Christmas

On Christmas Eve, in Italian-American homes from Brooklyn to Chicago to San Francisco, the table tells a story written in seafood. Course after course arrives — salt cod fritters, calamari,

Forget everything you know about Santa Claus. In Iceland, Christmas doesn’t bring one jolly gift-giver — it brings thirteen. The Icelandic Yule Lads (Jólasveinarnir) are a gang of mischievous troll-brothers

In Catalonia, in northeastern Spain, children spend December lovingly feeding a hollow log — leaving it orange peels, bits of bread, and sweets each night — and then, on Christmas

In the pre-dawn darkness of a Caracas December, something extraordinary happens on the city’s steep avenues: the streets close to cars, and thousands of people — children, teenagers, grandparents —

On the evening of December 23, the main square of Oaxaca de Juárez fills with crowds pressing toward long tables covered in something extraordinary: elaborate sculptures carved entirely from radishes.

Every year on the morning of December 22, Spain collectively holds its breath. Offices pause, bars turn up their televisions, and millions of people listen as a choir of schoolchildren

In Ukraine, alongside the glass baubles and tinsel, Christmas trees carry an ornament you will not find in most countries: a spider. Sometimes it is a small glittering spider nestled

On Christmas Eve in Finland, before the ham is carved, before the presents are opened, before a single carol is sung, millions of Finns do the same thing: they go

Every December, in the main square of Gävle, Sweden, a giant goat made of straw rises over the Christmas market. It stands some 13 meters tall, weighs several tons, and

On Christmas Eve in Iceland, after the holiday meal is cleared and the evening settles in, families across the country do the same thing: they open presents, and the presents

In the Philippines, Christmas begins in September — the famous “Ber months” — and by December the entire archipelago glows. But no light shines brighter, or more distinctively Filipino, than

For nine nights each December, neighborhoods across Mexico glow with candlelight as processions wind through the streets, singing a centuries-old call-and-response at every door. Children shake decorated clay rattles, someone