Christmas in July

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

But I'll take the sun and I'll take my kite,

Christmas on the beach, Christmas in July.
—Sufjan Stevens, "Christmas in July"

We all know when Christmas is, right? Late in December, just after the beginning of winter, when it's always covered in snow, right? Wrong! Christmas happens in the summer, too. It's true, some people just can't wait to get into the Christmas Spirit. So they decide to celebrate Christmas right there in the middle of July. Great concept, no?

This will often serve as the premise for Christmas Episodes in which the show takes place primarily in the summer. All the same plots, motifs, and messages of all other Christmas Episodes will still be present. In fact, expect all the characters to completely forget that it isn't actually Christmas at all.

There is some Truth in Television, as mentioned by That Other Wiki. Most holiday TV specials and movies are filmed during the summer season (so you're sweating like a pig...), and some stores do offer Christmas In July sales to get rid of all their old Christmas stock. The crafting community especially embraces Christmas in July, making all their wreaths, decorations and other Christmas crafts in July to either keep for themselves or sell at craft sales in November. Additionally, in Australia and other southern hemisphere countries, much of the imagery and conditions of Christmas in July is the default in actual Christmas, and conversely there's a tendency to hold Christmas stuff in July to take advantage of the fact that the weather then is more like traditional northern-hemisphere Christmases.

Examples of Christmas in July include:


Comic Books

  • The British comic Strangehaven is about a Quirky Town with weird characters and traditions, such as celebrating Christmas in August. The legend is that the dying wish of a little child was to live to see Christmas, so they moved it up to August.

Film

  • The story "Christmas in July" from the horror anthology NightThirst has a homicidal Santa who is inexplicably going about his business in the middle of summer.
  • Variant: in Almost Famous, one of the complaints William's sister raises before leaving home is that their mother celebrates Christmas in September to avoid consumerism.

Live Action TV

  • Lizzie McGuire: Aaron Carter makes an appearance to shoot a Christmas themed music video in Lizzie's hometown. The Christmas theme is everywhere, even though it is nowhere near Christmas.
  • All of the "Shop at Home" channels in the US (QVC, Home Shopping Network) air Christmas in July specials each year. It used to serve a more pragmatic purpose though. Many companies had long processing and delivery times ("Please allow six to eight weeks for delivery" was their mantra.) Usually when something was ordered in July, it would arrive in September or October, right about the time that Christmas shopping would start to trickle into people's minds.
  • Played for laughs in The Pacific, when Leckie returns from the hospital with presents for his friends.

Leckie: Tell Santa whether you've been naughty or nice.
Runner: The naughtiest.

  • An episode of The Basil Brush Show has Basil make everyone throw a Christmas party for Molly to cheer her up even though it is the middle of summer. As luck would have it, Santa Claus is staying in the same apartment block Basil lives in.
  • In The Story Of Tracy Beaker, the kids throw a Christmas party for Lol and Bouncer, believing that they are leaving the Dumping Ground, even though it's still summer.

Manga and Anime

  • The second Tenchi Muyo! movie, Daughter of Darkness, has the crew celebrating Mayuka's first Christmas in the summer at they very end of the movie. This was mostly because the Juraian equivalent, Starica, happened at that time. It was also because Mayuka had been reborn after her death at the end.

Radio

Web Animation

Western Animation

  • Rudolph And Frostys Christmas In July
  • Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy: No, not "Jingle Jingle Jangle". I am, of course, speaking of "Fa La La La Ed", in which Ed gets it in his mind that it's Christmas, although it's July. Of course, the idea spreads to the rest of the kids.
  • Ben 10 did have a Christmas episode in the middle of summer vacation. It involves the family discovering a portal to some Christmas World and the elves wanting Grandpa Max to be their new Santa.
  • In Garfield and Friends, Garfield pretends it's Christmas at the height of summer to take his mind off the sweltering heat. Jon and Odie join the spirit and decorate the house, confusing the neighbours, who then take it on. This snowballs until almost the entire city falls under the impression that it really is Christmas before City Hall makes an official declaration to the contrary.
  • Cartoon Network did Christmas in July marathons back in the 90's where they'd air a bunch of animated Christmas specials in July.
  • On the 2011's Christmas Special of Phineas and Ferb, the boys decide to put on a traditional Family Christmas Special in the middle of Summer.
  • In one episode of the Super Mario World cartoon, Mario and Luigi introduce Christmas to the cave people to stop them from quarreling, despite it being the middle of August. Mario justifies it by saying the cave people don't know any better.
  • In the Back to The Future The Animated Series, the Brown family and Marty decided to visit late 1800's london during Christmas to beat the heat of the present time.

Real Life

  • Real Life: in the southern hemisphere, the actual Christmas is in the summer.
    • Australian ex-pats living in the Northern Hemisphere will do this. One newspaper report had one of them commenting that "December doesn't feel like Christmas at all. It's too cold and snowy."
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