The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.

The Christmas Truce is no stranger to popular entertainment – this year more than any other as its 100th anniversary is marked. The famous moment when British and German soldiers climbed out of the trenches in peace on Christmas Day 1914 has been replicated and ruminated upon in history books, film, and propaganda – and now advertising. In the UK, the supermarket Sainsbury’s 2014 Christmas advert dramatizes the event, prompting cries of outrage that it has trivialized it.

But what really happened 100 years ago?

After a year in which further details of national intelligence agencies' shadowy surveillance networks were laid bare, a fresh leak of documents reveals the obsessive surveillance that extends as far north as Lapland.

Santa’s Arctic Workshop (SAW) has deployed a multinational panopticon surveillance program, according to leaked documents being called “the Snowman Files”.

Smile, though your heart is aching. Morgan, CC BY

By Annie Austin, University of Manchester

Francesco Botticini's The Assumption of the Virgin shows the heavenly hierarchies at play.

By Martin Parker, University of Leicester

The grape escape. Shutterstock

By Mohit Kumar Jolly, Rice University