Times, They Are A'Changin'!

When I first came on internship in 2002, there was very little evidence to be found anywhere of Christmas. No decorations, no music, no Christmas lights or Christmas section in the store. No stockings. We had to go to the material market, find something red (not hard) or green (not easy) that could be used for a stocking. Corduroy and silk were our favored materials. Then we had to draw a stocking pattern to scale so they could attempt to make it. We had a lot of failed attempts before settling on some slightly-off-kilter stockings.

When I moved here in 2006, there was a little bit of Christmas cheer. Every once in a while you'd see a cardboard Santa face hanging in a restaurant window or on a door with "Merry Christmas" underneath. Some were left up year round. There were a few stalls in a local market that sold Christmas decorations. But the decorations were...different...than what we have in the states. Knitted parachuting Santas with enormous blue eyes. Stockings with witches on them. Think weird and tacky and multiply it by about 20 and that's what could be found in those few Christmas stalls at the market, the only place to buy Christmas things.

Fast forward to 2009. There are Christmas decorations in many big stores. Some of the markets have handfuls of stalls dedicated to selling Christmas decorations. The weird and the tacky can still be found, but even those are improving. And there are a few places where really nice, classy Christmas stuff can be found. More and more businesses decorate for Christmas, shopping centers are decorated, big hotels have Christmas tree lighting ceremonies.

Some of the Christmas trees that have been decorated outside businesses and shopping centers look ridiculous... to a westerner. But until you live in a country that has NO Christmas, you don't realize how much we come to value the music on the radio and in every public place, the decorations, the movies on TV, the night drives to see Christmas lights. And even those ridiculous looking Christmas trees can bring a little Christmas cheer on a cold, dusty, gloomy brown day. Yeah, I know it's not about presents and commercialism.

Yesterday I walked into a grocery store here (one of the biggest ones around) and couldn't keep from smiling. They were playing Christmas music. Commercialism may be the driving force behind the growth of decorating for Christmas, but the truth of Christmas is also being introduced.

Times, they are a'changin'!