Fun Facts about Christmas and the Holiday Season ! Have fun!!

Last month I had some fun facts for Thanksgiving and now I have some fun facts about Christmas and the Holiday Season! I hope you like them. If you know of any others I missed let me know!
Love
Zana

1) Over 25% of all emails are sent during the holidays.

2) Total Black Friday Spending in 2013: $57.4 billion.  

3) 33 million real Christmas trees are sold in the U.S. each year.

4) Christmas trees usually grow for about 15 years before they are sold.

5) Smartphones and tablets drove a record $259 million in online sales on Black Friday last year.  

6) Smartphones and tablets drove $419 million in online sales on on Cyber Monday last year.  

7) The first American mention of a Christmas tree was in 1747, and, strictly speaking, it wasn't a tree at all but a wooden pyramid covered with evergreen boughs and decorated with apples.

8) The first Christmas card, created by a London businessman, was printed in England in 1843. Three years later, the first commercial Christmas cards were available to the public. One thousand cards in all were produced and they were an instant success.

9) The holiday season is now the busiest time of the year for the US Postal Service. Last year, over 20 billion cards, letters, and packages were sent, causing the USPS to hire nearly 40,000 temporary workers and put thousands of additional trucks, trains, and planes in service.

10) Norwegian scientists have hypothesized that Rudolph’s red nose is probably the result of a parasitic infection of his respiratory system.

11) The Germans made the first artificial Christmas trees out of dyed goose feathers.

12) All the gifts in the Twelve Days of Christmas would equal 364 gifts.

13) Most of Santa’s reindeer have male-sounding names, such as Blitzen, Comet, and Cupid. However, male reindeers shed their antlers around Christmas, so the reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh are likely not male, but female or castrati.

14) According to data analyzed from Facebook posts, two weeks before Christmas is one of the two most popular times for couples to break up. However, Christmas Day is the least favorite day for breakups.

15) Christmas stockings allegedly evolved from three sisters who were too poor to afford a marriage dowry and were, therefore, doomed to a life of prostitution. They were saved, however, when the wealthy Bishop Saint Nicholas of Smyrna (the precursor to Santa Claus) crept down their chimney and generously filled their stockings with gold coins.