The Gävle goat survived Christmas this year! Truly a Christmas miracle. A few of my favourite extracts from its Wikipedia article:
In 2001, the goat was burned down by a visitor from the United States. The court confiscated his cigarette lighter with the argument that he clearly was not able to handle it. He stated in court that he was no “goat burner”, and believed that he was taking part in a completely legal goat-burning tradition.
2005: Burnt by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and the gingerbread man, by shooting a flaming arrow at the goat. The hunt for the arsonist responsible for the goat-burning was featured on the weekly Swedish live broadcast “Most Wanted”.
2016: Destroyed by an arsonist equipped with petrol on its inauguration day, just hours after its 50th “birthday party”. Organizers said they would not rebuild the goat this year. It was replaced by a smaller “replica” built by local high school students. This goat was later hit by a car.
CORRECTION
Survived until Christmas, it won’t be taken down until January 2nd so. THERE’S STILL TIME.
if it happened at all, it happened like that 