Merry Christmas to you!

I wish you a wonderful day!

Cherish this precious time of the year!

Almost ready for a long weekend Buenos Aires...

Shopping list ready, meeting friends, quick trip to Uruguay, polo game, tango show, etc.

Buenos Aires is my all time favorite of cities in South America, reminds me of Europe but with a Latin touch! Every visit feels as a present! A Christmas present this year!

Back on Tuesday!

Planned a lot... did little today.

Biggest mistake: I went to Etna (a sort of IKEA, which doesn't exist here - yet??). Didn't need anything... bought too much!

This weekend, at least, I finished this Christmas star (for which I cut my buxus...) and the little 'Noel' sign I bought this morning.

These candlesticks I couldn't resist either, the little angels I bought some time ago already at a Christmas fair (they're made out of recycled material such as soda cans).

Have a nice week!

Chantal

Christmas at the daycare center

Remember my post about the Christemas party I was organizing for a daycare center?

Well, we celebrated Christmas with these little kids a few days ago. You see their happy faces??

For a complete view of the party, have a look at the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.nl/kerstactiebrazilie

A Christmas tree in Brasil

Yes!

I decorated the Christmas tree... finally!

It took me about a week to finish it. Not because it's so much work, but I just had so many other things going on that I only had some spare minutes a day.

But now it's done and I'm happy with it.

It's definitely not a classy one... some lights yes, some balls? No!

Since we have a big dog with a big tail that is constantly in motion, I decided to use the 'bonfim' (good luck) straps from Bahia (north east of Brasil), if you use them, they bring you luck (at least that's what the people in Bahia told me!). So, looking at the tree, we'll have a lot of luck these coming weeks!!

Some Christmas decorations

Little by little the Christmas feeling is coming.

I started the decorations yesterday with a cute little Christmas tree (it's about 15 cm high...) with glass ornaments. Isn't it lovely?

But the decorations will go on...

More later!

Hope you all enjoy this cosy season!

Time to help!

As a volunteer, I'm working for a daycare and community center in a poor neighbourhood, just outside São Paulo.

For the 8th year in a row, we are organizing a Christmas party for the children of this day care center ánd for the children of an orphanage in Extrema, MG. In total we try to make a party for 150 children.

Which means that we raise money via donations (75 R$ or 30 Euros per child) to make an individual Christmas present for each child.

Every present consists of the following items:

* shoes

* clothes

* personal hygiene items

* a real (new!) present

* socks, underpants

* candy

Today we did the wrapping for the day care center, and here are the results:

That means a lot of happy faces!

Next step... Christmas or...?

Halloween is gone, time to get organized for Christmas.

Haven't done any decorating yet as I should wait until december 6, the Dutch celebrate the birthday of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas in Dutch) then.

But, who is St. Nicholas?


The Sinterklaas feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children. Saint Nicholas was a Greek bishop of Myra in present-day Turkey and became the patron saint of children based on various legends that include resurrecting children from death and saving them from prostitution.
Sinterklaas has a long white beard, wears a red bishop's dress and red mitre (bishop's hat), and holds a crosier, a long gold coloured staff with a fancy curled top. Sinterklaas carries a big book with all the children's names in it, which states whether they have been naughty or nice in the past year.
The temper of Sinterklaas also differs in the some regions of the Netherlands and Belgium. In the Netherlands Sinterklaas is usually a nice, forgiving person. In Belgium, on the other hand, Sinterklaas is less forgiving (like he used to be in the Netherlands). He can be quite severe and takes naughty children back to Spain when they were not nice. "Saint-Nicolas" rides a white horse.

The Dutch community in São Paulo celebrates the birthday of Sinterklaas, he is even coming to visit all the Dutch kids here! However, the Brazilians do not know about this Saint/children's friend and focus on Christmas and Santa Claus.

All around the city you already see big christmas trees and enormous decorations, yes, Christmas is a big thing here.

So let's see who wins in our house: Sinterklaas or Santa Claus???

I'll keep you updated!
Have a great weekend, C.

Scary night...

Although the Dutch are not real Halloween people, living in Brazil easily changes that! The Brazilians love America, so they follow them. As they do for Halloween.

I went out this week to buy some halloween stuff, my god, it was as crowded in the costumes shop as it is before carnival!

But, nevertheless, I start to become a real Brazilian (after 5 years!) and see what happened:


The entrance door has been decorated:




Halloween cupcakes are made:
(mine look slightly different...)

The pumpkin soup is ready:

The trick or treat box is filled with candy.

Let the fun begin!

Happy Halloween!

What a show!

Completely exhausted, but extremely satisfied!

After 6 days of Art Show we are proud to say that we sold 166 pieces of Art for a total value of 275,000 reais (approx. USD 120,000).

For the charity project Paint a Future (the honoured project during this years' show), we sold 35,000 reais, 100% of which will be used to help the children supported by this project (have a look: http://www.paintafuture.org/).

275,000 - 35,000 = 240,000 reais... 25% for the charity projects of the school, 75% for the artists!!

It was a hell of a job, but definitely worth every penny, inch, nerve, etc. of it!

(recovering now and hopefully back on track with blogging soon!)

Poker night!

We love to play games together: all sorts of board games, but also darts... and poker!

Sometimes it's just nice to 'escape' from the rushing world, play a game and have fun.

We sure did have fun when we played poker last night, especially when the family dressed up for this event:

Back to work for the Art Show now!!

Slowly getting there...

Everything still white...

The storage room

Where do we hang the pictures?

The accent colour of this years Art Show: aubergine (eggplant)

Coordination, discussion, creation...

If you're interested: www.chapelartshow.com.br (in portuguese and english)

I'm off...

Too busy!

Phew, too busy lately, no time to blog or do anything else but Art Show (a huge event at my son's school, with all the revenues for charity).

Have a look: http://www.chapelartshow.com.br/

The set up has started last week:

Wait another week and you don't recognize it anymore, it'll be a stylish art gallery!