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Long ago, Euell Gibbons asked his audience if they’d ever eaten a pine tree, inspiring a number of satirical comments. It turns out many trees used at Christmas are edible. The needles make a nice tea. Both firs and spruces have a slight citrus taste and are a good source of vitamin C.
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The first known Christmas tree lights were invented by and displayed by Edward Johnson, president of the Edison Electric Light Company, in 1882. The 80 hand-wired bulbs were the size of walnuts, and after a Detroit newspaper reporter published a story about them they started being used to decorate businesses. They were too expensive for the common household, and didn’t come into wide use until the 1930’s.
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Many now-Christian Christmas celebrations were born out of pagan ones. Saturnalia, occurring between December 17th and 23rd; the Kalends, occurring between January 1st and 5th; and the Deus Sol Invictus, occurring on December 25th, were all condemned by the early Christian church. As such, they co-opted the pagans by declaring December 25th as Christ’s birthday, redirecting the pagans into Christianity.
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A staunch environmentalist, Teddy Roosevelt banned cut Christmas trees from the White House in 1901. While noteworthy, Christmas trees hadn’t yet become a yearly tradition in the White House and wouldn’t be an established practice until the 1920s.
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It is believed that the tradition of decorating a Christmas tree originated in Riga, Lativa. The first documented use of a tree used in a winter Christmas celebration was the one installed in the Riga Town Square Hall in 1510. It was decorated with paper and dry flowers, straw dolls, ribbons, and possibly fruit. After the ceremony the tree was burned.
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According the Facebook data, couples are most likely to break up two weeks before Christmas. They are least likely to break up on Christmas Day.
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It is no surprise that Christmas is an economically important holiday. In the United States, it accounts for a sixth of all retail sales.
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The volunteer emergency services group Pubblica Assistenza Carrara e Sezioni created the world’s largest Christmas stocking in 2011 in Carrara, Italy. It measured 168 feet in length, and was organized as a money-raising event for helping the aged.
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One man’s Christmas tree has been standing in his living room for over 40 years now. Originally erected in 1974 when his son’s went to serve in the Vietnam war, he vowed to take the natural spruce down only when all his sons were home for Christmas. The eldest son, alive but injured in the war, hasn’t been able to make it home, and so the tree remains.
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Many credit the story “A Christmas Carol,” by Charles Dickens, with the elevation of Christmas to the major holiday it is today. During the time that it was written, in about 1843, Christmas was largely ignored by the majority of people.
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Eggnog is an important part of some people’s Christmas celebrations. Made from milk, eggs, cream, sugar, spices, and some kind of alcoholic spirit, its creamy goodness is much desired. It even inspired an Eggnog Riot in 1826 when whiskey was smuggled into the US Military Academy for a Christmas Day party which resulted in the court-marshalling of 20 cadets and 1 enlisted soldier.
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Candy canes date back as far as the year 1670. Folklore has it that a German choirmaster used the candy sticks to quiet children during yearly nativity plays. The choirmaster ordered candy sticks with a crook at the top to remind children of the shepherds that visited the baby Jesus. As the custom spread throughout Europe, the candy canes came to be associated with Christmas.
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