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Christmas traditions around the world

While the core themes of Christmas — family, gifts, food and religious observance — are universal, the specific traditions vary dramatically by country. In Iceland, children receive 13 Yule Lads in the 13 nights before Christmas, each leaving gifts or rotting potatoes depending on the child's behaviour. In Ukraine, a Christmas tree is decorated with an artificial spider web — finding one is considered lucky, based on a folk tale of a poor widow whose bare tree was decorated overnight by spiders. In South Africa, Christmas is a summer braai (barbecue) occasion. In Finland, a nationwide television broadcast of a candle-lighting ceremony from Turku Cathedral has announced the start of Christmas since 1935, watched by approximately 3 million people. In Ethiopia, Christmas (Genna) is celebrated on 7 January with a hockey-like game also called Genna, said to have been played by shepherds the night Jesus was born.

Christmas by the numbers

Christmas generates extraordinary economic activity. In the UK, approximately £25 billion is spent in the Christmas period — around £500 per household. Royal Mail delivers approximately 150 million cards and parcels in December. The UK's favourite Christmas film is consistently Elf (2003), followed by Home Alone (1990) and The Holiday (2006). Approximately 10 million Christmas trees are sold in the UK each year, with the Norway spruce and Nordmann fir the most popular varieties. The UK's best-selling Christmas single of all time is Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" (1994), which re-enters the charts every December and reached number one for the first time in 2019, 25 years after its release.

How early is too early for Christmas?

The question of when it's acceptable to start Christmas preparations is genuinely contested. Retail data shows that UK Christmas shopping begins in earnest in October, with some consumers starting even earlier. John Lewis typically launches its Christmas advert in November, which has become an event in itself — the 2022 advert generated 6.7 million views on YouTube in its first 24 hours. The tradition of Advent — the four-week period of preparation before Christmas — provides a liturgical answer: Christmas preparations begin on the first Sunday of Advent, four Sundays before Christmas Day. In practice, commercial Christmas now begins shortly after Halloween.