Did you know that the 12 days of Christmas song is based on a Christian theology that marks the span between the birth of Christ and the 3 wise men arriving and giving him gifts. so it runs from 25th December through to 6th January.
The Christmas marketing did a fabulous job at turning a much loved Christmas Carol into a fantastic way to sell their wares PRIOR to Xmas.
The count down to Christmas is Advent has a similar morphing. Advent typical marks 4 Sundays before Christmas to observe the arrival of Christ in many western traditions. The word Advent comes from the Latin word 'adventus' - meaning arrival.
Again marketing has done a great job as using the count down to sell advent calendars - I am sure almost every home in Australia has used a chocolate calendar to count down at some point. Cadbury are smiling all the way to Christmas.
Santa was not actually a Jolly fat man in a red suit. St Nicholas was a Christian Bishop who gave away his large inheritance to the poor and rescued women form servitude. In dutch his name is Sinter Klaas .... now we can understand how the English got to Santa Claus
And the red suit came after a marvellous marketing campaign from Coca-Cola in the 1930s. Fat, bearded, jovial Santa in a red beard was born.
The most recorded Christmas song is silent night. It has more than 733 different copyrighted versions made since 1978. That's a lot of noise made about a silent night
American congress held their first session on December 25th, 1798. Christmas was not really a thing. In fact, between 1659-1681 anyone caught making merry in the colonies was fined. It took another century after the Revolutionary War for Christmas to be proclaimed a federal holiday.
Christmas decorating sends nearly 15,000 people to emergency departments each year in America... got to make one wonder if that's from putting up decorations, or ignoring warning labels
It's a long way to the top, if you want to have a fall... Well it read to the sound of AC/DC in my mind.... hehehe
And the United States Fire Department is buy each year with dried out Christmas trees starting about 100 fires each season. That causes about 10deaths a year and $15.7 Million in property damage. That's much more than just losing a few presents
You need to check out our blogs about - Winter is coming - far too many of these fires and deaths are preventable.
There is a good reason we kiss under mistletoe!! The Druids considered an aphrodisiac. Sounds like a good reason for canoodling right?!?!
Wrong!!!! the Germanic word for mistletoe literally means 'dung on a twig'. Not so romantic now.
Why .. glad you asked. The Mistle thrush bids eat the plant's berries, digest the seed, poop it out and their droppings help the plant germinate and grow. This is not how a good love story is supposed to start .
And the last interesting fun Christmas fact is about WWII. A US playing card company joined forces with British Intelligence to make a special deck of cards
They were distributed as Christmas gift, but when wet, the individual cards peeled apart to reveal maps of escape routes. This helped Allied prisoners escape from German POW camps. Guess the joke was on the opposition.
So hopefully you are grinning and feel informed after this read. From all our us here at Akupara Insurance Brokers, we would like to wish you the happiest of Christmas's. Be sure to observing fire prevention, kiss under dung on twigs, singing a carol or two, play some cards and eat some chocolate while observing the big fat jolly man in a red suit approach. I think we have it covered!! Also make sure you are covered. Before you go on holidays just do a quick check in and make sure all your insurances are up to date. Merry Christmas all and have a safe and happy New Year xxx