Harold Lloyd is known as both one of Hollywood’s legendary stars of early 1900s silent comedy, and as the owner of a year-long Christmas tree adorned with over 5,000 colorful decorations.

If you think yourself the kind of person that goes over the top when decorating the family Christmas tree, don’t beat yourself up too hard, as you’ll probably never be as obsessed with Christmas decorations as Harold Lloyd. The Hollywood legend, who starred in such films as Safety Last! (1923) and High and Dizzy (1920), is said to have had a collection of over 8,000 decorations collected from all over the world. But what he is most famous for is using most of these eye-catching baubles to decorate an impressive Christmas tree that is now regarded by many as the most adorned Christmas tree that ever was.

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A popular Chinese reality show sparked controversy last month after pixelating all elements relating to Christmas on an episode shot in a luxurious hotel decorated for the Christian celebration.

Mango TV, a subsidiary of state-controlled Hunan Television, aired the first episode of the sixth season of Who’s the Murderer, a popular online reality show, on December 24. As it was Christmas Eve, the television saw it fitting to shoot the show in a hotel decorated for the Christian celebration. However, they also decided it would be a good idea to censor all elements related to Christmas, as a way to avoid being criticized by the Government for showing Western festivals and worshiping foreign things. The result was a pixelated mess, with protagonists walking by blurred Christmas trees, tinsel-decorated plants, and even wearing blurred Christmas hats.

Who’s the Murderer is features a cast of celebrities who play different roles in order to find evidence at a “crime scene” and figure out who the murderer is. It’s not the kind of plot that would ever be associated with Christmas, but production thought that the special episode’s setting could be interpreted as a promotion of Western festivals, so a decision was made to blur out all Christmas trees, wreaths, bells, and other decorations during broadcast. Even the protagonists’ Christmas hats were censored with post-production cartoon hats.

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Every year since 1961, the Veal family has been celebrating Christmas by creating their now-traditional giant ice tree on their property in Indianapolis, Indiana. It has become known as the Veal Ice Tree and is considered a seasonal tourist attraction.

If you’ve had enough of traditional Christmas trees and you’re looking for something more original, you’re going to love the Veal Ice Tree. It looks nothing like a tree, in fact no living trees have ever been used in the creation of this magnificent ice sculpture, but it became known as the ice tree a long time ago, and the name stuck. It’s actually an ice-sculpture made by attaching water hoses to a wooden frame, turning the water on on freezing nights, and letting the weather mold the ice-sculpture into existence. The Veal Ice Tree goes up every year, or almost every year, and it always gets a lot of attention from locals.

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For nearly three decades, Gubbio, a small medieval town at the foot of Mount Ingino in Italy’s Umbria region, has held the Guinness Record for the world’s largest Christmas tree.

In 1981, the 750-meter Christmas tree spread over the slope of Mount Ingino was lit up for the first time. Every year since, on the 7th of December (the Eve of the Immaculate Conception), the over 700 giant lights that make up the tree are turned on, and they remain active throughout the holiday season, until the day of Epiphany, on 6th January. Created in honor of the local Patron Saint Ubaldo, the Christmas tree of Mount Ingino was recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the ‘world’s largest Christmas Tree’ in the year 1991. Since then, no one has even come close to challenging its record.

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Most of us can barely wait to open our Christmas presents every year, but one Canadian man has managed to keep one unopened for the past 47 years.

Adrian Pearce of Edmonton received the gift in 1970 when he was a 17-year-old student at George S. Henry Secondary School in suburban Toronto. It was from Vicki, his first serious girlfriend, who gave him the gift and then immediately ended their relationship. He was so angry and upset about the breakup that opening the present was the last thing on his mind. He simply threw it under the Christmas tree and when it remained the only unopened present on Christmas day, he told his family that he was never going to open it. Believe it or not, he managed to keep that promise.

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Every holidays season for the past six years, Jim Glaub and Dylan Parker receive hundreds of letters to Santa Claus at their New York apartment. No one knows why this has been happening, or when exactly it started, but the two don’t much care. They’re just focused on making sure that every sender receives a Christmas present from Santa.

Even before 2010, Jim and Dylan used to receive a few letters addressed to Santa Claus, but they simply brushed them off as a “weird occurence”. But that year they got almost 400 of them, for some reason. “It was one batch after another,” Jim recalls. “We would dread opening up the mailbox because we knew 25, 30 letters would pour out.”

The letters are mostly from kids in the New York area, or from parents writing on behalf of their kids and asking for a miracle, explaining that they have fallen on hard times and could use a bit of help with presents from Santa Claus. Most letters ask for clothes, toys, and even turkeys for the Christmas dinner, and Jim and Dylan do everything in their power to make sure that their wishes get fulfilled.

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From the outside, Thomas Jeromin’s house, in Rinteln, Germany, doesn’t look at all out of the ordinary, but as they say, ‘it’s what’s inside that matters’, and in this case the inside is nothing short of spectacular – a forest of artificial Christmas trees, 110 to be exact, decorated with a whopping 16,000 baubles.

Up until five years ago, Thomas Jeromin decorated a single Christmas tree for his house, just like the rest of the world. However in 2012, he decided to get more of them just to spread the Christmas spirit throughout his home. The idea turned out so well that the next year he upped the number of Christmas trees to 20, then 45, 80 and finally this year he got his epic collection to a whopping 110 trees. They are literally everywhere, from the living room and halls to the kitchen and even the bathroom. The only no-tree zone of the house is the master bedroom, at his wife Susanne’s request.

As you can imagine, installing and decorated over 100 Christmas trees takes a while, and Jeromin confirms that this year he has needed eight weeks to get his house ready for the winter holidays. He began in October, and spent a whole week just bringing the artificial trees down from the attic. It then took him another seven weeks working from morning until evening decorating them with over 16,000 Christmas baubles, hundreds of LED light installations, garlands and wreaths. It was all worth it, though.

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Emma Tapping, a mother-of-three from the Isle of Man, U.K, first made headlines last year, when she was accused of spoiling her children by getting them 87 Christmas presents each. That didn’t seem to bother her too much, as this year she bought even more gifts for them – 96 each.

After Emma posted a picture of her Christmas Tree buried in a mountain of presents, last year, it went viral and made the rounds online with the caption “Nearly time for all the materialistic parents to compete and broadcast how many presents their kids have on Facebook! Just remember there’s some children’ who don’t get much.” After being approached by various news sites and TV shows about her Christmas shopping habit and the effect it has on her kids, the woman said that she only spoils them on Christmas, because she loves seeing the joy on their faces when they’re opening presents.

“If you ask me if I spoil my kids, I say at Christmas yes I do but I don’t throughout the year. They get the necessities, the school uniform, the things they need but we don’t go on holidays abroad or big shopping sprees,” she said. “Anything they want, they get for Christmas.”

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People generally love decorating their homes for the winter holidays, but how many of us would actually put a whole month into making sure that the whole place is filled with Christmas decorations? Well, one man does it every year.

43-year-old Jack Baremans, from Etten-Leur, a commune in southern Netherlands, has always loved the Holidays. He has been collecting all kinds of Christmas decorations ever since he was 16-years old, and has made a habit of using all of them to decorate his home every year. His collection has gotten so large over the years, that he now reportedly takes about a month filling the inside of his home with dozens of artificial Christmas trees, thousands of ornaments, garlands, wreaths, plush reindeer and polar bears, Christmas lights and pretty much every other decoration imaginable.

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Believe it or not, being a professional Santa is hard work. It’s not just about putting on a red suit and a fake beard and doing the best ‘ho-ho-ho’ you can muster. Some Santas actually take their job very seriously, so much so that they go to a university to sharpen their skills.

Yes, Santa University is a real thing. It’s a four-day training program that takes place every summer at ‘Noerr Pole’, the corporate office of Noerr Programs in Colorado. The company is a digital event imaging provider that recruits and trains its own 70-member Santa Claus team. “We cover every single aspect you can think of when it comes to being the consummate Santa,” said Ruth Rosenquist, public relations director at Noerr.

So prospective Santas are taught how to pose for pictures, how to deal with social and mainstream media, how to sit with a child on their lap, what to do if a child asks for something intangible for Christmas, and how to stay healthy and hydrated during the holidays. The Santas interact with each other over two BBQ sessions that promote goodwill and an atmosphere of support.

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When Australian lawyer David Richards started decorating his family home for Christmas four years ago, little did he know that the simple pastime would snowball into a huge passion. The father-of-three is now a self-proclaimed ‘crazy Christmas lights guy’.

Impressed with the display of lights at his home last year, Richards was invited to transform Petrie Plaza in Canberra’s Central Business District into an epic Christmas spectacle this year. And Richards has not disappointed – this year’s display consists of a whopping 120 kilometers of lights and over one million light bulbs. Petrie Plaza now features a 3-D image constructed of lights, covering more than 41,000 square feet, in the shape of three large Christmas presents.

The spectacular display has won Richards a place in the Guinness Book for the third time. He won the record last year when he decorated his home with 502,165 lights, and once before in 2011. “Christmas lights really get people into the festive spirit,” Richards told Guinness. “We decorated our home for years, and people came from everywhere to see our lights. This year, who knows how many people will come along?”

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Remember those ugly sweaters your mom or aunt would buy you for Christmas? If you still have them hiding at the back of your closet, it’s time to get them out because they’re in style! That’s right, ugly Christmas sweaters are all the rage in the U.S. and Canada. Stores all over North America are stocking up on the most hideous novelty sweaters this holiday season.

F as in Frank, a vintage store in British Columbia, is one of the places selling the tacky woolen garments. Co-owner Drew Heifetz says that he has sold over 30,000 sweaters this year alone. “We’re trying to breathe new life into them and everyone is really coming together creating a culture around these sweaters and it’s been an amazing resurgence,” he said. “Really, it’s about having a good time, getting wild wearing the craziest sweater you can.”

Photographs on the internet show people wearing the most hideous sweaters conceivable. Some of them have Christmas tree ornaments hanging off them, others light up and some even have Santa with a furry beard. These sweaters were in fashion last year too, with the sweater industry reporting record sales during Christmas. But it looks like this year’s sales will break all records.

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We love it when the holidays are around the corner; there are just so many odd stories to talk about! Our first Christmas story this season is here: an Australian family who put up over half a million Christmas lights in their Canberra home and set a new Guinness World Record.

This isn’t the first time father-of-three David Richards and his family have done this. In 2011 they set the record after putting up 331,038 lights. Last year a New-York family beat them with a whopping 346,283. The Richards wanted their title back so badly that this year they’ve installed 502,165 lights – that’s 31 miles of wire. They also have a glowing reindeer and loud music to boot.

Some of the Richards’ neighbours are very upset and haven’t spoken to the family since 2011. But most of them love the dazzle and come to visit from several miles away. David says, “I have always loved Christmas. Having the Christmas lights with the community coming in and sharing it is a time when you get to know people you probably should know better, I guess.”

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Every December, we hear reports of bizarre Christmas trees in the making, and on display. We bring you a roundup of 10 of the most unusual trees that caught our attention in the Christmas season of 2011.

The Japanese Gold Tree

Every family has its own traditions for Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions. Writer Nick Confalone recently shared on YouTube, a particularly endearing tradition followed by his dad during Christmas.

Starting in 1985, Nick’s father made home videos of his kids coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. He continued this practice for 25 years, chronicling the growth of his children over a quarter of a century. Nick recently edited the footage filmed by his father and posted it on YouTube. Apart from Nick and his sister, other members of the family are also seen in the video. Pets come and go, as do boyfriends, and you can clearly see how the kids evolve from little toddlers to teenagers and then young adults. Initially the kids are seen to be excited to find out what Santa Claus has left them under the tree. Nick is a cute kid making silly faces at the camera. As years go by, their reluctance to be a part of the videos is quite evident. Of course, Nick now considers the videos to be nothing short of magical.

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