By Tiffany Lam CNNGo
Read the last of the ten places you may want to go to this Christmas.
Sydney, Australia
Why: For those who think snow is overrated, how about singing carols on a beach while hugging ice cold beer? Christmas occurs during the thick of summer in Australia with average temperatures in Sydney hitting 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) throughout December.
This year, Sydney hosted “Carols by the Beach,” on Bondi Beach on December 9. The Sydney Christmas Parade was held on November 29.
Of course, there’s always the option of feasting on steak and prawns on the barbie at a friend’s pad.
When: November 9 to December 25
Salzburg, Austria
Why: Every year Salzburg’s historic city center transforms into the Salzburg Christmas Market, or the Salzburger Christkindlmarkt. The market piles Christmas cliché upon Christmas cliché but it’s hard not to be charmed by it all.
Expect to be overdosed with choral singing, mulled wine, glogg, nativity plays and gingerbread.
When: November 18 to December 26
Pogost, Belarus
Why: Belarus may be tricky for foreign visitors to enter, but what it lacks in accessibility it makes up for in eye-opening yuletide traditions.
The Belorussian festive season is all about the Koliady, a folk ritual that was originally a pagan holiday but later appropriated to coincide with Christmas and the New Year.
In villages such as Pogost, grannies down vodka by the bottle, and youngsters perform folk plays for the public during Koliady. Locals dress up as animals and carry animal heads on a stick to go trick-or-treating in village neighborhoods.
When: December 25 to January 7
Nuremberg, Germany
Why: The dazzling Nuremberg Christmas market (or the Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt) is a German institution, luring two million visitors yearly with a giant carved wooden Ferris wheel, and stalls selling all the handmade nativity ornaments revelers will ever need.
Adults will enjoy stuffing their faces with sticky buns and fritters; kids will love spending the day at the Toy Museum and the German Railway Museum.
Each year the market is opened by the Nuremberg Christ Child, a lass between 16 and 19 who is elected from a pool of contestants online.
When: November 26 to December 24
Reykjavik, Iceland
Why: For a real treat for the tots, take them to Iceland, where local folklore has not one but 13 Santas bearing goodie bags at Christmas parties. The 13 Santas (or jólasveinar, meaning Yule Lads), each with Brothers Grimm-like characteristics such as “the spoon licker” and “the door slammer,” come into town one day at a time starting December 12.
Then there’s the Christmas Village at Hafnarfjördur, a town not far from Reykjavik that is known in Icelandic lore as the home of elves. The Christmas Village is open on every weekend from November 24 until Christmas day. Hafnarfjördur also offers walking tours to supposed elf homesites.
Back in Reykjavik, people start celebrating Christmas from late November by pigging out at traditional Christmas buffet dinners around town.
On Christmas Eve, bells ring throughout the capital, marking the formal beginning of Christmas.
There are bonfires and fireworks all over Iceland on both New Year’s Eve and the Twelfth Night, which falls on January 6, 2011.
When: Late November to January 6, 2011
