Year Pope Julius I and other religious leaders specified December 25th as the official date of the birth of Jesus Christ: 320 AD

Year in which the Christmas Tree is introduced at Strasbourg Cathedral: 1539

Year Alabama became the first state in the US to make Christmas a legal holiday: 1836

Estimated number of copies of Bing Crosby’s version of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” – the best selling single of all time – has sold: in excess of 50 million copies worldwide

Probability of one inch or more of snow on the ground on December 25th in Old Forge: 97%

Year in which F. M. Chapman proposed the first a Christmas bird census: 1900

Number of Christmas Bird count participants in 2000: 50,000

Year in which Santa’s Workshop theme park in Wilmington, NY opened: 1949

Approximate number of daily newspapers who reported on the opening of Santa’s Workshop: over 700 dailies in the U.S. and Canada

Approximate number of movie theater-goers introduced to Santa’s Workshop via a Pathe Newsreel: 30 million

Number of visitors on opening day, July 1, 1949: 212

Number of visitors on September 2, 1951: over 14,000 perhaps as many as 20,000

Year Robert Reiss closes Santa’s Workshop, Wilmington, following a failed business deal: 2001 (it was reopened the following year by Northpole Associates who purchased the facilities in 2005

Year in which Arthur Gillette opened Christmas City, USA theme park on Rt. 9 near Lake George: 1963

Year in which Christmas City, USA changed its name to Magic Forest: 1965

Photo: ABC Sportscaster Jim McKay with Santa at Santa’s Workshop in 1980.

Sources: Adirondack Chronology (pdf), Santas.Net, Guinness Book of World Records, Northeast Regional Climate Center, Santa’s Workshop.