Keep dreaming, it won't be a white Christmas this year

Paris

IN a season traditionally associated with ice-skating, snowball fights and mulled wine in wintry Europe, birds are chirping, flowers blooming and fake snow is covering Alpine ski slopes in one of the warmest Decembers on record.

In Finland, normally one of the coldest places on Earth with December temperatures in the minus, the mercury hit a record 10.3 degrees Celsius in the capital Helsinki on Sunday.