Coca Cola was the first beverage company to use Santa for a winter promotion.
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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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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.
26
Carols began as an old English custom called wassailing, toasting neighbours to a long life.
33
Many theologians estimate that Jesus wasn't born on December 25 but sometime in September between 6BC and 30AD.
42
The world's tallest Xmas tree at 221ft high was erected in a Washington shopping mall in 1950.
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Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was invented for a US firm's Christmas promotion in 1938.
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