Santa is coming and China takes a lot more notice

"Since we only have a Western-style restaurant in the hotel, we rated the Christmas menu higher than others," said Stefie Ma, marketing communications manager of the hotel.

Burdigala, a cozy wine bar located in Jing'an district, posted a Christmas menu at 298 yuan per head. Franck Boudot, its owner, said more than 60 percent of the seats were booked.

Jimmy's Kitchen Shanghai, a popular restaurant among white-collar workers, has launched three special traditional European style menus for Christmas Day lunch priced at 488 yuan. Meals on Christmas Eve are 688 yuan and on New Year's Eve 788 yuan, excluding 15 percent service charge.

Decorating houses with Christmas ornaments is not just popular with expatriates in Shanghai. Liang Jinghua, 58, a retired anesthetist, has decorated her home with everything appropriate she can think of for the past five yuletides.

Her crockery has a Christmas theme at this time of year and she puts out pine boughs, pine cones, bells, ribbons, seasonal plants at 140 yuan each and has a green and red tablecloth. She also planted a real cedar in her garden as a Christmas tree. Every item is of good quality and costly.

However, Wang Yang, founder of her own design brand YAANG, said sales of Christmas-related products were selling much worse than expected.

"We have imported special candelabra, calendars and small glass ornaments to hang on Christmas trees but, to tell the truth, they are not well received, even during sales," she said.

"Chinese customers take it for granted they can pay less than 10 yuan for a small Christmas ornament thanks to the rapid development of the crafts market in Yiwu and other places. They think a 50-plus yuan ornament is way beyond acceptance. There is still a lack of tradition or culture for this extremely Western festival," she said.

To her Christmas is another opportunity for Chinese retailers to solicit more customers.

"Christmas is super busy in most Chinese cosmopolitan cities," she said.

It is certainly true at Chujian Flower Shop in Guangzhou. Gu Yidan, its founder, said many customers check the price of Christmas wreaths but few order one.

"Sales during Chinese Valentine's Day are way much better. It is still a Western festival after all," she said.

Contact the reporters at shijing@chinadaily.com.cn and lixinzhu@chinadaily.com.cn