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This section is for tips and trends on living your best life. Recipes? Check. Ideas for travel? Double check. Getting into the holiday spirit? Check. Check. Check.
Fun (and Scary!) Holiday Traditions Across the Globe
by: Parker Davis
date: December15, 2025
There are many holiday traditions that are fun and exciting, but these are some of the most interesting, awesome traditions out there, from the alpine regions to Spain, here are some compelling holiday traditions around the world.
Japanese KFC Christmas dinner
Japanese KFC Christmas dinner
This is a fun, quirky tradition where some Japanese families eat fried chicken for Christmas dinner.
The Catalonia’s Pooping log
The Catalonia’s Pooping log
This one is one of my favorites. The pooping log is a tradition where kids feed a log throughout the holiday season and then hit it with sticks on christmas day to make it, “poop” out candy or gifts.
The Yule lads visits
The Yule lads visits
In Iceland, there is a fun tradition where the 13 Yule Lads come and if you have been good, they leave gifts, but if you are bad you get… Rotten potatoes! The brothers are very mischievous and trickers. The names of the brothers are:
Sheep's head feast
Sheep's head feast
For Christmas dinner in Norway, instead of having common dishes like turkey, they serve up something unique… A whole sheep’s head! It is called Smalahove and is a traditional cuisine in Norway.
Swedish straw goats
Swedish straw goats
In Sweden, some towns build huge straw goats that are a representation of a yule goat. The goats are kinda cute in a way, but despite this people decide to burn them down! Burning down the goats is punishable as arson with a 3 month prison sentence, but out of the 59 goats since 1966, only 17 haven’t been damaged!!!
The German Pickle
The German Pickle
A pickle-shaped ornament is hidden in the tree, and the first child to find it receives an extra gift or a year of good luck. Sometimes people hide real pickles in there. Imagine if you found a rotten pickle in your tree next year because no one found it!
Krampus
Krampus
This is the scary one. Krampus is a half-goat, half-demon monster that punishes naughty children by either hitting them with a branch or kidnapping them to the underworld. Krampus is like a twisted version of Santa and has inspired several horror movies. How fun!
Norwegian hide the broom
Norwegian hide the broom
In Norway, people hide brooms to trick witches and ward them off and so they don't get a midnight ride.
I know there are many, many other awesome traditions out there, and some of them are really cool, but these are some cool ones too.
Which one is your favorite?
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