By Steve Roark
Volunteer, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

Christmas has been well entrenched in our culture for centuries, with most of our traditions coming over from Europe with the early settlers. It’s not surprising that superstitions about Christmas worked their way into the holiday. Here are a few that have hung around
There is a legend that may have originated in the mountains that farm animals talk on Christmas Eve. There’s an older legend that animals kneel at midnight on Christmas Eve as they did by the manger when Christ was born.
If you sit under a pine tree on Christmas Day, you might hear angels sing. I can understand this one, as pausing to listen to whispering pines can have a positive emotional effect.
It is bad luck for a cat to meow on Christmas Day (uh oh cat owners).
Coals and ashes from a Christmas fire should never be thrown out that day.
A crowing rooster on Christmas Eve scares away evil spirits. Shooting off guns also works, which may explain the old mountain tradition of visiting neighbors and announcing your arrival by firing a shotgun in the air.
Eating an apple as the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve brings good health.
Single girls who visit the hog pen at midnight on Christmas Eve can find out the kind of man they’ll marry. If an old hog grunts first, she will marry an old man. If a shoat (an adolescent pig) grunts first, her husband will be young and handsome.
Bees hum all night before January 6th, referred to as Old Christmas. Some say if you listen carefully, you can hear words that suggest they are humming Psalm 100.
Christmas Day weather can forecast future weather: a warm Christmas foretells a cold Easter; a green Christmas means a white Easter; a windy Christmas foretells a good corn crop.
Christmas trees must not be removed before January 2, and they must be down before January 6 or bad luck will follow.