Climate change is creating tougher growing seasons for Christmas trees.Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty via Inside Climate News

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

As snowflakes fall lazily from the sky, you cozy up by the fireplace and take a sip from a steaming cup of hot chocolate, humming the jaunty songs you can’t seem to get out of your head the entire month of December. 

But as temperatures rise, this quintessential winter holiday scene is transforming (in the Northern Hemisphere at least). The snowstorm you were picturing is actually more likely to be a chilly rain in many areas. Cocoa crops around the world are failing, making chocolate drinks and desserts increasingly expensive. Global warming is even coming for Rudolph, recent research shows. 

Climate change is threatening Christmas and winter traditions—and in some cases, holiday trends are fueling it. 

Holiday spirit in December is underpinned by a multitude of global supply chains churning throughout the year. And I’m not just talking about markets that support presents like clothes and electronics; many of the most lucrative Christmas commodities are grown. 

Take chocolate: As many as 6 million small-holder farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America grow and harvest 90 percent of the world’s cocoa, which go into all sorts of holiday classics—from yule log cakes to marshmallow-topped cocoa. Cacao, the plant that is processed to make cocoa, thrives in tropical climates with warm temperatures and abundant rainfall. But in 2023 and 2024, the weather was too warm and wet—then too dry—in African countries like Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana for healthy cacao crops. Yields plummeted to record lows. 

This extreme weather was........

© Mother Jones