“Acting President” of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez on Thursday announced that Christmas season will begin on “November 1” — continuing a bizarre tradition started by her former boss, deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Since 2013, and for almost every subsequent year outside of a few exceptions, Venezuela, a majority Catholic nation, has not been able to observe a traditional Christmas period. Normally, Christians all over the world celebrate Christmas across a four-week period every December known as Advent, beginning four Sundays before Christmas to commemorate and celebrate the arrival of Jesus Christ on Earth.
Throughout the nearly 13 years that he was in power, Nicolás Maduro unilaterally altered the start of Christmas season as he saw fit, often utilizing the festive joy that comes with the Christmas season to mask the heinous atrocities and human rights violations committed by his socialist regime, or to divert attention from the collapse of socialism in the embattled South American nation, leading to what is now known as the worst migrant crisis in the Western Hemisphere.
While Rodríguez had initially given no indication that she would uphold Maduro’s Christmas “tradition,” the “acting president” and current leader of the socialist regime announced that Christmas in Venezuela will begin in November during her speech at the annual Assembly of the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce in Caracas. Rodríguez appeared to justify her decision on the grounds that the Christmas season generally comes with an increase in economic activity in Venezuela — one of the reasons Maduro used to justify moving forward Christmas in 2025.
“I’m announcing that Christmas kicks off on November 1 because I know that Christmas not only boosts economic activity but, above all, brings happiness to Venezuelans, both men and women,” Rodríguez said.
“So, in this spirit and with this vision of what we want for our Venezuela, I thank you, congratulate you, and invite you to continue working to ensure the strong Venezuela to which we are dedicated,” she continued.
Rodríguez issued the announcement just a few hours after U.S. prosecutors unveiled new charges against Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, accusing the pair of heading a state-sponsored system of repression that led to the brutal and extremely inhumane torture of numerous victims, including several American citizens. Maduro and Flores have remained detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn since U.S. forces arrested them in January during a law enforcement operation in Caracas. The pair is expected to face trial in June 2027 on multiple drug trafficking charges.
The “acting president” recently visited the United States to participate in the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, meeting with President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the U.N. event in New York. Rodríguez, who once said that imposing socialism in Venezuela was a “personal revenge” over the death of her Marxist terrorist father Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, made no mention of her former boss or socialism during her U.N. speech. Instead, she availed herself of the opportunity to thank President Trump for his administration’s willingness to restore ties and cooperation with Venezuela. Rodríguez also praised the historic oil deal recently signed between the two nations.
Rodríguez did not visit Maduro during her stay in New York, even though her former boss was just a few miles away from the U.N. headquarters.
Maduro last brought forward Christmas in September 2025 — roughly four months before his arrest. At the time, he ordered that Christmas season in Venezuela had to begin on October 1. In 2024 he also decreed that Christmas had to begin in October, but at the time, the now-deposed dictator claimed that it was his way to express “gratitude” to Venezuelans for having “won” in the highly fraudulent sham presidential elections earlier that year.
Typically, Maduro would announce his yearly orders to bring forward Christmas during one of the many television shows he hosted on state-owned media, or during a mandatory national broadcast. Unlike Maduro, Rodríguez does not currently host a television, radio, or podcast show at press time.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.