After 67 years of marriage, celebrating with friends and family, we found ourselves facing Christmas alone for the first time.

Children have their own families grown and now spend Christmas at home, as we did. Our daughter had us over Christmas Eve before she left for her son’s home near Topeka, Kan.

Because it’s such a special holiday, we often try to spend Christmas with friends and family. After spending a few enjoyable holiday seasons with our loved ones, the memories of such good times build up, both in number and in stature, in our minds.

That, in turn, causes us to try to either re-create such memories or create more of them with those special people in our lives. In doing so, we sometimes go a little crazy.

Both spiritually and secularly, Christmas sometimes brings out the worst in us — or at least the saddest feelings.

Felicia Lettieri, 72, took a trip in 28-year-old Mukul Asaduzzaman’s taxi on Christmas Eve, accidentally leaving her wallet behind. It contained travelling money for her and six relatives.

Mukul Asaduzzaman drove 200 miles to return more than $21,000 (£13,000) in cash left behind in his taxi Photo: ALAMY

Police told Mrs Lettieri and her family not to get their hopes up about recovering the money.
But Mr Asaduzzaman, a native of Bangladesh and a medical student in Queens, went the extra mile.

While most have long since taken down the Christmas tree and packed away the decorations, members of the Russian Orthodox Church Thursday began their Christmas celebration.

The Russian Orthodox will continue to celebrate the feast for eight days by giving gifts and visiting family and friends.

“Christmas Day is the beginning, where often it seems like the end,” Ephraim Willmarth, 34, a student at the seminary at Holy Trinity said.

The Russian Orthodox Church follows the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar. The Julian calendar’s Dec. 25 falls on Jan. 7 on the Gregorian calendar.

Christmas in Africa:

Christmas is celebrated throughout the African continent by Christian communities both large and small. There are roughly 350 million Christians in Africa. Christmas Carols are sung from the Congo to South Africa. On Christmas day, meats are roasted, gifts are exchanged and family visits made. The Coptic Christians in Ethiopia and Egypt celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January (rather than the 25th of December) because they follow a different calendar.

Christmas in North America: