Now You Know Christmas: The Little Book of Answers
By Doug Lennox
5/5
()
About this ebook
From oversized socks filled with treats to firs in living rooms and strange stories and songs, Christmas makes us all scratch our heads now and then. Now You Know Christmas will help everyone make sense of the holiday season, with answers to questions like:
How fast would Santa have to travel in order to deliver toys to all the children in the world in one night?
Why are Christmas songs called "carols"?
Why did the Wise Men bring gold, frankincense and myrrh as gifts?
Doug Lennox
Doug Lennox was an internationally acclaimed broadcaster, a veteran character actor, a commercial voice artist, and a bestselling author. He has appeared in more than 60 films and television features, including X-Men, Police Academy, Lonesome Dove, and Against the Ropes, and shared screen time with Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman, Burt Reynolds, Holly Hunter, Eric McCormack, Gary Oldman, and a myriad of others.
Related to Now You Know Christmas
Titles in the series (22)
Now You Know: The Book of Answers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now You Know, Volume 4: The Book of Answers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Big Book of Answers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Almost Everything: The Book of Answers, Vol. 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know More: The Book of Answers, Vol. 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Christmas: The Little Book of Answers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now You Know Crime Scenes: The Little Book of Answers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Now You Know Disasters: The Little Book of Answers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now You Know Extreme Weather: The Little Book of Answers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Pirates: The Little Book of Answers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now You Know Golf Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Hockey: The Book of Answers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now You Know Soccer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Now You Know Football Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Royalty Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now You Know Big Book of Answers 2: A Collection of Classics with 150 Fascinating New Items Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now You Know Canada: 150 Years of Fascinating Facts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Canada's Heroes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Absolutely Everything: Absolutely every Now You Know book in a single ebook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Big Book of Sports Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Now You Know Baseball Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know The Bible Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
Eerie Quad Cities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond Bigfoot & Nessie: Lesser-Known Mystery Animals from Around the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHidden History 2: Another Collection of Forgotten Mysteries, Oddities, and Unknown Stories From True History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReal Nightmares (Book 10): Ghastly and Grisly Spooks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Darkness of a Christmas Eve: Ghost Stories, Supernatural Mysteries & Gothic Horrors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBook of Monsters: Halloween Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMythical Monsters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSix Decades Back Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlmanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They're Coming For You Ultimate Coffin Box Set, Vol. 1-6: Scary Stories that Scream to be Read Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChaos Theory Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBruce Savage Science Fiction The Ultimate E-book Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Can Be Safe: A First Look at Safety Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCave Discovery: When did we start asking questions? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhantom Soldiers and Other Gettysburg Hauntings Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Demon at My Window (Welcome to Hell Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Extreme Weather: The Little Book of Answers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Buy an Elephant and 38 Other Things You Never Knew You Wanted to Know Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prehistoric Ancestors of Modern Animals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHahanudan Lake: An Ipiutak-Related Occupation of Western Interior Alaska Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of the Olympians and the Titans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow You Know Almost Everything: The Book of Answers, Vol. 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Orange Fairy Book Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSafe Travels for Squirrels Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1500+ Weird, Wacky, and Fascinating Facts: A Fun Facts Book Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStuff We All Get Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Incredible Animal Facts: Pet Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales Better Left Untold Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reference For You
Robert's Rules For Dummies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51200 Creative Writing Prompts (Adventures in Writing) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Legal Words You Should Know: Over 1,000 Essential Terms to Understand Contracts, Wills, and the Legal System Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Psychological Trauma Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Useless Sexual Trivia: Tastefully Prurient Facts About Everyone's Favorite Subject Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Everything Sign Language Book: American Sign Language Made Easy... All new photos! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Flaws Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51,001 Facts that Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fifty Shades Trilogy by E.L. James (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Emotion Thesaurus (Second Edition): A Writer's Guide to Character Expression Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learn Sign Language in a Hurry: Grasp the Basics of American Sign Language Quickly and Easily Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Show, Don't Tell: How to Write Vivid Descriptions, Handle Backstory, and Describe Your Characters’ Emotions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spy the Lie: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bored Games: 100+ In-Person and Online Games to Keep Everyone Entertained Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51001 First Lines Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Now You Know Christmas
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Now You Know Christmas - Doug Lennox
Drink
Preface
Some Christmas books are fireside books. They’re written so that grownups can sit in their living rooms with their families, reading tales of holiday merriment beside a fireplace (often artificial nowadays).
This is not one of those books. While the hope is that you will enjoy Now You Know Christmas tremendously, and that it will add a little something to your holiday, it was not written to be a Christmas classic.
This book is for those who celebrate Christmas each year, and who every once in a while stop to wonder why we do some of the things we do and why we believe some of the things we believe. It is for people who wonder what lies beneath the most popular and celebrated holiday in the world.
Why, for example, do we kiss under the mistletoe? It seems like a completely illogical tradition. Why do we say Merry Christmas
instead of Happy Christmas
? Why does an obese man come down our chimneys and stuff candies and toys in a sock? (Or for that matter, why would we eat candies we found in a sock?) And why would three supposedly wise men give a baby gold, frankincense, and myrrh — gifts that a baby couldn’t possibly have any use for?
It’s a book for the curious. It’s a book for people like me. You can certainly sit in front of a fireplace — real or simulated — and read aloud directly from this book. But I have a hunch you’d much rather fill your head with some of these answers, hide the book underneath your mattress, and then entertain your friends and family at Christmas dinner with your astonishing knowledge of all things Christmas. Perhaps you can start by telling them how long you’ll be able to store that fruitcake Aunt Edna gave you as a gift.
Doug Lennox, 2007
Santa Claus, St. Nicholas & Other Gift-Bringers
Who invented Santa Claus?
Santa Claus
is a figure who developed over the years, originally taking the form of St. Nicholas. But the Santa we know today largely developed under the guidance of a group of New York writers and historians known as the Knickerbockers.
The group included Washington Irving, Clement C. Moore, and James Fennimore Cooper.
The Knickerbockers played a major role in shaping the way Americans celebrated Christmas, and in the early 1800s, they went to work telling stories of a great gift-bringer who was considerably different from the St. Nicholas people had known. They drew on the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, and slowly evolved that name into Santa Claus.
They also gave Santa many of the attributes we know today: the jolly demeanour, the plump belly, the fur suit. They also told us that Santa came down our chimneys and rode in a sleigh pulled by reindeer.
Some have cynically suggested that the Knickerbockers and other social elites created Santa Claus so that poor people would stop knocking on their doors looking for handouts at Christmas, and would instead stay in their own homes staring at their fireplaces in greedy anticipation. But in reality, the group was eager to change Christmas from a time of drinking and carousing into a more family-centred holiday. They also wanted to create a distinctly American — or, more accurately, non-British — holiday.
Is it true that a soft drink company created the modern image of Santa Claus?
Many have credited the Coca-Cola Company with creating the modern image of Santa Claus in his red suit with white trim and black boots. Even Coca-Cola itself celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of its creation of the image in 2006. It all stems from a series of ads featuring illustrations by Haddon Sundblom used by the company between 1931 and 1964.
In reality, the modern image of Santa Claus had been around for decades before Sundblom’s illustrations saw the light of day. Thomas Nast began illustrating Santa in the 1860s and depicted him as a jolly, rotund character in a red suit with white trim, with a big white beard. While the early Nast illustrations showed us an elf-like Santa, the figure later grew to adult size. By the early 1900s, early filmmakers were presenting a Santa looking very much like our modern Santa in both