78 Fun Facts About Christmas by the Numbers

If every gift in The Twelve Days of Christmas is repeated daily, how many gifts are sent in total?

364 gifts in all: each day's presents are repeated on every later day, so the twelve cumulative verses add up to 364, one short of a full year.

For how many nights do Las Posadas processions re-enact Mary and Joseph's search for lodging before Christmas?

9 nights, from December 16 to 24: each evening a candlelit procession calls at a different house to ask for shelter, as Mary and Joseph did in Bethlehem.

In PNC's 2024 Christmas Price Index, about how much did one set of the Twelve Days of Christmas gifts cost?

About $49,000: the bank prices the song's shopping list every year as a playful inflation gauge, and the 2024 bill of $49,263 was 5.4% higher than the year before.

In The Gift of the Magi, how much money does Della have for Jim's present?

$1.87: Della sells her long hair for $20 to buy Jim a watch chain, only to find he has sold his watch to buy combs for her hair.

In what year did Robert L. May create Rudolph for the Montgomery Ward department store?

1939: May, a Montgomery Ward copywriter, wrote the Rudolph booklet for the store's holiday giveaway; Johnny Marks's song followed in 1949 and the stop-motion TV special in 1964.

How many copies of the Rudolph booklet did Montgomery Ward hand out in its first year?

2.4 million: Montgomery Ward had asked copywriter Robert L. May for a children's story its stores could give away to Christmas shoppers, and his red-nosed misfit was an instant hit.

How many spirits does Marley tell Scrooge will visit him in A Christmas Carol?

Past, Present and Yet to Come; Marley's own ghost makes four visitors in all.

How many weeks did Dickens take to write A Christmas Carol?

6 weeks in the autumn of 1843: the first 6,000 copies sold out within days, yet the costly binding and colour plates left Dickens with disappointingly small profits.

In A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Present says he has had more than how many brothers?

1,800: asked whether he has had many brothers, the Ghost answers 'More than eighteen hundred', and Scrooge mutters, 'A tremendous family to provide for!'

How many candles are on a traditional Advent wreath?

4 candles: one more is lit on each Sunday of Advent, so the light grows week by week until all of them burn on the last Sunday before Christmas.

How many little doors are on a standard Advent calendar?

24 doors, one for each day from 1 December to Christmas Eve: Advent itself begins on a Sunday that shifts from year to year, so printed calendars simply start on a fixed date.

How many bulbs were on Edward Johnson's first electrically lit Christmas tree in 1882?

80 bulbs: Johnson, a partner of Thomas Edison, hand-wired red, white and blue lamps the size of walnuts onto a revolving tree in his New York parlour, a safer show than the usual candles.

About how many LED lights are hung on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree?

50,000 multicoloured LEDs, strung along about five miles of wire by crews working from scaffolding built around the tree.

How much does the 2018 Swarovski star atop the Rockefeller Center tree weigh?

900 pounds: architect Daniel Libeskind's star carries three million crystals on 70 backlit spikes, so it takes a crane to lift it onto the top of the tree.

Since what year has the Rockefeller Center tree been an annual tradition?

1933: construction workers put up an unofficial tree on the muddy site in 1931, and the first formal lighting ceremony in 1933 began the annual tradition.

How many reindeer pull the sleigh in A Visit from St. Nicholas?

8 reindeer: the poem named every one of them, from Dasher to Blitzen, and fixed the picture of Santa arriving by flying sleigh on Christmas Eve.

How much did Home Alone cost to make?

$18 million: Warner Bros. shut the film down when its costs passed the $10 million ceiling John Hughes had promised, and 20th Century Fox stepped in to finish it.

About how much did Home Alone gross worldwide?

$480 million or so: the Christmas comedy opened in mid-November 1990 and was still the number-one film in American cinemas at the start of February.

For how many years had the Grinch put up with Whoville's Christmas noise before he snapped?

53 years: Dr. Seuss was 53 himself when the book came out in 1957, which biographers read as a hint that he saw something of the Grinch in himself.

How many sizes too small is the Grinch's heart?

2 sizes too small, the narrator guesses, until the Whos sing on Christmas morning without their presents and the Grinch's heart grows three sizes that day.

In It's a Wonderful Life, how much does Uncle Billy lose on Christmas Eve?

$8,000: Billy absent-mindedly hands the Building and Loan's deposit to Mr. Potter inside a folded newspaper, and Potter keeps it, driving George Bailey to the brink of suicide.

Into how many staves, as Dickens called its chapters, is A Christmas Carol divided?

5 staves, from 'Marley's Ghost' to 'The End of It': a stave is a verse of a song, which suits a ghost story that Dickens chose to call a carol.

How much has Elf grossed worldwide?

$230 million or so: the $33 million comedy became such a seasonal fixture that it has gone back into cinemas in most years since 2018.

In Die Hard, how much in bearer bonds is Hans Gruber's gang trying to steal?

$640 million: Gruber only poses as a terrorist making demands, and the siege of the Christmas Eve party is really cover for robbing the tower's vault.

Roughly what was the budget of the 2004 motion-capture film The Polar Express?

About $170 million: it opened only second, behind The Incredibles, but yearly Christmas re-releases have since lifted its takings to nearly twice its cost.

In 1942, Bing Crosby recorded White Christmas in a session that took about how many minutes?

18 minutes: the quick take was pressed so many times that the master wore out, and Crosby had to record the song again in 1947.

Which composer's ballet The Nutcracker premiered in December 1892?

Tchaikovsky: the ballet was no success at first, and its composer died the following year, long before it became a Christmas fixture.

Roughly how many physical copies has Bing Crosby's recording of White Christmas sold?

50 million copies by the Guinness World Records estimate, the most for any single: Irving Berlin sensed it at once, boasting that he had just written the best song anybody had ever written.

How many weeks did White Christmas top the Billboard chart on its 1942 release?

11 weeks from October 1942: with America at war, the song's longing for Christmases past struck a chord, and armed forces radio played it again and again for the troops.

How many years after release did All I Want for Christmas Is You first top the Hot 100?

25 years: the 1994 song was not sold as a single at first, which made it ineligible for the chart, and it finally reached number one in December 2019.

How much did each of Henry Cole's first Christmas cards cost in 1843?

One shilling: Cole wanted a quick way to answer a pile of Christmas letters, but his printed card was no instant hit, and the custom took decades to catch on.

In which city was Christmas first recorded as being celebrated on 25 December, in about AD 336?

Rome: an almanac compiled there, the Chronograph of 354, preserves the entry, yet Christmas did not become a major Christian festival until around the 9th century.

About how many soldiers crossed the Delaware with George Washington on Christmas night 1776?

About 2,400: they crossed the icy river overnight and surprised the Hessian garrison at Trenton the next morning, a badly needed win after months of American defeats.

On which day of January do Orthodox churches using the Julian calendar celebrate Christmas?

7 January: these churches still keep 25 December, but by the Julian calendar, which now runs nearly two weeks behind the Gregorian one used for civil dates.

How many girls did Saint Nicholas save from prostitution by tossing gold through their window?

He did it on three nights so their father could pay their dowries, the root of the gift-giving legend.

How many ingredients should a traditional Christmas pudding have, according to the popular myth?

13 ingredients, one for Christ and each of the twelve apostles, with the mix stirred east to west for the Magi, a piece of Stir-up Sunday folklore rather than any fixed recipe.

In what year did NORAD's Santa tracker begin, after a Sears advert misprinted a phone number?

1955: a Sears ad in Colorado Springs invited children to phone Santa, the calls reached Continental Air Defense Command's operations line, and Colonel Harry Shoup's staff began reporting Santa's position.

About how many square kilometres is Christmas Island, the Australian territory in the Indian Ocean?

135 square kilometres: the island owes its name to Captain William Mynors of the East India Company, who sailed past it on Christmas Day 1643.

About how many Japanese families eat KFC each Christmas season, a custom born from a 1970s advertising campaign?

3.6 million families join in, and many order weeks ahead. The idea came from the manager of Japan's first KFC, who pitched a party barrel as a stand-in for turkey.

In National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Clark Griswold covers his house's exterior with how many lights?

25,000 lights refuse to work at first. Once Clark finally gets them going, they briefly cause a power shortage across the whole city.

Roughly how many British and German troops took part in the unofficial Christmas truce on the Western Front in 1914?

100,000 men joined the informal ceasefires, and in places they crossed no man's land to swap food and souvenirs and play football.

How many times did Apollo 8 orbit the Moon on the mission that broadcast a Genesis reading on Christmas Eve?

10 orbits took about twenty hours and made the crew the first humans to see the far side of the Moon. Their broadcast was the most watched TV programme up to that time.

How many reindeer pull Santa's sleigh in Old Santeclaus with Much Delight, the 1821 poem that first gave him any?

Just 1 unnamed reindeer pulls a sleigh marked REWARDS in the poem's first illustration. The anonymous New York booklet was also first to set Santa's visit on Christmas Eve.

Brenda Lee's Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree first topped the main US singles chart how long after its release?

65 years was a record wait for a number one when the song finally got there in December 2023, helped by a new music video.

Around what share of Swedes watch the Disney cartoon special known as Kalle Anka on television each Christmas Eve?

40% is typical, and the 1997 showing drew just over half the population. Sweden has aired the Donald Duck special every Christmas Eve since 1960.

How many gifts, from the partridge up to the drummers, arrive on the final day alone in The Twelve Days of Christmas?

78 is what you get by adding every whole number from one to twelve. Mathematicians call running totals like this triangular numbers.

How tall was the tallest Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, a spruce from Killingworth, Connecticut, put up in 1999?

100 feet is also as tall as the tree can ever get, because the narrow streets around Rockefeller Center rule out moving anything bigger.

William the Conqueror was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day of which year?

1066 had already seen William defeat and kill King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in October, which opened his road to London.

Boxing Day, which shares its date with the feast of Saint Stephen, falls on which day of December?

The 26th is thought to take its English name from the Christmas boxes of money or presents that tradesmen once collected as thanks for a year of good service.

How many dishes are traditionally served at Wigilia, the meatless Christmas Eve supper eaten in Poland?

12 dishes stand for the disciples of Jesus, a custom Poland shares with Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Fish, mushrooms and grains take the place of meat.

Band Aid's 1984 famine-relief single became the UK's fastest seller by shifting how many copies in its first week?

1 million copies went in seven days, a pace nobody beat until Elton John's Candle in the Wind 1997.

On the last of The Twelve Days of Christmas, how many people arrive in total, from milkmaids to drummers?

50 people turn up: the maids, the dancing ladies, the leaping lords, the pipers and the drummers. Everything given before them is a bird or a ring.

Santa's traditional home, the geographic North Pole, sits at what latitude north of the equator?

90 degrees north has no land at all. Unlike the South Pole, it lies in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, on constantly shifting sea ice.

Queen Elizabeth II, who skipped the tradition only in 1969, delivered how many royal Christmas broadcasts in all?

69 messages spanned 1952 to 2021. In 1969 she felt a documentary and her son's investiture had given her enough screen time, so no address was broadcast.

How many points has the silver star marking Jesus's traditional birthplace in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity?

14 points ring a Latin inscription saying that here Jesus Christ was born to the Virgin Mary. The star is set into the marble floor beneath an altar.

Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans in St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Day of which year?

800 made Charlemagne the first emperor in the West since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, more than three centuries earlier.

How many geese arrive in total over The Twelve Days of Christmas, given they come on seven separate days?

42 is six geese delivered seven times over, and the seven swans reach exactly the same total by the end of the song.

The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree, an annual gift from Oslo since 1947, is dressed with how many white lights?

500 white lights dress the spruce in a traditional Norwegian style. Norway sends a tree every year in gratitude for British support during the Second World War.

Haddon Sundblom began painting his famous red-suited Santa Claus for Coca-Cola advertisements in which year?

1931 began a run of Santa paintings so popular that Sundblom is often wrongly credited with inventing the modern image of Santa Claus.

Spain and Hispanic America play April Fool-style pranks on the Day of the Holy Innocents, which day of December?

The 28th remembers the children King Herod ordered killed in Matthew's Gospel. The day's pranks are called inocentadas, and their victims inocentes.

About how many soldiers crossed the icy Delaware River with George Washington on Christmas night 1776 to attack Trenton?

2,400 men were all Washington had for the attack on the Hessians, because ice jams and bad weather stopped his other columns from crossing farther south.

The first print run of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol sold out by Christmas Eve; how many copies was it?

6,000 copies went within days of the book reaching the shops that December, each bound in red cloth with gilt-edged pages.

The Christmas tree of lights laid out each year on Mount Ingino above Gubbio, Italy, stands about how tall?

650 metres of mountainside carry the display, which Pope Benedict XVI switched on remotely in 2011 using a tablet computer.

WPIX's original Yule Log broadcast in 1966 repeated a film loop of a burning fireplace that lasted how long?

17 seconds of film, shot at the New York mayor's residence, looked jerky and artificial on repeat. The station filmed a longer loop in California in 1970.

Dortmund in Germany builds the giant Christmas tree at the heart of its market out of how many separate spruces?

1,700 spruces from the Sauerland hills go into the one giant tree, which is then hung with tens of thousands of lights and topped by an angel.

The Sydney to Hobart yacht race, which starts every Boxing Day, covers roughly how many nautical miles?

630 nautical miles puts the run to Tasmania alongside the Fastnet and Newport-Bermuda races as one of the classic big offshore contests.

Las Posadas, the Mexican processions re-enacting Mary and Joseph's search for an inn, begin on which day of December?

The 16th opens a run of nightly processions that lasts until Christmas Eve, with a couple dressed as Mary and Joseph calling at houses chosen to play the inns.

Christmas Day, frowned on in Scotland since the Reformation, only became a public holiday there in which year?

1958 was the year, with Boxing Day following only in 1974. Hogmanay on New Year's Eve had long been by far the bigger Scottish celebration.

For The Nightmare Before Christmas, animators made about how many swappable heads for Jack Skellington's expressions?

400 heads let the stop-motion crew give Jack every emotion the story called for. The production built 227 puppets in all.

By José Feliciano's own count, how many words make up the lyrics of his bilingual hit Feliz Navidad?

19 words, split between a Spanish greeting and an English wish, are all it has. Feliciano has called it the simplest song ever written.

Francis of Assisi staged the first nativity scene with live actors, in the Italian town of Greccio, in which year?

1223 is when Francis is said to have set up his manger scene in a cave near Greccio. Building cribs at Christmas grew out of that night.

In A Christmas Story, the Red Ryder air rifle that Ralphie wants for Christmas is billed as holding how many shots?

200 shots are part of the rifle's long name in the film, yet the Daisy company never made a Red Ryder in exactly that configuration.

What share of Christmas Island, the Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, is protected as a national park?

63% of the island lies inside Christmas Island National Park, which protects several areas of primary monsoonal forest.

Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day, by the Julian calendar then used in England, in which year?

1642 is the year on the old calendar. By the Gregorian reckoning used today, his birthday falls in early January of the following year.

Last Christmas, the 1984 single by George Michael's duo Wham, first topped the UK chart after how long?

36 years went by before it reached number one on New Year's Day 2021. On release it had been held off the top by Band Aid, on whose single Michael also sang.

The giant fruit loaf paraded at Dresden's annual Stollen Festival each Advent weighs roughly how much?

3 to 4 tonnes of stollen are sliced with a silver-plated knife 1.6 metres long, a copy of a lost baroque original.

Oaxaca's Night of the Radishes, a contest of scenes carved from giant radishes, is held on which day of December?

The 23rd was the date of Oaxaca's old Christmas market, where farmers began carving radishes to catch shoppers' eyes. Cut radishes wilt quickly, so the show lasts only hours.

Charles Dickens performed A Christmas Carol as a public reading about how many times in the years before his death?

127 readings, in a shortened version of the text, kept the story on stage until the year Dickens died. It was on the bill at his farewell performance.