Fact of the Day- Knickers on Spanish New Years' Eve!

Today’s Festive Fact of the Day is not so much a Christmas Tradition as a New Years’ Eve one. 

For decades now, it’s been traditional in Spain to wear red underwear on New Years Eve for luck. However, in recent years, this custom has developed into a trend of people- some would say lunatics mad on festive spirit- to do a run around their town on New Year’s Eve wearing nothing but their red undies! 

Whatever floats your boat, I guess…..

Festive Fact of the Day: Santa's Reindeer

Today’s festive Fact of the Day is all about Santa’s reindeer. Although all the songs will tell you about Rudolph and his red nose, or Donna, Dancer, Blitzen and the rest of them- did you know that Santa’s reindeers are all girls? 

Boy reindeers do have antlers, but at the start of December, their antlers drop off and don’t grow again until spring the following year, but girl reindeers keep their antlers all through Winter until they give birth. So that’s why Santa and his sleigh never gets lost on the night of Christmas Eve- because it’s being navigated by girl reindeers!

Festive Fact of the Day: Hide your hoover in Norway!

Today’s Festive FOD is all about a Norwegian Christmas tradition based on an old legend. 

Apparently on Christmas Eve, all the witches and evil spirits come to town and search for brooms to ride about on. This is obviously a really bad omen, so to thwart the plans of the evil ghouls, everyone in Norway hides their brooms, brushes and even their hoovers on the night of Christmas Eve.

If there's any firearms in the house- which is quite common as there's many very rural communities in Norway- the men of the house go outside around midnight and fire a few warning shots into the air to scare away any ghosties and ghoulies that could be flying overhead.

Festive Fact of the Day: Roller-skating in Venezuela

Today’s Festive Fact of the Day is all about an odd Christmas tradition in Caracus, Venezuela. 

It’s a mainly Catholic population there, and there’s an early morning mass with a difference held between the 16th and 24th December. It has a difference because the night before each mass, children go to bed with a piece of string tied around their big toe and the other end hanging out of the window. 

The streets each morning are then closed to traffic and everyone roller skates to early morning mass, tugging the strings that hang out of the windows as they go.

Festive Fact of the Day: The Japanese KFC Christmas Dinner

Today’s Festive Fact of the Day takes us over to Japan, where for the last forty odd years, having a family meal at KFC has been a Christmas Tradition. 

In fact, it’s such a deeply ingrained tradition; families have to book a table at their local KFC two months in advance. Apparently the tradition of a bargain bucket at Christmas came as the result of a marketing campaign forty years ago- previous to that, Christmas wasn’t as widely celebrated in Japan. 

The traditional KFC Christmas dinner includes fried chicken, a salad and a chocolate cake and is served all through December when all the tables are booked and KFC makes fourteen times more money than any other time of year.

Festive Fact of the Day- Sweden, the country of festive arson

Today’s festive FOD is a Swedish Tradition- which is not unlike what we do o’er th 'Valley in Darwen….

This started in 1966, where a huge straw goat (which is around four storeys tall) is built in the city and decorated with ribbons in the town Gavle, Sweden.

The goat is built at the start of the holiday season and torched after Christmas Day, but part of the traditional involves wannabe arsonists dressing up as Santa and the elves and attempting to burn the lot down before Christmas day.

Festive Fact of the Day- Chucking shoes in t'Czech Republic

Your first Festive Fact of the Day is something you can do yourself on Christmas Eve if you're a single chick with too much time on her hands.

In the Czech Republic, every Christmas Eve it's traditional for single ladies to go out on their front path and remove the shoe from their strongest foot (the one that corresponds with your writing hand).

With their back to the front door, they chuck t'shoes o'er their shoulders to ascertain whether their going to spend the next year living with twenty cats and the entire Stephanie Meyer back catalogue, or whether the next calendar year will finally include a man willing to 'put a ring on it.' 

If the shoe lands with the heel facing towards the front door, our lovely Czech lady will be spending that year grooming her beard, buying Adele albums and crying herself to sleep. However, if the shoe lands and faces the front door, this could be the year when the humidity rises, and the barometer gets low, and according to all sources, the streets' the place to go.......