Finding a Place Called Christmas Quiz

You might have noticed that there are several places called Christmas Island on this map. This particular one is home to a Gaelic festival that celebrates the Scottish heritage of the settlers of Nova Scotia, where it is located. More specifically it is on Cape Breton Island, with a beach on Bras d'Or Lake.

The festival, held every August, includes Gaelic dancing, bag piping and instruction in the Gaelic language.

Located in the Indian Ocean, to the south of Java (Indonesia), this Christmas Island is an external territory of Australia, with a dense rainforest on its plateaus. Named by the sea captain who sighted it on Christmas Day 1643, the island remained uninhabited until the mid-nineteenth century.

It has been recognised as an Important Bird Area and an Endemic Bird Area by BirdLife International.

The New Year Group of four islands is located to the northwest of Tasmania, between that state and the mainland of Australia. The largest of the four is King Island, with the others being Councillor, New Year and Christmas Island. This is another Important Bird Area, particularly for breeding sea birds and wading birds.

Kiritimati is a coral atoll in the South Pacific country of Kiribati, and sits to the southwest of Hawaii. It was because this Christmas Island, and the other islands in the Line Island group, sat on the opposite side of the International Date Line to the country's seat of government in Tarawa that Kiribati decided, in 1994, to shift that line so the entire country would be on the same day.

In 1994 the South African province of Natal merged with the bantustan KwaZulu, since which time the province has been known as KwaZulu-Natal. The name Natal was given to the area in 1497 by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who sailed past on Christmas Day of that year.

Navidad is a commune in the O'Higgins Region of Chile, and has a number of attributes that attract visitors. One is a geological formation (the Navidad Formation) that is rich in fossils of marine life, while another is the big waves formed off the coastline which attract surfing enthusiasts.

Natal is the capital city of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. It got its name ("nativity" or "Christmas" in Portuguese) when the village which grew to be this city was founded on 25 December 1599, just outside a fort named for the Holy Kings, or Magi. Blessed with sandy white beaches, the city attracts tourists from many parts of the world.

(This Christmassy place is new to this quiz, as Noel, NS, Canada from my original quiz would have made that area of the map too crowded.)

Christmas Cove, Maine, is lauded as a "hidden gem" by some travel websites, which also tend to repeat the disproved legend of the origin of the place name somehow relating to John Smith. Leaving the name aside, it does seem that it's a pleasant place to visit, especially if one has a sail boat, preferably in the summer instead of at Christmas-time.

Cold Christmas, Hertfordshire, England is a very small place with a sad legend about its name. The story goes that one Christmas it was so very cold that several children froze to death, and were buried in a nearby churchyard. That church is said to still be haunted by those unfortunate youngsters.

Christmas, Florida is quite a small community near Orlando, Florida, with attractions that include Fort Christmas Historical Park and the world's largest building that is shaped like an alligator. The soldiers who built the original fort arrived on Christmas Day 1837, which explains the name.

As is common in places called Christmas, the post office becomes popular each December, with people who wish their mail to bear a "Christmas" post mark. (It's possible that this practice has declined, of course.)