Hello, all! :-D
I've been considering starting a blog to point some differences between the American and the Brazilian culture for quite a while... and it has finally happened! I hope my insight sheds you some light and bring you some joy!
Today I'm at my friend Julia's house on the final preparations for tomorrow's Thanksgiving, one of the most important American holidays - along with Christmas and New Year's, the two last one pretty common everywhere else.
For Thanksgiving, you see what we see usually in the craziness of Christmas and New Year's there in Brazil - packed grocery stores, traffic as the families travel to be together and celebrate the holiday, people eating a lot of yummy traditional food... the difference here is the technology and how organized people are! Really, organization makes all the difference! What shocks me here is watching what could be chaos running in perfect peace! We went to the Walmart to buy some things since I'm preparing some Brazilian food and giving a Brazilian touch to the Callaways' Thanksgiving! I'm SO excited about that! This family has been wonderful to me -we have the parents and five kids, one girl and hour boys, my dearest friend Julia being the oldest of them.... precious family! - and here we are one hour away from Atlanta, in the real country, perfect peace, silence, a house Louisiana style, a huge lake really close to us... just God through His grace to allow me to experience it!
A couple of hours ago I got to see the whole family around the Christmas tree, and noticed something I had never seen: each family member has a box with their personal ornaments for the Christmas tree, one bought at each year of their life - the shopping is done for the whole family, all of them going to the same store... today's choice was Hallmark and their wonderful ornaments! It's the dream store for any party/celebrations' planner! - all of them coming together at the same night to put up their Christmas tree, and the beautiful symbolism of each ornament representing their year, all of them together representing their legacy, their history... all of them together building real tradition as a family! Watching that really touched my heart and made me think even more how much I want to start my own family and have the same tradition added to my days! I'm excited about getting the two first ornaments of my life here in America! I'm going with Julia to buy them sometime soon and will post the pictures here! =)
To the Callaway Family, thank you so much for sharing this tradition with me!
To all of you in Brazil, enjoy this beautiful day!
Keep me in your prayers as I continue my journey here in Georgia!
Much love, always,
Helinha =)
P.S.: I would really appreciate comments, insights, tips on topics for me to talk about... I'm here, and writing is one of my passions! I love you all very much! =)
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