'Tis the season of misinformation

Here is a quiz about things Christmas taken from The Museum of Hoaxes website. See how many of them you get correct. 

True or false:

1. The word 'mistletoe' means 'dung on a twig' in Anglo-Saxon.
2. It was illegal to celebrate Christmas in Puritan New England.
3. The modern image of a fat, red-suited Santa Claus was invented by the Coca-Cola Company.
4. The bones of the original Santa Claus (St. Nicholas) are preserved in a church in Italy.
5. Jesus Christ was born on December 25.
6. Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair campaigned to ban all Christmas programs, songs, and carols from public schools.
7. NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) tracks Santa and his sleigh every year on radar.
8. The Bible tells us that three wise men visited the infant Jesus as he lay asleep in a manger.
9. The suicide rate rises dramatically around Christmas.
10. Christmas only became a legal holiday in England and America late in the nineteenth century. Before then people were expected to go to work on Christmas Day.
11. The Canadian Post Office has given Santa Claus his own official postal code at the North Pole.
12. Abbreviating Christmas as Xmas is [intentionally] disrespectful.

The Christmas
Gullibility Test Answers

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1) The word 'mistletoe' means 'dung on a twig' in Anglo-Saxon

TRUE
Apparently the ancient belief was that mistletoe grew in trees where birds had left droppings. Thus the origin of the name which comes from the Anglo-Saxon word 'mistel' (meaning dung) and 'tan' (meaning twig). Read more about the history of mistletoe in this informative article written by Sara Williams.

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2) It was illegal to celebrate Christmas in Puritan New England.

TRUE
The Puritans were sticklers for taking the Bible, and nothing else, as their guide for how to live a good, Christian life. And since the Bible never indicates exactly when the anniversary of the Nativity should be observed, they reasoned that God must not have intended for it to be observed at all. Otherwise a date would have been provided. So they banned its celebration. Between 1659 and 1681 it was actually a criminal offense, punishable by a fine of five shillings, to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts.

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3) The modern image of a fat, red-suited Santa Claus was invented by the Coca-Cola Company.

FALSE
In 1931 Coca-Cola commissioned the artist Haddon Sundblom to create images of Santa Claus drinking from a bottle of Coke. Sundblom's depictions of Santa became very, very popular, but it's not accurate to say that Sundblom actually invented the modern image of Santa. By the early twentieth century Santa was already commonly being depicted as a fat, jolly, red-suited, long-bearded old man. For instance, a greeting card drawn by Louis Prang in 1885 shows a Santa essentially identical to the one we know today. But the claim that Coca-Cola invented the modern Santa Claus has by now become very widely disseminated, and is even repeated as fact by Coca-Cola itself, although you'd think Coca-Cola would know better. Who knows, maybe Coca-Cola is trying some kind of stealth campaign to establish a claim of copyright over the image of Santa.

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4) The bones of the original Santa Claus (St. Nicholas) are preserved in a church in Italy.

TRUE
St. Nicholas was a fourth-century bishop who lived in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). Upon his death his bones were preserved in the town of Myra, but in 1087 these bones were stolen and moved to the town of Bari in Italy. They remain there to this day, located in the church of San Nicola. It is said that his bones exude a sweet-smelling oily substance which is prized for its healing powers. In the United States and some parts of Europe St. Nicholas has come to be associated with Santa Claus.

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5) Jesus Christ was born on December 25.

FALSE
The Bible, which can be taken as the only authoritative source on the matter, contains no indication of exactly which day of the year the birth of Jesus occurred. But it does contain evidence that the birth could not have occurred in December. The Gospel of Luke notes that shepherds were tending their flocks in the field at night when an angel appeared to them announcing the birth of Christ, but shepherds would not have been outside with their flocks at night in the middle of winter. December 25 was only chosen as the date to celebrate Christmas in the fourth century because this date corresponded to existing pagan celebrations, a fact which the Puritans (who objected to the celebration of Christmas) often pointed out.

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6) Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair campaigned to ban all christmas programs, songs, and carols from public schools.

FALSE
Madalyn Murray O'Hair never campaigned to ban the celebration of Christmas from schools. Nor did she petition the FCC to ban religious broadcasting. This rumor traces back to 1974 when the FCC briefly considered measures that would have prevented religious organizations from taking over broadcasting channels reserved for educational purposes. But Madalyn Murray O'Hair never had anything to do with the FCC's deliberations, and Christmas in schools was never threatened.

[Damien's note: This rumor is so persistent that I suspect you may have trouble believing it to be false.]

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7) NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) tracks Santa and his sleigh every year on radar.

TRUE
They've been doing it for the past 40 years. Check out their website.

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8) The Bible tells us that three wise men visited the infant Jesus as he lay asleep in a manger.

FALSE
The Book of Matthew states that wise men came from the east to Jerusalem bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the Christ child, but it never specifies how many wise men. Nor does it specify that they visited Jesus while he lay sleeping in a manger.

[Damien's note: Matthew 2:11 says, "On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh." Matthew's version has Jesus in a house, does not mention a manger at all, nor does it say anything about Joseph and Mary coming to Bethlehem from Nazareth. {If you only read Matthew's account, you would probably think Joseph and Mary lived in Bethlehem and only moved to Nazareth after they fled to Egypt because of Herod's anger.} Those details about the census and the overcrowded inn are found in Luke's account, which is also where the shepherds come from. Matthew had magi, Luke had shepherds. I know they show up at the same time in Nativity scenes around the world, but it they were both around, they were not there at the same time. Read the texts and you will see why. There are a number of details in the two accounts that are hard to reconcile, but we always overlook that. Just like we overlook the fact that each of those gospels gives a genealogy for Jesus and that they do not match one another. There have been all sorts of explanations for it, but you can study up on that for yourself if it interests you. I have rambled on long enough.]

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9) The suicide rate rises dramatically around Christmas.

FALSE
The media likes to dwell on the possibility of an increase in suicides during the holiday season, but the public stubbornly refuses to play along by actually committing suicide more often during this time of year. In fact, suicide rates tend to peak during the spring and fall. Check out this study for more info.

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10) Christmas only became a legal holiday in England and America late in the nineteenth century. Before then people were expected to go to work on Christmas Day.

TRUE
19th-century factory owners didn't like having to give their employees a day off work, so they long lobbied against having to treat Christmas as anything but a regular working day. But apparently some kindly factory owners would generously let their workers start work at 5 am on Christmas Day, thus allowing them to get off work early and go to church.


[Damien's note: So apparently we are returning to the good old Christmas traditions by making people work on Christmas Day.]

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11) The Canadian Post Office has given Santa Claus his own official postal code at the North Pole.

TRUE
Yes, Santa's address, according to the Canadian post office is: Santa Claus, North Pole, HOH OHO, CANADA. So he has his own postal code (HO HO HO). The post office even promises that you can write to Santa there and he'll reply. Check out their website for more info.

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12) Abbreviating Christmas as Xmas is disrespectful.

FALSE
While many people have been taught that it is disrespectful to abbreviate Christmas as Xmas, there's no logical reason why it should be. The 'X' is simply a shorthand for the Greek word for Christ, "Xristos." Hardly a sign of disrespect. Of course, some people will continue to insist on taking offense at the abbreviation, but that's probably because they're not aware of the abbreviation was derived.

[Damien's note:  This is one of those things that people get upset about because (1) they do not know their history or (2) they think it disrespectful to abbreviate the name of Jesus Christ anyway. But again if we know our history, we know that abbreviations of this nature were very common in manuscripts of the Bible itself, perhaps more understandable when books had to be written out by hand. Because we are accustomed to abbreviating Mr., for example, we think nothing of it. And when we see it, we pronounce it "Mister" not "mrrr."And we have abbreviated Mrs. for so long that we essentially created the word "Missus" because mistress had taken on another meaning entirely. When we see Xmas, the way to pronounce that is the way that spelling was originally intended -- Christmas. This is somewhat akin to the way devout Jews, when encountering the unpronounced Name of God in the Torah, pronounce the word Adonai -- meaning Lord -- instead of the word represented by the four Hebrew letters in the text. I remember a Jewish friend at Midwestern  State Megaversity insisting that the letters may look one way, but that every good Jew knows that the way you say those letters when encountered in the Torah is Adonai. He was very annoyed at those who insisted that they should be pronounced as Yahweh or, even worse, as Jehovah.]
I am a bit amused that people who get all upset about keeping Christ in Christmas never seem to want to keep Mass in Christmas -- because that is what the word means -- Christ-Mass.