History of Christmas
100
Which U.S. President made Christmas a federal holiday?
Ulysses S. Grant
300
In what decade did NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command, formerly CONAD) start tracking Santa on Christmas Eve?
The 1950’s (specifically 1955)
The NORAD Tracks Santa program officially started on December 24th, 1955 and has continued every year since. In 2004 Google started tracking Santa as well.
400
The French word “Noel” is often used around Christmas, but what was its original meaning in Latin?
Birth
You can definitely see why Noel became so synonymous with Christmas!
500
In what century was the first written use of Xmas?
The “X” in Xmas comes from the Greek letter Chi which looks like an “X”. The letter “X” has long been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the Greek word for Christ begins with what looks like an “X”. Christ was often written with the letters Chi (X) Rho (p) which looks like Xp. The Chi-Rho symbol representing Christ looks like this:
