Brazil Days 8 & 9

Merry Christmas!! Or should I say Feliz Natal!! For these days, Mimi and I celebrated Christmas Eve and Christmas at her Tia's house (Tia means aunt). We woke up on the later side, since we got home really late from the balada, and spent most of the day just hanging out and cooking. Celita, Emile's mom, made two beautiful cakes, a banana dessert, plus I taught her how to make sugar cookies. Pretty much everyone who came to Christmas brought food, so there was a looot there!

Some of the food at Christmas Eve

After that, we got ready to go to her family party and arrived around 8. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to be there around 6:30 pm, but Brazilians run on a different time. As usual, Mimi and I overdressed for the party, and I wore an outfit that Celita got me for Christmas, which was very stereotypically Brazilian.

 

When we got to the party it was still warm outside, so we spent most of the evening hanging out at her Aunt's cool backyard. They have a sweet inground pool and nice tile-y counter area with a Brazilian barbecue. It was sort of funny to me; their house was really nice, but they still didn't have a dryer or a dishwasher, which would be unheard of in the US. I also got to meet more of Mimi's cousins. A lot of them are fairly close to my age, so it's nice to hang out with them! One of them also brought a pair of VR goggles, which were being passed around the party. 

Mimi's family

After a while, everyone gathered around for a game of hot potato with a present, but I kind of struggled to understand because everyone was talking over each other, and I wasn't standing by Mimi to translate for me. Anyway, inside the present was some chocolate.

After that, Mimi's family put on a talent show. Most of it was joking and being silly. One of her cousins, named Rafael was twerking with one of her aunts, which was very funny. Some of them also danced samba and did capoeira for the talent show, which was funny because it was really stereotypical. For our portion of the talent show, Mimi, her cousin Luisa, and I danced to a funk song called "Paradinha." It was really bad because we didn't really memorize the dance, but it was still fun to do!

Mimi's cousins: Victor, Ana Nelly, and Sergio

Once that was over, we hung out for a while more until midnight, when everyone gathered around the food and prayed, and then dinner was served at midnight. A couple of Mimi's cousins also jumped in the pool at midnight. 

Next, everyone gather around to do a Secret Santa gift exchange. Since Emile's family is so big, there are too many people for everyone to give gifts to everyone, so they do a Secret Santa, or Amigo Oculto, in Portuguese. It was a lot of fun because the person giving the gift stands in the middle of the circle and gives clues about the person, and the rest of the circle tries to guess who they are talking about. I think it is a common way to do presents in Brazil. When I did mine, it was hard because I only memorized how to say one clue about my amigo oculto in Portugues, but the rest of the circle didn't get it from one clue, and I didn't really speak well enough to try and freestyle one. In the end though, they got it and it was fine! I got flip-flops and a t-shirt from my Secret Santa. I'm pretty sure flip-flops are the universal gift you get someone you don't know very well here because everyone wears them all the time!

Once Secret Santa was over, the party was pretty much over. I spend the night at Mimi's cousin's house, because we were going to wake up really early and watch the sunrise at the top of the mountain by her house called Serra do Ouro Branco. It was her cousin Victor's idea, and most of the cousins went. Going was probably one of the coolest things I've done, here, because it was really beautiful at the top. Also going up was kind of fun because the roads were really rough. At one point, one of Mimi's cousin's car got stuck in a hole, and we had to lift it out.

Once we got back to Mimi's aunt's house, we hung out for a while until about noon, when we everyone came back over for Christmas barbeque, Churrasco in Portugues. The barbeque is really good! The basically grill up meats, cut them up, and you come and take little portions of it when you are hungry. Basically, we spent all day hanging out by the pool with Mimi and her cousins, pretty much doing nothing. At one point, I tried to play a Brazilian card game called Truco, but I was told that it was too hard to learn in one day, so there was no point in me playing. I also tried to teach Mimi's mom how to do the Macarena, but she could not follow it, which was really funny because it's a super easy dance. Mimi's cousins also played a board game, which was basically charades, but I couldn't really participate in that too much. I was put on a team, and technically played, but I fell asleep where we were sitting for most of the duration of the game. 

Mimi, Celita, and me

Later in the evening, most of the older adults left, and some of Mimi's cousins ordered pizza, we played cards, and then watched a movie. One of them asked me if I was ever a Girl Scout, and thought it was really funny that I used to sell cookies, because I guess that's really stereotypical here. Regardless, it was a really fun day and a merry Christmas. It was bittersweet because I missed having snow, a real tree, and, most of all, my family, but I will always remember spending Christmas in the pool.

Boas festas!!!

Emily B :)