thursday 13: yuletide season tidbits

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1. the Jingle Bells origin story

The song is one of the most popular and well-known songs of the holiday season, but the truth is that the song wasn’t written to be a song of the season. It was written by James Lord Pierpont in 1857, who just a few years later joined the Confederate Army. Various claims have been made about its original purpose. One such claim was that the song was originally composed for a Sunday school choir, to be sung for Thanksgiving. Another claim was that the song was composed as a drinking song. However, there is little evidence to support these claims. There has been more recent research that proves it was truly composed as a minstrel song, with the intention of satirizing Black people in wintertime. Furthermore, when the song was released, it was dedicated to John P. Ordway, who put together Ordway’s Aeolians, a minstrel troupe who performed in blackface. Ironically, despite his creation of a blackface act, Ordway was a Union surgeon in the Civil War. ^[1]Snopes

2. a KFC Christmas

In Japan, where 96% of the population practices Shintoism, Christmas is a secular holiday. And for many Japanese, the holiday means a KFC bucket. KFC Japan hits peak sales during the holiday season, the busiest day Christmas Eve. On that day, KFCs are around 10 times busier than the country’s national annual average. It began in the 1970s, when KFC began to open restaurants in Japan, launching its first Christmas campaign in 1974. The commercials advertised special deals that included a bottle of wine with a KFC bucket, suggesting it for Christmas parties. Since then, the tradition has evolved to include Santa-dressed Colonel statues, premium chicken preparations, making them so popular that preorders and reservations now begin in October. Every year, bucket deal changes, offering different side options, new designs, and commemorative plates.^[2]KFC blog

3. a baker’s dozen of Santas

Icelandic folklore includes not one Santa but thirteen, also known as the Yule Lads or the Jólasveinar. The season begins on the evening of 11 December, when shoes are left on window sills and left there for thirteen days. Every night, a different Yule Lad visits to place a gift in the shoe, or a rotten potato if the child has been bad. The Yule Lads are said to be brothers, the children of Grýla and Leppalúði (depicted as very lazy). The legend of the Jólasveinar describes Grýla and Leppalúði as monstrous creatures. trolls. During the holiday season, Grýla leaves the cave where she lives with her husband and children to roam the mountains in search of naughty children. When she finds them, she makes stew out of them. And then there’s Jólakötturinn, the family’s cat. According to legend, the cat hunts children who don’t receive new clothes for Christmas. Today, the Yule Lads are viewed more like the traditional Santa, but they were once depicted as far more mischievous, even terrifying.^[3]Guide to Iceland

4. the Xmas debate

Is utterly baseless. Contrary to popular belief, the X does not “take Christ out of Christmas.” In fact, it’s just the opposite. The letter X is the equivalent of the Greek letter “chi.” Chi is the first letter in the Greek word Χριστός, or Christos. In other words, Christ. The use of the X was simply an abbreviation for the word “Christ,” not an attempt to remove the religious aspect of the holiday. This usage has been in existence since at least the early 11th century. Evidence shows that word “Christ” was often abbreviated for frugal reasons. Parchment paper was incredibly expensive, so oft-used words were often abbreviated to save space. The abbreviation continued to appear throughout history, even in 15th century church documents in attempt to cut down on the cost of publications. By the middle of the 16th century, the abbreviation was a commonly used part of the language.^[4]Daytona Beach News-Journal

5. feathery Christmas trees

In the 1880s, the first artificial trees were made in Germany, using goose feathers dyed green. Before that, the custom had been to lop off the tops of fir trees for use as Christmas trees. But this practice caused the tree to stop growing taller, rendering it useless for the lumber industry and creating deforestation. So the solution was feathery trees, first goose and then turkey, chicken, or swan. It was some 50 years later that trees created with brush bristles began to be more popular. In the 1950s and 1960s, trees began to be mass produced in aluminum and plastic. ^[5]Sauk County History

6. Santa and snow of a different kind

I found two incidents of Santa and cocaine…what? And that was with a very specific search, so who knows how many more there are!! The first was in 1998, in Rio de Janeiro, when police found not only Christmas ornaments stuffed with weed but Santa dolls filled with cocaine. They were at a residents association HQ where toys were being wrapped for distribution to the neighborhood.^[6]LA Times The second incident happened in the same city just two years later when police confiscated 20 Santa dolls, again stuffed with cocaine. They were found after a street vendor selling holiday merch saw cops and tried to flee.^[7]IOL

7. holiday living

There are at least nine towns with Christmas names in the world. In the US we have: Santa Claus, Indiana; Christmas, Michigan; North Pole; Oklahoma; Noel, Missouri; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In Mexico, there is Barra de Navidad, Jalisco. In Brazil, there is Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. In Belgium, there is Sint-Niklaas, East Flanders. In Wales, there is Bethlehem, Carmarthenshire.

8. the origins of kissing under the mistletoe

The kissing tradition is thought to be a blend of both Celtic and Norse myth. The plant has the ability to blossom even in the depths of winter, which allowed it to become a symbol of life for Celtic druids in the 1st century. It became a part of druidic herbal lore, often given to both animals and humans to promote and restore fertility. In Norse myth, when Baldur (son of Odin) was prophesied to die, Frigg (his mother, and the goddess of love) sought out all the plants and animals in the natural world. She wanted their oaths not to harm her son. But she neglected the mistletoe. Loki (god of mischief) saw this, made an arrow out of the mistletoe, and used it to kill Baldur. But the gods resurrected him, and Frigg declared the mistletoe to be a symbol of love. She then vowed to kiss any that passed beneath it. How this jumped into Christmas traditions is largely unknown, but many believe it gained popularity with English servants in the 18th century before making its way into the middle classes. ^[8]History.com

9. the dark side of mistletoe

Fun fact… mistletoe is toxic. It’s a parasitic shrub that survives by digging itself into a tree and stealing its nutrients and minerals. But it’s not a true parasite but a hemiparasite, a plant that is also capable of photosynthesis. And while it has been used in a variety of medicines over time, it is toxic, toxins in all parts of the plant. The American version rarely causes any symptoms to arise, but the European version appears to be much more toxic with gastrointestinal symptoms, even death. But despite its bad rap, mistletoe is good for the environment, its berries food for several species of bird. And there are three species of butterfly that are dependent on the plant for their survival. It also provides nectar and pollen for bees, feed for mammals and insects.^[9]WebMD

10. the gift of green

In 2015, Santa Claus was arrested in a Seaside, California (my former stomping grounds) Buffalo Wild Wings. Why? Because he walked around the restaurant giving gifts of weed to patrons and workers. He wrapped handfuls of it in napkins and walked around to distribute to those in the restaurant. He also stuffed into a tip jar. He had two pounds of it still on him when arrested.^[10]NBC Bay Area

11. longest running Santa school

The Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School holds this Guinness World Record. The school in was founded in 1937 in Albion, New York. The founder was once THE Santa, the Santa of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Now located in Midland, Michigan, the curriculum teaches sleigh riding, toy building, dressing, makeup, wigs, and more. They also offer a Mrs. Claus class.^[11]Guinness World Records

12. the 2025 tally

Of the 12 Days of Christmas, according to the annual look by PNC Bank. The estimated total cost has gone up by 4.5%, ringing in at $51,476.12. This number represents the cost of the final verse alone, one set of every gift. The total cost with every verse included is $218,542.98, up by 4.4%. ^[12]PNC Bank CPI

(Note: I got these figures from the bank site, and what’s listed below does not match the final-verse figure they gave, which is about $4000 more than what the below adds up to.)

Let’s break that down, shall we?

• a partridge in a pear tree: $420.18, which is up by 13.5%. The rise in cost isn’t the bird but the pear tree, due to labor, fertilizer, and land costs.
• two turtle doves: $750.00 and holding steady from last year.
• three French hens: $346.50 and, like their dove friends, holding steady from last year.
• four calling birds: $599.96. Maybe it’s a bird thing, minus the partridge, but it, too, is holding steady from last year.
• five gold rings: $1,649.90. This one jumped in cost significantly, a whopping 32.5%. The culprits to the higher cost are inflation, a declining US dollar, and federal rate cut expectations.
• six geese a-laying: $930. Like partridges, these birds have gotten a touch more expensive, 3.3% more than last year.
• seven swans a-swimming: $13,125.00. The swans follow the trend of most of the other birds, with no increase since last year.
• eight maids a-milking: $58. Like the majority of birds, there was no increase in cost. I feel like there’s something to be said about the low price of female labor, but this one’s due to the federal minimum wage.
• nine ladies dancing: $8,856,88. These ladies got a tiny raise, of 3.5%.
• ten lords a-leaping. $16,836.14. Shocking, the men got a raise, 8.1%.
• eleven pipers piping: $3,797.48. This is up just 2.2% from last years.
• twelve drummers drumming: $4.106.08. Like the pipers, the drummers are up just 2.2% from last year.

13. what a banger from the musical Queen of Christmas

Mariah Carey, that is. For many people, it ain’t Christmas until they here “All I want for Christmas is You,” a song that came out 31 years ago. Take that in. Thirty. One. Years. Yikes. It’s so popular that it made me wonder just how much she makes off it each year. So here goes. (And these figures don’t count related merch, or the book and movie tied to the song.)

Between its release in 1994 and 2016, the song made roughly $60 million, or $2.6 a year. Since then, she earns roughly $3 million a year, more when she performs it as a part of concerts, tours, specials, and ads. That puts her total song-alone revenue somewhere around $90 million.^[13]Parade In 2011, Associated Press put the number at more than $100 million, not including the song-based ringtone which itself has earned in the millions.^[14]Associated Press