Christmas revellers around the world donned red and white Santa hats, offered meals to the homeless and lit candles on Wednesday, as Pope Francis launched observation of the global holiday with a sombre mass in the Vatican.
At Saint Peter's Basilica, Francis used his Christmas Eve mass to urge Christians to think "of the wars, of the machine-gunned children, of the bombs on schools or hospitals" as this year's Christmas once again takes place under the shadow of Israel's war on Hamas and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
