Text: Cristina Fontenele*
The experience of sitting at the table, savoring the conversations, drinking in good company is still a feast of good living. Serving presence, listening and kindness is a recipe that pleases the most demanding palates. Happy and wise are those who take advantage of meetings to celebrate life.
Get-togethers can be controversial and exhausting, yes, but they can also inspire new beginnings, renew spirits and be that pat on the back that translates into “everything will be fine, friend. Keep going!”.
We need these stimuli from time to time. Sensory, affective confirmations that encourage us to continue – trying, experimenting. It’s that pause that fills us with courage to do things for the first time.
And at the end of the year, how important it is to receive this encouragement, to be close to people who nourish our energy and disposition. Being an immigrant, we look for an extra battery in order to fill the feeling of home, family and security. A subliminal reinforcement indicating that we are on the right path, considering that the “right” is an individual and non-transferable path.
Sometimes we find this strength in friends, in new acquaintances, or in the video call that passes the phone to all the relatives during the family reunion. “Happy holidays, cousin!”; “I miss you, my brother.”; “The decoration has surpassed itself this year, auntie.” And the conversation always ends with the famous question: “When are you coming to Brazil, dear?”
Click here and follow the DN Brasil channel on WhatsApp
The immigrant recognizes himself in this nostalgia. A mixture of longing, brief consideration of choices – what was, what is, what could still be -, a deep breath followed by a shake of the body saying “let’s move on”. All in a few minutes, accentuated by the New Year’s Eve atmosphere that puts life into perspective. As the singer Simone says: “And what did you do? The year ends and is born again.”
To renew myself and create what I hope for in the coming year, I decided to spend the end of 2025 with a couple of friends and their daughter in Switzerland. It’s a friendship inherited from my mother (they were teenage friends) and which, even so far from my first home, brings the necessary comfort in periods of transition.
As soon as I arrived at their apartment, a sign on the door announced: “Here is a happy Brazilian woman”. I wondered if the Swiss neighbors understood that declaration of self-love in another language, but I realized that the greatest value lies in the daily greeting when entering and leaving the house. A reminder that, despite the snow, the cold does not freeze a heart full of affection.
I opened a smile, borrowed the affirmation as I was greeted by the warmth of the countryman’s hugs and the affectionately whispered phrase: “Welcome. You’re home, my girl.”
May 2026 come like this breath of kindness and goodwill placed in your ear.
*Cristina Fontenele is a Brazilian writer, specializing in Writing and Creation. Author of “Um Lugar para Si – reflections on place, memory and belonging”, as well as a journalist and publicist. She has been writing chronicles for fifteen years and, like a typical Ceará native, she loves a hammock and couscous with hot coffee.