Today was one of the darkest days of the year — and an important part of the Scandinavian Christmas season: Santa Lucia Day. All over Nordic Europe, little candle-bearing Santa Lucias brought light to the middle of winter with the promise of the return of summer. To capture the celebration for our European Christmas special, we traveled to Drøbak, where Santa Lucia Day brings everyone out to dance around the trees…with their crowns of real candles. Just up the fjord, in Oslo, we had one night to

Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano on the Italian island of Sicily, erupted powerfully, sending ash and volcanic material high into the sky and triggering widespread impacts across the region. The eruption, which resumed with renewed force between 26th and 27th December, produced continuous Strombolian activity at multiple summit craters, including the Northeast Crater and Bocca Nuova, with jets of lava reaching 150–400 metres into the air and dense ash emissions rising several kilometres