Christmas songs can be heard in many shops in China's big cities this year.

And everywhere there are glittering lights, pictures of Santa Claus and colourfl Christmas trees.

It seems increasingly-affluent Chinese are spending lots of money on Christmas decorations, as the Western holiday becomes more and more popular.

More than one month before the holiday, shopping centers and supermarkets in Beijing, as well as in other big cities, had started to sell various kinds of Christmas goods.

At the entrance to a Carrefour hypermarket in Beijing, there were more than 20 types of Christmas trees on display.

The smallest tree was just 20 centimeters high and can stand on a table, while the biggest was nearly 2 meters high and was priced at more than 100 yuan (US$12.3).

Several meters away, an electronic Santa Claus was dancing and greeting consumers.

Inside the store, about 100 kinds of Christmas goods, ranging from Santa hats, bells and balls to lights and Santa Claus statues, were displayed in the most prominent shelves.

Ying Jia, who works for a foreign-funded company in Beijing, picked up goods from the shelves.

"These things are not too expensive. Spending about 100 yuan (US$12.3), I will have a beautifully-decorated home for the holidays," said Ying, who plans to hold a Christmas party at home with her close friends.

And Christmas decorations can be used for more than a month, as New Year's day and the traditional Chinese Spring Festival arrive soon after Christmas, she added.

This is only the first year she intends to spend money on Christmas decorations. "I will do it every year if I have the time," she said.

Spurred on by consumers like Ying, almost every big store has set up a special counter selling Christmas products.

"These areas are increasing year by year," said Yan Guoying, an official from the information department of China General Chamber of Commerce.

Statistics from retailers reveal a huge and growing market. A child poses with an Ewenki man, who is costumed as a Santa Claus with his rein deer-drawn sleigh in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The Ewenki minority group, which once lived by hunting, now is exploring tourism for revenue.

A sales person at the Christmas goods counter in Ito Yokato, near the Asian Games Village in Beijing, said the store sold about 800 yuan (US$98.7) worth of Christmas goods each day even before the official holiday sale started last week.

Sales are getting better as the holiday approaches.

The hypermarket chain Carrefour has also seen better-than-expected sales.

"Up until December 10, sales of goods related to Christmas increased by over 50 percent compared with the same period of last year," said Wang Xiaozhong of Carrefour China.

The French retailer purchased more than 400 kinds of Christmas gifts and decorations this year for its 40 or so hypermarkets around China.

Major suppliers of Christmas goods are from the provinces of Guangzhou and Zhejiang.

In Yiwu, a small commodities manufacturing base in east China's Zhejiang Province, there are more than 300 companies producing Christmas goods.

The city has sold over 50 million yuan (US$6.1 million) worth of such goods to the domestic market this year, statistics from Yiwu Craft Association show.

"Domestic orders increased by more than 20 percent in 2005," said Zhang Zhihong, an official from Zhejiang Huachi Christmas Gifts and Crafts Co Ltd.

She said that her company's products are selling well in big cities such as Tianjin, Shenyang, Xi'an, Shanghai and Xiamen.

She expects the domestic business will grow further next year because it is still a very small part of the firm's total trade.

The company exports about 20 to 30 million yuan worth of Christmas goods a year.

However, it seems that the domestic market has limited growth potential, as most Chinese people do not take the holiday as seriously as Westerners.

A recent online poll, conducted by Sina.com and China Times, found that about 80 percent said they would enjoy Christmas.

But for most of them, Christmas is just an excuse to get together and have fun with family and friends.

Among 6,000 people surveyed, only 15 percent said they would buy holiday decorations.

Forty percent say they would buy gifts for friends, while another 40 percent said they would do nothing to prepare for the holiday.

"There are more individual buyers this year, but group purchases like hotels and restaurants remain our major clients for Christmas goods," said a manager at Hongqiao market, a famous wholesale and retail market in Beijing.

The market started selling Christmas goods four years ago and had seen the business grow.

He said hotels and restaurants spend thousands of yuan on decorations.

In the New Century Hotel in Beijing, everywhere from the lobby to the corridors are decorated with smiling Santa Claus posters and Christmas slogans. There are several Christmas trees in the hotel.

As early as the beginning of December, nearly all top hotels and many famous restaurants had started to promote their Christmas Eve events and dinners.

Tickets for various events at the five-star hotels in Beijing, such as the China World Hotel and Kerry Center, range from 200 yuan (US$24.6) to as high as 2,588 yuan (US$319) per person.

(China Daily December 23, 2005)