Coca Cola was the first beverage company to use Santa for a winter promotion.
251
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was invented for a US firm's Christmas promotion in 1938.
113
The definition of a white Christmas in the UK is for a single snow flake (perhaps amongst a shower of mixed rain and snow) to be observed falling in the 24 hours of December 25th.
32
In 1999, residents of the state of Maine in America built the world's biggest ever snowman. He stood at 113ft tall.
103
Frumenty was a spiced porridge, enjoyed by both rich and poor. It was a forerunner of modern Christmas puddings. It is linked in legend to the Celtic god Dagda, who stirred a porridge made up of all the good things of the earth.
5
In Greek legend, malicious creatures called Kallikantzaroi sometimes play troublesome pranks at Christmas time. In order to get rid of them, salt or an old shoe is burnt. The pungent burning stench drives off, or at least helps discourage, the Kallikantza
6
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.
415
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
1