Hi Daniella! Welcome back to our weekly show, Culture Rendezvous. Talking about Brazilian culture and festival in particular, we often mention Carnaval, the most popular holiday in Brazil. But what is the most celebrated event in Brazil besides Carnaval?
 Turkey for New Year's Eve party (Photo: Internet) |
New Year’s Eve, which is the 31st of December. On that day, we eat turkey, ham and bunches of other side dishes. We have a big firework show. We have live music, we have DJ. We celebrate all day long until the next day. We usually get out of our house and go to some parties.
In addition to New Year’s dishes and parties, what else that makes New Year’s Eve in Brazil special?
The most interesting things that we are talking about Brazilian New Year’s Eve is because everybody wears white. Every color has its meaning. For example, if you wear red, you are looking for love. If you wear yellow, you are looking for gold. And if you wear green, you are looking for money. If you wear white, what are you looking for peace. I would say that about 90 percent of Brazilians wear white and we shop crazily for white pieces to wear for that little second that goes through from the 31st of December to the 1st of January. They can be pants, can be bottom, tops, nails, shoes, anything you can possibly imagine.
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I know that you have traveled and lived in many different countries. So have you ever dressed in any other colors for New Year’s Eve?
When I moved to Chicago, I struggled very much, because the first couple years as you know everybody wears back here for New Year’s Eve because it is cold. And most of my friends are Jewish and black is also their color. I had a really hard time, wearing a very different color for my New Year’s Eve. So a couple years, I didn’t do white, because I felt like I was outside of the box, I had to be included. But then, at one point I just gave up and decided to go back to my white color. I don’t care if it is snowing outside, but white is the color that I am wearing. And so that what I do here. For New Year’s Eve, I shop for white pieces for my children, because I just think it is the traditional of my country. I grew up that way so I still want to keep that even when I live in a different country. And as you know, who doesn’t want peace in their life, everybody does. That’s pretty much what we do. It is more about the color that you wear, but the party itself is just another gathering, just another celebration, and that’s it.
What do Brazilian do to celebrate New Year’s Eve aside from partying?
And for people who live in the coast, near the ocean like me, because I grew up in a beach city, so we go to the beach, we jump seven waves for good luck. We wear white because we are looking for peace. White is the peaceful color for Brazilian people, and that’s why we look for white.
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Jumping seven waves for good luck sounds very interesting but I am quite curious about the weather. Is this true that New Year’s Eve in Brazil takes place during the summer?
Yes! And in Brazil, summer starts September 7th officially, and it goes all the way to March and April. Especially in Northeast, because my home town is near the equator line, so we don’t really have winter. When it is winter, which is June and July, August, it only rains. The average temperature is between 17 and 18 DC so it is not really cold during the winter.
Thank you very much Daniella for talking to us today about Brazilian culture.