Happy Holidays! ‘Tis the most wonderful time of year. While we’re taking tomorrow off, the wonder never stops, even in the midst of one of the busiest holiday seasons around the world. You’ll find below a round-up of some of our favorite festive stories, from Santa Claus’s real name to a crackling, fiery party game. Have a merry holiday season, whether you’re with loved ones virtually or in-person this year, and from all of us at Atlas Obscura: Happy holidays! See you back here on Monday.

GASTRO OBSCURA The Hottest (Literally) Party Game Uno or any other form of card game may be the accepted norm at holiday parties, but may we introduce snapdragon, a 19th-century Victorian parlor game? Take a wide, flat plate, and cover it with raisins and almonds, dousing them in brandy. Then, ignite the brandy. Plunge your hands into the ghostly blue flames, and eat as many of the boozy snacks as you can without getting burned. (Our colleagues assure us from firsthand experience that the flames do not sting much, but still—proceed with caution.) READ MORE →

Wondrous Holiday Lights This holiday season is lit, literally. You might be familiar with the Rockerfeller Center Christmas tree in New York or the Kobe Luminarie light festival in Japan, both stunning displays that are part of the global $7 billion market for Christmas lights and decorations. Here are some gorgeously wondrous holiday lights from around the world to marvel at, from the 1,215,600 LEDs in Singapore to drive-through light tunnels in Vancouver. READ MORE →

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK Holiday Nostalgia Train While waiting on the F train platform on a Sunday in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, you might think you’ve stepped into the Twilight Zone when eight vintage subway cars barrel up to your station. This is the holiday train, a once-a-year treat courtesy of the MTA’s New York Transit Museum, which whisks MTA patrons back in time. READ MORE →

ATLAS OBSCURA TRIPS From Barolo to Truffles You might be eating your fill of a Christmas meal this holiday season, but perhaps save some metaphorical space for September 2021, when we travel to Italy’s Piedmont region for an epicurean-centric trip. Join us as we wind our way from Turin to Langhe to explore Piedmont’s dynamic and variegated gastronomic landscape—zigzagging through lively markets, sipping velvety bicerin, and foraging for fresh truffles along the way. LEARN MORE →

Pantomiming Goes Online In a typical year, almost every theater in the U.K.—from huge West End venues to amateur-run village halls—performs a holiday-season pantomime based on one of around a dozen classic children’s stories. The stories chosen may be different, but the experiences are largely the same—pantomimes are group affairs, and thrive on the energy of a packed house. With the pandemic this year, however, that experience will be unquestionably different, with groups turning to creative ways to take the historic holiday plays online. The show must go on, after all. READ MORE →

CHANDLER, ARIZONA Tumbleweed Christmas Tree Christmas traditions can be a challenge in places that rarely see a day of cold all year, but in the Arizona city of Chandler, they have simply adapted their traditions to match the climate by forming a pile of their native tumbleweeds into the shape of a festive fir tree each year. Dating all the way back to 1957, the city takes its tradition quite seriously, collecting the tumbleweeds in September and assembling around 1,000 of the iconic dead plants to create the massive “tree” each year. READ MORE →

FROM THE ARCHIVES KFC For Christmas For years, millions of people across Japan have celebrated Christmas around buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Families will order “Party Barrels” weeks in advance, and Santa-clad Colonel Sanders statues will stand at attention outside storefronts, grinning mutely through December as KFC Japan sales multiply tenfold, earning the chain a third of its annual income. For years, the company claimed that the tradition arose from expats looking for an alternative to turkey, but in recent years, a new explanation has surfaced, as the man who brought the Colonel to Japan says it started with a lie. READ MORE →

FROM THE ARCHIVES Santa Claus’s Real Name Ask anyone in Nome, Alaska (population 3,841) for the name of the bearded gentleman who digs the graves and drives a city truck, and they’ll tell you it’s Santa Paul. For six weeks a year Paul Kudla is a contract Santa. Over the last 12 years, he’s donned the red suit and held court in sporting good stores and shopping malls across the United States. The rest of the year, he works as a cemetery caretaker and truck driver in Nome, a town on the Bering Sea that’s known for being the far-flung finish of the Iditarod sled dog race. READ MORE →

SPONSORED BY NISSAN The Bad-Ass Black Motorcycle Queen of the 1930s From 1929 until her death in 1993, Bessie Stringfield owned 27 Harleys and rode them all across the United States, defying several stereotypes about what Black women could do. LEARN MORE →