100 Interesting Facts About Christmas

ABC has been cutting scenes from "A Charlie Brown Christmas", a movie about the excessive commercialization of Christmas, to make room for more commercials.

2. In 2014, South Korean Christians put up a Christmas tree visible from the North Korean Border. North Korea responded by calling it a "tool for psychological warfare" and threatened to bomb it.

3. Chris Columbus was originally set to direct National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation but dropped out after difficult meetings with star Chevy Chase. Instead, Columbus made Home Alone; the highest grossing Christmas film of all time.

4. On Christmas Eve in 2008, SpaceX and Tesla were literally hours from bankruptcy until Elon Musk was able to secure $20M from investors in those final hours. Two days later, SpaceX won a contract with NASA worth $1.6B.

5. To punish tree thieves who cut down trees illegally, some cities spray trees with fox urine around Christmas time. It freezes on them and is odorless outdoors, but would stink up your whole house if brought indoors; the smell is "eye-watering."

A giant snowman named Snowzilla is created every year in Anchorage, Alaska. In 2008, the city attempted to stop the creation of Snowzilla, and on Christmas morning there were sign-carrying snowmen "protesting" that attempt in front of city hall.

7. The actress who played Aunt Bethany in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was the same lady who provided the voice for Betty Boop and Olive Oyl

8. The English lyrics for the classic Christmas carol "Deck the Halls" were originally "fill the mead cup, drain the barrel" and not "don we now our gay apparel".

9. Tim Burton stopped Disney from making a Nightmare Before Christmas sequel because it wouldn't have been made using stop motion animation.

10. In Japan, eating Christmas dinner at KFC is so popular that two-hour lines form at some locations as people wait to get in.

The Christmas tree in London's Trafalgar Square had been given by the country of Norway every year since 1947. It is a token of appreciation for the friendship of the British people during World War 2.

12. A popular Christmas decoration in the Nordics, the Yule Goat, is a tradition going back to pre-Christian days. A popular prank was to place a goat made of straw in your neighbor's house without them noticing, and the victim would then repeat the act

13. In Japan, unmarried women in their late 20's were called "Christmas Cakes" because "after the 25th they're not good"

14. Toys R Us started the initiative of a 'quiet hour' in all its stores in the UK during Christmas. The initiative involved temporarily dimming the lights and switching off music and announcements, in order to help the autistic children shop for Christmas.

15. Artificial Christmas trees were invented by a British toilet brush company in the 1930s. The company used the same machinery and bristles to make the trees as they used to make their toilet brushes

Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang was not allowed to bring reindeer jerky with him on board a shuttle mission as it was "weird" for the Americans so soon before Christmas. He had to go with moose instead.

17. There is a pill called "Father Christmas" that makes your farts smell like chocolate

18. During 1979 Christmas, Francisco Macías Nguema, the first president of Equatorial Guinea had 150 of his opponents killed. Soldiers dressed up in Santa Clause outfits and executed them in a football stadium while amplifiers played "Those Were the Days."

19. The actor who played the scientist (Peter Billingsley) from "In a cave with a box of scraps" scene in Iron Man was Ralphie from A Christmas Story. He was also one of the executive producers of the film.

20. Wham! donated all the royalties from "Last Christmas" released December 1984 to Ethiopia famine aid.

The film 'It's a Wonderful Life' was considered a box office failure upon release in 1946. A clerical error placed the film in the public domain in 1974 causing many local TV networks to play the film for free, popularizing it as a Christmas classic.

22. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, two wealthy extremely entrepreneurs, sent each other gag Christmas gifts. Rockefeller sent Carnegie a cardboard vest to make fun of his poor childhood. In return, Carnegie sent a fine whiskey to Rockefeller, a devout Baptist who had given up drinking.

23. Al Jean (a writer and producer of The Simpsons) said if the series ever ends, he would like the final episode to end with the arrival of the Christmas pageant from the first scene of the pilot episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire," making the whole series a continuous loop.

24. Every Christmas since 1952 the US Air Force has airdropped gifts over the islands of Micronesia, making it the oldest ongoing Department of Defense mission and the longest running humanitarian airlift in the world

25. During the Yule, one of the festivals which Christmas originated from, the Norse god Odin is believed to lead a ghostly procession called the Wild Hunt across the night sky, and undead drought will rise and walk the earth.