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3 Christmas stories from around the world
Read these stories about Christmas from around the world.
1. St. Nick, the angel and the devil
In the Czech Republic, St. Nicholas doesn’t visit on Christmas. Instead, St. Nick — known as Svatý Mikuláš in the European country — visits on December 6.
In Czech tradition, he and an angel descend from heaven on a golden rope each year, The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library told The Kids Gazette last year. On earth, they meet the devil and the three walk together, asking all the children they meet if they’ve been bad or good.
If a child has been good, the angel gives them candy and sweets. If they’ve been bad, the devil rattles his chains and gives the child a lump of coal or a potato.
Then Svatý Mikuláš reminds all the kids to be good until Christmas — when the baby Jesus, not Santa, will deliver presents on Christmas Eve.
2. A very KFC Christmas
A KFC restaurant. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
Forget the homemade Christmas dinner. In Japan, the go-to holiday feast comes in a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. According to the BBC, about 3.5 million Japanese families eat KFC on Christmas.
It’s a tradition that started as a dream — literally. In the 1970s, the manager of the first KFC in Japan woke up in the middle of night and wrote down an idea for a “party barrel” for Christmas. Soon, the idea was a national marketing campaign in Japan called “Kentucky for Christmas.”
The buckets have grown and changed over the years, sometimes including cake and wine, and buying one has become a Japanese tradition. KFC restaurants even dress up Colonel Sanders — already white-haired and bearded — in a Santa costume this time of year.
3. Searching for shelter with Las Posadas
A woman prepares to don a dress to play the part of the Virgin Mother Mary in a Las Posadas, which commemorates Mary and Joseph's journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem in search of shelter, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
In Mexico, many families spend the nine evenings before Christmas celebrating Las Posadas, a festival that translates to “the inns,” according to Britannica.
Traditionally, a young child dresses up as an angel to lead a parade of people through town. Other children dressed in silver and gold robes follow the angel, as do their families and musicians. The group stops at select houses along the way and, just like Mary and Joseph when she was ready to give birth to Jesus, they are told there’s no room.
At each house, though, the group usually is given something to drink, and everyone reads Bible passages and sings Christmas carols together. Catholic Mass is held afterward, and after church children get to open piñatas full of toys and candy.
Svaty Mikulas, portrayed by Clarence Walton of Cedar Rapids, heads toward the Christmas tree in the Czech Village during the celebration for Svaty Mikulas, which is the name for St. Nicholas in Czech, in the Czech Village in Cedar Rapids in 2014. (Sy Bean/The Gazette)
A KFC restaurant. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
A woman prepares to don a dress to play the part of the Virgin Mother Mary in a Las Posadas, which commemorates Mary and Joseph's journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem in search of shelter, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
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