Christmas is a wonderful holiday filled with time-honored traditions and family fun. We deck the halls, hang some stockings, and wait for Santa to come down the chimney. There is so much we love about Christmas, but there is so little we really know about this special season. Here are a few fun facts and some interesting Christmas trivia to fill us in on why we celebrate the way we do.

Christmas was first celebrated on December 25 when the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 336.

The Christmas Season starts at sundown on December 24 and ends at Sundown on January 5. This is where the 12 days of Christmas come from.

In the U.S., Santa Claus delivers our presents, but there are other gift givers. Children in Holland wait for St. Nicholas. In Russia, you might get presents from Grandmother Babouschka or Grandfather Frost. Christmas gnomes are a Scandinavian tradition, while the Three Kings are popular in Spanish-speaking countries. England has Father Christmas, France welcomes Pere Noel, and La Befana, the kind old witch, visits Italian homes.

We hang stockings to remember St. Nicholas, a Turkish bishop who once dropped gold coins down the chimney for a poor father and his daughters. Of course, they landed in the stockings that were drying by the fire.

Dutch children prefer to set out shoes for St. Nicholas on his birthday, December 5.

The custom of putting coal into the stockings of bad little children started in Italy.

Banana trees are decorated for Christmas in India. Tree decorations in the Ukraine include spiders and gold webs. Hanging presents on the tree dates back to the Druids.

In Australia, Christmas comes in summer, so a lot of people celebrate at the beach and have a picnic.

Christmas Island is a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean.

Christmas places in the United States include Santa Claus, Indiana; Santa Claus, Georgia; Noel, Missouri; and North Pole, Alaska.

Coca Cola is credited with inventing the jolly, red-suited image of Santa that we have today.

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was a character in a book Montgomery Ward gave away as a Christmas promotion in 1939.

Santa’s seventh reindeer, Donner, was actually Donder, the German word for thunder. His partner, of course, is Blitzen or lightening.

There are many interesting Christmas superstitions: Eat an apple on Christmas to be healthy in the New Year. If it snows Christmas Day, Easter will be green. You will have bad luck if you wear new shoes Christmas Day. Burn your old shoes at Christmas and you will have good luck in the New Year. Put your shoes side by side on Christmas Eve when you take them off and your family will not fight on Christmas Day.