Have I gotten your attention yet? OK, these may not be SO shocking but now that you are here, read through these scientific explanations for different holiday legends and/or traditions. ***SPOILER ALERT*** Santa, the reindeer, and Christmas traditions are all brought under some scrutiny but I do not think anything that I reveal here will kill your Christmas spirit.
1. Santa’s sled runs on “girl power”. All males in the caribou family, of which reindeer are a part of, shed their antlers in the winter months. Have you ever seen a picture of Santa’s sleigh without the reindeer having very well endowed antlers? Those huge racks are owned by girls…every single one of them; even Rudolf. (Maybe she needs to be renamed as Rudolfa.)
2. Reindeer’s sight is specifically well-adapted for Santa’s nighttime flight. In a way to adapt to the months of darkness in the north, the inside of a reindeer’s eye changes from golden to blue. The blue colour scatters more light upon the retina and helps them see better in the dark. (I could use this ability when camping and trying to find my way to the outhouse at night)
3. Reindeer really can have red noses. A reindeer’s coat is made up of a coat of short dense hairs covered by a layer of longer hollow hairs trapping air in between them. This makes them very well insulated against even the coldest temperatures and the only area on their bodies where heat escapes is through their noses which can make them appear red. If you had an infrared camera pointed at good ole’ Comet, you would see her nose glowing with the heat. On a side note, although reindeer have not been proven to fly (yet), but they are much more buoyant than many other mammals because of their coats and they will float if you happened to drop one in the water. (Don’t do this though; it may get you on the other list.)
4. Thomas Edison introduced the first string of Christmas lights in 1880. Before this point people used lit candles on their trees, making trees even a bigger hazard than they currently are. Knowing my incredible accident prone-ness, I probably would not have made it past my third holiday season without setting myself and everything around me alight.
5. Speaking of lights, there is a scientific reason why Christmas lights will always end up tangled. Physicists have proven that any cord that is longer than 2 meters is almost mathematically guaranteed to end up in knots. The reason behind this is that there is only one way to untangle a string of light but many, many different ways for them to become tangled.
6. Real Christmas trees are good for you. Researchers from Finland have identified a group of anti-inflammatory agents in the bark of Scotch pine trees. These trees have widely been favoured as the choice of Christmas trees and now could be developed into medications to treat arthritis and pain. (Now this does not mean that if you lie down and chew on the tree, you will get these results. Please wait until the powers that be make it into a supplement. Otherwise your family may have you committed.)
7. Santa must be an interdimensional being. The big man would have to travel at about 6.2 million miles an hour to deliver presents to every child in the world in only 31 hours. (This takes into account all the world’s time zones.) Anything travelling at this speed would immediately burst into flames which would put a damper on the festivities. In this same scenario Santa would only have a millisecond of time at each household. The magic of this delivery system and the man himself could be easily explained if he was a being who knew all about quantum mechanics, can fold time and space, and/or use wormholes to pop into each child’s homes. Yep, Santa is most likely an interdimensional traveler; this is almost as cool as being some kind of magical king of elves.
8. Be careful around the egg nog. I am sure you are thinking that I am speaking about the rum that many add to that lovely creamy beverage but, no. It is the nutmeg of which I speak. Nutmeg is actually a hallucinogen in large doses and only a few teaspoons could potentially poison you. It contains oil with the compounds myristicin and elemicin which can cause a very intense and unpleasant hallucinogenic high. So, you may want to moderate the amount of this Christmas spice that you ingest unless you prefer battling the dragons that inevitably will show up after tossing back too much of the nog.
9. Christmas feasting is actually backed by science. Why do people choose to feast precisely when food has been historically scarcer? The cold requires that animals that do not hibernate, such as we humans, to take in a lot more nutrients and calories to make it through the winter months. A slower metabolic rate in the winter also ensures that those nutrients are better absorbed. (I knew there was a legitimate reason for my gorging myself!)
10. Frankincense and myrrh were worth as much as gold in the time of Christ. Many modern people probably look at the gift list and think; ok I get the whole gold thing but what about this frankincense and myrrh stuff? Both frank and myrrh are forms of sap from the Boswellia sacra and Commiphora trees respectively and were known for their medicinal effects. The main ingredient in frankincense is boswellic acid that has a chemical structure not unlike to certain hormones such as testosterone and has anti-inflammatory and anti-arthritic effects. Myrrh has molecules that act on the brain’s opioid receptors in the same way that morphine does and gives it a painkilling ability. So it would seem that those wise men were indeed truly wise and pretty decent gift-givers.
There you go, some modern scientific takes on the stuff that makes up this season! (Maybe next year we will take on another holiday or two.) We would like to extend the best of the season to you and yours, regardless of your faith or lack of it, your creed or culture, or if you are a member of the squirrel family (may this holiday season put your world domination plans on hold for a while). May the New Year be a happy and prosperous one!
–Janice Willson
