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30 Christmas Traditions From Around the World | TIME

Christmas is one of the most globally celebrated holidays in the world. But not everybody celebrates the same way—or even on the same day.

Beyond the familiar traditions like Santa Claus, a fir tree, caroling and gift-giving, a number of countries—including the U.S.—bring their own unique twists, both old and new, to the holiday.

In the U.S., one such tradition began in 1966, when local New York broadcaster WPIX offered viewers, especially the many in dwellings without fireplaces, an opportunity to enjoy the idyllic coziness of sitting around the fire. It played a three-hour commercial-free video loop of flaming wood, accompanied by holiday music, to serve as a “Christmas card to our viewers,” according to a history of the “Yule Log” published by TIME in 2008. In the decades since, the burning desire for a TV fire has certainly not extinguished, and in the current streaming era, even companies like Disney and Netflix have joined in, offering Frozen, Squid Game, and other such themed versions of the uniquely American holiday fixture. 

While Christmas is, at its core, a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, over the centuries different cultures have blended it with their own histories and values—and of course, consumerist tendencies. Perhaps nowhere epitomizes the latter better than America, where another mostly U.S.-specific sight these days is “SantaCon”—an annual event that started in San Francisco in 1994 but has since spread to other other cities, including New York, where hundreds of usually inebriated revelers dressed as Santa parade the streets, often resulting in multiple arrests for vandalism and disorderly conduct. (According to Vox, the original SantaCon was actually inspired by a performance art protest against greed and consumerism that had taken over the holiday, staged in Denmark in 1974 by an anarchist theater troupe, and today’s New York organizers solicit donations for charity and bill the event as a convention “to fund art & spread absurdist joy.”)

Indeed, quirky localizations of the festive season come from all over. Here’s a look at some of the foods, stories, and customs that shape how Christmas is observed around the

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