Christmas is nearly upon us. It’s a time for spending time with friends and family, giving presents and being jolly. But not every Christmas is the same, indeed many winter festivals at this time of the year have nothing at all to do with Christmas. For the Lithuanians it’s ‘Blukis’, celebrated by burning a ritual tree stump, and for Indian Sadhus it’s the Mahakumbh Mela festival, celebrated on the confluence of three rivers. Join Daily News Egypt on a visual journey looking at mid-winter festivals around the world.
People participate in winter solstice celebrations to complete the Christmas ‘Blukis’ (stump) burning ceremony at Lukiskes Square in Vilnius. The pagan traditions in Lithuania include a popular myth of stealing and conquering the Sun. To free the Sun the Blukis is dragged around a town, beat and later burned.
AFP Photo / Petras Malukas
A Balinese surfer dressed in a Santa Claus outfit trains children before their surf outing on Kuta beach near Denpasar on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali. The popular resort island is a pocket of Hindu culture in a country with the biggest Muslim population in the world receiving thousands of tourists every year over the Christmas season.
AFP Photo / Sonny Tumbelaka
People dressed in different animal costumes perform during a ceremony to celebrate the end of one Mayan cycle and the start of a new one in Copan Ruinas 400km northeast of Tegucigalpa.
AFP Photo / Orlando Sierra
Syrian women smoke shisha as a waiter decorates the Christmas tree at a cafe in the old city of Damascus. The majority of the Christian community in Syria has decided to celebrate Christmas without decorations this year amid the ongoing Syrian conflict but the owner of the cafe decided to carry on with the tradition regardless.
AFP Photo / Carole Alfarah
Indian Sadhus keep warm by a fire and do yoga at their camp on the bank of “Sangam” the confluence of the three rivers Ganges Yamuna and Saraswati in Allahabad ahead of the Mahakumbh Mela festival.
AFP Photo / Sanjay Kanojia
Medellín, Colombia is famous for its Christmas lights.
AFP Photo / Raul Arboleda
People celebrate winter solstice on the shortest day of the year at the famous historic stone circle of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England.
AFP Photo / Matt Cardy
German bicycle designer Didi Senft known during the Tour de France as “El Diabolo” presents his latest Christmas-themed construction in Storkow.
AFP Photo / Patrick Pleul
Members of a local Smiling Yoga club wearing Santa Claus costumes at they perform at a public park in Hanoi . Churches, shops, restaurants and shopping malls are decorated in the Southeast Asian nation with some six million Catholics preparing to celebrate Christmas.
AFP Photo / Hoang Dinh Nam
Horse-drawn carriages wait for clients in the French ski resort of Megeve.
AFP Photo / Jean-Pierre Clatot
