Friday, January 8, 2016

Ten Things You Might Not Know About December Holidays-- Part 1: Poinsettias, Hanukkah, Rudolph

December 25,2015, Chicago Tribune by Mark Jacobs and Stephan Benzkofer.

Master researchers in anybody's book.

1.  The traditional Christmas plant we call the poinsettia was known to the Aztecs as cuetlaxochitl.  It's current name came from the first U.S. envoy to Mexico, Joel R. Poinsett, who noticed the plant being used for holiday celebrations and sent a few north to the United States in the 1820s.

2.  Hanukkah, based on the Jewish calendar, is a wandering holiday.  This year the eight-day celebration begins at sunset Dec. 20.  It 2016, it starts on Christmas Eve.  In 2013, it was Thanksgiving eve, Nov. 27.

3.  Rudolph, who now resides at the North Pole, was born in 1939.  The Montgomery Ward department store chain assigned ad copywriter Robert May to compose a Christmas poem that could be distributed to customers nationwide.

He wrote "Rollo the Red-Nosed Reindeer," but execs didn't like the name.  May's third name, Rudolph, was accepted, and the poem was shared with millions of customers.

--DaCootdeer

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