Christmas trivia

Holidays : Christmas

» "Hot cockles" was a popular game at Christmas in medieval times. It was a game in which the other players took turns striking the blindfolded player, who had to guess the name of the person delivering each blow. "Hot cockles" was still a Christmas pastime until the Victorian era.

» "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was conceived by author Robert May in 1939. Two other names he considered before deciding on Rudolph were Reginald and Rollo.

» “The Nutcracker” is the name for the ballet performed around Christmas time each year. “The Nutcracker Suite” is the title of the music Tchaikovsky wrote.

» Holiday Headaches: Nearly one in four people said they have more headaches during the Christmas season than any other time of the year. Of those surveyed, 75 percent said that not having enough time caused them to have headaches; 73 percent said crowds and traffic created their headaches; and 51 percent said skipping meals gave them headaches.

» A boar's head is a traditional Christmas dish. According to a popular story, the unlucky boar whose head began the custom in the Middle Ages was killed by choking to death on a book of Greek philosophy. The story claims that a university student saved himself from a charging boar by ramming a book of Aristotle's writings down its throat. He then cut off the boar's head and brought it back to his college.

» A Christmas club, a savings account in which a person deposits a fixed amount of money regularly to be used at Christmas for shopping, came about around 1905.

» A traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard.

» According to a 1995 survey, 7 out of 10 British dogs get Christmas gifts from their doting owners.