Share this at your next holiday get together and we guarantee that the conversation won't go stale. Here are the top 10 funny facts about Christmas around the world:
1. The world's largest Christmas present was...
...Our very own Statue of Liberty! Yes, that's right: the 305 feet 1 inch, 22-story building colossus was a gift to the U.S by the people of France, in 1886. Talk about the Christmas shopping craze!
2. Santa's sleigh speed
It would be somewhere around the metaphorical speed of lightning, since the average number of homes that Santa visits every second (on Christmas Eve night) is 832. That's every second!
3. Skating to the church, in time for Christmas Mass
In the city of Caracas, Venezuela, it's customary for everyone to skate to mass every morning from the 16 th of December to the 24 th. The streets are closed off to cars each morning so everyone can skate to church.
4. Spider webs as tree decorations
In Ukraine, it's very common to use Christmas tree decorations shaped as spider webs. You may think it's a weird cross of Halloween traditions into the Christmas around the world, but it actually stems from a folk tale about a poor family. In the tale, they woke up to find that their tree was decorated overnight by spiders.
5. Fried chicken for the Christmas feast
In Japan, it has become customary to feats on fried chicken (mostly from KFC) on Christmas, even though a very small part of the population is Christian. Lo and behold, the power of fast food advertising. This has to be one of the weirdest contemporary traditions associated with Christmas around the world.
6. In Italy, Santa is replaced by a witch
On Christmas Eve, Italian children wait for a witch to deliver their gifts overnight, instead of Santa. Her name is La Befana.
To learn more about the legend of La Begana read this book "La Befana: An Italian Night After Christmas"
7. Carving in radishes
In Mexico (Oaxaca), people decorate the plaza with carved flowers, ornaments and even nativity scene characters, all made from pink radishes.
8. Hide your brooms if you visit Sweden
In Sweden, it's customary for women to hide their brooms somewhere during the Christmas night. It's believed that if they are in plain sight, witches may come and steal them, to use them for flying and producing chaos. This is another instance where Christmas around the world seems to resemble Halloween.
9. The Christmas pickle
In Spain, Germany, and isolated in some other European countries as well, there's a funny tradition of including a pickle somewhere among the other Christmas tree decorations. Whoever finds it first receives an extra gift!
If you too would like to be apart of this tradition check out the Christmas Pickle here:
10. The Pooper figure
In Spain (the Catalonia region, to be more precise), a rather odd character is added to the figurines of nativity scenes. He is called La Cagane, which means the pooper. Originally he was depicted as one of the shepherds, but lately people have been getting more and more creative with this character.
Bonus: Xmas
Did you know that? It seems that Xmas isn't just a funny abbreviation, but instead it comes from Greek, where X is the symbol for 'Christ'.
Image credits: Pinterest.com.
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