标签圣诞下的文章

华沙的圣诞节日装饰，波兰 Holiday decorations in Warsaw, Poland, for Christmas (© David Milsen/Alamy)

Merry and bright

Germans began decorating Christmas trees with candles as far back as the 1700s, but people wouldn't begin stringing trees with electric lights until the late 1800s. Thomas Edison created the first practical incandescent lights and used them to decorate his Menlo Park Laboratory in 1880. Then three years later, the vice president of Edison's company, Edward H. Johnson, had Christmas tree bulbs especially made for him and he used them to decorate the Christmas tree in his New York City home. But they weren't popularized as a holiday decoration until President Grover Cleveland used them on the White House Christmas tree in 1894. Today, bright scenes like this one in Warsaw, Poland, wouldn't be complete without holiday lights.

If you're celebrating Christmas today, we wish you a merry one.

一年一度的施瓦本哈尔圣诞市集，德国巴登-符腾堡州 Annual Schwäbisch Hall Weihnachtsmarkt in the market square, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (© sack/Getty Images Plus)

It's Weihnachtsmarkt time!

The streets of this market square are all decked out in a tradition born nearly 700 years ago. Weihnachtsmarkts or Christkindlmarkts (Christmas markets, if you prefer less of a mouthful), take place around the world, but they originated in Germany as a celebratory way to observe Advent, the Christian season leading up to Christmas Eve. These markets are generally open-air affairs where everything is decorated, including the trees (called Tannenbaums in German if they're firs). People shop from local artisans who sell their handmade wares in small wooden chalets. Then it's off to eat traditional foods—roasted almonds, pastries, and biscuits—and sip on warm mulled wine. Today we're walking through Schwäbisch Hall, a German town that came into prominence during medieval times for its salt production, or 'white gold.' After holiday revelers tire of shopping and dancing in the streets, they can ease into one of the town's many healing spas to end the day.