained outside of the White House. Although national Christmas trees used to be donated from around the nation, in 1973 living trees replaced donated cut trees, responding to environmental concerns. The same tree has been used as the national Christmas tree since 1977.
  • The tree was not lit for Christmas in 1979 and in 1980 was lit for 417 seconds. In 1979, it was not lit until the American hostages in Iran were released, and in 1980 it was lit one second for each day the hostages remained captive: this tree was first lit with solar energy in 1995, and LED lights were used for the first time in 2002
  • There are at least four nationally designated Christmas trees. These include the Christmas tree outside the White House, inside the White House (and, since 1966, donated by the National Christmas Tree Association), a tree in the West Front Lawn of the Capitol and the "Nation's Christmas Tree," a 270 foot giant sequoia designated by Congress as a national Christmas tree in 1926.
  • There are around 350 million Christmas trees currently growing on American farms alone.
  • One to three seedlings are planted the following spring for every one Christmas tree harvested.
  • The top Christmas tree producing states in order are Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Washington. Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec are the highest producing provinces in Canada.
  • The first "jingle" or singing commercial was played on Christmas Eve in 1926 in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The commercial was aired by General Mills for Wheaties and was called "Have You Tried Wheaties?" The group eventually became known as the Wheaties Quartet and continued singing together for years.
  • St. Nicholas lived in the south of modern-day Turkey as the bishop of Myra, a town in the region Lycia. He was known to give secret gifts, like leaving coins in shoes left outside. Nearly a thousand years after the saint's bones had been removed from his gravesite, the government of Turkey formally requested the return of his bones from the Italian government.
  • English-speakers get the modern Santa Clause from the Dutch for St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas.

For more information, see:

The University of Illinois Christmas Tree & More: Facts, 2010

The National Christmas Tree Association, accessed 1 December 2010