Christmas warms up chilly winter in Hanoi, Vietnam

The celebration of Christmas and New Year is warming up the extraordinarily chilly winter in Vietnam's capital Hanoi.

Christmas has become more and more popular in Vietnam these days, especially among young people. Although most of the young don't know the exact meaning and origin of Christmas, the holiday provides Vietnamese people with a great opportunity to have a good time with friends and families, said a teenager to Vietnam News online newspaper on Monday.

Since the beginning of December 2013, streets, cafeterias, companies and offices have "put on new clothes" featured with Christmas's traditional red and white colors.

Christmas trees, decorations, flashing lights, ribbons and other holiday items are easy to be found and bought in the Old Quarter's Hang Ma street in the capital.

Local people who buy these items to decorate their houses and offices hope to bring Christmas spirit closer, although they may have never seen real snow or Santa Claus in their lives, Labor online newspaper reported.

Customers are also offered a variety of promotion programs specially designed for Christmas holiday at many restaurants, parks and trade complexes, among others, in the city, it said.

The most thriving service during Christmas is expected to be Santa Claus' gift delivery. Le Thi An, a shop owner providing gift delivery services, told local newspaper Capital Security on Monday that due to this year's sluggish economic situation, the price of the service is kept reasonable at approximately 100 Vietnamese dong (4.73 U.S. dollars), which is suitable for the customers' tight budgets.

Christmas and yearend also provide occasions for charity groups to speed up their activities. Le Thi Duong Thuy, from a charity group named "Connecting hearts," told Vietnam's state-run Radio Voice of Vietnam (VOV) on Monday that charity groups speed up the activities during holidays and yearend occasions because during the time, patients, including children patients, feel homesick. Through the work of the group, patients and their family members could feel the love and care of the whole society, Thuy said.

Simple gifts such as sweets, balloons and warm blankets could still bring smiles onto the faces of the unlucky children in Vietnam's cold winter morning, VOV reported.