The Queen's Christmas speech was first televised in 1957.
18
Although now mostly vegetarian, in Victorian times, mince pies were made with beef and spices.
14
The world's tallest Xmas tree at 221ft high was erected in a Washington shopping mall in 1950.
82
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
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
There are 13 Santas in Iceland, each leaving a gift for children. They come down from the mountain one by one, starting on December 12 and have names like Spoon Licker, Door Sniffer and Meat Hook.
191
'Klaxon' is a name that does not belong to one of Santa's reindeer. A klaxon is actually a powerful electric horn. Its name comes from a German word meaning "shriek".
3
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