#merryxmas and wishes for a softer and sweeter life

Hi steemians, here in Brazil is still Christmas, December 25th, and beyond the economic and political crisis we're living it is time of feast, celebration, joy, hope and even fraternity. Following a proposal from @belzunces who suggested sharing pictures and posts on Xmas eve, using the tag #feliznatal (#merrychristmas) as a way to us brazilians know each other better, so here is my contribution:

In the picture, I'm holding a plate of colored mochis (rice cakes) while trying to eat one of it (a sweet and soft kind of mochi). At the background there is a commercial building covered with a giant christmas tree made of lights, in São Paulo city, Brazil.

I don't know how is in other families with japanese ancestry but in my home the christmas parties were ever less important than the new year festivities. Not the new year's eve itself but the new year's first day and first week at all. In these celebrations the mochi is an important symbol, refering to the rice, the main ingredient of the eastern food and its softness and flexibility meaning a new year without roughness and difficulties.

My grandparents came from Okinawa and since I was a kid I remember eating these mochi, sweet with a red color spiral inside, served in almost all weding, christmas and new year parties hosted by the immigrants from that province. To be honest, I remember the mochis with a stronger red color (red and golden are colors related to celebrations in the chinese culture, wich had an important influence over Okinawa), more like these ones I found in the Blog Natsukashi whose picture I saved in Pinterest too. I think the other mochi with a green spiral plus the bigger ones, that have anko (red bean paste) fillings, are more recent inventions. Just because they match with the christmas color pallete used in most marketing campaigns nowadays.

I know that in Brazil, the country that has the largest japanese population outside Japan, immigrants from other provinces influenced other traditions related to mochi. Different from what I saw in my family, many japanese-brazilians are used to eat a soup with mochi (oozoni) as the first meal of the new year and others have a kind of mochi pyramid with a little orange on top (kagami mochi) as a special decoration for this time.

Merry Christmas! Feliz Natal! Kurisimasu omedetou!

Thanks a lot! It is great to record forever on the Steem blockchain the best wishes of happyness, good health, prosperity, peace, good luck and a happy new year again!

Image credits: photos by @monicahikaru (Instagrammer)

!steemitworldmap '-23.55158505' lat '-46.64031703' long 'Centro (Downtown), Sao Paulo/SP' D3SCR

5% of the liquid rewards from this post will be donated to @thomashblum's Fundraising for a kitten castration

5% of the liquid rewards from this post will be donated to @brazilians

Original post in portuguese:
12/25/2017: #FelizNatal e votos de muita moleza e doçura para todos!

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