Fascinating Christmas Facts

While you’re wrapping gifts, listening to Christmas songs and revelling in the festive cheer, we have a round-up of five fascinating Christmas facts to get your mind boggling…

1. Tons of Turkey

Have some sympathy for our festive feathered friends, because in the UK we can guzzle a whopping 10 million turkeys at Christmastime! Turkeys have featured as a Christmas Dinner centrepiece in Britain since the 1950s, and continue to be the most popular choice of meat for the festive occasion. It’s believed 76% of us opt for turkey over chicken or goose.

2. Santa’s Magic

Father Christmas is a magical man of mystery, delivering presents to all the children in the world in just a single night! Researchers have found that his super sleigh would need to travel at 650 miles per second, and stop off at 822 homes a second, in order to successfully deliver every single present! No wonder he needs a whole year to recuperate!

3. Dreamin’ of a White Christmas

You may have noticed lots of traditional Christmas carols and songs refer to a ‘White Christmas’, even though we have barely any snowfall at Christmas. This is because during the 16^th and 19^th centuries the world was in the midst of a ‘little ice age’ where winter temperatures were several degrees lower than normal and snow during the festive season was commonplace. It’s during this period that many Christmas carols and songs originate.

4. Brilliant Boxing Day

Did you know, Boxing Day is only celebrated in the UK, Ireland and Canada? We’re a greedy bunch when it comes to wanting a longer Christmas, and decided to make December 26th a national bank holiday so we can spend more time with friends and family and polish off Christmas Day leftovers.

Although its true origins are unknown, many people believe the phrase ‘Boxing Day’ got its name because:

1. ‘Christmas Box’ in Britain refers to present.
2. December 26th was traditionally a day off for servants when they would receive a special Christmas box from their employer.
3. A box to collect donations for the poor was traditionally placed in churches on Christmas Day and opened on December 26th – Boxing Day.

5. Christmas Cost

Brace yourself, there’s actually hard evidence from YouGov to suggest on average, UK households spend around £22bn at Christmastime! This works out to around £835 per household spent on decorations, food and drink, presents, Christmas cards, stocking fillers and all the other festive activities we like to enjoy over the Christmas period. So that explains why January is so hard going!

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