CRI听力:Christmas Celebrations Underway around the World

A remote village in northern Finland, reputed to be Santa's Village, is busy preparing for the Christmas holiday.

There, Santa says he has tons of letters to read and sacks to fill.

"Preparations are going well, everything is on schedule. Because one good thing about Christmas is it's always at the same time, Christmas Eve is always December 24th. So, keeping that in mind, you plan everything and everything is in order."

Every year, children write half-a-million letters from around the world, which are delivered to Santa.

This year, the largest number of letters have been arriving from Italy, followed by the UK and, surprisingly, China.

Here on the Chinese mainland, Christmas is not a recognized holiday, even though it is celebrated by many on the mainland, and is a recognized holiday in Hong Kong and Macau.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, where summer is starting to hit its peak in Brazil, Chimpanzees, orangutans, elephants and other mammals at a zoo in Rio de Janeiro are being given seasonal fruits and desserts as their Christmas presents, much to the delight of the crowds who have shown up to wish their animal friends a Merry Christmas.

"It's interesting, especially at this time of the year when we give value to people and think of how we can help and be closer to the animals."

Meanwhile, the homeless and the poor are being served a free lunch ahead of Christmas at a pub in London.

Max Kalton is the manager of the pub, which organized a campaign on social media to help raise money for the event.
 
"People have been coming here and just giving us the money over the bar to help. Everything we raise will go towards people who are doing it on a daily basis, whereas this is just a meal. We just wanted to cheer people up at Christmas."

Meanwhile, in a small village of Bosnia, a local farmer in the formerly war-torn country has realized his childhood dream by building a festive wonderland adorned with over 15-thousand Christmas lights.

His work has turned the snow-covered village into a sight one would expect to see in a fairy tale.

And in North America, the crews at NATO headquarters in Colorado are preparing to begin their annual Santa tracking, with radar monitors giving hourly updates as to the location of Santa Claus as he and his reindeer make their way around the world.

For CRI, this is Wang Mengzhen.