Christmas

The coronavirus pandemic has made for a Christmas unlike any other. Here are some glimpses of how people are observing the holiday season — and maintaining traditions — around the globe.

"Vaccines for all, especially for the most vulnerable and needy of all regions of the planet," Pope Francis said at the Vatican on a subdued Christmas Day.

Jamie Olivieri and Yennie Neal-Achigbu have been inseparable since eighth grade. From annual Christmas gatherings to a husband's death, the friends have helped each other through the good and the bad.

Only 100 or so people attended the service, and they wore masks and socially distanced. The Mass began two hours early so all could make it home before Italy's virus curfew.

In Santaland Diaries, humorist David Sedaris describes his time working as a department store elf named Crumpet. Here, Sedaris again reads as Crumpet — an NPR holiday tradition.

"We're really busy. It's been unbearable," sighed Manny Huenchunir, a Postal Service truck driver who was unloading and reloading crates of mail at a post office outside Boston on Tuesday night.

Stations have been playing Christmas music earlier than ever this year, as a way of luring in listeners during the pandemic. One Indiana station was doing it in July.

People who work as Santa are making tough choices due to the coronavirus. How close should they get to children? Are Zoom meetings best? For one Santa and Mrs. Claus in Oklahoma, it's not easy at all.

"There's quite a risk that we could have said, 'Oh, that's in the United States. That's not us,' " says Amma Asante, a former member of the Dutch Parliament. "And now there's no denial anymore."

"It is injustice that turns them away from places where they might have hope for a dignified life, but instead find themselves before walls of indifference," the pontiff said in his holiday address.

Saturday Night Live alum Ana Gasteyer's new Christmas album, Sugar & Booze, is partly a send-up of the holiday and partly an earnest embrace of its warmth.