Why Does Santa Wear Red?: …and 100 Other Christmas Curiousities Unwrapped!

by Meera Lester

A collection of facts, recipes, legends, customs, songs, and trivia about Christmas.

Genres: Christmas, Nonfiction, Trivia

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

Reviews

[Andrew]

There are well over 100 Christmas Curiosities "unwrapped" in this fact filled book to answer everything you wanted to know about Christmas.

The book is divided into sections, answering questions and giving factoids about towns with annual holiday traditions, Christmas in every major country, foods, decorations, greenery, colors, toys, stockings, Santa himself, religion, movie trivia and more!

[Julie Morales]

This book was awesome. I started this I guess I can say last year now, but didn't get to finish it before Christmas. The season is over now, but I enjoy holiday books any time of year, and this one was fascinating.
There's a little bit of everything in here. We start the book with some history. How did Christmas get started? How did the celebration evolve in different parts of the world? Then we move into how it's celebrated today in different ways all over the world.
There's a trivia quiz to see how much you know about Christmas popular culture since World War II, with questions about just about every Christmas movie ever created. There are sections about Christmas literature, both stories and poems. There are recipes, and a section of crafts for decorations and gifts you can make, both as adults and with kids with adult supervision. There's just a lot about Christmas all over the world here, and it was fascinating to read about how things were done not just in this country before everything became so commercialized (ands book touches on that, too), but also on celebrations in other countries. Some of it I knew, like how the Germans are probably the most gung-ho over Christmas compared to any other location in the world. It's from Germany that we have the custom of the Christmas tree. But it was interesting to read about how some of the countries in the southern hemisphere celebrate. Many countries and cultures either believe in Santa or have something similar, but of course, the countries down south don't think of snow and white Christmases like we do.
This book is a keeper, not just for the informative narrative itself, but for the crafts, recipes and other information that will be nice to have to refer back to in the future.

[Chandra Boulden]

I really liked the chapter about the history of December 25 and why it is Christmas. Have had this conversation with different people before, but the book presents all the history for you to choose and surmise from. Also the chapters on the different traditions from different cultures around the world was very intriguing. Many similarities.

[Bob]

As a lover of all things Christmas, I really enjoyed this book. I learned a great deal about holiday traditions that I didn't know before. The chapters were well organized into the different aspects of Christmas and I found myself taking lots of mental notes for next year's holiday season. If you enjoy the holidays like I do, I think you will really like this book!

[Kamila Mullen]

Was not impressed. Does have some curiosities in there but nothing is really explained in detail so I was a bit discouraged by this book. I think it was created for the purpose just to exist. That’s it :/

[Josh Tatum]

This book is a hodge-podge of trivia about Christmas. It is not well researched and very sentimental to the author's experience and ideals of Christmas. That said, I learned a lot about possible origins of certain traditions and much about the various traditions of other cultures relating to Christmas and particularly the mythic figures that deliver presents around the globe. From this I turned to the Battle for Christmas, which does a better job of explaining the origins of American Christmas realities from a historian's well-researched work. If you're thinking of this book, you might turn to Wikipedia and the Battle for Christmas instead.

[Marcy]

This was a horribly dry book. It states that most of the information is taken from a different book by a different author. It seems like they took a failed previous book and tried to spiff it up with a new and more interesting title, but the inside was not what I expected. I did not expect chapters on how to throw a party and recipes, nor did I expect instructions on how to decorate for Christmas. Definitely a dissapointing book.

[Brian]

Had a few interesting facts that I hadn't thought if in awhile and a little nostalgia.

[Abraham Ray]

lots of random facts about christmas including how christmas is doen in other countries.

[Ruby]

this was a fun little book of Christmas facts, stories and other info.

[Vanet Clemons]

I loved this book! It is a very fast, enjoyable read espically for the holiday season. Fun recipes, touching short stories, Christmas trivia and lots more.

[Michelle]

wish list, sounds interesting.

[Lauren]

Very interesting, more religious then I thought it would.

[Nicola]

Wonderful to know the history of some of our traditions - and also what country they originated!