Christmas stockings-
It is a little known fact that the original Santa Claus did not, in fact, leave coal for the naughty boys and girls, but instead would chew off their toes while they slept, stuff the bloody digits in a sock and nail them to the fireplace as a warning to other children about the consequences of being naughty. Parents began hanging the empty stockings weeks before Christmas as a visual reminder to their children to behave- or risk getting their toes gnawed off. Throughout the years this early tradition has been replaced with the less brutal activity of filling the stockings with candy & toys for good children and coal for the naughty.
Fruit Cake-
Originally fruit cake was given to neighbors who constantly fued over property boundaries, steal farm animals, sleep with your daughters or those that are generally just annoying. The fruit cake was carefully prepared and wrapped in a pillowcase. Upon answering the door you would proceed to beat the offending neighbor with the hard-as-rocks fruitcake. When the beating was finished you left your neighbor with a fruit-candy filled delectable treat to be enjoyed by the whole family in the days before Christmas.
Mistletoe-
Now thought to be the kissing-plant... Mistletoe is actually poisonous and young men would use this plant to get young ladies to kiss them the day before Christmas. If a lady refused to kiss a man holding mistletoe high above their heads, he would then crush up the plant and put it in her drink when she wasn't looking. The mortality rates increased respectiveley based on the amount of ugly men in town.
Christmas Carolers-
Although a dying tradition, going from house to house singing Christmas songs came along when insane assylums decided to let their patients out for a day as a way to reward good behavior. Unfortunately, most of the mental patients would gather in a mob to travel from house to house while singing to themselves and lighting houses on fire. Occasionally the mob would stop mid-arson to really nail a well sung diddy that brought delight to the ears of any passersby. This "day off from the insane assylum" was a short-lived tradition, but the off-key singing and house-to-house mob-travel still lingered on for quite some time.
