6 New Zealand bans all advertising on TV on Christmas, Easter, Good Friday and ANZAC Day.

Normally, there are 14 minutes of ads for every broadcast hour in New Zealand. However, the Broadcasting Act of 1989 states there can’t be any advertising from 6 a.m. to noon on Sundays and Anzac Day, or at any time on Christmas Day, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

By 1991, television advertising equaled newspapers’, and it continued until the early 2000s. In 2007 television received 28% of total advertising revenue. Newspapers, which lost classified advertisements, thanks internet selling sites received 35.4%, a drop from more than 40% back in 2000.(source)

5 About half of Sweden’s population watches Donald Duck every Christmas Eve since 1960.

Every year on Christmas Eve at 3 pm, half of Sweden sits down in front of the television set for a family viewing of the 1958 Walt Disney Presents Christmas special, ‘From All of Us to All of You.’ The popular connotation in Sverige is ‘Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul.’

‘Kalle Anka’ has been airing without any ad breaks on Sweden’s main public-television channel, TV1, on Christmas Eve since 1959. TV1’s parent network, SVT is contractually obligated by Disney to air this show every Christmas Eve.

The show shows Jiminy Cricket presenting about a dozen Disney cartoons from the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s.There are ‘Silly Symphonies’ – shorts and clips from films like Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Jungle Book. The special is the same every year, except for the live introduction by a host and the addition of one new snippet from the latest Disney movie.(source)

4 Japanese people traditionally eat KFC for Christmas dinner, thanks to a successful marketing campaign 40 years ago. KFC is so popular that customers must place their Christmas orders 2 months in advance.

KFC is immensely popular in Japan during Christmas. Back in the days foreigners flocked in as they couldn’t find a whole turkey or chicken anywhere else. The company saw an opportunity and launched its first Christmas meal in 1974 with chicken and wine for $10, quite pricey at the time.

As the Japanese are keen to celebrate Christmas in a non-religious way, the KFC meal soon became nostalgia and a tradition people pass onto their children.

The traditional Christmas party barrel currently sells for about $40. That’s a family pack that includes fried chicken, a salad, and chocolate cake. The holiday menu however isn’t limited to fried chicken. KFC also offers roast chicken, smoked chicken, even barbecue chicken for a limited time.

The company apparently sells more than 240,000 Christmas barrels alone.(source)

3 Christmas first began, the celebrations included getting intoxicated, having sex, and singing naked in the streets (the origin of modern Christmas caroling).

Roman pagans celebrated Saturnalia as a weeklong period of lawlessness. Celebrated between Dec 17^th and 25^th, the Courts were closed, and Roman law stated that no one could be punished for damaging property or causing injury during this period.

The festivities began with Roman authorities choosing ‘an enemy of the Roman people’ to represent ‘the Lord of Misrule’. Each Roman community chose a victim who was then forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures. At the end of the week, the innocent man or woman was brutally murdered.

In addition to the human sacrifice, there was widespread intoxication as people went from door-to-door singing naked. Rape was a vital part of the celebrations. This was prevalent in Europe as recently as a hundred years ago.(source)

2 The English Parliament banned Christmas in 1647 under Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell. The ban was only lifted when the Puritans lost power in 1660.

The English Parliament banned Christmas for 12 years from 1647. Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) justified that feasting and revelry was immoral. Anyone celebrating Christmas was actually arrested. This ban was lifted only after the Puritans lost power in 1660, and Massachusetts Bay Colony was the last one to lift it.

However, the Puritans in America banned Christmas between 1659 and 1681.(source)

1 After 38 years, there was another full Moon rise on Christmas 2015. The full moon reached its peak size around 6:11 a.m. ET on December 25.

The last time a full moon appeared in the skies was in 1977, and it will not appear again until 2034. That way, 2015’s full moon is very special.

December’s full moon, also called ‘Full Cold Moon’ or ‘Long Nights Moon’ in certain Native American cultures has the longest night of the year.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice happened on December 22 at 11:48 a.m. ET.(source)