As Christmas nears, New York Times journalists send dispatches from places like Santa Claus, Ind., and North Pole, N.Y.

Originating in Moravian Church boarding schools in Germany in the 19th century, the Moravian stars were carried throughout ...

Six years later, the city decorated its first tree and in 1937, during the Great Depression, it adopted the nickname Christmas City USA and erected a large star on top of the city’s South Mountain.

Skies above South Carolina sparkle with Christmas Star, meteor shower and supergiant Betelgeuse along with Jupiter, Venus and ...

Every Christmas, a relatively small town in the Palestinian West Bank comes center stage: Bethlehem. Jesus, according to some ...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Bethlehem marked another somber Christmas ... At least 100,000 kids call into the North American Aerospace Defense Command each year to track Santa’s whereabouts. NORAD’s ...

Freezing rain expected for the higher terrain of north-central and northeastern ... It's what Christmas is about," said Tim McGorry with STAR Bethlehem, a resource center for the homeless.

On Christmas Eve in 1741, Moravian settlers named this Pennsylvania city after the biblical birthplace of Jesus. Nearly 300 ...

Moravian missionaries named the Pennsylvania city of Bethlehem after the biblical birthplace of Jesus on Christmas Eve in ...

And it's celebrated in less likely places, too. For instance: your local planetarium. The "Star of Bethlehem" show is — or was — to planetariums what "The Nutcracker" is to ballet companies.

I pick out North America’s celestial highlights for the week ahead (which also applies to northern hemisphere mid-northern latitudes).