Well, of course it’s not.

It’s Hong Kong. It’s China. We’re in the tropics.

It’s 75 degrees and sunny. At night it might get down to 65.

Hongkongers like to make believe we’re deep into Fall now. They dress like it, anyway. The women wear boots and jackets. The men break out their sweaters and windbreakers. But it’s still warm enough to walk home at 10 p.m. at night in your polo shirt. We aren’t running the air conditioners in the apartment, but it would get hot in here if we didn’t crack the windows.
But, still, they’re making a bit of an attempt to be Christmassy — and are blowing right through Thanksgiving. Of course. Since they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving at all, over here.

Some of the signs:

Stores, some of them, are putting up Christmas-themed decorations.

–A shop up the street here, on Caine Road, has a couple of would-be reindeer in the window. To me, they look like stuffed tigers that somebody sewed some antlers on. I’m suspicious. Some re-purposed stuffed animals, I think.

–Work crews put up scads of flower pots along the “travelator” — things that bloom in the winter, that is. It gives it a bit of a festive look, as you’re being pulled along through the expat zone in Mid-Levels.

–The building I work in, the K Wah Centre, has put up a huge Santa-in-lights decoration on the west side of the building. It may have been up there for days. I didn’t notice until last night when I turned around, while leaving work, and saw it. Fairly impressive, really. And some other big buildings are putting up lights. Though it remains a minority.

–The occasional Christmassy jingle or Muzak inside the shopping malls. The songs have a holiday feel to them, but they aren’t quite any carols I know. And I know just about all of them.

–Plans to construct a 12-story high Christmas “tree” for Statue Square have been announced. It’s a chamber of commerce thing. To put us in mind of shopping, see? That part of it, the shopping, Hong Kong gets.

But, still, it feels less like Christmas here than in SoCal, even. This time of year, in Los Angeles, you get at least a chill in the air, at night. The days are getting short. You know for a fact it’s not summer.

Here, we have yet to see a night as cold as 55 degrees. I doubt it’s been under 60. I’m about to go out, early evening, Nov. 25, and I have on a sweater — and I’m worried about being too warm.

The days are shorter, yes, but this close to the equator they don’t vary all that much, year-round. Maybe 11 hours of light, heading for a low of 10.5 on Dec. 21 … as opposed to something like 9.5 hours of light in L.A. on Dec. 21 and maybe 7.5 hours in Paris, City of Light — but only electric, this time of year.

So, yeah, by comparison SoCal is “Holiday Inn” (talking the Bing Crosby movie and “White Christmas,” here) compared to HK, which is more like Honolulu.

I wonder if they actually sell more stuff, here, in December. I’ll let you know if I figure it out.