It’s not a happy time in Venezuela where due to the Socialist implosion of its economy under Chavez and Maduro, there’s no milk or toilet paper. So you can forget about Christmas.

“Christmas is dead,” says Elise Belisario, who, like many Venezuelans, can’t afford to hang decorations or make a traditional holiday meal this year.

Where Christmases past brought exuberant decorations and balconies drenched in lights, this year Petare’s streets are drab and dark.

“There’s just not enough money. We’ve switched off Christmas,” said Belisario, a 28-year-old with two kids who recently lost her job.

“We were rich and we didn’t even know it,” said Belisario.

At a nearby shop, cashier Olga Gonzalez, 50, dejectedly picks up the nearly empty piggy bank she has dressed up in a little Santa Claus suit in hopes of getting some traditional Christmas tips.

But there are no customers to leave them.

“People are more worried about buying food than giving gifts this year,” she said.

Venezuela, which has lots of oil, was so beaten down by Socialism that it’s now in the middle of a food crisis.

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