Winter Holidays
This popular winter holiday is celebrated in both religious and secular (non-religious) ways, depending on the household. Religious celebrations involve the birth of a special baby, while secular celebrations involve getting gifts down a chimney.
Christmas
Santa in France is known by this name
Pere Noel
In parts of Spain, children receive Christmas gifts not from Santa, but from these figures from the Nativity story.
The three kings
Beginning in Germany, some parents hide this special ornament in the branches of their tree. The first to find it wins a prize.
A pickle
"Jingle Bells" and "Over the River and Through the Woods" are not actually Christmas songs. They were written for this holiday.
Thanksgiving
Though based on harvest festival traditions of West and South Africa, this holiday is fairly new, created by activist Maulana Karenga in 1966.
Kwanzaa
In this country, which celebrates Christmas in the summertime, Santa arrives on a surfboard instead of a sleigh.
Australia
In Alpine countries, while Santa brings good children treats, this creature kidnaps bad children and eats them
Krampus
It has become tradition to eat this fast food on Christmas in Japan, where Christmas is not widely celebrated.
KFC
After a mouse chewed through a vital piece of the pipe organ, Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber quickly wrote "Stille Nacht" and performed it at the Christmas Mass on this instrument.
Guitar
Hanukkah
This saint was the original inspiration for Santa Claus. The original legend involved him secretly providing dowry's for a poor man's daughters by through bags of gold through a window, where they landed in the girls' stockings hanging by the fire to dry.
Saint Nicholas
These Norwegian gnome-like creatures, also known as barn spirits, guard over a household through the winter and provide gifts to well-behaved children
Nisse
Families in Norway hide this household item on Christmas Eve, so that witches can't steal them to fly around and make mischief.
Brooms
This Christmas carol, written in 1864, was the very first to mention Santa Claus.
Up On the Housetop
In 1863, Sarah Hale launched a letter writing campaign to president Abraham Lincoln, asking him to make this winter holiday a nationally recognized day of celebration.
Thanksgiving
Santa in the Netherlands, who puts candy in children's shoes set out to warm by the fire.
Sinterklaas
In this country, an old woman named Befana visits children and leaves gifts, in early January rather than on Christmas.
Italy
In Sweden, Saint Lucia's Day is celebrated on December 13th. It is marked by a young girl bringing breakfast to the household while wearing this on her head.
A wreath of lit candles
"You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch" is sung by Thurl Ravenscroft, who also voiced this cereal mascot for 50 years
Tony the Tiger
Contrary to popular belief, the "12 Days of Christmas" does not refer to the 12 days before Christmas, but rather the 12 days between Christmas and this day, when the wise men arrived to visit the baby Jesus in the Nativity story.
Epiphany (or January 6th)
Russia and Ukraine's version of Santa, known by this name, is helped by The Snow Maiden
Father Frost
Farmers in Iceland tell their workers to work hard, lest this creature, who roams the countryside during Christmastime, devours them for being lazy
The Yule Cat
Every Christmas since 1966, the town of Galve constructs a 42-foot-tall straw and wooden Yule Goat to celebrate the Christmas season. Unfortunately, destroying the Yule Goat has become part of the tradition, usually by being burned down. Of the 57 years that the Goats have been constructed, only this many have made it to the end of the holiday season unscathed.
19
This holiday song was the first song to be played in outer space.
Jingle Bells