it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

… and by “beginning,” I mean that Rio de Janeiro’s merchants have been ready for Christmas since sometime before Halloween. I sometimes find the mid-October rush to out-Christmas one’s competitors to be sort of grating, but this year, I’m mostly just confused. Attention, holiday decoration suppliers: Rio hasn’t seen a white Christmas since, I don’t know, EVER. Stop pretending that evergreens and reindeer are necessary to celebrate the holiday. You can keep Santa, but please get the poor guy some climate-appropriate attire. Do you really want me to look at Santa sweating in his fake beard and wonder what he did to get on his own Naughty List, and whether maybe wearing one of those red felt suits for several hours might not actually be quite a bit worse than having to put coal in his own stocking?

The display that best exemplifies the Southern Hemisphere Christmas Identity Crisis in all its conflicted glory is the nativity scene on the front of the Botafogo Praia Shopping mall. Raindeer cavort in a forest, and there is a light dusting of snow on the evergreens. Next to a straw manger stand giant squirrels (easily half as tall as the trees)… and enormous bright-orange mushrooms rise out of the forest floor.

Ah, Christmas.