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| Brazil |
| Festivals & Public Holidays |
| Carnaval
is the most important festival in Brazil, but there are other holidays,
too, from saints’ days to celebrations based around elections or the
World Cup.
The third week in June sees the festas juninas, mainly for children, who dress up in straw hats and checked shirts and release paper balloons with candles attached (to provide the hot air), causing anything from a fright to a major conflagration when they land. |
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| Elections and the World
Cup are usually excuses for impromptu celebrations, too, while official
celebrations, with military parades and patriotic speeches, take place on
September 7 (Independence Day) and November 15, the anniversary of the
declaration of the Republic.
In towns and rural areas you may well stumble across a dia de festa, the day of the local patron saint. It is all very simple: the image of the saint is paraded through the town, with a band and firecrackers, a thanksgiving mass is celebrated, and then everyone turns to the secular pleasures of the fair, the market and the bottle. In Belém this tradition reaches its fullest expression in the Cirio on the second Sunday of October, when crowds of over a million follow the procession of the image of Nossa Senhora de Nazaré, but most festas are small-scale, small-town events. In recent years many towns have created new festivals, usually glorified industrial fairs or agricultural shows. Often these events are named after the local areas’ most important product such as the Festa Nacional do Frango e do Peru (chickens and turkeys). Occasionally these local government creations can be worth attending as some promote local popular culture as well as industry. One of the best is Pomerode’s annual Festa Pomerana which takes place in the first half of January and has done much to encourage the promotion of local German traditions. Brazilian public holidays |
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There are plenty of local
and state holidays, but on the following national holidays just about
everything in the country will be closed:
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