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Here at Mental Floss, we pride ourselves on being a home for all things curious and quirky—as evidenced by our daily lineup of stories, which might include asking pilots about whether an average passenger could be talked through how to successfully land a plane to the complicated history of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” The goal of our writers and editors has always been to uncover little-known details about subjects you thought you knew everything about and share them with you in a way that’s both entertaining and informative, and to make you want to share these stories with others. 

So what did we discover in 2022? That you, our devoted readers, have a lot of questions about trucks; love finding simple recipes and tips for upping your cooking game; want to know more about your pets; and, like the rest of the world, are pretty Wordle-obsessed. Here are our 40 most popular stories of 2022, in case you missed any of them.

The curious truck accessory may have caught your eye on the road. Here’s how a tiny plastic strip keeps drivers safe.

Protect your skin all year-round with the best sunscreens recommended by experts.

You don’t need fancy equipment to make homemade ice cream—just a mason jar and some elbow grease.

If snow sports and curling up with a good book and steaming mug of tea are your favorite activities, you might want to consider moving to one of America’s chillest states.

The five-pointed star is common in the northeast and has been rumored to represent everything from the Amish to swingers.

No matter what you’re a fan of—math, music, Star Wars, you name it—there’s probably a game like Wordle out there for you.

Queen Elizabeth II was laid to rest in 2022 in an oak coffin designed for her more than 30 years ago—which weighed a ton, because it was lined with lead. Here’s why.

Instructions for making biscuits can be complicated, but this three-ingredient, five-step recipe is hard to get wrong.

Think your state is wicked smart? Here are the brightest states in the U.S., according to a recent study.

Anne of Cleves escaped a joyless family, avoided an unhappy marriage, and jumped at the chance to live her best life.

The rabbits are frequently shown wielding weapons as they fight against—and sometimes kill—those who often hunted them.

If the Golden Ratio is your metric, the most beautiful city in the world is in Italy.

The plastic arrows you often see on the wheels of trucks and buses serve an important purpose.

From Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo to John McTiernan’s 2002 remake of Rollerball, these legendary cult films nearly drove their directors to the brink.

The free peanuts offered at Five Guys may double as a not-so-subtle warning sign to customers with allergies.

John Leonard’s demand was simple: All he wanted was for Pepsi to deliver the Harrier jet he believed they owed him.

The most liveable cities can be found in Europe and Canada, as well as one in Australia and one in Japan.

Though it’s impossible to predict the age your dog will reach, some breeds do typically live to be older than others.

When imitation crab appears in dishes like California rolls and crab rangoon, its true identity is rarely advertised. So, what is the product really made of?

Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman ranks No. 11, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Don’t worry, Marvel fans: Avengers: Endgame is on here, too.

You can find all sorts of things on the menu at Cracker Barrel—except for these discontinued items.

Between the Revolutionary War, the fight over the Constitution, and his infamous deadly duel with Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton also found time to father eight children with his wife, Eliza.

Some dog breeds are objectively more adorable than others—at least scientfically speaking.

The next time you see a garbage truck with a stuffed penguin strapped to its grille, know the driver has a good reason—one that may or may not involve warding off ghosts.

Each award is highly prestigious—and only a handful of titles have earned both in a single year.

“Solsbury Hill,” Peter Gabriel’s solo artist debut, peaked at No. 68 when it was originally released in 1977. Then Hollywood came calling.

Naturally, naming babies is still a deeply personal exercise, and you may disagree with linguistics on certain matters.

The image looks like a spiral pattern at first glance, but if you examine it closely you’ll find two words hiding in plain sight.

The most beautiful cat in the world is the one in your house, of course. And if it’s a Norwegian Forest cat, mathematicians might even agree.

From a diabolical Bible to a mournful Japanese war poem, here are eight texts that have been blamed for madness, misfortune, and death.

Michael was the undefeated champ of baby boy names for literal decades … Then Jacob came along.

A number of sexist, politically incorrect, and outright bizarre Girl Scouts badges have fortunately been retired in the 110 years since the Girl Scouts of the USA was founded.

Hint: It’s in Southeast Siberia.

Despite outcry from customers, these Trader Joe’s products were pulled from shelves.

It doesn’t matter what state you rent a U-Haul truck in.

From Led Zeppelin to Pink Floyd, here are classic rock’s 10 best lullabies.

If you want to act like a member of the monarchy, choose your words wisely.

Netfflix’s The Wonder—starring Florence Pugh and based on Emma Donoghue’s book of the same name—isn’t a true story. But it is rooted in real history.

The Western has been part of cinema since the very earliest days of Hollywood, and has produced some of the greatest films ever made. Here are 35 of them.

Modern guidebooks offer nearly a dozen different explanations for why Brussels’ Mannekin Pis statue is relieving himself.

Kendra Licari was charged with five crimes, including two counts of stalking a minor and obstruction of justice.

A Michigan woman was arrested on December 12 after allegedly catfishing and harassing two teens in a year-long cyberbullying campaign — and one of the teens was her own daughter.

As The Independent reports, 42-year-old Kendra Gail Licari of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, now faces five charges including two counts of stalking a minor, two counts of using a computer to commit a crime, and one count of obstruction of justice — the latter for allegedly attempting to frame another teen.

Licari worked as a basketball coach at the Beal City School District, where her daughter was a student. In December 2021, an investigation began into reported cyberbullying attacks that were affecting Licari’s daughter and her then-boyfriend. At first, Licari and the then-boyfriend’s mother were working together with school officials to identify and oust the cyberbully.

But it became apparent early on that the school’s resources weren’t enough to track down the culprit, who was using a personal device that wasn’t on school grounds.

Then, in January 2022, local police joined the investigation, followed by the FBI in April.

In total, authorities gathered 349 pages of disturbing texts and social media messages aimed at the two teens.

According to the Oakland Press, the harassing messages began in early 2021, and seemed to be coming from a person the same age as Licari’s daughter, using slang terms and shorthand commonly associated with texting.

Local authorities struggled to trace the original source of the messages, which seemed to always come from the same location as the teens. Whenever they traveled, so too, apparently, did their online stalker.

When the FBI’s computer crime division joined the investigation, however, they were able to utilize their own computer-tracing resources, and discovered that the cyberbully had been using a virtual private network (VPN) to change locations — and hide their IP address.

“In doing so, it would shield her and kind of cloak her identity or her digital identity,” explained Isabella County prosecutor David Barberi. “But eventually, we were able to see that her IP address was popping in and out right before and right after these messages were going through.”

VPNs are, of course, great for watching Netflix series that are only available overseas or hiding data from your internet service provider. They are substantially less effective at evading the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Eventually, the FBI ascertained that the IP addresses used to send the messages were Licari’s and quickly notified Beal City superintendent William Chillman that they believed Licari was involved in sending the messages.

“Even when we realized that it wasn’t a kid, we weren’t expecting that it would be a parent,” Chillman told ABC. “When they informed us later in the spring that they were suspecting that it possibly was her, it was a shock to all of us, I think everybody involved.”

When police confronted Licari, she reportedly made a full confession, Barberi said.

What is still unclear at the moment, however, is Licari’s motivation.

“We had tens of thousands of text messages, whether they were messages that were just for her daughter or some of her daughter’s friends,” Barberi said. “And the digital footprint was just insane.”

She was released on $5,000 bond and now faces up to 10 years in prison for her computer crime charges, in addition to five years for stalking a minor and five years for obstruction of justice.

Licari is scheduled to appear in court on December 29 to determine if there is sufficient evidence for a trial.

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After reading about this example of bad parenting, read about the time a five-year-old took his dad’s meth to school and said eating it turned him into Spider-Man. Or, read the heartbreaking story of Gabriel Fernandez, the eight-year-old who was tortured to death by his mother and her boyfriend.

Telemedicine use skyrocketed during the pandemic, and now it seems poised to become a regular part of the healthcare landscape. A CDC report from October 2022 revealed just how much Americans relied on telemedicine in the previous year.

What is telemedicine?

Telemedicine is the use of electronic means (telephones, text messages, voice and video chats, etc.) to deliver healthcare to patients remotely. While it may occasionally involve in-office testing, most of the doctor-patient relationship takes place over a device like a phone or a computer.

During the COVID-19 pandemic State of Emergency, the U.S. expanded legislation to allow more providers to deliver a broader range of care options via telemedicine. Healthcare providers had been relatively limited in what they could do for patients without seeing them in person before this.

A CDC report using 2021 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data to assess the use of telemedicine provided interesting insight into just how many Americans over age 18 took advantage of what it had to offer in the second year of the pandemic.

The rise of telemedicine use

In 2021, 37% of American adults reported using telemedicine in the previous 12 months.

The report also found that the older people were, the more likely they were to use it. On some level, that makes sense since older people are more vulnerable to severe cases of COVID. However, it hasn’t often been the case that technology use increases with age in the past.

Women were also more likely to use telemedicine. 42% of women said they used it in 2021, compared to 31.7% of men. (However, women are more likely to see doctors than men.)

Other statistics

Adults in the U.S. West were the most likely to use telemedicine, and those in the Midwest were the least likely.

Telemedicine use increased with patients’ urbanization level – those living in large metropolitan areas were more likely to use it. This is interesting because the technology was initially used to reach those who lived far from hospitals and clinics. However, during the pandemic, people in urban areas may have been more reluctant to head to hospitals and seek care due to crowded public transportation and waiting rooms.

Those with a GED or higher education level were also more likely to get on the phone or computer to “visit” their doctor. As education levels go up, so does the use of this technology.

And while those with a below-average or average income are equally likely to engage with healthcare providers electronically, its use increases among those with higher incomes.

It appears that if telemedicine is going to be part of the future of medicine, it will be important to ensure a broader range of people have access to it and knowledge about its benefits. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Telemedicine Use Among Adults: United States, 2021” — CDC.gov

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A descendant of Inca royalty, Túpac Amaru II led one of the bloodiest revolutions against Spanish colonization until his brutal death in 1781.

Until his gruesome execution in 1781, Indigenous Peruvian leader Túpac Amaru II led one of the bloodiest revolutions in American history. Fighting against Spanish colonization, Amaru and his legion of Indigenous rebels sought to overthrow the Spanish and reinstate himself as the supposed descendant of the last Inca king, Túpac Amaru.

While he was unsuccessful, Amaru’s rallying cry echoed throughout South America, inspiring similar revolts. Indeed, his legacy was encapsulated in his alleged final words, “I will return, and I will be millions.”

Who Was Túpac Amaru?

Born José Gabriel Condorcanqui in Surimana, Peru, on March 19, 1738, Túpac Amaru II was the son of a local kuraka, or Inca magistrate responsible for liaising with the Spanish. As such, he received an education at a Jesuit school, an opportunity that Incas outside the elite would not have.

He also spoke Spanish and Quechua, also uncommon for an Indigenous Peruvian. His family claimed to be descended from Túpac Amaru I, the last leader of the Inca empire before Spanish colonialism. When he became an activist himself, he adopted the name in his family’s honor: Túpac Amaru II.

At a young age, Amaru inherited his father’s position as kuraka of the Tungasuca area in Cuzco province after his father died. He married Micaela Bastidas, who would become an important figure in the revolution in her own right, around the same time.

Overall, Amaru’s position as kuraka, as well as his contacts as a merchant and educated Inca, gave him a perfect vantage point to the abuses of the Spanish colonial system.

And he would not stand idly by.

Spanish Colonization And The Last Inca Leader

After Spain defeated the Inca Empire in 1532 and established the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1572, the Indigenous population there labored under the weight of two unjust economic systems: the repartimiento and the mita.

The repartimiento forced Indigenous populations to purchase goods from merchants at vastly inflated prices, while the mita forced communities to send laborers to work in the Potosí silver mines, notorious for their brutal conditions.

“This cursed and vicious reparto has placed us in this deplorable state of death with its immense excess,” Túpac Amaru himself wrote to the top royal official in Cuzco. He added that owners “look upon us as worse than slaves, make us work from two in the morning until the stars appear after nightfall.”

On top of that, Spain’s distant monarchy imposed the Bourbon Reforms in the 1760s and 1770s. Those reforms increased taxes and customs regulations, much to the Indigenous population’s ire.

Therefore, the conditions were ripe for a charismatic leader to incite a major revolt, especially after two prior rebellions failed.

With his rhetoric and symbolism harkening back to the heights of Inca rule, Túpac Amaru would be that leader.

The Rebellion Sweeps The Andes

On Nov. 4, 1780, Amaru attended what one podcast called the “worst dinner party in world history.” That’s because Amaru kidnapped Spanish Governor Antonio de Arriaga from there and imprisoned him.

Six days later, Túpac Amaru ordered Arriaga’s execution — and his own slave would perform the deed.

After executing Arriaga, Túpac Amaru spread his economic plan throughout the Andes. He would abolish numerous taxes against Indigenous populations and slavery, and trade Spanish law and order for Inca law and order. Amaru also smashed textile mills and redistributed their production, echoing an ancient Inca tradition.

Several days later, Amaru attacked Sangarará in the first major military victory for the rebellion. There, the Spanish holed up in the local church “with vain confidence, and against all good judgment,” according to a contemporaneous Spanish observer.

But Amaru’s forces had the advantage and quickly took victory. In unclear and still disputed circumstances, the town’s church burned down, adding insult to injury for the Spanish — and turning many against the rebels.

“This sad event gave the rebels sufficient wings to speed ahead with their exploits,” the same observer wrote. Subsequently, Amaru romped through the Andean highlands from his base at Tungasuca.

Túpac Amaru II’s Last Stand On Cuzco — And Horrifying Death

His next target? Cuzco, the former Inca capital.

But Túpac Amaru II seemingly took his time in mounting an offensive, not actually attacking until Jan. 4, 1781, despite besieging the city since December 1780.

The rebel force appeared formidable. One observer remarked that the hills surrounding Cuzco resembled a “porcupine back” from the rebel army.

Although Amaru found initial success, the royalist forces soon pushed his army back. Even “the dregs of the plebes, feeble women” contributed to the city’s defense. By January 10, Amaru’s forces had all but abandoned the siege.

After their victory, royalist forces began to pursue Amaru himself.

In March 1781, Túpac Amaru’s forces routed the royalist troops, almost decimating the royalist column at a place called Pucacasa. The rout made Amaru overconfident; he dropped his guard.

In April, a defector in Amaru’s camp convinced their leader to wait in a place called Langui. There, a militia captured him. He was brought back to Cuzco in shackles.

On May 18, 1781, Spanish forces executed Túpac Amaru II in a brutal manner.

First, they forced him to watch as executioners hanged his wife, sons, and top lieutenants. Then, they cut out his tongue, tied ropes to his arms and legs, and had horses pull his body apart. In a final irony, they set a bonfire on the hill where he led the siege of Cuzco.

The royal representative José Antonio de Areche also ordered punitive measures against Inca culture. He banned traditional clothing, traditional religion, plays criticizing the Spanish government or glorifying Inca tradition, and even a particular history book believed to have influenced the rebel.

Although Túpac Amaru II’s death marked a seemingly mortal blow to the rebellion that bore his name, it did not stop his designated successors — mostly young and inexperienced rebels — from continuing the rebellion in his name.

Indeed, the rebellion continued for another year until mid-1782, when Tupac Amaru’s successors signed a cease-fire with royalist forces.

Meanwhile, Túpac Catari — who drew his name from Túpac Amaru — led a similar revolt that besieged La Paz, Bolivia, around the same time as Amaru’s execution.

Like Túpac Amaru’s siege of Cuzco, that revolt failed as well.

The Rebel Inca’s Legacy Today

Although the colonial administration attempted to extirpate Inca culture, that effort failed. Indeed, the policies that Areche promulgated in his 1781 edict were “draconian” and would have required immense resources to carry out.

Despite those Spanish efforts, Inca culture remained alive and well. However, Tupac Amaru’s memory almost remained silent, left out of the history books.

“There are liberators … whose growing sideburns between their old uniforms declare them national heroes,” lamented Peruvian poet Antonio Cisneros. “Others, without so much fortune, occupied two pages of text with four horses and his death.”

But leftist revolutionary governments in the 1960s and 1970s revitalized his image, especially under General Juan Velasco Alvarado’s rule in Peru. Additionally, the Tupamaro guerrilla movement in Uruguay took on his mantle as it terrorized that country’s military leadership.

And in the midst of that, a Black American mother named her child after the Peruvian rebel leader. That child would grow up to be one of the most famous rappers in the world: Tupac Shakur.

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After learning about Túpac Amaru II and his rebellion, read about another famous South American liberator, Simón Bolívar. Then, learn about the Haitian Revolutionary Toussaint Louverture.

Prince Harry has been in the public eye for his whole life, a status that has become even more intense in recent years due to the media’s frequent focus on him and his wife, Meghan Markle. (Though he stepped down from his duties as a senior member of the royal family, he kept his titles of prince and duke.) In the midst of the incessant press speculation and gossip, many less well-known things about the Duke of Sussex have become lost in the shuffle. Here are nine surprising facts about King Charles III and Princess Diana’s younger son.

At birth, Harry was given four personal names—he was born Henry Charles Albert David of Wales, although it was also stated from the beginning that he would be most often known as Harry. He, like other members of the royal family, was not given a surname. Though no last name appears on his birth certificate, he is also entitled to use Mountbatten-Windsor—it’s what Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip designated as the last name their descendants could use when required.

All four of Prince Harry’s given names allude to family members past and present. Henry was the name of several of his royal ancestors, Kings Henry I to VIII. Charles refers not only to his father, but also to his uncle Charles Spencer, the brother of Diana, and is a nod to the importance of the name in the Spencer family in general. Albert was the forename of his paternal great-grandfather (who took the regnal name of George VI) as well as the name of Queen Victoria’s husband. And David refers to David Bowes-Lyon, his great-great uncle, who was also the brother of the Queen Mother.

While formally known by his various names, Prince Harry opted for a more low-key moniker when he was in the army. During his training, he was known as Officer Cadet Wales; Wales became the surname attached to his military rank as his career moved forward. He eventually became a captain and was therefore known as Captain Wales by the conclusion of his service. 

After Prince Harry completed his training, there was discussion about whether or not he should be sent into conflicts overseas. Though the army had previously deemed it too dangerous to send him to Iraq, they stationed him in Afghanistan in December 2007, where he worked as a forward air controller. His presence there was meant to be kept secret to avoid making him a target; it was leaked to the press the following February, after which he had to be withdrawn to avoid the aforementioned security risks.

Prince Harry, along with a team of volunteers, went on a trip to the South Pole to raise funds for charity in 2013. He traveled there with someone who would later play a notable role in future media representations of the royals: Dominic West, who portrayed Prince Charles nine years later on the fifth season of The Crown. 

After reaching their destination, Prince Harry and his fellow team members wanted to celebrate their accomplishment. One teammate, Duncan Slater, decided to temporarily offer his prosthetic to the group so they could mark the occasion. Prince Harry and his companions ended up drinking champagne from the prosthetic leg at the conclusion of their trip.

Meghan Markle isn’t the only actor in the family. Prince Harry has also dabbled in acting, as evidenced by a short film shown at the opening ceremony of the 2015 Rugby World Cup. In the film, set in 1823 (when the sport began), Harry appears briefly at the 2:15 mark, working as a gardener while observing a rugby player in full flight and commenting “that’ll never take off.” 

In 2015—two years after his journey to the South Pole—Prince Harry embarked upon another charity event. He trekked 17 miles to raise funds for Walking with the Wounded, an organization that supports military veterans and their families. Around mile 10, a member of the media asked him when he was planning to settle down, which he politely deflected; asVanity Fair later put it: “Can you really blame Harry for expressing agitation (granted, very royal, polite, measured agitation) at being asked this question for the millionth time, about 10 miles into a 17-mile hike?” (The prince did “settle down” and married Meghan Markle in 2018.)

In 2016—back when the brothers were on better terms—Prince Harry and Prince William visited the set of the Star Wars sequels, which were partly shot at Pinewood Studios in England, where they were photographed having a lightsaber duel. The brothers even filmed a cameo dressed as stormtroopers, but those scenes were ultimately cut from Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

In 2016, Prince Harry shared a light-hearted moment with his grandmother in a comedy sketch in collaboration with Barack and Michelle Obama to mark the opening of the Invictus Games, a sporting event for wounded active duty military members and veterans. The skit concluded with Harry doing a “mic drop” action to the camera. 

As the 2002 holidays approached, the residents of a retirement home in Greater Vancouver started trotting out their most ostentatious Christmas sweaters. Employee Chris Boyd took notice.

“I would compliment them: ‘Wow, that’s an amazing sweater,’” he told HuffPost Canada. “In the back of my mind, I was thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be kind of fun to track one of these down?’”

So he and his buddy Jordan Birch—whose elderly relatives favored similar sweaters—decided to throw a kitschy Christmas party at their friend Scott’s house in Coquitlam, a suburban city outside Vancouver. “The goal was to have the most cheesy, most feel-good party imaginable,” Boyd explained. Guests guzzled eggnog. They sang carols. They decorated a tree. And they did it all while wearing the flashiest sweaters they could scrounge up.

The pals made it an annual tradition, leveling up venues as the number of attendees increased; first moving to a university pub, then a local bar, and finally landing at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom, which hosted the event through 2017. 

By that point, ugly Christmas sweater parties had become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon—one that Boyd and Birch are often credited with creating. But a deeper plunge into sartorial history suggests a slightly more nuanced narrative.

People have been donning festive knitwear for the holidays since at least the Victorian era. An 1896 advertisement in The Boston Globe promoted Christmas sweaters “For Ladies, Men and Boys” (sorry, girls) in a “great variety of colors and striped effects.” In 1900, a West Virginia store advertised “Boys’ Christmas Sweaters in Fancy Stripes or Plain.”

It didn’t take long for the designs to transcend bright colors and basic patterns. The 1930s saw the rise of “jingle bell sweaters,” which turned the wearer into a walking, talking tintinnabulation. But there was nothing funny about them: Ad sketches showed elegant ladies and equally chic little girls flaunting tops with bells embroidered in dainty designs down the front. At most, a jingle bell sweater on a child might be considered cute; one in 1950, for example, depicted Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with a tinkly jingle-bell collar.

This spirit of sincerity persisted throughout the back half of the 20th century, as Christmas became increasingly commercialized and the garments themselves grew more garish. You could argue that the sweaters of the ’60s at least tried to evoke the sophistication of their pre-war predecessors; Mad Men’s Betty and Don Draper certainly could’ve pulled off snowflakes and argyle without looking dowdy.

But any sense of restraint effectively died in the 1980s, when fashion and just about everything else fell victim to the mindset that more is more. Why select a sweater bearing only gingerbread men, or a gingerbread house, or a snowy vista, or a Christmas tree, or candy canes, or garland trimming, when there’s one that has it all? 

The tackiness was endorsed by holiday entertainers like Andy Williams, whose get-ups of the ’80s and beyond were less staid than the solid-colored and simple-patterned sweaters he’d donned earlier in his career. Still, the marketing tone skewed earnest. A 1989 ad for Karen Scott sweaters, for example, promised “scenes that will warm her heart!,” from “ski bears” and ice skaters to snowmen and Santa Claus.

In the 1990s, however, a new paradigm emerged: Anyone bold enough to sport an ornate seasonal sweater during that decade was typically either in on the joke—or the butt of it.

The media often stereotyped those in the latter category as older women with an unabashed passion for Christmas and an utter lack of taste. 

“It is our savior’s birthday, so why not have a blast?” one Alma Davis—whose sweater featured Santa, reindeer, and a battery-operated “Happy Holidays” banner—was quoted as saying in a 1995 Baltimore Sun story by Stephanie Shapiro. 

Shapiro disparaged the craze, seemingly in shock over how many otherwise sensible women got decked out in “Scottie dogs on the rampage and gingerbread men run amok.” “They have the best intentions. But some how, some way, they must be stopped.” she wrote. “Christmas is becoming less a holiday than a disorder.” 

Shapiro’s sentiments were echoed in later editorials by writers whose implicit misogyny shone brighter than any sequined Santa appliqué ever has.

“What drives a woman to wear something so cloyingly sweet, so annoyingly festive? Let me tell ya,” Hank Stuever wrote for The Washington Post in December 2001. That same month, The Hartford Courant’s Greg Morago penned a syndicated column (titled “Christmas sweaters a ho-ho-horrible sign of the season”) begging “Grandma … aunts, sisters and cousins” to forgo the tradition for fashion’s sake.

But plenty of Millennials had started to see the appeal of the cheerful, chunky knits—and it wasn’t just grandmothers and great aunts who stoked their interest. Ugly Christmas sweaters were featured in a few seminal comedies from that era, including 1994’s Dumb and Dumber and 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary.

In fact, Boyd and Birch have cited Dumb and Dumber as a key inspiration for their sweater shindig. So did Amos Templer, a native of Missoula, Montana, who hosted his first annual ugly Christmas sweater party with two roommates in 2001—predating the Vancouver duo’s by a year.

Over the next decade or so, as ugly Christmas sweater parties skyrocketed in popularity and thrift stores found themselves overrun with shoppers on the hunt for suitable attire, a cottage industry cropped up to meet the demand. In 2008, for instance, stay-at-home mom Anne Marie Blackman of Vermont started selling second-hand sweaters she’d embellished with everything from macrame Christmas trees and ornaments to plush. light-up reindeer. 

What began as an eBay side gig became a whole company, My Ugly Christmas Sweater, and her products soon made appearances in commercials, on daytime talk shows, and more. Christina Aguilera once donned one of Blackman’s designs. And although large-scale retailers have since gotten in on the game, there’s still something exciting about sourcing a particularly hideous sweater from a homegrown operation.

Boyd and Birch’s viral success has in some ways propagated the assumption that they rescued the ugly Christmas sweater from the brink of extinction. But while they definitely did help popularize it among a surprisingly young demographic, the gaudy garb had never really disappeared. And the fact that Templer and company had the same idea just a season earlier negates the notion that credit belongs to any one person (or friend group).

Instead, you could argue that the 21st-century rise of the ugly Christmas sweater was merely the latest—maybe even fated—stage in an evolution that mirrors so many others in pop culture: the transition from unique and cool, to outdated and uncool, to retro and nostalgic—and, therefore, cool again, so long as your enjoyment is slightly tongue-in-cheek. But the next time you shrug on a lurid sweater heavy with baubles and bows and all the other Yuletide trappings, ask yourself this: At what point does “wearing it ironically” become just plain wearing it?

What other season besides Christmas has you dragging a seven-foot tree into your home?

Christmas traditions make the celebration unique, from hanging Christmas stockings to kissing under the mistletoe.

Every year, we decorate the fireplace with giant socks, but where did this tradition come from? And how did it get so popular?

Here we’ll look at the history of Christmas stockings.

An origin story of the Christmas stockings from Turkey.

Ever heard the story of the very first Santa Claus? This story does not depict him as a fat man in a red suit. Instead, he was a Greek-born bishop in Myra, Turkey.

His name is Saint Nicholas, and he’s believed to have started the trend of hanging Christmas stockings.

There are no written records of this legend, but stories have been passed down for generations.

Legend has it that Saint Nicholas wanted to help a man with a dowry for his daughters, without which they’d be unable to get married.

Unfortunately, he knew the man was proud and would reject the money if he offered it directly.

Eventually, Saint Nicholas devised a foolproof plan. When the night came, he climbed on the man’s roof and dropped a bag of coins down the chimney.

As it turns out, the man’s family had hung their socks on the fireplace to dry. As the bag came down, some coins fell inside the hanging stockings.

One version of the story says that Saint Nicholas threw the bags of gold coins into the man’s house through his window, and another says that Saint Nicholas dropped the coins directly into the stockings.

Either way, all three stories have one thing in common: the stockings hanging by the fireplace and Saint Nicholas dropping the coins.

And so, the tradition of hanging Christmas stockings for gifts was born.

The lesser-known Dutch legend.

There is a lesser-known story about the origin of Christmas stockings.

Santa Claus and his assistant Zwarte Piet dock at a different city in the Netherlands each year.

Excited children waiting patiently for their arrival would leave their wooden clogs outside filled with hay and carrots for the animals. 

Santa Claus would find this thoughtful and fill the wooden clogs with gifts for the kids.

It’s believed that when Dutch migrants moved to America, they brought along the tradition of Santa Claus and swapped the wooden clogs for stockings.

The evolution of Christmas stockings.

Christmas stockings didn’t always look like what you have today.

People would hang regular stockings over the fireplace, hoping to find gifts on Christmas morning.

This soon gave way to larger socks to contain more presents.

Nowadays, you’ll see special boot-size stockings in different designs hanging on the fireplace during Christmas.

What do Christmas stockings symbolize?

Christmas stockings represent one of the core values of Christmas – generosity.

After all, it was Saint Nicholas’s generosity that started the tradition.

Saint Nicholas devoted his life to helping those in need.

It’s believed that word of what happened to the man got around, and soon more people were leaving their stockings hanging by the fireplace.

What goes inside a Christmas stocking?

You could follow the tradition set by Saint Nicholas and drop some coins in the Christmas stockings.

But some people might prefer something more modern, like fruits, small toys, perfume, and chocolate coins.

If you want to impress your loved ones with something more personal, you can follow the five-gift rule. You can include one of each: 

A need

A want

To read

To wear

To do

When should you open your Christmas stockings?

Some people believe you should open your Christmas stocking on Christmas Eve.

While others think you should wait until Christmas morning.

Ultimately, it all depends on your family tradition.

Young kids in the family usually can’t wait to open theirs until the latter! 

 

Christmas is a fun time to spend with family and friends.

After all, celebrating traditions with friends and family makes the holiday even more unique and memorable.

As you likely know, champagne production for the masses started with a Benedictine monk named Dom Perignon. And while it might seem odd that we have a French Abbey to thank for our New Year’s bubbles (after all, he made it so they could be mass-produced and shipped worldwide), it actually took time for the drink to lose its religion and to make champagne secular.

How champagne became secular

Fr. Dom wasn’t the reason champagne was associated with religion, to begin with. In fact, he’s one of the reasons it became a worldwide phenomenon.

You see, bubbly was not only difficult but dangerous to produce because bottles would explode. For a long time, sparkling wine was confined within the walls of the institution that made it. That is until the French kings got involved. Eventually, it became a celebratory drink for things like baptisms and coronations.

As VinePair (cited below) puts it:

“Before the abolition of the French monarchy, France’s royal family had longstanding ties to the Champagne region. The multi-century connection began in 496, when reigning monarch Clovis I was baptized in a small church in Reims. The city and that exact spot (which was eventually replaced by a grand cathedral) went on to become the traditional location for French coronations, and cemented the link between region and royalty.”

In other words, wine from Champagne (pre-bubbles) started out as a holy wine.

Of course, red Burgundian wine was long the official celebratory wine of France. But when secondary fermentation was discovered by Dom Perignon in 1668, things changed…slowly.

Rise of the champagne industry

In the 18th century, King Louis XV became a champagne lover, making it very fashionable. It was also chic because he made sure it was the only wine that could be sold in glass bottles (which also made it dangerous because of all the exploding glass, but that’s not really a matter for kings to care about).

Eventually, if you wanted to be cool in France, you had to buy wine from Champagne.

At this point, champagne had made it out of the Abbey walls and into castles. However, this is all pre-French Revolution, in a time when kings and Catholics ruled.

Then came the Revolution. Heads came off, heads of state were replaced, and people became far more skeptical of powerful institutions, including the church.

There’s no one moment (that we know of) when champagne became untangled from production by religious workers, but the Revolution certainly changed the nature of all things elite.

Marketing secular champagne

By 1796, George Washington was serving champagne at a state dinner.

And, according to VinePair, “Within a century, one didn’t even have to hold office to toast with Champagne. In the latter half of the 1800s, increasing supply and better worldwide distribution channels made Champagne a commodity most middle-class families could afford…The period also saw significant marketing efforts from Champagne houses to place their bubbles as the celebratory beverage. The images and language on many bottle labels targeted newly engaged couples and soon-to-be parents…”

It was no longer associated with religion, but with any kind of celebration. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Religion, Royalty, and Bubbles: How Champagne Became the Go-To Drink for Celebrating” — VinePair

Related

Featuring everything from murderous frogs to dead birds, Victorian Christmas cards were often more disturbing than they were jolly.

The Victorian age is often thought of as a time of high collars, corsets, and unsmiling photos. But Victorians had a wry sense of humor beneath their stony exterior, and many used the holidays to enjoy the new tradition of sending Christmas cards — the weirder the better.

33 Creepy Christmas Cards From The Victorian Era That Reveal Just How Bizarre This Period Was

Indeed, Victorian Christmas cards don’t look much like the Christmas cards that people send today. In place of rosy-cheeked Santa Clauses, angels, plump snowmen, and family portraits, Victorians sent eyebrow-raising illustrations of dead birds, murderous frogs, and terrifying Christmas monsters.

Why? The simple explanation is that sending Christmas cards was a new trend that emerged in the Victorian age and took time to develop. But the truth is that historians aren’t exactly sure why Victorians sent such bizarre cards. Some imagery may have been drawn from British folklore, but other cards were probably sent as a conversation piece or for scrapbooking.

“The Victorians had a different idea to what Christmas was about — not particularly Christian, but a time of good humor,” Stephanie Boydell, the curator of special collections at Manchester Metropolitan University, explained to the BBC. “You may find a mouse riding a lobster strange — I find it funny. It’s horses for courses.”

Boydell added that while Victorians indeed sent plenty of odd Christmas cards, they also sent more typically Christmassy ones that featured motifs like wrapped gifts and Santa Claus, or Father Christmas.

Mary Evans Picture Library/Public DomainThis surprisingly gruesome Victorian Christmas card from the 1890s quips: “One good turn deserves another.”

“For all the more unusual ones, there were probably 1,001 entirely Christmassy ones,” she said. “It’s just the unusual ones which stand out.”

According to HISTORY, the very first Christmas card was sent just six years into the Victorian age when Sir Henry Cole commissioned 1,000 cards in 1843. CBC reports that Cole, a civil servant, commissioned the cards in order to easily reply to the scores of messages sent to him.

As the Postal Museum explains, Cole sent out many of the hand-painted cards and sold others under the pseudonym Felix Summerly.

Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty ImagesThe very first Victorian Christmas card, sent in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole, doesn’t look too different from today’s cards, though it does feature some children drinking wine.

But things really took off over the following decades. As HISTORY reports, the British government made sending mail infinitely more affordable in 1870 with the introduction of the halfpenny. And as woodcuts made mass production of cards a reality, more people started to send each other holiday cards.

The BBC additionally reports that sending Christmas cards was just one tradition that begin during the Victorian age. The marriage of Queen Victoria to the German-born Prince Albert ushered in other traditions as well, like decorating a Christmas tree with candles, sweets, fruits, and gifts.

University of Glasgow Library/FlickrThere’s a lot going on this Victorian Christmas card featuring a goldfinch, a bee, and a cricket.

And as Christmas increased in importance — again, perhaps because of Prince Albert’s Germanic roots — Victorians developed other holiday traditions as well. According to Mental Floss, they also played spirited parlor games, dug into feasts that included dishes like mock turtle soup, shot at pedestrians with peashooters, and attended cattle exhibitions.

Of all their traditions, however, Victorian Christmas cards may be the strangest. In the gallery above, look through 33 Christmas cards from the Victorian age that depict dead frogs, dancing insects, jolly shellfish, terrifying snowmen, and more.

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After looking through these 33 photos of delightful Victorian Christmas cards, enjoy these 27 bizarre facts about Victorian life. Or, see some examples of Victorian death photos and discover the tragic reason why people of the age decided to take them.