Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About Christmas

While you're busy wrapping gifts and preparing to feast with family and friends, TIME brings you these bizarre Christmas facts to ponder

Away in a Manger

nativity

Dan Balilty / AP

Since the Great Depression, the Rockettes have shared Radio City Music Hall with live farm animals — from camels to donkeys to sheep — to stage a live nativity scene for its annual "Christmas Spectacular." But the world saw its first living nativity in 1224, when St. Francis of Assisi re-created the birth of Jesus to explain the holiday to his followers. During that first display, the manger was also used as an altar for Christmas Mass.