12 Amazing Fun Facts About Christmas

Emma Juno Sparkes
WRITTEN BY
Emma Juno Sparkes

We scoured the internet for fun facts about Christmas, highlighting Santa Claus’s Canadian postal code, the best-selling music single of all time and the mystery of Jesus Christ’s real birthday.

The Christmas season was a magical time for me growing up in the U.K. Gathering with my family, decorating the tree with Christmas lights, hanging stockings and waiting to see what gifts Father Christmas would leave me were all part of the fun.

Even today, I still love Christmas. If you visit me in South Korea, where I live now, we may not have any Christmas pudding or mince pies, but during the Christmas period you can still see Christmas trees at the mall, hear classics like Jingle Bells in the shops and maybe witness someone singing a Christmas carol or two.

Whether your Christmas traditions are focused on the North Pole or on Baby Jesus, let’s learn some fun Christmas facts that you can enjoy year-round!

1. Santa Claus needs to travel to 822 homes per second to deliver presents on Christmas Eve

Santa Claus needs to travel to 822 homes per second to deliver presents to children on Christmas Eve, according to mathematicians on the internet. This means he travels at 2.3 million miles per hour (650 miles per second) over a period of 31 hours to 91.8 million homes with children celebrating Christmas.

Santa Claus sits in a chair looking at the camera.

2. The NORAD Santa Tracker started in the 1950s after an accidental phone call from a child looking for Santa

The famous NORAD Santa Tracker started in the U.S. in 1955, after an accidental phone call to the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center from a child looking for Santa Claus. This popular tradition was passed to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) after it was formed in 1958. Those wishing to track Santa’s movements in real-time this year can visit noradsanta.org.

3. Santa Claus has a postal code in Canada: H0H 0H0

H0H 0H0 is Santa Claus’ postal code in Canada. Santa got his own postal code from Canada Post in 1982, when the postal service set up a team to handle responses to letters sent by children in the run-up to Christmas Day.

Before 1982, Verna Green, wife of a Manitoba store owner, took it upon herself to respond to children’s letters to Santa that were placed in a box at the store. As word spread, the box began to include letters from around the country. Green responded to letters for 30 years.

Santa receives, and responds to, over one million letters from around the world via Canada Post each year. For the full North Pole address and dates of the program, visit the Canada Post website.

Two bells hang from the ceiling. Learn more Fun Facts About Christmas.

4. Jingle Bells was never written as a Christmas song

Jingle Bells was neither intended to be a Christmas carol nor a Christmas song. There is not a single reference to Christmas in the lyrics to the song Jingle Bells.

The song was written by James Pierpont and copyrighted under the name “One Horse Open Sleigh” in 1857. Though we’ll never know the true intention of the song, the most popular theory is that it was written as a Thanksgiving song to be performed at his church’s Thanksgiving concert.

5. Santa Claus is based on a real person

Santa Claus is based on a real person — Saint Nicholas from Antalya, modern-day Turkey. St. Nick, the patron saint of children, was known for his generosity.

Among his many good deeds, Saint Nicholas used his money to provide dowries for unmarried women. In one story, he provided these dowries by throwing bags of gold through an open window. These bags landed in socks and shoes that had been left to dry next to the fire.

This unconventional method of delivery led to the tradition of using Christmas stockings to give gifts. In some countries, such as Germany, gifts are placed in boots on December 6 in celebration of Saint Nicholas Day.

But why do we call him Santa Claus? The name Santa Claus comes from Father Christmas’s Dutch name, Sinterklaas.

6. There are a lot of Christmas-related world records

There are a lot of Christmas-related world records:

  • The first mass-produced Christmas card: The first Christmas card printed at scale was made in the U.K. in 1843, commissioned by Sir Henry Cole, the founding director of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
  • The most beard baubles in a beard: The record for most beard baubles in a beard was set by Joel Strasser in 2022. He attached 710 Christmas baubles. Strasser also holds Guinness World Records titles for putting other things in his beard, including pencils, golf tees, and paper straws.
  • The most expensively dressed Christmas tree: The Guinness World Record for most expensively dressed Christmas tree was won in the UAE in 2010 at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. The tree had 181 items of jewelry used as Christmas decorations and was valued at $11,026,900 ($15,954,203 in 2025 dollars).
  • The largest online Secret Santa game: The largest online Secret Santa game was organized by redditgifts.com in 2013. It had 89,421 participants.
  • The longest-running Santa school: The longest running Santa school is the Charles W Howard Santa Claus School in upstate New York. It was founded in 1937. The school offers a short intensive course for all those wishing to receive a BSC: Bachelor of Santa Claus.

7. Tinsel was originally made from real silver

Tinsel was originally made from real silver. The material has fallen a long way as it is now a cheap Christmas tree decoration. This original tinsel was used in Germany in the early 1600s. It is not readily available today, though there are various kinds of sterling silver tinsel jewelry available on Etsy.

Tinsel is not the only Christmas item invented by the Germans, according to popular theory. Candy canes were invented in 1670 when a German choirmaster handed out sugar sticks to keep his young singers quiet.

Are these Christmas facts making anyone else want to visit Germany?

8. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was invented by a department store

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was invented by the Montgomery Ward department store in 1939. The story was created by one of the store’s copywriters, Robert L. May. Montgomery Ward gave away 2.4 million copies of the book in its first year of publication.

A stuffed toy of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer sits on a sofa.

9. KFC is the traditional Christmas dinner in Japan

KFC is the traditional Christmas dinner in Japan. But how did this unlikely Christmas tradition begin?

It’s all thanks to a very successful “Kentucky for Christmas” marketing campaign launched in the country in 1974. KFC Japan generated sales of $63 million in the December 20-25 period in 2018, according to data released by YUM Brands.

Learn more about travel to Japan.

10. Coca-Cola created the image of Santa Claus we know today

Coca-Cola created the image of Santa Claus we know today, but the brand’s role is somewhat overstated. Previous images of Santa showed him wearing red robes, supposedly matching the robes of the original Saint Nicholas, according to the BBC.

There are also previous versions of Santa as a bearded man. However, in 1931 illustrator Haddon Sundblom created Coca-Cola’s version of Father Christmas as a large, jolly and warm character. This version of Santa lives on.

Santa sits on a seat and talks to a young boy who is leaning towards him.

11. Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” is the best-selling physical single of all time

Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” (written by Irving Berlin) is the best-selling physical single of all time, with estimated sales of over 50 million copies worldwide.

The single is also one of the highest-earning Christmas songs in terms of annual royalties, pulling in roughly $426,400 per year, according to research conducted by the U.K.’s Channel 5 in 2016. The top 10 is as follows:

Ranking Song Artist Annual Royalties
1 Merry Xmas Everybody Slade $1,300,000
2 Fairytale of New York The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl $520,000
3 All I Want for Christmas is You Mariah Carey $520,000
4 White Christmas Bing Crosby $426,400
5 Last Christmas Wham! $390,000
6 Wonderful Christmastime Paul McCartney $338,000
7 Stop the Cavalry Jona Lewie $156,000
8 2000 Miles The Pretenders $132,600
9 Mistletoe and Wine Cliff Richard $130,000
10 Stay Another Day East 17 $126,100

12. No one actually knows when Jesus was born

No one knows when Jesus was born despite Christmas being a Christian festival to celebrate his birth. Some believe Jesus was born closer to Easter. There are three theories as to why the date December 25 was selected to celebrate Christmas, according to Britannica.

  1. The Roman Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus estimated that Jesus was conceived on March 25, and therefore, his birth would have been nine months later.
  2. The date December 25 aligned with a celebration of the return of longer days after the winter solstice, and followed the Roman holiday of the Saturnalia, which involved feasts and gift-giving. It was also the date used to celebrate the Indo-European deity Mithra.
  3. The church in Rome used the December 25 date to weaken ties to existing pagan rituals.

Learn more about the most celebrated holidays worldwide.

A close-up shot of a nativity scene. 

Either way, Christmas has always been a great time for me and my family. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these fun facts about Christmas as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them for you.

About the Author
Emma Juno Sparkes
Associate

Emma Juno Sparkes hails from the U.K. and holds a BA in Graphic Design Communications from University of the Arts London. Her passion for travel and cultural exchange flourished in South Korea, where she taught English for eight years before moving into media. Emma has written about travel and culture for a number of outlets including Morning Calm, The Korea Times and Seoul magazine. When she’s not at work you can find her exploring the streets of Seoul, searching for hidden gems and practicing photography.