North Korea has expanded its ban on Christmas to include gatherings with alcohol and singing, USA Today reports.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service first reported that North Korea "has devised a system whereby party organs report people’s economic hardships on a daily basis, and it has banned any gatherings related to drinking, singing and other entertainment and is strengthening control of outside information."
In 2016, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un banned the small number of Christians in the nation from celebrating Christmas. Kim told them to celebrate his grandmother, Kim Jong-Suk, instead. Known as "the Sacred Mother of the Revolution," Kim Jong-Suk was born on Christmas Eve in 1919.
Despite the ban on the holiday, Christmas trees can still be seen around North Korea, especially in Pyongyang, though they do not show any religious symbols, most often with only lights and bulbs, according to the Associated Press.
Only last month, Kim made a similar crackdown on Mother’s Day, a holiday introduced to the country by him in 2012.
"On the significant Mother’s Day every year, all the sons and daughters of the country extend warm congratulations to the mothers bringing up their children with their love, feelings and devotion and upholding the socialist country," the country’s state news agency announced, according to USA Today.