Merry Christmas 2012: Santa Claus, Mistletoe, and Other Fun Yuletide Facts for the Holiday Season

Merry Christmas and almost Happy New Year from Mstarz! In honor of this festive season, here are some wacky facts about Santa Claus, mistletoe, X-mas trees, and some other Yuletide favorites!  Have a fun and safe holiday everyone, here's goodbye to 2012!

1.       Santa Claus (also known as Father Christmas) is based on a real person - St. Nikolas of Myra who lived during the fourth century. He is the world's most popular non-Biblical saint - the patron saint of banking, pawn-broking, pirating, butchery, sailing, thievery, orphans, royalty, and New York City.

2.       Mistletoe is from the Anglo-Saxon word misteltan, meaning "little dung twig"... the plant grows and spreads through bird droppings.

3.       The traditional three colors of Christmas are green, red, and gold. Green has long been a symbol of life and rebirth; red symbolizes the blood of Christ, and gold represents light as well as wealth and royalty.

4.       Christmas trees have been sold in the U.S. since 1850 - it usually takes about 15 years for the Evergreens to grow before they are ready to be sold.

5.       The Germans made the first artificial Christmas trees out of dyed goose feathers.

6.       The world's largest Christmas stocking measured 106 feet, 9 inches long and 49 feet, 1 inch wide. Made by London's Children's Society in 2007, it weighed as much as five reindeer and held almost 1,000 presents.

7.       Contrary to popular belief, the poinsettia is not poisonous... but holly berries are.

8.       Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" may be the best-selling single of all time, with over 100 million sales worldwide and counting.

9.       The earliest known Christmas tree decorations were apples.

10.   In his 1809 satiric book A History of New York, Washington Irving was the first to describe Santa Claus as a portly, bearded man who smokes a pipe. Irving's story was also the first time Jolly Old Saint Nicholas slid down the chimney.

11.   While Coca-Cola popularized the modern, red-suited Santa Claus in 1931, Clement Moore's 1822 poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas (or 'Twas the Night Before Christmas) popularized many of Santa's defining characteristics... for example, Santa drove a sleigh guided by "eight tiny reindeer."

12.   The "kissing" American mistletoe is just one of 1,300 species. Twenty species of mistletoe are endangered.

13.   Santa's eight original reindeer are: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (the star of several songs, books, television shows, and films) first appeared in a 1939 booklet written by Robert L. May and published by Montgomery Ward.

14.   An old wives' tale says that bread baked on Christmas Eve will never grow moldy.

15.   Christmas was finally declared a U.S. national holiday on June 26, 1870.