Much obliged! - São Paulo

Things to be obligated for...

As I mentioned last week, we had the great fortune to be invited to two Thanksgivings this year. The first was on the actual Thursday and was a perfect meal. Yesterday was the second. These friends have had a Thanksgiving tradition here for years--they call it the Peru do Moreno (the dark person's turkey) which must be irony because the husband is the whitest American I have yet met. 

It was delicious and fun with more than 30 people and 15 kids. The kids put on a Thanksgiving play explaining the meaning of Thanksgiving, and afterwards, mulling over the word "thanksgiving" and its origin (I will admit to two glasses of wine by this time), I also thought about thanking people in Portuguese. Meaning, how you say "thank you."

When thanking someone for service or whatever in a store or restaurant, I say "obrigada" while my husband says "obrigado." Literally it means that you are "obliged" to the person who has provided the service. As far as I can tell, the origin of the shortened "obrigado" is "estou-lhe obrigado" or "I am obliged to you." Or, more crassly, "I owe you one." 

The word "agradecer" in Portuguese is probably the more direct translation of "to thank" but it is not used in most casual conversation. You do see it often in formal written letters--"eu agradeço a atenção" would mean "I thank you for the attention." I don't use it much because for whatever reason I trip over the vowels and it never comes out right.

One of the complexities of "obrigado" is how you respond to the person who says it to you. Most commonly you respond "de nada" or "foi nada" (it was nothing) but sometimes, if you want to say "thank you" back to the other person, you could slide in "obrigada eu" or "I am obliged to you". Sometimes you hear an "obrigada voce" which is meant as "thank you back" but actually means "you are obliged to me". I got the bad habit of saying "obrigada voce" before I knew that it was incorrect, and it is the devil to take it out of my speech. As BH explained to me "obrigada a voce" is correct but you need that "a" in there to make it "I'm obliged TO you."  Whew, this is complex stuff.

In any case, I am much obliged to our friends for a lovely day. Obrigada eu.

Thanks to be given - São Paulo

Credit: http://comeratenaopodermais.blogs.sapo.pt/15147.html

Today is my favorite holiday. My favorite holiday in the USA that is. Halloween runs a close second, and done right (small town, new snow, family together), Christmas follows immediately the parade of holidays. So, it is the one that I most miss when I am here.

Today my brother, sister-in-law and niece will be spending the day with my parents in small-town Illinois. I am as deeply envious as I can be, taking out the accompanying hassles of flying during this holiday, and having to get up early to drown the turkey. Or marinate it or whatever. Also there was the year that the dishwasher broke with 20 guests there, and the year that my parents swanned off to California leaving me to manage the floor resanding on the day after Thanksgiving. 

That being said, for the second year now we have been invited to share Thanksgiving dinner with a Brazilian (wife)/American (husband) couple and several other friends. We will have the dinner this afternoon at around 5:30 which precludes any heavy drinking or eating as we all have work/school the next day. Last year the afternoon was wonderful--the kids playing together, all of us pitching in to get the meal on the table. And the gobbler was good.

We have another bonus this year because other friends are also having a Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. All bets are off for that one because if you're going to start the party at 1 pm on Saturday, and invite Brits, make sure you have a designated driver. By the way, while Brazil does have a name for Thanksgiving ("Dia de Ação de Graças"), it makes no attempt to have its own version here. Why would they? They have it any given Sunday.

I remember well trying to explain the holiday to my in-laws 15 years ago. "The whole family gets together, and we cook all day, and then we sit around and tell stories, then we clean up and then we eat leftovers for a week." And they looked at me blankly and then glanced around the table. The whole family was there for Sunday lunch, we had cooked the whole day, we had sat around telling stories, and then we cleaned up. And were going home with já te vi (leftovers). Seriously, any given Sunday. So it's not a holiday that would mean anything here.

It means something to me. I am thankful for many people and many things. Today and any given Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving, USA!