During their schooling, prospective Santas studied the season’s must-have toys and treasured stories, and were coached on how to handle a kid if they cried. No detail was overlooked: Howard even hired a reindeer expert from Michigan to teach the Santas how to properly feed and handle the Christmassy creatures. His belief that Santa Claus required both heart and craft showed in his deeply earnest, almost spiritual teachings.

Howard’s passion and skills paid off: He was hired to play Santa in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City from 1948 to 1965, and served as a consultant on the 1947 classic film Miracle on 34th Street. When Howard died in 1966, his school moved to Michigan and continued under new leadership, eventually becoming the flagship institution known as the “Harvard of Santa Schools” in what was an increasingly crowded field.

By the 1960s, Santa schools had multiplied. After Howard’s home-based operation took off, similar programs sprouted up across the country. The world of Santa training became even more elaborate. There are now symposiums on beard bleaching, as well as marketing and business lessons for those looking to take their Santa role pro. The child-first approach that informed Howard’s earliest teachings carried into modern Santa schools: Many offer the services of early childhood educators and specialists with experience working with children facing anxiety, loss, or other challenges.

Even as Christmas wish lists and Santa-experience expectations evolve, the core thread remains the same: Santa shouldn’t just be imitated, he should be embodied. “He errs who thinks Santa enters through the chimney,” Howard once said. “Santa enters through the heart.” Nearly a century later, his sincerity lives on. Strange as Santa schools may seem, they also keep the magic of Christmas alive, turning Kris Kringle into much more than a costume, but rather a presence that lives vividly in a child’s imagination.

The Great Spaghetti Harvest

In what may have been the first television-based April Fools' prank, the BBC in 1957 decided to have some fun with viewers by way of its investigative series Panorama. Those who turned in to the April 1 episode were greeted by footage of smiling people plucking "spaghetti" from trees, with narrator Richard Dimbleby explaining how it was a banner year for the crop in this Swiss village thanks to the mild winter and the eradication of the pesky spaghetti weevil. 

Apparently, spaghetti was still something of a novelty throughout much of the United Kingdom in that time, which explains why the BBC's switchboard was lit up by callers inquiring how to grow their own trees. Meanwhile, those who wrote to the station with that question received the cheeky reply, "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

The Gravity-Defying Planetary Alignment

The BBC was up to its April 1 tomfoolery again in 1976, when astronomer Patrick Moore instructed radio listeners to be ready for an extraordinary cosmic event. At 9:47 that morning, Moore explained, Earth would be directly lined up with Jupiter and Pluto (then still a planet) to produce an unusual gravitational pull; those who jumped at the exact moment he directed would find themselves temporarily floating. 

The segment was actually a dig at a recently published book called The Jupiter Effect, which cited dubious scientific principles to detail how the eventual alignment of all nine planets would produce terrible earthquakes and the destruction of Los Angeles. Of course, there were an untold number of listeners who took Moore's tongue-in-cheek announcement quite seriously. One caller described how she and 11 friends had all floated around a room together, while another demanded monetary damages for soaring too high and banging his head on the ceiling.

The Sydney Iceberg

Heading into April Fools' Day 1978, Australian businessman Dick Smith announced that he would tow in an iceberg from Antarctica and carve the frozen mound into cubes that were guaranteed to enhance the flavor of any drink. While he originally intended to haul over a real iceberg, Smith instead settled for a prank in which he draped plastic sheets over a barge and applied a mountain of shaving cream and firefighting foam on top. 

On the morning of April 1, Smith had the barge towed into Sydney Harbor, while some 300 of his employees called local radio stations and newspapers to breathlessly describe the "iceberg" bearing down on the city. Even when the hoax was revealed with the onset of rain that washed away the foam, Smith cheerfully kept up the ruse by handing out ice cubes from the barge's beer refrigerator.

Sports Illustrated’s Sidd Finch

Normally known for his realistic accounts of competing against professional athletes of various sports, writer George Plimpton took a new angle for the April 1, 1985 edition of Sports Illustrated by creating a fictional baseball player. As described in his story "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch," the titular ballplayer was a reclusive 28-year-old Harvard dropout who had been trained by Buddhist monks, was fluent in Sanskrit, and played the French horn. He also could throw a baseball at the unheard-of speed of 168 miles per hour, and as such had earned a secret tryout with the New York Mets. 

The Mets went along with the story, allowing players and coaches to be photographed with the middle school art teacher who was posing as Finch. Even though Plimpton hinted at the joke with the first letters of the words in the article's subhead — "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga" (spelling out "Happy April Fools' Day") — the well-executed deception reportedly led to other teams contacting the Mets to learn more about this mysterious pitcher.

The Left-Handed Whopper

Burger King proudly bills itself as the home of the Whopper, which makes it fitting that the fast-food chain sprung a whopper of a prank on April Fools' Day in 1998. That day, a full-page advertisement in USA Today trumpeted the launch of the "Left-Handed Whopper," with a helpful diagram showing how BK's signature sandwich was "rotated a full 180 degrees" to ensure a "better grip" and "maximum enjoyment" for lefties. The company's vice president of marketing even described how the product was only being sold in the United States for the time being, but would possibly become available in "other countries with large left-handed populations." 

Neither the publication date of the ad nor the head-scratching premise raised red flags among the masses; a follow-up release from Burger King described how thousands of customers had gone to their restaurants to request left-handed Whoppers, with others specifying that they still preferred the right-handed version.

Heart-Shaped Box

Though it began as a feast day for a Catholic saint without any romantic association, by the mid-19th century, Valentine’s Day was firmly established as a celebration of love and romance in the U.S. and Europe. Greeting cards, often adorned with Cupid imagery and floral motifs, had transitioned from delicate handmade creations to widely available preprinted designs. At the same time, chocolate was evolving from a luxury for only the wealthy to an affordable treat for the masses.

For centuries, chocolate was revered as a very special substance. Mesoamerican cultures believed it had spiritual and aphrodisiac properties, and it later became an expensive and exclusive ingredient for European elites. Until the mid-1800s, chocolate was primarily consumed as a drink, but over time, innovations such as extracting cocoa butter from roasted cacao beans led to the creation of decadently filled, bite-sized chocolates.

In 1861, British chocolatier Richard Cadbury began producing beautifully designed packages known as Fancy Boxes for the family company’s chocolates; seven years later, in 1868, he applied the same idea to the first heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. The box capitalized on not only the Victorian era’s aesthetic but also chocolate’s ancient link to physical attraction. It was a match made in marketing heaven: Advertisements suggested that a gift of chocolates was essentially the same as a declaration of love. Cadbury didn’t trademark his heart-shaped boxes, however, and by the 1930s, other companies — including America’s Russell Stover — had followed suit. Chocolate has been an indispensable part of Valentine’s Day ever since; each year, Americans buy about 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolates for the special day.

Samhain Came Before All Hallows’ Eve

Irish immigrants brought the traditions of Samhain to the United States in the 1800s, but the name “Halloween” traces back to influences of early Christianity as the church sought to incorporate pagan traditions into a Christian narrative in order to woo converts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as All Saints’ Day to honor Christian martyrs and saints. By the 10th century, November 2 was recognized as All Souls’ Day, a time to remember the souls of the dead.

Over time, All Saints’ Day became known as All Hallows’ Day, and the evening before, called All Hallows’ Eve, eventually morphed into Halloween. Celebrated on the night of October 31, Halloween isn’t the same thing as Samhain, but the Celtic holiday inspired several traditions of our modern-day Halloween, including carving vegetables, dressing in costumes, and visiting homes to receive treats.

Fire Was Central to the Celebration

Marking the midpoint between the fall equinox and winter solstice, Samhain was the most important of the four fire festivals, coming as it did at the end of the harvest and the beginning of the colder, darker days ahead. The festival was observed over several days as a means of celebrating the harvest, appeasing the gods, honoring the dead, and warding off spirits.

Conflicting sources say that people’s hearth fires would either burn out from being left unattended during the gathering of the harvest or were deliberately extinguished at the start of the Samhain festival. In either case, after the harvest had been gathered, a large communal fire was lit by Celtic priests, known as druids. Sacrifices of crops and animals were made, and the animal bones were then tossed into the “bone-fire,” which is where we get the word “bonfire.” Celebrants would light torches from the bonfire to take back to their homes in order to relight their own hearth fires.

People Believed They Could Commune With Spirits

The Celts believed that Samhain was a time when the spirits of the dead could walk the world of the living, and that this temporary “thinning of the veil” between life and death meant it was possible to communicate with the deceased. A tradition known as a “dumb supper” involved setting a place at the head of the table to invite deceased ancestors to visit. The meal was served in absolute silence and celebrants avoided looking at the head of the table because they believed seeing the spirits would bring bad luck. After the supper, the untouched meal of the spirits was taken out and left in the woods.

Divination practices were also popular during Samhain because people believed the heightened spiritual energy of this liminal time was conducive to fortunetelling. Apples and nuts were used to predict the future and answer questions about the unknown. Some of these traditions later evolved into games, such as bobbing for apples.

Costumes and Carvings Were Meant To Deter Spirits

During the ancient festival of Samhain, people would wear masks, veils, and ghostly disguises to conceal their identity, confuse the spirits, and protect themselves from evil. Costumes were generally made from animal skins, and face coverings might have been an effort to impersonate dead ancestors. Children, meanwhile, would go from house to house showing off their disguises and singing or performing silly tricks in exchange for treats.

The Celts also created lanterns by carving faces into root vegetables that had been gathered during the harvest, including turnips, beets, and potatoes. These lanterns were illuminated with candles and placed in windows and outside of homes to ward off mischievous otherworldly visitors, including demons. This vegetable-carving tradition came to the U.S. with Irish and Scottish immigrants who discovered that pumpkins, which weren’t indigenous to Ireland, were well suited for carving.

An Anglo-Saxon Deity Named Ēostre

Historians have long debated the existence of an Anglo-Saxon goddess named Ēostre (or Ostara). This Old English deity was solely described by the medieval cleric known as St. Bede the Venerable (672-735 CE), considered the “father of English history.” According to Bede’s eighth-century work The Reckoning of Time, pagan Anglo-Saxons once held feasts in Ēostre’s honor during Ēosturmōnaþ (the equivalent of April). It’s possible that this mythical figure lent her name to Easter, but Bede’s account makes no mention of rabbits. The first scholarly connection made between Ēostre and bunnies came in 1874, when the German mythologist Adolf Holtzmann wrote, “The Easter Hare is inexplicable to me, but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara.” Holtzmann was being highly speculative with no supporting evidence to connect Ēostre with an Easter hare or rabbit. Nonetheless, the connection gained some traction, and is often cited as a possible origin of the Easter Bunny. 

The First Easter Hare

It’s not until the 1600s that we see the hare specifically linked to Easter, and this connection originated in Europe. Accounts from Germany describe children hunting for Easter eggs hidden by the Easter hare, much like our modern tradition. At the same time, records from England also mention the Easter hare, which was traditionally hunted and eaten during the Easter feast. We cannot know for sure exactly why and how these traditions came about, but we do know that our concept of the Easter Bunny — and its role in the modern holiday — was established in parts of Europe during the 17th century. 

The Easter Bunny Arrives in America

The Easter Bunny first came to America with German immigrants, possibly in the late 1600s. During colonial times, the Pennsylvania Dutch — the name given to a group of German-speaking peoples who settled primarily in Pennsylvania’s southwestern corner — came to America, bringing their own customs with them. These settlers laid the foundation for our modern Easter traditions, including the Easter Bunny. According to Alfred Shoemaker, a Pennsylvania Dutch folklorist, “The Easter rabbit is perhaps the greatest contribution the Pennsylvania Dutch have made to American life.” One German immigrant, Johann Conrad Gilbert, who arrived in Pennsylvania in 1757, created the first known paintings of the Easter Bunny made on American soil, including two drawings of a leaping hare holding a basket of colorful Easter eggs. Likely created around 1778, the drawings are concrete evidence of the Easter Bunny’s arrival in America.

Fried Chicken in Japan

Around 1% of Japan’s population identifies as Christian, making Christmas more of a cultural holiday than a religious one in the country. As in many other parts of the world, holiday traditions in Japan include colorful light displays, festive markets, and gift-giving. But one food that is uniquely enjoyed at Christmas in Japan is fried chicken. The Christmas tradition of eating fried chicken started a few years after KFC came to Japan in 1970, when the store manager of the first KFC, who went on to be the CEO of KFC Japan, introduced the idea of a KFC Christmas “party barrel.” The idea caught on, and now millions of people in Japan enjoy a meal of fried chicken on Christmas.

The Good Witch of Christmas in Italy

In Italy, the traditional Christmas holiday season lasts through Epiphany on January 6. The Feast of the Epiphany commemorates the 12th day of Christmas, when the three Magi arrived in Bethlehem with gifts for the baby Jesus. While Italy’s version of Santa Claus, known as Babbo Natale, delivers gifts on December 24, it is the witchy La Befana who rides a broom and leaves gifts for children on Epiphany Eve, the night of January 5.

The legend of La Befana is older than Babbo Natale and may date back to the Neolithic era, but she has become linked to the Nativity story. Italian folklore says that the three wise men asked La Befana to join them on their journey, but she refused. She later changed her mind and gathered gifts to bring to Jesus, but she never found him. So La Befana continues to search houses for the baby Jesus, leaving behind gifts for other children.

The Grey Mare in Wales

The Welsh tradition of Mari Lwyd, or “Grey Mare,” takes place in December and January and may be rooted in pagan rituals, though its exact origin is unknown. Traditionally, a horse’s skull is decorated with brightly colored ribbons, holiday greenery, and lights, and put on a pole that is carried by a person under a white sheet. The ghostly horse head is then carried through villages and used to try to gain entry into people’s homes. Participants in the Mari Lwyd processional dress in traditional Welsh clothing, while singing and trying to engage each other in a competition of rhyming Welsh insults, called pwnco. Tradition says that those who welcome the mischievous Mari Lwyd into their homes will receive good luck in the coming year.  

The Yule Lads in Iceland

Iceland’s gift-giving tradition includes the 13 Yule Lads, or Jólasveinar, who visit children on the 13 nights leading up to Christmas. Each night, children leave one of their shoes on the windowsill, hoping for treats from the Yule Lads. Per tradition, good children will receive candy in their shoes while naughty children will find a raw or rotten potato. According to Nordic folklore, the Yule Lads are the sons of a troll named Grýla, who is known to collect bad children in her sack to take back to her cave and be made into stew. While the Yule Lads aren’t as threatening as their mother, each one is known for a particular mischievous act, from stealing milk from sheep and cows to licking spoons and slamming doors.

Roller Skating in Venezuela

The majority of Venezuela’s population is Roman Catholic, and the tropical climate of the South American country encourages people to gather outdoors, making community block parties a popular holiday tradition. While Venezuelans may not get to enjoy ice skating or sledding in December, they have their own Christmas tradition that’s just as much fun: In the week leading up to Christmas, they put on their roller skates and race through the streets to Misa de Aguinaldo, or early morning mass. Known as las patinatas, or “the skating,” this tradition began in Venezuela’s larger cities, including the capital city, Caracas, in the 1950s. The tradition likely started as a warm weather alternative to ice skating, though no one knows for sure. Skating to mass became so popular that the government has closed streets to automobile traffic to keep skaters safe.