The magical European city perfect for a white Christmas

If you want to seen snow this festive season, this city has a 70% chance of a white Christmas

If you want a Christmas with a difference why not try somewhere further afield?

For an almost guaranteed white Christmas, your best bet is Kiruna in Sweden which is a true winter paradise with a 70% chance of snow on Christmas Day.

This remote town is the most northern in Sweden and famed for its gorgeous snowy landscapes and the Northern Lights. It’s also relatively undiscovered with only 100 average searches a month according to DFDS.

This winter wonderland is a relatively new city, founded at the beginning of the 20th century and is home to the world’s largest iron ore mine which you can visit. As a result of the mine, the whole city is slowly shifting itself east away from the mining, leading to interesting newly built buildings to explore.

On a wander around Kiruna, you will see pretty pastel houses as well as a gorgeous wooden church constructed in 1912 and built to look like a traditional Sami tent.

Kiruna and its surrounding area are the home of the Sami people, the indigenous people of Sweden and their rich culture penetrates city life here.

Nutti Sámi Siida is a Sami-run tourism company that operates in Kiruna and has since 1996. The company was born from a particularly bad winter that saw grazing the herds of reindeer become more expensive so the company's owners decided to take visitors to see their way of life to finance the feeding of their herd.

Now, you can choose from a number of activities from reindeer experiences to reindeer-drawn sleds - a perfect Christmas activity.

It is worth noting that if you’re planning a Christmas holiday in this snowy paradise then it will be dark. As Kiruna is so far north, the sun sets at around 2.30pm, making for a short day - but the perfect opportunity for star gazing.

To get there it’s easiest to fly to Stockholm and then catch one of several daily flights to Kiruna from there. There are also trains which go from the Swedish capital but these take much longer with an average of 16 hours.