A Brazilian Christmas

 My sister sent me a picture from Christmas in Scotland, a classic, setting the Christmas pudding on fire and trying not to burn the house down.

I meanwhile was having a Brazilian Christmas, under a bright blue sky in short sleeves and shorts, at the beginning of the austral summer and and just past the longest day of daylight just three time zones west of the rainy dark Highlands.

Of course I was better off wasn’t I, in the subtropical heat and in bright summer sun in the southern hemisphere.

And yet.  And yet…

We had been invited to a Portuguese language  Christmas lunch and for a polyglot like me the idea of spending a social afternoon with a strange family nattering in a language l don’t understand…well, a merry bloody christmas to you too. This looked like birth crucifixion death and ascension all rolled into one never mind the plain old nativity  story. I’d have paid in frankincense and myrrh to escape my fate.

It would not have been excessive to describe me as envious of my dog sprawled in the air conditioned apartment. Or of the workers keeping the complex clean on Christmas Day:

But you know what? We both agreed it was one of our best Christmases ever.  Not because the three dozen other guests spoke Portuguese, or because we had never seen “frango escondido” before, a weird creamed chicken dish made delicious with melted cheese in a huge casserole:

And then there was grace intoned by a family elder who I can only assume was not calling out thunderbolts on the tongue tied heathen in their midst, because we escaped unscathed in an Uber five and a half hours later, though we could easily have stayed longer had we not had Rusty at home alone, wondering where his Christmas dinner was. 

Alessandro, on the left above, the man who is rebuilding our electrical system in our camper had been  struck by the fact we had no plans for Christmas so when he invited us to his home we had nowhere to hide. We said yes and took a ride to his cousins house where we’d meet his extended Portuguese speaking family:

The Uber ride to his cousin’s home took half an hour, speeding along empty boulevards further and further from the heart of this weird city called Brasilia, one man’s invention  buried in a vast wooded federal district. And then we were there though we knew not where exactly.

We ate, drank and talked, went into a carb coma and played silly games just like millions of people around the world did. Except we did it in Portuguese and thanks to the easy going kind hearted Brazilians we had a bloody good time. I even learned about the rivalry between two soccer teams from Rio de Janeiro.

Alessandro’s family is all Vasco da Gama, 

…so to piss them off Alessandro nominally supports the Flamingoes. We played charades:

Alessandro’s English speaking (thank God!) cousin: 

Alessandro’s mom playing a desert breeze and a dolphin. Go figure. 

Alessandro (in black) coaching his son: 

They mined Tina loud appreciative audience: 

That’s the  Christmas Spirit  I shan’t  forget in a few years when I’m living near my sister thinking of the warm tropical Christmases past  while trying not to set light to the  tablecloth.