1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

3 When Herod the king had heard [these things], he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,

6 And thou Bethlehem, [in] the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.

8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found [him], bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.

9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

During the Christmas season, it’s hard to go anywhere without seeing stars hanging from street lamps and perched atop Christmas trees. Although the Star of Bethlehem appears just once in the Bible, in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament, it has become one of the holiday’s most important and enduring symbols. Yet astronomers are still puzzled by whatever might have inspired that aspect of the Christmas story.

As EarthSky.org’s Larry Sessions writes, it's clear to modern astronomers that the Star of Bethlehem behaved very oddly, if it existed at all. First of all, Jesus Christ almost certainly wasn’t born in December, so looking for its origins in the night sky this time of year isn’t the best place to start. Historians have long agreed that Christmas shares roots with the ancient Roman solstice holiday, Saturnalia, and that Jesus was most likely born in the spring when shepherds would be tending their flocks, Donna Vickroy writes for the Chicago Tribune. In fact, Christmas only takes place on December 25 because of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who moved the holiday in order to coincide with the shortest night of the year.
While the Bible says that the three Magi were led to Jesus’ birthplace by a star in the sky, Art Maurer, the director of Joliet Junior College’s Trackman Planetarium, tells Vickroy that that explanation doesn’t quite jibe with the rest of the story. "The Magi came from Persia, which meant they traveled 900 miles west. So they didn't see a star in the east," Maurer tells Vickroy.

There’s one other possibility: it could have been a visible planet, like Jupiter. According to Maurer, Jupiter was in retrograde at the time, which means it would have appeared to travel east as it rose in the sky each night. Not only that, but ancient astronomers considered it the king planet, and its appearance in the Leo constellation might have been pretty significant for people who saw meaning in the movements of the stars and planets, Vickroy writes.

the Pittsburgh Daily Post carried a report about the "the first negro Santa ever put on the streets of any city". He had been hired by the Volunteers of America in response to "appeals from poor coloured children", the newspaper added.

But the real breakthrough for black Santas came in 1936, when tap-dancing legend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson became Harlem's "first negro Santa Claus" at an annual Christmas Eve party for underprivileged children. In previous years, the children had been visited by a "Nordic Santa" from downtown New York, reported a local newspaper.

In 1943, one of Harlem's biggest department stores, Blumstein's, hired its first black Santa Claus. It was followed, in 1946, by a store in Chicago. As white people moved out to the suburbs, and began shopping at the giant new malls that were being built there, it made economic sense for downtown department store owners to tailor the Christmas shopping experience to their now mainly black customers.

One department store in Brooklyn even set up rival black-and-white Santas, separated by a low partition, to enable people to make their choice.

Saying 'Merry Christmas' rather than 'Happy Christmas' seems to go back several hundred years. It's first recorded in 1534 when John Fisher (an English Catholic Bishop in the 1500s) wrote it in a Christmas letter to Thomas Cromwell: "And this our Lord God send you a mery {sic} Christmas, and a comfortable, to your heart’s desire."

There's also the carol "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" which dates back to the 16th century in England. It comes from the West Country in England and it was first published in the form we know it today in 1760.

In the English language of the time, the phrase 'Rest You Merry' didn't mean simply to be happy; 'rest' meant "to keep, cause to continue to remain" and 'merry' could mean "pleasant, bountiful, prosperous". The comma in the phrase should be AFTER the 'merry' not BEFORE it. But it's often put after the merry which changes the meaning to make 'merry Gentleman' and so a 'Merry Christmas.'

Marriage is a relatively new gig for Santa Claus. There’s no record of his original incarnation, Bishop of Myra St. Nicholas, having a wife. Although it’s not impossible for a fourth century Turkish bishop to have had a wife, the figure would expand and morph until, by the end of the 18th century, the bishop had transitioned into a full-time behavior monitor, jolly-maker, and bringer of toys.
But even mythological love affairs don’t just pop up overnight. It would be years and years before Santa found his lady. The first mention of Mrs. Claus appears in the 1849 short story “A Christmas Legend” by missionary James Rees, in which a couple disguise themselves, angel-like, as travelers, and seek shelter with a family. As it turns out, the two strangers are not the Clauses at all, but long-lost family members in double disguise. Still, real or not real, Rees had created a legend.
Over the next few decades, the legend took shape. Mentions of Mrs. Claus appeared in short stories, poems, and songs. She also began accompanying her husband to Christmas parties. Some reported that she dressed in red; others, like the architect/narrator in E.C. Gardner’s 1887 fanciful essay “A Hickory Back-Log,” decked her out in green and plaid.

But Mrs. Claus wouldn’t become a mainstay of the Christmas celebration until the Baby Boom era, with the help of Nat King Cole’s “Mrs. Santa Claus” in 1953 and Phyllis McGinley’s 1963 children’s book How Mrs. Santa Claus Saved Christmas.

The Second World War saw American women break into many male-dominated jobs: riveters, crane operators, cab drivers, and professional baseball players, to name a few. But perhaps the most unusual breakthrough of all occurred 76 years ago this Christmas, when department stores began hiring women to play Santa, sitting in thrones previously monopolized by men. Pretty soon, still more women in red Santa suits and matching hats could be seen ringing bells on street corners and ho-ho-ho-ing it up for charity.

Even before the U.S. officially entered the war, some astute observers saw it coming. “It is customary in wartime for women to take over numerous fields of employment conventionally reserved for men,” the St. Louis Star-Times noted in 1941. But while the paper conceded that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt might be right that a “woman’s place is in the office, factory, courtroom, marketplace, corner filling station, and other locations too numerous to mention,” it drew a line in the snow at Santa.

Charlie Howard, a department store Santa who also trained other practitioners, gave the concept a boost in 1937, when he announced that his program had gone co-ed. As he told the Associated Press, he planned to graduate two Mrs. Clauses that year, whose job, the story reported, would be to “greet little girls, learn what they want in their Christmas stockings, teach them how to play with dollies, doll houses, dishes and clothes.” The article, however, also quoted Howard as declaring, “And she’ll have to be good looking, too.”

Less than a year after the U.S. declared war on Japan, in November 1942, the first female department store Santa seems to have appeared in Chicago. “The manpower shortage has even hit old Saint Nick,” the caption on an Associated Press photo explained. “This lady Santa Claus has turned up—dressed like Mr. Claus except for the whiskers—at a Chicago department store, and youngsters seem just as happy telling her which gifts they are hoping for.” (Though other contemporary accounts would treat her as a full-fledged female Santa, the photo caption hedged a bit, ending with a reference to her as a “Mrs. Santa Claus” who would “pass on children’s wishes to her overworked husband.”)

In December 1942, the Brooklyn Eagle reported that, “Unable to find a man suitable for the job,” an F.W. Woolworth store in Union, New Jersey, had also hired a female Santa. Identified as Mrs. Anna Michaelson, she would “wear a skirt, instead of trousers, but all the other habiliments will be the same as those of the traditional Kris Kringle.” In Michaelson’s case that included a white wig and beard, which the mother of eight obligingly showed off for a news photographer.

As it turns out, the red-leafed plant was introduced to the United States by botanist and statesman Joel Poinsett (1779-1851), who as the first U.S. Minister to Mexico found the plant while serving there. The poinsettia is said to have been used by the Aztecs as a red dye and to reduce fevers.

James Smithson bequest. (Although Smithson had never visited the United States, he left his estate of $508,318—about $15 million in today's dollars—to establish in Washington, D.C. an institution for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge." ) At the time, much debate was going on about how best to achieve Smithson's request.

Native to Central America, the plant flourished in an area of Southern Mexico known as Taxco del Alarcon. The Aztecs used the plant decorative purposes but also put the plant to practical use. They extracted a purplish dye for use in textiles and cosmetics from the plant’s bracts. The milky white sap, today called latex, was made into a preparation to treat fevers.

Poinsett maintained his own hothouses on his Greenville, South Carolina plantations, and while visiting the Taxco area in 1828, (as US Minister to Mexico) he became enchanted by the brilliant red blooms he saw there. He immediately sent some of the plants back to South Carolina, where he began propagating the plants and sending them to friends and botanical gardens.

Among the recipients of Poinsett's work was John Bartram of Philadelphia, who in turn gave the plant over to another friend, Robert Buist, a Pennsylvania nurseryman. Mr. Buist is thought to be the first person to have sold the plant under its botanical name, Euphorbia pulcherrima. It is thought to have become known by its more popular name of poinsettia around 1836, the origin of the name recognizing the man who first brought the plant to the United States.

Congress honored Joel Poinsett by declaring December 12th as National Poinsettia Day which commemorates the date of his death in 1851. The day was meant to honor Poinsett and encourage people to enjoy the beauty of the popular holiday plant.

The earliest poinsettias were sold by individual florists and merchants—including the patriarch of the family, Albert Ecke, a German immigrant—and usually as single-cut stems instead of rooted in pots. But they were hardly durable; most would last two or three days, at best.

The Eckes helped transition poinsettias from ephemeral flowers to potted plants, created new shapes and introduced new colors (from shades of white and yellow to those that have names, “ice punch,” “pink peppermint” and “strawberries and cream” among them).

One of the earliest varieties, for which Ecke sought a patent in 1937, was “longer and more attractive; … will bloom in a cooler temperature than other known varieties; the bracts are a clearer and more beautiful color; … will produce more perfect bloom … than any other species of Poinsettia,” he wrote.

It’s one thing to have a ranch bursting with new plants, but it’s another to try to actually sell them. By nature, poinsettias are at their best between November and January, which aligns perfectly with the Christian advent season. For that reason, Paul Sr. started to market the plants as “Christmas flowers.”

The Eggnog Riot, sometimes known as the Grog Mutiny, was a riot that took place at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, on 24–25 December 1826. It was caused by a drunken Christmas Day party in the North Barracks of the academy. Two days prior to the incident, a large quantity of whiskey was smuggled into the academy to make eggnog for the party, giving the riot its name.

The riot eventually involved more than one-third of the cadets by the time it ceased on Christmas morning. A subsequent investigation by academy officials resulted in the implication of 70 cadets and the court-martialing of 20 of them and one enlisted soldier. Among the participants in the riot—though he was not court-martialed—was future Confederate States President Jefferson Davis.

During West Point’s early years following its founding in 1802, it hardly resembled the highly revered institution that exists today. According to Smithsonian, admission standards were lax, and students could be enrolled at any point during the year. Drinking was also a significant part of the campus culture, especially around the holidays. It was an annual tradition at West Point for cadets to drink eggnog during their Christmas festivities, but in 1826, the school’s superintendent, Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, cut them off.

As a means of whipping the community into shape, Thayer imposed a harsh new rule that prohibited the purchase, storage, and consumption of alcohol on West Point property. Unfortunately for Thayer, a few cadets took these new restrictions as a challenge come Christmas Eve.

The cadets (among them class of '28 student Jefferson Davis, a.k.a. the future president of the Confederacy) smuggled in three or four gallons of whiskey from a local tavern. Thayer suspected there might be shenanigans afoot for the holiday party, but he only took the normal precautions that night, assigning two officers to the North Barracks. The officers went to bed around midnight with no trouble to report, but that all changed around four in the morning. One of the officers, Captain Ethan Allen Hitchcock, was awoken by the sounds of partying a few floors above him. He went to investigate and found six or seven cadets in a drunken state. He ordered them back to their rooms, and as he went to leave, he heard a second party going on in the room next door. There he found two intoxicated cadets hiding beneath a blanket, and a third party who was so drunk he refused to remove the hat he was using to conceal his face. When Hitchcock demanded that he show himself, they argued, and things got so tense that after the officer left, the cadets declared, “Get your dirks and bayonets … and pistols if you have them. Before this night is over, Hitchcock will be dead!”

Soon after, the infamous West Point eggnog riot was underway. Anywhere from 70 to 90 cadets ended up taking part, and while no one was killed that night, the chaos did result in assaults on two officers, several shattered windows, and banisters being ripped away from stairways. By the time morning arrived, the North Barracks had been completely wrecked. Instead of indicting up to a third of the academy’s 260 students and further reinforcing its reputation as an unruly institution, superintendent Thayer chose to only target the worst offenders. Jefferson Davis was able to evade a charge, and he, along with fellow classmates (including future Confederate General Robert E. Lee) testified in their peers’ defense. Nineteen cadets were eventually expelled, and the buildings that served as the site of the riot were demolished.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads...

What they’re not, annoyingly enough, is sugar-coated plums. According to candy historians and the Oxford English Dictionary, a sugar plum is a comfit—that is, a seed, nut, or scrap of spice coated with a layer of hard sugar, like the crunchy outer case of an M&M. In the 17th century, popular innards for comfits included caraway, fennel, coriander, and cardamom seeds, almonds, walnuts, ginger, cinnamon, and aniseed. Tiny comfits—“hundreds and thousands,” “shot comfits,” or nonpareils”—were made by sugar-coating minuscule celery seeds; “long comfits” were sugar-coated strips of cinnamon bark or citrus peel.

Comfits are thought to be one of the world’s oldest sugar candies. They most likely started life as medicine, devised by Arab apothecaries as treatments for indigestion, and were brought to Europe via Genoese and Venetian sugar traders. The Tudors ate them as stomach-settlers at the end of their sizeable meals, along with a glass of spiced wine.

Comfits were tricky to make. The sugar coatings had to be gradually built up over time, first adding sugar syrup with a special funnel (called a “pearling funnel” or “cot”), then shimmying the candies in a hot pan. This process-called “panning”—had to be repeated for hours or days on end, until up to 30 layers of sugar had been added to the mix. Comfits, since they were massively labor-intensive, were pricey. Sugar plums were originally snacks for aristocrats. Early comfits also tended to be lumpy. The perfect comfit was the work of a skilled, patient, and possibly lucky confectioner. The process was so difficult that trade secrets were strictly guarded. A rare survival are the instructions published by Sir Hugh Platt (1609) on “The arte of comfetmaking,” who spills the beans on techniques and recipes. (“A quarter of a pound of Coriander seeds, and three pounds of sugar will make great, huge and big comfets.”) Today panning is performed mechanically, which is how we get uniformly round jawbreakers and smoothly oval jellybeans and Jordan almonds.

“Sugar plum,” these days, is an obsolete word, which seems a shame considering its versatility in its 17th- to 19th-century heyday. In the 17th century, to have a “mouth full of sugar plums” meant that you spoke sweetly, but might have a deceitful hidden agenda; in the 18th century, “to sugar plum” was a verb, meaning to pet, fawn over, or make up to. In the 19th century, “plum,” all on its own, came to mean anything delightful and desirable—hence Tchaikovsky’s Sugarplum Fairy in the Nutcracker ballet.

Confectionery historian Laura Mason calls comfit-making "one of the most difficult and tedious methods in craft confectionery, requiring specialized equipment, careful heat control, and experience." Depending on the size of the finished product, a batch could take several days to complete. Not just anybody could make these candies. Until the advent of machine innovations, comfits or sugar plums were a luxury good, most likely to be found in an aristocrat's pocket or between courses at a banquet.

I don't know what exactly Clement Moore had in mind when he imagined sleeping children's heads full of "visions of sugar plums." Was it a specific confection or a more general notion of sweetness? The lasting power of his poem suggests that it doesn't really matter. Even today, when the original referent for sugar plum has faded into the historical mists, we still recognize its meaning: the excitement, the pleasure, the childlike wonder of Christmas, all in the shape of a little sugar plum.

In the Welsh folkloric tradition of Mari Lwyd, a horse skull visits your home around Christmas, and you must best it in poetry or allow it inside.

There’s a skeletal horse singing rhymes outside your door, and it wants to come inside. Can you beat the dead mare in a battle of poetic wits? This is the Welsh tradition of the Mari Lwyd, a mid-winter custom wherein the skull of a horse, decked out with bells and ribbons, is paraded on a stick by a reveler beneath a sackcloth, who challenges neighbors in exchange for drink and food.

It probably goes without saying that although Mari Lwyd now manifests around Christmas and New Year’s, this is a pre-Christian practice, one of those pagan rituals that’s endured on the British Isles over the centuries. The rather terrifying spectacle of Mari Lwyd did nearly disappear from Wales at one point, yet it’s had a resurgence recently, with Christmas ornaments being used for eyes occasionally instead of old glass bottle bottoms. The insults in the “pwnco” battles, as they’re called, are milder these days, and the drinking a little less heavy, but the sardonic grin of the horse skull, sometimes with a spring-loaded jaw, remains to haunt your Yuletides. In the 1966 video from the BBC Wales below, the Mari Lwyd dialogue plays out in matching rhymes until the undead mare is let in.

Exactly why anyone, at any point in history, thought this was good fun is lost to the ages. Music Traditions Wales (which offers a flat-pack Mari Lwyd for schools to assemble) points to the deep visual culture of the white horse in Britain, such as the late prehistoric Uffington White Horse carved into the hills of Oxfordshire, England. And there is a wider, worldwide heritage of ritual animal disguise, including the similar practice of hoodening in Kent, England, which features a hobbyhorse on a pole held by a person under a sheet.