26 Unique Christmas Traditions: The World's Most Wonderful Oddities

Christmas is truly the most magical time Unique Christmas traditions go far beyond a tree, fairy lights and a plum cake. In Austria, men dressed as horned demons chase children through the snow on 5 December. In Catalonia, families hide a squatting peasant inside their nativity scene. Icelanders spend Christmas Eve in bed with a new book, and in Fort Kochi a giant old man is burnt at midnight to close the season. This guide walks you through 26 of the weirdest Christmas traditions around the world: what actually happens, where it came from, and the exact date and place where you can stand in the crowd and watch.

We have spent nine years taking groups to festivals, from the lantern night in Chiang Mai to the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland, and we have learnt one thing every December: the strangest customs make the best trips. Ourchristmas and new year packages cover Amsterdam, Prague, Vienna and Budapest over Christmas week and New Year's Eve, and the dated calendar near the end of this page shows which of these traditions a departure can actually catch.

Christmas was never one festival. Rome fixed the date in the fourth century, but the feast landed on top of older winter festivals, and every region kept what it already had. The church calendar then added a line of saints' days, from St Nicholas on 6 December to Epiphany on 6 January, and migrants and missionaries carried all of it to Manila, Lalibela and Shillong. That is how Christmas is celebrated around the world today: the same feast, rebuilt by each place in its own way. Think of how differently Diwali looks in Varanasi, Jaipur and Kolkata, and you have the idea. The customs below are grouped by region, and each one ends with where to stand and when.

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Here are all 26 unique Christmas traditions around the world in one place, so you can jump to the ones that interest you. Every entry below gives the full story, plus the date and place to see it.

Europe has the most unique Christmas traditions simply because it has had the longest time to collect them, and many of these customs are older than Christmas itself. Most happen on 5 December or Christmas Eve; Italy and Wales wait until January.

1. Krampus Runs, Austria: The Demon Who Punishes the Naughty

Krampus is the scary partner of St Nicholas in the Alps. On 6 December, St Nicholas gives gifts to the good children; on the night before, Krampus deals with the rest. In a Krampus run, dozens of men in carved wooden masks, goat horns and shaggy fur suits charge through the town square, swinging birch sticks and rattling chains, while the crowd screams and scatters. The figure is older than Christianity in these mountains, and the church never managed to get rid of him.

See it yourself: Krampus night is 5 December. Salzburg's old town and Schladming in Styria hold the biggest runs. They are free to watch, the barriers go up by late afternoon, and the sticks are real, so keep small children behind them. Vienna holds smaller runs in the first week of December, the only ones within reach of a late-December Europe trip.

2. The Caganer, Catalonia: A Peasant Squatting Behind the Stable

Look behind the stable in any Catalan nativity scene and you will find a peasant in a red cap with his trousers down. This is the Caganer, which simply means 'the pooper'. He has been part of Catalan cribs since at least the 1700s, and the belief is that he fertilises the soil and brings a good year. Shops now make Caganers of footballers, politicians and even the Pope, and families give them as gifts without a second thought.

See it yourself: Fira de Santa Llúcia, the Christmas market outside Barcelona Cathedral, from late November to 23 December. Small ones cost a few euros. Go on a weekday morning, because weekend afternoons are packed.

3. Tió de Nadal, Catalonia: The Log That Delivers the Presents

Catalonia's second oddity is a hollow log with a painted face and a small red cap. From 8 December, children 'feed' it fruit and bread every night and cover it with a blanket to keep it warm. On Christmas Eve the family hits the log with sticks while singing a song that asks it to 'poop' presents, then lifts the blanket to find nougat and wafers underneath. The custom comes from old farmhouses in the Pyrenees, where the log that warmed the house through winter was thanked for its gifts.

See it yourself: Logs are sold next to the Caganers at the Santa Llúcia market and at Girona's Christmas fair. The beating happens at home on 24 December, but many town squares in Catalonia hold public sessions for children in the week before Christmas, and the stall-holders know which ones.

4. Iceland's 13 Yule Lads: A Prankster a Night From 12 December

Iceland has thirteen Santas, and none of them is very nice. The Yule Lads are the sons of a mountain ogress called Grýla. From 12 December they come down from the hills one each night, and each has a habit: Spoon-Licker, Door-Slammer, Sausage-Swiper, Window-Peeper. Children leave a shoe on the windowsill and wake up to a sweet if they were good, or a rotten potato if they were not. Parents used the lads to scare children for so long that a law was passed against it in the 1700s. The family cat, the Yule Cat, is said to eat anyone who does not get new clothes for Christmas.

See it yourself: The National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavík hosts one lad a day from 12 December, late morning, with local school groups in the audience, which is the best way to see them. Dimmuborgir near Lake Mývatn in the north sets up their 'home' on advertised days in December.

5. Jólabókaflóð, Iceland: The Christmas Book Flood

Iceland's Christmas book flood is the gentlest custom on this list. During the Second World War, paper was one of the few things Iceland could still import freely, so books became the standard gift, and the habit stayed. Every November a catalogue of the year's new books, the Bókatíðindi, is posted to every home in the country, and most of Iceland's book sales happen in the six weeks that follow. On Christmas Eve, families exchange books and go to bed to read them, usually with a bar of chocolate.

See it yourself: Reykjavík's bookshops, including Eymundsson on Austurstræti, stay busy until closing on 24 December and stock Icelandic novels in English. Buy one and join in from your hotel bed. The city goes quiet by 10pm.

6. Spider-Web Trees, Ukraine: A Cobweb for Good Luck

A Ukrainian Christmas tree is hung with little spiders and webs made of silver wire, paper or straw, called pavuchky. The story goes that a poor widow could not afford to decorate her children's tree. Spiders spun webs over it in the night, and at sunrise the webs turned to gold and silver. Spiders have meant good luck in Ukrainian homes ever since, and these webs are the most likely origin of tinsel. Ukraine moved its official Christmas to 25 December in 2023.

See it yourself: Travel to Ukraine is still restricted, so the Ukrainian community abroad is the easiest place to see this. Ukrainian churches in Canada and the United States decorate spider-web trees through December and sell straw spiders at their Christmas bazaars.

7. Mari Lwyd, Wales: A Horse's Skull That Sings at Your Door

This one takes some getting used to. A real horse's skull, with a hinged jaw and baubles for eyes, is covered in a white sheet and ribbons, put on a pole and carried from house to house by a group of singers. At each door, the horse's group and the family trade rude rhymes in a contest called the pwnco. If the family loses, the horse and its friends come in for food and drink. The custom belongs to south Wales and almost died out before a strong revival in the 1990s.

See it yourself: The Chepstow Wassail and Mari Lwyd, on a Saturday in mid-January, when horses from across Wales meet on the old bridge over the River Wye at dusk. Llangynwyd near Maesteg has the oldest unbroken tradition, on New Year's Day. Both are free, outdoors and cold, and the pubs fill up the moment the singing stops.

8. Klausjagen, Switzerland: Chasing St Nicholas With Giant Lanterns

Küssnacht, a small town near Lucerne, 'chases St Nicholas' on the evening of 5 December with every streetlight switched off. Whip-crackers go first. Then come the Iffelen: about 200 lanterns shaped like a bishop's hat, up to two metres tall, cut from cardboard in patterns that look like stained glass and lit by candles inside, each one balanced on a man's head. St Nicholas walks behind them, followed by more than a thousand people ringing cowbells and blowing horns until well past midnight. The town turned an old noise-making winter ritual into this procession in 1928.

See it yourself: 5 December from 8:15pm; if that date is a Sunday, it moves to the Saturday. Around 20,000 people squeeze along a route only a few hundred metres long, so find a spot on the main street by 7pm and carry earplugs for children.

9. The Gävle Goat, Sweden: A Straw Giant That Keeps Burning Down

In Sweden the Christmas goat, or julbock, is older than Santa, and most homes keep a small straw one. The town of Gävle, two hours north of Stockholm, builds a 13-metre straw goat in its main square on the first Sunday of Advent. Almost every year, someone tries to burn it down. Since 1966 it has been burnt, kicked apart or run over more than 30 times, despite fences, guards, cameras and one year's fireproof coating. The whole country watches a live webcam to see if it survives.

See it yourself: The opening ceremony on the first Sunday of Advent, with a market and music, is the safe choice. Check the webcam before you book the train, because the goat does not always last the week.

10. La Befana, Italy: The Witch Who Fills the Stockings on Epiphany

Italy's older and better-loved gift-bringer is not Santa but La Befana, an old woman on a broomstick. She flies on the night of 5 January, Epiphany Eve, leaving sweets for good children and black sugar 'coal' for the rest. The story says the three wise men asked her the way to Bethlehem. She refused to go with them, regretted it, and has been looking for the child ever since, leaving a gift in every house just in case. This is why Italian stockings are hung on Epiphany.

See it yourself: Urbania in the Marche region holds a national Befana festival in the days before 6 January, where the Befana comes down the bell tower on a rope. Rome's Piazza Navona market sells Befana dolls through December, and in Venice men dressed as Befana row a race down the Grand Canal on the morning of 6 January. The Rialto bridge is the finish line and the best place to watch.

Asia's unusual Christmas traditions were shaped by missionaries and, in one case, an advertising campaign. Japan, with very few Christians, turned Christmas into a date night built around fried chicken. The Philippines, the most Catholic country in Asia, celebrates for four months.

11. KFC for Christmas, Japan: A 1974 Advert That Became a National Feast

In 1974, KFC Japan ran a campaign called 'Kentucky for Christmas'. Japan had no Christmas food of its own, and the story goes that a branch manager heard foreign customers complaining that they could not find turkey. The campaign worked better than anyone expected. Today families pre-order 'party barrels' weeks ahead, queues wrap around the stores on 24 and 25 December, and every Colonel Sanders statue wears a Santa suit. Christmas Eve in Japan is a night for couples, more like Valentine's Day than a family festival, so a dinner table is harder to book than the chicken. Our guide tochristmas in Japan covers the light displays, the strawberry cake and how to order a barrel from abroad.

See it yourself: 23 to 25 December, anywhere in Japan. Walk past the KFC at any big Tokyo station on Christmas Eve to see the queues. Online pre-orders open in early November, and the premium barrels go first.

12. The Parol, Philippines: Star Lanterns the Size of Houses

The parol is a star-shaped lantern that hangs outside almost every Filipino home from September to January. It started as a simple bamboo and paper star that people carried to dawn mass in Spanish times. In the city of San Fernando, it has turned into something much bigger. At the Giant Lantern Festival, neighbourhood teams compete with lanterns six metres wide, lit by thousands of bulbs wired to rotating drums so the patterns change in time with music, a little like the lighting contests between Durga Puja pandals. Teams spend months building them.

See it yourself: San Fernando, about 70 km north of Manila, on the Saturday before Christmas Eve. The lanterns are lit after dark, so leave Manila by mid-afternoon to beat the traffic. Roadside stalls sell parols from October, and the ones made of capiz shell travel well in hand luggage.

13. Simbang Gabi, Philippines: Nine Dawn Masses and Rice Cakes at Sunrise

From 16 to 24 December, Filipinos get up for Simbang Gabi, nine early-morning masses that start at about 4am. The masses were moved to dawn in the Spanish period so farmers could attend before work, and people believe that anyone who completes all nine gets a wish granted. For a visitor, the best part is outside the church at sunrise, where stalls sell bibingka, a rice cake baked in a clay pot with salted egg, and puto bumbong, purple rice steamed in bamboo and rolled in coconut and sugar. The Philippines has the longest Christmas season in the world, and these nine mornings are its heart.

See it yourself: Any church in the country, 16 to 24 December. In Manila, Quiapo Church and Baclaran Church draw the biggest crowds and the best food stalls. Arrive by 3:30am for a seat, or 4:30am if you only want the food.

Latin America took Spanish Catholicism and made it louder. Its strange Christmas traditions happen outdoors, in public and on fixed dates, which makes them the easiest ones on this list to plan a trip around.

14. Roller-Skating to Mass, Caracas, Venezuela

In the week before Christmas, parts of Caracas have traditionally closed their roads to cars until 8am so that people can roller-skate to early mass. It seems to have started in the mid-1900s as a way to make dawn mass fun for children. There is a popular story that children tied a string to their big toe and hung it out of the window, so skaters passing by could tug it and wake them. After mass, families eat hallacas, parcels of cornmeal stuffed with beef, pork, olives and raisins and wrapped in plantain leaves. Tough years have thinned the crowds, but the skating still happens in the older neighbourhoods.

See it yourself: Caracas, 16 to 24 December, before 8am. Ask your hotel which churches still have skating, because it changes every year, and check the latest travel advice before you book.

15. Noche de Rábanos, Oaxaca, Mexico: Nativity Scenes Carved From Radishes

Every 23 December, the main square of Oaxaca fills with nativity scenes, saints and entire village scenes carved out of radishes. These are not normal radishes. They are grown on city land and left in the ground until they are the size of a forearm. The Night of the Radishes started in 1897, when the city council turned the carved vegetables that market sellers used to attract Christmas shoppers into a contest. A cut radish wilts within hours, so the whole show lasts one evening.

See it yourself: The Zócalo, Oaxaca City, 23 December, from early afternoon till late. Entry is free and the queue goes right around the square. Join it before 4pm to see the carvings while they are still fresh.

16. La Quema del Diablo, Guatemala: Burning the Devil at Six O'Clock

At 6pm on 7 December, families across Guatemala light bonfires outside their homes and burn effigies of the devil, often made from old rubbish and paper. The idea is to clear evil out of the house before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception the next day, and to start Christmas with a clean slate. If you have watched a Ravan Dahan on Dussehra, you will recognise the mood. The custom is colonial: rich families hung lanterns on 7 December, and poorer families, who could not afford them, lit rubbish fires instead. Today there are firecrackers, street food and devil effigies several metres tall.

See it yourself: 7 December, 6pm sharp. Antigua Guatemala has the largest public burning, with a giant devil in its Concepción neighbourhood, and the smoke hangs over the town for an hour afterwards. The villages around Lake Atitlán hold smaller, friendlier versions.

17. Día de las Velitas, Colombia: A Whole Country Lit by Candles

Colombia's Christmas season opens on the evening of 7 December, when the whole country puts out candles and paper lanterns on windowsills, balconies and pavements for the Immaculate Conception. It looks a lot like Diwali night in an Indian colony. Families sit outside until the candles burn out, neighbours share fried buñuelos and natilla custard, and from the hills above Medellín the city looks as if it is on fire. The custom marks the church's declaration of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, which Colombians celebrated with candles in their windows.

See it yourself: 7 December, from dusk. Medellín switches on its river light display, the Alumbrados, in the same week, and Quimbaya in Quindío holds a candle-and-lantern festival so elaborate that the whole town becomes an open-air gallery. Both are free, and both are crowded.

18. Takanakuy, Peru: Settling the Year's Grudges With Fists on Christmas Day

On Christmas Day in Santo Tomás, a town in the Cusco highlands of Peru, people settle the year's quarrels by fighting each other. Takanakuy roughly means 'when the blood boils' in Quechua. Neighbours with a grudge, over land, money or a lover, face off in a short, refereed fight using fists and feet, with no wrestling allowed. Fighters start and end with a hug, referees with whips keep the crowd back, and women fight too. By evening everyone drinks and dances together, the matter closed, and the new year starts with no old scores. It is sport, court and festival all in one.

See it yourself: 25 December in Santo Tomás, about eight hours by road from Cusco. The fights take place in the bullring from midday, after a costumed procession. Go with a local guide who knows the families.

Three Christmas celebrations around the world that most lists miss: one on a different date, one in the Arctic dark, and one in the middle of summer.

19. Ganna, Ethiopia: Christmas on 7 January in White Robes

Ethiopia's Orthodox Church follows the old Julian calendar, so Christmas, called Ganna, falls on 7 January. It comes at the end of a 43-day fast with no meat, dairy or eggs. On Christmas Eve, people dressed in white cotton shawls walk to church for a candlelit service that goes on all night, with the crowd circling the church in procession. The fast ends with doro wat, chicken stewed with berbere spice, eaten on injera. Young men play genna, a rough form of field hockey said to go back to the shepherds on the first Christmas night.

See it yourself: Lalibela, where tens of thousands of pilgrims in white fill the rock-cut churches on the night of 6 January. Hotels and the few daily flights from Addis Ababa sell out months ahead. Take a local guide, who will know how to move through the churches without disturbing the service.

20. Kiviak and Role Reversal, Greenland: A Feast Fermented Underground

In Inuit communities in north Greenland, Christmas dinner can include kiviak. Hundreds of small seabirds, feathers and all, are packed inside a seal skin in spring, buried under stones and left to ferment until midwinter. It is served alongside mattak, raw whale skin with blubber, and a normal roast. Christmas Eve also turns the household around: by tradition, the men serve the women, bringing coffee and cake to the table. From the first Sunday of Advent, a lit paper star hangs in every window, which matters when the sun barely rises.

See it yourself: Ilulissat and Nuuk welcome visitors through the holidays, with only a few hours of daylight. Kiviak is a far-northern dish from around Qaanaaq and never appears on hotel menus, so you would need an invitation. The window stars and the Christmas Eve church services are open to everyone.

21. The Pōhutukawa Christmas, New Zealand: A Crimson Tree on the Beach

New Zealand's Christmas tree is the pōhutukawa, a coastal tree that bursts into red flowers in mid-December. When it flowers, Kiwis know that summer and the holidays have arrived together. Christmas Day falls in high summer, so lunch is a barbecue or a hāngī, meat and vegetables cooked in a pit in the ground, eaten outside and followed by cricket on the beach. For Māori, the ancient pōhutukawa at Cape Reinga is the place where spirits leave for the ancestral homeland, which gives this Christmas tree a meaning no plastic fir can match.

See it yourself: The flowers peak in the week before Christmas along the Coromandel Peninsula, in Auckland's waterfront parks and on the Northland coast. Head to a beach on 25 December. Most shops and restaurants close that day, so buy your barbecue supplies on the 24th.

The unique Christmas traditions in India get left out of almost every international list, which makes no sense. Few countries celebrate on this scale or with this many influences: Portuguese cribs in Goa, carol groups in Kerala, Anglo-Indian street parties in Kolkata and hill-town choirs in Meghalaya. These five are worth a trip on their own.

22. Pappanji, Fort Kochi: Burning the Old Man at Midnight

Fort Kochi ends the Christmas season by burning a giant old man. Pappanji, a name thought to come from the Portuguese word for grandfather, is a tall white-bearded effigy in a Santa-style outfit. It is built on the Parade Ground through December as the finale of the Cochin Carnival, a festival that grew out of the Portuguese New Year celebrations. At midnight on 31 December it is set alight in front of a crowd that fills every lane of the old town, and the old year burns with it. Think of Ravan Dahan with a Santa in place of Ravan. The full build-up, the carnival's bike races and the best places to stand are in our guide tonew year celebration in Kerala.

See it yourself: Parade Ground, Fort Kochi, 31 December at midnight. The carnival runs through the last two weeks of December to 1 January. Reach the ground by 9pm, stay in Fort Kochi rather than Ernakulam because the roads jam after dark, and plan to do the whole evening on foot.

23. Buon Natale, Thrissur: Thousands of Santas in One Procession

Thrissur holds the largest gathering of Santa Clauses in the world. Buon Natale, run by the Thrissur Archdiocese since 2013, sends thousands of people in red Santa suits, along with brass bands, floats and carol groups, around the city's Swaraj Round in the last week of December. In 2014 it entered the Guinness World Records with 18,112 Santas. The name is Italian for 'Merry Christmas'. Our page onbuon natale thrissur has the route, timings and how to join the parade in costume.

See it yourself: Swaraj Round and the city centre, last week of December. The archdiocese announces the date each year. Registration to walk goes through the parishes, so contact the archdiocese office if you want to take part rather than watch. The procession takes most of the afternoon to pass.

24. Crib Culture, Goa: Nativity Scenes That Fill Whole Verandas

In Goa, the nativity crib is a competitive art form, much like a Ganpati pandal. Families spend November building cribs that spill across the veranda: hills made of moss, rivers made of mirrors, working waterfalls, toy trains and, in the most ambitious homes, live goats and a real family playing Mary, Joseph and the baby. Parishes judge crib competitions through Christmas week. A paper star hangs above every crib, and the kitchen turns out kuswar, the Christmas sweet platter of bebinca, dodol, neureos and kulkuls, which is carried in tins to the neighbours on Christmas morning.

See it yourself: Cribs are open from Christmas Eve to 6 January across the villages of Salcete and Bardez. Parish notice boards list the prize-winners, which is the quickest way to find the best ones. Midnight Mass at the Immaculate Conception Church in Panjim, with its white staircase lit up, is full by 11pm.

25. Carol Season, Shillong: A Hill Town That Sings for a Month

Shillong's Christmas begins in November, and it is sung rather than shopped. The Khasi and Jaintia Hills became Presbyterian and Catholic in the 1800s, and the choir tradition the missionaries brought is now the town's identity. Churches hold carol competitions through December, Police Bazar lights up, and on Christmas Eve groups walk from house to house singing in Khasi and English until well past midnight. The Cathedral of Mary Help of Christians in Laitumkhrah fills for Midnight Mass, and the smell of pork cooking over open fires drifts through the localities all night.

See it yourself: Shillong and the villages of the East Khasi Hills, 20 to 31 December. Our December Meghalaya departures stay in Shillong, so pick a batch in the last week of the month. Nights drop to around 5°C, so carry a proper jacket.

26. Bow Barracks, Kolkata: An Anglo-Indian Street Party With Homemade Wine

Kolkata has the most British Christmas in India, and its heart is Bow Barracks, a set of red-brick blocks near Bowbazar built during the First World War and home to Anglo-Indian families ever since. From mid-December the lane is strung with lights, families sell homemade ginger and grape wine from their doorsteps, and on Christmas Eve the whole neighbourhood comes out for carols, a brass band and dancing until morning. A short walk away, Park Street's Christmas festival begins when its lights go on in the third week of December, and Nahoum's, the Jewish bakery in New Market that opened in 1902, sells its plum cake to queues that form before the shutters go up.

See it yourself: Bow Barracks on Christmas Eve, from evening onwards. The lights and wine stalls run from around 15 December to New Year. Park Street for the lights, Bow Barracks for the people, and Nahoum's before 10am if you want the cake.