Christmas Facts: 22 Fun Facts About Christmas

Christmas Facts From History

The holiday has been dated, banned, restored and made official more than once.

1. The oldest record of a December 25 Christmas is from Rome The Chronograph of 354, an illustrated Roman calendar, lists the birth of Jesus on 25 December. Historians generally agree that this part of the text was written in Rome in AD 336. ↳ Christmas: date and history
2. England banned Christmas in 1647 The Puritan-led English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas in 1647 and replaced it with a day of fasting, calling it a festival with no biblical justification. ↳ Christmas controversies
3. Celebrating Christmas in Boston could cost you five shillings Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659, with a fine of five shillings. The ban was lifted in Massachusetts in 1686 by the English-appointed governor Edmund Andros. ↳ Christmas controversies
4. Christmas was one of the first four US federal holidays On June 28, 1870, Congress created the first national holidays for federal workers in Washington, D.C.: New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. ↳ Federal holidays in the United States
5. Enemy soldiers played football on Christmas Day 1914 During the Christmas truce of 1914, soldiers on parts of the Western Front left the trenches, swapped food and souvenirs, sang carols and played football against each other. Commanders issued strict orders against truces in later years. ↳ Christmas truce

Fun Facts About Christmas Traditions

Many traditions that feel ancient were popularised by newspapers, inventors and shops in the last two centuries.

6. A newspaper picture made Christmas trees fashionable In 1848 The Illustrated London News showed Queen Victoria’s family around their tree at Windsor Castle. In 1850 the American Godey’s Lady’s Book copied the picture, but removed the Queen’s tiara and Prince Albert’s moustache to make the scene look American. ↳ Christmas tree
7. The first commercial Christmas card was printed in 1843 Sir Henry Cole commissioned it and the artist John Callcott Horsley designed it, in London. It showed three generations of a family raising a toast, with the message “A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year”. ↳ Christmas card
8. The first electric Christmas tree had 80 bulbs In December 1882 Edward H. Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison, lit his tree in New York City with 80 red, white and blue electric bulbs, each about the size of a walnut. Local newspapers ignored it as a publicity stunt. ↳ Christmas lights
9. Tinsel was first made of real silver Modern tinsel was invented in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1610, and was originally made of shredded silver. Today it is usually plastic. ↳ Tinsel
10. “Xmas” is not a modern shortcut The X is the Greek letter chi, the first letter of Christós, the Greek word for Christ. The spelling “X’temmas” is recorded in 1551 and “Xmas” in 1721. ↳ Xmas
11. The Rockefeller Center tree began with construction workers In 1931, workers building Rockefeller Center put up a 20-foot balsam fir and decorated it with cranberries and paper garlands. The official tree has been a tradition every year since 1933. ↳ Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
12. In Japan, Christmas dinner often means KFC A successful advertising campaign in the 1970s made eating KFC at Christmas a national custom in Japan. The chicken meals are so popular that stores take reservations months in advance. ↳ Observance of Christmas by country: Japan

Christmas Facts About Songs, Stories and Santa

13. “Silent Night” was written for guitar On Christmas Eve 1818 in Oberndorf, Austria, the priest Joseph Mohr asked the organist Franz Xaver Gruber to set his poem to music, with a guitar accompaniment for that night’s Mass. River flooding may have damaged the church organ. UNESCO listed the carol as intangible cultural heritage in 2011. ↳ Silent Night
14. “Jingle Bells” was not a Christmas song James Lord Pierpont published it in September 1857 as “The One Horse Open Sleigh”. It has no original connection to Christmas and only became tied to winter and Christmas in the 1860s and 1870s. ↳ Jingle Bells
15. “Jingle Bells” was played in space in 1965 On December 16, 1965, the Gemini 6 astronauts Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford reported a mysterious “satellite” to Mission Control, then played “Jingle Bells” on a smuggled harmonica and sleigh bells. ↳ Jingle Bells: first song in space
16. “White Christmas” is the best-selling single ever Bing Crosby’s recording is estimated to have sold more than 50 million physical copies worldwide, the most of any single. ↳ White Christmas (song)
17. A Christmas Carol sold out before Christmas Charles Dickens’s novella was published on 19 December 1843, and the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve. ↳ A Christmas Carol
18. Rudolph was invented by a department store Robert L. May created Rudolph in 1939 for a free booklet from the Chicago retailer Montgomery Ward. He considered naming the reindeer Rollo or Reginald. ↳ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
19. NORAD tracks Santa because of a misprinted phone number In 1955 a Sears advert in a Colorado Springs newspaper invited children to call Santa, but the number was one digit away from the air defense command center. Colonel Harry Shoup answered, played along, and the tradition has run every year since. ↳ NORAD Tracks Santa

Christmas Facts From Nature

20. Poinsettias come from Mexico The plant is native to Mexico and Central America. Its English name honors Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first US minister to Mexico, who brought it to the United States in the 1820s. Despite its reputation, it is not dangerous to pets or children, though eating it can cause an upset stomach. ↳ Poinsettia
21. Mistletoe is a parasite Mistletoe plants attach to a host tree and draw water and nutrients from it. Kissing under the mistletoe was a popular custom among servants in late eighteenth-century England. ↳ Mistletoe
22. Female reindeer can grow antlers Reindeer are the only deer in which females may have antlers, though how many females grow them varies by population. ↳ Reindeer

There Is an Island Named After Christmas

One last Christmas fact: Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, got its name when Captain William Mynors of the East India Company sailed past it on Christmas Day 1643 (source: Christmas Island). Its isolation means many of its plants and animals live nowhere else.

How to Use These Fun Facts About Christmas

Read one Christmas fact over dinner, turn the list into a quiz, or ask everyone to guess which facts are true before you reveal the source. Each takes 15 to 30 seconds to read aloud. Hosting before Christmas? Our fun facts about Thanksgiving work the same way. For something spookier, try Krampus stories or weird history facts.

How We Checked These Christmas Facts

Every fact links to the source we checked it against on October 22, 2026, a Wikipedia article that cites the historical record. Where the record is uncertain, such as whether flooding damaged the organ before “Silent Night”, we say so. We left out popular claims we could not confirm, including the story that candy canes were shaped to remind children of shepherds’ crooks. If you spot an error, tell us through the contact page.

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