Christmas is primarily a Christian festival, but people of all religions across the world take part in it to end the ongoing year on a happy note and to welcome the New Year with full enthusiasm.
Since the world and its people are full of diversities, there are so many different ways people celebrate Christmas in different countries and today we are going to look at the top ten fun facts and traditions of celebrating Xmas across the world. Christmas is also written as Xmas because X symbol stands for the Lord Christ.
1. World Records
The Statue of Liberty is the largest Christmas gift which the French presented to the US back in 1886. It weighs 225 tons and has a height of 46.5 meters.
White Christmas is the best-selling Christmas song ever and nearly 50 million copies were sold across the world. It was sung by Bing Crosby. The tallest artificial Christmas tree in the world is situated in Reforma Avenue, Mexico City. It has a height of 367 feet with nearly 1.2 million lights.
The most expensive Christmas card ever sold was in an auction for a price tag of $28,000. The card was created and designed by John Calcott Horsley in 1840. The largest gathering of Santa Clauses was seen in Porto where nearly 14,000 people put on Santa Clause outfit and marched through the city streets.
2. Colors Of Christmas
Three traditional colors of Christmas are red, green and golden. Red stands for the holy blood of the Christ. Green stands for life and rebirth while golden color stands for knowledge and wealth.
3. Christmas Pickle
It is an ornament made with a pickle that is kept hidden in a Christmas tree, and a contest is arranged to find it out. The first person who could bring the pickle ornament would receive a gift. It is a weird tradition that is followed across the world, especially in Germany.
4. Christmas Witch
We all are aware of Santa Claus who brings gifts for children during Christmas nights. But in Italy, it is believed that it is La Befana who is popularly referred to as Christmas Witch brings gifts for the children on January 5th. Hence, the children go to bed early that night and it is believed that she enters through Chimney riding on a broomstick.
5. Czech Republic
Unmarried women in the Czech Republic performs a weird tradition where they stand in front of the main door of their house and turn their back to throw a shoe towards the door. If the heel of the shoe touches the door first then she will remain single for the next year but if the front of the shoe touches the door first, her wedding days are goings to knock her doors soon.
6. Norway
People in Norway believe that evil spirits rise from the graves on the Eve of Christmas and they use the brooms from Norwegian houses to fly high in the sky and do mischievous things. Hence, Norwegians hide their brooms before Christmas Eve so that the evil spirits cannot steal.
7. Britain
Homemade pudding is very popular in Britain during Christmas. They follow two different traditions while cooking the pudding. The first one is that every member of the family has to stir the pudding mix clockwise making a wish. The second tradition is that a coin and a ring in placed in the mix while cooking the pudding. While eating it, whoever gets the coin will become wealthy and whoever gets the ring will get married.
8. Venezuela and Ukraine
Venezuela has this weird traditional of closing the roads for vehicles in the early morning period during Christmas Eve. The reason is that people go to their working places or do morning exercises by roller skating. In Ukraine, people decorate their Christmas tree not with lights and ornaments but with spider webs.
9. Japanese Fried Chicken
Though Japan has around 1% of the entire population who are Christians but the tradition of eating fried chicken instead of turkey has become viral in the entire country. People reserves restaurants beforehand and they have fried chicken for the main course and Christmas cake as dessert. Japanese associate Christmas with KFC.
10. SantaCon
It is a very popular tradition in the U.S. for people to dress as Santa Claus and walk the street. The entire city gets flooded with red color during the Christmas period due to Santa Claus’ red outfit from head to toe. It is quite a sight to watch and celebrate the festivity and end the year on a happy note.