It's beginning to look a lot like...Christmas?

It seems that no matter how far one travels, you cannot escape the over-commercialization of Christmas.  I went to the grocery store on Saturday (November 26th, two days after Thanksgiving) for my weekly comestibles, and this is what greeted me inside:

But where's the Menorah?

The Christmas display was especially surprising because China is primarily atheist, but locals I've talked to have said that more and more young people are starting to give gifts to each other to celebrate Christmas, even though they have no idea why the holiday exists.  The gifts that they commonly give are also quite unusual.  Similar to gifts given during the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), they include things like traditional white alcohol, money (from adults to children) in red envelopes, and meat.  Yes, meat.  I commonly see roast ducks and pieces of dried beef in vacuum sealed bags and packaged in red paper shopping bags ready for gift-giving.  Apparently nothing says "Merry Christmas/Happy New Year" like a bag of jerky.  I think Muir would probaby approve of this tradition.

Speaking of Muir, he is spending the week in India working in the Bangalore office, so this weekend has been especially low-key.