For many of us, the holiday season involves shopping, wrapping gifts, and making sure Santa has a cookie or two after he comes down the chimney. It can also mean socializing with family, friends and coworkers. Whether you are attending a work Christmas party, a holiday dinner out with friends, or even a weekend reunion with family, you’ll feel far more festive with a few conversation starters at the ready. Consider getting things rolling with some weird and wacky Christmas trivia!
Lifestyles of the Rich and Ornithological
The “12 Days of Christmas” will take a big chunk out of a holiday budget. The cost of everything on the list, from the partridge to the drummers, totals $34,363.49, an increase of a few hundred dollars from last year. The "core" index, excluding volatile swan prices, rose 1.1% to $21,238.49.
But as the carol goes, all of the gifts except the drummers are counted multiple times, bringing the cost up to $156,507.88.
Three of the 12 gifts — the partridge in a pear tree, the five gold rings, and the 10 lords-a-leaping — saw annual cost increases that ranged from 2% to 10%.
Not So Classy
Scrooge does not celebrate with the Cratchits. While most cinema versions of "A Christmas Carol" show the reformed miser celebrating with his lower-class employee, in the book, Scrooge celebrates instead with his middle-class nephew.
If the Shoe…er, Sock...Fits
Christmas stockings have an interesting history. In Holland, St. Nicholas' Feast Day is celebrated December 6. Children leave out shoes overnight and find them filled with little gifts from St. Nicolas in the morning.
What Holiday is This, Anyway?
“Jingle Bells” was originally a Thanksgiving song.
James Lord Pierpont, an organist from Savannah, Georgia, first performed a song he wrote, “The One Horse Open Sleigh” at his church's Thanksgiving concert. The song was re-published in 1857 and given the title of today. Bonus fact: It's also the first song broadcast from space. On December 16, 1965, the Gemini 6 crew serenaded Mission Control after they reported seeing a "red-suited astronaut”.
Rudolph was Almost Named Reginald
A copywriter named Robert L. May first invented the “most famous” reindeer in 1939, as a marketing gimmick for Montgomery Ward's holiday coloring books. (May considered naming the beloved misfit Reginald or Rollo.) And, his nose wasn't originally going to be red: a red nose was viewed as a sign of chronic alcoholism, and Montgomery Ward didn't want him to seem like a drunkard. Good thing they changed it. "Reginald, the blue-nosed reindeer" doesn't have quite the same charm.
Chicken: It’s What’s For (Christmas) Dinner
Japanese people traditionally eat at KFC for Christmas dinner, thanks to a successful marketing campaign over 40 years ago. KFC is so popular that customers must place their Christmas orders 2 months in advance..
Bing It On
The bestselling Christmas single ever is Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”, selling over 50 million copies worldwide since 1942.
In White Christmas, the movie, Rosemary Clooney revealed that the "midnight snack" scene, in which Bob Wallace expounds on his theory of what foods cause what dreams, was almost entirely improvised.
Lots of Frequent Flyer Miles
Santa's sleigh doesn’t travel at the speed of light. Despite what you might think about Santa's ability to visit every good boy and girl's home in the world in one night, it's not as astronomical of a feat as you might think. Technically, Santa would have 34 hours to complete his task, thanks to the International Date Line and, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Fermilab”, his sleigh would only have to travel at 99.999999% of the speed of light assuming he only visits 800 million houses over the entire surface area of the Earth.
Not So Wonderful
It’s A Wonderful Life was mentioned in an FBI file in 1947, when an analyst expressed concern that the film was an obvious attempt to discredit bankers, a “common trick used by communists.”
Something’s Fishy
In parts of Eastern Europe, it's customary to place a live carp in your bathtub for consumption on Christmas Eve. Some suggest that it's due to the fish's vital role in the region’s fishing industry, and because eating meat was considered a luxury—thus the need to save the carp for a special occasion.
Gift cards are the most requested holiday present for 10 years running. In 2016, more than 60% of people surveyed by the National Retail Federation said they requested a gift card as a holiday gift.
However, over $970 million in gift cards went unused in 2015 alone. Since 2005, some $45.7 billion worth of gift cards have been floating around in unused gift card balances.
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