What I'm going to do for Christmas

Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus Christ's birthday. We have Christmas holidays starting on December 23. We like Christmas holidays because we get presents and we get to go for special Mass, and we have a party. Some people. We get together, meet at church and have a nice fun thing.

Little before Christmas, we go for practise to learn Christmas carols. Then, we sing it little before Christmas, around our whole vaddo. A vaddo is part of our village. Uncle Nicholas taught us Christmas carols this year. We sing in English, and only one in Portuguese (Felis Novidade ... half is in English). Some which we sang are Jingle Bells, Silent Night, O Come All Ye Faithful, Joy To The World....

Silent Night, Holy Night
All is dark, all is right....

We collect some money, and we give it to the Church for Christmas.

For Christmas we make different kinds of sweets. Like doce, pinag, guava cheese, kal-kals, neuris. Doces is made out gram (chana). Pinag is made out of jaggery, and is brownish-black. Gauva cheese is made out of gauva. Kal-kals are made out of wheat and they are curly in shape. Neuris look like boats (in shape) and they are made out of coconut sometimes, or jaggery, or gram-flour.

And, dada, I wanted to write cashew barfi. People make it? Not so many....

Cashew-barfi is made out of cashew, and it has silver foil on it. You're meant to eat it....

I like gauva cheese and cashew barfi, because I love gauvas and cashew barfi, because it's very tasty.

My mother also likes gauva cheese, and cashew barfi. My father likes pinag and ... nothing else.

They celebrate lots of Christmas parties in Goa, and they play a lot of nice games.

So far I went for two parties, the Don Vaddo one, and the St Mary's one. In Don Vaddo, Santa Claus came on a bullock cart, and the other Santa Claus was behind the gate, in Parra. Actually I liked the Don Bosco's party very much, but I've not gone, because we didn't book it. They have lot of fun and games and I meet my friends and all there. Last year I had gone for the Don Bosco's one. But this time, we missed it, because we couldn't make it.

Suhail's grandfather and schooling

Suhail
Originally uploaded by fredericknoronha.

Suhail's grandfather was very sick, and died after some days. He was very active, and used to go for walks. They used to call him Xapai (grandfather, in Konkani).

Suhail's grandfather is his father's father.

Suhail was schooling in Lourdes Convent, in my class in the second standard. In the third standard, he left the school and was in home-schooling. Now he is a Porvorim school, that's what a boy called Selvyn from my class told me.

There are two of my friends who did home-schooling: Anant was doing and will continue home-schooling. Suhail has left, my friend told me. That friend is their neighbour.

Going to St Britto's

Severina Gardens, Duler
Originally uploaded by fredericknoronha.

When I went to the party in Britto's, I made some friends. I only know a few names. Erica and Priyanka. Only that. And Kristoff (my cousin).

The party was about a Britto's party. They had made a new book about Britto's. (A souvenir.)

And then, my brother was dancing with me. And then, one man was calling, making it like assembly. We had lot of fun. They called one man out, and they said, "Where's your hair?" And he was laughing, because he didn't have hair.

Then, they said to the Provincial, "Why are you wearing slippers?" He was laughing because he was the provincial, but they were making fun of him.

I forgot what happened (because it was many days ago), but I'll tell you what we had to eat. It was laid out on a long big table, a rectangular one. They had two kinds of salad, they had chicken cafreal, chicken gobi, pulao, some gravy, bean curry. They also had ice-cream. There was cake, but we didn't have, because we had ice-cream. There was bebique, but we didn't have because we only wanted ice-cream.

Dada met his friends, and Mama met Aunty Melanie. It was about the Britto's 2006 party, for the old boys, my Dada told me.