Disapproval would be folly...

I loathe the month of December. It starts with my birthday and goes down hill from there. Christmas is not something I enjoy. I hate the commercialisation. I hate the fact it is okay to lie to children. I hate the hypocrisy associated with "peace and good will" to all, unless you are of a different race, creed or species. I hate obligation. I hate that you are expected to drink. I hate the fact that everyone tries to be nice to people they usually don´t give a toss about. I hate the carnage. I hate the fact that they read the bit about the "lion eating straw like the ox" at church and *noone* thinks "hey maybe God is pissed that I killed a whole farm yard for lunch" (well I thought it, I also stopped attending church because of it). I hate the tacky music about a non-Australian climate blaring from every street corner. Yes, usually I am very bah humbug!

Here in Brazil things are different. There is no tacky decorations, they are all rather tasteful. The only Christmas music you hear in shops is a samba version of songs played at the supermarket by a man on a keyboard and it isn´t in your face. There are event´s where the entry fee is a kilo of food to give to the poor. The electronic display on buses wishes you "Feliz Natal" as well as giving you the destination (usually they wish you good morning/afternoon/night). The shops aren´t anymore insane than usual.

Also Christmas Eve is much bigger than Christmas Day. Or at least that´s what I have been lead to believe. The hangover of several volunteers and some of the staff here seems to encourage this belief.

This is my different from home Christmas...

After I phoned home to wish my family (and got told off for not attending an organised religious service) late on the 24th I headed out to the concert that Nina´s Afro-Brazilian band was in. There were five of us who got there and despite all outward appearances of a big event, there were sadly only about 50 people. The music was pretty good though and we hung around to listen to a couple of groups before heading into Recife.

Despite arriving around 1am, Recife was still partying and we listened to a little of the music before running into some of the students at Kate´s project who took us to a bar where we stayed in the street chatting until we headed home and got in around 330am and called Nevryn.

The following day involved more phone calls to a rather intoxicated Hipikat in the morning. There was Christmas lunch, which for me was salad, chips and pineapple (so nothing all that different from home). There was dead turkey for the other volunteers with gravy that Dave had his girlfriend send over from the UK. Miriam the project coordinator and her family turned up with her husband (a rather pudgy Welshman) dressed as Santa. It was amusing and embarrassing all at the same time. Much laughter. There was much toasting to "a warm Christmas", "no family" and "no stress" amongst other things.

Then to the beach by bus. After being here for 3 weeks I just assumed that overcast was not part of the weather. But yesterday it was. The beach was still good though and I had a lovely swim. There was less seaweed and bigger waves and the ocean was fairly warm as well. I also got treated to the best moon rise I have seen in a long time.

It was a full moon (or near enough to) last night, something that at home makes me cringe about going to work. I never believed it until I started working at a nursing home but people do go nuts on the full moon, even more so if they suffer from dementia it seems. Anyhow a full moon rises fairly early. And because of the overcast day the sunset was one of those ones with a medium blue sky and bright pink clouds. And being on the east coast it set behind us with the moon rising over the ocean. And the moon was bright with little clouds around it.

I´ve just read my appalling description. It doesn´t do it justice. I don´t have any pictures having left my camera behind. So you just have to believe me it was amazing, okay?

After dinner we headed back out to Olinda for a few drinks before I called Shay. Fe nicely surprised me by saying she actually read my blog- so thank you it´s nice to know this serves a purpose to people at home who aren´t whiney ex boyfriends.

So all in all a nice Christmas I guess. There was no obligation, no screaming family, no gift giving, no songs about possessed snowmen, no drunken friends throwing up. I should go away more often!