Watch these very unusual Christmas messages from around the world

Tired of those same old Christmas traditions, the ghost of Christmas past, present and future looking pretty much the same? Well, not if the world has any say in the matter. From goats bleating carols to Chewbacca grunting it, there's something unsual for everyone, even, possibly, the grinch.

A man in Tokyo, for instance, decided to draw attention by dressing as a Christmas tree and running through the city.

Joseph Tame, the enthusiastic "running Christmas tree", saw that the city wasn't evenly decorated and took matters in his own hands to make sure he could spread as much of the holiday cheer.

The "tree", available on demand, is "designed to disrupt the illumination industry by allowing for on-demand illumination," the description on YouTube reads.

"The tree can come to you wherever you are in the world, but please note that depending on your location it may take a bit of time to reach you; with a combined weight of 93kg (68kg of Joseph + 25kg of Tree) it is currently too heavy for delivery by drone, and is not yet available from Amazon Prime due to there only being one of him," his website explains.

A little lower on the cuteness quotient, but equally interesting, is the Arabic Christmas carol – or, more accurately, hymn – in the video below.

Christians in West Asia obviously celebrated Christmas long before Europeans started to even convert to Christianity. In the popular imagination though, English christmas carols are the de facto music for the festival. Even in the Arab world, most carols are now heard in translation, but it's good to know these older hymns are around too.

Now for some Christmas cheer from space. The three astronauts aboard the International Space Station have a message for the world while they, literally, just hang out. They end their message with well-coordinated and rather graceful cartwheels, with the lack of gravity definitely helping.

The ISS will be have orbited Earth 16 times on Christmas.

NASA also put out this video of a cute robot exploring something other than Mars. An animated puzzle, it asks you to spot the many references to space hidden within it.

Lest we in India feel left out, rest assured that Santa Claus is Indian and one of our own.

This clip from Goodness Gracious Me dissipates all myths about Santa being from the North Pole. He is a good old homegrown Punjabi.