Feliz Ano Novo!

In December, the weather in Braga turned notably chillier and rainier. Although we enjoyed quite few lovely white Christmases during the years we spent living in Idaho, I grew up in coastal northern California, where this time of year usually brought gray skies and drizzle. Despite the snowy scenes we know so well from movies, rain is the type weather I most associate with Christmastime. Now in northern Portugal, I was ready to embrace a wet Christmas, once again. As it turned out, Christmas week brought clear blue skies and windless days, pleasant weather for strolling the holiday markets.

An Iberian Christmas

Braga has historically been the religious capitol of Portugal. In fact, some travel guides call it the “Rome of Portugal.” Even if that sounds like hyperbole, the number of ancient cathedrals and Catholic churches means they take Christmas pretty seriously around here.

   

For our first holiday season in Portugal, we planned a toned-down celebration. Jack meets with a group of English-speaking expats to play pool each week and now counts them among his buddies. Most of these guys have lived in Portugal for quite a while and are great at imparting wisdom for adapting to this new (old) world. They told him to forget about getting a Christmas tree in Braga. Fresh cut trees are difficult to find and, we are told, super pricey even if you can manage to find one at a garden store. The small, low quality, artificial trees are not worth the hefty price tag, according to these voices of experience. Still, I was determined to display the small collection of favorite ornaments we brought from Boise. As a compromise, Jack and I agreed to overpay for a small, plastic, table top tree. In truth, I was ready to decorate a house plant, if that was the best option. Imagine my delight when I ventured into our unit's garage (which we use only for storing excess furniture and home decor) to see if a previous tenant left any good stuff before going shopping for Christmas swag. When I saw an overlooked piece of artificial greenery peaking out of a cardboard box, I was already thinking...I can work with this! I kept hunting (snooping?) and eventually found two more boxes stuffed with more evergreen. With some simple assembly the branches were transformed into a complete five-foot tall, fake fir tree. Just like that, my vision of a sad Charlie Brown tree was replaced with a modest but festive Christmas tree which could easily accommodate the family ornaments we brought here, along with a few new ones picked-up in our travels this year. A Christmas miracle!

Our daughter Laney and our Italian “daughter” (former exchange student) Kiki both had plans to join us in Portugal for Christmas. Alas, the plans of 20-somethings oft go awry. Job scheduling changes and an unexpected roommate crisis forced both girls to cancel their holiday plans at one point. It looked like it would be just the two of us for our first Christmas in Braga which was a rather sad prospect. In the end, Laney decided to brave holiday air travel and she arrived just in time for the celebration. Another Christmas miracle!

Christmas Eve in Braga is festive, to say the least. The three of us walked through the quaint holiday market just as the late afternoon crowd was gathering to share a pre-dinner toast and tap or hum along to the sounds of street musicians playing carols on accordions and brass instruments. We stopped at the fabled Casa Das Bananas for a unique Braga tradition that explodes each Christmas Eve just before sunset. This tiny bar in the historical center is known for pairing perfectly ripe, Madeira-grown bananas with a glass of Setubal moscatel, a sweet fortified wine with notes of fig and caramel. We found a bench in the Santa Barbara gardens to enjoy this odd holiday treat with a few hundred other revelers.

Bananeiro: Braga's own kooky Christmas Eve Tradition

Like most local families, we headed home for Consoada (as the main event, Christmas Eve dinner, is called here) before the celebration got overly raucous as we've heard can happen after dark. We feasted on lobster (a family tradition that started before Jack and I were married since that was the only thing he learned to cook while stationed with the Coast Guard in Boston) and my potato-fennel gratin. Now, lobster is not easily found in this part of Portugal so we were lucky to find a grocery store with an aquarium of live Atlantic shellfish which allowed us to maintain our 36-year streak. To round out our dinner we added new Portuguese treats like bacalhau (salt cod) salad and bolo rainha (a dense nut and raisin cake that reminded me a little of hot-cross buns...pretty good with coffee and hazelnut ice cream). We then watched some favorite dysfunctional Christmas comedies (“The Family Stone” and “Four Christmases” always make our list) and somehow managed to stay awake for a tranquil midnight mass at the nearby Basilica Dos Congregados. The stunning baroque church was built in the 16^th century and is now where a burgeoning English speaking community worships, supported by a small, talented choir and dedicated, welcoming clergy.

Happily, grown-up Laney no longer wakes us at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning so we all slept-in before unwrapping gifts and emptying elf-style stocking caps (my substitute for the elusive Christmas stockings which Portuguese do not typically include in their Eve-centric celebrations).

 

Since stockings are not a Portuguese tradition, they were hard to come by. At our place, knit caps replaced the usual stockings on Christmas morning. Also notably absent were honey baked ham, peppermint candy canes, egg nog, and the smell of fresh pine. But bacalhau...check!

Suddenly, It's a New Year

Laney's one week visit went way too quickly. Before she left, the two of us took a day trip to Vigo, Spain to explore the city's elaborate holiday light displays and expansive Christmas markets at Parque de la Alameda. After a long winter's nap or two, we were back at the airport. I am proud that she is so independent and that she is forging her own life in Washington but still...the hardest goodbyes are always those where we don't have another upcoming visit planned. Even harder to think about, one day she will likely have her own Christmas plans that don't include us. Brutal.

This is the season when we look forward to and share our hopes and expectations for the year ahead. As a family, we floated tentative plans for next Christmas but what next year will bring is unclear. By then, we should have our residency cards so might be free to travel outside of Portugal again. Maybe Jack and I will spare our family the travel headaches next year and make a December journey to the U.S. Or maybe we will meet-up in another European city....Christmas in Austria or France looks pretty fab in YouTube videos. Since our former exchange students in Italy and Germany are now both a short flight away, perhaps 2026 is the year we will  get to spend Christmas with one or both of them as we have always talked about. Or maybe we will embrace the new and spend another holiday at home in Portugal. However large or small the gathering, and wherever we happen to land, we will find ways to weave past traditions with new adventures. In the end, it is the people we are with, not the setting, that makes for the happiest Christmas memories.