sexta-feira, 16 de novembro de 2007

Portuguese Christmas - Pessoal, ajuda precisa-se!

A newsletter do meu departamento pediu para fazer um artigo sobre o Natal Portugues. Na verdade, tou atrasada tenho que entregar isto na segunda, 19 Novembro.

Isto trata-se de uma missao de EDUCACAO aos americanos, farto demasiado exigente para uma pobre mortal como eu, logo peco-vos que revejam e lembrem-me de factos que me possam ter escapado ... (e claro que aqui esta muito do MEU Natal, peco desculpa pela generalizacao), ca vai:

The first thing to learn is the name is Portuguese - Natal -, and Santa Claus is Pai Natal, which actually means "Father Christmas".

A guess the "format" is not that different from the American one, it's a family celebration....everybody is supposed to meet on 24th at night and have a big feast. Usually there's mama and grand mama cooking with everybody else (un)helping. Actually what everybody is trying to do is to make time run fast, so midnight comes faster and it's: present time...

Yeah, I know you guys wait for 25th morning....traditionally I guess we should also wait, but guess what...we're Latin's, we don't wait, we go and unwrap it!!!

Santa is supposed to come down the chimney and leave the presents on the fireplace (there's no fireplace in my house, so the stove is the selected place).....so you usually have some kind of diversion to make kids go away from that area, so presents can be placed there! Then, my grandmother used to make noise using pans to simulate the noise of Santa coming down the chimney, and my sister would be kind of scared, kind of excited...and then very paralyzed facing the tower of colorful wrapped presents!!! (Y'all can relate?)

I can relate, I believed in Santa until 6 years old! In that year - 19...never mind! - my grandfather build me a wood miniature room (he is a carpenter) and somehow I could recognized that was build with certain bits and pieces that I saw some weeks before in his workshop (besides auditing this blondie here knows a few things about puzzles).

What I guess is a big difference is the food, on the night of 24th most of people have cod fish (some regions eat octopus on that night) and on the 25th there's a lot of different traditions along the country but mostly meat (turkey, lamb,...).........but the good, good part is the sweets/desserts...I'll leave you the photos...no words... :)

So, the 25th is basically about visiting relatives, catching up with the family and eat those amazing sweets!



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