Once again the Christmas season is on us. It is now a Scorchsoft tradition where every year, we enlighten you with some new, interesting, entertaining and sometimes Bizzare Christmas facts.

 1)  The Germans made the first artificial Christmas trees out of dyed goose feathers.

2)  Christmas trees usually grow for about 15 years before they are sold.

3)  Christmas wasn’t declared an official holiday in the United States until June 26, 1870

4)  Oklahoma was the last U.S. state to declare Christmas a legal holiday, in 1907

5)  Mistletoe (Viscum album) is from the Anglo-Saxon word misteltan, which means “little dung twig” because the plant spreads though bird droppings

6)  ALTHOUGH now mostly vegetarian, in Victorian times, mince pies were made with beef and spices.

7)  NEARLY 60 million Christmas trees are grown each year in Europe.

8)  MANY parts of the Christmas tree can actually be eaten, with the needles being a good source of Vitamin C.

9)  THE world's tallest Xmas tree at 221ft high was erected in a Washington shopping mall in 1950.

10) THE chances of a white Christmas are just 1 in 10 for England and Wales, and 1 in 6 for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

11) BEFORE turkey, the traditional Christmas meal in England was a pig's head and mustard.

12) In 1999, residents of the state of Maine in America built the world's biggest ever snowman. He stood at 113ft tall.

13) THE largest Christmas cracker - 45.72m long and 3.04m in diameter - was pulled in Australia in 1991.

14) SANTA has different names around the world - Kriss Kringle in Germany, Le Befana in Italy, Pere Noel in France and Deushka Moroz (Grandfather Frost) in Russia.

15) SINCE 1947 Oslo has sent an Xmas tree to London to thank us for our help in the Second World War.

16) CHRISTMAS pudding was originally a soup made with raisins and wine.

17) GOLD-wrapped chocolate coins commemorate St Nicholas who gave bags of gold coins to the poor.

18) THE first Christmas celebrated in Britain is thought to have been in York in 521AD.

19) IN Greece, Italy, Spain and Germany, workers get a Christmas bonus of one month's salary by law.

20) £700 million is the amount of money spent on unwanted Christmas gifts in  the uk

21) 6.8 Million Android and IOS devices will be activated on Christmas day.

22) 45% of all greetings cards sent every year are Christmas cards.

23) 57 Olympic sized swimming pools worth of beer will be consumed in the UK over Christmas.

24)  £1,600,000,000 (£1.6 Trillion) is the total amount spent in the UK at Christmas.

25)  6 Million rolls of sellotape will be sold in the UK in the run up to Christmas.

From all the team at Scorchsoft, we wish you all a fantastic Christmas 2014 and Happy new year 2015.