Venezuela’s Christmas Moved To November By President

Venezuela’s Christmas has been moved to November by the country’s President, Nicolas Maduro, who revealed his decision by simply wishing his country’s citizens a “merry early Christmas” on Saturday.

Maduro then began the festive celebrations by turning on the Nativity lights at his presidential palace. But why did the Venezuelan president decided to defy the calendar in such a bizarre manner? Well, Maduro announced that he simply wanted to bring “happiness for everyone.” Fox News Latino also announced that Maduro’s generosity will now see early Christmas bonuses released to public employees by December 1.

Critics have been quick to note that Maduro’s decision has only been reached due to the fact that the country is set to hold municipal elections next month. Actually, they’re scheduled for just a week after the date that the bonuses will have reached employee’s bank accounts, on December 8 to be precise. But that’s only a coincidence, isn’t it?

Maduro has only been in power for just six months, having inherited the position after the death of Hugo Chavez back in March, and people have described his tenure as “rocky with no honeymoon.” Since he came into power, Venezuela has been engulfed with food shortages, electricity blackouts, a faltering economy, and a toilet paper shortage.

During a televised speech, Maduro commented, “Early Christmas is the best vaccine for anyone who wants to make things up, anyone who wants to stir up trouble and violence.”

Last week, Maduro sought to raise the level of happiness throughout the country by introducing the Deputy Ministry of Supreme Social Happiness. Maduro defended this creation, by remarking, “It’s provocative to make it a ministry, right?”

He then went on to add, “That’s the main message I wanted to give here. Let’s be happy and make others happy too.”

However, Venezuela is often ranked as one of the happiest nations in the world, when these lists are compiled. With this news, and the rescheduling of Christmas, surely the Ministry of Supreme Happiness’ job just got made a lot easier then.

Earlier this year, Maduro even tried to blame his country’s current problems on Spider-Man, stating, “This kid, at 14 years old, carries a 9mm with a mind filled by thousands of hours of shows where people are killed. I start to think how many thousands of hours of violence that kid will have consumed, in the end, stimulated by consumerism and violence when he grabs a 9 mm and goes to kill.”

He then added that all of this came to him after watching Spider-Man 3 on television. “That’s the trouble, from the beginning until the end there are more and more dead,” he remarked, “And that’s one of the series small children love most… because it’s attractive, it’s from comics that are attractive, the figure, the colors and movements… so much so that we finished watching it at four in the morning.”

[Image via Hasloo Group Production Studio/Shutterstock]