Interesting Christmas History Facts

'Tis the season for some random facts about Christmas history . . .

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1.  Was it, at one point, not proper to wish someone "Merry Christmas". The "Chicago Tribune" made the argument once in a cartoon that we should wish people a CHEERY Christmas instead of a MERRY Christmas . . . because merriment was associated with drunkenness, noise, and other bad behavior.

2.  Nobody knows for sure how the tradition of drinking eggnog got started.

3.  Before Christmas lights...Christmas trees used to be lit up with real candles.

4.  Santa, as we know him today, may have been influenced by a Coca-Cola ad.

Santa's red suit can be attributed to a guy named Thomas Nast who worked for "Harper's Weekly" magazine in the late 19th century.  Before that, Santa often wore a tan suit.

 

But it was a series of advertisements from Coca-Cola in the 1930s that really made the image of Santa in a red suit popular.

(Buzzfeed / Time / ET / Smithsonian / History)