they start celebrating Christmas in October

Handbags Replica The nightly lighting ceremony at Natal Luz draws crowds into the replica designer bags streets in the heart of Gramado. (Cleiton Thiele /Cleiton Thiele ) Handbags Replica

aaa replica designer handbags Brazilian newlyweds Jlia and Marcos Muniz found what they were looking for when they picked Gramado for their honeymoon: peace, quiet and a refreshing break replica bags online from the heat and humidity back home in Rio de Janeiro. And quite by accident, the couple’s late October visit coincided with the opening ceremony of Natal Luz, or “Christmas Light” a pull out bag replica high quality the stops festival of traditional Christmas cheer that lasts nearly three months and is often referred to as the 7a replica bags wholesale biggest in the world. aaa replica designer handbags

KnockOff Handbags “Christmas is in December,” said Jlia Muniz, standing in replica designer bags wholesale a plaza beside the Catholic church, where a large nativity scene had already gone up. Of course she didn’t expect this to be going on in October. KnockOff Handbags

purse replica handbags “Unexpected” is probably as good a word as any to describe Gramado, population about 35,000, a mountain town in far southern Brazil, where alpine ski lodge architecture dominates and there’s a fondue restaurant on practically every corner. The climate does its best to play along: It sometimes gets legitimately cold in June and July, when winter comes to the Southern Hemisphere and, every cheap designer bags replica few years or so, dusts Gramado with snow. purse replica handbags

replica handbags china [Dolphins, alligators and tribes in Brazil’s Amazon forest] replica handbags china

cheap replica handbags In October, though, spring is in full, designer replica luggage glorious bloom, with summer just around the corner. Not that this does anything to deter Santa Claus from jingling into town each evening in full red robed finery or stop the choir on opening night from singing “White Christmas.” There are flowers, there are chirping birds, there are giant nutcracker dolls and there are lights festooning the streets, where tunes such as “I Saw Three Ships” emanate from cleverly hidden speakers and best replica bags online tourist hordes snap selfies by the terabyte. (The selfie has come to rival soccer as Brazil’s national mania.) cheap replica handbags

Replica Handbags Imagine a Christmas of the most traditional, Hallmark sort, translated into Portuguese and stretched out over 81 days on either side of the summer solstice in a little Brazilian town channeling serious Swiss vibes. high replica bags Depending on your holiday proclivities, the overall effect might either best replica bags be irredeemably kitschy or simply enchanting. Replica Handbags

Designer Replica Bags “When people arrive here, they often feel like they’ve left Brazil,” said Edson Erdmann, the artistic high quality designer replica director of Natal Luz. “You arrive here and you feel like everything’s possible… You feel like you’re in a magical world.” Designer Replica Bags

An estimated 2.5 million visitors, most from high quality replica bags other parts of Brazil and neighboring countries, are expected to travel to Gramado this year during the annual festival. (Cleiton Thiele /Cleiton Thiele )

Fake Handbags Natal Luz has been a winning idea for replica designer backpacks Gramado. By the time it wraps up on Jan. 14, an estimated 2.5 million visitors will have come, the vast majority from elsewhere in Brazil, high end replica bags rounded out by a steady stream from Argentina and other Spanish replica bags speaking countries in the neighborhood. All told, Natal Luz pumps well over $200 million into the local economy a pile of cash that Gramado uses replica bags china to subsidize a number of replica bags buy online other major events that keep people coming all year long. (Total annual visitation: 6 million.) Fake Handbags

“It ends up driving the local economy all year,” said Edson Nspolo, president of GramadoTur, the city agency that puts on Natal Luz.

Designer Fake Bags The usual tensions that haunt any spot regularly overrun by vacationers are present here too, however. good quality replica bags “I try to avoid going into town” during Natal Luz, said Rogrio Zanon, who lives nearby and lists traffic congestion among his chief complaints. Designer Fake Bags

[A passion for soccer helps unite one of the world’s most diverse countries]

wholesale replica designer handbags The most elaborate aspects of the whole affair are the four lavishly produced shows rotating throughout the week: a nightly best replica designer bags lighting ceremony, a parade and two scripted Christmas productions one performed on a floating stage. wholesale replica designer handbags

One of the holiday shows, Reencontros de Natal (Christmas Reunions), is performed on a floating stage in a small lake in Gramado. (Cleiton Thiele /Cleiton Thiele )

Replica Designer Handbags To pull it off, Erdmann oversees a cast of about 600, including a few professionals and a bunch of regular Gramadoans who dress up night after night to entertain best replica designer the masses. Anchoring it all is Jlio Czar Rodrigues, 62, sporting a jolly white beard. He is back this year for his 11th season in what must be, given that attendance figure of 2.5 million, one of the world’s highest profile Santa Claus gigs. Replica Designer Handbags

replica handbags online “I don’t just do this for the money,” said Rodrigues, a buy replica bags retired bus driver who started Clausing at family events back in the 1980s and worked his way up through the shopping mall scene before landing the role in Gramado. “I love kids. This makes me feel like a kid again. I play along with them. They adore me.” replica handbags online

high quality replica handbags By day, when he wanders around buy replica bags online town in civilian clothes, Rodrigues’s beard often gives him replica wallets away. Lots of people want to touch it, doubting that it’s real. (Indeed, it is.) The beard takes about six months to reach Santa proportions; come mid January, he’ll shave it off aaa replica bags and go back to his offseason routine of spending time with his five grandchildren whom, owing to his Santa duties, he rarely replica bags from china sees over the holidays and fishing trips to Uruguay with friends. high quality replica handbags

Jlio Czar Rodrigues, 62, is in his 11th season starring as Santa Claus in Gramado’s Natal Luz. (Andrew Jenner/FTWP)

Replica Bags He has no idea how many thousands of kids have sat in his lap over the years, but he has never become tired of it. The only thing that really wears him down is the seemingly endless stretch from January to October when he isn’t Santa Claus. Replica Bags

Replica Bags Wholesale “I get tired of waiting for Christmas to get here,” he said. Replica Bags Wholesale

Fake Designer Bags After darkness falls on the first https://www.replicabagonline.com night of Natal Luz, the Gramado Symphonic Orchestra takes the stage for the season’s opening ceremony, yo yoing from classical classics (Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony) to Christmas classics (“Carol of the Bells”) to a certain beloved Leonard Cohen classic with the crowd joining in on the “hallelujah” part. Fake Designer Bags

replica Purse Next, as hundreds of cellphone cameras roll, Rodrigues debuts as Santa Claus, ho ho hoing down the aisle with an escort of elves. replica Purse

The mayor hands him a key to the city and wishes one and all a merry Christmas and happy new year. The choir sings “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Then everyone spills into the street for the first of 81 lighting ceremonies. They go wild when the lights flick on, illuminating squalls of authentic looking fake snow swirling above them in the 60 some try this degree night air.