Are you ready for the Winter Holidays? Let’s kick this month off with a few fun facts.

• • The date of the Winter Solstice varies between December 20th and the 23rd. The 21st and 22nd are the most common dates.

• • On December 16th, 1965 the song, “Jingle Bells” was the first song ever played in space.

• • The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, has been tracking Santa’s journey around the world since 1958.

• • When you think of Christmas critters, do you think of Spiders? In Ukraine, families often add spider web ornaments to their trees as a nod to a story about a spider using its web to decorate the tree of a poor widow and her children.

• • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer started as an advertising gimmick for the Montgomery Ward department store in 1939.

• • The largest Christmas gift ever given was given to the U.S. by France in 1886 – the Statue of Liberty.

• Christmas Trees were originally shunned in the U.S. as being a pagan practice.