Fireworks
We like fireworks. So when we heard that fireworks are a big part of life here in Sao Paulo, our initial reaction was..."Hey, that's great." Then one of the local soccer teams won a game. (Not the championship, just a game.) Well you'd have thought that it was the Fourth of July! Next Sunday, the same team lost, but ended up winning the division because the number two team also lost--so more fireworks. Then there was Christmas Eve. Never in my life have I witnessed so many flashes of fireworks. It went from about 10:30 until 2:00AM! Brazilians prefer fireworks that make noise to fireworks that make light, so while you see about 50 flashes every minute, you hear hundreds of the loudest pops and bangs you can imagine. Apparently, it's tradition for just about everyone to buy a few fireworks and light them off for family and friends. On New Year's Eve we were invited over to the home of some friends on our street who work at PACA. They had a dozen or so fireworks of their own. New Year's is supposed to be the biggest fireworks day of the year, but after four hours of non-stop noise and light at Christmas, it was really hard to tell that this was so much more impressive. Then, in January the Sao Paulo club team became world soccer champions and it started all over again. We now routinely sleep through fireworks as we still hear some almost every day (or night). One of the many things that makes life in Brazil so much different from life in North America.
Christmas south of the Equator
As we mentioned before, if there is anything in Brazil that reminds us of North America it's the mall. We were hoping to maintain one of our Christmas traditions of eating Chinese food on Christmas Eve. "No problem" we thought. After all, this city is enormous. Surely we'll have no problem finding a Chinese food restaurant open on Christmas Eve. However, it was not to be. In Brazil the real celebration begins BEFORE the actual holiday does. Absolutely NOTHING was open on Christmas Eve--all day, not just after 5:00 PM. However, it shocked us to see that about 50% of businesses were open for business by noon on Christmas Day. So while we didn't get our Chinese food, we did get some nice pictures of the malls which were beautifully decorated and lit up despite the fact that the parking lots were empty. This mall - Interlar is where we bought our sofa.
This picture is of the inside of a different mall. It's from a few days earlier, but it gives a nice idea of the seriousness of the season at the malls. If you were here you'd be very surprised that the malls are about the only place that you see good Christmas decorations. There is no place we know of where you can go and admire the decorations other than the mall. Of course, Sponge Bob isn't exactly our idea of the "true spirit of Christmas." But it was fun, nonetheless.
Ah, Christmas Day! We have lots of pictures of the kids opening presents, but I chose this picture because there just aren't a lot of pictures of Cary on this blog and he got the most Brazilian gifts--a Guia (road map) of Sao Paulo and this tennis racquet. Only it's not a tennis racquet. It's a mosquito zapper! You press a button on the handle which sends a strong electric current through the wires. Then you swat at a mosquito and if you hit him, he gets electrocuted. They actually sizzle and smoke! Sweet revenge, considering that we get bitten as much as five times per night due to the ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes here.
The Nutcracker
One of the advantages of living in such a large city is the opportunity to take in cultural events that small cities and towns can't provide. We were told that the ballet does the Nutcracker every year at Christmas. The cost to attend was only a fraction of what it would cost in North America. The quality of the program was quite good--better than I expected. The girls had never been to the ballet before, and for Shannon and I, it brought back some great memories from Philadelphia.
Christmas preparations
Whether we were really prepared or not, Christmas was fast approaching. We were able to bring a few (small or foldable) Christmas items with us, but we had neither the time or money to go out and buy new Christmas decorations. (We really miss the snowmen we've collected over the years from Sue O'Connor.) So we did the best we could with what we had. We all hung our stockings, then we set out to buy a Christmas tree. 
Of course, we knew that we weren't going to find a freshly cut blue spruce, but we figured a nice, artificial spruce would suffice. However, we nearly gagged when we saw that a "decent" North-American-looking tree costs about $500 (Cdn)! We ended up settling for a little juniper-variety tree from Wal-Mart. At least we didn't have to be concerned about our lack of ornaments.
Charlie Brown would have been proud! We got lots of laughs looking at this tiny tree, but it sure helped to make the house seem more like home at Christmas time.
The "FAY-DA"
One of the most interesting things we encountered here was the street market. There is a street market within walking distance just about every day of the week. Each one has it's own set of vendors, products, and character. These pictures are of the Thursday market (known here as the "quinta-feira" which is the Brazilian word for Thursday - original, isn't it?) After checking out several feiras, Shannon has concluded that Thursday feiras are the best. They are loud, with vendors literally shouting over each other in Portuguese to get you to buy their goods. Sometimes they will shout that they've just lowered their prices, so the guy next to him will shout that he lowered his more. It's as much theatre as it is commerce, I think. Of course, there are better reasons than entertainment to go to the "fay-das," you won't find lower prices at any grocery store than you can find here. A 10 Kg bag of limes goes for about $3.00 (Canadian), bananas, papaya, mangoes and oranges are always cheap there. Sometimes you get a great deal on vegetables too. On this day, Shannon was taking pictures so one of the vendors selling fish offered to let Kilah pose with one of his "beauties." On another occasion, I went with Shannon and the girls to the Friday feira, but it wasn't as interesting. However, when they saw me with Shannon they assumed we must be rich, so several kids came up to us asking for money. They're quite happy to get 25 centavos (about 12 cents) so it doesn't cost a lot to make some kids happy. What made us laugh was that Shannon never got asked for money before I showed up. It's a great place to learn the language and culture, and despite stories that there are theives everywhere there, we have never felt unsafe or threatened there at all.