I'll Be Far From Home For Christmas

We really do need one post about how Christmas works outside the United States. It's always a bit fun for me to get away from the same 15 ancient Christmas songs and the same TV specials and the soul-grinding retail crush and everything that generally makes the entire month of December this numbing sense of happy-sappy sameness. And one of the best ways to do that is to take a gander at how someone else does it.

So... a glimpse into a couple of overseas Christmas traditions. We'll start with Australia...



Nigerians tend to vacate the major cities in favor of the smaller villages many city residents came from. Santa is actually not a popular figure there; a quote from the linked article states one child as saying "His costume looks phoney and his face is strange... We prefer masquerades." What's a masquerade?

This isn't a Christmas one necessarily , but, this:



Next we have Thailand:



And finally from Italy... you know what, if I had to suffer through this song when they played it ad nauseum at work, so do you: