This year, Vigo will not be the first to celebrate Christmas. Although the Galician city has been decorating for more than a month and its mayor, Abel Caballero, thinks that the festivities, which officially begin at the end of November, a month before the rest of Christendom, will usually be ahead of him in 2024, on the other side of the pond. Nicolás Maduro has decided that this year the celebrations will start in Venezuela on the first of October. As the Bolivarian leader explained on his television program ‘Con Maduro+’, this will happen by government decree.

What the calendar says is the least important.

Less than a month until Christmas. It doesn’t matter that September has just begun, we are still in summer and there are more than three and a half months until Christmas Eve. In Venezuela, they are already talking about Christmas. That’s because they are only a few weeks away from opening. This was announced by the president in front of a special audience of the Globovisión program ‘Con Maduro+’. There, in prime timegave the scoop: Christmas starts on October 1 this year.

“It already smells like Christmas”. It may seem strange that Christmas is brought forward by more than two months, but Maduro assures that the measure will be taken in accordance with the law. Including a government decree. “September is coming and the air already smells like Christmas, it smells like Christmas. That is why this year, with respect and gratitude to you, I will declare the beginning of Christmas by October 1,” the president said. Amidst applause, he insisted in an enthusiastic tone: “Christmas begins on October 1. For everyone. With peace, happiness and security.”

It matters what it is… And above all, in this case, the when is important. The Christmas preview coincides with the turbulent scenario that has unfolded after the July 28 elections, which are not very comfortable for the Chavista leader. Although Maduro insists that he won the elections with 51.2% of the vote, compared to 44.2% for Edmundo González Urrutia, the representative of the Unitary Platform (PUD), the official results of the elections have been clouded for more than a month by accusations of fraud.

Reason: The opposition obtained and announced 83.5 percent of the election records, showing a landslide victory for the PUD with 67 percent of the vote. Opposition members took to the streets several times to demand that Maduro release the minutes supporting the official results of 28J.

Christmas BusyAlthough the Venezuelan Supreme Court has accepted the official results and the Prosecutor’s Office has ordered the arrest of González Urrutia, who is accused of several crimes, including insubordination and incitement of conspiracy, Maduro still cannot consider the 28J crisis resolved.

Neither domestically, where, according to the opposition coalition, young people are still imprisoned after the elections and the pulse is on the streets, nor internationally. The EU has already warned that it will only accept the “full” and “independently verified” 28J results, and a crisis has begun with other Latin American countries questioning Maduro’s legitimacy.

In this context, the US seized Maduro’s presidential plane, which has been held in the Dominican Republic for months, yesterday on the grounds that it was taken in violation of export sanctions imposed on the government.

“Absolute peace”. Proof of the situation that the country is going through and that Chavismo itself is facing was that yesterday, during the program ‘Con Maduro +’, where he announced his Christmas preview, the Venezuelan leader recalled the massive power cut that the country suffered on Friday, attributing it to “fascist currents”.

“The murderous electric attack stopped the economy. They could not stop it. People continued to work and with the support of the working class we guaranteed absolute peace in a perfect civil-military-political union”, said the Bolivarian leader. After this incident and the “record” response that the Government boasted about, it is time for celebration. One with Christmas touches that will start next October 1.

It’s weird, but… Is it weird? Not at all. It may seem strange that a holiday that follows the tradition of Christmas has been pushed back two and a half months, but it’s not the first time it’s happened in Venezuela. And it’s not the first time Maduro has done something like this. In 2020, the Bolivarian leader announced that the holiday would be postponed until October 15, and in 2021, he rescheduled the calendar to start the same month. “Christmas is here from October,” Maduro said on Twitter on October 5, 2021, in a video showing the illuminated tree and garlands placed at Miraflores Palace.

Much earlier, in 2007, Hugo Chaves postponed the Venezuelan time zone by 30 minutes to “socialize the light”; however, years later, in 2016, with Maduro at the helm of government, this measure was reversed. No less significant than the adjustments to the program is the deviation from Christmas celebrations. In addition to bringing another topic and headlines into the media spotlight, the proximity of the holidays usually means that the Government intensifies aid and food distribution in neighborhoods.

Pictures | Arkadiusz Radek (Unsplash) and Palácio do Planalto (Flickr)

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