Andy HoffmanI claim no expertise on Christmas. I have no traditions. My first wife, though Jewish by birth, liked the pagan symbols of the season. She insisted on a tree and green lengths of pine boughs on the mantelpiece. I still don’t know what the kids, who received a good Jewish education, made of the seasonal celebration. We definitely put more emphasis on Hannukah than Christmas, and we generally marked Christmas according to the American Jewish habit: Chinese food and a movie, frequently with family or other Jewish friends. My first wife had a stepfather with a Christian family, so we gathered with them for Christmas Eve. Aside from the few years of my second marriage, during which we immersed ourselves in the snowless and moderately warm California late-December at my sister-in-law’s house, Christmas always happened to other people.
And I like it that way. I experienced the season like a visiting alien, driving around to marvel at the work people put into decorating their houses and avoiding, as much as possible, retail shops. I have never enjoyed shopping other than for food anyway, so this avoidance took no extra seasonal effort. These days, I have no pressure to celebrate Christmas. Deb’s father and brother are rabbis. When we’re in the States we take her daughters out for Jewish Christmas. This year, in São Paulo, we plan a picnic with Deb’s parents. Nearly everything in the city closes from late afternoon on December 24th until evening on the 26th. Many places won’t reopen until after New Years.
Most past Christmases I told at least one person that ancient Romans had grafted the story of Jesus birth onto Saturnalia, a traditionally drunken festival around the winter solstice. I guess they figured most people had enough alcohol that they welcomed another reason to consume more. Since we have no actual knowledge about Jesus’ birth, and not much more about his brief stint as an itinerant preacher, any date would do. Might as well co-opt an existing holiday. I’m a soft-touch for A Charlie Brown Christmas, with its Vince Guaraldi’s eternal score and the chosen tree crying out for loving care. I try to live every day, wherever I am, with the generous spirit called for – but seldom seen – in our idealized Christmas stories.
São Paulo begins with a huge advantage over the US when it comes to spirit: the weather. As I write on Christmas Eve, hazy sunshine heats the air to a sweaty 92 degrees. It might rain late this afternoon, as it does during any tropical summer. I don’t want to underestimate the impact of good weather on people’s spirits.
But more than that, Brazilians live with joy. Plainly, people here live with the same tragedies, emotional instabilities, and family troubles as people anywhere, but from what I have seen, Paulistas answer bad fortune with a smile, a joke, and a caipirinha, the Brazilian national drink, made of limes, ice, and cachaça, alcohol made from the juice of sugar canes. You hear the joy in their music. You see it on the soccer pitch. You feel it walking down a busy street. Even the people working the cash registers in shops and restaurants pass along joy. It’s like the essential identity of the people of São Paulo.
São Paulo also refuses to bury its desperation under incessant ear-worm Christmas songs, played at full volume, chintzy elves on shelves, and shiny plastic balls. In the lobby of my building, for example, I see two signs of the season: a six-foot plastic tree festooned with red-and-gold bows, and a white orchid, rich with a dozen blooms. We went to a mall the other day; it stands next to the cultural center we try to visit regularly. They hosted a dozen tables of seasonal home-made goods and a few decorative lights. Here in Brazil, they don’t need to drown out the American greed overloud and overbright environments designed to increase avarice. Everywhere we look, we see quiet acknowledgement of the holiday and families, friends, and coworkers celebrating one another.
I wish you all a more Brazilian Christmas and a 2026 filled with São Paulo joy, family, and friends. And an end to foul miasma currently gripping the United States. I hope the season’s generosity of spirit clears the air like a white Christmas and stays with us forever more.