How important is Christmas in China ?

This might be something People in America are going to wonder about . How do the Chinese celebrate Christmas .. if at all ? Having been in China four times , but never during this Special Holiday in the western World .
This article I found while I was asking myself this very question .. How important is Christmas to the Chinese ?

Knowing their biggest Holiday is soon coming too , which is the well known Spring Festival . The difference between the two , is that their Holiday ( actually Holiday DAYS ) is never a set date like Christmas is .

So this raises another question , how many Catholics or People from other Faith's that celebrate this Holiday .. are there living in all of China ? Somewhere I heard , about 2-4 Million and this Religion/Faith is growing by the day/months .

Anyway , here is what I found out of Shanghai today .


SHANGHAI, China: The Lunar New Year is celebrated in a big way in China but Christmas is also fast gaining popularity as a time to celebrate as well.Yu Hsi, Professor of Sociology at Fudan University, said: "Its popularity is easy to understand because of China's 30-year opening up and reform policy. The opening up and reform policy had many Western influences including certain Western lifestyle culture Christmas, being the most important festival in the western, is a symbol of western festivals."This festival has since been adopted by citizens living in China's big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai which are more developed."Florists have noticed yearly increases in sales of Christmas trees. At the Rosa Gallica, a shop in the popular French Concession, sales of Christmas trees have gone up by 30 per cent."The number of our Chinese customers has been increasing. In the past, the ratio of foreigners is around 80 to 90 per cent but now we have more and more Chinese customers," said Huang Qiu Ping, manager of Rosa Gallica.At wholesale store DR, sales of decorations are also picking up. "Sales has increased by 20 per cent this Christmas period compared with last year perhaps because of the financial crisis. This year is better," said Zhang Peng, the owner of DR.More and more locals are also getting into the act of gift giving as well. "We would buy (Christmas decorations) every year because my friends and I will spend the festival at my house. We often drop by the stores to buy Christmas decorations to create the Christmas atmosphere...we would exchange presents with each other and have a Christmas feast at home," said one."We bought decoration balls and Christmas tree to decorating our company...for example, the Christmas will be displayed in our company and the smaller trees would be placed at our work stations," said another.Professor Yu said that the popularity of Christmas was not promoted but something "spontaneous"."For the young Chinese, Christmas is a symbol showing their willingness to live this way...the popularity of Christmas is not promoted by the government. It's basically spontaneous."In China, there is no religious attachment to Christmas celebrations and it is also not a public holiday. However, that is not stopping many shopping centres from cashing in on the popularity of this festive season by offering discounts.


So this article shows exactly what I have experienced being Married to a Chinese ( Shanghainese) Woman , by the Photo's/Card's and in writing over the long period while waiting to be together with my LaoPo again . So watch out World , soon there will be all the artificial Christmas Tree's be coming out of China too .. " Made in China " !
Anybody seen this before