My first christmas away from home really began on Christmas eve at about 9:00, when the extended family members began to arrive at my house. Then there was music and conversation until midnight. As soon as 12:00 arrived conversations ended as everyone was greeted with a "feliz natal" and a hug from there neighbor. Afterwards the party moved to the kitchen, where lots of tradicional Brazilian holiday foods like turkey and chicken, special salads and noodles, and of course, the ever-present rice-and-beans had been waiting. After the meal we all participated in a gift exchange, for which I had already bought a small backpack to give away and from which I received a Brazillian t-shirt (with English writing on it... oh well). After the gift exchange people gradually began to leave to go home and get some sleep, and I watched soccer on tv with some of the young adults until they too tired and left for home.The following Christmas day was mainly spent cleaning out the church and getting ready for the Christmas service, after wich Dani and I rode the metro in to Brasilia to spend Christmas night with David and Sheralynn at Ottis and Betty's house.
New Years Eve was spent in the church. The service began at around nine thirty and went until about 11:45. At that point, everyone got on there knees and began to pray a prayer that lasted up until 12:15. Afterwards was another gift exchange, this time with the whole church, and after that more food. Things wound down by around three when people began to leave for home.
Overall christmas was spent without much of the commercialization of North American Christmas, with less emphasis on gift-giving and more emphasis on being together with familiy and freinds, and though it was definately not the same as spending Christmas with my familiy back home, it was still a great time and the people there made me fell right at home.
