We all know about kissing under the mistletoe or wearing green on St. Patrick's Day, but there are some more obscure holiday superstitions -- many centuries old -- that you've probably never heard of, and with good reason: they're bat-poop crazy. Here are some of the battiest.

Life and Death

1) Who knew Christmas dinner could be so deadly? Any number of variables related to that meal could cost you your life, according to superstition. If you set the table for an odd number of guests, it will bring bad luck or death. If someone gets up from the table before dinner is finished, it will bring bad luck or death. And don't be the first person to leave the table after dinner, or you'll be the first to die in the upcoming year.

2) If a wife burns a cake on Christmas, she will die during the upcoming year. But no pressure.

3) On Christmas Eve, if you make a small pile of salt on the table and it melts overnight, you will die next year. If it remains intact, you will live.

4) It sounds cruel, but tell people in mourning to stay away on New Year's Day, because if they pay you a visit, a member of your family will die that year.

5) Let your musky socks and funky drawers stink away on New Year's Day, because if you do laundry that day, a member of your family will die shortly thereafter.

Health

6) Who says there's no cure for the common cold? If you eat a large apple under an apple tree at midnight on Halloween while wearing only a bed sheet, you will never catch a cold.

7) If you cut your hair on Good Friday, you won't have headaches for the coming year. Suck it, Ibuprofen.

8) If you fast on Christmas but eat only a raw egg, you will gain great strength. And maybe salmonella.

9) A child born on Christmas Day cannot die from drowning or hanging. Bachelors in Underwater Noose Tying, here I come!

Luck

10) Wearing a new bonnet on Easter is lucky -- even more so if a bird poops on it.

11) It's good luck to throw water on someone for two days after Easter -- both the wetter and the "wettee."

12) If you don't wear at least one item of new clothing on Easter, your tired old outfit will get pooped on by birds (Isn't' that lucky?) or spat on by dogs...or birds may just peck out your eyeballs.

13) It's bad luck to allow people who squint into your home on Christmas Eve. Sorry, Renée Zellweger.

14) If you steal anything on Christmas or New Year's Day and don't get caught, you can steal safely all year long. Try telling that to your parole officer.

15) If you eat Christmas pudding in 13 different homes before New Year's Day, you'll find happiness, prosperity and morbid obesity during the coming year.

Love

16) On Halloween, if a woman can run around the block with a mouth full of water without swallowing or spitting (ahem) out any water, the first man she meets after returning home will be her husband.

17) If you get engaged on Easter, you won't get married.

18) If a woman looks outside the first thing on Valentine's Day morning, the number of animals she sees equals the number of years before she gets married. As if you need any more reasons to avoid living next to a zoo.

19) If you look down a well on Valentine's Day, you will see your future spouse. Especially if you threw him down a well.

20) On Christmas Eve, if a woman walks backwards to a pear tree and then walks around it nine times, she will see a vision of her future husband. He will be pear-shaped.