Some more amazing facts and almost unbelievable information you didn’t know about Christmas.

6. Reindeer

Of course, today we know the Reindeer to be a fictitious creature that never really existed. A horse with a tree growing out of its head? That can fly?! Just so much poppycock bandied around for the entertainment of children. But rewind 500 years to the time of Marco Polo, and the opening of the Orient to explorers, and Reindeer were as real as dragons, sea-monsters and pandas. One possible origin for this delightful myth is thought to be the Chinese custom of tying bamboo to a horse’s neck and having them prance about for a bit. To celebrate Halloween. Probably.

7. Brandy Butter

As with many much-loved traditions this one originates with the Royal Navy. Before the days of refrigeration transporting any foodstuff on long sea voyages was tricky to say the least. Often the only way to really preserve something was to steep it in copious amounts of alcohol. A large portion of the Navy’s yearly budget was dedicated to providing sufficient hard spirits for the extended operational missions of the time. It was a certain Rear-Admiral Harold H. Corbett who was the first to discover the benefits of pickling dairy products in liquor though, and eventually it became standard practise for every ship to be issued with a forty-gallon barrel of Brandy for this very purpose. Hence Brandy Butter was born. It was only some 150 years later, around the middle of the nineteenth century, that the Admiralty ceased this brandy issue when it discovered that the ships weren’t bothering to actually carry any butter, just the brandy.

8. Pantomime

When we think about pantomimes all the classic stories spring to mind, Aladdin, Cinderella, Dick Whittington, Sleeping Beauty, The Grinch and so on. The origins of these stories are all lost in the mists of time as they were all originally passed on through what was known as ‘oral-tradition’. In the days before telly, a minstrel would travel from village to village entertaining the locals with these fanciful tales, all delivered from memory via his mouth. In these times of yore proper books did not exist as paper was far too expensive to be written on and was only used for high-value banknotes and toilet tissue. Then, one day, one of these wandering balladeers hit on the brilliant idea of printing these stories on to his clothes! Clothes were much cheaper than paper and about 50% less likely to be used for wiping your bumhole! This practise was quickly adopted far and wide and became known as Panto-Mimeo, quite literally, Trouser-Printing! And it is thanks to these elaborately trousered wandering troubadours that the likes of Adam Woodyatt, Shane Richie and Christopher Biggins need never go hungry again. Yep, thanks for that.

9. Christmas Trees

For this tradition let me take you back to renaissance Italy and the unusual Florentine custom of having a fried mink for Christmas dinner. That’s right, the small ferret-like mammal was considered a festive delicacy amongst the Italian well-to-do. These animals were farmed in vast quantities along the Arno valley in bespoke ‘Mink-Ranches’ which contained row-upon-row of small fir trees, the natural home of the mink. The farmers would roam the tree lines and when they found a suitably ensconced rodent, they would attach a small bell to the end of a branch. Subsequently the ‘Mink-Lopper’ would arrive and on seeing this ‘bell-end’ would cut down the tree in question and pass it through an open-ended, net-covered dustbin, enclosing the tree and trapping the mink. These could then be shipped off to the intended recipients who could un-wrap the tree in the comfort of their own scullery or kitchen annex and coax the mink out with a satsuma. Finally, it was simply a case of bludgeoning the animal to death with set of nutcrackers and fricasseeing it with some onions and garlic. The tree itself would be left to drop needles all over the floor until it was either thrown out or burnt. Oddly it was famous vegetarian Percy Shelley who brought the custom back to the UK suggesting that instead of murdering an innocent animal why not hang fruit, nuts and Quality Streets on the branches instead!

10, Crackers

Erm, crackers were some ancient Egyptian, medieval, Mongolian, thing with explosives and death and stuff and poor-quality jokes or something. I’m actually getting quite bored with this to tell the truth. The paper hats eh? They’re shit aren’t they? And what’s with the little plastic piece of crap, I mean what isthat? What can you actually do with a one-and-a-half-inch comb? A pube parting?

Oh, and don’t get me started on the Ferret Ale of New York.