We're Ready

Okay, we've made our cookies for the big guy.......

.....and also left carrots out for his reindeer.

We've also had some time to spend with our neighbors to wish them a Merry Christmas.  Our new neighbors Abelardo, Jane and their granddaughter Maria Eduarda........

......and Dona Amelia.  We lived in her house for five and a half years before we moved in July. 

We've tracked Santa on the internet at the "official site" (very cool......if you have small kids then you need to check it out).........

..........and personally visited and ....... 

........shared our list with him before he left the North Pole. 

Or at least waved at him if we weren't quite ready to sit in his lap.  

We've had our Christmas nap.........  

..........and even done our Christmas stomach exercises to properly prepare for the good meals to come. 

It's Christmas and it makes us feel like dancing. We can't help it. 

We are officially ready for Santa.  

Summer Christmas

It took a couple of years to get used to it,  but we have come to love Christmas in the summer time.  We actually planned our recent furlough to end in time for us to get back home to have our Christmas here.  There are lots of things that we love about wearing shorts and a tee shirt during the Christmas season.  But today was one of those days when we long for a wintery Christmas. 

 

Today was about 95 degrees.  Horrible is the word we would use to describe days like this.  

Why?  Because Brasilian homes aren't built with central heat and air.  The heat gets in your house and stays.  You sweat as much inside as you do outside. We have some window air units but to run them a lot cost too much.  In fact, you can use them for a while and cool off a room but the room gets stinking hot within a few minutes after you turn it off.  

Thankfully this new house we moved into has screens on the windows so you can at least catch a breeze, if there is one, without letting ginormous mosquitos in to snack on you during the night.  They like to wake you up at night with buzzing in your ear.  I know God made them but I hate them.  

Even though we have some super hot days we don't let it slow us down in the things we do day to day.  

Here's a little play by play of our day today. 

Last night Benay told Anderson he could pick the breakfast for today.  He woke up today and stated his breakfast choice was champagne and fondue.  We had cream of wheat and toast instead.

 

Then it was time to make some Christmas cookies for our little friend, Maurício's, birthday.

Then Leni and Jorge dropped by.  They brought Ansley home.  She had spent the night with them.  Leni's next door neighbor had sent some Christmas presents for Carys, Anderson and Giovanni.  

We think Giovanni liked his horse.  

We then went to Freitas and Auristela's hardware store to deliver Maurício's birthday presents.

After lunch everyone either tried to stay cool under a ceiling fan by moving as little as possible........

.........or by not moving at all.  

Garrett then went to a birthday party.  He called about 30 minutes after he got there and asked if we could pick him up.  He NEVER wants to be picked up early.  What was the difference this time?  Ten girls at the party and only one boy.......Garrett.  

Everybody then cooled off in the backyard with a water balloon fight. 

After the water fight everyone came in for showers.  After his shower Anderson dressed himself.  We heard Ansley laughing and telling him to come and show me and Benay.  He came into our room looking like this.  

Somehow he picked out a long sleeve shirt and thought it was pants.  He quickly wanted to take it off because he said, "It's minty on my legs."

It may be hot but we stay busy.  

Rain and a cold front are expected to come through next week.  Amen.   

Christmas Traditions

This is our 8th Brasilian Christmas.  We have quite a few traditions that our family participates in during the Christmas season. 

One of the things we started a few years ago is to have a Christmas party.  It's always a "Dirty Santa" party.  If you've never heard of that it's a party where everyone brings a unmarked present and they are put under the tree.  Then everyone draws a number.  Number one gets to pick a present first.  The second person can then steal that present or pick a new one.  That goes on until the last one chooses.  One present can only have three owners.  After the third owner it can't be stolen again and it stays with that person.  If not for that rule, we would be playing until two in the morning every year. 

We always invite people from the house church that meets in our house and encourage everyone to invite someone new.  Last night we had our party.  Four new people participated who had never been a part of our house church before.  

We let the little guys go first and just trade their presents.  Dirty Santa would get pretty ugly if we let the 1, 2 and 5 year olds play. 

Then the adults play and start picking the presents. 

Some people steal and end up with just what they wanted.  Like Carys, and her chocolate. 

Others aren't so lucky.  Like Flavia (in the pink shirt) and her machete. Yes a machete. 

Actually she lost the machete as it was stolen. Twice.  What was given as a joke ended up being a serious present.  I love this picture because of the fact that everyone is cracking up.  This is one of my favorite pictures from the party.  The smiling and laughing by everyone is a great snapshot (even if our snapshots were all blurry for some reason last night) of what these nights are like.  

Then you have people that just surprise you.  On the left is our neighbor.  It was her first time to play.  She picked these blue Christmas hand towels.  She immediately said, "I hate these towels!"  She was hoping to keep anyone else from picking them.  She was a quick learner as she figured out that if you show joy with your gift then someone is sure to steal it.  

Her gift was stolen.  She was then reminded that she could get her husband to steal it back and it would be theirs to keep.  Only thing was he didn't want to be a part of the plan.  He's the one in the blue shirt right across from her.  He finally agreed after she took off her shoe and threatened to throw it at him if he didn't go along with it.  

There is always someone that surprises you and it's always fun. 

I think the thing I like the best is that we, as a house church family, get to be Christ to people who are coming for a fun Christmas party.  What a great way to share the love of Jesus.  

We had a great time. 

Christmas

If you've followed this blog through a past Christmas or two then you know that our family LOVES this time of year.  

It's hard not to when you spontaneously have big kids reading Christmas books to the little kids in the house......

We are blessed. 

Dirty Santa

A few years ago Benay and I began to have a Christmas party in our house. We found it to be a great way to end the year with people who had studied the Bible with us during the year and people in the house church that meets in our house. It is also a great way to invite new people to begin to get to know Jesus through friendships with our already Christian family.

We had another party in December. When we first began to have the party we explained to everyone that it would be a Dirty Santa party. They looked at us like we were from Mars. So we had to explain the rules of Dirty Santa (you might know it as White Elephant or Dirty Christmas).

The Brasilians jumped right on it and they always have a great time with it.

If you know how to play it, you know how much fun it is because sometimes people end up with what they want (like a coffee mug from the World's Greatest Soccer team)....................and sometimes they don't (like a grown man getting a baby doll......courtesy of my designated present chooser Carys). But the good thing about the game is that you can usually find a way to get rid of something............and no matter what, you have fun.

And sometimes people take the stage for a little dance time. On her first day here my mom asked if Anderson's battery ever runs down. We told her no. He wakes up and goes hard all day (he is an extreme extrovert and big time conversationalist), and then tells you he's ready for bed and he'll be out about 30 seconds after his head hits the pillow. He normally goes to bed between 8-9. This video shows what a lot of extra people can do to an extrovert a couple of hours after his bedtime. In the video you can hear the Brasilians calling him a "sambista" which means someone who dances the samba (a typical Brasilian dance).

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

We were even blessed with a big fireworks show that someone had in our neighborhood. Yes, that is our lit up palm tree in our front yard on the left and our little welcome Santa on the right. That is as wide as our front yard gets. We always have a great time as we enjoy food, fun and fellowship. This year we had 6 people participate who haven't yet given their lives to Christ. I love how God can use a party game like "Dirty Santa" to begin to share his love to those who don't know Him.

Christmas in July

One of the weirdest things for us when we first moved here was to have Christmas in the summer. To take a picture with Santa in shorts at Christmas time just felt weird that first time.If you know our family very well you know that we now LOVE Christmas in Brasil. We plan on spending the next few blogs explaining how we as Americans could prefer to spend Christmas in the heat instead of in the cold.

One of the wildest places to go on any day of the week is "centro" or downtown and it's even wilder during the Christmas season.

Since I was a kid I wanted to live in a big city like Chicago. So going downtown for me is always fun. I love it. But if I want to go downtown with Benay I have to catch her on a good day. Sometimes the crowdedness and the smells (yes the smells.........I won't go into that right now) just do her in and she can't deal with it.

Bronwyn and I caught her on a good day in December. The holiday season helps her to overlook some of the stuff she doesn't care for downtown.

So, off we went to buy some Christmas lights............
.........and then my wife caused horrible flashbacks for me of my mom and grandmother dragging me into a fabric store when I was a child. You can always see some cool things downtown like statues and a beautiful Catholic church............................or a tiny store stuck in an alley
We finally found our street and it was decorated for the holidays. The big sign says, "Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year."
More to come.

We're Getting Close

We've recently visited the big guy and put our requests in.......................and we spent some time in his neighborhood.

We are officially ready for his arrival Wednesday night.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas....

We finally got our new camera!! (Thank you to everyone who had a part helping with that - paying for it, bringing it down, etc...) I absolutely love it and have been taking lots of pictures here and there. So... the next few days you will be seeing some photo blogs.

First of all, our house is much more Christmassy now than it was a week ago. As usual, it was a family affair....

All of the Christmas decorations are stored in trunks in the laundry area behind our house. Garrett, Carys and Anderson were more than happy to get things started by fetching all of the trunks by themselves. Before moving to Brazil, we always had a real tree. Here, real trees are like giant prickly ferns. After I let that dream die, I bought a fake one and we have been happy ever since.Only in Brazil do you decorate Christmas trees with ornaments of Santa on the beach while wearing a bikini top.After some heated discussions and games of "par ou impar" (Brazilian version of one potato, two potato, etc.), Anderson was chosen to put the angel on top of the tree.He was pretty excited about it.Kevin had light duty outside. Here he is hanging the "icicle" lights in the 90 degree weather.Ansley had the idea to pose as models for this picture. We don't think Bronwyn got the message.Our new Inter ornament - pretty exciting.As soon as the tree was finished, Garrett rushed up to his room where he had his Christmas gifts for every family member wrapped and waiting. He loves to give gifts and started at least a month ago buying for everyone.I think we're in for a special Christmas season. Hope your December is merry, too!