Competitors release their hens during the World Championship Hen Racing Championships in Bonsall, Britain August 1, 2015. (Photo by Darren Staples/Reuters)

People wearing loin cloths pray after they bathe in ice-cold water outside the Teppozu Inari shrine in Tokyo, Japan, January 8, 2017. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

Capturing the true essence of Christmas, Lapland is the perfect place to take your family for the holiday period. Situated in the arctic regions of northern Sweden, Finland and Norway, there are a villages in each country around where you can enjoy the full festive experience.

Smoke rises from the sauna as Eda Veeroja walks past with birch twigs at Mooska farm near the village of Haanja December 20, 2014. Smoke saunas are usually built without chimney and have a stove that rest on boulders where firewood is burnt until the room heats up. When the smoke is gone and the room reaches the right temperature, people sit inside and whisk each other with birch twigs. The tradition of the smoke sauna in Voromaa vicinity, in the south of Estonia, is enlisted in the UNESCO representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. (Photo by Ints Kalnins/Reuters)

Shi'ite fighters launch a rocket during clashes with Islamic State militants on the outskirts of al-Alam March 8, 2015. Thaier Al-Sudani: “It was me and a few other Iraqi journalists working for local outlets. We went to the frontlines in coordination with the Iraqi government forces and supporting militias. The press officer would come in the morning and take us to the frontline in a convoy. Whenever an area was won from Islamic State, the fighters would chant and pray and show victory signs. Most of the areas we were in didn't have residents, so after the battle they would resemble ghost towns; nothing but burnt cars and charred bodies of Islamic State fighters. Al-Alam was an exception as it had some residents who chanted for the government forces after their victory”. (Photo by Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters)

In this photo taken on Saturday, April, 4, 2015, a bear chews on a corncob at a shelter that attracts hundreds of visitors and volunteers from around the world every year, in Kutarevo, Croatia. Over a decade ago, Ivan Crnkovic-Pavenka, a retired Croatian social worker decided to help bears become “ambassadors of the wilderness” among people and set up a unique shelter for brown bears in the idyllic mountain village of Kutarevo in central Croatia, where eight bears currently live in two huge enclosures. (Photo by Amel Emric/AP Photo)

A homeless man rests on the side of a street at the old quarter of Yemen's capital Sanaa November 27, 2015. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

A Taiwanese woman takes a photo of a Christmas tree decoration at a street in Taipei, Taiwan,13 December 2015. (Photo by Ritchie B. Tongo/EPA)