Leon McBryde after giving the other Santas a class on techniques and props for home visits, Oct. 18, 2014. Photo by Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America.
In honor of the holiday, here are some fun pieces of Christmas trivia. Enjoy!
-When Dr. Seuss wrote How the Grinch Stole Christmas, it took him 3 months to figure out the ending. Finally, he got a flash of an image that depicted the Grinch sitting at the Who dinner table carving the roast beast and he wrote backward from there.
– Some people advised Charles Schulz to remove the scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas where Linus tells the story of Christ’s birth because they thought it was too religious for a children’s movie. Schulz insisted on leaving it in.
– Some legends trace the making of the first candy canes to India while others trace them to Germany.
– Santa Claus was a saint who lived in what is now Turkey in the 300s.
– The Statue of Liberty was a Christmas present from France to the U.S.
– While some people think Xmas is sacrilegious, it’s not at all. It comes from Greece and the Greek symbol “X” means Christ.
– 1:3 people in the world celebrate Christmas.
– The retailer Montgomery Ward brought Rudolph to the public eye. It was written by Robert L. May, a copywriter for the company. The retail chain distributed 2.4 million copies of it in booklet form during the 1939 holiday season. Rudolph’s original name was Rollo. The executives at the company didn’t like the name, and May’s daughter gave him the idea of the name Rudolph.
– Charles Dickens wrote the novella A Christmas Carol in six weeks.
– If you’re an aspiring Santa, there’s a school for that. Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School is in Midland, Michigan.
The short of it:
Writer. Health, education, and art advocate. Theater and film producer. Visual artist. Product geek. Proud alumnae of the University of Pennsylvania (BA) and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (MBA). Inspired by ancient wisdom & modern tech. Proliferator of goodness. Opener of doors. Friend to animals. Fan of creative work in all its wondrous forms. I use my business skills to create passion projects that build a better world. I’ve been called the happiest New Yorker, and I try hard to live up to that title every day.
The long of it:
My career has stretched across Capitol Hill, Broadway theatre, education, nonprofit fundraising, health and wellness, and Fortune 500 companies in retail, media, entertainment, technology, and financial services. I’ve been a product developer and product manager, theater manager, strategic consultant, marketer, voice over artist, , teacher, and fundraiser. I use my business and storytelling to support and sustain passion projects that build a better world. In every experience, I’ve used my sense of and respect for elegant design to develop meaningful products, services, programs, and events.
While building a business career, I also built a strong portfolio as a journalist, novelist, freelance writer, interviewer, presenter, and public speaker. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, PBS.org, Boston.com, Royal Media Partners publications, and The Motley Fool on a wide range of topics including business, technology, science, health, education, culture, and lifestyle. I have also been an invited speaker at SXSW, Teach for America, Avon headquarters, Games for Change, NYU, Columbia University, Hunter College, and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. The first book in my young adult book series, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters, was acquired by a publisher and launched in November 2017. I’m currently working on the second book in the series.
A recovering multi-tasker, I’m equally at home in front of my Mac, on my yoga mat, walking my rescue dog, Phineas, traveling with a purpose, or practicing the high-art of people watching. I also cut up small bits of paper and put them back together as a collage artist.
My company:
I’m bringing together all of my business and creative career paths as the Founder of Double or Nothing Media:
• I craft products, programs, and projects that make a difference;
• I build the business plans that make what I craft financially sustainable;
• I tell the stories that matter about the people, places, and products that inspire me.
Follow my adventures on Twitter at https://twitter.com/christanyc and Instagram at https://instagram.com/christarosenyc.
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Christa Avampato 