Fun Christmas Food Facts

Christmas cookies come in a wide variety across the globe. Cookies flavored with what we think of as Christmas spices and studded with dried fruit and nuts date to medieval times. Cut-out cookies have been traced back to the eighteenth-century tradition of Mummers, traveling players in England, who used them along with other foods as props in acting out Christmas stories. Large cut-out cookies also served as window decorations for Pennsylvania Dutch children in the 1800s. Today, they are synonymous with the holidays all across the U.S.

Santa has a list and he's checking it twice. Bad children get coal and the good ones get tangerines. Tangerines? In the U.K., good kids traditionally get a tangerine in their Christmas stocking. This practice began with nuns in twelfth-century France, who left stockings filled with nuts, tangerines, and other fruits at the houses of poor families. To their credit, a dose of vitamin C is actually a perfect gift during the colder winter months.

Gingerbread dates back to Greece in 2400 B.C.E., and by the late Middle Ages, Europeans had their own version. Gingerbread houses, however, originated in Germany during the sixteenth century and soon became associated with Christmas. The largest gingerbread house on record was erected at Traditions Golf Club in Byran, Texas, in 2013. It required a building permit, covered 40,000 cubic feet, and was constructed of 4,000 gingerbread bricks. That involved a ton (almost literally) of butter!

Eggnog, a favorite holiday treat, derives from the British aristocracy. The wealthy drank warmed milk and egg beverages laced with expensive spices and brandy or sherry to keep it from spoiling. The origin of the word nog is disputed, but it may come from noggin, a kind of wooden mug; there was also a kind of English ale called nog. Nogs were often made to toast to health, perfect for Christmastide special occasions. The first eggnog made in the United States might have been sipped in 1607 in Jamestown, according to reports by Captain John Smith. December is National Eggnog month, so drink up!

The tradition of Feast of the Seven Fishes is said to have begun in Southern Italy where seafood is abundant, but today is largely observed in Italian-American households. Catholics were expected to abstain from eating meat Fridays and holy days, as well as on Christmas Eve. The fast ends with Holy Communion at midnight Mass, in anticipation of the birth of Jesus. There are myriad theories for the symbolism of seven: the biblical Creation story took seven days and there are seven sacraments; "seven" is the number most commonly repeated in the Bible.