English Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas between 1647 and 1660 because he believed such celebrations were immoral for the holiest day of the year.
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In 1999, residents of the state of Maine in America built the world's biggest ever snowman. He stood at 113ft tall.
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Carols began as an old English custom called wassailing, toasting neighbours to a long life.
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The twelve days of Christmas are the days between Christmas Day and Epiphany (6th of January) and represent the length of time it took for the wise men from the East to visit the manger of Jesus after his birth.
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Louis Prang, a Bavarian-born lithographer who came to the USA from Germany in the 19th century, popularized the sending of printed Christmas cards. He invented a way of reproducing color oil paintings
, the "chromolithograph technique", and created a car
, the "chromolithograph technique", and created a car
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Santa Claus has many different names around the world including Father Christmas in the UK, Pere Noel in France, Kriss Kringle in Germany, La Befana in Italy, Julinesse in Denmark, Dedushka Moroz (meaning Grandfather Frost) in Russia and the Three Kings i
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7.6 million Christmas trees are sold each year.
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US scientists calculated that Santa would have to visit 822 homes a second to deliver all the world's presents on Christmas Eve, travelling at 650 miles a second.
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