Venezuela’s socialist regime kicked off the “Merry Christmas 2024” season on Tuesday as decreed by dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Christians normally celebrate the Christmas season in a four-week period in December known as Advent that marks the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth on December 25, Christmas Day.
The Venezuelan socialists have a long track record of misinterpreting Christian faith and co-opting the religion to suit their ideological pursuits, maintaining a longstanding animosity towards the Venezuelan Catholic Church. Maduro has repeatedly rescheduled the start of Christmas in Venezuela to either October or November, depending on what best suits his own interests at a given time.
The 2024 Venezuelan Christmas period, according to Maduro’s latest orders, started on October 1 and will run through January 15, 2025. The dictator claimed in September that the decision to move Christmas earlier this year was to express his “gratitude” to Venezuelans for the “results” of the July 28 sham presidential election, which Maduro and the Venezuelan institutions under his control fraudulently insist he “won.”
A woman takes a snapshot of a Christmas decoration at the military complex in Fuerte Tiuna in Caracas on October 1, 2024. Last month, President Nicolas Maduro said the Christmas season would be brought forward to October 1, though the public spirit does not reflect the glitz in a country rocked by economic and political strife since his widely questioned reelection to a third six-year term in a July 28 vote. (JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty)
The Episcopal Conference of Venezuela (CEV) issued a statement rejecting the regime’s political use of Christmas and condemning the move, emphasizing that, for Catholics – the majority of Venezuelans – Advent begins on December 1.
“Christmas, as a liturgical season, begins on December 25 with the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and extends until the Epiphany of the Lord in January,” CEV said at the time. “Therefore, Christmas is a celebration of universal character.”
“The manner and time of its celebration is a matter for ecclesiastical authority. This feast should not be used for propagandistic or political purposes,” the statement concluded.
Maduro reiterated his decision to start Christmas in October on Monday during the latest broadcast of his weekly television show With Maduro Plus and responded to CEV’s September criticism by stating that Christmas will start in October “as it was decreed.”
“As it was decreed, even though some guys with cassocks came out to say that there was no Christmas if they did not decree it. No no no, sir with cassock, you don’t decree anything here,” Maduro said.”Jesus Christ belongs to the people, Christmas belongs to the people, and the people celebrate it when they want to celebrate their Christmas.”
“And tomorrow, October 1 until January 15, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and the welcoming of the year 2025 will begin,” he continued.
The Maduro regime reportedly spent the past four weeks placing Christmas decorations across Venezuelan cities nationwide ahead of October. Residents of the capital city of Caracas found its streets filled with Christmas decorations on Tuesday morning ahead of the regime’s planned activities to “start” the Christmas season in the evening.
“Christmas is in December. We have to be clear about that, we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 61-year-old Wilfredo Gutiérrez told the Associated Press. Gutiérrez pointed out that “the good thing is that they picked up the trash, it’s normal here that everything is dirty.”
Barry Cartaya, journalist at the socialist regime’s main state-owned news channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), published a video on the Chinese social media site TikTok on Tuesday morning showing a group of children in a school on the state of Miranda forced to sing Christmas songs.
@barrycartaya1 Llegó la Navidad a Venezuela, como a ocurrido desde 2018, @Nicolás Maduro adelanta la época más hermosa del año.
“Who gets embittered by a candy? That’s a popular saying. Please, it is the most divine and most awaited time, why not bring it forward?” Cartaya said.
The socialist regime held a series of public events and concerts by regime-affiliated artists in the evening hours of Tuesday in the country’s main cities to “formally” start 2024’s Christmas in Venezuela.
“Now a beautiful period is beginning. During these weeks ahead of us, we are going to listen in every corner of the country to our parrandas, aguinaldos [Venezuelan musical genres typically akin to local Christmas carols],” Culture Minister Ernesto Villegas said on Tuesday evening, “our dances and noblest traditions, and may we Venezuelans meet in love to build a future of peace, integration and national unity.”
The Venezuelan socialists also lit up the “Avila Cross,” a structure originally built in the 1960s at the slopes of the Avila National Park that resembles a Christian cross. The structure is traditionally lit up to mark the start of Christmas in Caracas. Venezuelan socialists changed the official name of Avila National Park to its indigenous name, “Waraira Repano,” in 2010 as part of the regime’s decades-long efforts to “decolonize” the country.
Venezuelan Interior Minister and long-suspected drug lord Diosdado Cabello participated in the start of the socialist regime’s Christmas period at the headquarters of CICPC, Venezuela’s largest police agency.
Cabello described those who criticize the regime’s rescheduling of Christmas as the “Grinch” character from the 1957 children’s book How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss.
“Who would have thought that bringing Christmas forward would generate discomfort in some minority sectors, fortunately?” Cabello said. “People who look like they’re from the movie called the Green, the Grinch.”
“Those bitter people who do otherwise will have to understand that in this country joy, enthusiasm and the future are manifested,” he continued.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.