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Globetrotters Newsletter — Dec 2024

How The World Spends Christmas Vacation — How Will You Be Spending It This Year?

Plus, editor picks, boosted stories and a much-needed holiday break!

JoAnn Ryan
Globetrotters
Published in
6 min readDec 23, 2024

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Waiting for the train to Washington D.C. at Baltimore Penn Station. Don’t you just love seeing a Christmas tree and a menorah on display together? — All photos by

Hello Friends and Fellow Globetrotters,

Hope you are doing well, wherever you are across the world!

I recently had a lot of fun checking out “30 Unique Ways Christmas is Celebrated Around the World” and thought I would pass on some rather interesting highlights:

  • In Austria there is the holiday fiend known as Krampus adorned with horns and a lizard-like tail that circulates around scaring the living daylights out of children and questioning whether they’ve been naughty.
  • In Catalonia, Spain they have a figure known as el caganer, or the pooper, (yes, as in actual pooping) who is added to nativity scenes.
  • In China, where the celebration of Christmas is slowly catching on, Santa Claus always has a saxophone and is known for giving out apples.
  • In many countries like Ethiopia people who observe Christmas do a much better job of forgoing the commercialization aspects of the holiday and keep it firmly about religious practice.

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Globetrotters
Globetrotters

Published in Globetrotters

We are a group of ordinary yet extraordinary travel lovers sharing our experiences of exploring the world with the world.

JoAnn Ryan
JoAnn Ryan

Written by JoAnn Ryan

A complete mess but always striving to do better. Writer, editor and publisher of stories about travel, photography and messy life.

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