New friends for Christmas (Natal) and New Years (Reveillon) in Sao Paulo

I’ve heard of not walking under ladders, avoiding the paths of black cats and something about breaking mirrors, but in Brazil there’s a whole new code to learn.

For New Years, people deck themselves out in pants and shirts of different colours. Typically the white outfit is a standard as it signifies you are hoping for peace. By wearing red, your love life could improve, or yellow so your bank account can mysteriously increase in size. But whatever you do – don’t wear black.

Many people will buy and wear new underwear of a specific colour to see in the New Year and increase their luck. Personally, I think it’s great to see everyone thinking hygienically and it makes for a great pick-up line on New Year’s Eve…

And the local chicken shop would suffer from a lack of business at New Years as you can only eat meat from animals that don’t scratch dirt in a direction behind their feet… like fish for example (primarily because they don’t have feet.)