Christmas Eve: Top 10 facts about this festive day
CHRISTMAS is almost with us, so let’s look forward a couple of days to Christmas Eve.
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1. In much of Europe, shoes rather than stockings are left for Santa to fill on Christmas Eve.
2. Kiritimati, or Christmas Island, in the Pacific Ocean ought really to be Christmas Eve Island. James Cook discovered it on December 24, 1777.
3. Italian-Americans celebrate Christmas Eve with the seafood based Feast of the Seven Fishes.
4. According to an old superstition, bread baked on Christmas Eve will never go mouldy.
5. In Bolivia, Mass of the Rooster is celebrated on Christmas Eve with roosters brought to midnight mass. Supposedly a rooster was the first to announce the birth of Jesus.
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6. King John of England was born on Christmas Eve 1166.
7. Other people born on Christmas Eve include Colin Cowdrey (1932), Carol Vorderman (1960) and Ed Miliband (1969).
8. While people who died on December 24 include the writers William Makepeace Thackeray (1863), Harold Pinter (2008) and Richard Adams (2016).
9. Christmas Eve is Independence Day in Libya.
10. In Finland, Santa Claus delivers presents on Christmas Eve not on a reindeer-driven sleigh but on a goat named Ukko.
