In Sweden there is a town that every year celebrates the start of the Christmas season by putting up a giant straw statue of a goat. Then folks wait (and sometimes bet) on whether the goat will make it to Christmas. The reason? The town of Gävle has another, very different, tradition: every year someone tries to burn down the goat! But, above all…why a goat? For hundreds of years, folks in northern Europe had big festivals in December called Yule, traditions that became part of regular Christmas celebrations in…
Read More23# The curious story of the Swedish Yule goat
