Christmas carols were banned from church services in the 1400's as being disrespectful. The Puritans forced Christmas music underground, and it didn't become commonly used again until the 1800's.

The first person to put electric lights on a Christmas tree was the vice-president of Thomas Edison’s electric light company in 1882. He wired his tree with three colors of blinking lights and also wired a stand to make the tree rotate.

When she died in 1980, Katherine Davis left the royalties from her compositions, including “The Little Drummer Boy,” to the music program at Wellesley’s College of Music. The royalties have financed scores of scholarships for students who would not otherwise be able to attend the private college.

Ernest Tubb, known as the Texas Troubadour, had the first hit version of “Blue Christmas” in 1949. It went to #1 on the country charts and became the genre’s first Christmas hit.

Mistletoe is said to bring happiness, safety, and good fortune unless it touches the ground.

Saint Nicholas was the son of well-to-do Christians who lived in a province of Asia Minor in the third century, and became archbishop of the seaport town of Myra. He inherited his family’s fortune and went to great lengths to help people without letting them know he was their benefactor, slipping gifts into the homes of worthy people at night.

The first Christmas celebration in England is attributed to King Arthur, who, on December 25, 521, celebrated his victory at York with the Knights of the Round Table

Within a week of its 1952 release, the Archdiocese of Boston condemned “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” as immoral. Other groups from both Catholic and Protestant churches followed suit. Missing the point that the man in the lyrics was actually a husband dressed up like Santa, people wrote articles and gave speeches deriding the song for casting Santa Claus as a man who "fooled around." Hundreds argued that the song was sending a horrible message to America’s innocent children. The record label flew the singer, 8-year-old Jimmy Boyd, to meet with the head of the Catholic church in Boston. The boy explained the song to the church leaders, who took a second look at the song and removed its objections to it. In the process, millions of peopled tuned in to hear what all the fuss was about! The song quickly jumped to #1 on the charts and stayed there for two weeks. Three million copies were sold the first year.

Indiana and Georgia both have towns named Santa Claus.

Judy Garland almost didn’t record “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” because she was horrified by some of the lyrics and insisted that they be changed. The offending verse was “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas / it may be your last / next year we will be living in the past.” It was during WWII and Ms Garland refused to sing about loved ones who might not return from the war.

Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of bankers and pawnbrokers, sailors and travelers, and merchants and thieves. He is also the patron saint of Greece and Russia.

Cartoonist Thomas Nast created our image of Santa as a jolly, bearded fellow dressed in red. He also created the donkey and elephant as the political symbols for the Democratic and Republican parties.

“Carol of the Bells” was named to honor a story that claimed that the moment Christ was born, every bell in the world chimed.

Nat “King” Cole was chosen by the song’s composers to do the original recording of “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting By An Open Fire)” in 1946. However, the color of Cole’s skin limited the way Capitol Records could market him and the recording. Many stations, especially in the midwest and south, refused to play Cole’s music once they discovered that he was a black man. However, the song became a hit as thousands of white Americans purchased the record. The success of that one record opened the door for other black artists to put their own spins on holiday classics.

In 601 AD, Pope Gregory the Great advised Christendom to take many of the pagan customs and use them to the glory of God. As a result, candles, evergreens, mistletoe, yule logs, and gift giving became part of Christmas.

"The Boar’s Head Carol" is thought to be the oldest Christmas carol. It was part of a collection that was printed in England in 1521. This may have also been the first printed music in England.

Santa must visit about 842 million houses on Christmas Eve! He has to travel at 4,796,250 miles per hour to do this!

“Jingle Bells” was originally titled “One Horse Open Sleigh” and was written in 1850 by James Pierpont, the son of a pastor in Massachusetts. It was first performed by a children’s choir for his church’s annual Thanksgiving service in front of a packed house. There were so many requests for another performance of the song that it was performed during the services on Christmas weekend and became one of the most popular Christmas songs ever even though Christmas is never mentioned in the lyrics.

Some interesting Christmas superstitions:
—It’s bad luck to let your evergreen decorations fall or to throw them away. You should burn them or feed them to your cow.
—If you eat a raw egg before anything else on Christmas morning, you will be able to carry heavy weights.
—If you refuse mincemeat pie at Christmas dinner, you will have bad luck for a year (Uh oh! I hate the stuff!).
—Eating an apple at midnight on Christmas Eve will bring good health for a year.
—You burn your old shoes during the Christmas season in Greece to prevent misfortunes in the coming year.

The first state to make Christmas an official holiday was Alabama in 1836.