The big winner is, well, BIG; otherwise known as our version of super Wally-World which is, in fact, owned by Wal-Mart.
We were in there a week ago Saturday and there was a display with Santa statues and wire Christmas trees, the first I had seen of the season. It didn’t take long for others to catch up. A furniture store on the corner by the park put up a tree in the middle of their display couches. Last week we saw a billboard and got a flyer for this event.
I was looking forward to going. I used to attend craft shows with my mom and aunt all the time back home. While I wouldn’t consider buying half the stuff I saw, it was fun to look around at everyone’s creativity, especially when it got close to Christmas.
It feels odd, once again, to see signs of Christmas in October (although the decorations seem to come along sooner every year in the US), but that is what happens when you are in a place that doesn’t have any big commercialized holidays between now and then.
At home the Halloween décor is on its way out soon followed by Thanksgiving and the trees are sure to go up before Black Friday. Most often people still follow the "wait until Turkey day to decorate for Christmas" unspoken rule.
Oh and it also doesn’t help that it is sweltering hot here. Apparently it is even unusually hot for the area according to all our friends. Sweating your butt off everywhere you go kind of kills any warm, fuzzy thoughts of fireplaces, snowfall and St. Nick.
The expo was just okay. I was looking forward to some unique local crafts and a lot of it was vendors promoting their decorating services and boutiques selling holiday attire. Many of the cool decorations were outrageously priced. However, it was fun to look at.
Some of the displays were gorgeous. Check out these. They just say “Come on over to my house for a holiday dinner.” I love decorating for the holidays in blue tones. Beautiful!
Oh and it also doesn’t help that it is sweltering hot here. Apparently it is even unusually hot for the area according to all our friends. Sweating your butt off everywhere you go kind of kills any warm, fuzzy thoughts of fireplaces, snowfall and St. Nick.
The expo was just okay. I was looking forward to some unique local crafts and a lot of it was vendors promoting their decorating services and boutiques selling holiday attire. Many of the cool decorations were outrageously priced. However, it was fun to look at.
Some of the displays were gorgeous. Check out these. They just say “Come on over to my house for a holiday dinner.” I love decorating for the holidays in blue tones. Beautiful!
What has been surprising to us is how Christmas is decorated for the exact same way here as it is at home. What I mean is all the decorations are of snowmen and teddy bears with scarves and earmuffs.
We’ve asked our friends about this and the explanation we’ve gotten is that this is the Christmas fantasy. They watch movies and see ads with the wintery, warm-by-the-fire Christmas’ that are common in the US and Europe and that is Christmas to them, just like it is to us.
I like it, of course, because it reminds me of home. However, it would take me living here for decades before I could adjust to a hot Christmas. It is amazing how those things become engrained in our brains and emerge into associations that just can’t be broken.
9 comments:
Christmas is my hardest adjustment in Brazil. Besides the hot weather (which for me is not such a big deal - I was born in Tucson), there are other differences. First, they celebrate on the 24th and the 25th is no big deal. The songs, parties, caroling, tree decorating, cookies, etc. just don't exist. My husband's family does not have any set traditions for Christmas, so I have just tried to continue with a few here. I make Christmas cookies and got a fake tree from the US (the ones in Brazil are pitiful and uber-expensive) and try to make a nice Christmas dinner. It just does not feel like Christmas if I don't do some of these things. Fortunately my husband endulges me. I look forward to a few post-docs in the US to show him what Christmas is like.
That said, there is something to be said for spending Christmas week louging on the beach!!
Curitiba apparently has some really neat Christmas things, like a great choir performance, I have watched it on TV.
corinne - Thanks so much for sharing. How interesting! I had no idea about the differences in the actual celebrations. We try to ask those types of questions to our Brazilian friends and the response is always very vague.
We felt a bit of the same way about Easter here. We were expecting more celebrating and found it to be very uneventful.
I am so glad you are able to celebrate in some of the ways you are used to. I would miss those things so much! I'd like to experience a Christmas here, but I am just too close with my family. I have to go home for it. In my mind it really isn't an option. I knew that before I agreed this experience though.
I do agree with you about the beach. For the past 4 years we have taken a Caribbean vacation the week before Christmas and it is the perfect time!
Christmas stuff is going up here in the stores as well. It just seems ridiculously early!
Hollywood has definitely shared the Northern Hemisphere vision of Christmas with the world...here they also have the traditional cold-weather symbols, which is weird when it's so hot. Last year it just felt strange having Christmas in summer, but this year we're going to England, so we'll get the cold that I'm more used to!
Though my heart does ache at the thought of being away from my family and traditions at the holidays, it comforts me to know that when I do go (I live now assuming that my life will be there shortly, im hoping it will make the transition a little easier for me, haha) at least I will have some similarities for Christmas :) Thanks Lori!
Emily, Lori,
Remember that Christmas was introduced in Brazil by the European immigrants and they brought the traditions just like they were in Europe, a typical winter holiday.
On another note, just for your information, Sam's has been putting Christmas stuff for sale on September 1st! I have seen Christmas stuff at Sam's as early as late August, they usually sell the big expensive decoration stuff first.
My mother tells me that the real hot decoration items are usually gone by the end of September!
And another interesting fact is that due to the current credit and economic crisis in the US, Lay away is back big time in most retailers!
Ray
Corinne,
It really is impressive how different experiences in Brazil can be...
When we lived in Sao Paulo, we were amazed with the abundance of Christmas decorations, people spent so much money on Tree decorating, Door ornaments, we heard Christmas songs all the time, all of their Christmas was really overwelming to us, once in New England people are really conservative with spending money and we were not used to see all spending on decorations and we were invited to many parties and introduced by a lot of Christmas traditions in Sao Paulo, we have Christmas recipes from Brazil that we make up to this day, would love to share them with you.
May be you could introduce your Brazilian family to some Brazilian Christmas traditions unknown to them.
Please let me know if you are interested and we will send some Brazilian Christmas your way!
Ray
emily - I'm so excited for your England trip! That sounds like a great place to spend the holidays. I can't wait to read your posts about it!
stephanie - The decorations will definitely remind you of home. They are comforting to me for sure.
ray - Sept. 1st? Wow, that is definitely the earliest I've heard of. Maybe it is the economy thing.
ray,
The lack of Christmas of my husband´s family has a little to do with social class (they are from the favela) and a lot to do with the fact that the matriarch (my mother-in-law) passed away about a year and a half before I became part of the family. My husband´s family does the traditional Christmas eve dinner, with Chester and lombo and usually makes one dessert. Presents are for the kids, but I get the distinct impression that my mother-in-law was the big Christmas person. And now that we live in another state, all the more reason for no family Christmas.
It is just such a change from my family, because Christmas meant basically a week of holidays - Christmas, Boxing Day, my Mom´s birthday and New Years, with MANY cookies, stollen, herring salat, etc. I would be interested in more Brazilian traditions.
Corinne,
I totally undestand, I think even in the US we have so many families with different backgrounds and different traditions.
Like I said before, New England is very low key in everything we do, nothing like a Texas Christmas for example, when we lived in Dallas it was an overwhelmingly different experience.
Ray
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