The customs of Christmas

There are so many wonderful traditions associated with the Christmas season: Houses bedecked with colorful lights and bowed holly wreaths; caroling with the church choir; stockings full of yummy treats and presents beneath the Christmas tree; eggnog and the Christmas day feast. All these customs create such warm memories in people's hearts and minds. Here are some more information on a few of these traditions for your enjoyment - perhaps you can make some of these a part of your own Christmas festivities.

许多与圣诞节有关的美好传统习俗，如用彩色的灯和圣诞花圈装饰屋子，教堂合唱圣诞颂歌，塞满甜食的长袜子，及圣诞树下的礼物，蛋酒及圣诞大餐。这些传统的习俗为人们创造了许多美好及欢乐的回忆。

They are traditions with no apparent connection to the birth of Christ, but for many of us Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without stockings hung with care, mistletoe beckoning in the hall, trees shimmering with light, presents stacked under the tree and jolly old Santa Claus.

The ways in which these traditions became wedded to Christmas are stories in themselves, some rooted in legends that are centuries old. Santa Claus is a derivation of Europe's legendary St. Nicholas. A bag of gold tossed through a window landed in a poor girl's stocking in Asia Minor. And according to Norse legend, when a young man was killed by a mistletoe dart and then revived by the gods, his mother, the goddess Freyja, was so grateful that, forever after, she kissed anyone who walked under the symbolic plant in her presence.

Other traditions have a more historical evolution. ''The Twelve Days of Christmas,'' sung by Roman Catholics who could not practice their faith in England from 1558 to 1829, was a kind of prayer in code, its words imbued with Bibical significance.

Less spiritual was the evolution of wrapping paper. Stores, wanting people to replace homemade gifts with store-bought presents, began wrapping gifts in paper decorated with holiday symbols in about 1880.

Here are the explanations, steeped in legend and history, behind favorite traditions.