• The universal abbreviation for Christmas to Xmas comes from the Greek alphabet. X is letter Chi, which is the first letter of Christ’s name.
• The word Christmas comes from Cristes maesse, or “Christ’s Mass.”
• Pope Julius I declared Christ’s birthday as December 25th sometime during the 4th century. There is no set date for his birth in scripture and it wasn’t celebrated on any particular day. However Christmas was first celebrated on the 25th of December in Rome in 336AD with an aim to replacing the popular pagan winter solstice celebrations.
• 26 December was known as St Stephen’s Day, but is now more generally referred to as Boxing Day. This term lends its name to the alms-boxes placed in churches during the festive season for collecting money. This money was then given to the poor and needy after Christmas. Another assumption is that although servants were forced to work on Christmas Day, they were given a day off the day after to visit family. Usually employers would send them off with a box containing gifts and food, hence the term “Boxing Day.”
• Some priests advise you to say “Happy Christmas”, instead of “Merry Christmas”, because Merry has undertone of getting drunk – and is not appropriate at Christmas. One should say “Happy” instead.
• Poet Clark Moore is credited with naming Santa’s reindeer; Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Dancer, Dasher, Doneder, Prancer, and the most famous reindeer, Rudolph.
• The twelve days of Christmas are the days between Christmas Day and Epiphany (6th of January) and represent the length of time it took for the wise men from the East to visit the manger of Jesus after his birth.
• The popular Christmas carol Silent Night was written by an Austrian priest named Joseph Mohr in 1818 as a result of a broken church organ.
• Bing Crosby’s Christmas classic “White Christmas” is the best-selling Christmas song of all time.
• Some Christmas traditions are leftovers from pre-Christian celebrations. Hanging gifts on trees is supposed to come from tree worship of the Druids, and the belief that the tree was the giver of all good things.



• The evergreen tree, because it is perpetually green, has been used as a symbol of eternal life since the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews. The Scandinavians believed that the evergreen could even scare away the devil. Decorating an evergreen tree in honor of Xmas became popular in the Middle Ages, especially in Germany. The decorations then consisted of candles and wafers, to symbolize Christ and the Host. Martin Luther is actually said to be the first person to put candles on a tree.
• There are approximately 30-35 million Real Christmas Trees sold in the U.S. every year.
• In earlier times, Christians used to decorate their homes with Saturnalia holly. During Roman pagan festival, this prevented persecution.
• A traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard.

If you belong to the rare group of people who gets their Christmas shopping done early on every year, you most likely receive a great deal of unpleasant glance from others around the festive season. This is particularly true if routinely let others know that you have already done all of your Christmas shopping. The reason for all the mean looks is that the best part of the public does not get their Christmas shopping and still have to go through the stress of overcrowded shopping malls and unavailable items. The fact that malls and shopping centers are so over-crowded in the last few days before Christmas proves that so many people wait until the last opportunities to buy something.

If you are part of that vast majority of people who spend every year last minute Christmas shopping and hate yourself for it each and every year, here are some tips to get your Christmas shopping done and over with quickly this year.

A first suggestion to get your Christmas shopping done is doing a great deal of Christmas shopping for the next year in the first few days after Christmas. This may sound weird and is only an option of it is financially possible for you. On the other hand, if you do this every year, you will actually save quite some money, since many shops are holding sales in these days. All the shops still carry typical Christmas gift items and you are probably very much in the Christmas spirit. Also, you usually have the best gift ideas right after the gift giving of this year.

A second idea for completing your Christmas shopping in time is to shop online. This is the best option if you are shopping for Christmas gifts for faraway relatives. Most online retailers will wrap your gift in an elegant box and send it directly to the recipient. Now you won’t have to wrap it up by yourself and stand in the line at the post office.

A third plan to get your Christmas shopping done early is spreading it over the whole year. Whenever you have to go out to buy a birthday gift for someone, buy two gifts for this person. One of the gifts is for the birthday and you store the other one for Christmas. This strategy does work best if you have a very solid group of people that you buy gifts for, like family members. You might still need to do some last minute shopping for a new colleague or any other distant friend.

Of course, there are people who love last minute Chrismas shopping. Some of them might see it as
a challenge. Other shoppers intentionally wait until the last minute to do their Christmas shopping because they like the excitement of the crowds. It gives them a sense of energy and get right into the Christmas spirit. However, joining the crowds for the atmosphere, while in your head you know that all shopping is done and wrapped at home already, or on the way by post to distant relatives, might be more relaxed.