Holiday Music
The singer of "All I Want For Christmas Is You."
Who is Mariah Carey?
For eight days each November or December, Jews light a special candle holder called a menorah. They do it to remember an ancient miracle in which one day’s worth of oil burned for eight days in the temple. During this holiday, many Jews also eat special potato pancakes called latkes, sing songs, and spin a top called a dreidel to win chocolate coins, nuts, or raisins.
What is Hanukkah?
The general of the Continental army who led his men across the Delaware River to attack the drunken Hessians on Christmas Eve/Day.
Who is George Washington?
Christkind to the Swiss, Kris Kringle to the Germans, Jultomten to the Scandinavians, Father Christmas to the British, Père Noël to the French, and a good witch called La Befana to the Italians, this American Christmas figure brings gifts to good boys and girls each December.
Who is Santa Claus?
The American Christmas tradition that dates back to ancient Egypt, Rome, Celts, and the Vikings, where various mid-winter festivals celebrated by decorating or lighting evergreen trees.
What is decorating a Christmas Tree?
A Christmas song about running into someone you dated last year who broke up with the very next day.
What is "Last Christmas"?
This holiday is celebrated as the day the three wise men first saw baby Jesus and brought him gifts. On this day in Spain, many children get their Christmas presents. In Puerto Rico, before children go to sleep on January 5, they leave a box with hay under their beds so the kings will leave good presents. In France, a delicious King cake is baked. Bakers will hide a coin, jewel, or little toy inside.
What is Three Kings Day?
Roman Christians chose this date as the birth date of Jesus Christ despite Biblical accounts pointing to a Spring birth in order to coincide with Saturnalia and convince the empire’s remaining pagans to accept the strange new religion.
What is December 25th?
Who is Cindy Lou Who?
A sweet Christmas treat first made from pulled sugar and given to German choir boys to keep them still in church, bent to resemble a shepherd's staff.
What are candy canes?
The person the Jackson 5 caught their mommy kissing under the Christmas tree.
Who is Santa Claus?
Occurs around December 21. It is the shortest day of the year. People all over the world participate in festivals and celebrations. Long ago, people celebrated by lighting bonfires and candles to coax back the sun.
What is the Winter Solstice?
The war during which both sides of the conflict stopped fighting and had a snowball fight, decorated trees, sang carols, drank and even exchanged presents with the enemy on Christmas, 1914.
What is World War I?
The main character of A Christmas Carol, who starts the story as a money-hoarding grinch and, through the help of four ghosts, becomes a kinder, more accepting individual.
Who is Ebenezer Scrooge?
Started in Scandinavia, the burning of this ceremonial wood for 12 days (and the storing of leftovers for next year) was believed to ward off lightning strikes. Also the name of a delicious chocolate pudding called Bûche de Noël.
What is the Yule Log?
The classic Christmas song actually written for Thanksgiving in 1857, about sleigh races, performed in blackface (white people doing racist caricatures of black people for white amusement), and originally called "One Horse Open Sleigh."
What is "Jingle Bells"?
Means “First Fruits,” is based on ancient African harvest festivals and celebrates ideals such as family, life, and unity. During this spiritual holiday, celebrated from December 26 to January 1, millions of African Americans dress in special clothes, decorate their homes with fruits and vegetables, and light a candle holder called a kinara.
What is Kwanzaa?
The place where a Christmas tree has stood in New York (almost) every year since Italian-American construction workers decorated a 20-foot tree in 1931, now with an ice rink and popular public lighting ceremony shown on TV shortly after Thanksgiving.
What is the Rockefeller Center?
The Pumpkin King who tried to steal Christmas from Santa in "The Nightmare Before Christmas."
Who is Jack Skellington?
These eye-pain-inducing garments started as an ironic party trend in Vancouver, Canada. Now whole parties are based around them and you probably receive one every year. Thanks, Aunt Debbie...
What are Ugly Christmas Sweaters?
A song written in 1984 in reaction to television reports of the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia and performed by Band-Aid, a supergroup composed of many of the most popular British and Irish acts of the time, including Kool & the Gang, U2, The Boomtown Rats, Phil Collins, Bananarama, Boy George, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Wham!, Sting, Status Quo, and more.
What is “Do They Know It's Christmas”?
In Ecuador, families dress a straw man in old clothes on December 31 and burn him. In Japan, families gather for a late dinner around 11 PM, and at midnight, many make visits to a shrine or temple. Those in Hong Kong pray to the gods and ghosts of their ancestors, many children dress in new clothes to celebrate, and people carry lanterns and join in a huge parade led by a silk dragon.
What is New Year's?
The union of countries that crumbled and broke apart on Christmas Day 1991 and consisted of Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
What was the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) / Soviet Union?
A personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold. Variants include Old Man Winter to the Greeks, Grandfather Frost to the Russians, and Mrs. Holle to the Germans. Ms. Monaco's favorite winter sprite. The main character of Rise of the Guardians.
Who is Jack Frost?
With ingredients from China and recipes developed in ancient Greece, the German Grimm Brothers popularized this Christmas engineering tradition in their story "Hanzel and Gretel."
What is building a gingerbread house?