Hi everyone,
Today I want to tell you how people use to celebrate Christmas in Brazil - a place where this date is really hot and what we have is an unmerciful sun instead of snow or cold weather!
On Christmas in the South of Brazil (at least in Florianópolis) we usually have about 30º degree Celsius (about 86 Fahrenheit) but the feels like it's 35º. So, we have to turn on the fan or air conditioning and take cold showers! Because of that, many families like to go to the beach on Christmas day. I don't want to see how people survive on Christmas in the Northeast of Brazil.
Some of the families like to wish "Merry Christmas" early on the 24th, but I think most of the families prefer to wait for midnight to have dinner and wish it! It's really common to meet the relatives and have dinner together on 24th.
Where I live a true Christmas three is not common, and people buy an artificial Christmas tree. Like this:
Yeah! Even in those high temperatures, any people insist putting up snowmen, even if they never saw one in real life.
The Christmas meal uses to be plentiful. Brazilians use to cook a chicken, turkey or the famous "chester"! It's very common to have rice, beans, french fries, farofa and salad (like maionese).
Chester is a chicken created in the state of Santa Catarina - in Brazil. This kind of chicken is bigger than the traditional chicken and there is more meat and less fat. According to this site you can see the difference between a common chicken and a chester regarding their size
Maionese and Farofa are typical plates in Brazil, I think maionese is similar to potato salad or kartoffel salat in Germany. It's really delicious! Here a photo of farofa:
Another really interesting thing on Christmas is that people commonly do something called "Secret Friend" in families, companies, school, etc... People randomly draw papers with names and you have to buy a present for that person you had drawn. Nobody knows who has drawn whose name. Then, on Christmas or a few days earlier people meet and make a circle and they'll start giving hints of their secret friend until somebody discovers who it is. After that, the person who bought the gift will give his secret friend the present.
So, that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed this post.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas!