Holiday lights in a store window struggle to bring cheer to the winter gloom. In Denmark, Christmas is the last outpost on the long, grim trek toward spring. The North Atlantic winter offers not much more than all-day rain and dark gray skies at noon. Welcome to the birthplace of existentialism!

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Civilized Denmark," July 1998, National Geographic magazine)