Caracas celebrates its traditional Christmas Santa amid tension with the U.S.

Venezuelans attended this Monday’s meeting with the Santa from Caracas, a tradition that is 35 years old, amid a Christmas again brought forward from October 1st by government decree and the tension with the U.S. after the U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean and Donald Trump’s warning that Venezuelan airspace should be considered “closed”. As every December 1st, children gathered from 6:00 local time (10:00 GMT) in Caracas to deliver their letters with the gifts they hope to receive at Christmas, in a city that tries to maintain normality despite the tension surrounding the country due to the US military deployment, denounced by the Government as an attempt to promote a change of regime. The little ones took photos with Gilberto Sánchez, who has personified Santa since 2018 and inherited the role that his friend Ramón Canela started in 1990. After Canela’s death, Sánchez took on the character and keeps the tradition intact this Christmas.

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“This is very important because it’s a tradition. It’s already an icon of Caracas, where you bring a lot of happiness, a lot of joy to the children. They come out the window, stick out their hands, touch the horn (speaker), passersby stop to take photos, because Christmas has begun,” Sánchez told EFE. Dayana Gámez attended the meeting, bringing her children and grandchildren, as she claims to do every year, and asked for this 2025 that the situation in Venezuela improves, which remains on alert and has reinforced its military defenses and has called for the enlistment of civilians in the face of the “threat” that, according to the Government, represents the US naval deployment in the Caribbean. “Ask God that this situation improves. Above all that, that it improves. Because Christmas is really beautiful,” Gámez told EFE. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced in September the early start of Christmas, as he has done in previous years since coming to power in 2013, arguing that it is a “formula” that has worked “very well for the economy, for culture” and “for joy.”