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when do other countries start christmas?

 
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In the United States, we mostly start after Thanksgiving. I say mostly because the stores are ready earlier. The lights and such go on immediately after Thanksgiving. That's a US holiday though. When do other countries start lighting up trees? (I ask because I noticed a tree lit up on TV today in Europe.) It's still more than a month before Christmas.
 
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Our public trees are being lit next Sunday (29th); they have a procession round the town centre with reindeer. It varies from town to town.
 
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Christmas lights in our neighbourhood near Vancouver (Canada) were switched-on this weekend, but some homes have already been lit-up for a few weeks now with Diwali lights.
 
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Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:when do other countries start christmas?


Waaaaay too early. Some of my neighbours have their decorations up already and the shopping centres started with the Christmas music about a week ago.
 
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Tim Cooke wrote:

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:when do other countries start christmas?


Waaaaay too early. Some of my neighbours have their decorations up already and the shopping centres started with the Christmas music about a week ago.


Amen to that! Our local supermarket has had Christmas stuff (sweets, cakes, decorations etc) on the shelves since October.
 
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Here in the Netherlands we have Sinterklaas, which is mainly a celebration for children. The main event of Sinterklaas is on the evening of December 5th, but already weeks before that the whole country is in the Sinterklaas-mood.

Preparations for Christmas normally start immediately after Sinterklaas, so on December 6 the Christmas decorations appear everywhere.

The last two or three years there's been a lot of hassle about Zwarte Piet, the helper of Sinterklaas - people protesting against Zwarte Piet being racist. In my opinion it's indeed clear that Zwarte Piet has racist origins.
 
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I think the lights in my town went up last week. I saw an advert on the side of a pub for booking your Christmas Party, in September.

I do like the "Christmas spirit", what gets me are the Christmas songs - gosh, if I think I hear "Here Comes Santa Claus" one more time in my life ...
 
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Tim Cooke wrote:

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:when do other countries start christmas?


Waaaaay too early. Some of my neighbours have their decorations up already and the shopping centres started with the Christmas music about a week ago.


And here I was only thinking about lights. Christmas music has leaked into earlier than Thanksgiving. One time I heard it on Veterans Day (November 11th.)
 
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Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:In the United States, we mostly start after Thanksgiving. I say mostly because the stores are ready earlier. The lights and such go on immediately after Thanksgiving. That's a US holiday though. When do other countries start lighting up trees? (I ask because I noticed a tree lit up on TV today in Europe.) It's still more than a month before Christmas.



In Italy after 8 december you feel Christmas in the air. Due to the strong catholic atmosphere is called feast of the immaculate conception. This is the reason why many girls are called Imma in this country.

Apart any religious conception, that i respect without any judgement. It is interesting to see from an anthropological point of view how the Christmas is celebrated in other cultures, the differences, the pagan tradition had a light feast, the ortodox christianity celebrate after the new year, the Jews do not celebrate at all. My only concern is represented by the trees that have lights on their trunks, i do not why but I do not like it, although is pleasant for the eyes and "romantic".
All in all personally speaking the only concern is not when we Italians start Christmas but when we end it, because the final moment 24/25 december is celebrated with usually three meals each one 5 thousands calories so we remember this end till April/June trying to stay on diet because of the past Christmas. And the cycle repeat every year. Illogical but nice
 
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A Christmas Tree went up yesterday in the public square outside our offices. The Christmas Market in the High Street has been running for an least a week now.
 
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I just placed the Christmas decorations last Sunday, the 20th of December. But I will compensate by leaving them hanging until Chinese new year.

By the way, Santa Claus is a descendant of Sinterklaas (Saint Nicolas) as you can see in the name. Santa Claus comes from the Saint Nicolas tradition of early Dutch immigrants in New Holland.
 
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Giovanni Montano wrote:. . . the ortodox christianity celebrate after the new year . . .

Sorry for not noticing that bit earlier.

No, the Orthodox community celebrate Christmas on 25th December. But they use the Julian Calendar, which has leap years every 4 years with or without 00 at the end. So their 25th December is about 8th January to everybody else.
 
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I was born in Russia. I am living in Ukraine now. In Russia and Ukraine Christmas is 7 January !
 
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