About MerryHoHo

Most of the internet writes about Christmas as though Santa Claus were the only answer. He is not. In 55 countries covered here the presents come from 64 different figures on eight different dates — Ježíšek leaves them under the tree in Czechia on the evening of the 24th, Sinterklaas arrives in the Netherlands on 5 December, the Three Kings on 6 January in Spain and Mexico, Saint Nicholas twice over in Ukraine because a calendar reform did not move every household on the day it was signed.

This site is a Christmas guide for each of those countries, in its own language: who brings the presents and when, where the Christmas markets and light displays are, the local traditions and recipes, and free printable tools for families. A video of a red-suited Santa is the wrong character in a good part of Europe, and nothing that ranks in English will tell a parent in Ljubljana that.

How the research is done

Dates, opening times and places come from the organizer, the town or another original source, and the page names that source together with the year it was last confirmed. A fact that could not be confirmed is left out rather than filled with something plausible. Photos by other authors are credited under each photo with their license; illustrations made with the help of AI image tools are labelled as illustrations.

The cultural material — names, dates, who the figure is locally — is written per country rather than translated from one English master text, because a sentence that works for every country is worth nothing to any of them.

How this is paid for

There is no advertising, no paid listing and no affiliate link on the site. Shop links on gift pages are plain store searches that earn us nothing, and no place, market or event pays to be included or to be placed higher.

Corrections and removal

If a date, a place or a local tradition is described wrongly, tell us — that is the part most likely to need fixing, and the part we most want to hear about. If you own a place or home shown here and want an address or photo removed, we remove it within 48 hours. Write to us at admin@merryhoho.com.

See also the editorial policy and the privacy notice.