It was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

You probably know what happens next.

But do you know who wrote this poem and when?

Do you know where the tradition of the Christmas tree comes from?

Lights on the Christmas tree, stockings, even the idea of gift-giving.

No holiday has a richer and more varied tradition than Christmas.

So let's look into its history and see if we can uncover some of that richness and tradition.

And if you don't celebrate Christmas well, at least you'll have a better appreciation of why so many people do.

Here's what everybody knows.

Christmas is when Christians celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ.

That in itself is a very big deal.

Christianity in all its many iterations remains the most popular religion in the world.

Two billion people follow it.

Aside from its obvious religious significance, the first Christmas stands as the great divide for the recording of human history.

Until recently, history was divided between BC before Christ and AD, Anodomani, which is Latin for Year of Our Lord.

Now you'll often see BCE before the common era and CE, common era.

No matter the divide is still Jesus's birth.

The great kings of the First Millennium recognized the significance of the day and attached themselves to it.

Charlemagne, Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror, among many others, were either baptized or coordinated on December 25th.

The idea of Christmas as a time of gift giving also goes back to the earliest days of Christianity.

The story is told that a third century church bishop, Nicholas, would anonymously throw bags of gold coins into the windows of the poor.

The coins supposedly landed in the shoes or stockings that were drying by the fireplace, thus was the stocking stuffer born.

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