All of the Lights!
Christmas time in Brazil is a bit different compared to the traditional Christmas' in America.
Typically the Brazilian's don't decorate like crazy like American's do when it comes to Christmas lights decorated outside your house. The only time you'll see houses decorated with Christmas lights are in areas as shown in areas as shown in the video and it is typically at a big Christmas event as you'll see in the video above.
Marcos' mom, Marcos, and I had a blast exploring the big Christmas event that everyone in town showed up for. It took us forever to park, but it was well worth it as we explored the Christmas event. We saw that there were so many beautiful Christmas lights all over this place. Plus, on top of all of the Christmas lights surrounding us, the event was supporting a recycling cause, because everything was made out of plastic bottles. It definitely was a cool way for the Brazilians to promote recycling in a huge Christmas event!
Of course Christmas is so much more then just the Christmas lights and the Brazilians sure do keep that in focus. They still exchange Christmas presents and some have Christmas trees in their homes, but they always keep focused on what is most important during the Christmas holidays: Christ, family, and friends.
Christmas in São Carlos, Brazil
I absolutely loved the idea of using plastic bottles to promote recycling awareness. It just breaks Christmas down to a simpler time, which is what it should be, a simpler time. Christmas shouldn't just be about the hustling of shopping and the presents. It should be surrounded by what is most important as I said above of how the Brazilians look at it; Christmas centered on Christ, family, and friends.