What exactly is "Christmas"? How about "Happy Holidays"? What is the "X" in "X-mas"? Here are the words "Merry Christmas" in some other languages.

• Feliz Navidad (Spanish origin)

What season and time of year did it happen? Why December 25?

• The Twelve Days of Christmas (before Christmas, not after)
• Good King Wenceslas (Eastern European story, good deeds after Christmas)
• White Christmas (World War II, written in an area that seldom has snow)

Who are the shepherds? Why Bethlehem? What do we know about the "Star of Bethlehem"? Was Herod right about the star?

• Silent Night (German/Austrian origin)
• O Little Town of Bethlehem
• Away in the Manger (not by Luther, not of German origin)
• Go Tell it On the Mountain (Negro spiritual origin)

Did the angels sing to the shepherds? From where does this idea originate? (Charlie Brown Christmas had it right)

• Hark the Herald Angels Sing
• Angels we have Heard on High
• What Child is This?

Who are the wise men? How many were there? How did they know?

• We three Kings of Orient Are (there may not have been three, they were not kings, and they were not from the Orient)

Sadness at Christmas. Who is Herod? Why was everyone in Jerusalem concerned?
Why did Herod have the infants killed?

• Angels from the Realms of Glory (1816, the year without a summer)
• I Heard the Bells (late Civil War)
• I'll be Home for Christmas (World War II)

Misconceptions about Christmas in songs. In what year did it happen? How might we know? About how many Roman soldiers did Mary and Joseph (and the wise men) encounter on their way to Bethlehem (and Jerusalem)? What happened to their reservations at the inn?

• The First Noel (not French , historical inaccuracies)
• Jingle Bells (not written for Christmas time)
• Joy to the World (not written for Christmas time)

What about the Christmas tree? How does Santa Claus fit in? Who is Kris Kringle?

• O Christmas Tree (Germanic origin)

Some modern Christmas history. modern marketing of Christmas (from early 1800's) though text, pictures, radio, motion pictures, television, the Internet.

• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (snow in Britain in the 1800's, Dickens Christmas Carol refers to it)