Brazilian newlyweds Júlia and Marcos Muniz found what they were looking for when they picked Gramado for their honeymoon: peace, quiet and a refreshing break from the heat and humidity back home in Rio de Janeiro. And quite by accident, the couple's late-October visit coincided with the opening ceremony of Natal Luz, or "Christmas Light" — a pull-out-the-stops festival of traditional Christmas cheer that lasts nearly three months and is often referred to as the biggest in the world.

"Christmas is in December," said Júlia Muniz, standing in a plaza beside the Catholic church, where a large nativity scene had already gone up. Of course she didn't expect this to be going on in October.

In October, though, spring is in full, glorious bloom, with summer just around the corner. Not that this does anything to deter Santa Claus from jingling into town each evening in full red-robed finery or stop the choir on opening night from singing "White Christmas." There are flowers, there are chirping birds, there are giant nutcracker dolls and there are lights festooning the streets, where tunes such as "I Saw Three Ships" emanate from cleverly hidden speakers and tourist hordes snap selfies by the terabyte. (The selfie has come to rival soccer as Brazil's national mania.)

Imagine a Christmas of the most traditional, Hallmark sort, translated into Portuguese and stretched out over 81 days on either side of the summer solstice in a little Brazilian town channeling serious Swiss vibes. Depending on your holiday proclivities, the overall effect might either be irredeemably kitschy or simply enchanting.

If green Christmases are your thing, but palm trees wrapped in white lights don’t put you in the spirit of the season, then boy does Brazil have a town for you. Actually, make that two towns.

Gramado and Canela enjoy a Christmas rivalry like no other. You know how it is when an American neighbor buys the big blow up Frosty the Snowman from Lowes, then the guy next door has to buy the entire cast of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to reinstate his dominance? It’s like that. Only this is a more sophisticated display in one of the richest parts of South America. The German architecture here make Gramado and Canela look more like towns in the Bavarian Alps than Brazil. With Christmas just days away, the friendly competition has turned these two small neighboring towns into hotspots for people looking to get their holly jolly on.

Both towns have a combined population of roughly 80,000. But this time of year, it swells to five times that. Foreigners haven’t discovered Christmas in the Gaucho Mountains of Rio Grande do Sul state yet. Despite the female dancers in red Santa skirts and the colorful, independently designed nutcrackers lining Hortensias Avenue, the entire shebang manages to be authentic even to northeastern Americans raised on Currier & Ives.

Gramado has its Natal Luz event. Canela has its Sonho de Natal event, a five minute drive away. Both towns are loaded with picturesque hotels and restaurants – the family kind and the romantic, foodie kind. Both towns have so many Christmas attractions going on that it would take a week to see them all, and cost thousands of dollars. But this is Brazil, not Monaco, and so in the spirit of sharing, there are plenty of free shows in decorated settings.

St. Nicholas Day was approaching in 1944 when Harry Stutz and Richard Brookins, corporals in the U.S. Army’s 28th Infantry Division, arrived in newly liberated Luxembourg.

The two soldiers had survived a harrowing battle in Germany’s Hurtgen Forest, where their unit suffered 60 percent casualties. Now their division had been sent to Wiltz, a small town in northern Luxembourg, to recover.

“A young corporal from the U.S. Army’s 28th Infantry division called Richard Brookins decided to bring cheer to the children of the town by dressing up as St. Nicholas,” Juncker said.

“I didn’t know who Saint Nicholas was, so I didn’t know what he did, and I didn’t want to spoil it for the kids,” Brookins told The Washington Post. After some cajoling by Stutz, Brookins relented, but he balked again when he realized that he had to wear a costume: the local priest’s robes, a beard made of rope, a staff and a bishop’s miter. On Dec. 5, Brookins was driven through Wiltz in an Army jeep flanked by two local girls dressed as angels. They visited the town’s schools where children sang and G.I.s passed out sweets.