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Daily Calendar for Tuesday, December 26, 2023 | Almanac.com

Daily Calendar for Tuesday, December 26, 2023

In 2023, December’s Full Moon reaches peak illumination on Tuesday, December 26. December’s Moon is most commonly known as the Cold Moonβ€”a Mohawk name that conveys the frigid conditions of this time of year, when cold weather truly begins to grip us. Read more about December’s Cold Moon here.

Kwanzaa is celebrated for seven days beginning on December 26 and lasting through January 1. This holiday was created in 1966 and named for the time of year when some African tribes traditionally celebrated the first harvest of their crops. During Kwanzaa, people decorate their homes with straw mats, ears of corn, and a candleholder called a kinara. They light a candle in the home each evening and may exchange homemade gifts. The seven-day celebration ends with a feast, usually held at a community center and featuring music and dancing. This spiritual holiday focuses on seven basic principles: unity (umoja), self-determination (kujichagulia), collective work and responsibility (ujima), cooperative economics (ujamaa), purpose (nia), creativity (kuumba), and faith (imani). 

Read more about Kwanzaa here.

This holiday derives from the Old English custom of giving Christmas β€œboxes” to tradesmen, postmen, and servants. The original boxes were usually made of earthenware and contained money, which could be retrieved only by breaking the boxes open. These days, a gift of money is usually contained in a greeting card and given before the holiday. Where celebrated (Great Britain, Canada, and Australia), Boxing Day is welcomed as a quiet day of recuperation from the season’s hectic festivities. It is also the biggest day of the year for soccer playoffs.

Question of the Day

With the holidays here and pounds gained, how many calories do you have to burn to lose a pound of fat?
It takes about 3,500 calories to gain or lose a pound of fat. To give you an idea of how much energy it takes to β€œburn” a calorie, here are a few activities with the number of calories they burn per minute, per pound of body weight: fast ax chopping (or cross-country skiing uphill), 0.135; forking straw bales (or playing basketball), 0.063; window cleaning (or playing croquet), 0.026. So a 150-pound person forking straw bales burns 9.45 calories per minute, which means he or she must fork bales for six hours to lose one pound. (Though not listed, the one exercise guaranteed to burn calories is pushing one’s chair away from the table!)

Advice of the Day

Grow African violets in an east window and water with warm or tepid water.

Home Hint of the Day

Clean rust spots off a countertop by rubbing in toothpaste (not the gel type) with your finger. Rub until the stain is gone, then rinse and wipe dry.

Word of the Day

Cryophobia
Fear of extreme cold, frost, or ice

Puzzle of the Day

Can a leopard change his spots?
Yes, when he is tired of one place, he can go to another.

Born

  • Henry Miller (writer) –
  • Steve Allen (actor & comedian) –
  • Norm Ullman (hockey player) –
  • Carlton Fisk (baseball player) –
  • Ozzie Smith (baseball player) –
  • Jared Leto (actor) –
  • Chris Daughtry (singer) –

Died

  • Melvil Dewey (librarian famous for developing the Dewey Decimal Classification system) –
  • Harry Truman (33rd U.S. president) –
  • Jack Benny (actor) –
  • Jason Robards (actor) –
  • Herb Ritts (celebrity photographer) –
  • Reggie White (football player) –
  • Vincent Schiavelli (actor) –
  • Gerald Ford (38th U.S. president) –

Events

  • James Nason of Franklin, Massachusetts, invented the coffee percolator–
  • Law amended to admit girls into Little League baseball–
  • An earthquake at Bam in Southern Iran killed more than 20,000 people–
  • Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts broke Dan Marino’s single-season touchdown pass record when he threw his 48th and 49th of the season against the San Diego Chargers–
  • A powerful 9.0 earthquake erupted underwater off the island of Sumatra and set off tsunamis that built up speeds of as much as 500 miles per hour, which crashed into areas of Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives, and Malaysia. An estimated 225,000 people were killed–

Weather

  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, received 21 inches of snow in a coastal storm that also brought record tides–
  • Delaware received 24 inches of snow in a coastal storm that also brought record tides–
  • NYC’s deepest snowstorm commenced: 25.8” at battery, 32” in suburbs - traffic completely stopped - removal costed $8 million - 27 people died–

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