Christmas and New Years in Hortolandia

I spent the holidays with my friend and her family in the city of Hortolandia in the state of Sao Paolo. I arrived there a few days before Christmas so everybody was busy getting ready for Christmas. I went with my friend to city center to buy gifts and the place was packed. There was hardly anywhere to walk. All the stores were crowded. I could not imagine how it would have been in a bigger city. Christmas here in Brazil is one of the biggest holidays and is a time of great celebration. It is also a time for getting together with family and unfortunately a time of over indulgence.

The family I was staying with consisted of mother, father and three adult children. One of the children my friend lives in Abadiânia with me, the other female lives at home and the older child, the son is recently married and lives 20 minutes away. The Christmas dinner was held at the son’s home on the 25th in the night. Traditionally, Christmas is celebrated on the 24th at midnight. At that time people eat a huge Christmas dinner and open presents.

Given that family I stayed and I are vegetarians we did not have traditional, Brazilian Christmas dinner. The traditional meal consists of a lot of meat and in particular turkey. One traditional food that we did enjoy was panetone. This food is very similar to fruit cake. The really cool thing about panetone is the way it sold. They are usually sold in a bright colored box to match the festivities of the season. It’s like a gift box with a little cake inside. Many years ago, when I spent Christmas in Peru I was introduced to panetone, but I did not particularly like it because of the dried fruits. This experience with panetone was totally different! Now, panetone comes with either chocolate chips or dried fruits. The chocolate panetone is called chocotone. I totally enjoyed the chocotone because it was like eating cake with chocolate chips, and I love chocolate.

There was one downside to Christmas in Brazil. As you know Brazil is in the southern hemisphere, so this time of year is also summertime. Besides being summer, it is also the rainy season for many areas. For the two weeks that I was in Hortolandia, the rained probably most of the time and two of the days it rained was Christmas and New Years. I love the rain but it sort of put a damper on the holiday for me. I am used to having either sun or snow for the holiday season.

The New Year’s tradition in Brazil I think is more or less similar to many places in the world. We went to church at sunset to welcome the New Year. After the church service, the church had a large feast with fruits, nuts and bread, which is a tradition in the church. The family that I stayed with had a laid back family dinner and watched the New Year's concert and fire works on television. The rain dampened everyone’s enthusiasm to leave the house.

One New Year’s tradition in Brazil has to do with cloths. It is a tradition to welcome the New Year, in white. Usually all garments of cloths is white down to the underwear. This tradition helped explain why many of the clothing stores had mannequins dressed in white in the store windows.

I have to say all in all, Christmas and New Year was good. Even though I was not with my biological family, I felt like I was with family, because the family made me feel right at home and welcomed. Thanks to the Gonçalves Family!