So, my mother has 6 siblings. Her mother had 12 siblings. Imagine gathering the whole extended family into the same space for Christmas Eve. Over 100 people present, and talks of the other 100 who couldn't be there. An insurmountable amount of food. I'm pretty sure every year I was introduced to a new cousin, as well as to three or four cousins I've been introduced to before. There are too many cousins to count, let alone to know by name.
And that's just the setting. Somewhere around the night gifts would be distributed - mainly to kids and teens, or we would be there until after new year's. My grandma would be Santa, in a cheap costume and a plastic mask. And there was a Secret Santa. Not once I was the Secret Santa of someone I previously knew - not that it mattered, all gifts were bought by my mother in a completely generic and non-personal fashion. One occasion, someone convinced the whole group to play what we call "cordless phone" in Brazil - basically, one person tells someone else a sentence, and it must be passed person to person until the end, with comically variations occurring along the way. This was extreme cordless phone, and at some point someone would take the opportunity to wish merry Christmas to the person receiving the message, and the wishes would be mixed in the original message, which ended up completely lost by the end. As a shy kid just willing for a nice intimate Christmas, this was not a good party.
But if you search Brazilian Christmas traditions on Google, you are likely to find the custom of mixing dried grapes in the rice. Why dried grapes on Christmas? No one knows. Why only on Christmas? No one knows. Some people like it, some don't mind it, but some dread it, and those are the most loud ones. Every year, around this time, the "dried grapes or no dried grapes" discussion starts.
Fun times.
