The world is a wide and wonderful place filled with centuries of traditions. While not everyone around the world celebrates Christmas, those who do, do so in style. Americans may leave milk and cookies out for Santa or hang a pickle on the tree, but those traditions have nothing on these international ones!
Mari Lwyd
At first glance, this spooky Welsh tradition may seem better suited to Halloween than Christmas. However, we promise that the Mari Lwyd's bark (or bars, in this case) are worse than her bite. Mari Lwyd, or the tradition of the Grey Mare, developed in South Wales in the early 1800s.
The Mari Lwyd—pronounced like "Mary Lloyd"—is a hobby horse made of a horse skull attached to a pole and performed by someone hidden under a sheet. Between Christmas and New Years' Mari Lwyd and her posse go wassailing door to door. Wassailing involved requesting entry to a home in the form of a song.
Essentially, Mari Lwyd initiates a rap battle with every house, trading songs with homeowners. When the homeowner finally gives in, they invite Mari Lwyd into their home for food and drink. It must be quite a performance!
Gävle Goat
The original uploader was Stefan at English Wikipedia. on Wikimedia
Another animal-related festive tradition comes to us from Sweden! You may not know how to pronounce this goat's name—"yeah-vleh" approximately—but we bet you've seen it making headlines. The Gävle Goat is a scaled-up version of the traditional Nordic Yule goat.
A holdover from German paganism, the Yule goat represents harvest spirits and fertility. For the people of Gävle, this massive farm animal also represents temptation. Since the Gävle Goat was first erected in 1966, it has been damaged or destroyed (mostly by fire) 42 out of 59 times!
After the first few years of the goat's month-long residency ended in arson, Swedes found themselves unable to resist this massive straw target. Despite CCTV cameras and threats of jailtime, burning the goat is as much of a tradition as making it is. The last time the goat was burned was in 2021, but there's still time...
Skating Into Christmas
If you thought the America "Christmas creep" was long, make sure you don't travel to Venezuela in the autumn! There, Christmas season runs from the 1st October to the middle of January, with the festivities ramping up with every passing day. As Venezuelan is a predominantly Catholic country, it's El Niño Jesus who delivers presents rather than Santa.
Like colder countries, Venezuelans celebrate Christmas by skating...only, they don't do it on the ice. Instead, residents of Caracas lace up their rollerskates for the trip to early morning mass! Streets are even blocked off so that skaters can travel safely.
Early morning mass runs from December 16th to the 24th, and service starts as early as 5 am. To make sure they don't fall asleep midway through the sermon, children observe an early bedtime so they can skate together with their families. Biking and skateboarding are also seen, though not as commonly.
