Gävle Sweden is the hometown of my teacher and longtime co-author Tomas Sjöström.  The second most famous Swede after Tomas, Elin Nordegren, ex-wife of Tiger Woods, spends time in Gävle because her mother lives there.

At Xmas, Gävle is famous for another reason: it sturdy citizens build a huge goat and it appears to have become a tradition to burn it down, steal it or otherwise damage it.  A brief recent  history:

2001 Goat set on fire on 23 December by Lawrence Jones, a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio, who spent 18 days in jail and was subsequently convicted and ordered to pay 100,000 Swedish kronor in damages.
2002 The goat received only minor damage.
2003 Burnt down on 12 December.
2004 Burnt on December 21.
2005 Burnt by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and a gingerbread man by shooting a flaming arrow at the goat at 21:00 on 3 December.
2008 The goat finally succumbed to the flames ignited by an unknown assailant.
2009 An unsuccessful attempt was made to throw the goat into the river the weekend of December 11. On the night of December 23 before 04:00 the goat was set on fire and was burned to the frame, even though it had a thick layer of snow on its back.The goat had two online webcams which were put out of service by a DoS attack, instigated by computer hackers just before the attack.

One hour or so before midnight in Sweden, the goat still appears to be standing according to this webcam.