Each year on or around Dec. 25, The New York Times has used its reporting to channel the meaning and celebration of the holidays into its pages.
Sometimes that spirit is conveyed by an article’s so-called dateline, the capitalized location that begins certain Times newspaper articles reported from the field. Datelines, particularly before the era of cellphones and social media, were traditionally a gesture of gravitas, meant to signal to a reader that Times journalists were on the ground, physically reporting from a location outside the newsroom. (Recently, The Times introduced more conversational, plain-spoken datelines on online articles.)
Some holiday-season datelines are holy sites of worship. Others are quirky-sounding spots. And some are unabashedly on the nose. Times journalists have reported from Noel, Mo.; Antlers, Okla.; North Pole, Alaska; and Bethlehem (both the Pennsylvania city and the one in the West Bank, recognized by many Christian theologians as the birthplace of Jesus).
Here is a smattering of notable holiday datelines published over the years.
BETHLEHEM, in the West Bank
For decades, the Christmas Day edition of The Times often featured an article from Bethlehem, in the West Bank, with New Testament allusions aplenty. Most detailed the annual pilgrimage of the faithful to the biblical site amid the historical forces of partition and Israeli occupation. Year after year, the dispatches reflect the evolution of the conflict and its reverberations in the city.
An article by Gene Currivan published on Dec. 23, 1945, used these opening lines: “Tonight, like that night almost 2,000 years ago, there still is no room at the inn. From far and near, pilgrims have come again to Bethlehem to be present at the commemoration of the birth of Christ.”
A story published on Christmas Day in 1995 by Serge Schmemann began: “The night was certainly not silent, and it was not always calm as Bethlehem marked its first Christmas under Palestinian control with thunderous fireworks, choirs, bagpipes, dances and laser lights.”
An article on Dec. 25, 2000, inverted the phrase used in 1945: “This year, there is plenty of room at the inn,” John Kifner wrote, adding: “In the last three months of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops, Bethlehem has been sealed off by the army.”
And an article by Yara Bayoumy and Samar Hazboun from 2023 described a city in sorrow: “There will be no musical festivities. No tree-lighting ceremony. No extravagant decorations that normally bedeck the West Bank city of Bethlehem at Christmas. With the war in Gaza raging, this is a city in mourning.”
BETHLEHEM, Pa.
In 2018, mischief makers in Pennsylvania put their town in the national spotlight. The Times was in Bethlehem to report on a Christmastime crime: A statue of the baby Jesus had been stolen from a Nativity scene. The theft was indicative of a disheartening trend unfolding across the United States; other Nativity scenes had been looted that year, including displays in Tennessee, West Virginia and Minnesota.
Bethlehem, Pa., also snagged a front-page dateline on Christmas 1994, though the story wasn’t about the holidays — it was about financial aid for college students.
SANTA CLAUS, Ind.
In 2006, The Times spotlighted a rural town in southwestern Indiana where, for decades, residents had played the role of the big guy himself. Stand-in Santas would respond to children from around the world who had mailed wish lists. “Dear Santa,” one asked. “Please make my dad smarter.” The reply went unreported in The Times.
NORTH POLE, N.Y.
On Dec. 23, 2016, Annie Stoltie reported from a struggling theme park in the Adirondacks: Santa’s Workshop, “an alpine village scaled for children” that opened in 1949. There, they could feed reindeer, mingle with Santa and Mrs. Claus and enjoy non-thrill rides like the Candy Cane Express train. New York’s North Pole was actually a hamlet in Wilmington — it, and the Workshop, still exist.
(Worth noting: In 1926, Fredrik Ramm, a journalist who joined what is widely considered to be the first expedition to the North Pole, filed a story from the location. Of course, it carried the dateline.)
MALULA, Syria
In 1983, The Times published a Christmas story reported in Malula, Syria, a Christian enclave in the mountains near Damascus. In Malula (also spelled Maaloula), the ancient language of Aramaic, said to have been spoken by Jesus, was still used. But religious leaders there feared Aramaic was fading. “The language will die in 40 years,” the Archbishop of Damascus, said. It appears the language has endured.
ROVANIEMI, Finland
In December 2017, the Times correspondent Rod Nordland journeyed to the edge of the Arctic Circle to the city of Rovaniemi, Finland, also known as the official hometown of Santa Claus. In the Santa Claus Village, visitors could browse various trinket shops and pay $60 to take pictures with Santa.
“For those who fret about the growing secularization of Christmas — with each year more and more X, and less and less Christ — they need only drop in here to confirm some of their worst fears,” Mr. Nordland wrote.
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