I know that every country and even every region of a country has different traditions for Christmas. Given that this is an international (though small) forum, I thought that we could all share and find out about different customs around the world.
In Moldavia, on the Christmas Eve, children go from door to door and sing Christmas carols. Some of them build up a star, decorated with silver garlands, representation of the star that announced Christ's birth, and they sing a specific carol, "The star rises up". In the ancient times, people rewarded their singing with pretzels, apples and nuts; nowadays, they're more likely to get money and candy. Some carols remind people to start preparing for Christmas, others narrate the birth of Jesus, others are lullabies for the Infant.
The ancient traditions say that children are allowed to sing carols until sunset, then they have to go home and it's the time for "grown-ups" to go out and sing until the dawn, because they have to visit every house of the village. Of course, nowadays only children still respect this tradition.
Enjoy some of our carols:
Linu-i lin
Florile dalbe (White flowers) and Trei pastori (The three shepherds) -in these videos you can also see the Star and the peasant ancient costumes
The star rises up (you can also see New Years dances, such as "walking the bear" or "the goat" - I will talk about those in a later post)
One of the most ancient and nowadays less encountered traditions is the Christmas theatre, where the people dress up as Maria, Joseph, the mages and the other characters of the Nativity and play the story. (Video: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=60wy6olK9I8 )
Portal 
