How to Make Money after Christmas in the States

Visiting home is not cheap.  Add to that buyers remorse... Ok, I'm lying. I have no remorse over my purchases but I do wonder how we are going to pay for them.

While credit card companies are so kind, allegedly, I have to pay them back.  So I'm trying to come up with a plan of attack. Here's what I came up with.

What you can do to make money, in Brazil, after blowing all yours in the US:

1.  Sell your kid's new toys.  That $20 toy they got at the after Christmas sale could go for a sweet R$300.  Just tell the kids you lost your luggage.
2.  Blackmail your family with awkward videos/pictures you took during the holidays. Tell them for a small fee, the video or pictures will not be posted online.  Con to this plan, they definitely have equally degrading videos/photos of you.  Think first.
3.  Bring back a suitcase full of Victoria's Secret lotion and sell them in the plaza.  You'll earn money and remember your Portuguese with all the transactions and arguments with the other vendors over you using their corner.
4.  Sell your body.  The extra holiday weight makes the less curvy American style body a bit more bootylicious and the SUPER white skin makes you exotic. Ok, maybe not true but it's a theory.
5.  Rent your new adult toys out to your friends. Not the kinky ones, that wouldn't sanitary.
6.  Get a second job to pay crap off.  Then again, you live in Brazil. If you worked two jobs, when would you go to the beach? Drink chopp? BBQ? Priorities people.
7. Go on a game show!

Well, that's all I got.  Can you guys think of any better ideas?

Christmas and Family

We look forward to Christmas and getting the entire family together.  That goes double for us expats because it's rare that we get to have these family get-togethers with our own families.

Then the novelty wears off.

You see, we Americans, a chunk of us anyway, don't live near our family. We don't have weekly family lunches like the Brazilians. We aren't used to the in-your-face comfort that family members have with each other. You know, the one that allows us to say 'You look kind of fat in that sweater.'  

Brazilians have it down.  You become less and less sensitive to your family's idiosyncrasies when you are faced with them, at the very least, on a weekly basis.  Uncle's never-ending conversation topics, Aunt's annoyance at the invasion of personal space, or Grandpa's gas just doesn't bother you as much when you are around them constantly.

Now look at my family for instance.  My parents produced 4 offspring during their bedroom fun time.  Each one of us live in a different city.  We are close by American standards... I would dare to say that we are even close by international standards.

So you take us, our parents, our spouses, and the couple of babies we have produced and put us into one house.  There will be a bit of bickering. Someone is ALWAYS going to be too sensitive. My brothers are always going to say I'm over-reacting.  Annoying, really. I could be bit by a rabid squirrel while being beat by the UPS guy and they'd still give me shit if I complained.

And the thing is, I love it. Yet again, call me a sadomasochist but it just melts my butter to be able to bicker and laugh with my family.  I enjoy gossiping with the 10 adults (usually on a one on one basis and about another one of the group), rolling around with the 4 kids, and celebrating the joint need for a drink because of all the "festivities".

Call me crazy, but it doesn't seem like Christmas if someone isn't getting smacked in the back of the head or mocking one or all of the siblings.  What kind of Christmas doesn't have people debating meal choices, spilling coffee or wine, and general chaos of all kinds.

I think Christmas with the family is like a good Broadway play.  It requires laughing, crying, drama, an obstacle, spontaneous song, and a happy ending.  And we'll have met all the requirements this first day, that is, once we get the Karaoke set up.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas, from the other side.

I have to say, it can sometimes SUCK to be an expat during Christmas. The SU of the suck is double when you are an expat from a country with 2 to 4 seasons and you are living in Brazil.

You see, Brazil is like the inside of an easy bake oven during the Holiday Season.   Hell hath no fury like Brazilian summer.

I remember my first summer in Brazil. I was all excited to experience my husband's version of Christmas.  I was even a bit excited to be spending my first Christmas away from home. Oh, how grown up and worldly I had become.

Plus, it didn't even feel like Christmas. I was more golden than the turkey after all the beach time, probably just as crisp.  And I don't care how many lights you put on building gates and palm trees, it ain't Christmas to me.

We got to the Grandma's house and it was all hustle and bustle, green and red, food everywhere, and people drinking. Of course, we were all melting too. Stupidly cold beers were being passed out to help with the heat, and we were all crammed on the veranda.

It was awesome. Of course I missed my family but with all the color, flavors, and sass of it all, it was easy to be distracted.

Then it happened. They put on Christmas music in English. I heard the start of Silent Night and the tears started to flow.  My family isn't the circle around the fire and sing carols type of family but the music still struck a cord.  The thing was that, it was a part of my Christmas.  It reminded me of how weird it was for me to have swamp ass  at a Christmas party.  I should have been drinking red wine or egg nog, although I hate egg nog.  And what the hell was with the french toast!? Good stuff but really, as a Christmas appetizer?

Don't worry, it all ended well. I was shuffled to the phone to call my family and matar saudade (kill the missings, for lack of a better term).

Now we combine traditions when we are in Brazil.  We open family presents Christmas eve with the family and the kids open the presents from us on Christmas morning. Santa does stocking for my little half Americans in Brazil.  And we have Christmas day lunch as well as a Christmas eve dinner.

On rare occasions like this year, we get to come stateside for the holidays.  Times like these, we do it 110% with all the treats, all the drinks, all the presents, and damn good stockings.

How about you guys? How have you blended your holiday traditions?  What do you miss most about Christmas at your other home?

Home, it does a Body Good

 I'm heading stateside to my native land to celebrate the holiday season and then some.  I'm excited for all the obvious reasons and some not so obvious.  Rule #3 of survival living abroad, I don't allow myself to focus on the things I miss. That goes out the window when a trip home approaches. 

Here is my mental list so far:

1. Drink milk!  Milk does a body good and it is one of the #1 things I miss about home. I don't know if our milk farmers spoon their cows at night, but they do something that works.

2. Curl up in a blanket on the couch.  I plan to abuse my Mother like the stepchild I never had, or at least don't know of yet.  For 1 hr out of the trip, if not more, I plan to curl up on her wonderfully soft couch in one of her amazingly soft blankets and let her run after my boys. Oh my, it'll actually be cool enough to curl up in a blanket without my husband calling me crazy! 

3. Good bad TV.  I've had so much good conversation, culture, good movies, and books while here in Brazil, it's time to drain the brain. You know, Celebrity Fit club and How'd you get so rich.  Good stuff that will just suck the brains right out of me, what's left after children anyway. 

4. Eat. My goal is to not put on the normal 10lbs (5 kilos) this time around. The more realistic goal is to only gain 10lbs (5 kilos). Let's think Christmas. Restaurants. Candy that I can't get here therefore eat by the truckload.  Salty snacks I also eat by the truckload. My theory is that if I eat as much as I want, I will eventually get sick of it and not miss the food/snacks when I come back to Brazil. It does work. I leave thinking if I see another Poptart I'll barf... not that Poptarts really count as food but I eat them anyway. 

5. Not be aware of my surroundings. I know I'm aware here but I never really get how much so until I get home. That's what happens when you live in Rio de Janeiro. You are blissfully unaware of how aware you are. It's very Born Identity how you can walk along with your kids, chatting and scolding, yet still know there are 3 people behind you (2 are men) and 4 in front.  And it's not stressful, it's just how it is. The moment I land stateside, I get my symbolic cup of Starbucks coffee, which I don't even like anymore after living in Brazil for 5 years, and I let it go. Let the totally unaware American way flow with my laptop falling out of my backpack and my kids playing with my itouch while I barely pay attention. 

Of course there will also be many trips to Target, certain stores to buy items I only buy stateside, grocery stores to stock up on bring to Brazil items, and many other things. 

I'm the most excited about seeing my family. Being involved in the family gossip and trash talk. Seeing my nieces, annoying my brothers, and hugging my parents.  I'm even excited for the criticism and the inevitable 'If I were you..."  There's a beauty in living abroad.  Even the annoying things are charming. 

What do you look forward to when you go home for a visit? What are your favorite things about home?