National Tooth Fairy Day

It's February 28th.  Rents due, so the paycheck you get today is two thirds gone already.  But more importantly its' National Tooth Fairy Day!  YEA!  Yet another lie we all tell to children.  How did this one begin?  Well I'll tell you.

You might think giving children money for teeth started out with guilty fathers saying "don't tell mommy I knocked your tooth out" "here's a dollar".  That is just sick and wrong and you should be ashamed for thinking like that.

No one knows for sure how the lie began, but Vikings believed that childrens teeth were magical and would help them in battle, so they would pay their kids for teeth and string them together to make jewelry to wear.

Early Europeans would bury kids teeth so evil spirits and witches couldn't use them for voodoo. (on a side note, this is how the "I got your nose!" tradition started, but what people don't know is that witches and spirits would hold the kid's nose hostage until they gave up the teeth... allegedly.)

Later, stories were passed along about a tooth mouse who would steal teeth in the night.  That story evolved into the Tooth Fairy myth of money, or gifts, left under your pillow in exchange for your tooth.

A 2011 study showed that American kids receive $2.60 on average for a tooth. What was your biggest "haul" when you were a kid?