Blumes in Brasil: Christmas in Brasil

One of our favorite times of the year in Brasil is the Christmas season. Our first year here was a little strange because we celebrated in 90 degree weather, and during our whole lives Christmas weather had meant big coats. We have adjusted to the weather and the culture, and we get to experience things that have really become special family traditions. One of those things is to go to a town about 2 hours away from us to and spend a few days seeing all the shows they put on for Christmas. It's a town up in the hills. It's nice to go there to enjoy some calmer time together away from our big city and enjoy the beauty. We were able to take Benay's parents there last year and this year we took my parents. We hope you enjoy the photos of our trip to Gramado and Canela. We've got quite a few but you'll see we definitely had a good time.

Several photo opportunities with statues around town:

A Christmas Arts & Crafts Village. The boys REALLY enjoyed this place!

There were, however, some girls who enjoyed the shopping.

There were a lot of hydrangeas in full bloom everywhere.

These are some pictures of a place called the Black Lake where you can drive swan boats around the lake surrounded by flowers.

I don't want to brag but this is my girlfriend.

These are the rest of my girls.

Sometimes being around so many flowers just makes you want to meditate on things......or get into a Spiderman fighting pose.

At night, everything is lit up. It is so pretty.

We enjoyed several different restaurants. This is a little house that serves German food:

One of our favorite experiences is eating fondue. They bring out 3 courses of fondue - cheese with bread and little potatoes, then a hot stone to cook small pieces of steak and chicken with a bunch of sauces for dipping, then finally chocolate with fruit. It's really good, but only something our wallets and our waistlines can afford once or twice a year.

Instead of warming up with a Christmas cup of cocoa, we cooled off with popsicles!

This is one of the shows we went to. It's a music/fireworks show on water. There were 4 tenors and 3 sopranos singing on top of globes which were on the water. In this picture you can see the women who were right in front of us and far behind them you can see one of the tenors on another globe.

This dark picture is of Ansley and her grandparents at the water singing show. Every year, during the singing of "Silent Night", candles are passed out and lit and everyone holds them while the singers are singing this song. It's become a family favorite during this show.

Here is our family waiting for the Christmas street parade to begin. The city closes down a couple of blocks 2-3 nights a week during December just for this big parade.

Dancing Christmas trees. You can see white stuff on the ground behind them. During the parade, white "snow" is shot out and falls on the crowd and the people in the parade. The snow is......um.......white foamy bubble stuff.

Santa and his reindeer.

Just wanted to show my pride and joy of the fact that Anderson's brother and sisters have already taught him how to cross his eyes right when his picture is being taken. Benay and I are very proud.

I think this is my favorite picture from our trip. As soon as the parade is over you can go in the street and this is a picture of the kids playing in the "snow".