With a bit more than a week left until Christmas, lighted displays, colorful markets, and Santa’s helpers are out in force. From Europe to the Americas and Asia, gathered here as an early gift, is a collection of holiday cheer and light wrapped up in 35 photographs.
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
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A man dressed as Joulupukki, a Finnish Santa Claus Christmas figure, reacts as he arrives at Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport on November 29, 2018. Joulupukki was on a short trip to Hungary to celebrate Santa Claus Day on December 6. #
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An employee prepares James the Red Engine (right) before departing from Senzu Station during a preview of the Day Out With Thomas 2018 Christmas event in Kawane-Honcho, Shizuoka, Japan, on December 14, 2018. Lookalikes of Thomas the Tank Engine and James the Red Engine (copyrighted by 2018 Gullane (Thomas) Limited.) returned to the rails for the holiday season, running between Shin-Kanaya Station and Senzu Station. Launched by Oigawa Railway Co., the locomotives were decorated with their Christmas livery and carried about 1,000 tourists a day along the 23-mile section. #
Tomohiro Ohsumi / Getty -
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Residents of a house in Magic Grove, Mosman, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, decorate their home with thousands of lights in celebration of Christmas on December 3, 2018. This Sydney home uses 35 waterproof boxes, 37 four-way power boards, 148 individual sets of LED lights (totaling 45,000 in all), 10 inflatable figures 2 meters high, and two large inflatable figures 6 meters high that took two weeks to prepare and install. #
James D. Morgan / Getty -
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Boats decked out with holiday decorations travel along the New River while participating in the 47th annual Seminole Hard Rock Winterfest Boat Parade on December 15, 2018, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. #
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Santa Claus reacts as Tami McEleney (let) and Patrice Conner whisper in his ears at the King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, on December 8, 2018. #
Mark Makela / Reuters -
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An aerial view shows Santa Claus decorating a 57-meter-high Christmas tree in a park on Tatyshev Island, located in the middle of the Yenisei River, in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, on December 17, 2018. #
Ilya Naymushin / Reuters -
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People look at the nativity scene after it was unveiled in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on December 7, 2018. The nativity scene of the Vatican this Christmas was built from sand that came from Jesolo, near Venice, and sculpted by international artists. #
Vincenzo Pinto / AFP / Getty -
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A man dressed as Father Frost, the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, and a woman dressed as his granddaughter, Snegurochka (Snow Maiden), sit near a fire during a performance at Royev Ruchey Park in the suburbs of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, on December 12, 2018. #
Ilya Naymushin / Reuters -
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Jusuf Islami and his partner, Hana, kiss after he proposed to her while they were participating in the third Santa Claus Run in Kosovo's capital of Pristina on December 16, 2018. #
Visar Kryeziu / AP -
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Richard Gamboa, dressed as Santa Claus, walks in an alley of the slum Cota 905 during the Santa en las Calles ("Santa in the Streets") event donating toys, food, and clothes in Caracas, Venezuela, on December 1, 2018. #
Marco Bello / Reuters -
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