Christmas Eve Norway "Julenissen" and Sweden "Jultomten", personally meets children and gives presents in the evening of Christmas Eve. In Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, Estonia, the Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Quebec, Romania, Uruguay, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, Christmas presents are opened mostly on the evening of the 24th – following German tradition, this is also the practice among the British Royal Family since it was introduced by Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort – while in Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, English
Christmas Eve (opera) Christmas Eve (opera) Christmas Eve (, "Noch' pered Rozhdestvom"), is an opera in four acts with music and libretto by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Composed between 1894 and 1895, Rimsky-Korsakov based his opera on a short story, "Christmas Eve", from Nikolai Gogol's "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka". The story had been used as the basis for an opera at least three times previously, including for Tchaikovsky's "Vakula the Smith" (1874). Oliver Knussen writes that "Rimsky is only interested in recreating the atmosphere of the folk-tale, fleshing it out for his stage pageant in a comparable way to Humperdinck in "Hansel". Gerald