Would you care to join me in sharing some Christmas Trivia?

Do you know the old world tale of how St Nick came to be and the traditions?

@Adirondackwannabe Do share :)

The original St Nick was a nobleman. At Christmas they normally had a nice meal with families and friends, but the gift giving wasn’t common. One year one of the other nobleman had fallen on hard times. St Nick knew he was too proud to accept charity, so he couldn’t help him out directly. So he waited until nightfall, when the other nobleman’s family was asleep and he snuck up to a window, and threw a bag of gold coins into the house and quickly left the premises. It became a tradition with him to give gifts without the other person knowing it was him.

@Shippy It is Donner not Dunder

In addition to the original eight, there are Rudolph
Chet/Chester from Santa Claus 2
Joker who was fired for making Santa Jokes
Leroy Rudolph’s cousin

Christmas Island, is in the Indian ocean

Rudolph’s Girlfriend’s name is Clarice

The Ginger Bread house originated in Germany

Christmas day was set to be December 25th by Pope Julius 1

Franklin Pierce was the first U.S. President to celebrate Christmas in the white house.

^^^ Dunder. lol

Did you know that circus goose knows 20 verbal and hand commands, this is the ” wait/stay” photographic moment. French bread just off camera for best results. haha

http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc435/GooseCorral/P1030661.jpg

Did you know all the bad little boys and girls can expect a whipping from Krampus, the demon who chooses the worst children to kidnap with his coal sack and take back to his lair, presumably to eat them.

@Coloma: I love it when you post pictures of your goose! Whose name I always seem to forget. Mervyn? Marvin? Melvin? Marilyn??

Uhhh, the Yule log is a pagan tradition… Just one of many that Christianity ate up!

@bookish1 It’s Marwyn, adjusted from Marilyn, when she turned into a he. Trans-gander, haha

@Coloma: And a strapping young fellow he is !

He’s a mature guy now, 15 this year.Yes, I am very fond of kissing him on his big knob, and his bean too. lol Bean is what the tip of their beak is called. haha

Dunder is an acceptable variation on Donner or Donder. All three are okay to use.

chill out, people. It’s Christmas.

@DrBill “It is Donner not Dunder”

Not according to the original version of “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, which is where the names came from:
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/donner.asp

Celebrating Christmas was illegal in England and the American colonies in the 1600s. Much of New England avoided it until the late 1800s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_Puritan_New_England

Christmas stockings apparently originate from 3 sisters that were unable to afford the marriage dowry. Saint Nicholas helped them out by climbing down their chimney and filling their stockings with gold coins.

The Santa we are familiar with today was invented by the Coca Cola Company in the 1930’s for a series of adverts.

I don’t have any trivia but I have a story…when I was a kid there was a store in my area that sold Christmas decorations all year round. I thought the store was real epic. I always went in there to check it out, and once…there were these toy blocks that spelled Santa. Some fat guy comes up to me and he’s like, hey check this out…and he rearranged them to spell Satan. I denno why, but I was pretty amazed. lol

Also, Vikings created Christmas

@Symbeline : So that’s what happened! ;)

@Symbeline : Thanks for the link, too. Oh, I haven’t thought about Hodr’s slaying of Baldr with the mistletoe in ages!!!

@DrBill You forgot Olive, the other reindeer.

OK, I cut and pasted that Trivia from a site, so maybe don’t nibble on your Christmas tree.

@bookish1 I do figure that said Satan blocks may have jumbled my psychological disposition a little, aye. ’‘waves axe’’

@bookish1 Well clearly that is why Christmas is such a balls up due to the man that @Symbeline met of course

Of course, we all know that the real Father Christmas is to found in Lapland.

I should probably throw an NSFW on there.

No body seems to mention the incredible coincidence that Jesus Christ was born on Christmas.

What’s white & goes up? A confused snowflake.
Did you know that if you eat xmas decorations, you can come down with a severe case of tinselitis?
Well you do now!

@Adirondackwannabe I thought he gave him coins so he could have a dowry for his daughters to wed or they would’ve been sold into slavery. Least I remember hearing something like that years ago.
Just looked it up and found a link. Apparently he was also imprisoned and was also a Bishop. He was imprisoned for his faith.
He was also born into a wealthy family but gave everything away.

@TheProfoundPorcupine (oops I missed your answer)
Ha, Ha, I found this little fact online.

Mistletoe (Viscum album) is from the Anglo-Saxon word misteltan, which means “little dung twig” because the plant spreads though bird droppings.
Now doesn’t that sound like something you want to make out under. LOL

@glacial I was not aware of that.
@YARNLADY I did not know of Olive