Humankind just can’t resist a celebration—whoever we are and wherever on Earth we may be, somebody’s got a reason to cheer: a new spouse, a new house, a new year, or a new baby. Sometimes the occasion is grand—a royal wedding, a coronation, a presidential inauguration—and sometimes it’s as simple as a home-cooked family feast, but every society and every civilization marks life’s milestones with events and traditions uniquely their own.

This lavish and generous collection of photographs and accompanying essays showcases 150 full-color images, some new and never before published, others culled from National Geographic’s archive of classic, often pioneering photography. In these pages we included festivities all over the world, from annual events like Carnival, Cinco de Mayo, Bastille Day, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa to personal events like weddings or graduations. Here are religious processions, martial parades, and high-spirited sporting rivalries from American baseball to World Cup soccer to the quadrennial pageant of the Olympics.

An exquisite objet d’art in itself, Live, Laugh, Celebrate is an ideal gift, appropriate to any occasion and a special treat for connoisseurs of fine, first-rate photography.