Christmas in Portugal and Brazil

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Dec 24, 1999

Tomorrow it will be Christmas Day and before you all dig into whatever constitutes your christmas dinner, toast the coming year, open presents, laugh and have a grand old time with family and friends and sing Christmas carols, let me tell you about Christmas in Portugal and Brazil.

Christmas in Portugal is celebrated with a huge Christmas meal during Christmas eve and a lunch on Christmas day. The Christmas meal is known as consoada and is usually fish based, while the lunch on Christmas day is turkey. The Yule log is called a fogueira da consoada and burns on the hearth. The ashes are then kept and burned with pine cones later in the year during thunderstorms. Where the smoke goes from this burning it is believed that no thunderbolt will strike. Trees are decorated and can be real or artifical and are usually pine. It is decorated with very similar decorations to ours. Home decorations are popular and beautiful settings are made with dried flowers, candles. Presents are exchanged on Christmas eve.

Another custom is to scatter crumbs on the hearth to welcome the souls of the dead (alminhas a penar). The feast includes Christmas candies, carols, cakes and Port wine. It seems to remsemble ours very much, but like all countries , they have traditions that are very much their own. BOAS FESTAS AND FELIZ ANO NOVO

Christmas in Brazil

Christmas in Brazil is one of the hottest months of the year. Santa Claus is known as Papa Noel. He walks the streets and gives gifts to the children. Shoes are left outside the doors so that Papa Noel will fill them with treats and candies. Presents are hidden in the house, but before they can be opened the children must fix their parents breakfast in bed. Now there's a tradition I could make my own on Christmas Day. People attend Christmas midnight mass, bells are rung and fireworks are lit. FELIZ NATAL

I want to thank several interesting sites on the net for the information provided. You can look up these sites in the links on Christmas. Even I learned a few things, my mom never told me about.

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