From his office window last week, Harry Zinder, chief of TIME-LIFE International's Cairo bureau, could see the flocks of turkeys, geese and fat-tailed sheep, the herds of goats and gamoose (water buffalo) moving through the cluttered streets to the holiday markets. Christmas was at hand, and Zinder, as usual, was finding it a time of rejoicing and confusion.

Arab members of his bureau had already celebrated Courban Bairam, their holy festival; the Copts and Orthodox adherents would not celebrate theirs until Jan. 7. From past experience Zinder knew that by some miracle of cookery the turkey would come out right. The cook, who abhorred pots, would beat together a pair of Shell gasoline tins and roast the big bird over "one of those vertical blow torches known as Primus stoves." Nevertheless, there would be open house Christmas Day at the Zinder's home on the Nile, and the weather promised to be typical for Egypt in December: clear, warm and cloudless.

Allowing for different accents and conditions, it would be much the same this week with all of TIME Inc.'s 294 members overseas. And for most of those who had spent the bleak Christmases of the war years abroad, there was a special difference this year: their wives and children were with them.

From Vienna, John Walker reported proudly that he had managed to secure a "fine little electric train" for his young son, Michael. The Walkers had a Christmas tree and hoped to festoon it with popcorn strings--if they could find some popcorn.

Times were hard in Nanking, but the Fred Gruins had a fat goose (no turkeys available) and Fred Jr., aged five, was all set to chop down a little evergreen growing inside the bamboo fence of the Gruin's ten-mow (3 1/3-acre) "estate." In Shanghai, Bureau Chief William Gray, his wife "Freddie," and their three children, looked forward to being in their new house on Columbia Road. Said Gray: "We'll hang up the sang chi sheng (mistletoe) and the mao erh to tzu (cat's ears or thorn of holly) and startle passing ricksha boys with God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen."

Christmas trees were sparse in London (those with a diameter of more than 2 1/4 inches rated as timber and required a special license from the timber control authorities), and it took considerable conniving to lure a plum pudding out of the grocer, but the children's toy supply had improved. For English members of the bureau like June Rose, the season offered an additional prospect: "The whole family is finally demobilized, and we'll sit around the fire together in civilian clothes for the first time since 1939."

In Paris, bureaumen had thoughtfully tucked away such choice items as truffles, chestnuts and chocolates, and William Chapman's two small sons, Benny and Johnnie, eagerly awaited the appearance of their new Santa, Pere Noel. In Buenos Aires, Christmas was certain to be one of the hottest days of summer, and most of the TIME staff would undoubtedly top off the day by going swimming. It was just as certain to be a white Christmas in Moscow, where Bureau Chief Craig Thompson and his wife were pointing for a Christmas Eve party at Spasso House, home of U.S. Ambassador and Mrs. Walter Bedell Smith.

Except for a lone photographer who had a date to stay home and play Santa Claus, the whole Tokyo bureau figured on a Christmas dinner of raw fish, rice, sukiyaki, and U.S. turkey at John Luter's $20-a-month seacoast villa. Bureau Chief Carl Mydans who, with his wife, Shelley, spent two Christmases in Japanese concentration camps, expected 15 familyless French, Chinese, British, U.S. and Filipino correspondents to join in. Cabled Correspondent Luter: "After dinner we'll feed the carp in the 100-foot fishpond and sing carols to the accompaniment of a Japanese samisen. It will be an international Christmas in a strangely Oriental setting--but most thoughts will be of home. Cheers."

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