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Ho, ho, ho: The World's Greatest Santa Claus in Portugal
Photo: Luis Pedro Duarte da Fonseca/Getty Images
Why throw a Christmas tree?
Because you can!
New records are regularly set in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Other Christmas records also deserve to be celebrated:
Tasty:
Who has the longest Christmas stollen?
One could assume: Germany.
After all, Stollen is a typical German Christmas pastry.
But puff cake.
In December 2010, a colossus a good 72 meters long was baked in the Netherlands – but for a German company.
Fast:
When it comes to felling trees, the American Erin Lavoie can hardly be beaten.
In 2008, just before the festival, she managed 27 Christmas trees in two minutes, setting a world record.
Most recently, Lavoie won the 2022 US Women's Championship in multiple wood chopping disciplines.
Tall:
The record for tallest Christmas tree is quite old.
In 1950, the almost 65 meter high Douglas fir stood in a shopping center in Seattle, USA.
At the time, their appearance was a little tricked: According to the Guinness Book, branches from other trees were attached to the lower part of the trunk.
Warm:
Mild air from the Atlantic regularly ensures spring-like Christmas weather in Germany.
The highest temperature measured so far on December 24th was in Freiburg in 2012: 18.9 degrees Celsius, according to the German Weather Service.
Exactly 50 years earlier, the festival was again at its coldest.
On Christmas Eve 1962, the thermometer never climbed above freezing.
Tiny:
You cannot see the mini Christmas card with the naked eye, as it is only two hundredths of a millimeter wide and one and a half high.
Map is relative anyway: Britain's National Physical Laboratory used platinum-coated silicon nitride - a material - and etched Christmas greetings into it in 2017.
Huge:
A gigantic illuminated Santa Claus made of eight tons of aluminum and iron and more than 100,000 LED lights sat in the Portuguese city of Águeda at Christmas time in 2016.
At around 21 meters high and 9 meters wide, he made it into the Guinness Book as the “Largest Santa”.
Athletic:
Who will throw the Christmas tree the highest and the furthest?
This question is answered every year in Weidenthal, Rhineland-Palatinate.
The best long-distance thrower manages 7.5 meters, according to the host FC Wacker.
Unofficial world record for men in this discipline: 10.95 meters.
Sonorous:
For many people, nothing beats a white Christmas - also musically: Bing Crosby's version of "White Christmas" is the best-selling single worldwide with an estimated 50 million copies (until 2012), according to the Guinness Book.
The super hit was penned by the composer Irving Berlin.
Expensive:
A palatial building needs an exclusive Christmas tree, that's apparently the approach.
In December 2010, the decoration of the glittering giant fir tree in a hotel in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) was worth more than eleven million dollars.
swe/dpa