Let me make this clear; I love Christmas. It is the best time of the year, blah blah blah all that stuff you hear on every commercial every December. However, even a Christmas lover like me has to admit Christmas has some weird ass traditions. While almost everyone and their mother has heard about how Christmas traditions originated from pagans and the such, not many have heard the finer details on those origins. Dear reader, I am here to fill that void you did not even know you had.One of the first Christmas traditions many thinks of is, of course, the Christmas tree. Oh that wonderful time when we slaughter a tree, decorate its corpse, then parade it in our living rooms with decorations! Tree worship is something that had existed in Nordic and Germanic cultures for generations before Christianity came. In Nordic mythology, trees are central to existence as Yggdrasil, the World Tree , is what holds up the Nine Worlds and gives structure to the universe. However, as Christianity swept into the northern lands, the native religions ceased, though some of their traditions persisted. German Lutherans were the first to adopt the tradition of the Christmas tree and when they began emigrating to Pennsylvania, they brought the tradition with them. In 1840, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha came to London to marry Queen Victoria, he brought the Christmas tree with him. The royal family loved it and decorated the tree with all sorts of gifts, candies, and ornaments. Years later, a picture of Victoria with the tree was seen in a London newspaper and, as typical with Queen Victoria, a trend was set. Within decades, Christmas trees could be spotted all over America and Europe.Stockings were created more due to myth than fact. Legend says that St. Nick was making his travels and delivering gifts when he heard of a widower nearby who was now impoverished because of the death of his wife. The man had 3 daughters he was struggling to care for but was still too prideful to accept money directly. So, St. Nick swooped by on Christmas night and dropped gold coins through the chimney, which happened to land in the daughters' stockings that were laying by the fireplace to dry. While there is no exact date for when this tradition started, the earliest known direct reference comes from the 1823 poemEggnog is a tradition that actually precedes even the creation of the nation. Originally , because it was made from foods that were not so accessible to the public, it was the drink of the rich and often used for toasts and feasts. The drink was brought over to the Americas in the early 1600s with the creation of Jamestown and became popular because of the availability of milk, eggs, and rum in the colonies. Then, they called it "egg and grog", grog being any drink made with rum. Over time the term got shortened until we ended up with what we have today. While eggnog is typically drank virgin these days, there are still plenty of people who keep the alcoholic tradition.Speaking of food, let us talk about fat Santa. It is a common misconception that our modern image of Santa emerged from Coca-Cola advertisement, however this is only a myth. Santa appears years before Coke came around, they simply adopted him when they realized their colors happened to match. The Santa we have today was originally based off of the image of the original St. Nicholas , who was a fan of secret gift giving. The sleigh riding, chimney climbing, and "Ho-ho-ho!" - ing we have today is mostly due to author Washington Irving and illustrator Thomas Nast , Nast creating our modern perception of Santa with his picture " Merry Old Santa Clause " (1881).While Christmas tradition may be weird, there are reasons behind why we still carry said traditions today. As with so many things in history, it is not a simple answer and the context behind it reveales so much more about who we are and what our values are.